Niun cast a glance at Rhian. A bit of cloth lay on the sand; his, Rhian’s, he was not sure. He took down his veil and gave his face to the kel’anthein lately strangers, feeling naked and strange in doing so . . . glanced from face to face as they did the same, memorizing them, the fierce handsomeness of Rhian of the hao’nath; the plainness of Tian of the ja’ari; Kedras of the patha was one of the youngest, his mouth marked with a scar from edge to chin; mari’s Elan was broad-faced and elder; but oldest of the lot was Kalis of the ka’anomin, her eyes shadowed by sun-frown and the kel’scars faded with years.
He turned to follow after Melein, and they went their separate ways for the time. He looked up at the slight rise on which his own Kel waited, before the tents, where the four who had come to his support still stood . . . for the tribe’s sake, he persuaded himself in clearer reason: for pride of the ja’anom and its Holy, that they would not have merged with another tribe in defeat, though much the same distress would attach to merging as the consequence of winning. It was pride. Ras’s line in particular . . . had long defended the ja’anom. It was duty to her dead brother. He understood that. And Hlil was kel-second and Seras fen’anth, and Merin a friend of Hlil’s. They had their reasons; and their reasons had been fortunate for him and for Melein; he took even that with gratitude.
He walked among them, spared a nod of thanks to either side as they closed behind him and the black ranks of the Kel flowed back into the camp, where anxious kath’ein and sen’ein waited to know the fate of the tribe, clustering about Melein.
“There is agreement,” Melein said aloud, so that all might hear. “They will send kel’anthein into our Council; and they may lend us help. Challenge was declined.”
It was as if the whole camp together drew breath and let it go again . . . no vast relief, perhaps; they still sat in the possession of a stranger, led to strange purposes. But the ja’anom still existed as a tribe, and would go on existing.
His dus ventured out of kel-tent, radiating disturbance. Niun met it and touched it, tolerating its interference as he stood for a moment staring after the figure of Melein, who retreated among the Sen.
Reaction settled on him like a breath of cold wind. He turned away, the dus trailing him, went into the tent of the Kel, dull to the looks which surrounded him . . . missed the four to whom he owed some expression of spoken gratitude; perhaps, he thought, they turned away from it. He did not seek them out, to force it on them. He went instead to Duncan’s side, settled there, concerned that Duncan slept still, unmoved from the shoulder of his dus, his face peaceful as death in the faint light which reached them from the wind vents.
Niun touched the beast, recoiled from the numbing blankness the dus contained, nothingness, void that drank in sense. His own settled down, apart from that touch, and he leaned against it, unwilling to invade that quiet the dus had made for Duncan. He rested cross-legged, hands in his lap, bowed his head and tried to rest a little.
Footsteps disturbed the matting near him. He looked up as Hlil crouched down by him and tugged his veil down.
“You took no wound.”
“No,” he said. “I thank you, kel Hlil.”
“Kel-second belonged there. For the tribe.”
“Aye,” he agreed. It was clearly so. “Where is Ras?”
“Wherever she wills to be. I am not consulted in her wanderings.” Hlil looked down at Duncan, frowning. Niun looked and found Duncan’s eyes open a slit, regarding them both; he watched Hlil reach and touch his sleeve as if touching him at all were no easy thing. “The sight of him will be trouble,” Hlil said, “with the other kel’anthein.”
Niun moved his own hand to Duncan’s shoulder, lest Hlil’s cold touch should disturb him; he felt contact with the dus, which had the same leadenness as before, mind-dulling if he permitted. Duncan was conscious, but only partially aware.
“They are coming now,” Hlil said to him. “Watch has them in view. I do not think since the parting . . . such a thing has ever happened in the world.” His eyes strayed back to Duncan, glanced to him again. “He is yours; no stranger will touch him. But best surely if he is not first thing they see.”
Duncan blinked; perhaps he had heard.
“No,” Niun said. “Bring them here when they reach camp.”
Hlil frowned.
“Let them see me as I am,” Niun said. “I make no pretenses otherwise.”
“This is not yourself,” Hlil exclaimed. “You are not—not what the eye of strangers will see here. You are not this.”
