Hunter Of Worlds

Chapter 10

TEJEF CAME INFREQUENTLY to the outside of his ship. Considering the proximity of Ashanome he did not think it wise to put too great a distance between himself and controls at any moment. But the burden this aircraft brought was a special one. First off the ramp was Gordon, a thin, wiry human with part of two fingers missing. He was not a handsome being, but he had been even less so when he arrived. He was senior among the kamethi, and of authority second only to Margaret.

“Toshi has a report to give,” Gordon said, gesturing toward the little amaut who was supervising the unloading of three stretchers. “She can tell it better than I can. We took casualties: Brown, Ling, Stavros, all unrecovered.”

“Dead, you say. Dead.”

“Yes.”

“A sadness,” Tejef said. The three had been devoted and earnest in their service. But his attention was for the three being unloaded.

“A male and female of your kind,” said Gordon. “And another—something different. Toshi says she’s kallia.”

The litters neared them, and Khasif was the first: Tejef looked into the face that was so nearly the mirror image of his own, felt the impact of takkhenes as Khasif’s eyes partially opened. They must have poured considerable amounts of drug into his veins. It would have been the only way to transport him, else he would seize control of the aircraft and wreck them all. Even now the force of him was very tangible.

“Mainlevel compartment twelve is proof against him,” Tejef told the bearers. “Put a reliable guard there to warn the humans clear of that area. I think you understand the danger of confronting him once the drug has worn off.”

“Yes, sir. We will be careful.”

And there was Isande. The kallia and he were of old acquaintance. He was glad to see that she was breathing, for she was of great chanokhia.

“She must go to the lab,” he told the amaut. “Dlechish will see to her.”

And the third one was shrouded in a blanket, darkish blood seeping through it. So the humans treated the dead, concealing them.

This would be the female of his kind. He reached for the blanket, unknowing and uneasy. Chimele it would not be: the Orithain of Ashanome would not die by such a sorry mischance, or so shamefully. But for others, for gentle Chaikhe, for fierce old Nophres or Tahjekh, he would feel a certain regret.

The ruined face that stared back at him struck him with a hamchia that drained the blood from his face and wrung from him a hiss of dismay. Mejakh. Quickly he let fall the blanket.

“Are there rites you do, sir?” asked Gordon.

“How you say?” Tejef asked, not knowing the word.

“Ceremonies. Burial. What do you do with the dead?”

She was sra of his. It was not chantikhia to let her be bundled into the disintegration chamber by the hands of m’metanei. He must dispose of her, he. He conceded Mejakh that final vaikka upon him, to force him to do her that honor. There was no other iduve able to do so.

“I see to her. Put her down. Put down!”

He had raised his voice, e-chanokhia, disgracing himself before the shocked faces of the m’metanei. He walked away from the litter to take himself from the harachia of the situation, to compose himself.

“Sir.” Toshi came up at his elbow and bowed many times, so that he was forewarned he might not have reason to be pleased with her. “Have I done wrong or right?”

“How was this done?”

“I urged the authorities in Weissmouth to remember their loyalty to you, my lord, and they heard me, although it needed utmost persuasion. There were delays and delays: transportation must be arranged; human mercenaries must be engaged; it must not be done in the headquarters itself. All was prepared. We aimed only for the kamethi, who were accessible; but when the great ships opened and presented us such a chance—my lord, your orders did direct us to seize any opportunity against such personnel—“

“It was most properly done,” said Tejef, and Toshi gave a sigh of utmost relief and bowed almost double, long hands folded on her breast.

“But sir—the other nas kame—I confess fault: we lost him in the dark. Our agents are scouring Weissmouth for him at this moment. We felt pressed to lift off before the great lords your enemies could resolve to stop us. I think it was our good fortune we escaped even so.”

“Few things are random where Chimele is concerned. This kallia that escaped: his name?”

“Aiela.”

“Aiela.” Tejef searched his memory and found no such name. “Go back to Weissmouth and make good your omission, Toshi. You acted wisely. If you had waited, you would surely have been taken. Now see if you can manage this thing more discreetly.”

