Kostolom knew.

Across an expanse of a table that felt like a vast and empty playing field, Trezleniya-Silvertou's eyes lay with fond sadness upon his niece, but his thoughts were upon the royal kankrin retainer attempting to serve them dinner.

"Do you prefer gnucrab and dressing, sir, or pickled qhach?"

"Uh, I'll take the crab, Kostolom.  The Premier served curried bher at luncheon, which, to my tasted, is rather similar to qhach."

"As you wish, sir." Kostolom turned to Tris. "What would you like, miss?"

Tris, lost in her own thoughts, stared at the abruptness of Kostolom's inquiry.  She had been attempting, with no more luck than at any other moment over the past days, to determine whether the guilt she felt towards her uncle might be less justified than her feelings of abandonment and disappointment.

Trezleniya-Silvertou observed her state of abstraction. As was ever the case, both the meal and the manner in which it was served were flawless, although he had experienced better fare.  His niece shoved the food around on her plate, picking at infrequent intervals as if forestalling a solicitous word from the uncle she no doubt felt had betrayed her, maybe even from the alien she had grown up thinking of as her best and only friend.

Meanwhile, Tris had come to the conclusion she had always arrived at.  Any self-respecting young lady would reject a marriage such as her uncle had proposed, would resent being offered the alternative of exile on an iceberg floating in an uncaring void and being expected to regard it as a favor.

"Nothing, thank you, Kostolom.  I can be satisfied with the preserves."

Something like parental disapproval (resigned but not to be denied) colored Kostolom's reply.  "As you will, Miss."

The glittering traditional service, old-fashioned dishes and cutlery which had never been within a verst of any spreighformer, the snowy cloth which was a living organism from some faraway planet and could never show a stain, the subtle lighting evoked from wainscotted upper walls by the antenna chandelabrum, all served as reminders of more auspicious circumstances.  Tris,  Trezleniya-Silvertou was sure, was thinking that, in a few more days, she would never see these lovely things again.  To him, they were, bitter mementos, treasured heirlooms though they were of a happier time, long past and long lost, when other chairs about the table would have been occupied by those he loved, other voices raised in conversation or laughter.

Tris watched her uncle, wondering what thought occupied his head.  A greater grievance lay behind her outrage than the bleak alternatives of banishment or marriage to a total (and, by all accounts, obnoxious) stranger.  The former might prove no more than unpleasant.  The latter had been the destiny of many women throughout human history.  Somehow both women and humanity had survived.  She was, however, troubled by a conclusion, predicated on girlhood observation of her uncle's rise within the Droom---which he, believing her sheltered from harsh reality, had never realized her capable of drawing---concerning the results of mixing two forms of polite and bloody warfare known as politics and love.

"If that will be all, sir, I shall retire to the pantry."

He looked up, startled as his niece had been.  "Thank you, Kostolom.  We will let you know if we need anything."

Even imperturbable Kostolom seemed to suffer under the tension.  As Trezleniya-Silvertou had found himself thinking when this familiar, circular pattern (he was unsure he would call it "reasoning") had started, Kostolom knew everything of the family tragedy which he, Tris's uncle, had never dared convey to her.

He spoke:  "Excuse me, my dear, I---would you pass the cinnamon?"

She spoke:  "I would be delighted to, Uncle."

Again, he had failed to say the words that might have extricated them from this speechless nightmare.  She had responded, not with "Uncle Flownx," or even "Flownx" as she had been more inclined to call him until recently, but with a naked label, cold and distant.  He accepted the shaker----she seemed careful to avoid touching his fingers---and found he had quite forgotten why he wanted it.

Tris brushed the interruption aside.  Physical intimacy between the genders---although she had never yet experienced it herself---may or may not have constituted the transcendent, all-consuming pleasure of which everyone seemed to speak with such melodious rapture. (If it required so much advertising, what must be wrong with it?) Possessing a theoretical grounding in its blunt mechanics (and its manifold consequences, none sounding at all pleasurable), she felt an inclination not just to reserve judgment in the matter. but to marvel at the capacity in others for temporary insanity!

