Her path through the front lobby was blocked by a surging crowd of gypsies knotting themselves around the front door. Somewhere among them, she caught a whiff of Azevedo's nager, and as she squirmed toward it, her senses keen with need, she sorted through Azevedo's formidable nager and found—Shanlun!

She leaped ahead, breasting the crowd, leaping up and down to cut a path, yelling with the rest of them, "Shanlun!" She flung herself into his arms.

He staggered back under her weight, and she realized he'd lost a lot of weight. Her hands found something under his shirt, and zlinning, she discerned a huge scar running across the backs of his shoulders—a burn scar.

It barely registered in his nager, which was replete, sparkling pyrotechnically with relief, joy, anxiety, tension, and even—Laneff drew back surprised—overtones of guilt.

When everyone had said their welcomes to Shanlun, Azevedo had Yuan summoned, and they all met in the privacy of Azevedo's office.

Yuan came in as they arrived, embraced Shanlun, and said, "I've never been so glad to see someone! You've got to tell us all what happened to you!"

But Laneff sensed a reservation in Yuan that distressed her. The two men had never been friends, but—and then it dawned on her. Why had Yuan nursed her, when he was the one who required nursing? Hoping that her affection would turn from the presumably dead Shanlun—to himself? Of course, then he wouldn't rejoice too much if Shanlun turned up alive. Could I have been so blind? Or did Yuan hide it so well?

He wasn't one to put the pressure of his emotions off onto another. He'd been willing to wait patiently for her. Her heart went out to the man, and her whole being turned from hurting him. Yet the presence of Shanlun filled her with rising hope flooding upward against the downward tide of her own increasing need.

Shanlun would work the disjunction with me, no matter what Azevedo says. And afterward . . . She remembered how Shanlun made love into a celebration of life.

Azevedo served trin tea all around, his nager trembling as he neared Shanlun. He let his tentacles linger over the Gen's fingers as he gave him the glass of hot tea in its wicker holder. Shanlun let his eyes close raptly at that touch, then met the channel's eyes and nodded, "Soon."

Azevedo, she realized, had been severely shorted in his last transfer, repeatedly losing Shanlun after anticipating him. He'd be ready for Shanlun about the time she would have to seek transfer. She chided herself for regarding Azevedo as a rival; what had she to offer

Shanlun? And Shanlun, with that nager, could serve them both without ever noticing!

The byplay did not escape Yuan. He strive to mask his disappointment, and Laneff understood that he'd been anticipating serving Azevedo. He doesn't realize he was inadequate, just as Jarmi didn't!

Azevedo took his tea and folded himself cross-legged onto the cushioned platform amid the arc of plants, under the skylight, as they took places all around at his feet. He said, "So you're the one arranged for Mairis to come here!"

Shanlun asked, "Have the marshals come here already?"

"No. You know they'd never get through the alley! The tribes would never let Tecton officials in here, regardless of local law. The marshals will have to content themselves with sealing us in here for that day."

Shanlun sipped tea. "Do you think you could talk the tribes into letting Mairis in here? I've told him everything about Laneff. He wants to zlin her condition and then leave someone here with her; he's not sure who yet. It depends on her."

"He could even give her transfer," mused Azevedo.

"No!" said Laneff. He can't work kerduvon!

Shanlun raised an eyebrow at her in silent query, but Azevedo answered. "There has been—an event—while you were gone."

Azevedo and Yuan looked to her, and Shanlun followed their gaze, frowning, head tilted, hands held in the gypsy position of inquiry. In his rough gypsy traveling clothes, he still looked gypsy, not Tecton.

The silence stretched until Laneff said, "I—killed—Jarmi."

"Oh, Laneff!" Shanlun cried in sympathy. He set aside his glass and came to her, enfolding her in his arms, his cheek next to hers. His nager was politely neutral, not engaging with her needing body at all, yet soothing, and carrying the honest throb of sorrow he felt. Then he sighed, pulling away, kissing her forehead. "I should have seen that coming. She was too eager and lacked the strength of discipline."

Azevedo said, "Yuan and I also felt our part of the responsibility for it. But Laneff has suffered the most."

Shanlun resumed his seat, asking the channel, "But the baby is all right?"

"Couldn't be better, though I'm glad you're here to coax her to eat! She argues too much with Yuan."

Shanlun flashed the other Gen a brilliant smile, and Azevedo told how Yuan had put aside his own injury to care for Laneff, and Yuan told his side of the tale from when he woke under branches near the burned-out farmhouse to when he arrived at Thiritees, ending, "So now it's your turn! What happened to you?"

"Oh, I was the one who covered you with those branches, and then I went back to see if I could save anyone from the fire. Only a few of the Diet got away. I got one woman out of the fire, but she was dead. I passed out from smoke, and the next thing I knew, I was in the back of a truck, a Diet prisoner. When they camped for the night, leaving me for unconscious, I escaped, flagged down a car, and rode to the nearest town. I was going to call—either one of our locals, or even Mairis's private number. But I passed out again on the street. Woke up in a hospital, and they identified me by fingerprint and retina scan.

"Mairis sent a squad for me, and they squashed the news coverage under his security blanket. I tried three times to get word to you, but I didn't want to take any foolish risks, and . . ."He shrugged a gypsy shrug. "Azevedo, I've never seen anything like this. I had to escape from Mairis's traveling team."

"He wouldn't let you go?" cried Laneff.

"He didn't have the authority to! The World Controller's Security has taken over. There've been innumerable attempts on Mairis's life. It's quarantine to go near him!" He smiled tightly. "He didn't think I could get away. Now I've almost no way to get word to him until he shows up on our doorstep. He plans to stop the cavalcade right in the street out there, and spontaneously—at random—investigate our dwellings here."

"You told him—about Thiritees?" asked Azevedo.

"Just what Digen knew, and that Laneff’s here."

Azevedo ran fingers and tentacles through his thick white hair. "I don't see any way to convince the tribes to let him in; but I'll have to try."

When Shanlun and Laneff were alone with Yuan in the apartment, Azevedo off in conference with the leaders of the surrounding tribes, the inevitable moment came when Laneff had to relate to Shanlun all the details of what had happened with Jarmi. Yuan told of her illness, and she hardly recognized the story from his point of view.

Hurting, as if he himself had killed, Shanlun wrapped her in his nager and said to Yuan, "Thank you. I'm so glad you managed to get here."

"Yeh, but what will Mairis think when he zlins my presence? He's not likely to miss it, you know!"

"I've told him all about you. You may be in trouble with Tecton law for kidnapping Laneff, but Mairis is on your side because you kept her alive and well. With his backing, the legal problems can be straightened out, though I don't know if the Tecton will want to put you back to work as a First!"

Yuan frowned. "Shanlun, I'm not Tecton. I don't want to go back.

And I honestly don't care that"—he snapped his fingers in the gypsy manner—"for Tecton law!"