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And at this point in his thoughts Kerwin sat up and buried his head in his hands. He tried to blank out histhoughts completely. This was worse than Auster’s accusation that he was a spy, feeding information tothe Empire.

Alone in the night he fought his way to the end of a hard-won battle. He loved Elorie; but his love for hercould destroy her as a Keeper. And without a Keeper, they would fail in the work they were doing forthe Pan-Darkovan Syndicate, and the Syndicate would take that as permission to bring in the Terrans,experts in the remodeling of Darkover into the image of the Empire.

A traitor part of himself asked:
 
Would that be so bad
 
? Sooner or later, Darkover would fall into line.

Every planet did.

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And even for Elorie, he told himself, it would be better. No young woman should have to live like this, inseclusion, avoiding everything that made life worthwhile. No woman should have to know that her bodyis no more than a machine to transform the energies of matrix work! Even Rannirl had rebelled, and Rannirl was the chief technician of Arilinn. Rannirl had said that Keepers like Elorie were an anachronismin this day and age. If the Arilinn Tower and matrix technology could not survive except by the sacrificeof the lives of young women like Elorie, perhaps it did not deserve to survive at all. If their work for the Pan-Darkovan Syndicate failed, then Elorie need not be Keeper, and she was free.

Traitor
! he accused himself bitterly. The people of Arilinn had taken him in, a stranger, homeless, exileof two worlds, and accepted him as one of themselves, given him kindness and love and acceptance. And he was ready to strike at their weakest point; he was willing to destroy them!

Lying there in the night, he willed himself to give up Elorie. She was the one that mattered; and herchoice was to be Keeper, and remain Keeper. At whatever cost to himself in renunciation and agony, herpeace of mind must never be endangered.

On the morning of the fourth day he heard her voice on the stairs. He had fought himself to acceptance,but at the sound of her soft voice it all surged up; he went back and flung himself down blindly, willinghimself to calm through the blind ache and rebellion in him.
 
Oh, Elorie, Elorie
 
… He could not face heryet.

Later he heard Rannirl’s voice at his door.

“Jeff? Will you come down?”

“Give me just a minute,” Jeff said, and Rannirl went away. Left alone, Kerwin fought to apply all the techniques of control that he had been taught, steadying his breathing, forcing himself to relax; and when he knew that he could face them all without revealing his pain or his guilt, he went downstairs.

The circle of Arilinn was gathered before the fire, but Kerwin had eyes only for Elorie. She had put onagain the filmy gown embroidered with cherries, anchored at her throat with a single crystal; her copperhair was twisted up in an elaborate coiffure of looped braids, caught with a blue flower dusted with gold;the
 
kireseth
 
flower, colloqually called the golden bell —
 
cleindori
. Was she testing his control? Or, hewondered suddenly, her own?

She raised her eyes, and he remembered how to breathe. For her smile was gentle, aloof, indifferent.

Had she felt nothing, then. Had he imagined it all? Had her reaction to him been no more thanfear, then, as if he had reawakened the old fear
—he remembered Neyrissa’s story; one of her madfather’s drinking-companions had laid rude hands on the girl, and her brother had brought her here forsafety and refuge.

Kennard laid his hand gently on Jeff’s shoulder; somehow, through the touch, an unspoken awarenesspassed through them both.
 
The Keepers are trained, in ways you could hardly guess at, to keepthemselves free of all emotion
 
. Somehow, in those three days of seclusion, Elorie had managed tobring herself back to remote calm, untouched peace. Her smile was almost exactly as it had alwaysbeen.
 
Almost
 
. Kerwin sensed that it was brittle, wary, a thin skin of control over panic; and with a surgeof compassion and pain, he thought,
 
I must do nothing, nothing to trouble her. She wants it this way. I must not infringe on her control even with a thought
 
.

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She said quietly, “We have arranged the separating operation for tonight; and Rannirl tells me that thetrap matrix is ready for you, Auster.”

“I’m ready,” Auster said. “Unless Jeff wants to back out.”

“I said I’d abide any test you gave me. But what the hell is a trap matrix?”

Elorie made one of her childish faces. “It’s a filthy perversion of an honest science,” she said.

“Not necessarily,” Kennard protested. “There are valid ones. The Veil outside Arilinn is one kind of trap matrix; it keeps out everyone not accepted as Comyn and blood-related. And there are others in the
 
rhu fead
 
, the holy place of Comyn. What kind is yours, Auster?”

“Trap set on the barrier,” Auster said. “When we put up the group barrier around our circle, I’ll set the trap matrix in synch with it. Then, if anyone is picking a mind within the circle, it will hold him and immobilize him, and we can get a look at him afterward in the monitor.”

“Believe me,” said Kerwin, “if anyone’s spying through
 
my
 
mind, I’m as anxious to find it out as you

are!”

“We’ll start then.” She hesitated, bit her lip and moved to the cupboard where the drinks were kept. “I want some
 
kirian
 
.” At Kennard’s disapproving look she brushed past him, poured it for herself. “Anyone else who doesn’t trust himself tonight? Auster? Jeff? Stop looking at me like that, Neyrissa, I know what I’m doing, and you’re not my mother!”

Rannirl said roughly, “Lori, if you’re not feeling ready for the clearing operation, we could delay it a fewdays—”

“We’ve already delayed three days, and I am as ready as I shall ever be,” she said, and lifted the
 
kirian
 
to her lips. But she glanced at Jeff when she thought he did not see her, and her eyes struck Kerwin to the heart.

