The scene cut to a magnified image of the outsider vessel, a black blade athwart stars and Milky Way. Vargen whistled. "Naxian, for sure," he said. "Scout type, small, high-boost, maneuverable. However, if one of them singlehanded her, it was pretty desperate. The best of their automatic systems don't compare to the average of ours, you know. 91 "Daring more than desperate, I'd say," Laurice murmured. "You'll see. Watch."

  Davith Windfell's fine-boned visage took over the screen, against a backdrop of his study, swirl-grained wainscot, an antique table, shelves of codex books and memorabilia that had been in the family for generations.

  She tht-illed to the steadiness of his voice. "The Naxian doesn't want to talk through hyperspace. Fears the neutrino beam being tapped. Well, it could be, and our ciphers probably are not very secure. So we require a personal representative of the House, and time is lacking for consultation. Therefore I am appointing Laurice Windfell envoy plenipotentiary. Although she is young, her part in explorations of planets in this galactic vicinity has given her as much knowledge of nonhumans as anyone on Ather seems Rely to possess. She has also demonstrated self-control and sound judgment, aRe in emergencies and in ordinary difficulties. I have every confidence in her."

  Dad thinks that of me!

  The screen showed Laurice in the command cabin of a courier boat. In Vargen's apartment, she observed herself observing herself as if another person were yonder, and thought, Why? Do I want to know how he sees me?

  The rush to make ready and be off had told on her. instead of a glittery flowrobe, she wore a coverall, rumpled, smudged here and there. The auburn hair wasn't netted in gold but, under low acceleration, hung sweatlank past her ears. Still, she thought, she was very much a

  woman of her world, not tall but full-bodied, supple, tawny of skin and high of cheekbones, short-nosed, heavylipped, stubborn-chinned. A fair-sized number of men found her attractive.... Stop that! she silently snapped.

  The pilot looked into the pickup and said: "I record my understanding of my assignment just prior to medicating, getting into the flotation tank, and ordering top boost for the passage.

  "I've never met a Naxian before, and only talked casually with people who have, but naturally I've been interested and studied up on them. Now I've brought along a database and will be accessing it en route. Transit time, about sixty hours, should let me learn something, though I'd better arrive reasonably rested and fresh. Better try to avoid preconceptions, too. However, I can't help guessing. Since that may influence my actions, I'll enter my thoughts at this point.

  "I doubt we've got any subtle scheme under way. We're as alien to the Naxians as they are to us. What buttons could they single out to push? Oh, they do have their ability to read emotional states, but that's on an individual basis. It doesn't tell them how groups of us will react to something.

  "I also doubt we've got a criminal trying for a haven. Not that we can be very sure what constitutes a crime among them. But anybody smart enough to make it here must know we won't risk provoking an interstellar incident for nothing. We'll need to be convinced it's worth our while to help. "Nevertheless, this isn't exactly a usual way for a stranger to show up. My guess is that our visitor has come on behalf of some faction. The Naxians are no more united than we Fxthurnoi. "

  The image smiled. "Don't worry. I won't embroil us in a civil war of theirs. I couldn't if I wanted to. I'm really only empowered to ask questions and make suggestions. Believe me, I'll think hard before I do either."

  The screen blinked. The time displayed was two and a half standard days later. Laurice floated weightless. She had spruced herself up. "I've proposed to the Naxian that

  we rendezvous elsewhere," she said, and projected the coordinates and orbital elements, a million kilometers from the giant planet. "It has agreed. That should enable Janya to damp out rumors and gossip on Isrith. Please inform her. She might tell the troops this turned out to be a stellar survey expedition from so far off that its database didn't include the information that this system has been discovered and colonized by humans; and it went on its way feeling embarTassed. Plausible. The galaxy is so big, so full of stars."

  Vargen chuckled.

  He leaned tensely forward when the other ship swelled in view. Running commentary described the matching of velocities and the extension of a gang tube. Laurice appeared, spacesuited, an automatic camera on either shoulder.

