Jindigar put the question and Grisnilter answered. Jindigar translated, “Because he refused to abandon us.” He paced a circle, fretting, “But I ordered him to!”
“Maybe he knows how to get us out of this. Disobedience isn’t built into him, is it?”
“He’s mature. He had discretion. I hope he uses it.”
“Have you ever had reason to mistrust him?”
Storm said, “Not exactly mistrust, no, but I remember the time on Dilatter when Arlai was orbiting empty while the Oliat and the entire team were encamped. He’d warned us there were hailstorms in the area, remember?”
Jindigar’s mood lightened. He smiled as he said, “And we divined that none were going to hit our camp?”
Another of the Lehiroh said, “And Arlai…” And he gasped into silent laughter.
Another groom finished, talking to Bell and Krinata, “Arlai sent a probe into the upper atmosphere and disrupted the air currents just so one of those dratted storms drenched us when dinner was half-cooked!”
“And then he had the nerve to claim innocence!”
“He had a reason,” argued Jindigar. “We’d become too complacent. But guarding ourselves against another practical joke, we set the double watch which saved our lives. Even an Oliat can’t afford to become overconfident.”
Storm squatted comfortably on the floor of the bare cell, toying with a thread. “I’ve often wondered if Arlai is psychic. Or maybe you’ve secretly trained him as an Oliat?”
Jindigar chuckled. “I’ve wished I could.” He translated for those in the opposite cells. All but Grisnilter laughed. That began a marathon session of reminiscences in which Krinata submerged herself, not wanting to face where they were or what was to become of them.
When she’d long since given up expecting food, a meal of sorts arrived. It was a bucket of raw yeast-grown protein amenable to all their various metabolisms, palatable to none. It arrived on a tray via a trap in the wall, accompanied by a pile of plastic bowls—no spoons.
The five Lehiroh gulped it down willingly. Storm commented, “After two days of fasting, even this tastes good.” To Bell he said, “It wasn’t what I was planning for your wedding night, though.”
For a moment, Krinata thought Bell’s staunch good humor would hold. Then the woman broke into human-sounding sobs. If it were my wedding night, I’d be inconsolable.
The four grooms gathered about their bride, self-conscious. Krinata wished they could at least have some privacy, but knew that even if she wasn’t there, the spy eyes in the ceiling would be active. Voyeurs! She made a rude gesture at the spy eyes and was rewarded with no reaction.
Exhausted, Krinata slid down the wall to slump at its base. The room was kept at a fairly amenable temperature, but she thought she’d never fall asleep. Yet she did.
The next morning, they were taken to a sanitation stall, open, public, brutal. She relieved herself and showered, wondering how she was enduring this, while knowing it was much worse for those whose cultures had nudity taboos.
By midmorning, they were taken from their cells—all twenty-eight Truth passengers and the five Lehiroh—to go before a magistrate where they were arraigned for espionage.
The magistrate’s computer had only one entry under her name: wanted by the Emperor. Jindigar wasn’t listed at all. She assumed the records showed he’d died on Cassr, meaning at least one of those soldiers had survived to tell the tale.
Krinata’s understanding of Allegiancy law was worthless. Besides, martial law was in force, and they had no rights at all. All her aristocratic heritage made not the slightest impression on this Duke’s magistrate. The Allegiancy may as well have never existed. It doesn’t really exist anymore.
Remanded to the custody of a prison reputed to be impossible to escape from, they were herded into a large, windowless groundbus, fully automated so there was no driver to overpower. Rows of hard benches lined each side, with one long bench across the rear. As the door slammed and the bus began to move with a grinding roar that became a white-noise background, Krinata surveyed the hullmetal panels protecting the bus’s onboard brain. It probably wasn’t Sentient. But Jindigar was a circuitry wizard. Perhaps they could take over the bus. Where to go after that was the problem. She wasn’t even sure where they were in relation to the spaceport.
With the Dushau clustered in the rear, ignoring everyone, she gathered the rest and started talking before she had a plan worked out. She was beyond desperation, and had to try something. The others listened, in the same mood.
