“Hm-m-m…perhaps. I shall have to think.” Hirn walked off, across the great tilted block on which the party stood to its edge where he stopped and looked down into the shadows below. They were deep and knife sharp. The mingled light of red and blue suns, stars, starfog played eerie across the stone land. Laure grew aware of what strangeness and what silence—under the hiss in his ears—pressed in on him.

Graydal must have felt the same, for she edged until their armors clinked together. He would have liked to see her face. She said: “Do you truly believe we can enter that realm and conquer it?”

“I don’t know,’” he said, slow and blunt. “The sheer number of stars may beat us.”

“A large enough fleet could search them, one by one.”

“If it could navigate. We have yet to find out whether that’s possible.”

“Suppose. Did you guess a quarter million suns in the cluster? Not all are like ours. Not even a majority. On the other coin side with visibility as low as it is, space must be searched back and forth, light-year by light-year. We of Makt could die of eld before a single vessel chanced on Kirkasant.”

“I’m afraid that’s true.”

“Yet an adequate number of ships, dividing the task, could find our home in a year or two.”

“That would be unattainably expensive, Graydal.”

He thought he sensed her stiffening. “I’ve come on this before,” she said coldly, withdrawing from his touch. “In your Commonalty they count the cost and the profit first. Honor, adventure, simple charity must run a poor second.”

“Be reasonable,” he said. “Cost represents labor skill and resources. The gigantic fleet that would go looking for Kirkasant must be diverted from other jobs. Other people would suffer need as a result. Some might suffer sharply.”

“Do you mean a civilization as big, as productive as yours could not spare that much effort for a while without risking disaster?”

She’s quick on the uptake, Laure thought. Knowing what machine technology can do on her single impoverished world, she can well guess what it’s capable of with millions of planets to draw on. But how can I make her realize that matters aren’t that simple?”

“Please, Graydal,” he said. “Won’t you believe I’m working for you? I’ve come this far, and I’ll go as much farther as need be, if something doesn’t kill us.”

He heard her gulp. “Yes. I offer apology. You are different.”

“Not really. I’m a typical Commonalty member. Later maybe, I can show you how our civilization works and what an odd problem in political economy we’ve got if Kirkasant is to be rediscovered. But first we have to establish that locating it is physically possible. We have to make long-term observations from here, and then enter those mists, and—One trouble at a time, I beg you!”

She laughed gently. “Indeed, my friend. And you will find a way.” The mirth faded. It had never been strong. “Won’t you?” The reflection of clouded stars glistened on her faceplate like tears.