The tall thin man who had released him from the locked room went round the table and conferred briefly with the grey-haired man. The brown-haired one listened, consented. The tall thin one spoke to Esdan in his uncharacteristically harsh, flat voice: "We are a special mission of the Advance Army of the World Liberation. I am Marshal Metoy." The others all said their names. The big brown-haired man was General Banarkamye, the tired older man was General Tueyo. They said their rank with their name, but didn't use it addressing one another, nor did they call him Mister. Before Liberation, rentspeople had seldom used any titles to one another but those of parentage: father, sister, aunty. Titles were something that went in front of an owner's name: Lord, Master, Mister, Boss. Evidently the Liberation had decided to do without them. It pleased him to find an army that didn't click its heels and shout Sir! But he wasn't certain what army he'd found.
"They kept you in that room?" Metoy asked him. He was a strange man, a flat, cold voice, a pale, cold face, but he wasn't as jumpy as the others. He seemed sure of himself, used to being in charge.
"They locked me in there last night. As if they'd had some kind of warning of trouble coming. Usually I had a room upstairs."
"You may go there now," Metoy said. "Stay indoors."
"I will. Thank you again," he said to them all. "Please, when you have word of Kamsa and Gana—?" He did not wait to be snubbed, but turned and went out.
One of the younger men went with him. He had named himself Zadyo Tema. The Army of the Liberation was using the old veot ranks, then. There were veots among them, Esdan knew, but Tema was not one. He was light-skinned and had the city-dusty accent, soft, dry, clipped. Esdan did not try to talk to him. Tema was extremely nervous, spooked by the night's work of killing at close quarters or by something else; there was an almost constant tremor in his shoulders, arms, and hands, and his pale face was set in a painful scowl. He was not in a mood for chitchat with an elderly civilian alien prisoner.
In war everybody is a prisoner, the historian Henennemores had written.
Esdan had thanked his new captors for liberating him, but he knew where, at the moment, he stood. It was still Yaramera.
But there was some relief in seeing his room again, sitting down in the one-armed chair by the window to look out at the early sunlight, the long shadows of trees across the lawns and terraces.
None of the housepeople came out as usual to go about their work or take a break from it. Nobody came to his room. The morning wore on. He did what exercises of the tanhai he could do with his foot as it was. He sat aware, dozed off, woke up, tried to sit aware, sat restless, anxious, working over words: A special mission of the Advance Army of World Liberation.
The Legitimate Government called the enemy army "insurgent forces" or "rebel hordes" on the holonews. It had started out calling itself the Army of the Liberation, nothing about World Liberation; but he had been cut off from any coherent contact with the freedom fighters ever since the Uprising, and cut off from all information of any kind since the Embassy was sealed—except for information from other worlds light-years away, of course, there'd been no end of that, the ansible was full of it, but of what was going on two streets away, nothing, not a word. In the Embassy he'd been ignorant, useless, helpless, passive. Exactly as he was here. Since the war began he'd been, as Henennemores had said, a prisoner. Along with everybody else on Werel. A prisoner in the cause of liberty.
He feared that he would come to accept his helplessness, that it would persuade his soul. He must remember what this war was about. But let the liberation come soon, he thought, come set me free!
In the middle of the afternoon the young zadyo brought him a plate of cold food, obviously scraps of leftovers they'd found in the kitchens, and a bottle of beer. He ate and drank gratefully. But it was clear that they had not released the housepeople. Or had killed them. He would not let his mind stay on that.
After sunset the zadyo came back and brought him downstairs to the packdog room. The generator was off, of course; nothing had kept it going but old Saka's eternal tinkering. Men carried electric torches, and in the packdog room a couple of big oil lamps burned on the table, putting a romantic, golden light on the faces round it, throwing deep shadows behind them.
"Sit down," said the brown-haired general, Banarkamye—Readbible, his name could be translated. "We have some questions to ask you."
Silent but civil assent.
They asked how he had got out of the Embassy, who his contacts with the Liberation had been, where he had been going, why he had tried to go, what happened during the kidnapping, who had brought him here, what they had asked him, what they had wanted from him. Having decided during the afternoon that candor would serve him best, he answered all the questions directly and briefly until the last one.
"I personally am on your side of this war," he said, "but the Ekumen is necessarily neutral. Since at the moment I'm the only alien on Werel free to speak, whatever I say may be taken, or mistaken, as coming from the Embassy and the Stabiles. That was my value to Rayaye. It may be my value to you. But it's a false value. I can't speak for the Ekumen. I have no authority."
"They wanted you to say the Ekumen supports the Jits," the tired man, Tueyo, said.
Esdan nodded.
"Did they talk about using any special tactics, weapons?" That was Banarkamye, grim, trying not to weight the question.
"I'd rather answer that question when I'm behind your lines, General, talking to people I know in Liberation Command."
"You're talking to the World Liberation Army command. Refusal to answer can be taken as evidence of complicity with the enemy." That was Metoy, glib, hard, harsh-voiced.
"I know that, Marshal."
They exchanged a glance. Despite his open threat, Metoy was the one Esdan felt inclined to trust. He was solid. The others were nervy, unsteady. He was sure now that they were factionalists. How big their faction was, how much at odds with Liberation Command it was, he could learn only by what they might let slip.
"Listen, Mr. Old Music," Tueyo said. Old habits die hard. "We know you worked for the Hame. You helped send people to Yeowe. You backed us then." Esdan nodded. "You must back us now. We are speaking to you frankly. We have information that the Jits are planning a counterattack. What that means, now, it means that they're going to use the bibo. It can't mean anything else. That can't happen. They can't be let do that. They have to be stopped."
"You say the Ekumen is neutral," Banarkamye said. "That is a lie. A hundred years the Ekumen wouldn't let this world join them, because we had the bibo. Had it, didn't use it, just had it was enough. Now they say they're neutral. Now when it matters! Now when this world is part of them! They have got to act. To act against that weapon. They have got to stop the Jits from using it."
"If the Legitimates did have it, if they did plan to use it, and if I could get word to the Ekumen—what could they do?"
"You speak. You tell the Jit President: the Ekumen says stop there. The Ekumen will send ships, send troops. You back us! If you aren't with us, you are with them!"
"General, the nearest ship is light-years away. The Legitimates know that."
"But you can call them, you have the transmitter."
"The ansible in the Embassy?"
"The Jits have one of them, too."