"Remarkable!" said Calhoun.
"Did you do it?" asked Maril. "Did you start a harmless epidemic that wipes out the virus that makes blueskins?"
Calhoun said in feigned astonishment, "How can you think such a thing, Maril?"
"Because I was there," said Maril. She said, somehow desperately, "I know you did it! But the question is, are you going to tell? When people find they're not blueskins any longer, when there's no such thing as a blueskin any longer, will you tell them why?"
"Naturally not," said Calhoun. "Why?" Then he guessed. "Has Korvan—"
"He thinks," said Maril, "that he thought it up all by himself. He's found the proof. He's very proud. I'd have to tell him how the ideas got into his head if you were going to tell. And he'd be ashamed and angry."
Calhoun considered, staring at her.
"How it happened doesn't matter," he said at last. "The idea of anybody doing it deliberately would be disturbing, too. It shouldn't get about. So it seems much the best thing for Korvan to discover what's happened to the blueskin pigment, and how it happened. But not why."
She read his face carefully.
"You aren't doing it as a favor to me," she decided. "You'd rather it was that way."