"Sir?" the sentry asked, invading the room contrary to standing orders. "Do you want someone called?"

"No," Duncan said harshly. He edged past the man, walked out into, the corridor, and started for the upper levels of the ship. The intercom came on, the whole ship waking to the emergency just past. He heard that Boaz was paging him, urgently.

He did not remember the walk upstairs, the whole of it a blank in his mind when he reached the area of the lock and found Boaz anxiously waiting. He dreaded such lapses, remembering the dizzy blurring of senses that had a.s.sailed him before.

"They're domestic?" Boaz asked him.

"They seem to be. They are, for the mri. They're I don't know. I don't know."

Boaz looked at him critically. "You're through for the day," she said. "No more questions. If they're bedded down and secure, no questions."

"No one goes down there. They're dangerous."

"No one is going to go near them."

"They're halfway sapient," he said. "They found the mri. Across all that desert and out of all these buildings, they found them."

He was shaking. She touched his arm, blonde, plump Boaz, and at that moment she was the most beautiful and kindly creature in all Kesrith. "Sten, go home," she said. "Get to your own quarters; get some rest. One of the security officers will walk you. Get out of here."

He nodded, measured his strength against the distance to the Nom, and concluded that he had enough left in him to make it to his room without staggering. He turned, blindly, without a word of thanks to Boaz, remembered nothing until he was out the door and halfway down the ramp with a security man at his side, rifle over one arm.

The mental gaps terrified him. Fatigue, perhaps. He wished to believe so.

But he had not consciously decided to enter Flower with the dusei.

He had not decided.

He tore his mind away, far away from the dusei, fighting a giddy return to the warmth that was their touch.

Yes, Niun had said, I feel them.

I feel them.

He talked to the security man, something to drown the silence, talked of ba.n.a.l things, of nonsensical things with slurring speech and no recall later of what he said.

It was only necessary, until he was within the brightly lighted safety of the Nom, in its echoing halls that smelled of regul and humans, that there not be silence.

The security guard left him at the door, pressed a plastic vial into his hand. "Dr. Luiz advised it," he said.

Duncan did not question what the red capsules were. They killed the dreams, numbed his senses, made it possible for him to rest without remembering anything.

He woke the next morning and found he had not turned off the lights.

Chapter Four.

STAVROS, SEATED outside his sled-console, in the privacy of his own quarters, looked like a man who had not slept. There was a thick folder of papers on the desk in front of him, rumpled and read: the labor of days to produce, of a night to read.

Duncan saw, and knew that there was some issue of his work, of the hours that he had spent writing and rewriting what he was sure only one man would ever see, reports that did not go to Boaz or Luiz, or even to security: that would never enter the records, if they ran counter to Stavros' purposes.

"Sit down," Stavros said.

Duncan did so, subject to the scrutiny of Stavros' pale eyes on a level with his own. He had no sense of accomplishment, rather that he had done all that was in him to do, and that it had probably failed, as all other things had failed to make any difference with Stavros. He had labored more over that report than over any mission prep he had ever done; and even while he worked he had feared desperately that it was all for nothing, that it was only something asked of him as a sop to his protests, and that Stavros would discard it half-read.

"This mri so-called shrine," said Stavros. "You know that the regul are disturbed about it. They're frightened. They connect all this mri business in their thinking: the shrine, the artifact, the fact that we've taken trouble to keep two mri alive and your influence, that not least. The whole thing forms a design they don't like. Do you know the regul claim they rescued you and Galey?"

Duncan almost swore, smothered it, "Not true."

"Remember that to a regul your situation out there may have looked desperate. A regul could not have walked that distance. Night was coming on, and they have a terror of the dark in the open wilderness. They claim they spotted the grounded aircraft and grew concerned for your safety that they have been trying to watch over our crews in their explorations, for fear of some incident happening which might be blamed on them."

"Do you really believe that, sir?"

"No," said Stavros flatly. "I rather put it down to curiosity. To Hulagh's curiosity in particular. He is mortally afraid of what the mri might do, afraid of anything that has their hand in it. I think he's quite obsessed with the fear that some may survive and locate him. I am being frank with you. This is not for conversation outside this room. Now tell me this: was there any touching, any overt threat from the regul you encountered?"

"No hand laid on us. But our property "

"I read that."

"Yes, sir."

