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Rikard’s total disappearance did indeed imply that the boy was dead. The deaths of Adele’s own family were to her a series of events sealed in a block of crystal. She had no feelings about them: just generalized despair and anger.
    Adele recognized that other people had different reactions; and perhaps mothers generally differed. Certainly she felt no empathy with any other aspect of motherhood.
    “Rikard explained that he was now a follower of a religion formed on Corcyra, the Transformationists,” Sand said. “You can call it a cult if you like.”
    She grimaced. Nothing Adele had observed of Mistress Sand suggested that the older woman had any religious belief. It must have been painful to learn that her son had embraced religion, and particularly that he’d joined some foreign cult.
    “I don’t have an opinion on religious matters,” Adele said. It was a mild rebuke to anyone who knew her as well as Mistress Sand did. “In any case, the boy has returned unharmed?”
    Given the way human beings behaved, Adele suspected that Rikard may have become a Transformationist for no other reason than that it would horrify his mother. Well, that was better than him becoming a traitor to Cinnabar, which might as easily have happened.
    “Sorry, Mundy,” Sand muttered, taking another drink. “Yes, quite unharmed. Elements on Corcyra have declared the planet independent from its homeworld, Pantellaria, and the Pantellarians have sent a force to regain control. I suppose you know about all that?”
    “I have the basics,” Adele said. “I’ll be learning more; and if you have data that I might not find elsewhere—”
    That was extremely unlikely, but it was polite as well as potentially a means of saving time.
    “—I’d appreciate seeing it.”
    “Yes, of course,” said Mistress Sand. “I’ll have everything sent to you as soon as I leave.”
    She reached for the decanter. “The Transformationists aren’t pacifistic,” she said. “They’re mostly foreigners like Rikard—though he says there’re both Corcyrans and Pantellarians in the, well, faith. They’re supporting the independence movement, but they’re concerned that whoever wins may decide the Transformationists would make a good scapegoat. They’re arming so that they don’t look like an easy target.”
    “Transformationism sounds like an admirably pragmatic faith,” Adele said. “Whatever its philosophical tenets.”
    “Which is some consolation to a mother,” Sand said with a brief smile. “Though not a great one.”
    She set her glass down and said, “Rikard has located what he insists is a treasure buried by the first settlers of Corcyra. I didn’t go into the details, but he’s not a stupid young man, and he has some experience with subsurface mapping. He held a position with an engineering firm here in Xenos.”
    Sand grimaced again.
    Adele raised her own glass for the first time and sipped what was indeed whiskey. She didn’t doubt that it was a good variety, though that was a taste she had never cultivated. She said deliberately, “I wouldn’t thank a friend who told me that I was drinking too much.”
    Mistress Sand’s hand paused halfway to the decanter. She blinked as though she had just awakened to find herself on the Pentacrest, stark naked and singing “The Banner High,” the Alliance anthem. She pushed the decanter to the side of the table and said, “Mundy, I have occasionally been concerned that I would be told that you had shot yourself. I don’t believe that anyone will ever suggest that you’re drinking too much.”
    “I’ll keep that in mind,” said Adele, setting her glass down again.
    “Look,” said Mistress Sand, sitting straighter than she had since Adele entered the room. “I wouldn’t have ordered you—well, with you, I mean asked—to get involved, but your involvement is the best news I’ve had since my son came home.”
    She smiled wryly and added, “Since he explained why he’d come home,