"Be there soonest," I said, piling out without my customary growl. I grabbed clothing, stirred papers, silently mocked myself. How often did I doubt voting for the Captain himself? Yet when he wanted to resign, we did not let him.

My quarters look nothing like a physician's den. The walls are floor to ceiling with old books. I have read most, after having studied the languages in which they are written. Some are as old as the Company itself, recounting ancient histories. Some are noble genealogies, stolen from widely dispersed old temples and civil offices. The rarest, and most interesting, chronicle the rise and growth of the Domination.

The rarest of all are those in TelleKurre. The followers of the White Rose were not gentle victors. They burned books and cities, transported women and children, profaned ancient works of art and famous shrines. The customary afterglow of a great conflagration.

So there is little left to key one into the languages and thinking and history of the losers. Some of the most plainly written documents I possess remain totally inaccessible.

How I wish Raven were with us still, instead of dwelling among the dead men. He had a passing familiarity with written TelleKurre. Few outside the Lady's intimate circle do.

Goblin stuck his head in. "You coming or not?"

I cried on his shoulder. It was the old lament. No progress. He laughed. "Go blow in your girlfriend's ear. She might help."

"When will you guys let up?" It had been fifteen years since I wrote my last simpleminded romance about the Lady. That was before the long retreat which led the Rebel to his doom before the Tower at Charm. They do not let you forget.

"Never, Croaker. Never. Who else has spent the night with her? Who else goes carpet-flying with her?"

I would rather forget. Those were times of terror, not romance.

She became aware of my annalistic endeavors and asked me to show her side. More or less. She did not censor or dictate, but did insist I remain factual and impartial. I recall thinking she expected defeat, wanted an unbiased history set down somewhere.

Goblin glanced at the mound of documents. "You can't get any handle on it?"

"I don't think there is a handle. Everything I do translate turns out a big nothing. Somebody's expense record. An appointment calendar. A promotions list. A letter from some officer to a friend at court. Everything way older than what I'm looking for."

Goblin raised an eyebrow.

"I'll keep on trying." There was something there. We took them from Whisper, when she was a Rebel. They meant a lot to her. And our mentor then, Soulcatcher, thought them of empire-toppling significance.

Thoughtfully, Goblin remarked, "Sometimes the whole is greater than the sum of its parts. Maybe you should look for what ties it all together."

The thought had occurred to me. A name here, there, elsewhere, revealing the wake of someone through his or her earlier days. Maybe I would find it. The comet would not return for a long time.