“I could get us to the spaceport,” offered Storm. “I grew up around here.”
Bell eyed the hullmetal panel, ran a hand over it, and said, “The welds are softique, the stuff used in gross circuits. A current would melt them away in a flash.”
“The light!” exclaimed Trassle, climbing onto his seat and ramming the light fixture with his closed, chitin protected hand. Dimness descended as the only light left came from the rear fixture. But Trassle pulled a live wire down. “Luckily, this bus must date from pioneer days.”
Storm said they had plenty of time since their new prison was more than two hours from where they’d started. Bell went to work on the bulkhead and Krinata went to the rear to talk to Jindigar.
She was stopped by a wall of indigo bodies. Desdinda stood off to one side, arms crossed, watching something on the bench spanning the rear of the bus. Her ah– of bristling disapproval told Krinata she was looking at Jindigar.
Rinperee said, “Don’t interrupt them.”
Craning her neck, Krinata could make out Grisnilter lying on the rear seat, Jindigar seated next to him, speaking in the dreadfully kind whisper usually reserved for the terminally ill. “What’s the matter with Grisnilter?”
Jindigar looked around. “Krinata?“m face, as if the woman’s wildest surmise of perfidy had been triumphantly confirmed. / must be misreading that! Krinata pushed it out of her mind and concentrated on Jindigar and Grisnilter, kneeling beside them, rolling with the sway of the floor. She told them of her half-baked plan, ending, “So all you have to do is figure out how to scramble the onboard and reprogram our destination.”
A pinched, haunted anxiety descended on Jindigar’s eyes. He gazed at Grisnilter. The old Dushau showed pale teeth, holding Jindigar’s eyes with his own. Grisnilter’s air of intense demand was replaced by silent helpless pleading.
At last Jindigar spoke. “In the time we’ve got left, I can either try to rewire this bus, or try to take your impression. Grisnilter, how many lives is it worth?”
Desdinda started to say something, but was silenced by the others. Rinperee said, “All of our lives, and more.”
“I’m not trained for this!” protested Jindigar.
“You’ve a supreme talent, though. It runs in your family, and I’ve seen your farfetch test,” argued Grisnilter. “You’ll never go episodic, Jindigar. You’re too stable.”
Into Jindigar’s anguished silence, Grisnilter said, “You’ll still be able to work Oliat. Your conscious mind will have no access until you are trained.”
Krinata, intrigued but impatient, interrupted, “You can do whatever it is after we escape.”
“No, Krinata, you don’t understand,” said Jindigar. “Grisnilter is dying. The strain of this ordeal is too great.”
“Don’t get dramatic now!” commanded Grisnilter. “It’s a perfectly natural phenomenon, death. Even Ephemerals do it. But I’ve a responsibility. I must not die until I’ve passed the Archive.”
It finally penetrated. Dying. Had she caused this attack by her anger that one time? She took the old Dushau’s hand, capturing his eyes. “I’m sorry I was so rude on the refugee’s ship. I didn’t mean it, and I’ve no excuse except I was worried about Jindigar. I hope what I said didn’t make you ill. I’ve been meaning to apologize.”
“I haven’t been so polite, myself, child. You may not have meant it, but you were absolutely correct to call me down. I’ve treated Jindigar shamelessly.”
Jindigar, rising and steering her away through the press of Dushau bodies shielding their elder, said, “He knows it’s unlikely we could steal a lander and make it to Truth with a semi-invalid in tow. After what he’d been through before we rescued him, that rescue itself, the affair with the seeker craft, now this—even if we got him back to Arlai’s sickbay, there’s a frighteningly high probability his memory will be impaired and he won’t be able to give the impression.”
“Impression?” interrupted Krinata.
“I told you, remember? Grisnilter’s an Archivist, carrying our Compiled Long Memory. If he dies without having impressed that memory on a younger Historian, it will be lost. But I’m the only one here who has a chance of taking the impression, even though I’m no Historian.”
This, the Historian’s profession, was what Jindigar had been desperate to avoid all along. It might even be his reason for exiling himself from Dushaun.
