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this female. They go into my keeping.
Morioch flushed and well-nigh roared: The datholch forgets that Flandry worked tail-entwined with
Abrams to thwart the Protector!
Ydwyr lifted a hand, palm down, and chopped it across his breast. Flandry sucked in a breath. That
gesture was seldom used, and never by those who did not have the hereditary right. Morioch swallowed,
bent head above folded hands, and muttered, I beg the datholch s forgiveness. Merseians didn t often
beg, either.
Granted, Ydwyr said. Dismissed.
Kh-h thedatholch understands I must report this to headquarters with what recommendations my duty
demands I make?
Certainly.I shall be sending messages of my own. No censure will be in them. Ydwyr s hauteur
vanished. Though his smile was not a man s, but only pulled the upper lip back off the teeth, Flandry
recognized friendliness. Hunt well, Morioch Sun-in-eye.
Ithank and wish a good hunt to you. Morioch rose, saluted, and left.
Outside, the sky had gone altogether black. Lightning flamed, thunder bawled, wind yammered behind
galloping sheets of rain, whose drops smoked back off the ground. Djana fell into Flandry s arms; they
upheld each other.
Releasing her, he turned to Ydwyr and made the best Merseian salute of honor which a human could.
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The datholch is thanked with my whole spirit, he said in Eriau.
Ydwyr smiled anew. The overhead fluoropanel, automatically brightening as the storm deepened, made
the room into a warm little cave. (Or a cool one; that rain was not far below its boiling point.) The folds in
his robe showed him relaxing. Be seated if you desire, he invited.
The humans were quick to accept, lowering themselves to the rubbery floor and leaning back against a
cabinet. Their knees were grateful. To be sure, there was a psychological drawback; now Ydwyr
loomed over them like a heathen god.
But I m not going to be drugged, brainscrubbed, or shot. Not today.
Maybe maybe, eventually, an exchange deal
Ydwyr had returned to dignified impassivity. I mustn t keep him waiting. Strength seeped back into
Flandry s cells. He said, May I ask the datholch to tell me his standing, in order that I can try to show
him his due honor?
We set most ritual aside of necessity in my group here, the Merseian answered. But I am
surprised that one who speaks Eriau fluently and has been on our home planet has not encountered the
term before.
The uh, the datholch may I inform the datholch, his language was crammed into me in tearing haste;
my stay on his delightful world was brief; and what I was taught at the Academy dealt mainly
with uh
I told you the simple forms of respect will do on most occasions. Ydwyr s smile turned downward this
time, betokening a degree of grimness. And I know how you decided not to end your sentence. Your
education dealt with us primarily as military opponents. He sighed. Khraich, I don t fear the tactless
truth. We Merseians have plenty of equivalents of you, the God knows. It s regrettable but inevitable, till
your government changes its policies. I bear no personal animosity, Lieutenant Dominic Flandry. I far
prefer friendship, and hope a measure of it may take root between us while we are together.
As for your question, datholch is a civilian rather than a military rank. He did not speak in exact
equivalents, for Merseia separated civilian and military differently from Terra, and less clearly; but
Flandry got the idea. It designates an aristocrat who heads an enterprise concerned with expanding the
Race s frontier. (Frontier of knowledge, trade, influence, territory, or what? He didn t say, and quite
likely it didn t occur to him that there was any distinction.) As for my standing, I belong to the Vach
Urdiolch and he stood up and touched his brow while he finished it is my high honor that a brother
of my late noble father is, in the glory of the God, Almighty Roidhun of Merseia, the Race, and all
holdings, dominions, and subordinates of the Race.
Flandry scrambled to his feet and yanked Djana to hers. Salute! he hissed in her ear, in Anglic. Like
me! This chap s a nephew of their grand panjandrum!
Who might or might not be a figurehead, depending on the circumstances of his reign and surely, that
he was always elected from among the Urdiolchs, by the Hands of the Vachs and the heads of Merseian
states organized otherwise than the anciently dominant culture from among the Urdiolchs, the only
landless Vach surely this was in part a check on his powers but surely, too, the harshest, most
dictatorial Protector regarded his Roidhun with something of the same awe and pride that inspired the
lowliest foot or tail for the Roidhun stood for the God, the unity, and the hope of the warrior
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people Flandry s mind swirled close to chaos before he brought it under control.
Be at ease. Ydwyr reseated himself and gestured the humans to do likewise. I myself am nothing but
a scientist. He leaned forward. Of course, I served my time in the Navy, and continue to hold a reserve
commission; but my interests are xenological. This is essentially a research station. Talwin was discovered
by accident about uh-h-h-h fifteen Terran years ago. Astronomers had noted an unusual type of
pulsar in this vicinity: extremely old, close to extinction. A team of physicists went for a look. On the way
back, taking routine observations as they traveled, they detected the unique orbital scramble around
Siekh and investigated it too.
Flandry thought sadly that humans might well have visited that pulsar in early days it was undoubtedly
noted in the pilot s data for these parts, rare objects being navigationally useful but that none of his folk
in the present era would venture almost to the ramparts of a hostile realm just to satisfy their curiosity.
Ydwyr was proceeding: When I learned about Tal-win s extraordinary natives, I decided they must be
studied, however awkwardly near your borders this starlies .
Flandry could imagine the disputes and wire-pullings that had gone on, and the compromise which finally
was reached, that Talwin should also be an advanced base for keeping an eye on the Terrans. No large
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