Then, out of the corner of his eye, Picard caught a flurry of motion on the side where the wagons were. Too late, he tried to avoid the dark thing that came whistling at his head.

There was a moment of great and terrible pain. And afterward, oblivion.

Chapter Twelve.

IT WAS ON his way home from work, two days after the incident in the tavern, that Dan'nor saw his father again. One moment, he was walking alone; the next, Trien'nor was walking beside him.

"Come," said the older man, looking straight ahead. "We'll walk down to the wharf. You know where it is?"

"Yes." Dan'nor watched his father's face, more accessible now even in the flat, sunset light than it had been in the tavern's back room. It had been a long time since he'd seen Trien'nor, but the man showed no signs of having aged. Pure First Caste blood had its advantages.

However, there was something different about him. Something that had been missing in the simple, unambitious factory clerk who had raised him-the man who'd spent so much time looking out the window with that sad little smile on his face.

He was almost... Military. Was that it? Yes. For the first time, Dan'nor could picture his father in a uniform-a young, proud First Caster with a shining future.

Was there a connection between this and Trien'nor's skulking in the shadows? Dan'nor shivered when he remembered the faces around that room, and the way his father's seemed to fit among them.

"You've changed," he said, the words coming out of their own volition.

Trien'nor smiled a thin smile but didn't respond otherwise. Their heels made a soft scraping sound on the pavement.

"What's happened to you?" he asked. "What were you doing with those men?"

Again, no answer.

Dan'nor decided to try another tack. "How did you find me?"

Trien'nor shrugged. "You can probably answer that for yourself." A pause. "I have ways of finding things out."

It was almost more evasive than no answer at all.

As they got closer to the river, the breeze picked up. It swept Trien'nor's hair back-the red hair of an aristocrat. Dan'nor had inherited the color of it but not its agelessness; his was just beginning to show threads of silver.

"So," said the older man, at last turning to his son. "It seems you are no longer in the Military." The words were gentle, unoffensive. However, his eyes-pale gold like those of his forebears-seemed to probe where the words could not.

"I was... ousted," said Dan'nor. Even now, it wasn't easy to say the word. "My own fault, I'm afraid."

"Care to tell me about it?"

Dan'nor told him, leaving out only the most insignificant details. When he had finished, he somehow felt better about it. It still hurt, but the pain no longer had an edge to it.

"You were unlucky," said Trien'nor, "that's all. No less efficient, no less cautious than anyone else would have been in the same position. Just in the wrong place at the wrong time."

The Military had never been a topic of discussion between them. What little he knew of Trien'nor's aborted career he had learned from his mother.

And yet, here they were-discussing Military matters. It felt strange-but no stranger than the rest of this conversation.

They came to the bottom of the hill and the river narrowed to a dark blue violet band-a reflection of the deepening sky. The wharf was a few blocks down on their right; Dan'nor's flat was to the left, past the tavern and over the footbridge.

"Perhaps," he said, "we could go to my place instead. Or at least stop there first-to turn on the videoscreen."

Trien'nor shook his head. "Don't worry about it. Lots of people miss an evening at home to see the Conflicts in the taverns. As long as you don't do it too often, no one at the Viewership Service will think twice about it."

Dan'nor hesitated. Something inside him wondered if he could trust that advice.

And then he almost laughed. This is my father, he told himself. A little different, maybe, but still my father. If I can't trust him, who can I trust?

He stifled his doubts.

They turned to the right and walked along the water. On the other side, downriver and beyond the buildings, clouds were gathering. The dying sun, slipping out of sight, painted them in dusky reds and pinks. The river's version of the clouds made them look darker-like blood.

Trien'nor muttered something beneath his breath. Dan'nor couldn't make it out very well, but the Viewership Service seemed to be at the heart of the matter.

The older man shook his head. "Do you remember the Two Rules?" he asked.

Dan'nor dredged them out of memory. They came up easily-so easily it surprised him.

