Hunter Of Worlds

Chapter 12

THE TOUCH OF Rakhi’s mind came softly, most softly. It had hurt before, and Chaikhe accepted it cautiously, her nape hairs bristling at the male presence. She fought to subdue the rage that beat along her veins, and she felt Rakhi himself struggling against a very natural revulsion, for chanokhia forbade intimacy with a katasathe. She was for gift-giving and for honor, not for touching.

And there was his own distinctive harachia, a humorous, subdued presence. His arastiethe suffered terribly at close range, much more than hers did, for although folk judged Rakhi scandalously careless of his reputation, he was not really a person of kutikkase and his sense of chanokhia was keen in some regards. He cared most intensely what others thought of him, and found even the disapproval of a nas kame painful; but where others bristled and had recourse to the idoikkhei or engaged in petty vaikka, Rakhi laughed and turned inward. It was the shield of a nature as solitary in its own way as Ashakh’s, and of a man of surprising intelligence. Even Chimele scarcely understood how much Rakhi dreaded to be known, how much he loathed to be touched and to touch; but Chaikhe felt these things, and kept her distance.

“Nasith,” Rakhi voiced. He used this means, although other communication was swifter and carried sensory images as well; but this let him keep the essence of himself in reserve. “Nasith, Chimele is with me. She asks your state of health.”

“I am quite well, nasith-toj.”

“She advises you that Ashakh is presently attempting to recover the kameth Aiela. He has not communicated with you?”

“Nasith, I certainly would not have thought of violating Chimele’s direct order in this regard. No, nor would I accept it if he contacted me.”

But you are iq-sra through both lines, he thought, and Ashakh does as Ashakh pleases when he likes his orders as little as he likes the one that separated you. We shall have him to deal with sooner or later. “Contact bnesych Gerlach and re-establish communications with the amaut authorities. Under no circumstance admit humans within your security. They do not know us, and they have a great m’melakhia, tempered with very little judgment of reality, as witness their actions against Khasif and Mejakh. They also have a certain tendency toward arrhei-akita, which makes vaikka upon the few no guarantee that the example will deter others. Many of their actions arise from logical processes based on biological facts we do not yet understand, or else from their ignorance of us. Remember Khasif and use appropriate discretion.”

“I will bear this in mind.”

“Ashanome has suffered vaikka at the hands of someone in Weissmouth in the matter of Khasif. Chimele puts the entire business into your capable hands, nasith-tak. Whatever the fate of Priamos as a whole, this vaikka must be paid. Look to it, for we have been disadvantaged under the witness of both Mijanothe and Tashavodh.”

“Does Chimele not suggest a means?” inquired Chaikhe, proud and anxious at once, for the arastiethe of Ashanome was a great burden to bear alone.

Chimele’s harachia came over Rakhi’s senses, a rather uncertain contact at the distance he preserved: her takkhenois was full of disturbance, so that Chaikhe shivered. “ Tell Chaikhe that Weissmouth is hers, and what she does with those beings is hers to determine, but I forbid her to risk her loss to us without consulting me.’”

“Tell Chimele I will handle the matter on those terms,” she said, uncomforted. Chimele’s disturbance lingered, upsetting her composure and making her stomach tight.

Chaikhe. Rakhi let Chimele’s image fade. “Dawn is beginning in Weissmouth. I urge you make all possible haste.”

“I shall. Leave me now. I shall begin at once.”

He broke contact, but he was back before she had crossed the deck to the command console. Chaikhe, understand: I must—

His trouble set her teeth on edge and backlashed to such an extent that he hastily withdrew the feeler. She took firm grip on her rational faculty and invited his return.

Chaikhe, I—must stay. I do not lack chanokhia, I protest I am not sensitive to your distress. I dislike this proximity. It grates, it hurts—“I must remain in contact. Chimele’s order, nasith. She judges it necessary.” But Chimele does not suffer, she does not feel this.

Chaikhe shuddered as he did. The consciousness of the child within her sent a quick pulse of fury over her, an impulse to kill: and that impulse directed at Rakhi distressed her greatly. Something powerful stirred in her blood. Chemistry beyond her control was already beginning subtle changes in her; her temper almost ruled her. Her takkhenois was devastating. Her own power frightened her. Is it this, to be katasathe?

“Chaikhe,” Rakhi’s thought reached her, faint and timid, “Chaikhe, honor to you, nasith-tak, but I must do as I am told. Chimele—“

“I perceive, I perceive, I perceive.” For a moment the faculty of reasonable response left her, and she was a prey to the anger; but then there was the cold clarity of Rakhi’s thought in her mind. Au, Chaikhe, Chaikhe, what is happening?

And Chaikhe looked down at the green robes that were the honor of a katasathe and felt a moment of panic, a wish to shed these and the child at once and to be Chaikhe again. The violence growing in her mind went against everything she had always honored; and it was the child’s doing.