“Yes, sir.” Toshi gave a deep breath of relief and bowed, then backed a pace and turned, hurried off shouting orders at the crew of her aircraft. Tejef dismissed the matter into her capable hands.

There was still the unpleasant necessity of Mejakh. Harshly he ordered the kamethi to stand aside, and he knelt and gathered the shattered body into his arms.

Tejef washed meticulously and changed his clothes before he entered the paredre again. The remembrance of Mejakh’s face, the knowledge of Khasif a prisoner in the room down the corridor, worked at his nerves and his temper with the corrosive effect of takkhenes out of agreement. It grew stronger. Khasif must be coming out from under the effect of the drug.

Tejef mind-touched the projection apparatus where he stood and connected it to the unit in Khasif’s cell.

The nasith was a sorry sight. He had gained his feet, and he was dusty and bruised and bleeding, but he attempted a show of hostility.

Tejef was amazed to find that he did have the advantage of his proud iq-sra. Perhaps it was the drug still dulling Khasif s mind, or perhaps it was the knowledge that Mejakh was dead and that he had fallen to m’metanei and amaut. Undoubtedly Khasif had already attempted the door with his mind, and found its mechanism proof against an iduve’s peculiar kind of tampering—the lock primitive and manual. Now Khasif simply withdrew to the farthest corner, stumbled awkwardly into the wall he could not see in his vision of the paredre. He leaned there as if it were difficult to hold his feet.

“I have sent Mejakh hence,” Tejef said softly, “but she had nothing for serach but what she wore and the blanket they wrapped her in, and I vented the residue world-bound. Hail Mejakh, who was sra to us both.”

Khasif ought to have reacted to that pretty vaikka. He did not move. Tejef felt his own strength coursing along his nerves, felt Khasif s weakness and his fear.

“You could be free,” Tejef assured him, “if you declared yourself arrhei-nasul and made submission to me. I would take it.”

Khasif made a small sound of anger. That was all. It was a beaten sound.

“Sir.” Gordon’s voice sounded beyond the walls of Khasif s room, and Tejef ceased the projection and stood in the paredre once more, facing Gordon and the man Daniel. “Let him go,” said Tejef. “The restraint is not necessary.” Gordon released his prisoner, who showed a disheveled appearance that had no reasonable connection with his having been aroused from sleep. There was blood on his mouth. The human wiped at it at his first opportunity, but he seemed indisposed to quarrel with an iduve. Tejef dismissed Gordon with a nod.

“I assume you are in contact with your asuthe,” said Tejef.

“Is Isande on this ship?” the human demanded, and Tejef would have corrected his belligerence instantly had the man worn the idoikkhe. He did not, and risked a chastisement of more damaging nature if his insolence persisted.

“Isande is here; but I would surmise that the man who asked that question is named Aiela.”

“I thought arastiethe forbade guesswork.”

“Hardly an unreasonable assumption. And I am not wrong, am I? It was Aiela who asked.”

“Yes,” Daniel admitted.

“Tell this Aiela that should he wish to surrender himself, I will appoint him the place and the person.”

“Arle—the little girl.” Daniel ignored the barb to make that broken-voiced plea. “Where is she? Is she alive?”

Vaikka was practically meaningless against such a vulnerable creature as this, one so lacking in pride. Tejef had allowed himself to be vexed; now he dismissed his anger in disgust, made a gesture of inconsequence. He dealt with humans—it was all that could be expected.

“Chimele sent you to Priamos with asuthi to guide you, but without the idoikkhe—without its danger and its protection. Was it in order to kill me—to draw near to me, and to seem only human?”

“Yes,” said Daniel, so plainly that Tejef laughed in surprise and pleasure. And at once the human’s face changed, anger flaring; unprepared for the creature’s maniacal lunge, Tejef slapped the human in startled reaction—open-handed, not to kill. The blow was still hard enough to put the fragile being to the floor, and Tejef waited patiently until the human began to stir, and bent and seized his arm, dragging him to his feet.

“Probably you are recently kameth, for I cannot believe that Chimele would have chosen a stupid being to serve her. I could have broken your neck, m’metane. I simple did not choose to.”

