by Timothy Zahn
"Now, what did Dornt just say?" Korthe said, his tone mildly reproving. "Didn't he say you didn't need to worry about such things?"
"I'll worry about whatever I choose to worry about, thank you," Thrr-pifix-a snapped. "And unless you can promise me right now that there'll be no danger to the shrine's protectors, you can just pack up and leave."
"Please," Korthe said, holding up a hand. "Thrr-pifix-a; please. We understand your concerns, but you protest far more than necessary. Of course we'll guarantee that no one will be hurt. Our whole philosophy of respect for the rights and dignity of individual Zhirrzh would be meaningless if we didn't."
"If you're assured of nothing else this postmidarc, be assured of that," Dornt added earnestly. "When we bring your fsss to you, it will not be at any cost to anyone else."
"I'll hold you to that," Thrr-pifix-a warned.
"Of course," Korthe said. "Then it's decided."
And suddenly Thrr-pifix-a realized that it was. Somehow, without her making a real conscious decision, it was indeed decided. "All right," she said, hearing the defiance of uncertainty in her voice. "Yes. It's decided. When?"
"Next latearc," Korthe said, gesturing to Dornt and standing up. "We can let ourselves out."
"Wait a beat," Thrr-pifix-a frowned as Dornt also stood. "Next latearc? As in just over a fullarc from right now?"
"I see no advantage in waiting," Korthe said. "Do you?"
"Well... no. No, I suppose not," Thrr-pifix-a conceded reluctantly. "It just seems so sudden."
"Suddenness is a great ally," Dornt said. "Especially against the sluggishness of a layered leadership structure."
"But I was just caught trying to take it myself," Thrr-pifix-a pointed out. "Won't they be expecting me to try again?"
"They might be expecting you," Dornt said, smiling faintly. "They certainly won't be expecting us."
Thrr-pifix-a swallowed. "And no one will be hurt?"
"There will be no need for violence of any sort," Dornt said quietly. "Trust us on that. We have many methods, and many contacts."
"It'll be all right, Thrr-pifix-a," Korthe added. "Really it will. Please try not to worry. We'll be back before you know it."
His face turned serious. "And then your future will be in your hands, and in your hands alone. As it should be."
They left... and for a long time after the door closed behind them, Thrr-pifix-a just sat there in her small conversation room. Wondering if her decision, so quickly and strangely made, had been the right one.
And wondering, too, at the sudden uneasiness simmering inside her.
16
The end of the wave front disappeared behind the massive sea rock that sat fifty strides out into the ocean, its base lapped by the white-tinged blue-green water. For a beat nothing happened; then, abruptly, the edge of the rock seemed to explode into a burst of white froth as the wave smashed into it. The wind caught the froth, curving it partway around the rock, changing grayish stone to black where it hit. The froth itself turned into a fan of rivulets and tiny impromptu waterfalls as the water ran down the rock and returned to the sea.
Thrr-gilag took a deep breath, savoring the sharp-salty air as he gazed past the sea rock and tried to guess which of those incoming lines of white-capped wave fronts would be the next spectacular splash. And tried not to think of what might be happening, without him, back there in the Klnn family hall.
"Composing poetry?" a familiar voice called from behind him.
Thrr-gilag turned. Dressed in full formal Klnn family attire, Klnn-dawan-a's brother Klnn-torun was making his careful and precise way across the last few strides of rock-strewn beach that separated them. "What makes you think I'd be composing poetry?" Thrr-gilag called back over the roar of the waves.
"I thought you were the sort of person who might do that sort of thing," Klnn-torun said. "Especially standing here looking out at the ocean."
"Typical Klnn smugness," Thrr-gilag said. "What makes you think the hills and streams of the Thrr family territory can't compare with this puny ocean of yours?"
Klnn-torun frowned slightly. "Can they?"
Thrr-gilag smiled, flicking his tongue in a negative. "Not a chance."
"Ah." Klnn-torun's face cleared. "I didn't think so. You had me worried, though."
Thrr-gilag looked back at the sea rock, just in time to catch a minor wave splash at its edge. "How about you?" he asked. "You ever write poetry about the ocean?"
