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"Check for women who mastermind their husbands in politics. Let me know how many and who." "Lew, that's not enough to " "That's all I can give you for now, but I think I'll have more. Remember that ..." he hesitated, spacing his words as a new thought struck him "... the ... Nathians ... were ... nomads." Day began early for the Bullones.
"Every schoolkid knows how the Nathians and the Marakian League fought it out in the Rim War how the old civilization fell apart and it all seems kind of distant," he said. "Five hundred standard years," said Orne. "And maybe no farther away than yesterday," murmured Stetson. He cleared his throat. And Orne wondered why Stetson was moving so cautiously. Something deep troubling him.
"I'll come to that in a moment," said Orne. "Now, note this: the Nathians are mostly women. There were only a few accidents and a few planned males, like me. That's why there were no family names to trace just a tight little female society, all working to positions of power through their men." Spencer cleared his throat, swallowed. He seemed powerless to take his attention from Orne's mouth.
"The Rah&Rah boys couldn't make sense out of the records. No surprise. They called in an I-A crypt-analyst. He broke a complicated substitution cipher. When the stuff started making sense he pushed the panic button." "For something the Nathians wrote five hundred years ago?" Stetson's drooping eyelids lifted. There was a cold quality to his stare.
"Are you prepared to jail your wife and daughters for conspiracy?" asked Orne. A tight smile played around Polly's lips. Spencer opened his mouth, closed it soundlessly. "The Nathians are mostly women," said Orne. "There's evidence that your womenfolk are among them." The admiral looked like a man who had been kicked in the stomach. "What ... evidence?" he whispered.
On the other hand, if we expose them, we give a bunch of political amateurs every fanatic and power-hungry demagogue in the galaxy just the weapon they need to sweep them into office." "After that: chaos," said Orne. "So we let the Nathians continue ... with two minor alterations." "We alter nothing," said Polly. "It occurs to me, Lewis, that you don't have a leg to stand on.
The Nathians were long on patience. They came originally from nomad stock on Nathia II. Their mythology calls them Arbs or Ayrbs. Go review your seventh grade history. You'll know almost as much as we do!" "Like looking for the traditional needle in the haystack," muttered Orne. "How come you suspect High Commissioner Upshook?" Stetson wet his lips with his tongue.
"My objection to politics is the compromises you have to make to get elected!" Stetson moved out from the wall. "It's pretty clear," he said. Heads turned toward him. "To stay in power, the Nathians had to give us a fairly good government.
"We have history books. They say the Nathians were top drawer in political mechanics. We know for a fact they chose landing sites for their refugees with diabolical care. Each family was told to dig in, grow up with the adopted culture, develop the weak spots, build an underground, train their descendants to take over. They set out to bore from within, to make victory out of defeat.
But no ... if he was right about this situation, then Diana could be the weak link. Time was closing in on them, too. By tomorrow the Nathians could have the government completely under control. It was warm beside the lake. There were purple and orange flowers above the grassy bank. Small creatures flitted and cheeped in the brush and trees.
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