And he let the human go, steadying him a moment until he had his balance; the m’metane seemed more defensive now than hostile; he stumbled backward and nearly tripped over a chair.

“I should prefer to reason with you,” said Tejef.

“If that’s your aim, try reasoning with Chimele. Haven’t you sense enough to know you’re going to get yourself killed?”

“Then it is important,” said Tejef, “to do so properly, is it not? What does your asuthe say to that?” •

Daniel told him, plainly; and Tejef laughed.

“Please,” Daniel pleaded. “Where is Arle? Is she all right?”

“Yes. Quite safe.”

“Please let me see her.”

“No,” said Tejef; but he knew his anger on the subject was, in human terms, irrational. The child herself incessantly begged for this meeting, and, child of the dhis as she was, she was human, only human, and knew Daniel for nas—a friend, as she put it. It was not the same as if she had been iduve young, and it was well for him to remember it.

Then it occurred to him that a human according to his peculiar ethic would feel a certain obligation for the favor: niseth-kame, paradoxical as the term was.

“Arle is not from Ashanome” Daniel persisted. “She is no possible harm to you.”

Tejef reasoned away his disgust, reminding himself that sometimes it was necessary to deal with m’metanei as m’metanei, expecting no arastiethe in them.

“I shall take you where she is,” said Tejef.

Margaret answered the call to the door of the dhis, but Arle was not far behind her, and Tejef was quite unprepared for the child’s wild shout and her plunge out the door into Daniel’s arms. The man embraced her tightly, asking over and over again was she well, until she had lost her breath and he set her back. But then the child turned to Tejef and wanted to embrace him too. He stiffened at the thought, but as he recoiled she remembered her manners and refrained, hands still open as if she did not know what else to do with them.

“You see,” Tejef told her. “Daniel walks; he is well. Be not so uncontrolled, Arle.”

She dried her face dutifully and crept back to the shelter of Daniel’s arm: the touch between them frayed at Tejef’s sensibilities.

“He hasn’t hurt you—he hasn’t touched you?” Daniel insisted to know, and when Arle protested that she had been treated very well indeed, Daniel seemed both confused and relieved. He caressed the side of her face with the edge of his hand and gave a slight nod of courtesy to Margaret and to Tejef. “Thank you,” he said in the kalliran tongue. “But when your time is up and Chimele attacks—what is your kindness to her worth?”

“For my own kamethi,” Tejef admitted, “I have great regret. But I shall not regret having a few of Chimele’s for serach.”

“There’s no sense in all these people dying. Where is the arastiethe in that? Give up.”

“Hopelessly irrational, m’metane. Arastiethe is to possess and not to yield. I am iduve. Express me that thought of yours in my own language, if you can.”

That set the human back, for of course it was a contradiction and could not be translated to mean the same thing. “But,” Daniel persisted, “you iduve claim to be the most intelligent of species—and can’t you and Chimele resolve a quarrel short of this?”

“Yet your species fights wars,” said Tejef, “and mine does not. I have a great m’melakhia for your kind, human, I truly do. I do not willingly harm you, and if I were able, I would spend time among your worlds learning what you are. But you know my people, however lately you are kameth and asuthe. I think you know enough to understand. There is vaikka involved; and to yield is to die; morally and physically, it is to die. One cannot survive without arastiethe.”

“And what arastiethe have you,” Daniel cried, “if you are unable to save even your own kamethi, that trust you?”

“They are mine,” Tejef answered, lost in Daniel’s tangled logic.

“Because you have taken advantage of them, because you hold the truth from them—because they trust you’re going to protect them.”

“Daniel!” Arle cried, alarmed by the shouting if not the knowledge of what he had said. That was what saved him, for she thrust herself between, and her high, thin voice chilled the air.

