seemed desirable to impose a communications blackout, including telepathy, except in a major emergency or by messenger, but at present security was more important than convenience—however good it would be to be able to make definite, rather than tentative, plans. Facts must be accepted, though; they had insufficient data, so they simply had to make do with what they did have. "Even so, we do not yet have confirmation. I think we must plan for the possibility, remote as it is, that she did escape both and make it to the Palace. If the Imperials are informed of even as little as she got from me, it could hinder us."

"If you plan for that," Kainor said, "you will also have to assume a Ranger will be involved within minutes, or at most hours."

"What—" "A Ranger!" Valla and Thark exclaimed as one.

"Yes. Ranger James Medart arrived yesterday aboard the battle cruiser Emperor Chang, and took a lander down to the Colvis Reserve."

"Why was I not informed?" Thark asked, forcing his voice to remain steady. A Ranger's interference, especially this early, could be disastrous!

"Ranger Medart's orders, Master. He is on convalescent leave, recuperating from the injuries he sustained just prior to the end of the war. He did not wish to be bothered by official functions."

"If he is injured," Thark said thoughtfully, "he should be no problem to eliminate."

"I said he is recuperating," Kainor corrected. "I understand he is still weak, but otherwise he is healthy enough. It is unlikely to affect him except to slow him in personal combat."

"And Rangers do not fight unless it cannot be avoided," Valla said. "Does he have anyone with him?"

"I was not told, but most probably he does. Since this is a peaceful world and the Reserve is a resort area, I would assume him to be accompanied by a token bodyguard—perhaps two to four Marines, not enough to stop a determined killer."

"True," Valla agreed. "Entos again, then, with four Sanctioners. The Sanctioners have enough Talent to take out two Marines each, so even if our estimate is low, they should have no difficulty. And whether Medart fights or not, Entos will be able to give him a swift death."

Kainor nodded. "After all, it is not their combat abilities that make them so valuable to the Empire, even though Menshikov is the Empire's greatest strategist. It is their personalities and the way they think."

"Yes," Thark said. "That much everyone knows. But exactly what is it about their personalities and thinking? What is so unusual about them that there are only ten Rangers, and none of those Irschchans?"

"Nine, since Tarlac's assassination," Kainor reminded him. His ears went back in a slight frown. "Despite my investigations since the Crusade was decided on, I have not been able to discover the actual selection criteria. All I can tell you is what I have been able to deduce from studying them and their accomplishments, and that certainly cannot be taken as conclusive."

"Go ahead," Thark told him. "I know you dislike making incomplete evaluations, but there is no more time to complete that project. An incomplete evaluation is better than none at all, you must agree."

"I do—but keep in mind that it is incomplete." Kainor shifted on his cushions, then continued.

"First, their selection is based on a combination of factors, not a single isolated characteristic. Genius-level intelligence is of course part of it, along with a generalist's wide range of interests and abilities, and greater adaptability than normally appears even in spacers. They are also able to analyze situations, develop a solution that seems improbable or impossible, and make it work—usually if not always to the Empire's benefit."

"I have had little opportunity to study them," Valla said. "Could you be more specific?"

"Easily," Kainor replied. "And Medart is a classic example, so I will use him. Among his other accomplishments, he was responsible for both the successful human-Irschchan settlement of Ondrian and the end of the Sandeman Incursion in Sector Five, which resulted in Subsector Sandeman's joining the Empire."

"Which in turn led to a high percentage of their warriors in the Imperial military or serving as contract police forces on various worlds," Thark said. "Extremely loyal military or police—but they are Elnar's problem. Continue."

"Yes, Master. Valla, do you remember anything about either incident?"

"Almost nothing," Valla admitted. "Until recently, I had very little interest in Imperial news."

"And I would appreciate hearing about both with the information you have that Imperial newscasts probably left out because humans would take it as a given," Thark said.

Kainor sighed, something a number of Irschchans had picked up since meeting humans. "Very well. The Ondrian situation, then. During the second year of the joint colony's existence, an Irschchan youngling was exploring in the mountains alone, contrary to all colony rules. He vanished, and search parties found no trace of him. He was presumed dead after a standard week, due to the bitterly cold weather.

"It surprised everyone, to put it mildly, when he showed up in excellent health a month after the search was abandoned. That was not all. He had one of the mountain cloudcats with him, and thanks to his Talent—so minimal the Order had not accepted him, but there—he had managed to establish communications with her. Very rudimentary ones, to be sure, but quite adequate to establish their intelligence.

"That was a severe blow to the colony. With the cloudcats proven to be intelligent, Imperial law required that the colony be abandoned. However, it is the only place that so-called 'miracle weed' can be grown successfully. It could not be obtained by trading, because the cloudcats have no hands and no interest in farming. Since miracle-weed is the only source of several valuable pharmaceuticals including rapid-heal, the Emperor sent Medart in to see if anything could be salvaged.

"He somehow got the idea that the cloudcats originated in a warmer climate than Ondrian's. Nobody believed it, of course; geological studies done when it was first discovered showed Ondrian's climate had never varied enough to produce such an evolutionary difference. And with their lack of hands, they could not possibly have built spaceships to bring them from another planet.

"It turned out, of course, that Medart was absolutely correct. The cloudcats—or perhaps I should say our young explorer's friend Starflower—had learned to understand English, and could indicate a yes or no answer to questions. Medart talked to Starflower for several days, and found out that they were in fact not only from a different planet, but from a different system entirely.

"They had been transported to Ondrian more than ten thousand years ago by beings they called simply the Others, who had discovered the cloudcats' sun was about to go nova. The cats elected to stay in the same stellar neighborhood, but according to them the Others were preparing to embark on a racial expedition of their own, one of considerable magnitude. From what Starflower told Medart, it seems they left this galaxy entirely.

"Medart went back into the mountains with Starflower, remaining there for two weeks. When he returned, he had somehow gotten the cloudcats to agree to let the colonists have free run of the equatorial zone, though they must stay out of the mountains unless they are invited. In return, he gave the cats the right to travel on Imperial Navy ships at any time. So the Empire got its pharmaceuticals, and the cloudcats seem more than pleased with the opportunity to indulge their curiosity. A most economical solution, though I regret he did not see fit to release the details of his negotiations."

Kainor rose and went to the service panel, returning with more koril for each of them. He handed out the glasses, sat back down, and took a deep swallow before continuing. "It is possible someone else could have accomplished the same