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laws, so he refused to accept it and instead filed charges against the Guardsman’s brother for attempted murder. What a tangle! I never thought I’d see the day when Council had to sit on a knife fight! Damn the Terrans anyhow!”
    â€œSo how did you finally settle it?”
    Hastur shrugged. “Compromise, as usual. The Terran was deported and the Guardsman’s brother was held in the brig until the Terran was off-planet; so nobody gets any peace except the dead man. Unsatisfactory for everyone. But enough of them. Tell me about yourself, Regis.”
    â€œWell, I’ll have to talk about the Terrans again,” Regis said. This wasn’t the best time, but his grandfather might not have time to talk with him again for days. “Grandfather, I’m not needed here. You probably know I don’t have laran, and I found out in Nevarsin that I’m not interested in politics. I’ve decided what I want to do with my life: I want to go into the Terran Empire Space Service.”
    Hastur’s jaw dropped. He scowled and demanded, “Is this a joke? Or another silly prank?”
    â€œNeither, Grandfather. I mean it, and I’m of age.”
    â€œBut you can’t do that! Certainly they’d never accept you without my consent.”
    â€œI hope to have that, sir. But by Darkovan law, which you were quoting at Kennard, I am of legal age to dispose of myself. I can marry, fight a duel, acknowledge a son, stand responsible for a murder—”
    â€œThe Terrans wouldn’t think so. Kennard was declared of age before he went. But on Terra he was sent to school and required, legally forced, mind you, to obey a stipulated guardian until he was past twenty. You’d hate that.”
    â€œNo doubt I would. But I learned one thing at Nevarsin, sir—you can live with the things you hate.”
    â€œRegis, is this your revenge for my sending you to Nevarsin? Were you so unhappy? What can I say? I wanted you to have the best education possible and I thought it better for you to be properly cared for, there, than neglected at home.”
    â€œNo, sir,” Regis said, not quite sure. “It’s simply that I want to go, and I’m not needed here.”
    â€œYou don’t speak Terran languages.”
    â€œI understand Terran Standard. I learned to read and write at Nevarsin. As you pointed out, I am excellently well educated. Learning a new language is no great matter.”
    â€œYou say you are of age,” Hastur said coldly, “so let me quote some law back to you. The law provides that before you, who are heir to a Domain, undertake any such risky task as going offworld, you must provide an heir to your Domain. Have you a son, Regis?”
    Regis looked sullenly at the floor. Hastur knew, of course, that he had not. “What does that matter? It’s been generations since the Hastur gift has appeared full strength in the line. As for ordinary laran, that’s just as likely to appear at random anywhere in the Domains as it is in the direct male line of descent. Pick any heir at random, he couldn’t be less fit for the Domain than I am. I suspect the gene’s a recessive, bred out, extinct like the catalyst telepath trait. And Javanne has sons; one of them is as likely to have it as any son of mine, if I had any. Which I don’t,” he added rebelliously, “or am likely to. Now or ever.”
    â€œWhere do you get these ideas?” Hastur asked, shocked and bewildered. “You’re not, by chance, an ombredin ?”
    â€œIn a cristoforo monastery? Not likely. No, sir, not even for pastime. And certainly not as a way of life.”
    â€œThen why should you say such a thing?”
    â€œBecause,” Regis burst out angrily, “I belong to myself, not to the Comyn! Better to let the line die with me than to go on for generations, calling ourselves Hastur, without our gift, without laran, political figureheads