Makvern smiled faintly. "Probably," he said, "because that's exactly what we are. Uryx is still a young empire. I imagine you have learned on Earth how empires grow--starting from a small weak poverty-ridden state fighting for its existence and becoming, by the process of eating its neighbors, a tremendous power able to conquer everything in sight. When it does this it wants to gorge itself on all the things it never had before." He made a sweeping gesture. "Wealth, beauty, techniques, cultures, knowledge, everything under a thousand suns that can enrich or entertain us. We are still in this stage of acquisitiveness." Wyatt grunted. "That all sounds very philosophic, but it still doesn't make you anything but bandits." "When we join the main fleet," said Makvern, refusing to be angered, "you can take that up with Varsek." "Varsek?" "Commander in Chief of the Task Force. The--ah--Boss, I think you would say." "I'll be glad to take it up with him," Wyatt said. "And if he thinks he's going to get any help from me, he's wrong." He looked up at Makvern and he said suddenly, "You deliberately gave me a chance at that communic room, didn't you?" "Did I?" "Yes. You didn't have to show it to me, you must have known what was in my mind. But you had no intention of letting me get a message off to Earth. You shammed unconsciousness till it looked like I might make it, and then you came to and stopped me." "Why would I do a thing like that?" Makvern asked calmly. "Why, indeed? That's what I'm asking." Makvern said, "Perhaps I was testing you to find out something, Wyatt. Let me ask you a question in return. Why did you let Brinna capture you so easily?" "What do you mean, easily?" "You had a weapon. Yet you didn't use it on Brinna. Why?" Wyatt became instantly wary and on guard. Makvern, then, suspected the arrangement between Brinna and himself, suspected Brinna of a double-cross? He'd better be careful. He said, "What's this about Brinna? To me, she's just a female wildcat that dropped out of the sky." "She is what you would call very high brass," Makvern said. "A high officer of the Task Force, completely trusted by Commander Varsek." Had Makvern faintly emphasized the word "trusted"? Wyatt wasn't sure. He was only sure now that some devil's broth of intrigue went on in the immense Task Force that followed its looting voyage through the galactic suns, and that he, Wyatt, was less than the smallest pawn in the hidden game. "I wouldn't," said Makvern, "think too much of Brinna. She's beautiful, I know. But she's in love." Oddly, Wyatt felt a pang to hear that. "In love? With whom?" "With power," Makvern said grimly, and then the next moment the light in the cabin went blue and there was a vertiginous shock that made Wyatt feel as though he was falling, falling, everything gone from around him, plunging through abysses of darkness--