“Wouldn’t Arlai have a better chance of helping him than any doctors at the prison?”
“He can’t make it,” said Jindigar, his voice heavy with defeat. “I’ve fought him as long as I can. There are loyalties– like your loyalty to the Allegiancy—to one’s species, to one’s civilization, to life itself, that take precedence over personal loyalties.”
She looked up into his eyes. He doesn’t believe that. Yet he was pleading for her understanding without realizing that, in the bitter aftermath of her disillusionment with the Allegiancy, she was on the verge of repudiating the very part of herself capable of loyalty to an impersonal idea. She’d thought she’d understood him, with his intense loyalty to individuals who had proved their worth. She’d never been capable of that before meeting him. And now she had nothing else. Looking up into his eyes, she realized Grisnilter had called him to serve abstract, unjudgeable future generations of Dushau, not real stood before her, broken, pleading for her approval so he wouldn’t hate himself quite so much for abandoning them.
His nailless fingers were on her cheek, and she knew his fear in her bones. He doesn’t believe he’s immune to going episodic. But she also knew his determination. She said, “You don’t have to wire this bus for us. We can manage. Do what you must. I understand.”
“I’ll come to help, if I can. After Grisnilter’s had his way with me. But I warn you, there might not be much of me left.” Head bowed, he went back through the screen of Dushau.
She went back to the front of the bus, ignoring the grating sound of Desdinda’s voice as she issued her final warning to Jindigar. It was as if the woman felt he, Grisnilter, and the others who helped them, were committing a sacrilege. Perhaps they were, but from what she’d gleaned of this whole situation, Jindigar was taking the first step toward purifying his reputation among his people. She wished she understood why he didn’t want this. Certainly, it was more than the fear of going episodic. He might be evolved prey, but he didn’t lack for courage, and that was something she had to emulate now.
Reaching the front, she called with forced cheerfulness, “Well, Jindigar can’t spare the time right now, so who else has an idea how to do it?”
Trassle gave it a try, with Terab kibitzing.
A spark leaped, and Trassle was thrown back into the watching crowd. The vehicle ground to a halt. Nothing they could do after that would cause the doors to open.
The air began to go stale very quickly. The Dushau also wilted. She never saw what Grisnilter did to Jindigar, but her last memory before she passed out—sure she was already dead—was Jindigar huddled in on himself, clutching his head and moaning softly. She didn’t have the strength to crawl to him and hold him as she had in the imperial antechamber.
She woke up in a long barracks building. The roof overhead was a parabolic curve. The bed under her was scratchy and hard with a lumpy contoured sag under her ribs. The air was hot. She heard water running somewhere.
Head spinning, she dragged herself upright, incuriously noting the entire complement of Truth laid out on similar beds spaced only arm’s length apart. There were other beds, empty, marching off into the distance.
She got to her feet and essayed the long, long walk toward the running water. She found Jindigar in the shower, steam billowing around him. When the napped skin was wet, it showed the dark blue number stamped on forehead and torso. He was slumped, dull-eyed, and pale-toothed. He didn’t seem to notice her. She tried to force life into her voice, calling over the rush of water, “How can you stand that!”
He turned it off, looking at her without recognition. She remembered, There might not be much of me left.
“Grisnilter’s dead, Krinata. He was right. He must have been right. It must be that I’ve been wrong—”
Dear God! His mind! Her own brain still foggy, she made a snap decision, remembering how he could always pull himself together when others depended on him. “Look, Prince Jindigar, you made me a promise, and you’re going to keep it. We’re stuck in a rat trap with no hope, but you still owe me transportation to a nice safe planet where I and my progeny, if any, can live in peace, freedom and security. I need an Oliat officer to accomplish that, not an Historian!”
Her indignation, by the time she finished, was genuine.
He stood silently before her, naked, dripping, amazed. Then he threw his head back and let out a cry neither sob nor laugh. Two steps, he scooped her up and spun her around, his wet nap soaking her turquoise suit. “Krinata, oh, you are so real! Of course, I’ll keep my promise. Don’t I always?”