"Not really," Klnn-torun said. "I tried a few times, back when I was younger. But I could never come up with anything that sounded any good. I guess my mind just doesn't work that way."
Thrr-gilag shrugged. "To tell you the truth, neither does mine."
"Oh, come on." Klnn-torun frowned. "What about those three poems you wrote for Klnn-dawan-a right after you two met?"
Thrr-gilag eyed him suspiciously. "She didn't let you see those, did she?"
"Oh, no, she just read me some of the highlights," Klnn-torun assured him. "Really, I thought they were very good. Smooth and quite poetic."
"I'm glad I fooled you," Thrr-gilag said, snorting gently. "Truth is, I sweated blood over those things and still never really got them the way I wanted. I'm just glad they caught her attention before I had to write too many more of them. I'm still half-convinced she started seeing me out of sheer pity."
"Hardly," Klnn-torun said with a faint smile. "No, she was most impressed by them. And by you, too, of course."
"Not half as impressed as I was of her," Thrr-gilag murmured, looking over his shoulder. The Klnn family meeting hall towered back there behind him, its rock-faced walls blending almost seamlessly with the bluff on which it had been built. Klnn-dawan-a was up there right now, standing before the family and clan leaders. Trying to win them over the way she had won over her brother and parents.
And trying to do so all alone. They hadn't allowed Thrr-gilag in; nor had they allowed Klnn-torun or her parents or any of her closest friends to stand with her. There was nothing any of them could do but sit in the waiting gallery or wander around outside, wondering what was happening in the chambers and waiting for the family leaders to summon them back in. The whole stupid, outdated single-trial procedure -
"I heard about your father's being raised to Eldership half a cyclic ago," Klnn-torun said. "I'm sorry I wasn't able to attend his welcoming ceremony. We were right in the middle of a sudden influx of shahbba beetles, and we needed everyone we had to drive them off."
"That's all right," Thrr-gilag said, feeling a fresh twist of old guilt. "As it happens, I didn't make it, either. I was out on an archaeology dig when it happened, and with our extremely limited transportation arrangements I just wasn't able to get back."
"Yes, Klnn-dawan-a once missed an uncle's ceremony the same way," Klnn-torun said. "How's Thrr't-rokik adapting to life as an Elder?"
"Reasonably well, I think," Thrr-gilag said. He nodded toward the ocean. "Though his biggest goal these fullarcs seems to be to try to get a shrine set up near the Amt'bri River so that he can hear running water. Imagine what he'd want if he saw this."
"I don't have to imagine," Klnn-torun said grimly. "The Dhaa'rr leaders are already up to their tongues in demands to allow cutting pyramids along the seashore."
"Really," Thrr-gilag said, looking around. Aside from the Klnn family hall, there were only a handful of other buildings visible. "I guess I'm surprised it isn't a solid wall of shrines already."
"Actually, you'd never get shrines themselves put up here," Klnn-torun told him. "Salt air has always been considered too dangerous to fsss organs for anyone to risk putting an actual shrine near the shore."
"Ah," Thrr-gilag said, nodding his understanding. "But that's not such a problem when all you're dealing with is cuttings."
"Right," Klnn-torun said. "And the more this cutting idea has caught on, the louder the demands have become."
Thrr-gilag looked back at the ocean. "Well, at least here on Dharanv you have a whole planet's worth of territ
ory to spread out over. Those of us whose clan centers are still crammed together on Oaccanv don't have that same advantage."
"Maybe," Klnn-torun said. "But even here it's not as easy as you might think. All the most popular and spectacular sites are already owned, either by families or individuals. Many of the spots have been extensively developed."
"And none of the owners want bored Elders hanging around looking over their shoulders."
"You got it." Klnn-torun stroked pensively at the side of his face. "You know, Thrr-gilag, to be perfectly honest, I'm beginning to worry about all this. Starting to wonder if things may be getting out of hand."
"How so?"
"Well..." Klnn-torun hesitated. "Have you ever studied Zhirrzh history? Really studied it, I mean?"
Thrr-gilag shrugged. "I had the usual courses, plus a few," he said. "Nothing extensive."
"I studied it quite a bit," Klnn-torun said. "Especially the Eldership wars."
