“I trust you,” said Ian. His eyes were gleaming pale as the scar in the dimness and he was very close to that Dorsai violence of emotion that was at once so cold and so deadly. “I have two boys now under this roof. But remember no men are perfect—even the Dorsai. There was Mahub Van Ghent only five years back, who dreamed about a little kingdom among the Dorsai in the Midland South—only five years ago, Eachan!” “He was on the other side of the world,” said Eachan. “And he’s dead now, at the hand of one of the Benali, his closest neighbor. His home is burnt and no man acknowledges himself a Van Ghent any more. What more do you want?”

“He should have been stopped sooner.”

“Each man has a right to his own destiny,” said Eachan, softly. “Until he crosses the line into another man’s. His family has suffered enough.”

“Yes,” said Ian. He was calming down. He poured himself another drink. “That’s true—that’s true. They’re not to blame.”

“About the Exotics—” said Mor, gently.

“Oh, yes,” answered Kensie, as if the twin brother that was so much a part of himself had never gotten excited at all. “Mara and Kultis—interesting worlds. Don’t mistake them if you ever go there, Mor—or you either, Donal. They’re sharp enough, for all their art and robes and trappings. They won’t fight themselves, but they know how to hire good men. There’s things being done on Mara and Kultis—and not only in the arts. Meet one of their psychologists, one time.”

“They’re honest,” said Eachan.

“That, too,” said Kensie. “But what catches at me is the fact they’re going some place, in their own way. If I had to pick one of the other worlds to be born on—”

“I would always be a soldier,” said Mor.

“You think so now,” said Kensie, and drank. “You think so now. But it’s a wild civilization, this year of our Lord, 2403, with its personality split a dozen different ways by a dozen different cultures. Less than five hundred years ago the average man never dreamed of getting his feet off the ground. And the farther we go the faster. And the faster the farther.”

“It’s the Venus group forcing that, isn’t it?” asked Donal, his youthful reticence all burnt away in the hot fumes of the whiskey.