  "I'm crossing over like this," said her voice. "Not that the air or the temperature or anything would kill me, but . . . well, just in case. The

  suit is reinforced, and I've got a blaster in my oddments pouch. "

  "That much was beamed back to my father," she said in the city. "The rest had to wait till I returned to my boat-no, I misspoke. All I sent then was word that I was safe and things looked interesting. The real information,

  I wasn't about to trust to any transmitter. "

  An interior flashed before her and the man. In its cramped austerity it

  seemed almost familiar, until one noticed the details. The Naxian poised free-fall at the center. The sinuous body, dull red, as long as a man's, was half coiled. It had extruded two stubby pseudohands, which clutched a standard model simultrans over which the blunt head swayed. Behind that snout the eyes glowed quite beautiful, like twin agates. The simultrans rendered purring, rustling sounds into flat Merse: "Well be you come,-Erthuma. Have you immediate desires that I might perchance fulfill?" Laurice's helmet included a sonic unit. "Can we get straight to business?

  I don't want to be discourteous, but I don't know what's polite in your society. My database told me that if we both belonged to the Naga nation"--the simultrans turned that human name into the appropriate hisses-"we'd spend the next hour exchanging compliments. I'm willing, but not sure how.

  Again Vargen chuckled.

  "I am not a member of it myself," the Naxian said. Did the vocal tone carry wrath or sorrow or eagerness? "And I will gladly go by the straightest tunnel, the more so when I sense that, beneath a natural wariness, your intentions are honest. Names first? I often designate myself Copperhue. I function as male. "

  "Laurice Windfell. Female. I . . . imagine you know what my name signifies."

  "Yes. You belong to that one of Ather's dominant consanguinities. " It was the best rendition the machine could make of a word in that particular Naxian language, which attempted to describe a concept perhaps unknown to any Naxian culture. "The one that I sought."

  "Then you know more about us than I do about you."

  "I was here briefly, three rejuvenations ago. That was as a crew member of a ship conveying an expedition sent to gather information about what was then a new colony."

  "Yes. I've studied the accounts. Your people's only visit, wasn't it?" Locrians, Cephallonians, Crotonites, and Samians had come similarly for a look, found no threat nor any particular promise to them, and gone away again.

  "Correct. Since then, of course, much has evolved. I have striven to bring my information up to date. Travelers often take along databases about their homes. A copy is an appreciated gift or a trade item of some value."

  "I know. But why did you care about us especially?"

  The coils slithered around, whispering along the glabrous hide. "The second planet of this sun would be quite hospitable to my species. "

  "Venafer?" Laurice's image registered surprise. That hot, cloudy world of swamps and deserts? "Well, yes . . . I suppose so . . . but there must be plenty more in the galaxy, some of them better, that you haven't settled yet, or even found."

  "True. However, I pray you, consider who will take them. S-s-s-s-" Copperhue's head struck at air, to and

  fro. Little protuberances like claws formed down its-his length.

  "House Windfell doesn't own all Venafer," Laurice said. "Nobody does." "Correct." The head grew large in sight, drawing near her helmet. Fangs glistened, eyes smoldered. "But your consanguinity is uniquely qualified. First, it does own the large island on the planet that you call New Halla." It-he must have put a special entry in the simultrans's program. "Territory of scant or no use to you, originally claimed for prestige and on the chance of mineral resources, retained merely because of inertia and, s-s-s, pride. Second, as of recent years you have maintained exclusive operations on the moon Isrith. This gave opportunity for a discreet approach. I realize my plan is hopeless unless we, your people and 1, can suddenly present the galaxy with an accomplished fact."

  Laurice's tone grew strained. "What do you want?"

  "The island. What else? I have considered how the transaction may be done.. Pay me a sum equal to the agreed-on price for the land, with an option to buy it. Leave the sum in escrow until I have fulfilled my part of the bargain. I will know whether your chieftains intend to abide by this and, afterward, whether I have truly met the terms as they understand them. My researches lead me to expect they will be honest."

  "You're asking ... a great deal."

  "I offer much more."

  "'What?"

  Copperhue hooked its-his tail around a stanchion. The long body swayed and rippled. "I cannot precisely tell you, for I myself do not know. But it is of the utmost.

  "For God's sake! Get to reality, will you?"

