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grounded on Kesrith,” he said. “The bai assures us this is quite a natural choice for a ship of this sort, landing directly at the port—that it was a last-moment decision and without reason for concern to us. But I also gather that there is some instability here, which I do not understand. The bai wants us to remain on the ship. Temporary, he says.”
    “Is it,” Duncan asked, “trouble over that business with the mri?”
    Stavros shook his head. “I don’t know. I don’t know. I think that the whole crew is expected to remain aboard until things sort themselves out. This, at least—” Stavros’ eyes went to the ceiling, toward venting, toward lighting, toward installations they did not understand and did not trust. The glance warned, said nothing, carried some misgiving that perhaps he would have voiced if he were safe to do so. “The bai assures us that we will be taken to the central headquarters in the morning. It is planetary night at the moment; we are already on Kesrith main time, and he advises us that the weather is fair and the inconvenience minor and we are expected to enjoy our night’s rest and rise late, with the anticipation of a pleasant advent to Kesrith.”
    The bai is being courteous and formal,
Stavros’ expression thrust through the words themselves. There was no credibility there. Duncan nodded understanding.
    “Good night, then,” said Stavros, as if the exchange had been aloud. “I think we may trust that we are delayed aboard for some considerable number of hours, and there is probably time to get a night’s sleep.”
    “Good night, sir,” said Duncan, and watched as the old man went back to his quarters and the door closed.
    He wished, not for the first time, that he could ask the old man plainly what he thought of matters, and that he could reckon how much the honorable Stavros believed of what he had been told.
    In the time that they had been on scant favor among regul, Duncan had begun to apply himself to learning theregul tongue with the same fervent, desperate application he had once applied to SurTac arms and survival skills. He had begun with rote phrases and proceeded to structure with a facility far above what he had ever imagined he could achieve. He was not a scholar; he was a frightened man. He began to think, with the nightmare concentration that fears acquired in their solitude, that Stavros was indeed very old, and the time before humans would arrive was considerable, and that regul, who disposed of their own younglings so readily, would think nothing of killing a human youngling that had survived his elder, if that human youngling seemed useless to them.
    Stavros’ age, that had been the reason for his being assigned this mission, was also against its success. If something should befall the Hon. Mr. Stavros, it would leave Duncan himself helpless, unable to communicate with the general run of younglings, and, as Stavros had once pointed out, regul younglings would not admit him to contact with the likes of bai Hulagh, who were the only regul capable of fluent human speech.
    It was not a possibility he cared to contemplate, the day that he should be left alone to deal with regul.
    With hours left before debarkation on Kesrith, and with his nerves too taut to allow sleep, he gathered up his notes and started to study with an application that had his gut in knots.
    Dag—
Favor, please, attention. The same syllable, pronounced instead with the timbre of a steam whistle, meant: honorable; and in shrill tone: blood.
Dag su-gl’inh-an-ant pru nnugk—
May I have indirect contact with the reverence . . . .
Dag nuc-ci:
Favor, sir.
    He studied until he found the notes falling from his nerveless hands, and collapsed to sleep for a precious time, before regul orderlies opened the door without warning and began shrilling orders at him, rudely snatching up their baggage without a prior courtesy.
    None of the courtesies did these youngling regul use with him, even when