Tejef turned away abruptly, painfully aware of the illogicalities at war in him. His pulse raced, the skin at the base of his scalp tightened, his respiration quickened. He knew that he must remove himself from the harachia of these beings before he lost his dignity entirely. Khasif’s takkhenois and the harachia of Mejakh’s corpse had upset him: the nearness of other iduve reminded him of reality, of forgotten chanokhia. He had set humans in the dhis; and now he had lost control of them. The child should not have come out. He himself had brought a strange male to them, reckoning human chanokhia different: but he had erred. He had been disadvantaged, had affronted the honor of Margaret, who was almost nas, and this child he had given to her he had allowed to be seen—to be touched—by this m’metane-toj. All his careful manipulation of humans lost its important in the face of simple decency. Harachia tore at his senses, almost as if they three, human: male, female, and child, possessed a takkhenes united against him—when m’metanei could possess no such thing. He was the one who had given them power against him. Perverted, the kalliran language expressed it: his own had not even the concept to lend shape to his fears about himself.

“Tejef.” Margaret’s light steps came up behind him; her hand caught his arm. ‘Tejef? What’s wrong? What did he say?”

“Go back!” he cried at her, realizing with a tightening of his stomach she had abandoned Arle and the open dhis to Daniel. “Go!”

“What’s wrong?” she asked insistently. ‘Tejef—“

He had wanted this female, still wanted her; and her- contaminating touch brought a swell of rage into his throat. What else she said he did not hear, and only half realized the reflexive sweep of his arm, her shriek of terror abruptly silenced. It shocked the anger out of him, that cry: he was already turning, saw her hit the wall and the wall bow before she slid down, and the child screamed like an echo of Margaret. He fell to his knees beside her, touched her face and tried to ease the limbs that were twisted and broken, strained by the way she was lying.

Daniel grasped his shoulder to jerk him back, and Tejef hit him with a violence that meant to kill: but the human was quick and only the side of his arm connected, casting him sprawling across the polished floor. He rolled and scrambled up to the attack.

“No!” Arle wailed, stopping him, wisely stopping him; and Tejef turned his attention back to Margaret.

She was conscious, and sobbed in pain as he tried to ease her legs straight; and Tejef jerked back his hands, wiping them on his thighs, desiring to turn and kill the human for witnessing this, for causing it. But Arle was between them, and when Margaret began to cry Daniel moved the child aside and knelt down disregarding Tejef, comforting Margaret in her own language with far more fluency than Tejef could use.

Tejef seized Daniel’s wrist when he ventured to touch her, but the human only stared at him as if he realized the aberrance of an iduve who could not rule his own temper.

The amaut must be called. Tejef arose and did so, and in a mercifully little time they had Margaret bundled neatly onto a stretcher and on her way to Dlechish and the surgery. Tejef watched, wanting to accompany them, ill content to wait and not to know; but he would not be further shamed before the amaut, and he would not go.

He felt Arle’s light fingers on his hand and looked down into her earnest face.

“Can I please go with her, sir?”

“No,” said Tejef; and her small features contracted into tears. He cast a look over her head, appealing to Daniel. “What is your custom?” he asked in desperation. “What is right?”

Daniel came then, hugged Arle to him and quieted her sobs, saying all the proper and fluent human things that comforted her. “Perhaps,” he said to her insistence, “perhaps they’ll let you come up and sit with her later, when she’s able to know you’re there. But she’ll be asleep in a moment. Now go on, go on back into your apartments and wash your face. Come on, come on now, stop the tears.”

She hugged him tightly a moment, and then ran away inside, into the echoing hall of the dhis where neither of them could follow.

“I will honor your promises to her,” Tejef told Daniel with great restraint. “Now go up to surgery. I want someone with her who can translate for the amaut. Dlechish does not have great fluency in human speech.”

“And what happens,” Daniel asked, “when you lose your temper with Arle the way you just did with her?”

Tejef drew a quick breath, choking down his anger. “I had no wish to harm my kamethi.”

Daniel only stared at him, thinking, or perhaps receiving something from his asuthe. Then he nodded slowly. “You care for them,” he observed, as if this were a highly significant thing.

“M’melakhia does not apply. They are mine already.” He did not know why he felt compelled to argue with a m’metane, except that the human had puzzled him with that word. He felt suddenly the gulf of language, and wished anew that he understood metane behavior. Ariastiethe would not let him ask.

“Call Ashanome,” Daniel said softly. “Surrender. The kamethi do not have to die.”