Trezleniya-Silvertou blinked. Where had his thoughts been?  Yes:  the guilty secret he and the kankrin had preserved between them so many years, telling themselves--and, when resolution faltered, one another---that it was necessary for their beloved Tris's safety.  One of them now knew differently, and Trezleniya-Silvertou suspected that, to whatever extent the alien possessed something akin to human feeling, Kostolom harbored similar doubts regarding the real motive for the course they had chosen.  He discovered that his hands were shaking and took steps to regain control, tucking them into his lap beneath the table.

Tris noticed the tremor in her uncle's hands, wondering what troubled him so.  It didn't occur to her that it might be the ongoing dispute between them.  She had come, in recent weeks, to the horrifying belief that she (herself) was the only individual who gave a damn what would become of her.  Instead, since her mind dwelt upon similar subjects already, she gave in to momentary speculation that he might be having an illicit affair with some Droom bitch, suffering the proverbial attendant woes thereof.  She was reminded of an ancient song at which she had learned to accompany herself upon the atrikeo, "Machine de l’Infini' " for whose timeless, universal wisdom, couched in extinct language though it be---it had been necessary to find another antiquarian to translate them---she felt increasing appreciation.  Whatever the pleasures of grunting, sweating, interpretation, it was certain to be ephemeral.

Hunched with his hands between his thighs,  Trezleniya-Silvertou felt the present dimmed by images of the past, his vision blurred by unshed tears which put the thought of eating out of the question.  As before, it was Kostolom who occupied the forefront of his mind.  Kostolom had stood by as, never recognizing its brother, the shattered thing which had been Vadim had died in Flownx's arms.  Kostolom had seen Vadim's worn-out body given descent and anonymous disposal in the garden behind the house, into which Flownx had never again set foot.  Kostolom had acted as an administrative aide when he'd employed the resources which had been so successful in the search for Vadim, Flownx had failed to find any trace of Alexandria.  In truth---he had been compelled, each step of the way, to fight off an inclination to do nothing---he had never expected to, that kind of slave, a young, desirable woman, being even shorter-lived and more expendable than a Cossack.

Swearing his alien accomplice to what was meant to be temporary secrecy, he had never told---had never been able to tell---his niece of her parents' fate.  When old enough, tris had been informed that their starship, like many others, had failed to return from across the Deep.  Year after year he had promised his conscience that he would unburden himself of the horrifying truth.  Year after here, he had retreated from the resolution, until what had seemed at first a mere unsavory task assumed the proportions of an insurmountable obstacle.  He looked across at her now, again attempting to state the all-vital truth, instead of finding his mouth clumsy and full of inanities.

"Have some more caff, sweetheart.  I can ask Kostolom to brew us another pot."

Hearing the edge in her uncle's voice and what she imagined it signified, Tris became aware of something she had inferred from reading history:  a little love, mixed with the exigencies of politics, was a dangerous thing.  "Thank you for the offer, Uncle, but I slept through most of yesterday.  I greatly fear another cup might prevent me from sleeping tonight, as well."

He set the pot down without a flutter, a fact of which he was shocked to find himself proud.  Despite the strain to which he had lately subjugated her, Tris was more beautiful than ever in her low-bodiced, full-skirted gown, her copper hair draped charmingly about her fair, freckled shoulders.  He had thought himself a good and loving uncle, a reasonable substitute for the father she would never know.  In the years she had lived with him, he had never been tempted to see her as anything other than a daughter, for all her delicate,  unself-conscious, enigmatic desirability. He often wondered at this.  These were corrupt and decadent times, and he himself was no different from others he knew who enjoyed the opportunities corruption and decadence offer.  He was a hearty individual with a taste for flesh, wealth, and power, used to the company of women---although his preference ran to blondes buxomer than this miniature beauty he had raised.   Had he controlled her, most Romanovans would have looked the other way.  That approached the status of a Romanovan pastime.  Any minority moralistic enough to point a finger would have been dissuaded by his position in the Droom.

