Corwin let her finish, though her words represented no new ground either. "Have you asked Joshua to talk with him?" he asked.

Chrys shook her head minutely. "He won't. You should know that better than anyone else."

Despite the seriousness of the moment Corwin felt a brief smile touch his lips at the memories evoked. Five years older than the twins, he had nevertheless been successfully ganged up on more times than he cared to remember. Their unshakable loyalty to each other even in the face of parental punishments had made for equally unshakable alibis. "Than I'm afraid it's out of our hands," he told his mother gently. "Legally-not to mention ethically-Justin has a perfect right to choose his life's work. Besides, the political fallout of such a nepotistic veto would be awfully messy to clean up."

"Politics." Chrys turned her head to stare out the window. "I'd hoped your father would be finished with it when he retired from the governorship. I should have realized they wouldn't let him escape that easily."

"We need his wisdom and experience, Mom." Corwin glanced at his watch. "And speaking of that, I'm afraid I'm going to have to go give the Council its monthly dose now."

A shadow briefly crossed Chrys's face, but she nodded and stood up. "I understand. Will you be coming by for dinner tonight? The twins have said they'll be able to make it."

And it would be the last time until Justin's Cobra training was over that they'd all have a chance to be together. "Sure," Corwin said, walking her toward the door. "I'll be talking to Dad after the meeting, so I'll just come with him when we're finished."

"All right. Around six?"

"Fine. See you then."

He walked her to her car and watched as she drove off. Then, with a sigh, he went to his own car and headed for the Dominion Building. Why, he wondered, did the internal problems of his own family always seem more insurmountable than those facing three entire worlds? Probably, he thought flippantly, because there isn't anything the Council can do anymore to surprise me.

He would afterward recall that thought and its unfortunate timing... and wince.

Chapter 2

The Council of Syndics-its official title-had in the early days of the colony been just that: a grouping somewhat low-key of the planet's syndics and governor-general which met at irregular intervals to discuss any problems and map out the general direction they hoped the colony would grow in. As the population increased and beachheads were established on two other worlds, the

Council grew in both size and political weight, following the basic pattern of the distant Dominion of Man. But unlike the Dominion, this outpost of humanity numbered nearly three thousand Cobras among its half-million people. The resulting inevitable diffusion of political power had had a definite impact on the Council's makeup. The rank of governor had been added between the syndic and governor-general levels, blunting the pinnacle of power just a bit; and at all levels of government the Cobras with their double vote were well represented.

Corwin didn't really question the political philosophy which had produced this modification of Dominion structure; but from a purely utilitarian point of view he often found the sheer size of the 75-member Council unwieldy.

Today, though, at least for the first hour, things went smoothly. Most of the discussion-including the points Corwin raised-focused on older issues which had already had the initial polemics thoroughly wrung out of them. A handful were officially given resolution, the rest returned to the members for more analysis, consideration, or simple foot-dragging; and as the agenda wound down it began to look as if the meeting might actually let out early And then Governor-General

Brom Stiggur dropped a pocket planet-wrecker into the room.

It began with an old issue. "You'll remember the report of two years ago," he said, looking around the room, "in which the Farsearch team concluded that, aside from our three present worlds, no planets exist within at least a

20-light-year radius of Aventine that we could expand to in the future. It was agreed at the time that our current state of population and development hardly required an immediate resolution of this long-term problem."

Corwin sat a bit straighter in his seat, sensing similar reactions around him.

Stiggur's words were neutral enough, but something explosive seemed to be hiding beneath the carefully controlled inflections of his voice.

"However," the other continued, "in the past few days something new has come to light, something which I felt should be presented immediately to this body, before even any follow-up studies were initiated." Glancing at the Cobra guard standing by the door, Stiggur nodded. The man nodded in turn and opened the panel... and a single Troft walked in.

A faint murmur of surprise rippled its way around the room, and Corwin felt himself tense involuntarily as the alien made its way to Stiggur's side. The

Trofts had been the Worlds' trading partner for nearly 14 years now, but Corwin still remembered vividly the undercurrent of fear that he'd grown up with. Most of the Council had even stronger memories than that: the Troft occupation of the

Dominion worlds Silvern and Adirondack had occurred only 43 years ago, ultimately becoming the impetus for the original Cobra project. It was no accident that most of the people who now dealt physically with the Troft traders were in their early twenties. Only the younger Aventinians could face the aliens without wincing.

The Troft paused at the edge of the table, waiting as the Council members dug out translator-link earphones and inserted them. One or two of the younger syndics didn't bother, and Corwin felt a flicker of jealousy as he adjusted his own earphone to low volume. He'd taken the same number of courses in catertalk as they had, but it was obvious that foreign language comprehension wasn't even close to being his forte.

"Men and women of the Cobra Worlds Council," the earphone murmured to him. "I am

Speaker One of the Tlos'khin'fahi demesne of the Troft Assemblage." The alien's high-pitched catertalk continued for a second beyond the translation; both races had early on decided that the first three parasyllables of Troft demesne titles were more than adequate for human use, and that a literal transcription of the aliens' proper names was a waste of effort. "The Tlos'khin'fahi demesne-lord has sent your own demesne-lord's request for data to the other parts of the

Assemblage and the result has been a triad offer from the Pua'lanek'zia and

Baliu'ckha'spmi demesnes."

Corwin grimaced. He'd never liked deals involving two or more Troft demesnes, both because of the delicate political balance the Worlds often had to strike and because the humans never heard much about the Troft-Troft arm of such bargains. That arm had to exist-the individual demesnes seldom if ever gave anything away to each other.

The same line of thought appeared to have tracked its way elsewhere through the room. "You speak of a triad, instead of a quad offer," Governor Dylan Fairleigh spoke up. "What part does the Tlos'khin'fahi demesne expect to play?"

"My demense-lord chooses the role of catalyst," was the prompt reply. "No fee will be forthcoming for our role." The Troft fingered something on his abdomen sash and Corwin's display lit up with a map showing the near half of the Troft

Assemblage. Off on one edge three stars began blinking red. "The Cobra Worlds," the alien unnecessarily identified them. A quarter of the way around the bulge a single star, also outside Troft territory, flashed green. "The world named

Qasama by its natives. They are described by the Baliu'ckha'spmi demesne-lord as an alien race of great potential danger to the Assemblage. Here-" a vague-edged sphere appeared at the near side of the flashing green star-"somewhere, is a tight cluster of five worlds capable of supporting human life. The Pua'lanek'zia demesne-lord will give you their location and an Assemblage pledge of human possession if your Cobras will undertake to eliminate the threat of Qasama. I will await your decision."