“By all means, sit, then. I’m sure it must be enervating to wallow in depravity day after day as diligently as you do.”

He frowned as he settled into one of the matched wing-form chairs, across the intimate gulf between desk and doorway, and himself and her. “It’s boring.” He leaned forward suddenly, reaching across the space with his voice. “Every minute seems like a year, it bores the hell out of me when I’m away from you.” He sat back again, restlessly, hopelessly, fingering the off worlder medal that dangled in the silken gap of his half-open shirt.

“You shouldn’t find it boring to make trouble for the Blues — for the woman who lost Moon for us both.” She forced her tone to stay businesslike, shaping her emotion into a weapon to punish… whom?

He shrugged. “I’d enjoy it more if I could see some results. She’s still on top.”

“Of course she is. And she’ll stay there to the bitter, bitter end. And every day of what should have been sweet victory she’ll spend walking barefoot over broken glass… Stay here in the palace tomorrow, and I’ll let you watch her.”

“No.” He looked down at his feet abruptly. She saw with some surprise that his face burned. “No. I don’t want to see it, after all.” His hands felt along his studded belt for something that wasn’t there, had not been there for a long time.

“Whatever you want. If you even know what you want,” half critical, half concerned. But he was unresponsive, and so she went on, “I must say PalaThion’s held together more stubbornly than I’d expected. Brittle as she is, I thought shed be showing deeper fractures by now. She must be getting support from somewhere.”

“Gundhalinu. One of the inspectors. The others hate him for it; but he doesn’t give a damn, because he thinks he’s better than they are.”

“Gundhalinu? Oh, yes…” Arienrhod glanced down, at the note recorder. “I’ll keep that in mind. And there’s another off worlder Ngenet is his name; he has an outback plantation down along the coast. She’s been out to visit him there, I understand. A friendship with questionable roots…” She smoothed her hair, gazing at the mural behind Starbuck’s head, the white blackness of a winter storm roaring down out of the ice-crowned peaks, obliterating the valley and the world around a solitary Winter holding. “His plantation has never been harvested, has it?”

Starbuck straightened up in his chair. “No. He’s an off worlder I thought we couldn’t, unless he—”

“That’s right. And I undertand that he strictly forbids it; he’s hostile to the whole idea. Now what would happen, I wonder, if you hunted his preserve, and PalaThion couldn’t punish you?”

He laughed, none of the old reluctance showing now. “A good Hunt. And the end of an affair?”

“All in a day’s work.” She smiled. “The final Hunt will net us some souls.”

“The final Hunt…” Starbuck leaned into a wing of the chair back, playing with his fingers. “You know, I heard something interesting on the Street. I heard the Source had a midnight visitor a few nights back. I heard it was you. And the word is that maybe you’re not ready to see the end of Winter come.” He glanced up. “How’s my hearing?”

“Excellent.” She nodded, listening to the silence keep them company. Surprised, yes — but only a little. She knew his sources of information, that he used Persipone to use Herne. She even approved of his resourcefulness. It only surprised her a little that her intentions were quite so obvious to them all. She would have to keep closer watch on Persipone.

“Well?” Starbuck pressed his knees with his fists. “Were you going to tell me about it? Or were you just going to let me go on thinking we were both going into the sea together at the next Festival?”

“Oh, I would have told you — eventually. I just rather enjoyed hearing you swear to me that you couldn’t, wouldn’t, live without me… my dearest love.” She stopped his anger with three words that came unexpectedly from her heart.

He stood up, came across the room and around the silver-edged curve of desk to her. But she put up her hands, holding him back with quiet insistence. “Hear me first. Since you’ve asked, then I want you to know. I have no intention of going meekly to the sacrifice, and seeing all that I’ve struggled to make of this world thrown into the sea after me. I never had. This time, by all the gods who never belonged here, this world is not going to sink back into ignorance and stagnation when the off worlders go!”

“What can you do to stop it? When the off worlders go, we lose our support, our base of power.” It pleased her to hear his unconscious pledge of allegiance. “They’ll see to it that we do. And then we can’t hold back Summer, any more than we can hold back the seasons. It’ll be then world again.”

“You’re brainwashed.” She shook her head, gestured with a ring heavy hand at the city beyond the walls. “The Summers will gather here in the city for the Festival — here on our ground. All we need is something that will take them unawares… like an epidemic. One that we Winters are fortunately immune to, thanks to the miracle of off world medicine.”

Starbuck’s face twisted. “You mean… you could do that? Would—?”

“Yes, and yes! Are you still so bound to those ignorant, superstitious barbarians that you aren’t willing to sacrifice a few of them for the future of this world? They play right into the hands of the off worlders there’s a conspiracy between them to oppress us-Winter — the people who want to make this world a free partner in the Hegemony. And they’ve succeeded, for a millennium! Do you want them to go on succeeding, forever? Isn’t it time we had our turn?”

“Yes! But—”

“But nothing. Offworlders, Summers — what have they ever done for you, either of them, but betray you, abandon you?” She watched the words work in the dark corners of his soul that she had probed so thoroughly.

“Nothing.” His mouth was like a knife slash. “You’re right… they deserve it, for what they’ve — done.” His hands closed over his belt, like claws sinking into flesh. “But how can you arrange a thing like that, without the Blues finding it out?”

“The Source will handle it. He’s arranged other accidents of fate for me; even one that happened to the last Commander of Police.” She watched Starbuck’s eyes widen. “This is on a somewhat larger scale; but then, for the possession of your take from this final Hunt, I’m sure he’ll see that the task is done efficiently. He’s an honorable man, after his fashion.”

“But it’ll have to happen before the final ships go. Won’t the Blues still try—”

“With the Prime Minister here, and the Gate closing? They’ll run; they’ll leave us in chaos, thinking that without them we’ll end up in the sea anyway. I know them… I’ve studied them for a century and a half.”

He let his resistance out in a sigh. “You know them better than they know themselves.”

“I know everyone that way.” She rose from her chair, letting his arms come around her at last. “Even you.”

“Especially me.” He breathed the words against her ear, kissing her neck, her throat. “Arienrhod… you have my body; I’d give you my soul if you’d take it.”

She touched a button on the desk, opening a door into a more appropriate room. Thinking, with sorrow, I already have, my love.