"And you rose from prisoner to officer because you were too selfish to keep fighting for what was right."
"I saw them bury the ones who insisted on doing that."
"And you want us to meekly bow down, here?"
"I have no interest of any kind in this world—I'll never see it again—but I know from experience what will happen to you and your people if you try to fight. I don't want that to happen. Do you think that because a man isn't a blind chauvinist, he has to be a soulless monster?"
"No," she said in a suddenly small voice. "But I had hoped ... we were talking that day of the mountains beyond the Emerald Plain and a frontier to last for centuries ... it was just idle talk but I thought maybe that when the showdown came you would be on our side, after all."
She drew a deep breath that came a little raggedly and said with a lightness that was too forced:
"You don't mind if I have a silly sentimental fondness for my world, do you? It's the only world I have. Maybe you would understand if you could see the Azure Mountains in the spring ... but you never will, will you? Because you lied when you said you weren't my enemy and now I know you are and I"—the lightness faltered and broke—"am yours ... and the next time we meet one will have to kill the other."
She turned away, and vanished among the trees like a shadow.
He was unaware of the passage of time as he stood there on the hill that was silent with her going and remembered the day he had met her and the way the song swans had been calling. When he looked up at the sky, it was bright gold in the east and the blazing stars of the Whirlpool were fading into invisibility. He looked to the west, where the road wound its long way out of the valley, and he thought he could see her trudging up it, tiny and distant. He looked at his watch and saw he had just time enough to reach the ship before it left.