He couldn’t move. It was Tabitha who went to her and led her back out of sight.

“You see?” Draun said. “No harm. Why, you humans can force your females, and often do, I’ve heard. I’m not built for that. Anyhow, what’s one bit of other folk’s sport to you, alongside your hundred or more each year?”

Arinnian had kept down his vomit. It left a burning in his gullet. His words fell dull and, in his ears, remote, though every remaining sense had become preternaturally sharp. “I saw her condition.”

“Well, maybe I did get a bit excited. Your fault, really, you humans. We Ythrians watch your ways and begin to wonder. You grip my meaning? All right, I’ll offer gild for any injuries, as certified by a medic. I’ll even discuss a possible pride-payment, with her parents, that is. Are you satisfied?”

“No.”

Draun bristled his crest a little. “You’d better be. By law and custom, you’ve no further rights in the matter.”

“I’m going to kill you,” Arinnian said.

“What? Wait a wingbeat! Murder—”

“Duel. We’ve witnesses here. I challenge you.”

“You’ve no cause, I say!”

Arinnian could shrug, this time. “Then you challenge me.”

“What for?”

The man sighed. “Need we plod through the formalities? Let me see, what deadly insults would fit? The vulgarism about what I can do when flying above you? No, too much a cliché. I’m practically compelled to present a simple factual description of your character, Draun. Thereto I will add that Highsky Choth is a clot of dung, since it contains such a maggot.”

“Enough,” the Ythrian said, just as quietly though his feathers stood up and his wings shuddered. “You are challenged. Before my gods, your gods, the memory of all our forebears and the hope of all our descent, I, Draun of Highsky, put you, Christopher Holm, called Arinnian of Stormgate, upon your deathpride to meet me in combat from which no more than one shall go alive. In the presence and honor of these witnesses whom I name—”

Tabitha came from behind. By force and surprise, she hauled Arinnian off his chair. He fell to the floor, bounced erect, and found her between him and the screen. Her left hand fended him off, her right was held as if likewise to keep away his enemy, her partner.

“Are you both insane?” she nearly screamed.

“The words have been uttered.” Draun peeled his fangs. “Unless he beg grace of me.”

“I would not accept a plea for grace from him,” Arinnian said.

She stood panting, swinging her head from each to each. The tears poured down her face; she didn’t appear to notice. After some seconds her arms dropped, her neck drooped.

“Will you hear me, then?” she asked hoarsely. They held still. Arinnian had begun to tremble under a skin turning cold. Tabitha’s fists closed where they hung. “It’s not to your honor that you let th-th-those persons your choths… Avalon… needs… be killed or, or crippled. Wait till war’s end. I challenge you to do that.”

“Well, aye, if I needn’t meet nor talk to the Walker,” Draun agreed reluctantly.

“If you mean we must cooperate as before,” Arinnian said to Tabitha, “you’ll have to be our go-between.”

“How can she?” Draun jeered. “After the way you bespoke her choth.”

“I think I can, somehow,” Hrill sighed.

She stood back. The formula was completed. The screen blanked.

Strength poured from Arinnian. He turned to the girl and said, contrite, “I didn’t mean that last. Of you I beg grace, to you I offer gild.”

She didn’t look his way, but sought the door and stared outward. Toward her lover, he thought vaguely. I’ll find a tree to rest beneath till Eyath rouses and I can transport her to the flitter.

A crash rolled down the mountainside and rattled the windows. Tabitha grew rigid. The noise toned away, more and more faint as the thunderbolt fled upward. She ran into the court “Phil!” she shouted. Ah, Arinnian thought Indeed. The next betrayal.

“At ease, Lieutenant. Sit down.”

The dark, good-looking young man stayed tense in the chair. Juan Cajal dropped gaze back to desk and rattled the papers in his hands. Silence brimmed his office cabin. Valenderay swung in orbit around Pax at a distance which made that sun no more than the brightest of the stars, whose glare curtained Esperance where Luisa waited.

“I have read this report on you, including the transcription of your statements, with care, Lieutenant Rochefort, Cajal said finally, “long though it be. That’s why I had you sent here by speedster.”

“What can I add, sir?” The newcomer’s voice was stiff as his body. However, when Cajal raised his look to meet those eyes again, he remembered a gentle beast he had once seen on Nuevo Mexico, in the Sierra de los Bosques Secos, caught at the end of a canyon and waiting for the hunters.

“First,” the admiral said, “I want to tender my personal apology for the hypnoprobing to which you were subjected when you rejoined our fleet. It was no way to treat a loyal officer.”

“I understand, sir,” Rochefort said. “I wasn’t surprised, and the interrogators were courteous. You had to be sure I wasn’t lying.” Briefly, something flickered behind the mask. “To you.”

“M-m, yes, the hypnoprobe evokes every last detail, doesn’t it? The story will go no further, son. You saw a higher duty and followed.”

“Why fetch me in person, sir? What little I had to tell must be in that report.”

Cajal leaned back. He constructed a friendly smile. “You’ll find out. First I need a bit of extra information. What do you drink?”

Rochefort started “Sir?”

“Scotch, bourbon, rye, gin, tequila, vodka, akvavit, et cetera, including miscellaneous extraterrestrial bottles. What mixes and chasers? I believe we’ve a reasonably well-stocked cabinet aboard.” When Rochefort sat dumb, Cajal finished: “I like a martini before dinner myself. We’re fining together, you realize.”

“I am? The, the admiral is most kind. Yes. A martini. Thanks.”

Cajal called in the order. Actually he took a small sherry, on the rare occasions when he chose anything; and he suspected Rochefort likewise had a different preference. But it was important to get the boy relaxed.

“Smoke?” he invited. “I don’t, but I don’t mind either, and the governor gave me those cigars. He’s a noted gourmet.”

“Uh… thank you… not till after eating, sir.”

“Evidently you’re another.” Cajal guided the chitchat till the cocktails arrived. They were large and cold. He lifted his. “A vuestra salud, mi amigo.”

“Your health—” The embryo of a smile lived half a second in Rochefort’s countenance. “Bonne santé, Monsieur l’Amiral.”

They sipped. “Go ahead, enjoy,” Cajal urged. “A man of your proven courage isn’t afraid of his supreme boss. Your immediate captain, yes, conceivably; but not me. Besides, I’m issuing you no orders. Rather, I asked for what help and advice you care to give.”

Rochefort had gotten over being surprised. “I can’t imagine what, sir.” Cajal set him an example by taking a fresh sip. Cajal’s, in a glass that bore his crest, had been watered.

Not that he wanted Rochefort drunk. He did want him loosened and hopeful.

“I suppose you know you’re the single prisoner to escape,” the admiral said. “Understandable. They probably hold no more than a dozen or two, from boats disabled like yours, and you were fabulously lucky. Still, you may not know that we’ve been getting other people from Avalon.”

“Defectors, sir? I heard about discontent.”

Cajal nodded. “And fear, and greed, and also more praiseworthy motives, a desire to make the best of a hopeless situation and avoid further havoc. They’ve been slipping off to us, one by one, a few score total. Naturally, all were quizzed, even more thoroughly than you. Your psychoprofile was on record; Intelligence need merely establish it hadn’t been tampered with.’”