"Really." Thrr-gilag eyed him. "I wouldn't have thought of you as the warfare-studying type."
Klnn-torun shrugged. "Just because I try to avoid conflict in my own dealings doesn't mean I shouldn't be interested in reading about it. In fact, I'd venture to say that a desire to avoid conflict would give a Zhirrzh an extra incentive to learn about its causes."
"And logically so," Thrr-gilag agreed. "So what cause of conflict from history are we talking about here?"
Klnn-torun looked back up at the Klnn-family hall. "Are you aware that it was exactly this same competition between Elders and physicals for territory that sparked the Third Eldership War?"
Thrr-gilag frowned, thinking back to his own history courses. "Well... it wasn't exactly the same situation. For one thing, we were all stuck on Oaccanv back then. Now we've got seventeen other worlds to spread out on."
"Which I presume is the main reason it's taken us five hundred cyclics to reach this point again instead of the three hundred we got between the Second and Third Wars," Klnn-torun pointed out. "But there's another factor now that's been added into the mix. Back then people were much more used to having Elders around them all the time, their presence woven into the fabric of their lives. Now, suddenly, our culture seems to be obsessed with privacy and solitude - obsessed to the point of hostility, sometimes. We don't want anyone too close to us; we especially don't want Elders close to us. There's increasing pressure to put shrines and cutting pyramids way out somewhere where they can't reach cities or even major towns. At least on Dharanv the areas that are inaccessible to Elders are being developed at a tremendous rate. It doesn't make any sense."
"Actually, it does," Thrr-gilag said thoughtfully. "What you're seeing here is an underlying cultural shift. Five hundred cyclics ago people generally stayed their whole lives in one spot, with the only Elders around being those from their own family. Familiar, friendly, comfortable. Now, with all this cross-territory and interstellar mobility we've picked up over the past hundred cyclics or so, you can never know who's nearby or who might be watching over your shoulder. That makes people nervous. People who are nervous long enough often start getting hostile and resentful."
"You're right," Klnn-torun said thoughtfully. "I hadn't thought about that."
"Well, I've had a little more training in all this cultural stuff," Thrr-gilag told him. "Plus the fact that I live that way myself more than you do. Living and working with your family's old orchards, you're much more connected to the way Zhirrzh culture used to be."
"Yes, I see that," Klnn-torun said. "Oh, and that's another factor: with all these new cutting pyramids the Elders themselves are also less connected to the family lands than they used to be." He frowned. "Actually, that might make my point even more valid."
"That point being?" Thrr-gilag asked.
Klnn-torun's tail twitched. "That it seems to me the Elders have a great deal to gain from a war of conquest against the Human-Conquerors."
Thrr-gilag stared at him, the magnificent ocean scenery abruptly forgotten. "What do you mean?"
"Well, think about it," Klnn-torun said. "Every planet we're able to take from the Human-Conquerors is one more world the Elders have to expand into. More variety, more scenery - more room in general."
"You aren't seriously suggesting anyone would start a war over scenery, are you?"
"No, of course not," Klnn-torun said. "At least, not specifically for scenery. But we're talking territory, and that's always been one of the big driving forces behind conflict. And don't forget, what Elders want even more than scenic places to live is something to do. Every new world opens up that many more jobs for them, from communication pathways on up."
Thrr-gilag looked back up at the Klnn family hall behind them, thinking about the world he and Klnn-dawan-a had just come from. When the Zhirrzh and Chig had run into each other two hundred cyclics ago, the Chig had had colonies in two other star systems and had begun the exploration of two others. The subsequent war had pushed them back to their home world of Gree, guarded ever since then by Zhirrzh encirclement forces.
And their other four colonies were now part of the eighteen worlds. With thousands of Zhirrzh, and dozens of cutting pyramids scattered across them.
"I know it sounds unbelievable," Klnn-torun said into his thoughts.
"Well, yes, it does," Thrr-gilag said. "For one thing, you have to assume a massive conspiracy to make it work, with virtually every Elder in on it. You have to admit that's pretty unlikely."
