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!"