Two were strangers, in the uniform of Terran Spaceforce. One was Dan Lawton, Legate from Thendara.

The fourth was Rafe Scott, and he was wearing the uniform of the Terran service.

Regis rose and faced them angrily. “Lew Alton has been hurt! He’s in no shape to be — interrogated — as you questioned my grandfather!”

“What do you want here?” I demanded.

“Only the answers to a few questions,” said Lawton politely. “Young Hastur, we warned you before; stay in your own quarters. Kendricks, take the Hastur kid back to his grandfather, and see that he stays there.”

The bigger of the Terrans put a hand on Regis’ shoulder. “Come along, sonny,” he said kindly.

Regis twisted away. “Hands off!” His hand, flashing to his boot, whipped out a narrow skean. He faced them across the naked steel, saying with soft, cold fury, “I will go when the vai Dam Alton bids me — unless you think you can carry me out.”

I said, “I prefer him to stay. And you won’t get anywhere with violence in the Comyn Castle, Lawton.”

He almost smiled. “I know,” he said. “Perhaps I wanted them to see that. Captain Scott told me—”

Captain Scott.

“Traitor!” said Regis, and spat.

Lawton ignored that, looking down at me.

“Your mother was a Terran—”

“Black shame to me that I must admit it — yes!”

“Look,” Lawton said quietly, “I don’t like this any more than you do. I’m here on business; let me do it and get out. Your mother was—”

“Elaine Aldaran Montray.”

“Then you are kin to — How well do you know Beltran of Aldaran?”

“I spent a year or so in the Hellers, mostly as his guest. Why?”

He countered with another question, this time to Rafe. “Exactly what relation are you two, anyhow?”

“On the Aldaran side, it’s too complicated to explain,” said Rafe, “Distant cousins. But he married my sister Marjorie. You could say — brother-in-law.”

“No spy for Terra can claim kin here!” I sat up, my head exploding painfully, but too much at a disadvantage flat on my back. “The Comyn will look after the law in this zone. You go and attend to your affairs in the Terran Zone! Since that was your choice!”

“That is exactly what we’re doing,” Lawton said. “Lerrys was working for us, so his brothers are our business; and they’re dead.”

“And Marrus,” said Rafe. “You never had a chance to hear it, Lew; but Marius had been working for Terra—”

I flung the lie into his face. “My brother never took a copper from Terra, and you know it! Lie to them, but don’t try to lie to an Alton about his brother!”

“The plain truth will do,” Lawton said. “You are right so far; your brother was not in our pay, nor a spy. But he worked for us, and he had applied for Empire citizenship. I sponsored him myself. He had as good a right to it as you, though you never chose to claim it. Even by your standards, that is no spy.” Lawton paused. “He was probably the only man on Darkover working to bring about an honest alliance. The rest were out to line their pockets. How come this is news to you? You’re a telepath.”

I sighed. “If I had a sekal for every time I’ve explained that, I could buy and sell the Terran Zone,” I said. “Telepathic contact is used to project conscious thoughts. Quicker than words, no semantic barriers — and no one but another telepath can listen in. But it takes deliberate effort; one to send, the other to receive. Then, even when I’m not trying, I get a sort of — well — leakage. I can feel; right now you’re confused, and sore as hell about something. I don’t know what and I’m not trying to find out; telepaths learn not to be curious. I’ve been in rapport with my brother. I know everything he knew. But I don’t remember — and I don’t want to remember.”

Suddenly, from Lawton’s complete calm, I knew he had simply been trying to goad me; to make me lose my temper and drop my barriers. He was half Comyn; for all I knew, he might be a telepath himself. He’d been trying to find something out, and whatever it was, he’d probably found it.

“I’ll tell you why I’m here,” Lawton said abruptly. “Usually we let city-states govern themselves, until the government collapses. It usually does, within a generation after the Empire comes. When we meet real tyranny, we depose it; planets like Darkover, we simply wait for them to fall apart. And they do.”

“I heard it all on Terra. Make the universe safe for democracy — and then for Terran Trade!”

“Maybe,” Lawton said, imperturbably. “While you rule peaceably, you “an rule till the planet crumbles. But there’s been disorder lately. Riots. Raiding. Smuggling. And too much telepathic dirty-work. Marius died after you had forced rapport on him.”

Regis said, “Who told you those lies. I saw him die with a knife in-his heart.”

“Marius wasn’t a citizen yet, so I can only ask questions about his death, not punish it,” he said. “But there’s another report that you’re holding a Terran girl here, prisoner.”

My heart pounded suddenly. Kathie. Had Callina and I rashly exposed this last secret of Darkovan science?

“The daughter of the Terran Legate on Samarra — Kathie Marshall. She was scheduled to leave Darkover on the Southern Cross, days ago; I thought she had gone. But she’s missing, and someone saw her here.”

Regis said indifferently, “There were a great many Terrans here Festival Night. Some one must have seen—” he raised his voice. “Andres? Bring the comynara here; she is with Dio Ridenow.”

His eyes held an intensity whose meaning escaped me; I started to open my mind, but sensed his instant prohibition. Lawton and Rafe would both know it, if we were exchanging telepathic messages, even if they couldn’t read what they were about.

Regis said, “I would not, of course, know anything about Miss — is it Marshall? But I know who you saw. The resemblance has caused us some amusement, and a little embarrassment. Since, of course, no comynara could possibly be permitted to behave in public as your Terrananis do.”

Inward I raged and worried. What now? Why must they drag the name of the dead into this? After an eternity, I heard light, familiar footsteps, and Kathie Marshall came into the room.

She wore Darkovan dress; a ruffled gown that hung loose from her slender shoulders, her unbound hair dusted with metallic fragments. Bangles tinkled on her ankles and slender wrists.

“Kathie?” said Lawton.

Kathie raised a pretty, uncomprehending face. “Chi’zei?”

“Linnell, my dear,” Regis drawled, “I have spoken of the foolish resemblance to some Terranis; I wished them to see at first hand.”

I was praying that none of them knew Kathie well. The difference was so haunting that it struck me with passionate grief; a ghost, a mockery.

Kathie put a hand down to touch my face. It was not a Terran gesture. She walked and moved like a Darkovan. “Yes, Regis, I remember,” she said, and I had all I could do to keep back a cry of astonishment. For Kathie was speaking the complicated, liquid-syllabled pure mountain Darkovan — not with her own harsh Terran accent but with soft quick fluency. “But should you have so many strangers around you when you are hurt? To tell you some fantastic story about the Terrans?”

It wasn’t Linnell’s intonation. But the fact remained, she was speaking Darkovan, and speaking it with an accent as good as my own or Dio’s.

Lawton shook his head. “Fantastic,” he muttered, “There certainly is a resemblance! But I happen to know Kathie couldn’t speak the language anything like that!”

The big Terran broke in. “Dan, I tell you, I saw—”

“You were mistaken.” Lawton was still looking intently at Kathie, but she did not move. Another false note. It is rudeness unspeakable to stare at an unmasked young girl on Darkover; men have been killed for it. Lawton knew it. Linnell would have been dying of confusion. But as that thought crossed my mind, Kathie blushed and ran out of the room.