"You handled it well enough," said Stavros, a slight frown on his face. "I think, though, that it does indicate that there is a certain interest in you personally, as well as in the mri relics. I think it was your presence drew them out there. And if I hadn't put Galey out there with you, you could have met with an accident. You neglected precautions."

"Yes, sir."

"They'll kill you if they can. I can deal with it after it happens, but I can't prevent it, not so long as you're within convenient reach of them. And why this shrine, Duncan? Why this artifact?"

"Sir?"

"Why do yon reckon it was so important? Why did the mri risk their lives to go to that place and fetch it?"

Duncan gestured vaguely to the report that lay on the desk. "Religion. I explained "

"You've been inside that so-called shrine. Fve seen the pictures you brought out. Do you really believe that it's a place of worship?"

"It's important to them." He was helpless to say anything else. Other conclusions lay there in the photographs: computer banks, weaponry, communications all such possibilities as regul would dread, as allies of the regul would have to fear.

"You're right: it's important to them. Boaz has cracked your egg, Duncan. Three days ago. The artifact is open."

It shook him. He had thought it unlikely that if it were to be opened, it would need mri help, cooperation, that might be negotiated. But Boaz' plump hands, that worked with pinpoint probe and brush, with all the resources of Flower's techs at her command they had succeeded, and now the mri had nothing left that was their own.

"I hadn't thought it would be possible that soon," Duncan said. "Does the report say what it was?"

"Is. What it is. Boaz says it was designed for-opening, no matter of difficulty to someone with the right technique, and some a.s.surance that it was not a weapon, which I understand your pictures provided. It's some sort of recording device. The linguistic part of it is obscure some sort of written record is there; and there's no one fluent in the mri language to be able to crack the script. For obvious reasons we don't want to consult with the regul. But there's numerical data there too, in symbols designed to be easily deciphered by anyone: there was even a key provided in graphics. Your holy object, Duncan, and this so-named shrine, are some kind of records-storage, and they wanted it badly, wanted it more than they wanted to survive. What kind of record would be that important?"

"I don't know."

"Numerical records. Series of numerical records. What sort of recording device does that suggest to you?"

Duncan sat silent a moment. In his limited experience only one thing suggested itself. "Navigational records," he said at last, because Stavros waited, determined to have such an answer.

"Yes. And is that not a curious thing for them to want, when they had no ship?"

Duncan sat and considered the several possibilities, few of them pleasant to contemplate.

"It knocks out another idea," Stavros said, " that the mri were given all their technology by the regul: that they weren't literate or technologically sophisticated on their own." He picked up a photo that lay face-down on the desk, pushed it across, awkward in the extension of his arm. "From the artifact, ten times actual size."

Duncan studied it. It showed a gold plate, engraved with symbols, detail very complex. It would have been delicate work had the original been as large as the picture.

"Plate after plate," said Stavros. "Valuable for the metal alone. Boaz theorizes that it was not all done by one hand, and that the first of that series is very old. Techniques of great sophistication or of great patience, one or the other, and meant to last. Fm told the mathematics are intricate; they've gone to computer to try to duplicate the series to navigational tape, and to try to match it out with some reference point. Even so it seems beyond our capabilities to do a thorough a.n.a.lysis on it. We may have to resort to the labs at Haven, and that's going to take time. A great deal of time. But you maintain you had no idea what it was you had."

"No, sir." He met Stavros' eyes without flinching, the only defense he could make. "I didn't know then and I'm not even sure now that the mri knew; maybe they were sent by their own authorities, and had no idea why. But I'll agree it's highly likely that they knew."

"Can you get it out of them?"

"No. No. I don't think so."

"They seem to have expected a ship if this tape is what it appears to be."

"I don't think they did. They wanted offworld, yes, but they expected nothing. That's an emotional judgment, based on the general tone of things they said and did, but I believe it."

"Possibly a very valid judgment. But they may not commit ypur error, Duncan, of seeing all regul as alike. The mri dealt specifically with doch Holn; Alagn is Holn's rival; and Holn ... does have ships."

Cold settled from brain to stomach. The argument was plausible. "Yes, sir," Duncan said softly. "But it would be a matter of contacting them."

"The so-called shrine is a possibility."

"No,"

"Another emotional judgment?"

"The same judgment. The mri are finished. They knew it."

