He dropped a kiss on each forehead and took himself off.

"You'll miss him," said D'Jevier.

"We both will," said Madame. "And I'm so glad the Fauxi-dizalonz fixed his face. But think, Jevvy, what he said!"

"About Kaorugi?"

"The last few nights, I've found myself dreaming about him-not s.e.xually-and in the dream he was pointing into the distance and calling, 'There, there it is, Madame.' I was sure he was pointing to the Fauxi-dizalonz. And what he said just now.... Do you think Bofusdiaga would let us? Some of us? Even ... all of us?"

"If we are to have no mankind future, you mean? Oh, yes, Madame. I've thought of that, too. Could we become? As Mouche has become? Do you suppose the Corojum would ask on our behalf?"

They thought about this, with emotions that ranged moment to moment from revulsion and apprehension to wonderment and hope.

Corojum, speaking, so he said, for Bofusdiaga, had suggested that Questioner transport a quant.i.ty of previously unknown Newholme botanicals to test the market among the populated worlds. One or another ent.i.ty of Dosha seemed to be determined to maintain contact with the outside worlds, though whether this was Bofusdiaga or Kaorugi itself or some new, commercial subent.i.ty, Questioner wasn't sure.

Whichever, rather than attempting to deal with the cargo, the captain of The Quest The Quest ran true to form by tendering his resignation. "My aunt is the delegate from Caphalonia!" he said. "She wouldn't have obtained an office for me on a ran true to form by tendering his resignation. "My aunt is the delegate from Caphalonia!" he said. "She wouldn't have obtained an office for me on a cargo cargo ship!" ship!"

"Quite right," Questioner had said. "Beneath your dignity. There's a freighter arriving tomorrow. I'll send you home with my entourage."

"But," said the captain.

"Not at all, not at all," Questioner boomed. "Don't thank me. Glad to do it."

The Gablian commander was immediately promoted to captain. Ornery had learned a good deal about cargo in her years as a sailor, and she offered to help the Gablian crew stow the bales and cartons.

Calvy had been so deeply depressed by the Questioner's decision to sterilize mankind upon Newholme that he went into a funk every time he saw his children. Trying to raise his spirits, his wife suggested a visit to the extraordinary caves west of Naibah, and Ellin and Bao were invited to go along.

Thus for a time everyone was busy and occupied except Questioner and Mouche. Mouche wasted no time in asking Questioner to dine with him. He had an agenda, a very specific agenda, which he and Flowing Green had arrived at.

The two met in the side room of a cafe in Sendoph, where they enjoyed a very good early dinner, sipped a little not bad Newholmian wine, and agreed to spend the early evening playing a few hands of Gablian poker. As Mouche had arranged, the room was empty except for themselves, though the walls were no doubt full of eyes and ears, a hundred tattletales ready to run to Bofusdiaga at a moment's notice.

When Questioner arrived she was in a state, as she confessed to Mouche. A mood, Mouche thought of it. Despite the fact that all concerned had managed to avert a tragic outcome of the Quaggian Dilemma (thus far), Questioner had not come away from the episode feeling either satisfied or relieved. Indeed, if anything, she was more irritable and exasperated than before.

Mouche did not let it pa.s.s. "It is clear to me you are sad and irritable," he said, dealing them each five cards, the last one face up, "because the beings from whom you were made are in great pain and terror, and you know this even if you do not feel it."

"How do you know?" she demanded, regarding her exposed king of shovels with a scowl. "Did Ornery tell you?"

Mouche had a ten of love showing, and he made a face as he picked up the facedown cards and arranged them in his hand. "Not until later, but Flowing Green knew all about it. She saw you in your maintenance booth. She heard you talking to your inward persons. You have a deep pain there, but it need not remain."

"Is your Timmy recommending a cerebrectomy?" Questioner sneered.

Mouche gave her a look so patient as to be almost patronizing. "No, Flowing Green and I recommend only the removal of unpleasant memories and the subst.i.tution of some happy feelings. We can be at the Fauxi-dizalonz in an hour in your shuttle, and Bofusdiaga has already agreed that the parts of you needing surcease are organic parts that it can work with."

"Why should I do that?" she asked, astonished by this suggestion. "I've done well enough so far."

"You have," he agreed. "But until just recently, you were unaware of the tragedy you carry inside you. Mathi-lla, M'Tafa, and Tiu cannot be freed of pain until you help them. Bofusdiaga can not only free them, he can also grant them happiness."

