"Ram? Is he right?"
The King of the Slavers looked at her. "Why ask me? Its purpose is to prevent war, partially by stopping overly ambitious men who"ll do anything at all for power, isn"t it?"
She nodded, half-turning to look at the savannah, at the rain forest rising dark and cool and welcoming at its edge. "So it is," she said, still nodding. Her sad gaze swept the mountain range in the distance; from here it looked misty and purple, rather than igneous rock and granite-gray. She turned quickly back.
"So it is," she said, and she brought her stopper up fast and shot Ratran Yao, and then the man to his immediate left, and the manner of their demise proved that Janja at last had set her weapon to Fry. The third man, Quong, unfroze and swung up his stopper and stiffened and became a flash and then ash and then nothing, just like the others, as Janja Poofed him, too. She turned to face the King of the Slavers. They stood alone. Janja tossed the stopper over to fall at his feet.
"We"re home, Ram," she said.
He stared at her, and pain had replaced the surprise in his face. He shook his head. "Oh Janja," he said, as she had heard him say before, in the Aglayan way he had not put aside after all these years among the Thingmak-ing Galactics. "I cannot. And I was not making up anything about there being no trial, and his having to kill me. That would have happened."
She gave him the wan ghost of a smile, moving slowly toward him.
"I know, my love. I knew it when I kissed you. You had just called Rat by name. You knew him because you recognized him. I chonceled a number in your mind, and I know that number-Ratran Yao"s TGO number. You are the reason he had never succeeded in trapping 224.
Ramesh Kshatriya. You"re the reason he at last grew suspicious and created me and sent me to trap you- without reporting any of it to the Director of TGO-I saw this in his mind. He was thinking with great elation and great ambition. You knew that without chonceling -that"s why you answered me the way you did. He was elatedly thinking how he"d be promoted for this coup, a very famous and heroic man who had caught the master-slaver of the Galaxy, and then he"d be closer still to the Director of TGO-whose job he wanted, and whom he suspected of being in your pay!"
She stood before him now, not touching him, and he stared at her. "Ridiculous for an Aglayan," he said, "and after all our talk ... but I had actually forgotten the choncel!"
"You had other things to think about. And Rat died without ever knowing about the choncel, much less that I could see into his "overly ambitious" mind-the mind of a man who would "do anything at all for power," " she said, almost smiling as she quoted him. "I saw something else, and then he said it. No One Leaves TGO. He was going to take me back or leave me here as random molecules. And he had no idea what you meant when you told him that putting you out of business would be a great mistake!"
He was staring at her in silence. The agonized expression on his face had eased, then departed. Now it was becoming the cynical smile she knew.
She shook her head. "No, you"d not have gone to prison, or been executed-but what would have become of TGO? Your secret would have been the price-"
"-of my life, for I"d have told it to save my life, and then Rat would have found a way to kill me, I a.s.sure you. Durga Jhond knows, but he couldn"t run the operation without me."
225.
"I know. You"d have had to be totally good, white, to have let them kill you or lock you away while TGO died-or fell into Rat"s hands. And I"ve had another breakthrough, Ram. I see now that no one is totally white, and can"t be-white isn"t a color. It"s the absence of color. Black may be the symbol for evil, as we were taught on this pleasant little undeveloped planet, my love, but it isn"t white that"s the opposite-good. Gray is! White is impossible. Color is always present."
His smile broadened. "You are worthy of Aglaya," he said, and at last they embraced, while the gentle breeze rippled the Aglayan gra.s.s.
"I hope I"m worthy of Ramesh Jageshwar," she said, squeezing him with most of her strength. "I must hope that a man who makes such a vast amount of cred through robbing "barbarian" planets and then uses all that money to protect civilization by financing The Gray Organization-The Good Organization!-will need a woman to relax with!"
"To relax with! To help, Janja! And of course that"s what we do-what other man exists who is worthy of you?!"
She squeezed him and pressed against him, but she did not laugh. "It must be a h.e.l.lish life, being at once the Prince of Evil and the Director of TGO."
He nodded against her hair. "It is, Jan."
"Do both Ramesh Jageshwar and TGO have to be so shadowy, so sinister?"
"Absolutely. One is feared and grudgingly respected; the other is respected and very usefully, productively feared."
"How far does the annual tax paid in by the planetary governments go to keep TGO going, Ram?"
He chuckled against her. "It covers maybe forty per cent of the total cost, at least on printout," he said. "Of 226.
course I have certain economy measures-such as using my own slaveships occasionally for TGO purposes. Such as when we rid the Galaxy of Artisune Muzuni and his fleet, who was about two steps away from discovering that he could be a conqueror. And such as my policy of not arresting or plain killing everyone we catch, but using them; putting them on TGO call. It is an economy measure, this enlisting of the forces of evil to the cause of Good!"
She chuckled; he kissed her lightly and turned her, his arm still around her. She kept one around his waist, too. It was only a little higher than hers, for the biggest man in the Galaxy was far from tall by Galactic standards. No Aglayan was.
"Thank you, Janja. You seem to have saved my life. And I don"t mean "just" today."
"It"s only fair," Janja said. "You"ve saved mine, or given me one. Should I be sorry for Rat, who once also gave me purpose-life?"
"You should. He was superbly competent and valuable. I knew he was overly ambitious. You"ve cost me a very good man and two good ships. Hereafter I"m going to keep you safely back on Janat at Citadel Cuesta- and I"m going to keep you busy!"
"Good. Two ships?"
"Of course, darling. We can"t leave that one up there." He raised eyebrows and eyes skyward. "Rat"s. And pick up that stopper, and theirs. We can"t be teaching the gentle Aglayans civilized methods of destroying each other! Oh-you know who else is both superbly competent and highly ambitious?"
"Rhetorical question," she said, picking up weapons and noticing how the gra.s.s was slowly straightening in Ratran Yao"s last footprints. "I never answer "em."
227.
He laughed. "Val.u.s.triana See. I"m going to give her Rat"s job."
"Uh."
"Don"t forget that mailshirt of yours, Jan! Now here"s what we do. I"ll start up with the lander, so they"ll know it"s coming back, and that way they won"t worry when you lift off Kshatriya Jansa. But I"ll hump along -grav-boats don"t have much speed anyhow-and you just zoom past me and take out Ratran"s ship. Then we-oh, that won"t be any trouble, will it?"
She shook her head. "Necessary to protect your ident.i.ty and your secret. The end justifies the means."
"Only in the gray universe, protected by The Good Organization," he said, and his satirical smile fleeted over his lips. "Good! You are worthy of Aglaya and worthy of the s.p.a.ceways-"
"-and worthy of you, Director-sir."
"Um. Now once that"s done, we"ve got to-"
It is not true to say that everyone must be white or black. ... it is not true to say that everything that may be good or bad must be either good or bad. These pairs of contraries have intermediates: the intermediates between white and black are gray, sallow, and all the other colors that come between. .. .