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“If nothing has changed, then you’re divided among yourselves, as you were on Lucazec,” Luke said, looking past Wialu, searching for other Fallanassi faces among the H’kig. “There must be at least some of you who believe that you must do what you can do, just as you protected these people.”

“It is not our war. It is yours, and theirs.”

“Neither was this your war,” he said. “But you intervened, and saved these lives, and this treasure.” Then he pointed at Akanah. “She challenged me to put down my weapon and try to find other ways to serve my conscience. What she asked isn’t easy for me, but I’ve seen the worth in trying. Now I challenge you to give up your isolation, and be the water that quenches the flame.”

At that moment another woman, slender and large-eyed, appeared beside Wialu, surrendering her concealment to take part in the colloquy. “Can this be done?” she asked.

“Of course it can,” said a voice from another direction. Luke turned to find two more Fallanassi standing by the temple wall. “The Yevetha are vulnerable to us,” said the shorter of them. “If we wished for the invaders to crash their ship into the city they are building, any one of us could accomplish it, at any time.”

A young Duu’ranh female appeared nearly at Luke’s elbow, startling him for a moment. “But can it be done without such violence?” she asked. “The goal is to prevent a war, not to join it, or decide the victor. We cannot choose sides.”

“You must,” Luke said. “It’s not enough to simply prevent the fighting—there has to be a resolution to the conflict behind it. You must choose to frustrate the will of one side or the other—the Yevetha, or the New Republic.”

“The difference between them is immaterial,” said a new voice, behind Luke. He turned to see a round-bodied Ukanis woman holding a child. “To build a war fleet is to accept the morality of violence and coercion. They are equally guilty.”

“When war comes, the price is paid by the guilty and the innocent alike,” Luke said.

“And we are paying the price instead of the H’kig,” said Akanah. “We will never be free to leave here so long as the Yevetha remain.”

“Not unless you’re prepared to see these people and this place destroyed,” Luke said. “And the Yevetha will never leave of their own accord. They believe that they are the rightful inheritors of all the worlds they conquered—including J’t’p’tan.”

Turning in a slow circle, Luke found that more than twenty Fallanassi had revealed themselves. “You have to decide whether to affirm their belief or reject it,” he said. “You must choose.”

“And what would we be choosing if we chose to involve ourselves?” asked Wialu. “If they are as resolute as you say, how can the will of the Yevetha be frustrated without force?”

Luke turned quickly toward her. “I don’t know for certain that it can,” he said. “What I’m asking is, are you willing to try? Are you willing to use your gifts in an effort to prevent the war—a war that will surely come if you do nothing? There’s very little time left. Once both fleets are committed to the fight, any chance there was will be gone. There’ll be too much fire, and too little water.”

“A chance to try what?” asked Norika. “What can we do?”

“You can deceive them, as you have here—but on a grander scale.” He advanced a step toward Wialu, holding his open hands out before him. “I don’t know the limits of your power to project illusions. But if the Fallanassi are capable of creating an illusion of a vast New Republic fleet, a projection with the same depth of reality as what I saw when we first arrived here—”

Wialu raised an eyebrow questioningly. “You believe that if the Yevetha face overwhelming odds, they may yield.”

“I have to think that their lives mean something to them—more, I hope, than their claim to J’t’p’tan does,” said Luke. “Whether they surrender or just withdraw, many lives on both sides would be saved.”

“Would the New Republic accept their surrender or simply use it as an opportunity to exterminate the Yevetha?