She gritted her teeth. Learning of the three from an outside source had brought them into her memory banks by a route HoTA had never intended. All her baffles and wards had been outflanked and the lives and deaths of the three indwelling minds had been resurrected in herself.

"They are no longer severed from your consciousness," said Mouche, accurately reading her face. "It is their anger and agony you feel on a daily basis, hour by hour."

"I can bear it," she said through clenched teeth.

"Of course you can bear it," he said. "The question is, why should anyone bear it? Bearing it does no one any good, least of all you. Like the jongau, you'll come to survive on hatred, and like the jongau, you'll disintegrate. I remember what Corojum said about living in the past. And I remember that when we spoke with Timmys who had themselves been killed by men and later resurrected in the Fauxi-dizalonz, none of them remembered the terror or horror. They knew about it, yes, but they did not feel it. So, when you have been in the Fauxi-dizalonz, you will know about your indwellers, but you will not feel their pain."

She stared at him, examining him with all her senses. Nothing there now of the quivering boy who had accompanied her on the underground river. And the green hair was certainly unusual, as was his hybrid facial appearance. Slightly lofty. Like a minor angel. Though he sounded very little different from before, he thought quite differently, she could tell.

"It's not the same," she murmured.

"It is is the same," he a.s.serted. "In recent time I have come to understand that, Questioner. Flowing Green has observed that the true story of any living thing has pain in it, and life has to be that way. Curiosity is a good goad, but pain is a better one. It is pain that moves us, that makes us learn how to cure, how to mend, how to improve, how to re-create. Inside all of us, even the happiest, are memories of pain. Ellin, Bao, Ornery ... they all had hurt children inside them. We came to know one another's pain during our adventure in the chasm. Each of us cries that we are lost. We ask the darkened room, who are we? And we demand easy answers: I am my father's son. My mother's daughter. A child of this family, or that." the same," he a.s.serted. "In recent time I have come to understand that, Questioner. Flowing Green has observed that the true story of any living thing has pain in it, and life has to be that way. Curiosity is a good goad, but pain is a better one. It is pain that moves us, that makes us learn how to cure, how to mend, how to improve, how to re-create. Inside all of us, even the happiest, are memories of pain. Ellin, Bao, Ornery ... they all had hurt children inside them. We came to know one another's pain during our adventure in the chasm. Each of us cries that we are lost. We ask the darkened room, who are we? And we demand easy answers: I am my father's son. My mother's daughter. A child of this family, or that."

"That's the nature of mankind," she agreed.

"True, but Corojum had an answer that is equally true, and I like his better! We are made of the stuff of stars, given our lives by a living world, given our selves by time. We are brother to the trees and sister to the sun. We are of such glorious stuff we need not carry pain around like a label. Our duty, as living things, to be sure that pain is not our whole story, for we can choose to be otherwise. As Ellin says, we can choose to dance.

"The minds inside you suffer, Questioner. Let them have joy."

She frowned, turning her gla.s.s in her hands, not replying. Tactfully, Mouche turned his attention elsewhere, feeling movement behind the walls, a scurry, a coming and going. Every word he said was reported. Every motion he made. Still, thus far in his game he was content. He had played a card, and she would think about it. She would construct a dozen reasons why not, but before she left Newholme (if Bofusdiaga let anyone leave Newholme) she would go into the Fauxi-dizalonz. For the sake of those children, if not her own.

Now the next play. He laid his cards face down on the table before him, saying: "See how empty the streets are. The Timmys now have no need to hover over people, and many of them have gone back to doing whatever they did before mankind came. Do you include the fact that mankind killed many of them in your decisions about Newholme? Are their deaths one of the reasons that the mankind population will be sterilized?"

Questioner shook her head slowly, still mulling the matter of the suffering children inside herself. "It wasn't for that, Mouche. I could argue it, but the question of individuality would arise. The Timmys are, after all, only quasi-independent beings. They were made to look like people by Bofusdiaga, but in the past they were otherwise, and maybe in the future they will be stranger yet. If they are malleable beings, made as Bofusdiaga wills, then what was actually killed? They were distinctive only in the information they carried, but not even information was lost, for the dance has been regained. In any case, it won't be needed in the future."

"This is so," Mouche agreed.

"However," she went on relentlessly, "the killers didn't know the Timmys weren't individuals when they killed them. Their intent was genocidal. That's a point against mankind on Newholme."

Mouche nodded sympathetically. "True, Questioner. Though not all the people were involved even then, and none now living were. How about the culture, the dower laws, the supernumes, the men having to wear veils? Does that figure in your decision?"

