o
take on recognizable patterns, the disappearance of a toy-seller; Juli's
hysterical babbling; the way the girl--Miellyn?--had vanished into a
shrine of Nebran; and the taunts of Dallisa and the old man about a
mysterious "Toymaker." And something, some random joggling of a memory,
in that eerie trading in the city of the Silent Ones. I knew all these
things fitted together somehow, but I had no real hope that Dallisa
could complete their pattern for me.

She said, with a vehemence that startled me, "Miellyn is only the
excuse! Kyral hates Rakhal because Rakhal will compromise and because
he'll fight!"

She rolled over and pressed herself against me in the darkness. Her
voice trembled. "Race, our world is dying. We can't stand against Terra.
And there are other things, worse things."

I sat up, surprised to find myself defending Terra to this girl. After
all these years I was back in my own world. And yet I heard myself say
quietly, "The Terrans aren't exploiting Wolf. We haven't abolished the
rule of Shainsa. We've changed nothing."

It was true. Terra held Wolf by compact, not conquest. They paid, and
paid generously, for the lease of the lands where their Trade Cities
would rise, and stepped beyond them only when invited to do so.

"We let any city or state that wants to keep its independence govern
itself until it collapses, Dallisa. And they do collapse after a
generation or so. Very few primitive planets can hold out against us.
The people themselves get tired of living under feudal or theocratic
systems, and they beg to be taken into the Empire. That's all."

"But that's just it," Dallisa argued. "You give the people all those
things we used to give them, and you do it better. Just by being here,
you are killing the Dry-towns. They're turning to you and leaving us,
and you let them do it."

I shook my head. "We've kept the Terran Peace for centuries. What do you
expect? Should we give you arms, planes, bombs, weapons to hold your
slaves down?"

"Yes!" she flared at me. "The Dry-towns have ruled Wolf
since--since--you, you can't even imagine how long! And we made compact
with you to trade here--"

"And we have rewarded you by leaving you untouched," I said quietly.
"But we have not forbidden the Dry-towns to come into the Empire and
work with Terra."

She said bitterly, "Men like Kyral will die first," and pressed her face
helplessly against me. "And I will die with them. Miellyn broke away,
but I c