"So says Alagn; so, perhaps, said your mri. Perhaps neither is lying. But regul sometimes do not say all they know. Perhaps mri don't, either. Perhaps we haven't asked the right questions." Hand trembling, Stavros lifted a cup and drank, set it down again. "The mri are mercenaries. Are yours for hire?"

The question set him aback. "Maybe. I don't know."

"I think the regul as a whole fear that. I think that is one of several things Hulagh desperately fears, that having lost possession of the mri, he might find humankind possessing them. And using them. What is their usual price, do you know?"

"I don't know." He looked at Stavros, found that curious, half-mocking manner between him and the truth. He laid the picture down on the desk. "What are you proposing?"

"I'm not. I'm just wondering how well you profess to know them."

"It wasn't a thing we discussed." , , "According to your records, you're a skilled pilot."

He looked at Stavros blankly.

"True?" Stavros asked.

"If the record says so."

"Elag/Haven operations required some interstellar navigation."

"I had a ship automated to the hilt. I can handle in-system navigation; but everything in transit operations was taped."

"That is rather well what we're dealing with here, isn't it?"

Duncan found nothing to say for several moments.

"Does all this come together somehow?" he asked finally. "What is it you're really asking?"

'Take the mri in charge. Take the artifact, the egg. You say that you can handle the mri. Or is that so, after all?"

Duncan leaned back in his chair, put distance between himself and the old man, drew several slow breaths. He knew Stavros, but not, he thought suddenly, well enough.

"You have doubts?" Stavros asked.

"Any sane man would have doubts. Take the mri and do what? What is this about navigation?"

"I'm asking you whether you really think yon can handle the mri."

"In what regard?"

"Whether you can find out more than that report of yours tells me. Whether you can find some a.s.surance for Kesrith that the mri are not going to be trouble, or that Holn does not have its hands on more of them."

Duncan leaned forward again and rested his arms on the front of Stavros' desk, knowing full well that there was deception involved. He looked Stavros in the eyes and was sure of it, bland and innocent as Stavros' expression was. "You're not influenced by my advice. You're going to send me off blind, and there's somethina else going on. Can I know what that is? Or do I guess at it?"

They had lived close, had shared, he and the old man; he leaned on that fact desperately, saw offense and a slow yielding in Stavros' expression. "Between us," Stavros said.

"Between us."

Stavros frowned, a tremor of strain in his lips. "I want the mri off Kesrith, immediately. I'm sending Flower up to station, where it can proceed about its work unhindered. The regul are getting nervous about the mri since your visit to Sil'athen. And a regul ship incoming is not an impossibility in the near future. Hulagh says his doch will be getting anxious because he's failed his schedule with a ship that Was entrusted to him by their central organization: its loss is going to be a heavy blow to Alagn. And he's worried. He constantly frets on the topic of misunderstandings, demands a way offworld to meet his ships. If we have regul ships incoming, I don't want any of ours caught on the ground. I think moving Flower aloft will minimize any chance of an incident. Saber and Hannibal together have shields sufficient to protect the station and the probe ships if there should be a problem. But with the mri anywhere accessible to the regul, there could easily be a problem. The regul have a panic reaction where it concerns mri."

"I've seen it at work," Duncan said bitterly.

"Yes," said Stavros. "The bai has asked repeatedly about the artifact. I daresay the bai does not sleep easily. If you had at your disposal a ship, the mri, and the egg, Duncan, do you think you could find out the nature of that record?"

Duncan let out his breath slowly. "Alone?"

"You would have the original artifact. The mri would doubtless insist on it; and we have duplicated the object in holos so we wouldn't be risking more than the museum value of the object, considerable though that may be. Under the circ.u.mstances it's a reasonable risk." Stavros took a long drink, rested the cup on the desk with a betraying rattle of pottery. His breath came hard. "Well?"

"Tell me plainly," Duncan said, "what the object of this is. How far. Where. What options?"

"No certainties. No clear promises. If the mri go for Holn a.s.sistance, you'll lose the ship, your life whatever. I'm willing to gamble on your conviction they won't. You can find out what that tape is and maybe maybe deal with the mri. You tell me. If you think it's impossible, say so. But going the route of the computers at Haven will take months, a year with the regul-mri question hanging over us here at Kesrith, and ourselves with no idea what we're facing. We need to know."