"As in, can't be used with?"

"Right. He'd have to turn it off for me to get at him, and he's not likely to do that, if he's paranoid enough to wear an old-style shield in the first place rather than trust a meditech to cleanse and purify or a pin to prevent. But chances are his ship isn't equipped with an expensive meditech. Nor are the pills standard issue on Traders like his that usually have only contamination-free planets on their scheduled routes, so they have no need for such devices to begin with."

"Why was it discontinued for use if it still serves its purpose?"

"It became obsolete when Molecular Transfer first came into use. It worked fine when the only way you could get down to a planet was in a landing ship, but because Transfers can't be made while using one, if you transfer without the shield activated, you get contaminated before you can turn it on."

"That would be rather pointless," Shanelle agreed. "But wouldn't there be a time when Jorran might need to turn it off, like for cleaning up or sleeping?"

"Yes, but without a homing link on him, I can't keep him on track. I can zero in on him only when he communicates with his ship, but once he goes silent again, I lose him in the crowd. Besides, as long as he keeps the shield control within five feet of him, the shield will remain on him, even when he removes the control unit from his person, so I'm not counting on getting lucky there. "

Shanelle sighed. "So we have to physically get our hands on him and the rods."

"Exactly, but Dalden should be able to manage that just fine once he finds him-as long as he stops being distracted by the locals."

No blush this time; in fact, Dalden's expression had turned warriorish, as in no expression at all. Martha usually took such opportunities to try to provoke a reaction, one of her small forms of amusement, but with a specific task at hand, she restrained herself.

"I haven't determined if Jorran did his homework first, or just picked a country at random," Martha continued. "But there are many different forms of government here in the different countries, and a hierarchy of government in the one he did pick. Head of a town, then head of a state that has hundreds of towns, then head of the whole country. They don't have a head of the whole planet yet, haven't progressed to that. But there are a few countries that are considered world leaders: their opinion counts bigtime and they have the power to back it up, if you know what I mean. He's picked one of the big leaders, but it looks like he's going to start small and work his way up. Didn't think he'd be that smart."

"Why is this smart, when it's not what he really wants?" Shanelle asked.

"Because what their leaders do here is quickly made known to all the populace, especially what the big leaders do. Whereas the actions of the little leaders, the ones who only govern a single town, tend to only be made known to that town. In other words, the fewer eyes on him, the better.

"He probably wasn't expecting this planet to be so hugely populated, since most planets grown to this size begin dispersing their people to other planet colonies before they deplete the mother planet's resources. Century III is still in the baby stages itself, with a gross population under five hundred thousand. This planet has people in the billions. They have millions jammed into little cities. They don't spread out, they spread up. There's just too many people here. It's no wonder any ship that has come close enough to check them out has run the other way instead of making contact. "

"On the other hand, Jorran might be delighted by the overabundance of population," Shanelle remarked. "The more people falling at his feet in worship, the better."

"True, though I doubt it will matter when Probables tell me it's not going to work the way he's hoping, on a big scale-though he seems to think It will, and can cause a lot of grief in the trying."

"Why not? It worked perfectly on Sunder."

"Yes, because Sunder was a global unity that shared power between the military and science departments, and they didn't have world communication systems like this one does, where everyone can be apprised of what's going on in their world by just turning on a box in their homes and listening. On Sunder, the leaders could step down and appoint anyone they wanted to take their place, and most of the planet's people never knew the difference. On this planet the leaders are either elected by the people, born into the position, or take power by might. The general populace knows what's going on and if they don't like it, they most definitely aren't quiet about it. And he's picked the elected form of government, so he can't just use the rods to have one of the leaders resign and appoint him in his place."

"But won't that approach take much longer?"

"You betcha." Martha switched to a smirking tone. "It would take years for him to work his way up through the hierarchy. And it's a good guess that Jorran won't figure that out before he runs out of time."

"Then couldn't we just sit back and wait for him to run out of time and go home? If he's back on Century III, we can file theft charges against him and get the rods back through normal diplomatic channels."

"We could," Martha replied. "But we won't, when he could decide to take the risk and strand himself here, the old do-or-die approach. And there is one other possibility we have to take into account."

"You mean you haven't told us everything yet?"

"It's those slow computers," Martha's new tone was thick with complaint. "I was concentrating on retrieving their history, military, science, and governmental records first, but I'm now getting information that introduces new options. Jorran doesn't have to get into a position of leadership to be in a position of power on this particular planet. Wealth is a highly motivating, highly powerful commodity here, so he could obtain his own empire in the field of finance instead. And in that case, those rods can do exactly what he needs."

"Have people shower him with their riches, without knowing why, and with nothing to prevent them from doing so?" Shanelle guessed.

"Exactly."

8

« ^ »

"IS ALL THAT SILENCE BROODING, DALDEN, OR BECAUSE you've been paying attention?" Martha asked.

They were alone In the control room. Shanelle had been informed that Falon was showing signs of impatience in wanting to search for Jorran himself. Sending fifty seven-foot Sha-Ka'ani warriors to the surface for a mass search for Jorran would have hastened the search, but was out of the question. There might be humans of an equivalent size on the planet, but they were a rarity, not the norm.

Sending down even two warriors would be pushing it for drawing unwanted notice, which was why Martha was insisting the search begin with just Dalden. Shanelle, being in agreement, had rushed off to remind her lifemate of that.

"I understand what worries you, Martha," Dalden replied. I would not let the woman know that I am what she would call a barbarian."

Chuckling floated about the room. "She wouldn't think that. No, her word for you would be an alien. It would have no meaning to her that other worlds consider your world a bit barbaric in nature. She'd recognize only one thing, that you aren't from her world, and that would shock the hell out of her, taking precedence over anything she might have been feeling about you. I'd then have to bring her aboard the ship, erase her memories of you, and hope that it works on these humanoids. And you know I don't deal well with 'hope it works.' So why don't we just avoid all that-"