The Governor collapsed into a fit of hysterical weeping, huddled up on the tabletop. Jim felt a hand slide into his own, and looking down, saw that Ro had come from her seat to stand at his side.
“Yes, indeed,” Ro said slowly in careful but unpracticed English, to Heinman. “I am a High-born, and I tell you that Jim is one too. The Emperor adopted him as one, but even the Emperor said that he was giving Jim nothing Jim did not already have. Jim risked his life for all of you, and he brought me and Adok back to make you a people who will someday inherit the Empire.”
She stopped and turned to point to the sobbing Governor.
“This man,” she said, “must have been one of the colonials in Galyan’s plot. He sent a stone from Earth in Jim’s name. Only it was not a stone, but a device to project a blue, distorting light over Vhotan; and when it did this, the poor Emperor thought he saw the Blue Beast of his nightmares, and was so afraid that he ordered Vhotan killed, just as Galyan had planned. Wasn’t it this man who suggested you should try Jim for treason?”
“I lied. I told them the Princess Afuan would shortly remove the High-born Slothiel, and then she would seek payment from Earth for what Jim had done,” moaned the Governor, swaying on the table with his face hid in his hands. “But I was wrong— wrong! He is High-born. Not just by adoption, but by birth. I was wrong, wrong…”
On Heinman’s face there was a war of expressions, but gradually dominating them all came the look of a man who had just emerged from many miles of dark tunnels to find a daylight so much brighter than he had expected that it was almost too painful to bear.
Jim looked at him, then nodded down at the weeping Governor before returning his eyes grimly to Heinman once more.
“Yes,” Jim said. “So now you understand… And you can also understand why the Empire was something to be kept from Earth, at any cost.”