"Yes," he said. "I believe I do."

"Rule One," said Trien'nor. "That which is withheld is more greatly desired. Things are more precious in small quantities."

Dan'nor was about to recite the second rule, but suddenly he felt ridiculous. After all, he was no longer a child.

When he saw his son's reluctance, Trien'nor voiced the second rule as well. "That which costs nothing is worth nothing. Something of true value is always expensive."

It was a game they had played when Dan'nor was young. A cryptic sort of game, the meaning of which had always escaped him.

Now, at long last, he thought he'd figured it out. "Is that what the Rules were about?" he asked. "Viewership?"

Trien'nor shrugged a second time. "Certainly, viewership is a good example. If they let us watch the Conflicts all day and all night, we would quickly tire of them. But by doling them out only at certain times, they keep us hungry-eager for the next viewership period."

"And the second Rule," said Dan'nor, "would apply to the viewership fee."

"A fee," added his father, "which most of us can't afford. But if it were any less costly, we might not look on it as such a luxury-such a thing to look forward to."

Dan'nor nodded. It was twilight now. The clouds had lost their color; they were nearly as dark as the rest of the sky. In the east, there were faint stars.

The breeze had just shifted, and the stench of the river was all around them. It was thick with dead fish and garbage and factory waste.

"But you say viewership is only an example," continued the younger man. "The Rules apply to something else as well?"

Trien'nor seemed to hesitate before speaking. And when he finally broke the silence, it was with a question of his own.

"Why did you join the Military?"

Dan'nor looked at him. It seemed that he should have been able to snap out an answer-but it wasn't quite that simple. Nor, when he finally came up with one, was it easy to voice it to the man beside him.

"I suppose," he said, "because I thought it was something I had lost-we had lost-when you chose to marry my mother. It was something I felt I had a right to."

Trien'nor nodded. "Fair enough," he said. He gave no indication that he had taken offense-to Dan'nor's relief. "And if I had not left the Military? If I had married a woman of my own Caste, become powerful enough to grant you a high-ranking position as soon as you came of age?"

Dan'nor had never thought about it.

"Would your drive to achieve have been as great?" pressed his father.

The younger man pondered the question. "I don't know," he said. "Perhaps not."

"Perhaps not," repeated Trien'nor. "But it was withheld from you-so you desired it. And once you had your first small taste of success... you desired it all the more."

The words sounded awfully familiar. "Rule One," said Dan'nor.

"Yes. Rule One. And now, another question: what did you pay for your success?"

Dan'nor didn't understand. It must have showed in his face.

"Payment may come in any number of forms," explained his father. "Money is but one. Anything one gives up to achieve something else may be considered payment. So the question becomes: what did you give up? What did you lose that you had before?"

Now Dan'nor saw the direction in which Trien'nor was headed. Or thought he did.

"My family," he answered. "You."

It was no less than the truth. An implicit condition of Dan'nor's acceptance into the Military had been his estrangement from his past-from his Lower Caste mother and-even more importantly-from his father. He had had to deny his heritage to show that he wouldn't do what his father had done.

Dan'nor had expected the older man to acknowledge his answer-and go on with his speech. He was unprepared for the sudden pain he saw in his father's face-the look of utter vulnerability.

It was an expression Dan'nor might have expected from that supremely contained man who'd spent so much time stating out the window. But not from the man he had just been talking to. The transformation was shocking and somehow comforting at the same time.

It took Trien'nor a moment to recover. And when he did, the lost look was gone. "Gods," he said. "I hadn't even thought of that." A beat. "I meant what was lost of you. The ability to look at things with your own eyes-and not those of the Military. To see beyond the prescribed goals and behaviors-to the truth."

Something stiffened inside Dan'nor. "What do you mean?" he asked. "That I don't look out for myself? Because I do."

Trien'nor shook his head. "No. You think you do. But while you pursue what you believe are your own purposes, your own ambitions-you're really pursuing theirs. You have innocently become just another cog in the Military machine." He sighed. "Just as I was."