The outcry both angered and touched his heart. “Then you do not know me. Look again, Hlil, and do not make me what I am not. This is my brother; and the beast is a part of my mind. I am not Kutathi, and I am not Merai. Bring them here, I say.”
“Aye,” Hlil said, and rose up and walked away in evident distress.
They came, eventually, a soft stirring outside, a whisper of robes . . . kel’anthein of the five tribes with each several companions, sixteen in all, a blackness in Hlil’s wake; and Hlil returned to sit by him and by Duncan.
Niun moved his upturned hand, offering them place on the mats. They sat down and unveiled; the tent stirred behind them with the arrival of ja’anom kel’ein, for it was the business of all of them, this opening of the tent to strangers.
Niun put out a hand to the dusei, one and the other, soothed them, deliberate demonstration . . . let them all look on him and them as long as they would, Rhian most of all, whose face betrayed nothing. After a moment Niun reached to his brow and swept off the headcloth in a gesture of humility, equaling their disadvantage on strange ground.
“I welcome you,” he said. “I warn you against strong passions; the beasts sense them and spread them if you are not wary of what they do; bid them stop and they will do so. Sometimes one can be deceived by them into feeling their anger; or strangers share what strangers would rather not. The Kel from which I came knew such things, valued them, learned to veil the heart from them; and what hurt they have done, lay to my account: I brought them. They are as devoted companions as they are enemies: Rhian s’Tafa, it was a moment’s misfortune and confusion: I beg your pardon for it.”
The others, perhaps, did not understand. The hao’nath’s eyes met his with direct force, slid deliberately to Duncan’s sleeping form.
“He is ja’anom,” Niun answered that look.
There was long and heavy silence. The dusei stirred, and Niun quieted them with a touch, his heart pounding with dread, for they could lose it all upon this man’s pride.
“This came from the alien ships,” Rhian said. “We tracked it. And you met with it. And that is a question I ask, kel’anth of the ja’anom.”
“I am Duncan-without-a-Mother.” The hoarse voice startled them all, and Niun looked, found Duncan’s eyes slitted open. “I came on a mri ship; but I had gone to speak with the tsi’mri, to ask them what they wanted here.”
“Sov-kela.” Niun silenced him with a touch, glanced up at Rhian. “But it is truth, all the same. He does not lie.”
“What is he?” asked Kalis.
“Mri,” Niun said. “But once he was human.”
What the dusei picked up disturbed, brought a shifting of bodies in instinctive discomfort all about the tent.
“It is a matter among us,” Hlil said, “with respect, kel’anth of the ka’anomin of Zohain.”
There was long silence.
“He is sickly,” said Rhian with a wave of his hand.
“I shall mend,” Duncan said, which he had the right to say, passed off in so contemptuous a manner; but it was desperately rash. Niun put out his hand, silencing further indiscretions; all the same he felt a touch of satisfaction for that answer.
And Rhian’s haggard face showed just the slightest flicker of expression: not outright rage, then, or he would have been as blank as newlaid sand. “So be it,” Rhian said. “We discuss that matter later.”
“Doubtless,” said Kalis of the ka’anomin, “we are different; god
s, how not? Some we accept, at least while we observe. But what have you brought us? We have seen the coming and going of ships. The hao’nath say that An-ehon is totally ruins. We do not know the fate of Zohain. This is not the first coming of tsi’mri to this world, but, gods! never did mri bring them.”
“Of the People who went out,” Niun said, “we are the last; we were murdered by tsi’mri who bought our service, not by Duncan’s kind. And they come to finish us here. Bring them, no. But that is the she’pan’s matter, not mine. Share food and fire with us; share Kath if it pleases you; they will take honor of you. For the rest, suspend judgment.”
“When will the she’pan speak to us?” asked Elan of the mari.
“I do not know. I truly do not know. She will send. We will lodge you until then.”
“Your tent cannot hold us,” said Kedras of the patha.
“We will do it somehow. If each caste yields a little canvas we can run cord between our poles and Sen.”
“Possible,” Kedras said, resting hands on knees. There was a small silence, and Kedras hissed a short breath. “Gods, all under one canvas.”