Tejef felt a chill, for the human’s persistent suggestion quite lost its humor; he meant it seriously. It was human to do such a thing, to give up one’s own arastiethe and become nothing. The inverted logic that permitted such thinking seemed for the moment frighteningly real.

“Did I ask your advice?” Tejef replied. “Go up to surgery.”

“She might take it kindly if you came. That is our arastiethe, knowing someone cares. We also tend to die when we are denied it.”

Tejef pondered that, for it explained much, and posed more questions. Was that caring, he wondered; and did it always demand that one yield arastiethe by demonstrating concern? But if human honor were measured by gathering concern to one’s self, then it was by seeking and accepting favors: the perversity of the idea turned reason itself inside out. In that realization the cleanliness of death at the hands of Ashanome seemed almost an attractive prospect. His own honor was not safe in the hands of humans; and perhaps he wounded his own kamethi—and Margaret—in the same way.

“Will you come up?” Daniel asked.

“Go,” Tejef ordered. “Put yourself in the hands of one of the kamethi and he will escort you there at your asking.”

“Yes, sir.” Daniel bowed with quiet courtesy and walked away to the lift. It was kalliran, Tejef realized belatedly, and was warmed by the fact that Daniel had chosen to pay him that respect, for humans did not generally use that custom. It filled him with regret for the clean spaciousness of Ashanome, for familiar folk of honorable habits and predictable nature.

The lift ascended, and Tejef turned away toward the door of the dhis, troubled by the harachia of the place where Margaret had lain, a dent in the metal paneling where her fragile body had hit. She had often disadvantaged him, held him from vaikka against humans and amaut, shamed him by her attentions. It was not the deference of a kameth but the tenacious m’melakhia of a nasith-tak—but of course there was no takkhenes, no oneness in it; and it depended not at all on him. She simply chose to belong to him and him to belong to her, and the solitary determination of her had an arastiethe about it which made him suspect that he was the recipient of a vaikka he could only dimly comprehend.

He was bitterly ashamed of the grief his perverted emotion had brought her in all things, for in one private part of his thoughts he knew absolutely what he had done, saw through his own pretenses, and began now to suspect that he had hurt her in ways no iduve could comprehend. For the first time he felt the full helplessness of himself among a people who could not pay him the arastiethe his heart needed, and he felt fouled and grieved at the offering they did give him. The contradictions were madness; they gathered about him like a great darkness, in which nothing was understandable.

“Sir?” Arle was in the doorway again, looking up at him with great concern (arastiethe? Vaikka?) in her kallia-like eyes. “Sir, where’s Daniel?”

“Gone. Up. With Margaret. With Dlechish. He can talk for her. She has great avoidance for amaut: I think all humans have this. But Dlechish—he cares for her; and Daniel will stay with her.” It was one of the longest explanations in the human language he had attempted with anyone but Margaret or Gordon. He saw the anger in the child’s eyes soften and yield to tears, and he did not know whether that was a good sign or ill. Humans wept for so many causes.

“Is she going to die?”

“Maybe.”

The honest answer seemed to startle the child; yet he did not know why. Plainly the injuries were serious. Perhaps it was his tone. The tears broke.

“Why did you have to hit her?” she cried.

He frowned helplessly. He could not have spoken that aloud had he been fluent. And out of the plenitude of contradictions that made up humans, the child reached for him.

He recoiled, and she laced her fingers together as if the compulsion to touch were overwhelming. She gulped down the tears. “She loves you,” she said. “She said you would never want to hurt anybody.”

“I don’t understand,” he protested; but he thought that some gesture of courtesy was appropriate to her distress. Because it was what Margaret would have done, he reached out to her and touched her gently. “Go back to the dhis.”

“I’m afraid in there,” she said. The tears began again, and stopped abruptly as Tejef seized her by the arms and made her straighten. He cuffed her ever so lightly, as a dhisais would a favored but misbehaving child.

“This is not proper—being afraid. Stand straight. You are nas.” And he let her go very suddenly when he realized the phrase he had thoughtlessly echoed. He was ashamed. But the child did as he told her, and composed herself as he had done for old Nophres.

“May I please go up and stay with Margaret too, sir?”

