"Were you killed, too?" I muttered.
"Killed? Not me. Nobody was killed, except that fat pig you met in the cavern. Not enough of him left to make a funeral worth while." Thorald looked behind him. "Ahoy, Parkeson! Cross! Barak's going to be all right."
The other two heads of the Newcomer expedition pushed into view, and looked down upon me where I lay.
"High time," grumbled Parkeson. "They're yelling for him—both sides. Barak, you'll have to drop all your weapons and take up political economy. I greatly fear you'll have a world to run."
"World?" I echoed stupidly. "What world?" My head cleared a bit. "Where's Doriza?"
"The fighting's over," Parkeson soothed me. "Just as you forced it to be. I'm still trying to decide whether you were an epic hero or an epic idiot, there at the crossways of battle, making us all stop, or fight you! But your hunch paid off. The entire Council of Dondromogon is dead, and—"
"Doriza," I said again.
"Somebody named Klob, a sturdy soldierly chap, is taking charge. An old sneak named Sporr tried to foment a counter-rising, but Klob disintegrated him. However, the army of Dondromogon still holds an inner defense—says it doesn't trust us quite. Wants only you to assure it that we mean peace. Feel like getting up, Barak?"
Dr. Thorald leaned over. "You've engineered this yourself, Barak, or maybe you didn't engineer it—maybe you only bulled it through. So I won't put words in your mouth, or thoughts in your head. But tell those deluded people to start by trusting us. And you know that they can. Nobody wanted war less than I. Peacetime endeavor on Dondromogon is quite difficult and exciting enough."
"Doriza," I said yet again, and then, "All right, gentlemen. You won't tell me about her. Maybe you don't dare. But how did I survive?"