Yet the thought of yielding up the child before the time shocked her. She could not. The process would complete itself inexorably and the madness, the honorable madness, would fasten itself upon her, a possession over which logic had no power.

Dhisais!

Long moments later Rakhi felt again toward her mind, fear at first, and then that characteristic humor that was Rakhi. “O nasith-tak, being katasathe is a situation of ultimate frustration to a male. If I should also become dhisais, I know not what I shall do with myself. Will they let me in the dhis, do you think?” Or shall I die, nasith-tak? I should rather that, than to lose my mind.

In another male his language would have been unbearably offensive to her condition—for to be katasathe was to hold a m’melakhia so private and so possessive that proximity to others as equals was unbearable. Had she been aboard Ashanome, she would have resigned her other activities and settled into a period of waiting, accepting gifts of the nasul, protection of Ashakh, increasingly occupied with her own thoughts. But in a strange way Rakhi did share with her, and could not really share or threaten; and she felt his disadvantage as her own. Their arastiethe had become almost one, and Rakhi had a right to such frankness.

We have begun to merge, he thought suddenly. Au, Chaikhe, Chaikhe-nasith, what will become of me?

Go away. Chimele’s orders notwithstanding, go, now! Give me my privacy for a moment. Something is happening to me. I fear—I fear—

She is ill, she perceived Rakhi telling Chimele in great alarm, sweating, for he felt it too.

“’No,’” came Chimele’s answer, and in her mind she could see Chimele’s brooding face sketched by the tone of the answer. “No, no illness. What was put into Chaikhe’s veins while she slept was no more than nature would have sent soon enough. My profound regret, Chaikhe.’”

You are driving me to this state! she realized suddenly, with a flood of anger that hurt Rakhi no less; she felt the tremor that ran through him and his shame at having unwittingly participated. Then bitter laughter rose in her. Honor to Chimele sra-Chaxal. Vaikka, vaikka, o Chimele, shadow-worker. From all others I knew how to defend myself; but those that come between Chimele and necessity must suffer for it. Honor to you indeed, nasith.

“I knew nothing of it,” Rakhi protested. “I did not, Chaikhe.”

We are both disadvantaged, nasith-toj. But when did one ever deal with Chimele and profit from it? Go. Go away.

He fled in great discomfort, and Chaikhe sank down at the control console, her indigo fingers clenched together until the knuckles turned pale. Then with an abrupt act of will she forced her mind to business and fired an impulse to Tesyel, nas kame in charge of the base ship. Tesyel, she sent him, have Neya escort the bnesych Gerlach to me immediately, giving him no opportunity for delay. If he be sleeping or naked as the day he was born, still give him no time to turn aside. If there are others with him, bring them. If they resist, destroy them. Use whatever of the okkitani-as you need in this.

A light flashed on the board, Tesyel’s signaled acknowledgment. Chaikhe noted it as a matter expected and put the wide scan from the base ship on her own screens.

Something flashed there, coming hard, at the far limit of the screen. She exerted herself to fire, almost a negligent gesture, for she meant to seal Weissmouth against all aircraft until Ashakh was heard from, and had it been Ashakh, she was sure she would have been advised.

The incoming ship brushed off the fire and varied nothing from its course, far outstripping amaut capabilities in its speed and defenses. It was huge, just inside the limits for intra-atmosphere operation.

The recognition occupied less than a second in Chaikhe’s mind, as long as it took to flash a warning to Tesyel aboard the base command ship.

Tejef! her mind cried at Rakhi, shamefully hysterical, and rage and the wish to kill washed over her to the depths of her belly. Her ship blasted out a futile barrage at the incoming vessel, which showed every evidence of intending a landing: stalemate. Greater expense of energy could wipe out Weissmouth and the surrounding valley and still not penetrate the other’s defenses.

Calm! Rakhi insisted. Calm! Think as Chaikhe, not as a dhisais. O nasith-tak, if ever you needed your wits it is now. Conserve power, conserve, waste nothing and do not let him harm our people in the city. You are the. citadel of our power on Priamos. If you fall, it is over. Do not add yourself to Tejef for search.

Power fluctuated wildly. In mental symbiosis with the ship’s mechanisms, Chaikhe felt it like a wound and shuddered. We are attacked. And Tesyel cannot control the base ship like an iduve. But while the attack continued, her mind centered on one delicate task, an electronic surgery that altered contacts and began to unite her little ship with Tesyel’s larger one, putting systems into communication so that she could draw upon the greater weapons of the base ship and command the computer that regulated its defensive systems. This would hold as long as her ship retained power to send command impulses. When that faded, she would lose command of the base ship. When that happened, Tejef would hold Priamos alone.

A half-day remained. When the sun stood at zenith over Weissmouth, the deadline would have expired; and Tejef’s ship could force her to exhaust her power reserves well before that time, pounding at her defenses, forcing her to expend the power of her ship simply to survive.