He went on, a drunken man, not talking to Trehearne now but to himself, to the wind and the casual moons and a world that had turned bitter around him. "Arrin worked. All his life he worked, like a lot of men before him. He searched the records, the closed files that nobody is allowed to look at, and then they caught him. He never found what he was looking for, but he might have. A little more time, and he might have!" He looked up into the sky, the empty sky that stretched away to the rim of the universe. "Somewhere out there Orthis sits in his ship and waits--waits to be found again. But where? That's it, the question no one has answered in a thousand years. Where?" He turned aside and was abruptly, violently sick. Trehearne waited. After Edri muttered, "It's curious, the things a man will say when he's drunk." "I don't know," Trehearne said. "I didn't hear anything." "Don't ever hear anything, for your sake as well as mine." He managed a smile. "Thanks. I'm all right now. I'm going on home." He walked away slowly, and Trehearne went back to the others. He had sobered up a bit himself, and some of the magic had gone out of the evening. He was worried about Edri. Shairn looked up at him, heavy-eyed. "You were gone so long, Michael." "Holding Edri's head." Kerrel was still there. A sour mood seemed to have come over everyone. Joris sat with his head hanging forward. His eyes were open, staring moodily into the spilled wine, but he was obviously on the verge of passing out. Shairn had torn to bits the pale flowers in her lap, scattering them on the grass. No one was talking. Kerrel had not touched the wine. He was looking at Shairn, just sitting still and looking at her. Trehearne said to him, "You haven't given up, have you?" "No." "He only thinks he hasn't," Shairn said angrily. She rose and stood in front of Kerrel. "What is it you just can't bear to give up--me, or my thirty ships?" Kerrel got up. He lifted his hand and slapped her hard across the cheek. There was a second when no one moved, when Shairn's eyes blazed wider and wider, and then Trehearne thrust her aside and moved in. Kerrel was stony sober and his reflexes were fast. The next thing Trehearne saw, through a ringing haze, was Kerrel walking away, leaving small sharp scars in the turf where his heels had cut in. "No," said Shairn. "Not this time, Michael. Let him go." His head hurt. The wine was turning on him, and he felt ashamed. He wanted to kill Kerrel, and he couldn't. Shairn said uneasily, "I'm not mad. That's funny, Michael. I'm not mad at all, I'm scared." "Why?" "Him." She nodded after the dark figure receding among the trees. "He'd never hurt you." "Not directly. It's you I'm thinking of. He won't let you go. He was warning me. He can't let you go, and it isn't only because of me, or his pride. I've left him before, but this is different. You're different. He knows we lied to the Council." "What can he do?"