She shook her head. "Blue-bodying is against the edicts, I should say, but corrective action would have been easy enough without extreme measures. On that ground alone I would have recommended that in order to comply strictly with Haraldson's edicts, the people here should establish another colony where their dissidents could go. The system is actually no more coercive than many other systems that are supposed to be voluntary. The men give up a little to get most of what they want, the women give up a little to get most of what they want. Neither s.e.x is completely satisfied, but neither is completely dissatisfied."

"So you accept the system?"

She frowned. "As D'Jevier pointed out to me, the population is generally healthy, the lifespan is long, the average intelligence is rising. I would recommend corrective action, not punishment."

"Ah," murmured Mouche. "I'm glad of that."

Questioner gave him a very direct and imperious look. "All this is purely argumentative, however, for my decision to sterilize this planet is based upon the fact that the Hags are doing away with half the girl babies born on this world. Believe me, that is all I need to decide as I have done."

She kept her eyes on him, waiting for a reaction. She'd antic.i.p.ated his being shocked by this, but he showed no evidence of surprise.

"Oh, is that so?" he asked, raising his eyebrows only slightly.

"That's an odd reaction!"

"Well, Questy ... may I call you Questy? Ma'am seems so ... formal. As I've said a time or two, what Flowing Green knew, I know. And Flowing Green knew everything there was to know that could be found out listening and watching through holes in the wall. When did you learn of this?"

She said in an exasperated voice, "I've known there was something out of line almost from the first. The actions of this alleged virus seemed entirely too dependent upon where one had one's children and what family one came from. Calvy has eight, four boys, four girls. Marool Mantelby was one of eight daughters. Both Marool's mother and Carezza bore their children at home. It became glaringly obvious that the Hags were keeping tight control on the woman supply in order to remain in power, and that some men like Calvy, who had figured it out, were letting them do it."

"You think staying in power is why they do it?"

"That's usually the reason for arbitrary cruelty."

"You think it's cruel?"

"Don't you?" she cried, stung.

"Do you know what happens to the babies?"

"They do away with them! I said as much to the Hags, there at the Fauxi-dizalonz, and they didn't deny it. Not even when your friend Madame begged them to."

He reached forward to lay his hand on her own, just for a moment, stroke. "They didn't deny what you said, which is true. But they didn't understand what you meant meant by it. You meant by 'done away with' that the babies are killed." by it. You meant by 'done away with' that the babies are killed."

"Of course," she cried. "What else?"

"Everything else! They're put in stasis and sent off planet, to newly settled worlds where women are in short supply and where every little girl will be very much valued and honored. As they are here. The Hags exact a good price for them, and the profits support old women here on Newholme who could be in great need otherwise."

Questioner found herself momentarily speechless. She had never considered any other outcome than death. She had a.s.sumed ... she who had long ago learned never to a.s.sume. She sat for a long moment silent before whispering, "Why didn't they explain?"

"Because you were angry, and you told them not to attempt explanation."

"By all the follies of Flagia, why did I a.s.sume they killed the babies?"

"Because of your own suffering children who were killed," murmured Mouche. "You were angry on their behalf. Madame says when we focus on our anger, our vision begins to constrict. Soon we are caught up in fury, and we turn it upon everyone."

She complained, "But the Hags didn't have to choose that way of doing things. Surely there's a better solution!"

"If you can suggest one, I know they'd be happy to hear it. They aren't monsters, Questy. They're the descendants of the cultural historians on the second ship, and their ancestresses knew very well that surpluses breed contempt. Too many of anything reduces the honor in which it is held: too many men, too many women, too many children, too many people.

"The Hags saw their duty as taking care of women, and they did it. There's no female prost.i.tution or slavery on Newholme. There are no poor elderly widows. There are no poor, unwed mothers. If I were calling the game, I'd call that a trump card." He took up the card from one side of his hand, the ten of love, and laid it face up on the table.

Questioner frowned at the table, spreading her own hand, face up. Not a love card among them. Only shovels and clubs, labor and management. Duty and efficiency. Her life. "An artificial shortage surely isn't what Harald-son had in mind-"

Mouche interrupted her. "I know. I thought you'd say that. But I've been talking to Calvy. He's one of the few men on Newholme who actually reads the COW journals, including your reports. He told me to remind you about Beltran Four."

"Beltran Four!"

"Miran."

"It's a very warlike planet."

"Many fewer men than women?"

"Yes. Because so many men are killed in the battles."

"And the warrior elite keep the battles going. For honor. For reputation. For rapine."

She said reluctantly, "Yes."

"And did you sterilize all mankind on Beltran Four? Because half their young men are slaughtered in battle?"

