Protector

C.J. CHERRYH

THE FOREIGNER UNIVERSE

FOREIGNER

PRECURSOR

INVADER

DEFENDER

INHERITOR

EXPLORER

DESTROYER

CONSPIRATOR

PRETENDER

DECEIVER

DELIVERER

BETRAYER

INTRUDER

PROTECTOR

THE ALLIANCE-UNION UNIVERSE

REGENESIS

DOWNBELOW STATION

THE DEEP BEYOND Omnibus:

Serpent’s Reach| Cuckoo’s Egg

ALLIANCE SPACE Omnibus:

Merchanter’s Luck| 40,000 in Gehenna

AT THE EDGE OF SPACE Omnibus:

Brothers of Earth| Hunter of Worlds

THE FADED SUN Omnibus:

Kesrith| Shon’jir| Kutath

THE CHANUR NOVELS

THE CHANUR SAGA Omnibus:

The Pride Of Chanur| Chanur’s Venture| The Kif Strike Back

CHANUR’S ENDGAME Omnibus:

Chanur’s Homecoming| Chanur’s Legacy

THE MORGAINE CYCLE

THE MORGAINE SAGA Omnibus:

Gate of Ivrel| Well of Shiuan| Fires of Azeroth

EXILE’S GATE

OTHER WORKS:

THE DREAMING TREE Omnibus:

The Tree of Swords and Jewels| The Dreamstone

ALTERNATE REALITIES Omnibus:

Port Eternity| Wave Without a Shore| Voyager in Night

THE COLLECTED SHORT FICTION OF C.J. CHERRYH

ANGEL WITH THE SWORD

A ForeignerNovel

Copyright © 2013 by C. J. Cherryh. All rights reserved.

Jacket art by Todd Lockwood.

DAW Books Collectors No. 1619.

DAW Books are distributed by Penguin Group (USA) Inc.

Book designed by Stanley S. Drate/Folio Graphics Co., Inc.

All characters and events in this book are fictitious. All resemblance to persons living or dead is coincidental.

The scanning, uploading and distribution of this book via the Internet or any other means without the permission of the publisher is illegal, and punishable by law. Please purchase only authorized electronic editions, and do not participate in or encourage the electronic piracy of copyrighted materials. Your support of the author’s rights is appreciated.

DAW TRADEMARK REGISTERED

U.S. PAT. AND TM. OFF. AND FOREIGN COUNTRIES

—MARCA REGISTRADA

HECHO EN U.S.A.

To Jane and Lynn—above and beyond.

Contents

Also by C. J. Cherryh

Title Page

Copyright

Dedication

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

1

Lace was back in fashion this spring—starched and delicate at once, layers of it flowing from cuffs and neck. It was a damned bother at a formal dinner, but there it was: the Lord of the Heavens had to be in fashion, and a state dinner in the court of Tabini-aiji meant a new coat, no question about that. So Bren Cameron arrived at Tabini-aiji’s door, accompanied by his four black-clad bodyguards, in a mode quietly equal to any of the lords present.

This new coat was a subdued beige-and-gold brocade, able, in this sparkling crowd, to fade into the background, and Bren Cameron—paidhi-aiji to that same Tabini-aiji, the ruler of the aishidi’tat, the Western Association of the atevi—liked it that way.

Paidhi-aiji. Official human-language translator—at least as he’d signed up for the job years ago. Back then he’d been the interface between the human enclave, restricted by treaty to the island of Mospheira, across the straits—and the atevi, native to the planet, who ruled the rest of the world.

Things had changed since then. Humans were in space, now. So were atevi.

And the paidhi’s office? The paidhi-aiji had become both diplomat and courier—become, in fact, paidhi in the sense in which atevi had always interpreted the office, long before the word humanentered their vocabulary. Translatorhad ceased to be much of his job at all, since humans and atevi interfaced daily on the space station, withfree access to the once-forbidden dictionary. Mospheira now worried far more about the space station orbiting overhead than they did the vast continent immediately across the water from them.

There had been a profound psychological shift in the attitudes on both sides of the strait. The earthly power that had threatened Mospheira in the past had ceased, at least in Mospheiran minds, to threaten them in any direct sense. The current worry of the human population on earth was the power of the human population in space versus their own insular ways and aims, most of which involved their comforts, their economy, and their sense of self-government.