But over the next days, Krinata barely saw Jindigar. The Dushau protected him fanatically, as if he were an invalid in critical condition. Lonely as she was, she had no success thawing the others toward her. Days later she found out why. She was using the shower stall in a corner, and had turned off the water to dry herself when the four humans came in, the two women moving toward Krinata and the men away. One of the women was saying, “They think he’s going to die, that’s why they won’t let her near him.”
“If Gibson’s right, and she’s sleeping with him…”
“How could he be wrong, after she came out of his cabin like that?”
“Even so, Gibson oughta keep his mouth shut. Now all the Dushau know because he let Desdinda find out, and it’s clear enough she hates Jindigar. Now the rest of them think Krinata harmed him. Imagine, they think a little natural could do any harm. I warrant that’s what the man needs!”
“You volunteerin’?”
“Hell, no! Don’t get me wrong. I couldn’t care less what other kinds do, but that don’t mean I’d do the same. She wants him, she kin have ‘im. But I don’t hafta talk to ‘er.”
“Still, Jindigar’s different from the rest o’ them Dushau. He’s good folk. Solid. Don’t like ta’ see ‘im ailing like this. I hope they know what’s good for ‘im.”
They chattered on as they washed, and Krinata had to wait, hoping she wouldn’t be found eavesdropping. She’d almost forgotten the time she’d come out of Jindigar’s cabin wearing his robe. Gibson had drawn the logical and ridiculous conclusion. Without knowing the Dushau lifecycle, what else could they think? But the disapproval of cross-species fornication had frosted her already cool relationship to the rest of the Truth’s complement.
It was worse because Jindigar didn’t acknowledge the relationship, for those who didn’t disapprove didn’t know how to treat her. Knowing this, she could handle it. But did Jindigar know of the rumor or was he being protected from it?
Certainly the Dushau were keeping her away from Jindigar mistakenly, when she might even help him, Krinata began to note her surroundings and plan. They were in a desert. A force dome covered twenty-five identical barracks. One building was an infirmary. Once a day they were allowed to go to a larger building where they were fed adequate but revolting food. And though prisoners in other barracks were led off to a huge, flat building to work, all they were given to
occupy their time was the maintenance of their own building .This they were all forced to do with primitive tools as guards stood over them and made sure they were properly humiliated.
Even Jindigar, as much as his fellows tried to protect him, was forced to scrub floors while guards gloated over the high and mighty prince brought low. But he took it with his usual disregard for the trappings of dignity, which in itself was a kind of genuine dignity of true royalty. Krinata took her cue from this, and threw herself into her tasks with a childlike glee that soon baffled the guards into leaving her alone, calling her simpleminded.
Once, Desdinda saw her chance to strike a blow at Jindigar, and surreptitiously knocked over the bucket from which he was scrubbing the latrine floor. Krinata, working at the other end of the room, could do nothing when the guard flattened Jindigar with the butt of his weapon.
The daytime heat was crushing, somewhere beyond human endurance. The nighttime chill was enough to leave ice on the bathroom floor. She was issued extra clothing, but it hardly helped. She spent a lot of her time wrapped in her blankets, curled on her bed, shivering. Or else, she’d lie prone, waiting for the heat to abate. So there was very little time when she could pursue Jindigar.
Finally, late one afternoon, she went out onto the porch for some air, and found Jindigar sitting at last unguarded. She sat down beside him. “I hope you’re feeling better.”
“So do I,” he replied.
At least he’s talking. “I’m going to be awfully blunt and candid, but I have to know. Have you been avoiding me? Do you want me here?”
She hadn’t noticed two Dushau coming .out of the door behind her. They circled to confront her. “Leave him alone!”
She said calmly, “I was only talking to nun.”
“I said leave him alone! He is not to be disturbed.”
“I wasn’t ‘disturbing’ him!” she retorted, beginning to feel anger building. How could they talk about him as if he weren’t even there?
“I say you were.”
Krinata didn’t even know the Dushau’s name. She stood up and faced him squarely, “Don’t you think Jindigar should be the judge of that?”
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