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Fuego turned to face him. "Why?"

"Because. You know that just before he went, he sat me down and lied to me. Sevit wasn't even on Reshebora at the time--the holo they showed Adelaide proves it. Efirr knew it."

Fuego grinned. "His extreme confession... True to form, eh?"

"They made him do it, hoping we'd fall apart if we thought Sevit was dead. How could they make him lie? It's obvious, they could make him do anything because they had Sevit. Efirr couldn't bargain, even with his life. He was forfeit."

"That was his own fault. He was a double agent."

"You know how they recruit people like Efirr. He told me himself. Two men came, a good guy and a bad guy. The bad guy threatens Sevit, the good guy offers the spy deal. Efirr starts writing reports about Sevit's activities. He leaves out everything dangerous. They threaten. He compromises someone else to satisfy them. Pretty soon they have him reporting on everybody. He said, 'At first I was protecting everyone, then I was protecting Sevit, and finally I was protecting no one at all.' Sure, he dug his own grave. Who doesn't? But he was buried alive in it."

Fuego reddened with anger. "So you want me to forgive, but the best you can do is pity him. He should have told his good guy and his bad guy to go to hell."

"That's what you'd have done, and they'd get somebody else," Clark snapped. "He took a risk and tried to foil them. You hate him because he failed."

Fuego hit the door opener so hard the double panes rang against one another. "Why are we always talking aobut Efirr Nije?" he roared as they entered the control room.

Holy Huey, seated at a gage-eye, regarded him blandly. "I believe you are the first to mention that name," he said.

"Clark, you should be resting," Luz put in. She sat at the ship's library, a headset stretched over her forehead and one ear. She is big, Clark thought. She's bigger than Tiyar. I hadn't noticed.

Huey chuckled. "Fuego's gotten our fellow passenger holy. Just a euph or two. He seemed a trifle downcast."

"You should have asked me whether I wanted them," Clark said.

Huey ignored the comment. He moved to the com console behind him. "I'm raising Guapo now. Any requests?"

Paula was sitting on a heap of crates with her feet propped against the central table that took up most of the room. "Yes. Seed potatoes."

"What is that?" Huey asked.

"Potatoes. They're plants. I want to get people to grow them on Paffir Haretz. Didn't you say--?" She turned to Clark.

"Right, they don't grow them there. It's a good idea."

"Tell us the idea," Fuego said.

"I want to introduce them," Paula replied. "They're not hard to grow, you can almost live on them, and they sell for practically nothing on the interplanetary market because of transport costs. People can raise them in self-sufficiency. Whatever the foreign grain system is, they'll undermine it."

"Done. Potatoes, seed," Huey said, making a notation. A flurry of characters appeared on the screen before him. "What kind?"

"I don't know. Luz, call up that rainfall pattern again."

"I don't think that one's accurate...they must be doing something with the clouds to make the vegetation so strange..." The headset muffled Luz's comments.

"Have you found out about Paffir Haretz?" Clark asked.

Huey waved his hand. "Consult my map."

Clark brushed scraps of tape and paper off the table to reveal a hand-drawn map labeled "Paffir Haretz."

"How old is this?" he asked.

Huey shrugged. "I started it about a year ago."

"It's yours? But Greyesar said nobody knows--"

"That twit." Huey rolled his eyes.

Clark studied the map. It showed two continents, both in the temperate region. The smaller was unmapped. In the larger was a central plain marked, "Agriculture," bordered to the north and west by mountains. From west to east flowed a river Clark guessed to be the Lir, once a major commercial artery, but now unused, so contaminated during the Eyimalian conquest that in some spectra it glowed.

Clark pointed to the Lir's mouth. "The old cities were around here." He noticed a small "X" near the river's origin in the western hills. "What's this?"

"Cliffs," Huey said. "The Viyato-- or more accurately, the Ketry family-- maintain a landing area at the top. I believe there's a city below."

"A city."

"The Ketry's Outlander chums, presumably their agents, begin their annual run through the countryside there. All nicely organized. Takes a few weeks at most."

"What do they do?"

"Extort grain. And other incidentals, including Love's Arrow."

"You know that? Greyesar told us nobody knows what goes on there."

Huey smiled. "When that jackass talks about himself, he says, 'everybody.' Pay him no mind, hm? In essence, the Ketries use Paffir Haretz as a grain factory. Clever little system. The land is its raw material and the people its machinery. I believe they toy with the weather as well... unfortunately for my analogy. Yes, an area where the machinery has failed to operate is currently undergoing droughts. Rather like giving the clogged flue a kick, isn't it? I imagine the Viyatos help out with a touch of religious balm where needed."

"And Love's Arrow?" Tiyar broke in.

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CONTINUE.....................

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INDEX