“In the Kel of my birth,” Niun said slowly, “we fought at the hire of tsi’mri; and went from world to world on tsi’mri ships; and it was done, that kel’ein onworld were sheltered by strange she’panei and edunei not of their birth, until their hire took them away again. Perhaps it was so on Kutath once, in the days of the great cities.”
“This Kel does not remember,” Kedras confessed, and others moved their heads—no.
“We will bring our kel’ein,” said Tian of the ja’ari. “Perhaps each of us can spare a little of canvas.”
Others assented.
“Kel’anthein,” Niun gave them murmured courtesy, watched as they rose and departed, filing out of the tent, as all about them, ja’anom rose in courtesy, settled again. Hlil followed them out, gathering a band of kel’ein to serve what needed be done.
Niun sat still a moment, replaced the headcloth, sat staring at the empty doorway.
“Strangers,” Duncan said beside him, and he realized that of all that had changed, Duncan knew none of it. “More than hao’nath.”
“I will tell you later. Rest, be still. All is better than it was.”
He rubbed at the dus’s shoulder to soothe it, looked out over the faces of his kel, at eyes which were fixed on him in strange concentration . . . with distress, it might be; or simple bewilderment. Ras was there; she had come in, and Seras, and Merin. There was a curious thing in the air, a sense of madness that quivered through the dus-sense; so a man might feel with his feet on the rimsands.
“Deal with them as with our own,” he said to them. He put off the kel-sword, laid it again on the matting, looked up as Taz appeared with a bowl which he offered, a small portion of liquid, a delicacy reserved for honor, and for those in need. “Kath sends,” Taz told him; and he drank, though he would rather have yielded it to Duncan, who needed it more. He gave the bowl back, thought on kath Anaras, thought that this evening would be well spent in Kath, where he might take pleasure, and ease. Rhian’s skill had made him think on dying, and Kath was a place to forget such thoughts. He had much neglected them, owed Anaras courtesy which he had never paid. She was fortunate, her child had survived the flight, but the kel’anth had never come a second time to her.
Tonight there were strangers in camp, and duty, and he could not. He shut his eyes, exhaled, opened them again. “I will return it,” he said.
“Sir,” Taz objected; it was not custom.
He rose up, taking the small bowl with him, and walked out.
Chapter Twelve
Luiz stared at the screen, the message tape looping over and over again.
DUNCAN INFO CONFIRMED ON SITE ONE, the message ran tersely. DANTE PROCEEDING NEW SITE HOPING FURTHER DATA.
No way to contact them; mission Dante went its own way. That any message had come meant they had gone aloft again, messaged from one of the so-reckoned safe corridors, and flitted gnat-like to the next choice of sites.
Boz, he thought with a shake of his head; the muscles of his mouth attempted a smile as he reckoned her happiness . . . let loose in such treasuries with camera and notebook and recorder; she would be in agony if the soldiers hastened her on too soon.
Salve to the soul, for all she had given up in leaving Kesrith.
Reparations. To save something. The smile faded into heart-sickness. Guilt drove her. Would kill her. The young men would keep going—had to—she would break her heart out there in the dunes, climbing where young men went.
But she had won something. INFO CONFIRMED, the message ran.
He reached for a pad and stylus. Tight transmission Saber, he wrote for the ComTech, and transcribed the message in full, with transmission time.
There was another thing on his desk, which had not given him such relief. CAUTION: READINGS INDICATE LIFE RESURGENCE IN THE CITIES. POWER THERE RESTORED. MAINTAIN SHIP FLIGHT STANDBY.
And with it another shuttled dispatch: ADVISE YOU ALLIED MISSION DEMANDING LANDING: SITUATION DELICATE.
He turned from his desk and handed the slip to Brown, who was Flower’s pilot. “Transmit,” he said.
“Sir,” Brown said, as if he would object.
“Do it.”
Brown left to do so. It would go quickly. Santiago hovered over them in this crisis like a bird over eggs.