Instead, he had been a father to her.  He wondered now whether the alternative might not have proven better for her.  In seeking to protect her he had come close to destroying her.  He had denied her the truth, he realized, not so much because he thought her unable to tolerate it---to his surprise and delight, she had grown up made of better stuff than that---but because he could neither bear being the one to inflict it upon her nor bring himself to delegate the task to anyone less important in her life.

For her own part, whatever troubled her uncle, Tris was confident he would endure it.  Men seemed to.  Women were not so sturdy, nor so lucky.  She had decided long ago---this conclusion she had reached by methods she believed scientific---that love and sex were simply aspects of another dirty power game, with women always the losers.

Trezleniya-Silvertou shook his head. Lately, through blindness, ambition, inadvertence, and loyalty misplaced, he had hurt Tris in a manner worse than if he had touched her himself.  Most painfully, he was learning a truth as horrible as that which, in deliberate kindness, he had withheld from her all these years, yet more fundamental and general of application.

Lies, he thought, knowing he was not the first in history to realize it, even of omission, create an inevitable necessity for more lies, until lying is a first recourse instead of a desperate last.  They erect walls between those who love each other, so that, when crisis strikes, as it had, one can no longer reach the person he had lied to, no longer even recognizing her as the person for the love of whom the dubious protection of lies was first sought.

So it was that, just as he had never told her of her parents' fate, it had never occurred to him in recent days to explain that, in this cruelest of all possible ages, the future he had labored to achieve for her----marriage of state to an entity incapable, in any sense of the word, of hurting her---was, by comparison with the most likelier alternatives, a kindly one.  Even the alternative might prove easier than life on the capital planet.

For an instant, their eyes met across the table, conveying no more than mutual recognition that each felt helpless to escape unenviable circumstances which almost seemed to have manufactured themselves.  He wondered if Kostolom, himself a sufferer of one of those likelier alternatives, appreciated what he was trying to do, and wondered why he felt responsible to the creature.

"Sir?" The Kitchen drug swung aside.  Kostolom, exercising that mundane but real telepathy which years of intimate acquaintance engender between beings, appeared as if summoned by his master's thoughts.  "If you have finished, sir, I shall have these dishes cleared out of your way."

Trezleniya-Silvertou glanced at his niece, who seemed to have accomplished as much with her food as she was likely to.  He knew exactly how she was feeling this evening.  He couldn't help worrying about her; at his present weight, he could afford to skip a meal, whereas she, at hers, could not.  Because he felt the same, himself.  "Satisfactory, Kostolom, and if you would afterward fetch my pipe, I would appreciate it."

"Yes, sir."  Kostolom supervised a pair of female kankin as they cleared the table.  The omnivorous tablecloth had made short, discreet work of any spots or crumbs the moment they had been carelessly dropped.

At this moment, she might have offered some word that might (or might not) have changed everything.  Tris recalled a recent confrontation in which he had enumerated ways, had he not been more considerate of her wishes, she might have been induced to cooperate, through drugs or less-pleasant forms of mind-alteration.  an unbearable sense of injustice boiled up within her, expunging any thought she might have entertained of making peace.  In forty-second-century matters of the "heart," she thought with the appearance of consent without regard to whatever inward reality it may have hidden---had become all-important.  Those perceiving themselves as the more refined elements of society preferred "unpersuaded" women as earlier ones had preferred virgins.

In due course, Kostolom had brought his master's smoking materials.  Trezleniya-Silvertou had never acquired the Premier's taste for nicotine.  Since Tris had been a child, he had come to enjoy a single pipe of hempgrass after the evening meal.  It settled his tummy and was helpful in overcoming his chronic insomnia.  Accepting the miniature pipe, he watched the kankin cut a corner from the small tube of resinous brown essence and sprinkle the resultant crumbling upon the fine mesh in the bowl.  He leaned forward to take the flame, drew the sweet smoke in, and inhaled, already beginning to relax from nothing more than years of habit.

