C. Cherryh - Shon'jir

He was out of Stavros’ reach now, and able to think out­side that aura of confidentiality that so readily swept a man into Stavros' hands and still he found himself willing to sus­pend all his suspicions and take the lure, for it was all that he wanted, all that mattered to him.

Obsession, Stavros had called it.

He acknowledged that, and went

At Flower's duty desk in the morning, more messages waited, each from a department head waiting to see him. Duncan began to find himself uneasy. He postponed dealing with them, and descended first to the medical section, intent most of all on the mri, on assuring himself as he did daily, that they were well and as comfortable as possible under the circumstances most of all now, that no over-eager investiga­tor had decided to be beforehand with them, to finish or initi­ate some research before it could be forbidden.

But before he had more than passed the door into that sec­tion, Dr. Luiz hailed him; and he found himself diverted from the mri and hastened into an assembling conference of the various departments of Flower.

Being involved in the meeting irked him: he hated all such procedures. He was formally introduced to them, who had known him better as a specimen like the mri, himself the ob­ject of some of their researches when he had been dragged in off the desert half-alive, from where no human ought to have survived. He forced a smile to his face, and acknowledged the introductions, then leaned back in his chair and prepared himself for the tedium to come, long exchanges of data and quibblings over objectives and items of supply. He thought it deliberate, a petty administrative revenge that he be drawn into such proceedings, in which he had no knowledge and less interest. He sat surreptitiously studying the manners and faces of the other participants, listening to the petty debates and mentally marking down to be remembered the indications of jealousies and friendships that might be useful.

But the central matter did suddenly touch his interest: the news from the military wing that there were arrivals at the station. It troubled him, this piece of news, increasingly so as he listened. Probe ship Fox, along with the warship Hannibal and the rider Santiago, had returned from Gurgain, a world of the star Lyltagh, neighboring Arain, a mining colony of airless moons and rich deposits, only scantly developed by regul. New information was coming in, particularly of inter­est to the geologists: Flower was sending a crew up to Fox. Personnel were being shifted about, reallotted on new prior­ities; the mri project was losing some key personnel. Duncan, beginning to perceive the reorganization, felt uneasily that his authority might be sufficient to affect the transfers: he thought that he ought to say something, that he might be ex­pected to do something, to be well-informed in questions of staff and policies and Stavros' wishes. He was not.

He sat frowning while matters were arranged to the satis­faction of the existing powers of Flower, realizing miserably that he was inadequate for the position he had been given: that at the least he should have been taking notes for Stavros' benefit and he had done nothing, not aware until late what had happened, that a major portion of the directorates had dissolved about him, ill-content, it might be, with the governor's intervention in their researches: forces wishing to assert their independence of Stavros were aiming this at him, while Other departments looked hi vain for his support.

Academics and politics: he was not fit for either. He was conscious of the figure he cut among them, khaki amid their blue and white, a rough-handed soldier out of his element, a hated and ridiculous presence. They concluded their business in his angry silence and adjourned. A few lingered for per­functory courtesies with him; those bound for Fox pointedly ignored such amenities and walked out without acknowledg­ing his presence. He accepted what courtesies he was offered, still not knowing friend from «nemy, bitter in his ignorance. He was pleasant, having learned from Stavros to smile with­out meaning it.

But afterward, as he tried to leave, he found Lulz' hand on his shoulder, and Dr. Boaz of xenology smiling up at him with more than casual interest, Boaz a portly woman with the accent of Haven in her speech, her head crowned with gray-blonde braids.

"Stavros," said Boaz, "recalled you mentioned a mri shrine.”

He looked at them, this pair that already held the mri's ex­istence in their hands, the medical chief of staff and this smallish plump woman whose department held all the mri's possessions. Boaz' interest was naked in her eyes, scholarly lust. Her small department had survived the dissolution virtu­ally intact and capable of function, while Luiz' bio-medical staff had lost key personnel to the shift, angry medical person­nel choosing the more comfortable existence of the station, under the guise of setting up systems for further probe mis­sions.

Boaz and Luiz remained with Flower, and had come into positions of seniority in Flower's depleted staff.

And Luiz approved her. Duncan searched the surgeon's face, looked again at Boaz.

"I was at such a place," he admitted carefully. "I don't know whether it would be possible to find it again." "Let's talk in my office," said Boaz.

"SurTac Duncan," the page said for the second time. "You are wanted at the lock." The aircraft was waiting. It could wait. Duncan pressed a com button at a panel and leaned toward it. "Duncan here. Advise them I'm coming in a few minutes.”

He walked then, as he had been granted Luiz' free permis­sion to do, into the guarded section of the infirmary, no long­er there by a bending of regulations, but bearing a red badge that passed him to all areas of the ship but those on voice-lock. It was satisfying to see the difference in security's reac­tion to him, the quickness with which doors were opened to him.

And when he had come into Niun's room, the guard out­side turned his back, a privacy which he had not often en­joyed.

He touched the mri, bent and called his name, wishing for the latest time he had had other options. He had obtained a position of some power again; had recovered favor where it mattered; had fought with every deviousness he knew; but when he looked at the mri's thin, naked face, it felt not at all like triumph.

He wished that they would allow Niun covering for his face; the mri lived behind veils, a modest, proud people. Af­ter some days with him, Niun had finally felt easy enough in his presence to show him his face, and to speak to him directly, as a man to a man of like calling.

There is no other way for us, Niun had told him, refusing offered help, at a time when the mri had had the power to choose for himself. We either survive as we were, or we have failed to survive. We are mri; and that is more than the name of a species, Duncan. It is an old, old way. It is our way. And we will not change.

There were fewer and fewer options for them.

Only a friend, Duncan thought bitterly, could betray them with such thoroughness. He had determined they would sur­vive: their freedom would cost something else again; and that, too, he prepared to buy, another betrayal… things that the mri regarded as holy. In such coin he bought the co­operation of the likes of Boaz and Luiz; and wondered finally for whose sake he acted, whether Niun could even compre­hend his reasoning, or whether it was only selfishness that drove him.

"Niun," he urged him, wishing for some touch of recogni­tion, some reassurance for what he was doing. But Niun was far under this noon: there was no reaction to his name or to the touch on his arm.

He could not delay longer. He drew back, still hoping. There was nothing.

He had not expected a pilot: he had looked to fly himself. But when he climbed aboard he found the controls occupied by a sandy-haired man who bore Saber's designation of his sleeve. GALEY, the pocket patch said, LT.