Her face sagged, incredulous. But it was Ktar Wassreck himself who spoke: "You know what this means, Jarl—?"
"I know."
"Then it doesn't count that I came for you on Horla? Loyalty means nothing...?"
"Loyalty—?" Jarl laughed a bitter laugh. "And what are you loyal to, then, Wassreck? Your friends who'll die down on Ceresta?"
The gaunt man's face grew cold and bleak. He did not answer.
Jarl turned his head; slashed out at rey Gundre, still standing by the viziscreen: "You, Commissioner! What are you loyal to? The Federation, that you betray? Ylana, your own daughter, who'd rather die in the desert than live here with you?"
A trace of color came to the high commissioner's grey, sagging face. Unspeaking, he looked away.
"Loyalty—!" Jarl spat. "How can any of you even pretend to know what it means? Because a man's first loyalty is to his own conscience—and conscience is a thing you neither have nor understand!"
Wassreck's gaunt face contorted. "A pretty speech—to die with."
His finger went white on the blaster's trigger.