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had done, that Lunarian pres-sure in the House of Ethnoi had something to do with their patience. How
then could she convince him that violence was not in the soul of the Synesis or its cyber-cosm? It was
bad enough detaining whatever outlaws were captured. A Lunarian would often suicide before submitting
to correction; humane though the conditions were, several had anyway. But if the Inrai became a se-rious
threat and the authorities saw no alternative
"How free are you now?" Recalling her observation en route: "That life of yours out in the desert must
be pitifully limited."
"In its fashion," Elverir admitted, "and often short." Nature dust storms, rockslides, sand hells,
wandering lost, choking or freezing when biostats failed killed more than armed clashes did; but
however they died, no Inrai were left in revivable condition. He glowed. Yet, while it lasts, a full
aliveness!"
I didn't persuade him, she thought sickly.
Scorian relieved her: "At present your comrade is more useful where he is..If you would save him
from going wild, then work toward getting us our liberty."
"I don't understand," she said. "I've tried,'really I have, but I can't. What harm if you joined us? How
are we restricted or, or bossed or anything, except in a few reasonable ways people have to agree on if
they're going to live together like human beings?"
"Ever the cybercosm encroaches."
"Donrai, you speak as if it ruled the Solar System."
"Does it not? None are free save out on Proserpina and the comets and here, in this narrow space,
which is piece by piece gnawed from us."
"How? Hasn't the Synesis the Synesis, I say, not the cvbercosm but human civilization hasn't it
stayed its hand against you? In spite of some almighty insolent provocation, donrai!"
A tight-lipped smile crossed Scorian's countenance. The scar on his cheek writhed. "The spirit has
not been bleached out of you, at least, my lady. But as for inva-sions, to name only the latest, see
yonder." He waved a hand at that shadow on the horizon which was Pavonis Mons. The sun very low,
the peak seemed larger than before, black under a deepeningly red sky where dust streamers scudded.
"There, halfway to the summit, sits now a stronghold of the enemy's."
"What?" She was astonished. "Do you mean the Star Net Station? I know about it, of course. But
how can it possibly hurt you? Is it anything except wonderful?"
For a moment the vision danced and sang before her. The Star Net, astronomical instruments orbiting
from near the sun to out among the comets, linked by laser beams and electrophotonic minds, one vast
observer looking into the heart of the galaxy and toward the ut-termost ends of the universe and now
here, on her Mars, a part of it that was also a centrum to receive and store data, a hoard of marvels and
miracles
"It is theirs," Scorian said flatly, "built by them on Threedom land without leave of freeholder or
seigneur. A scientist has told me the reasons given for its construc-tion are feeble. It need not be where it
is to serve the research. One like it could as well have been raised else-where. What is it, then, save an
outpost and an outrage?''
"But nobody lives there."
"A robot does," Elverir said, "if you can call it alive."
His words appalled her. Was Scorian's bigotry so con-tagious, or had her friend soft-played his in
her presence all these years?
"Did the workers, machines, and materials fare over-land," the chief said, "we would have fought
them each centimeter of the way."
Kinna had heard that was the reason everything for the construction had traveled by air. At the time,
she was indignant bandits snapping at the heels of a sublime enterprise but today she began to catch
glimmerings of the opposite viewpoint. She didn't have to accept it to say, "Eyach, if a road had gone
through, with supply depots along it, you might have felt menaced."
"We would have destroyed it as it was being built. Could we only, we would destroy that thing on the
moun-tain."
"Oh, no!" she cried. "Please!"
"Have no fear," Elverir sighed. "Its fence and ma-chines guard it well."
"Someday," Scorian murmured, "we may try how well that is."
"But I tell you, I don't understand," Kinna protested. "Why are you angry? Why can't you make
peace? I know how easy that would be. My father's talked about it. Amnesty "
"Domestication," Elverir said.
"No! Are you a slave? Don't you live in Belgarre according to your own law, your own style? It'd be
the same for the Threedom."
"Yes, pet animals may scamper loose about a space-craft," Scorian jeered. "Bulkheads keep them
out of any place that matters. They have naught to say about where the ship is bound."
"What do you want, for plenum's sake?"
He spiked her with his gaze and answered remorse-lessly: "First, a Threedom sovereign throughout
Tharsis, allied with Proserpina." How much of this fury had been aroused by messages and messengers
from that world? "Later, a sovereign Mars." A Lunarian Mars. "At last, the Luna that was and is ours,
returned to our race." The irrendentism she had heard muttered spoke nakedly forth. "Is that overmuch?
Earth need never dread us." Con-tempt: "We are not interested in what Terrans call 'em-pire.' "
"But why?" Kinna asked in bewilderment. "What's the purpose? You talk about freedom as if you
had none this moment. What else would you do with ... that pre-cious sovereignty of yours?"
The room was growing dark. She imagined the specter of the nation-state walking in through the
wall, from the cold and unbreathable wind outside, followed by war and war and war.
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