She frowned at him. "Calvy told you to ask me this."

"He did. He said he'd been following your career for some decades, reading your recommendations and the reports you'd made to COW. He said to ask you which was worse, slaughtering half the young men in battles, or selling half the girl babies to planets where they'll be appreciated? On Beltran Four, a male hierarchy guarantees that they will have their choice of women. On Newholme, a female hierarchy guarantees that women will have a choice of men. In both cases, the surplus is eliminated, but here, at least, no one dies."

He turned up the jack of love and laid it beside the ten. "Another point for Newholme, Questy?"

Questioner shifted uncomfortably. When she had a.s.sessed Beltran Four a quarter-century before, she had not recommended any punishment. What went on there was all too common. Though Haraldson had hated war, he had known it would happen. War was natural. Men being killed in war was natural. Why was this situation worse? She had no sooner thought the question than Mouche answered it.

"You're holding women to a higher standard than men," he said. "Madame used to tell us that this is traditional, for men have usually been the judges, and they put women either in the gutter or upon a pedestal. Men have traditionally forgiven one another, for they know and excuse their own failings, but they do not forgive women for falling off the pedestal."

She thought, of course, and of course. For a woman to be respected she must burn on a pyre like M'Tafa, be immured in solitude like Mathilla, submit to being buried alive like Tiu; for a woman to be respected, she must take the pain of life without demanding the joys, she must sacrifice herself, preferably without complaint. She may have no pleasure except what she is granted by father, or husband, or son. d.a.m.n Calvy!

"Are you finished with your argument?" she asked, her voice giving no indication of yielding.

"Not yet," he said, taking a deep breath, for there was more at stake here than she knew. "I have the Kaorugi card to play."

"Which is?"

"Will you agree that Kaorugi is a lifeform?"

"Kaorugi is a lifeform, certainly."

"And will you agree that Haraldson's edicts prohibit the torture or hara.s.sment of lifeforms?"

"I agree. I'm not intending to interfere with Kaorugi or any of its subparts. Quite the contrary."

"Ah, but Bofusdiaga says you are. All his life until Quaggima, Kaorugi was singular and alone. Then Quaggima came, and Kaorugi had a companion. He delighted in that companionship, strange though it was. Then mankind came, and Kaorugi had still other creatures to learn about and from. He learned new feelings: vanity, pride, ecstacy, disgust-a whole volume of emotions.

"Now Quaggima is gone. It's partly due to you that he's gone, you know; you helped take him away, and you've left Kaorugi, who is virtually immortal, with mankind only. If you sterilize the planet of all mankind, Kaorugi will be sentenced to solitary confinement. Kaorugi doesn't want that. So, if you take away mankind, you are torturing Kaorugi."

He turned up the queen of love, laying it next to the jack and ten. "The Kaorugi card."

"And that's why I should change my mind?" she cried. "I should evade my duty so Kaorugi can have some company and learn more about the universe?"

"Not only for that, also because Haraldson would not approve of your interfering with the lifeform on this planet," Mouche murmured. He hadn't said all he could have said about the lifeform on the planet. If Questioner insisted on sterilization and managed somehow to get off planet to do it, Bofusdiaga would not let mankind die. They would become something else, of course. Rather as Mouche had become, though without some of the elements that had made that becoming successful, a.s.suming it was successful. It would not necessarily be a bad thing or bad in all cases, but still that part of Mouche that was purely mankind preferred that his people be allowed to choose what they would be.

"You seem to have innumerable arguments," she said in a grumpy voice.

"Not innumerable, no. I have played all my cards but two."

"Well, play them," she said impatiently. "Get on with it."

"This is one you should like, Questy. Now that your political appointees are out of your hair, not that they were ever any good to you, you should demand the liberty of choosing your own aides. Competent ones. People who will work with you."

"Competent aides," she murmured, intrigued despite herself. "I must admit, that has its attractions. Could I possibly have a competent ship's crew, as well?"

"We could work on that. Ornery might be just the person to a.s.sure it. We, that is Ellin and Bao and Ornery and I, would like to be your aides, Questy. We've held off discussing it with you, for there's been a lot to think about, but it's the only thing that makes sense. Ellin can't go back to History House, she's beyond that, and so is Bao. Ornery needs wider seas than the ones she's been traveling, and I can't be a planetbound Consort now. I know too much. I've seen too much, felt too much. I can't do it even by serving my Hagion, for the Hagion I served is part of me, and that part of me isn't interested in an eternity of Consorthood on Newholme...."