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By his gentle smile she saw that he knew.

“I couldn’t bear to see you killing yourself like that, in this climate.” He held out to her the glass goblet. “Ashgad’s never noticed any difference. I’ve brought you some holovids, too; imprisonment without them is only bearable if one is drugged.”

Leia studied the man’s face warily across the rim. “And what now?” she asked softly. “What happens to me while he’s gone? Or was that why he left, so that it wouldn’t be his fault?”

“No,” said Liegeus quickly, “no, of course not. He isn’t a bad man, my dear.”

“He is the worst kind of man.” Leia turned her face aside. The words, Death Seed, lay close to the tip of her tongue and she knew she must not say them, must not let even Liegeus know how much she knew. He might stand up to Beldorion for her sake, but she knew—she had seen—that he was unable to stand up to Dzym. And who could blame him for that?

He was like Greglik, she thought. She was fond of him, she pitied him, but she knew she could not trust him.

“No,” insisted the holo faker. “Ashgad …” He hesitated. “I understand what’s making him … do all of this. And it … I can’t explain.”

Her long dark braid whipped as she turned back to him, to meet the utter wretchedness of his gaze.

“I can’t,” he said. “But please, trust me.” Sitting beside her on the divan, he fumbled in the pocket of his lab smock, brought out a black cylinder half again the length of his palm and perhaps twice the thickness of his thumb. “This is for you,” he said. “I’ll have to have it back just before he returns, you understand.”

Leia turned it over in her hands. A comlink. Dedicated circuitry, at a guess—there wasn’t a keypad. Probably made of standard components, though. And old, like everything else on this planet. The new ones were half that size and you needed micron tools to work on them.

“I’ve changed the combination on the door pad,” Liegeus went on. He didn’t quite glance back over his shoulder, but almost. “He shouldn’t be able to get in here.” He didn’t say of whom they spoke—he didn’t need to. “He has no computer skills, he can’t … do that kind of thinking. Whatever he tells you, don’t let him in. If he tries to come in, or if he does manage to, somehow, use the comlink. I’ll only be moments away, in the …” He stopped himself—at a guess, from saying something that would reveal to her that there was a ship under construction on the premises. Why the secrecy about that? What part did it play in their plan? “In the other part of the house.”

He made a move to turn away, and Leia caught his sleeve. “Who is he?” she asked. “What is he?”

The dark eyes looked quickly away, and she saw the too-sensitive mouth flinch. “He is … what he is. He’s a native of this world …”

“There are no natives of this world.” Leia felt his hand cold under the grip of her fingers. “Before the Grissmaths started shipping political prisoners here there was nothing but stones. What is it he wants to do with me? What is it he tried to do, that night? You said Beldorion sold him someone he had enslaved. For what purpose? And what became of him?”

“Nothing,” said Liegeus quickly. She looked down and saw his hands were trembling. “I can’t explain. It’s … it’s something few people would understand.”

The fear in his eyes was terrible to see, and her heart went out to him in pity. She put her hand over the cold, slender fingers. “Try me,” she urged.

Liegeus got quickly to his feet, and backed to the door. “I …” Then he shook his head. “Beldorion may invite you to tea or to supper again,” he said. “Don’t go, or make sure that I go with you. Just remember to spend as much time as you can on the balcony, in the sunlight, and you’ll be all right.”

The door opened, and he stepped through. In the instant before it closed Leia met his eyes again, and saw in them longing, and grief, and a terror that had swallowed nearly everything within the man’s soul. She said quietly, “Thank you,” and the metal panel swished between them. A moment later the outer locks clicked.

After