"Yes. You see, Kerrel, I feel rather possessive about him. It's my
fault in a way he's here, and I'm going to look out for him, whether he
likes it or not."
"That's fine," Trehearne said. "That puts me right in the middle."
"You're there anyway. Isn't he, Kerrel?"
"Shairn, I don't wish to quarrel with you here--"
"I'm not going to quarrel. I'm only stating a fact. Michael has
developed into a very proper Vardda, and I don't intend to have him
tucked away on Thuvis until he's done something to warrant it."
Kerrel said, as though it were a statement and not a question, "You're
going to make an issue of this."
"I'm going to fight you for him. You need to be fought with, Kerrel.
You're getting too sure of practically everything."
He moved until he stood in front of her. Trehearne had never seen
anyone so angry, and so thoroughly under control. In that moment he
began to understand that Kerrel was a dangerous man. Shairn drew a deep
breath and threw her head back, and Trehearne knew that she had thought
about this for a long time, planning it, working it out, waiting for
the chance, and that she was happy about it. It wasn't himself and
whether he lived or died. He was only the convenient peg. This was
Kerrel and Shairn and a long situation.
Kerrel said, "I've taken a great deal from you, Shairn, but there's a
limit. I've reached it."
"I hoped you'd feel that way."
He stood looking at her, and she did not speak, meeting his gaze
steadily and with a queer kind of amusement. Finally Kerrel said, "I
wish you hadn't done it this way. Not for him. Not for a--"
"But Kerrel," she told him gently, "it had to be something like this,
or you wouldn't take no for an answer. I know. I've been trying for the
longest time."
Kerrel turned and went out. He said nothing more, and he did not even
glance at Trehearne as he passed him. Trehearne looked after him and
shivered.
"You've been a great help to me," he said bitterly to Shairn. "The
first time you didn't quite get me killed, but I believe now you're
going to make it."
"Kerrel isn't that important. All he can do is recommend, and he'd have
recommended Thuvis anyway." She laughed. "I feel wonderful. He was
really beginning to weigh on me."
"Congratulations. And what is Thuvis?"
"I'll show you." She searched along the wall racks until she found
the spool she wanted and clipped it into a viewer. "This is the
astro-manual for a sector of space that is fortunately very little
used. Here, have a look."
Trehearne bent over the magnilens. Equations were gliding slowly across
it to the whirring of the unwinding spool, coordinates of a position in
space.
"We have no capital punishment on Llyrdis," she said. "Matter of
fact, we have very few criminals. But such as there are are sent into
permanent exile, here."
She pressed a stud, and the whirring stopped. On the lens was the
picture of a dim red sun lost in a dark wilderness, with hardly a
distant star to break the desolation. Around it circled one lonely
planet, grey, forlorn, and hopeless.
After a long while Trehearne said, "But I'm not a criminal. They
couldn't--"
"They could judge you a danger to society, as they judge the Orthists.
Kerrel will do his best to put you there--as a matter of principle."
Dying star, and dying world, alone on the edge of nothing. Trehearne
looked at it. "What do they do there?"
"Nothing. They just wait."
"For what?"
He knew the answer before she told him. No more ships, no more
voyaging, nothing to look forward to but the only release there was.
Trehearne drew back from the viewer. Shairn smiled.
"Afraid?"
"Yes."
"I'm on your side."
"Are you? Or are you just using me to punish Kerrel, because he bores
you?"
"Don't you trust me?"
"No!"
"But there isn't much you can do about it, is there?"
"I guess not."
"Then you might as well make the best of it."