The whispering wind danced around Dok, shimmering and singing. He listened raptly, then licked his lips and joined the music, singing a duet. Jean-Claude did not understand the words, but the voice on the wind was female, and the song was a sweet one.

The rusty gears in Jean-Claude’s head turned as understanding dawned. He watched the spiraling wind as Dok picked up the song and sang another verse after the last had ended. Tears stood in his eyes.

At last the shimmering thread of wind raced away again. Jean-Claude pulled out his compass and checked its bearing. The departing strain of music headed north.

“Who was that?” Jean-Claude asked.

Dok twitched around as if he hadn’t known Jean-Claude was standing there. “That’s Solo Aria.”

“The one you sent to Om?” Jean-Claude asked. “That sounded a bit more passionate than your ordinary political briefing.”

Dok made a snaggletoothed grin and said, “She’s also me wife. Best singer in the Deep Sky.”

“Truly?” Jean-Claude asked. “Funny, Djordji never pointed that out.”

“That’s because it’s no way yer business,” Dok said. “Jackhand knew that.”

“That’s because he thought she was in Om, talking to the Omnifex,” Jean-Claude said, “but she isn’t.” He made a show of looking at his compass. “Your whispering wind flew off that way, which, unless the world has turned upside down, is pretty close to due north. So unless I miss my guess, she’s still on the Craton Auroborea.”

Dok hid for a moment behind an unconvincing smile, but at last he said, “She stays behind to fend off bugs while the rest of us escapes.”

Jean-Claude was impressed by this enormous boondoggle; he would have undertaken no less for Isabelle. Yet that did not make Dok trustworthy. “If you love this woman, why have you never mentioned her before?” Did Gyrine even know how to love, or was this just part of some greater connivance?

Dok’s lip curled. “Because I don’t imagine yer dirtborn roi or yer reine or whatever gilt-ridden backside sits the royal stool means to keep the bargain they makes with me. Oh sure, they gets their path to the craton, but they finds a way to keep the treasure too. I has no desire to give them another cudgel to bludgeon me with.”

Jean-Claude very nearly pitied the man. There was no doubt politics was a treacherous business, but Sireen was no fool, and she had more reasons for wanting to keep the bargain than to betray it.

Jean-Claude dug deeper into this vein of truth ere it petered out. “So you made up this whole idea of lifting the anathema as cover for your rescue attempt.”

“Nay,” Dok said. “Lifting the anathema is no lie. It be the original plan, Aria’s plan. It be why we takes Lael to find the Conquest. We means to secure the treasure and make our offer, but the swarm cut us short, see?”