Colemenoport
Port Security Office
The master trader had recounted his meeting with the Mistress, the death she had dealt his oathsworn, her attempt to attach him, his resistance, and his decision to liberate those others she had attached. It was a tale of some scope, that he laid out with a cool brevity that told Mar Tyn how much the events he spoke of had wounded—and pained—him, still.
He paused after his description of cutting the Mistress’s myriad bindings to take up his cup and carefully sip his tea.
The Warden looked to Dyoli and Mar Tyn.
“You were bound to Tarona Rusk, is that correct?”
“Yes,” Dyoli said. “The severing of the bonds was . . . violent,” she continued, modeling herself on the master trader’s coolness. “I expect there was a multiplicative effect—Mistress Rusk having bound so many.”
She glanced at Shan yos’Galan, still sipping tea, his face smooth and his eyes distant.
“Master pai’Fortana and I were two of a team of three,” she murmured. She was buying more time for the master trader to recruit himself, Mar Tyn realized. She would See the pain Mar Tyn only guessed at. “The separation killed our third outright, and he was accounted the strongest of us.”
“To what do you attribute your survival?” the Warden asked.
“To our personal bond, sir,” Dyoli answered.
The Warden inclined his head gravely and looked to Mar Tyn. “And you, sir? Did you suffer no hurt from the separation?”
Mar Tyn blinked.
“In fact, I was dying,” he said, roughly. “Healer ven’Deelin caught me up and Healed me. She all but died herself in the doing of it.”
“I did not die because our bond operated as expected,” Dyoli explained calmly.
“Did this Tarona Rusk also die of separation trauma?” asked ringZun.
Master Trader yos’Galan put his cup gently back into the saucer, and met the evaluator’s eyes.
“She did not.”
“Then she is still at large!” Officer bennaFalm looked as if he might start to his feet and rush off in immediate pursuit. “She could be regrouping at this moment, rebuilding her forces—”
“Forgive me that I was not plain,” the master trader interrupted, his cool voice slicing through the other’s heat. “I am a Healer. It was obvious to me that Tarona Rusk had been abused by the Department of the Interior, of which I spoke earlier. She had, in fact, been shaped into something she would not have chosen, had she been permitted the counsel of her own mind and heart. That being so, and as I had said, I Healed her.
“After our encounter, Tarona Rusk saw me safe before leaving on a mission of Balance with our mutual enemy,” the master trader continued. “I had no more contact with her until we arrived here, on Colemeno.”
“Never say she is on Colemeno,” Officer bennaFalm almost whispered.
The master trader lifted an eyebrow.
“She is not. However, I was on Colemeno and we were, as Evaluator ringZun has said, entangled. I felt her determination to commit self-murder as I stood on Ribbon Dance Hill.”
bennaFalm’s face relaxed.
“Then she is a threat to us no longer,” he said, sounding satisfied.
“She is a threat to you no longer,” the master trader agreed blandly.
“That,” said the Truthseer, “is not a lie, but it allows the questioner to deceive himself.”
bennaFalm’s face hardened again.
“Is Tarona Rusk, mistress of Reavers, dead?” he snarled.
The master trader sighed.
“She is not. She has forgotten all the evil she has done, as well as all the evil done to her.”
“You gave her forgetfulness?” ringZun asked, plainly startled.
“Did I not say so?”
“But—where was she?”
The master trader lifted a shoulder and let it fall.
“Somewhat distant from Colemeno, I believe.”
Chief bennaFalm closed his eyes.
“Allow me to understand this,” he said slowly. “You were able to effect a Healing from Ribbon Dance Hill to some undisclosed location, far away from Colemeno.”
“That is correct. I expect that the ambient conditions may have given me a boost.”
“Doubtless so,” ringZun murmured, but bennaFalm had his eye on another target.
“You had this woman in your . . . range, let us say, knew her intention to suicide—and yet you interfered. I ask you why.”
Mar Tyn had not thought that the master trader’s eyes could become any colder.
“I am a Healer,” he said, each word distinct. “There was no need for a woman to die of being betrayed and tortured. I would not have interfered, as you have it, had she truly wished to die. She did not. She wished for an end to her own deadliness, and surcease from the pain of her past.”
“Truth,” said the Truthseer.
The master trader paused, and glanced down. Dyoli took up the pot and poured him more tea.
He inclined his head slightly, but did not pick up the cup.
“Proper therapy in the case was forgetfulness,” he said, raising his head to meet bennaFalm’s eyes. “She is no longer a threat to Colemeno, or to herself.”
“Truth.”
“And so she is free to rediscover her potential and create more Reavers, which may again find Colemeno—”
“That is, I think, enough,” said Majel ziaGorn, firmly.
Chief bennaFalm turned and stared. Bentamin barely kept his own countenance.
“I beg your pardon, Councilor,” Chief bennaFalm said, heavily, “I have many questions yet—”
“As does any thinking being,” Majel interrupted. “However, in this case, the questions have gone far afield. What is the purpose of this continued harassment of innocent persons?”
“I—”
“Are any of these people Reavers?” demanded Majel of the room at large.
“They are not,” said the Truthseer.
There was a brief silence, before Majel spoke again.
“My information was that Trader ven’Deelin and Master pai’Fortana were taken up on suspicion of being Reavers. It has been established that they are not Reavers. Were there additional charges made?”
“There were not,” said Chief bennaFalm, sounding sullen.
“You are forcing those found innocent of charges to revisit trauma and pain to satisfy personal curiosity. Neither Colemeno nor justice is served by continuing.” Majel turned his head and met Bentamin’s eye.
“Warden, I protest on behalf of the trade mission. Further questioning is unfitting and unnecessary.”
“I agree,” Bentamin said, and looked to Chief bennaFalm—
Who opened his mouth, and closed it again.
Bentamin waited.
Chief bennaFalm sighed, and stated formally,
“This examination is closed. Let the record show that Dyoli ven’Deelin, Mar Tyn pai’Fortana, and Shan yos’Galan are none of them Reavers, and are no danger as such to Colemeno or to Civilization.”