colleague, the Sixteenth Co-ordinator, Department of Cultures. He’d been conducting, he said, a personal investigation of Lannai culture and psychology—and had found himself forced to the conclusion there was no reasonable objection to having them join us as full members of the Confederacy. ‘A people of extraordinary refinement . . . high moral standards—’ Hinted we’d have no further trouble with the Traditionalists either. Remarkable change of heart, eh?”
“Remarkable!” Iliff agreed, watchfully.
“But can you imagine,” inquired the Co-ordinator, “what brought Sixteen—between us, mind you, Iliff, as pig-headed and hidebound an obstructionist as the Council has been hampered by in centuries—to this state of uncharacteristic enlightenment?”
“No,” Iliff said, “I can’t.”
“Wait till you hear this then! After we’d congratulated each other and so on, he brought the subject back to various Lannai with whom he’d become acquainted. It developed presently he was interested in the whereabouts of one particular Lannai he’d met in a social way right here on Jeltad a few weeks before. He understood she was doing work—”
“All right,” Iliff interrupted. “It was Pagadan.”
The Co-ordinator appeared disappointed. “Yes, it was. She told you she’d met him, did she?”
“She admitted to some circulating in our upper social levels,” Iliff said. “What did you tell him?”
“That she was engaged in highly confidential work for the Department at present, but that we expected to hear from her within a few days—I had my fingers crossed there!—and that I’d see to p