Tris reminded herself that she was both: virgin and unpersuaded.  

In these dangerous times, precious little personal security existed, Trezleniya-Silvertou observed, returning to the track upon which his thoughts had run all evening.  Tris should consider herself fortunate.  The trouble, he realized, was that, again from a desire to preserve the gentler sensibilities he had sought to ingrain in her, he had taken pains to see she led a sheltered life.  She knew nothing of the savagery churning just outside her door.  She would never believe those good intentions for her were all that motivated him.

"Uncle?"

Trezleniya-Silvertou blinked.  Kostolom had vanished without his having noticed.  The hempgrass must be quite fresh.  His chair made scraping noises on the carpet as he arose with feelings of disappointment and depression.  "What, my sweet?"

"If you will excuse me, I still have packing to accomplish..."

Trezleniya-Silvertou permitted himself an inward sigh.  Over the years he had been accustomed to having her company these last few minutes every evening.  Now she had been finding excuses to leave him at the table, and he was starting to have those bleak, never-again feelings which accompany an irrevocable break.  Even had they been a string of utopian planets, Kvadratiok was, in terms of time and space, a long way away.  "Of course, my dear.  Maybe I shall see you in the morning before I leave for the Droom."

Virgin and unpersuaded, the thought came back.  She who remained the latter might yet remain the former.  While it was true, throughout history, that uncounted women had survived political marriages, many more had managed to make admirable lives for themselves without handling from any man.  Virgin and unpersuaded equaled "Old Maid."  Tris intended to do her grim and level best to remain both---and if need be the lattermost----for a long time coming.  "Good night, Uncle Flownx---" she answered with an odd expression.  "Good night, Uncle."

As she left him, he sat down again, feeling ill.   He drew upon his pipe, hoping against experience that it would make him feel better.  Save for its bubbling, silence descended upon the dining room.

It was also possible to lie to oneself, he thought, and easiest to do so by omission.  The consequences were more difficult to see, not just in advance, but even as they were happening, even after they had ended in one's destruction.  But for a different variety of reasons---reasons that had created this aching---gulf between himself and Tris.  Tris, Tris----he had never so much as attempted to discover----What had he never attempted to discover?  That was it:  in what manner had it come to pass that his family, of all families----of all families, had been disrupted....by the travesty...travesty of interstellar slavery and death.

Trezleniya-Silvertou found his thoughts separated by disconcerting gaps in his sense of time-flow which were the symptom of hempgrass side-effects, the reason he had sought surcease with the drug to start with.  Now that he'd achieved it, he was not sure it was what he wanted.  He put the pipe down and took several deep breaths, attempting to reorder his thoughts.

When his mind was alert, working in the interests of Premier and Cosmopolity---and not beclouded with the effort of hiding from itself----Trezleniya-Silvertou was contemptuous of coincidence.   What had happened to Vadim and his young wife might have had random happenstance, the unpredictable conclusion to an inauspicious business-and-pleasure voyage.  Operating at an uninhibited capacity, the Premier's Oligarch-Advisory and Executor-General believed it likelier to represent some connivance against his own interests which, perhaps at the last moment, had gone awry.   No punchline had ever arrived.  No agent of an enemy had ever appeared to promise, threaten, or gloat.  The whole thing had remained an ugly mystery, and the elder brother's secret, for most of  Tris's lifetime.

Which was what had brought him to this place and time, forged a conspiratorial bond between him and a servant, and, despite his best intentions, lost him the love and respect of the only living human being he cared for.  He was shocked to find himself taking another draught on his pipe.  Shaking his head, he accepted it, leaned back, driving his emotions back inside where they couldn't affect him, forgetting as hard as he could.

Alone.