s help Miellyn managed, and while they were
out of the room Rakhal explained briefly. "Rindy has rudimentary ESP.
I've never had it myself, but I could teach her something--not
much--about how to use it. I've been on Evarin's track ever since that
business of The Lisse.

"I'd have got it sooner, if you were still working with me, but I
couldn't do anything as a Terran agent, and I had to be kicked out so
thoroughly that the others wouldn't be afraid I was still working
secretly for Terra. For a long time I was just chasing rumors, but when
Rindy got big enough to look in the crystals of Nebran, I started making
some progress.

"I was afraid to tell Juli; her best safety was the fact that she didn't
know anything. She's always been a stranger in the Dry-towns." He
paused, then said with honest self-evaluation, "Since I left the Secret
Service I've been a stranger there myself."

I asked, "What about Dallisa?"

"Twins have some ESP to each other. I knew Miellyn had gone to the
Toymaker. I tried to get Dallisa to find out where Miellyn had gone,
learn more about it. Dallisa wouldn't risk it, but Kyral saw me with
Dallisa and thought it was Miellyn. That put him on my tail, too, and I
had to leave Shainsa. I was afraid of Kyral," he added soberly. "Afraid
of what he'd do. I couldn't do anything without Rindy and I knew if I
told Juli what I was doing, she'd take Rindy away into the Terran Zone,
and I'd be as good as dead."

As he talked, I began to realize how vast a web Evarin and the
underground organization of Nebran had spread for us. "Evarin was here
today. What for?"

Rakhal laughed mirthlessly. "He's been trying to get us to kill each
other off. That would get rid of us both. He wants to turn over Wolf to
the nonhumans entirely, I think he's sincere enough, but"--he spread his
hands helplessly--"I can't sit by and see it."

I asked point-blank, "Are you working for Terra? Or for the Dry-towns?
Or any of the anti-Terran movements?"

"I'm working for _me_", he said with a shrug. "I don't think much of the
Terran Empire, but one planet can't fight a galaxy. Race, I want just
one thing. I want the Dry-towns and the rest of Wolf, to have a voice in
their own government. Any planet which makes a substantial contribution
to galactic science, by the laws of the Terran Empire, is automatically
given the status of an independent commonwealth.

"If a man from the Dry-towns discovers something like a matter
transmitt