Trehearne obeyed. The pale eyes, harsh and keen as an old eagle's,
probed into him, weighing, judging. Trehearne stood and waited. He said
nothing. There was nothing more to say.
"Vardda blood," Joris muttered to himself. "Unmistakable. And he wants
to fly the stars." He asked abruptly, "Were you a foundling?"
"No," said Trehearne. And then he added slowly, "But I might just as
well have been."
Joris turned away, his brows drawn and brooding, his head and shoulders
massive against the background of burning sky. "How old are you?"
"Thirty-three, in Earth years."
Still with his back to Trehearne, Joris spoke. "I think I see a way.
Whether it will work or not, I don't know. The Council convenes again
in five days, at which time I'll be required to make my report on you,
and I'll do what I can. Meanwhile, you'll have to go where I tell you
and stay there without any fuss. Is that clear?"
"Yes." The pulse of hope had begun to beat again.
"Good. And Trehearne--"
"Yes?"
"If things turn out all right, you _will_ fly the stars!"
It was a threat as much as a promise.
Thirty minutes later, after a journey under guard in a sublevel tubecar
that left him in complete ignorance of his whereabouts, Trehearne was
conducted into a square neat cubicle, comfortable in all respects but
none the less a prison cell. The magnetic lock clicked behind him and
he was alone.
There were no windows. He did not even know whether he was above or
below ground. There was neither day nor night nor time. He paced the
narrow floor and ate the unfamiliar food delivered to him automatically
through a slot in the wall, and tried to sleep. He smoked the last of
his hoarded cigarettes and thought of Earth and the distances between
the suns. He hoped and hope became gradually a grim despair.
No one came. Shairn had forgotten him. Edri's friendship had turned
feeble at the last. The trap that Joris had set for him became more
obvious with each passing hour. He hated them all. He raged and waited
and remembered the old man's words--_You can be put away so quickly and
quietly that no one will ever hear of you._
This was his landing on Llyrdis, the fruit of his journey across the
star-shot universe. This was the end of his dream.
He ceased to rage.
There came a time when he awoke sharply from uneasy sleep to hear the
low click of the lock and a soft slurred step on the floor, coming
toward him. He sprang up, and saw that it was Shairn. She cried out,
"_Michael!_" and her words came to him with a sound of unreality, like
the voices heard through fever.
"It's all over, Michael--and you're free!"