"There is no cause," said Biron. "There is no rebellion world. I have told you so already and I repeat it. Lingane was the center of revolt, and that has been checked. I was interested only in tracking down my father's murderer, the Lady Artemisia only in escaping an unwanted marriage. As for Gillbret, he is mad."

"Yet the Autarch believed in the existence of this mysterious planet. Surely he gave me the co-ordinates of something!"

"His belief is based on a madman's dream. Gillbret dreamed something twenty years ago. Using that as a basis, the Autarch calculated five possible planets as the site of this dream world. It is all nonsense."

The commissioner said, "And yet something disturbs me."

"What?"

"You are working so hard to persuade me. Surely I will find all this out for myself once I have made the Jump. Consider that it is not impossible that in desperation one of you might endanger the ship and the other save it as a complicated method for convincing me that I need look no further for the rebellion world. I would say to myself: If there were really such a world, young Farrill would have let the ship vaporize, for he is a young man and romantically capable of dying what he would consider a hero's death. Since he has risked his life to prevent that happening, Gillbret is mad, there is no rebellion world, and I will return without searching further. Am I too complicated for you?"

"No. I understand you."

"And since you have saved our lives, you will receive appropriate consideration in the Khan's court. You will have saved your life and your cause. No, young sir, I am not quite so ready to believe the obvious. We will still make the Jump."

"I have no objections," said Biron.

"You are cool," said Aratap. "It is a pity you were not born one of us."

He meant it as a compliment. He went on, "We'll take you back to your cell now, and replace the force field. A simple precaution."

Biron nodded.

The guard that Biron had knocked out was no longer there when they returned to the prison room, but the doctor was. He was bending over the still-unconscious form of Gillbret.

Aratap said, "Is he still under?"

At his voice the doctor jumped up. "The effects of the whip have worn off, Commissioner, but the man is not young and has been under a strain. I don't know if he will recover."

Biron felt horror fill him. He dropped to his knees, disregarding the wrenching pain, and reached out a hand to touch Gillbret's shoulder gently.

"Gil," he whispered. He watched the damp, white face, anxiously.

"Out of the way, man." The medical officer was scowling at him. He removed his black doctor's wallet from an inner pocket.

"At least the hypodermics aren't broken," he grumbled. He leaned over Gillbret, the hypodermic, filled with its colorless fluid, poised. It sank deep, and the plunger pressed inward automatically. The doctor tossed it aside and they waited.

Gillbret's eyes flickered, then opened. For a while they stared unseeingly. When he spoke finally, his voice was a whisper. "I can't see, Biron. I can't see."

Biron leaned close again. "It's all right, Oil. Just rest."

"I don't want to." He tried to struggle upright. "Biron, when are. they Jumping?"

"Soon, soon!"

"Stay with me, then. I don't want to die alone." His fingers clutched feebly, and then relaxed. His head lolled backward.

The doctor stooped, then straightened. "We were too late. He's dead."

Tears stung at Biron's eyelids. "I'm sorry, Oil," he said, "but you didn't know. You didn't understand." They didn't hear him.

They were hard hours for Biron. Aratap had refused to allow him to attend the ceremonies involved in the burial of a body at space. Somewhere in the ship, he knew, Gillbret's body would be blasted in an atomic furnace and then exhausted into space, where its atoms might mingle forever with the thin wisps of interstellar matter.

Artemisia and Hinrik would be there. Would they understand? Would she understand that he had done only what he had to do?

The doctor had injected the cartilaginous extract that would hasten the healing of Biron's tom ligaments, and already the pain in his knee was barely noticeable, but then that was only physical pain, anyway. It could be ignored.

He felt the inner disturbance that meant the ship had Jumped and then the worst time came.

Earlier he had felt his own analysis to be correct. It had to be. But what if he were wrong? What if they were now at the very heart of rebellion? The information would go streaking back to Tyrann and the armada would gather. And he himself would die knowing that he might have saved the rebellion, but had risked death to ruin it.

It was during that dark time that he thought of the document again. The document he had once failed to get.

Strange the way the notion of the document came and went. It would be mentioned, and then forgotten. There was a mad, intensive search for the rebellion world and yet no search at all for the mysterious vanished document.

Was the emphasis being misplaced?

It occurred to Biron then that Aratap was willing to come upon the rebellion world with a single ship. What was that confidence he had? Could he dare a planet with a ship?

The Autarch had said the document had vanished years before, but then who had it?

The Tyranni, perhaps. They might have a document the secret of which would allow one ship to destroy a world.

If that were true, what did it matter where the rebellion world was, or if it existed at all.

Time passed and then Aratap entered. Biron rose to his feet.

Aratap said, "We have reached the star in question. There is a star there. The co-ordinates given us by the Autarch were correct."

"Well?"

"But there is no need to inspect it for planets. The star, I am told by my astrogators, was a nova less than a million years ago. If it had planets then, they were destroyed. It is a white dwarf now. It can have no planets."

Biron stared. "Then-"

Aratap said, "So you are right. There is no rebellion world."

Twenty-Two: There!

All of Aratap's philosophy could not completely wipe out the feeling of regret within him. For a while he had not been himself, but his father over again. He, too, these last weeks had been leading a squadron of ships against the enemies of the Khan.

But these were degenerate days, and where there might have been a rebellion world, there was none. There were no enemies of the Khan after all; no worlds to gain. He remained only a Commissioner, still condemned to the soothing of little troubles. No more.

Yet regret was a useless emotion. It accomplished nothing.

He said, "So you are right. There is no rebellion world."

He sat down and motioned Biron into a seat as well. "I want to talk to you."

The young man was staring solemnly at him, and Aratap found himself gently amazed that they had met first less than a month ago. The boy was older now, far more than a month older, and he had lost his fear. Aratap thought to himself, I am growing completely decadent. How many of us are beginning to like individuals among our subjects? How many of us wish them well?

He said, "I am going to release the Director and his daughter. Naturally, it is the politically intelligent thing to do. In fact, it is politically inevitable. I think, though, that I will release them now and send them back on the Remorseless. Would you care to pilot them?"

Biron said, "Are you freeing me?"

"Yes."

"Why?"

"You saved my ship, and my life as well."

"I doubt that personal gratitude would influence your actions in matters of state."

Aratap was within a hair of laughing outright. He did like the boy. "Then I'll give you another reason. As long as I was tracking a giant conspiracy against the Khan, you were dangerous. When that giant conspiracy failed to materialize, when all I had was a Linganian cabal of which the leader is dead: you were no longer dangerous. In fact, it would be dangerous to try either you or the Linganian captives.