  The undulations went hypnotic, the words sank to a breath. "Hearken. I am a cosmonaut of the Python Confederacy, as you name it. It embraces eight inhabited planets their suns lying about seventeen hundred lightyears ~o;~ this. You have heard? Yes-s-s-

  "During the last several of your calendrical years, its Dominance has repeatedly dispatched expeditions elsewhere.

  They are totally secret. Nothing whatsoever is said about them. Key personnel return to live sequestered in a special compound. I have gathered that they enjoy every attention and luxury there, and are well satisfied. Ordinary crewfolk of the several ships go more freely about on their leaves, but may not speak to anyone, no, not nestmates or clones or even each other, of what they have done and seen.

  "That is easy to obey, for we know well-nigh nothing. Our vessels leap through hyperspace to someplace else. We lie there for varying times while the scientists use their instruments and send out their probes, operations in which we do not partake. All we perceive is that we float in empty, unfamiliar interstellar space until we go back. Ah, but the feelings of those officers and scientists! They flame, they freeze, they strike, recoil, exult, shudder; the glory and the dread of Almightiness are upon them.

  "And at home, I have once in a while come near enough to certain of the Dominators that I sense the same in them. Not the awe, no, for they do not venture thither themselves, to yonder remote part of the galaxy; but their inward dreams grasp a pride and a hope that are demonic." (What did that last word really mean in the Naxian tongue?)

  In free-fall there is no true over or under. Nonetheless, Copperhue loomed. "Is this not a sufficient sign that something vast writhes toward birth?" it-he demanded.

  -I-I can't say," Laurice stammered. "You, how and why did you-"

  "They knew I was unhappy, until presently, slowly, I went aquiver, " Copperhue said. "Well, my race has learned dissimulations. I led them to believe that I suffered private difficulties, hostilities, until I began seeing ways whereby I might cope. They expected little of a humble crew member, therefore suspected little. Meanwhile, I took my surreptitious stellar sightings and made my calculations.

  "And at home, I plotted with others. Jointly, they raised the means to obtain this spacecraft and send me off in it, all under false pretenses.

  Our need is that great.

  "Here I am. I know, quite closely, where and when the

  monster thing is to happen. It will be soon. What is this worth to you and your kindred, Erthuma?"

  The day before departure Laurice spent with her parents. They were at the original family home, on Windfell itself. Small, a stronghold as much as a dwelling, Ernhurst offered few of the comforts, none of the sensualities in mansions and apartments everywhere. Yet Davith and Mair had refrained from enlarging it, and often returned there. It held so many memories.

  From the top of a lookout tower Laurice saw immensely far. Southward the downs rolled summer-golden to the sea, which was a line of gleaming argent on that horizon. Wind sent long ripples through the herbage; cloud shadows swept mightily over heights and hollows. It boomed and bit, did the wind, but odors of growth, soil, water, sunlight brought life to its sharpness. Northward the land climbed toward hills darkling with forest. Far and far beyond them, the snow peak of Mount Orden shone in heaven. Other than the estate, its gardens, and beast park, the sole traces of man lay to the west, toylike at their remove-a power station, a synthesis plant, and the village clustered around them.

  "Oh, it's good to be here again," she sighed.

  "Then why are you so seldom?" her father asked quietly.

  She looked away from him. "You know why. Too much to do, too little time." His laugh sounded wistful. "Too little patience, you mean. You're trying to experience the whole universe, and you not yet forty years in it. Relax. It won't go away."

  "I've heard that aplenty from you, when Mother hasn't been after me to settle down, get married, present you with another batch of grandchildren. You relax, you two. That won't go away. My next cycle, or my third, I'll be ready to start experimenting with domesticity. "

  "If you live till you reach an age for rejuvenation." She sensed how he must force the words out. "Ordinarily, yes, we'd be content to let you enjoy your first time around in freedom, like most people. But your youthful enthusiasms are not just intellectual or artistic or athletic, and your

  idea of a youthful fling is to hare off and hazard your life on some weird planet.... I'm sorry, my dear. I don't want to nag you again, on this day of all days." Her right hand rested on the parapet. He laid his left over it. "We're. afraid, though, Mair and 1. How I rue the hour I asked you to go meet that Naxian. Ever since, you've charged breakneck forward."

