He said quietly, "I'm not sure I do. Perhaps you'd better tell me."
"They're destroyers. They want to ruin Llyrdis, the Vardda empire, everything as it is now." Her passionate voice took in the star-trails, the swift ships flying, the Vardda pride of race and achievement.
"Orthis had his laboratory in his ship. The secret of the Vardda mutation is there. They want to find that ship. They want to find the secret in it and spread it all across the Galaxy."
"Would it be so terrible," asked Trehearne, "if others should have the ability to fly the stars?"
She looked at him as though he had spoken blasphemy. He added, "Except, of course, that it would wreck the Vardda monopoly."
"That sounds very strange, coming from you," she said bitterly. "You, the outsider, who fought so hard to be a part of the monopoly. It looked pretty good to you then after thirty-three years of crawling in the mud of Earth!"
"I've seen more of it now. I've seen a boy die because of it. I don't think I like it any longer."
"You don't like it?" Her voice was low and passionate. "You? And what do you know about it? We earned the right to what we have. We were the first—first of all the races of the Galaxy to go into interstellar space. And we did it without mutation, without anything! Four generations that first voyage took. Four generations of children born in deep space, in a little ship crawling between the stars! No one else ever did that. No one else ever dared! And as for our wicked monopoly—it keeps the peace of the Galaxy. It keeps worlds alive that would have died. It brings wealth and comfort where they never were before. But you don't like it and so it must be destroyed!"
She stopped for breath and then she whispered, "Kerrel was right about letting an outsider in. And I'm ashamed that I have loved you!"
She turned from him and went swiftly along the gallery. There was a purpose about the way she did it that made Trehearne uneasy. He followed her and found her at the visiphone. The screen was already brightening.