So it was that way for her, too. He had thought himself hurt that she could set it all aside, that she hadbeen able to forget or ignore what had been between them. Now, seeing the hurt in her eyes, Kerwinwished with all his heart that Elorie had been truly untouched by what had happened. He could endurethe suffering, if he must. But he did not know if he could endure what it had done to Elorie.

He could, because he must. He watched her finish the
 
kirian
 
liqueur, and went, with the others, upstairsto the matrix chamber.

They were placed as before, Taniquel monitoring, Neyrissa within the circle, Auster holding the groupbarrier, Elorie at the center, holding in her slender hands the forces that could tap the magnetic field of aplanet, gathering up all their joined minds and directing their mingled forces into the matrix lattice designedfor this operation.

Kerwin felt the waiting like a pain, bracing himself for control against the moment when Elorie’s greyeyes, turned on him, would pull him into the rapport of the circle. He felt it taking shape around him; Auster, strong and protective; the intangible strength that was Kennard, so at odds with the man’scrippled body; Neyrissa, kindly and detached; Corus a flood of tumbling images.

Elorie.

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He felt her firm, directing presence guiding him into the layers of the crystal lattice that somehow, wasalso the map lying before Kennard and the countryside of the Domains, extending his awareness beyondtime and space, sending him out to travel, deep in the core of the world…

He came out of it hours later, coming slowly up to consciousness to see dawn light in the room and thefaces of the Tower circle around him. And Auster; drawn, hostile—triumphant. Wordless, he gesturedthem around him.

Kerwin had never seen a trap matrix before. It looked like a bit of strangely shiny metal, studded withcrystals here and there, the glassy surface enlaced with little ribbons of gleaming light deep inside. Austersaid, “Tired, Elorie? Take the monitor screen for a minute, Corus, let’s see what we have in here.” Hepointed a finger at the beautiful, deadly thing in his lap. “I set it for anyone who tried to work through thegroup barrier; and I felt the trap sprung. Whoever it was, he’s immobilized here, and we can get a goodlook at him.”

Fastidiously, as if he touched something dirty, Corus picked up the trap matrix. He moved a calibrationon the big monitor screen, and lights began to blink inside it. Then, in the glassy surface, a picture slowlyformed. It hovered over the city of Arilinn; passed landmark after landmark. Then, gradually, it centeredupon a small, mean room, almost bare, and the figure of a man, bent in soundless concentration,motionless as death.

“Whoever he is, we’ve got him in stasis,” Auster said. “Can you get his face, Corus?”

The picture focused; and Jeff cried out as he recognized the face.

“
 
Ragan
?”

Of course. The little bitter man from the spaceport gutters, who had all but admitted being a Terran spy,who had dogged Jeff’s footsteps and taught him to use a matrix and pushed him at every step.

Who else could it have been?

Suddenly he was swept by a great, calm, icy rage. Some atavistic thing in him, all Darkovan, shookloose everything but his wrath and injured pride at having been manipulated like this, his mind picked. Ancient words sprang without thought to his mind.

“Com’ii,
 
this man’s life is mine
 
! When, how, and as I can, I claim his life, one to one, and who takes it

before I do, answers to me!”

Auster—braced, Kerwin knew, to fling new challenges and charges, stopped cold, his eyes wide andshocked.

Kennard met his eyes. He said “
 
Comyn
Kerwin-Aillard, as your nearest kinsman and Warden here, Ihear your claim and allot this life to you; to claim or spare as you will. Seek it, take it, or give your own.”

Jeff heard the ritual words almost without understanding. His hands literally ached to tear Ragan limbfrom limb. He said tersely, gesturing the picture off the screen, “Can that thing hold him long enough forme to get to him, Auster?”

Auster nodded, the trap matrix still held between his hands. Taniquel broke into the silence, her voice

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shrill.

“You can’t let him do this! It’s murder; Jeff has no idea how to use a sword, and do you think

that—that
sharug
 
, that cat-spawn, will even fight fair?”

“I may not be able to handle a sword, ”Jeff said tautly, “but I’m damn good with a knife. Kinsman, give

me a dagger, and I can take him,” he added, turning to Kennard, who had acknowledged him.

But it was Rannirl who unbuckled the knife he wore at his waist. He said slowly, “Brother, I’m with you. Your foes are mine; let there never be a knife drawn between us.” He held the knife out, hilt first, to Kerwin. Kerwin took it in a daze. From somewhere he remembered that on Darkover this had a veryserious meaning. He didn’t know the ritual words, but he remembered that this exchange had the ritualforce of an oath of brotherhood, and even through his all-encompassing rage he was warmed by it. Hecaught Rannirl into a quick embrace. All he could think of to say was, “Thank you—brother. Against myfoes—and yours.” It must have been the right thing to say, or something near to it, for Rannirl turned hishead and, somewhat to Jeff’s embarrassment, kissed him on the cheek.

“Come on,” he said, “I’ll see fair play done in your name, Kennard. If you doubt it, Auster, come

along.”

Kerwin took the knife, balancing it in his hands. He had no doubt in his ability to handle himself. Therehad been a couple of fights on other worlds; he had found that inside himself there was a roughneckburied, and he was glad, now, to know it. The code of his childhood, the code of blood-feud, seemed tofill him to the roots of his whole being.

Ragan was going to get a damned big surprise.

And then he was going to get very, very dead.