He stared at the repeating message, scowling. He would gladly get the two current messages to Boaz if it were possible. It was not. They were on their own. Presumably they knew about the power in the sites . . . and if so they neglected to mention it; neglected to warn them of potential hazard.
He bit his lip, reckoning Boaz’s persuasive powers, wondered with a small and uneasy suspicion—how much else Galey’s mission neglected. A deliberately optimistic message; a biased message. He sent no comment with it, guilty by silence.
Saber, he reasoned, could draw its own conclusions.
* * *
The prep room remained a haven of sanity. Saber’s pulse went through it, this place where all had casual access, where a sharp eye might pick up what was developing, what missions went, what missions came in; and a sharp ear hear any rumor that was drifting about. Harris came by routine, in the unease that went with no missions and the lack of contact with Galey. He sat in the rhythm of the room, a frantic pace of outgoing and incoming flights, shuttles which kept their senses extended over the world’s horizons . . . gamed sometimes among friends, among the others who were bound to this assignment, who came, as he did, to sit and drink and watch the scan and the boards and say to themselves, not now, not this watch, not yet.
Harris filled his cup from the dispenser, used his rations card to get a cellopack of dried fruit, pocketed it while he made his usual nervous pass by the flight boards.
Regul, someone had scrawled on the margin of the clear plastic which overlay the system chart; and with it an eye.
Home, it had said once; but some zealot officer had erased that.
There were two ships out besides Santiago; that was normal. Four names on the present flight list; four more going up next. Good enough; it was all routine.
He walked next to the status board, found the point that was Flower, isolated as it ought to be. He sipped at the coffee and strayed back to the table, to sit and wait as he spent his days waiting. He activated the library function, propped his feet up, drank his coffee, and found himself four pages into the book he was reading, with no comprehension of it. He stared at it, heard others coming in, looked. It was the next group out, come in for prep.
“How’d it go last night?” one gibed at him; he gave a placid shrug, smug with a memory he was not going to have public, watched as they collected their flight gear from the lockers. The outward blips had made their slow way back on the scan; the outgoing team had it timed to a nicety.
Two men entered the room: North and Magee, two of his own. He moved his feet and offered them the place, while the o
ther team walked out and on their way to the hangar deck. North went to make his own pass by the boards and charts.
And of a sudden all status on scan was arrested; the ships stayed where they were. Harris rose to his feet; so did Magee. The ships began to turn, four neat and simultaneous changes of position, oriented to different quarters, two proceeding back the way they had come, two moving wide.
The screen adjusted to wider field. Red blips were proceeding out from the larger red ship.
“Here it comes,” Magee muttered. There was a cold in the air. Harris swallowed and watched. The red blips tracked not toward the world, but headed toward themselves.
The screen flashed letters: Code green.
“Going to board,” North said. They knew the routine. An aisle was established from the bay to the quarantine areas near command. Regul quarters were there for use when they must be. Areas not meant for regul were put under security yellow, which meant cardlock for everyone needing passage into and out of sections.
Bile rose into Harris’s throat. He swore softly.
“Guess we got our allies back,” North said.
“That regul expert,” Magee said. “That’s what he brought us. That Averson got us regul.”
Koch sipped at the obligatory cup of soi, stared levelly at the regul delegation and his own staff, who sat disposed about the room, the regul adult in his sled and the inevitable younglings squatting on the carpet beside . . . not much difference between standing and sitting for their short legs. Degas, Averson, and two aides: two opinions he truly wanted at hand and two live bodies more to balance the odds in the room; protocol: there had to be youngling figures so that regul knew by contrast whom to respect.
“Reverence,” said the newly adult Suth, gape-mouthed and grinning affably. “A pleasure that we are able to deal sensibly after crisis.”
“Bai Suth.” Koch stared at the regul sidelong, finding difficulty to believe that he had known this individual regul before, that what bulked so large in the sled had been one of the relatively slim servitors. There was not even facial similarity. Plates had broadened and ridged; skin had thickened and coarsened into sagging folds. The metamorphosis had been radical considering the elapsed time; and yet this one had not attained the late Sharn’s bulk and roughness. “We are pleased,” Koch pursued, “if this meeting can prove productive; our good wishes to you in your new office.”
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