  She bit her lip. "You could have taken me off the project. You can still." Aquiline against the sky, his head shook. "And have you hate me? No, I'm too weak."

  "What? You?" She stared.

  He turned to smile at her. "Where you are concerned, I am. Always have been, for whatever reason."

  "Dad-" She clung to his hand.

  He grew grave. "I do have to talk with you, seriously and privately. This seehis to be my chance."

  She released herself, stepped back a meter , and confronted him. He had now put the well-worn importunities aside, she knew. Doubtless he had only used them as a way into what he really had to utter. Her heart knocked. "Clearance granted," she said, and realized that today this was no longer one of their shared jokes.

  "You're bound into an unforeseeable but certainly dangerous situation-"

  "No, no, no!" she protested automatically. "Must I explain for die, it feels like the fiftieth time? The environment's safe. Copperhue saw no special precautions being taken. 11

  "But Copperhue did learn that an extraordinary event will occur there in the near future. Who knows what it will involve? If nothing else, the Naxians won't be overjoyed when outsiders break in on their ultrasecret undertaking. Their resentment might ... express itself forcibly.

  "Oh, Dad, that's ridiculous. They're civilized."

  "There are Naxians and Naxians," he declared, "just as there are Erthumoi and Erthumoi. The rulers of the Python Confederacy are not the amiable, helpful sorts who lead most of their nations. It isn't general knowledge, because we don't want to compromise our sources, but

  some of our intelligence about them makes me wonder what we may have to face, a century or two from now."

  , She didn't care to pursue that. The immediate argument was what mattered. "Anyhow, we'll be in clear space. If anything looks threatening, we'll hyperJump off in a second. No, a millisecond. Darya computes and reacts faster than any organic brain."

  "Understood. Otherwise I'd never have authorized the venture. But you in turn understand-don't you?-you can't depend on the ship to handle everything, especially not to make the basic decisions. If she could do that to our satisfaction, among those countless unknowns, she wouldn't need a master, nor even a scientific team aboard. Laurice, the more I've considered your choice of personnel, the more I've discovered about them, the less happy I've become. "

  She clenched her fists. "Copperhue? It-he's got to come along. Guide, advisor, and, well, hostage for its-his own truthfulness. Yes, we know very little about it-him, but that's hardly its-his fault."

  "Copperhue worries me the least," Davith replied. "Why did you co-opt Yoran Jarrolsson?"

  "Huh? You know. He's an able physicist, specializing in astronomical problems. Bachelor, no particular attachments, easily persuaded to join an expedition whose purpose he won't learn till we're in space. If anybody should be loyal to us, that's Yoran. " You made him what he is, Dad, recognized talent in a ragged patronless kid, sponsored him, funded him through school, got him his position at the Institute."

  Davith frowned. "Yes, I assumed as much myself, till it occurred to me to order an inquiry. I'd lost touch with him. Well, it turns out he's not popular-"

  "Abrasive, yes. I've generally gotten along with him. Consulted him about stuff relating to various explorations, you remember. "

  Davith's lips quirked a bit. "You don't feel his an-ogance, as his inferiors do." Earnestly: "Also, I suspect that-never mind. The fact is, he is ... no gentleman. Less than perfectly honest, in spite of that raspy tongue. And I daresay an impoverished childhood like his would leave many people somewhat embittered, but most wouldn't make it an excuse for chronic ill behavior.

  "As long as he can do the job-"

  Laurice broke off, went back to the parapet, gazed over the vast billows of land. After a moment she said, "I think I know where part of his trouble stems from. He's a scientist bom. Nature meant him to make brilliant discoveries. But there aren't any to make anymore, not in fundamental physics. Nothing new for-centuries, is it? The most he can do is study a star or a nebula or whatever that's acting in some not quite standard way. Then he puts the data through his computer, and,it explains everything in conventional terms, slightly unusual parameters and that's all. When I hinted we might be on the trail of something truly strange--you should have seen his face."