“Later. I promise this.” The prospect did not please him, having her outside the dhis, but the illusions must cease, for both their- sakes: the child was human, and there was no one left in the dhis to care for her. The time was fast running out, and it was not right that the child should be alone in this great place to die. She should be near adults, who would show her chanokhia in their own example.

“Are you going there now?” Arle asked.

“Yes,” he conceded. He looked back at her standing there, fingers still clenched together. “Come,” he said then, holding out his hand. “Come, now. With me.”

Most of the lights in the paredre of Ashanome were out save the ones above the desk, but Chimele knew well the shadowy figure that opened the hall door, a smallish and somewhat heavy iduve who crossed the carpets on silent feet. She straightened and lifted her chin from her hand to gaze on Rakhi’s plump, earnest face.

“You were to sleep,” he chided. “Chimele, you must sleep.”

“I shall. I wanted to know how you fared. Sit, Rakhi. How is Chaikhe?”

“Well enough, and bound for Weissmouth. We considered, and decided it would be best to pursue this adjustment long-distance.”

“But is the asuthithekkhe bearable, Rakhi?”

The nasith gave a weak grin and massaged his freshly scarred temple. “Chaikhe bids your affairs prosper, Chimele-Orithain. She is very much with me at this moment.”

“I bid hers prosper, most earnestly. But now you must close down that contact. We two must talk a moment. Can you do so?”

“I am learning,” he replied, and leaned back with a sigh. “Done. Done. Au, Chimele, this is a fearsome closeness. It is embarrassing.”

“O my Rakhi,” said Chimele in distress, “Khasif is gone.

Now I have sent Ashakh in his place, and to risk you and Chaikhe at once — “

“Why, it is a light thing,” he said. “Do not mere m’metanei adjust to this? Is our intelligence not equal to it? Is our self-control not more than theirs?”

She smiled dutifully at his spirit. It was not as easy as Rakhi said, and she did not miss the trembling of his hands, the pain in his eyes; and for Chaikhe, katasathe, such proximity to a half-sra male must be torment indeed. But of the three remaining nasithi-katasakke this pairing had seemed best, for Ashakh’s essentially solitary nature would have made asuthithekkhe more painful still.

“Chaikhe is really bearing up rather well,” said Rakhi, “but I fear I shall have Ashakh to deal with when he sees her on Priamos and knows that I have — in a manner — touched her. I really do not see how we will keep this from him if he is still to direct Weissmouth operations. He will sense something amiss a decad of lioi distant.”

“Well, you must advise Chaikhe to avoid harachia. Ashakh must remain ignorant of this arrangement, for I fear he could complicate matters beyond redemption. And do not you fail me, Rakhi. I have been confounded by one dhisais male human, and if you develop any symptoms I insist you warn me immediately.”

Rakhi laughed outright, although he flushed dark with embarrassment. “Truly, Chimele, asuthithekkhe is not so impossible for iduve as it was always supposed to be. Chaikhe and I — we maintain a discreet distance in our minds. We leave one another’s emotions alone, and I suppose it has helped that I am a very lazy fellow and that Chaikhe’s m’melakhia is directed toward her songs and the child she carries.”

“Rakhi, Rakhi, you are always deprecating yourself, and that is a metane trait.”

“But it is true,” Rakhi exclaimed. “Quite true. I have a very profound theory about it. Chaikhe and I would be at each other’s throats otherwise. Could you imagine the result of an asuthithekkhe between Ashakh and myself? I shudder at the thought. His arastiethe would devour me. But the direction of m’melakhia is the essential thing. Chaikhe and I have no m’melakhia toward each other. In truth,” he added upon a thought, “the m’metanei misinformed us, for they said strong m’melakhia one for the other is essential. I shall make a detailed record of this experience. I think it is is unique.”

“I shall find it of great interest,” Chimele assured him. “But it would be a great bitterness to me if harm comes to you or to her.”

“The novelty of the experience is exhilarating, but it is a great strain. I wonder if the m’metanei predict correctly when they say that the strain grows less in time. Perhaps the converse will occur for iduve there too. I surely hope not”

“As do I, nasith. Will you go rest now?”

