"No, dammit! We want you as the Bullones' house guest! And speaking of that, would you mind explaining how they were chosen to ride herd on you?"
"There's an odd thing," said Orne. "All those gags in the I-A about old Upshook Ipscott Bullone ... and then I find that his wife went to school with my mother."
"Have you met Himself?"
"He brought his wife to the hospital a couple of times."
Again, Stetson looked to the southwest, then back to Orne. A pensive look came over his face. "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. A sudden thought struck Orne. He said: "You spoke of trust. Has this conspiracy involved the I-A?"
"We think so," said Stetson. "About a year ago, an R&R archeological team was nosing around some ruins on Dabih. The place was all but vitrified in the Rim War, but a whole bank of records from a Nathian outpost escaped." He glanced sidelong at Orne. "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."