"Under normal circumstances, certainly," Klnn-torun said. "We all know how fast information and rumors percolate through the Elder community. But there are times when a particular bit of information is controlled by a bare handful of Elders. Klnn-dwan-a's study group on Gree is a good example. She told me that despite the fact that your father had already heard about the threat to your bond-engagement, her own Elders hadn't said a word to her about it. You had to fly out personally and tell her."
Thrr-gilag looked out at the ocean, his suddenly contracted pupils not really seeing any of it. The whole philosophical basis of this war was that the Humans were an aggressive conqueror race who had deliberately and ruthlessly fired on four peaceful Zhirrzh survey ships with Elderdeath weapons. And the sole source of that assertion was the statements of the eight Elder communicators who'd been aboard those survey ships.
Thrr-gilag had heard their statement firsthand from Bvee't-hibbin back on Oaccanv. He'd assumed then that the Elder could have no possible reason to lie about it.
But what if Klnn-torun was right? What if Bvee't-hibbin had had a reason to lie? What if the Human prisoner Pheylan Cavanagh had been telling the truth about that battle?
What if the Zhirrzh had in fact started this war?
"You're very quiet," Klnn-torun prompted.
Slowly, Thrr-gilag forced his mind back on track. Was Klnn-torun thinking along these same lines? Probably. An orchard-tender wasn't exactly a prestigious profession, but Klnn-torun was considerably smarter than the usual stereotypes would suggest. Should Thrr-gilag tell him about that conversation with Bvee't-hibbin? And perhaps also about Pheylan Cavanagh's claims?
But neither of them had any proof of all this... and there were Elders up there at the Klnn family hall who could easily be listening in on this conversation. "It's an interesting speculation," he said instead. "And I'll certainly concede that there are probably Elders here and there who slant things or even some who tell outright lies. But I'm afraid I can't buy any suggestion that there's a conspiracy of Elders out there. Even a small conspiracy."
"I see." For a long beat Klnn-torun seemed to be studying his face. Then, with deliberate casualness, he turned back to look at the ocean. "Well, you're the expert on cultures, I suppose. You'd know best."
"Um," Thrr-gilag said noncommittally, looking at the ocean himself and wishing like blazes he knew what Klnn-torun was thinking right now. Was he taking what Thrr-gilag had just said at face value? Or was he simply playing along with what he perceived to be a subtle, between-the-lines concurrence with hi
s conspiracy theory?
An Elder appeared. "Klnn-torun?" he called, his voice faint over the noise of the waves. "You are summoned to the hall."
"I understand," Klnn-torun said. "What about Thrr-gilag?"
A faint flicker of disgust crossed the Elder's face. "He can come, too," he said grudgingly. "But be quick about it, both of you. They're waiting."
He vanished. "Don't let him rattle you," Klnn-torun advised Thrr-gilag as the two of them started back across the rocky beach. "If they've just called us, they can hardly have been waiting very long."
"Yes," Thrr-gilag said, his tail spinning hard even in the cool sea air. This was it. The judgment of the family and Dhaa'rr clan leaders on him and Klnn-dawan-a.
"Thrr-gilag; Kee'rr?" a voice murmured in his ear.
Thrr-gilag turned, leaning his head to the side to try to focus on the Elder hugging close at his side. A female, no one he recognized. "Yes?"
"Shh!" she said urgently before vanishing.
"What was that?" Klnn-torun asked, turning to look at him.
"Ah - nothing," Thrr-gilag said, frowning to himself as he glanced around. Clearly, that Elder wanted to talk to him, and to him alone. Something having to do with Klnn-dawan-a? "Look, why don't you go on ahead," he told Klnn-torun. "I'll catch up in a hunbeat."
Klnn-torun looked puzzled, but he nodded. "All right," he said. "Don't be long."
He headed off, hunching forward a little as he labored uphill through the sand. Thrr-gilag glanced around, then stepped over into the lee side of a sea-grass-coated boulder and waited.
He didn't have to wait long. A few beats later the Elder was back. "I'm sorry for this," she said, her face a mirror of rapidly shifting emotions. "Really, I am. Actually, I shouldn't even be talking to you - I mean, you're not even Dhaa'rr, and - "
"It's all right," Thrr-gilag interrupted soothingly. "Besides, anything that concerns Klnn-dawan-a is something I have a right to know about."