Silence for a moment. The raucous cries of hungry birds wheeling over the river.

"You're bitter," said Dan'nor, "about Mother's death. That's why you're talking this way. That's why you've joined those men who sit whispering in the dark."

The wharf was just ahead. Past it, they could see the silhouettes of empty fishing vessels rocking gently in their slips.

"No," said Trien'nor. There was a tinge of anger in his voice, though his face did not betray it. "It is not bitterness. I felt this way before your mother's death-long before." He licked his patrician lips. "Your mother told you, no doubt, that I was aware of the penalty if I married her."

"Yes," said Dan'nor. "She told me."

"At the time," said Trien'nor, "I thought my sacrifice was based entirely on my love for her. And certainly, I loved her very much. But there was more to it than that. I had seen things I could not abide-in the Conflicts, in the world. And most of all, in myself. I could no longer be a part of those things. Yet I also could not fight them-or so I believed at the time. So I took the coward's way out. I married your mother, and forced the Military to separate me from the things I couldn't tolerate."

Dan'nor heard the words, and began to understand what that stating out the window had been about. A searching-not for lost opportunities, as he'd sometimes thought, but for courage.

Now, apparently, Trien'nor had found it. But where was it leading him?

"Of course, I did not realize any of this until after her death. But once I did, it opened my eyes. I saw that there were others around me who felt the same way I did. And who wished to do something about it."

The younger man didn't like the sound of that. He said so. "You can't defy the authorities. They'll crush you-no matter how many of you there are."

Trien'nor laughed. It was not a particularly pleasant sound. "You're wrong. The authorities are much more fragile than one might think. It's just that no one has ever challenged them."

Dan'nor regarded him. "And you plan to do that?"

His father shrugged. They came to the planked walkway that led down to the riverside. It was too narrow for them to walk shoulder to shoulder, so Trien'nor went first.

"You watch the Conflicts," he said, offering it to Dan'nor over his shoulder. It was more a statement of fact than a question.

"I put them on," amended Dan'nor. "But I don't always watch them."

"Do you see anything different about them?"

Dan'nor thought about it as he descended. A bird dove perilously close to the walkway and disappeared beneath it.

Come to think of it, he had noticed something. "The battles seem to be getting bigger. Bloodier. Is that what you mean?"

Trien'nor glanced back at him. "Exactly." He grunted. "You've seen it too, then. That's a good sign."

"Of what?" asked the younger man.

But his father seemed not to have heard. "Did you notice any unusual combatants?" he asked. Trien'nor reached the wharf level and turned. "Anyone out of the ordinary?"

Dan'nor wanted his question answered first. But this was his father's game. It had been since he first made his appearance.

"No. I mean, aren't they all out of the ordinary?" He joined Trien'nor on the wharf and they began to walk again. Beside them, the river murmured in its own slow, dark language.

"You'd have recognized this one," said the older man. "He's a Klah'kimmbri."

Dan'nor searched his father's face. But there was no sign of dissembling there. No sign of a joke either.

"What do you mean?" he asked. "How would a Klah'kimmbri have gotten into the Conflicts?"

Trien'nor's eyes narrowed. "Simple. They put him there. He's a political criminal and they have chosen this as his punishment."

Dan'nor shook his head. "Come on. The last Klah'kimmbri soldier came home sixty years ago. It's unthinkable that it could happen today."

"Why?" asked his father. "Because it would be barbaric? And yet, we don't hesitate to subject off-worlders to the same barbarism-do we? We call them criminals for having trespassed in the space around our planet, and then we take away their memories so that they do not know otherwise. That's the kind of people we have become-ready to overlook slavery and wrongful death if it serves our ends. Or rather, our Council's ends. But there is something more offensive, you think, in all of this happening to a Klah'kimmbri?"

"Of course." The reason came to Dan'nor a moment later. "Because if it could happen to one of us, it could happen to all of us."