“I will, yes.”

“Only do this: advise Chaikhe that Ashakh will be within Weissmouth itself, and she must remain in isolation and wait for my orders. I am summoning up all ships save the two that will remain in port. Mejakh has cost us. I fear the cost may run higher still.”

“Ashakh?”

She ignored the question. “May your sleep be secure, O nas.”

“Honor be yours, Chimele.”

She watched him go, heard the door close, and rested her forehead once more on her hands, restoring her composure. Rakhi was the last, the last of all her brave nasithi, and it was lonely knowing that others had the direction of Ashanome, that for the first time in nine thousand years the controls were not even under the nominal management of one of her sra. She bore the guilt for that. Of the fierceness of her own arastiethe, she had postponed bearing the necessary heir until it was too late for the long ceremonies of kataberihe, and vaikka had taken heavy toll of those about her. Mejakh was gone, her sra on the point of extinction: Khasif and Tejef together. Tamnakh’s sra was in imminent danger: Ashakh and Chaikhe and the unborn child in her; and if Rakhi sra-Khuretekh suffered madness and died, then the orith-sra of Ashanome came down to her alone.

She felt a keen sense of m’melakhia for Tejef, for the adversary he had been, a deep and fierce appreciation. He had run them a fine chase indeed, off the edge of the charts and into likatis and tomes unknown to iduve. And Ashanome’s victory would be bitter indeed to Tashavodh, dangerously bitter.

Perhaps to ease the sting of it a nas-katasakke of Kharxanen could be requested for kataberihe, for Tashavodh’s m’melakhia to gain sra within the orith-sra of Ashanome was of long standing. Chaxal her predecessor had refused it, and Chimele bristled at the thought: she would bear the heir Ashanome needed, perhaps two for safety’s sake, as rapidly as her health could bear. Then she could declare dissatisfaction with her mate and send him packing to his own nasul in dishonor; that would not be a proper vaikka—the Orithanhe forbade—but it would be pleasant.

But defeat—at the hands of Tejef and Tashavodh—to see him welcomed in triumph—was unthinkable. She would not bear it.

And there was that growing fear. Ashanome had been set back, and this was not an accustomed thing. It had been a hard decision, to sacrifice Khasif. In accepting risk, iduve disliked the irrational, a situation with too many variables. Were there any choice, common sense would dictate withdrawal; but there was no choice, and Tejef would surely seize upon the smallest weakness, the least hesitation: he was unorthodox and rash himself, e-chanokhia—but such qualities sometimes made for unpleasant surprises for his adversaries. Occasionally Isande could win at games of reason; the human Daniel had confounded skillfully laid plans by doing what no iduve would have done; and Qao-born Aiela managed to have his own way of an Orithain much more often than was proper. The fact was that m’metanei often bypassed the safe course. At times they did bluff, opposing themselves empty-handed to forces they ill understood, everything in the balance. This was not courage in the iduve sense, to whom acting as if one had what one did not smacked of falsity and unreason, which indicated a certain bent toward insanity. For the Orithain of Ashanome to bluff was indeed impossible: arastiethe and sorithias forbade.

But reversing the proposition, to allow another to assume he had what he did not, that was chanokhia, a vaikka with humor indeed, if it worked. It it did not—the loss must be reckoned proportional to the failure of gain.

Her eyes strayed to the clock. As another figure turned over, the last hour of the night had begun. Soon the morning hour would begin the last day of Tejef s life, or of her own.

“Chimele,” said the voice from control: Raxomeqh, fourth of the Navigators. “Projection from Mijanothe.”

Predictable, if not predicted, Chimele sighed wearily and rose. “Accepted,” she said, and saw herself and her desk suddenly surrounded by the paredre of Mijanothe. She bowed respectfully before aged Thiane.

“Hail Thiane, venerable and honored among us.”

“Hail Ashanome,” said Thiane, leaning upon her staff, her eyes full of fire. “But do I hail you reckless or simply forgetful?”

“I am aware of the time, eldest of us all.”

“And I trust memory also has not failed you.”

“I am aware of your displeasure, reverend Thiane. So am I aware that the Orithanhe has given me this one more day, so despite your expressed wish, you have no power to order me otherwise.”

Thiane’s staff thudded against the carpeting. “You are risking somewhat more than my displeasure, Chimele. Destroy Priamos!”

“I have kamethi and nasithi who must be evacuated. I estimate that as possible within the limit prescribed by the Orithanhe. I will comply with the terms of the original and proper decree at all deliberate speed.”

“There is no time for equivocation. Standing off to moon-ward is Tashavodh, if you have forgotten. I have restrained Kharxanen with difficulty from seeking a meeting with you at this moment.”

“I honor you for your wisdom, Thiane.”

“Destroy Priamos.”

“I will pursue my own course to the limit of the allotted time. Priamos will be destroyed or Tejef will be in our hands.”

“If,” said Thiane, “if you do this so that it seems vaikka upon Tashavodh, then, Ashanome, run far, for I will either outlaw you, Chimele, and see you hunted to Tejef’s fate, or I will see the nasul Ashanome itself hunted from star to star to all time. This I will do.”

“Neither will you do, Thiane, for if I am declared exile, I will seek out Tashavodh and kill Kharxanen and as many of his sra as I can reach when they take me aboard. I am sure he will oblige me.”

“Simplest of all to hear me and destroy Priamos. I am of many years and much travel, Chimele. I have seen the treasures of many worlds, and I know the value of life. But Priamos itself is not unique, not the sole repository of this species nor essential to the continuance of human culture. Our reports indicate even the human authorities abandoned it as unworthy of great risk in its defense. Need I remind you how far a conflict between Tashavodh and Ashanome could spread, through how many star systems and at what hazard to our own species and life in general?”

“It is not solely in consideration of life on Priamos that I delay. It is my arastiethe at stake. I have begun a vaikka and I will finish it on my own terms.”

“Your m’melakhia is beyond limit. If your arastiethe can support such ambition, well; and if not, you will perish miserably, and your dynasty will perish with you. Ashanome will become a whisper among the nasuli, a breath, a nothing.”

“I have told you my choice.”

“And I have told you mine. Hail Ashanome. I give you honor now. When next we meet, it may well be otherwise.”

“Hail Mijanothe,” said Chimele, and sank into her chair as the projection flicked out.

For a moment she remained so. Then with a steady voice she contacted Raxomeqh.

“Transmission to Weissmouth base two,” she directed, and the paredre of the lesser ship in Weissmouth came into being about her. Ashakh greeted her with a polite nod.

“Chaikhe is landing,” said Chimele, “but I forbid you to wait to meet her or to seek any contact with her.”

“Am I to know the reason?”

“In this matter, no. What is Aiela’s status?”

“Indeterminate. The amaut are searching street by street with considerable commotion. I have awaited your orders in this matter.”

“Arm yourself, locate Aiela, and go to him. Follow his advice.”

“Indeed,” Ashakh looked offended, as well he might. His arastiethe had grown troublesome in its intensity in the nasul: it had suffered considerably in her service already. She chose not to react to his recalcitrance now and his expression became instead bewildered.

“For this there is clear reason,” she told him. “Aiela’s thinking will not be predictable to an iduve, and yet there is chanokhia in that person. In what things honor permits, seek and follow this kameth’s advice.”

“I have never failed you in an order, Chimele-Orithain, even at disadvantage. But I protest Chaikhe’s being—“

She ignored him. “Can you sense whether Khasif or Mejakh is alive?”

“Regarding Mejakh, I—feel otherwise. Regarding Khasif, I think so; but I sense also a great wrongness. I am annoyed that I cannot be more specific. Something is amiss, either with Tejef or with Khasif. I cannot be sure with them.”

“They are both violent men. Their takkhenes is always perturbing. It will be strange to think of Mejakh as dead. She was always a great force in the nasul.”

“Have you regret?”

“No,” said Chimele. “But for Khasif, great regret. Hail Ashakh. May your eye be keen and your mind ours.”

“Hail Chimele. May the nasul live.”

He had given her, she knew as the projection went out, the salutation of one who might not return. A kameth would think it ill-omened. The iduve were not fatalists.