Страница 29 из 59
"Do that first," said Niun. "Then bring food for the dusei, and for us both; but I will take the she'pan's to her.”
"All right," Duncan said. Niun watched as the human gathered himself up and wrapped a robe about himself blue, that was kath-color, and inappropriate for a man. Niun considered the incongruity of that what vast and i
Niun did not attempt to rise, not until Duncan had left the room, for he knew that it would be difficult, and shaming. With the dusei's help he managed it, and stood against the wall, hard-breathing, until his legs would bear him. He could not fight against the human and win, not yet; and Duncan knew it, knew and still declined to risk the dusei's anger, or to dispute against him, or to use his knowledge of the ship to trap them and regain control.
And he had undertaken to destroy the human.
When he has forgotten that he is human, Melein had said, when he is mri, then I will see his face.
Duncan had consented to it. Niun was dismayed by this, knew of a certainty that he himself would have died before accepting such conditions of humans. When other things had failed to kill him, this would have done so, from the heart outward.
And someday, when Duncan had become mri, then he would not be capable of bending again. This acquiescence of his was tsi'mri, and must be shed along with all the rest: the naive, childlike man who had attached himself to them would no longer exist.
Niun thought to himself that he would miss that man that they had known; and the very realization made him uneasy, that a tsi'mri should so have softened his mind and his heart.
The worst acts, he told himself, must surely proceed from irresolution, from half-measures. Melein had feared what he proposed, had spoken against it with what he desperately hoped was not foresight. She had not forbidden him.
He went gingerly, on exhausted legs, into the bath, and looked pn what things were there that belonged to Duncan. These must go, the clothing, the personal items, everything: when he was no longer reminded of humans by the things that surrounded him, then neither would Duncan be reminded.
And if change was impossible to the human, then best to know it soon: it was one thing to reshape, and another to destroy and leave nothing in its place. Mri that he was, Niufl had not learned of his masters to be cruel, only to be pitiless, and to desire no pity.
He gathered up what of Duncan's belongings he could find and bore them into the lab, where he knew there was a disposal chute: he thrust them in, and felt a pang of shame for what he did, but it seemed wrong to compel Duncan to do this himself, surrendering what he had prized, a lessening of the man and that he would not do.
And when that was done, Niun looked about him at the lab, at the cabinet from which Duncan had obtained his medicines, and resolved on other things.
The door would not yield to his hand: he drew his pistol and ruined the lock, and it yielded easily thereafter. Load after load of tsi'mri medicines and equipage he carried to the chute, and cast it out, while the dusei sat and watched with grave and glittering eyes.
And suddenly the beasts arose in alarm shied aside from. Duncan's presence in the doorway.
Niun, his hands full of the last of the medicines, thrust them within the chute and only then faced Duncan's anger, that had the dusei distraught and bristling.
"There is no need of such things," he said to Duncan.
Duncan had attempted to robe himself as mri: the boots and the e'esin he had managed, the i
"You have killed me," he said in a thin voice, and Niun felt he sting of that less than certain, in that moment, of the honesty of what he had done, trusting that the human would not challenge, could not. The dusei moaned, crowding into the corner. A container crashed from a table under their weight.
"If your life is those medicines," said Niun, "then you cannot survive with us. You will survive. We do not need such things: you do not.”
Duncan cursed him. Niun stiffened, set his face against such tsi'mri rage, and refused to be provoked.
"Understand," said Niun, "that you agreed. This is a mri ship, kel Duncan. You will learn to be mri, as a child of the Kath learns. I do not know any other way, only to teach you as I was taught. If you will not, then I will fight you. But understand, as all mri understand who enter the Kel, that kel-law works from the elder to the lesser to the least. You will hurt before you are done; so, once did I. And if you have it in you to be kel'en, you will survive. That is what my masters in the Kel once said to me, when I was of an age to enter the Kel. I saw twelve of my Kel who did not survive, who never took the seta'al, the scars of caste. It is possible that you will not survive. It is possible that you ca
The human quieted; the dusei snuffed loudly and rocked, still uneasy. But Duncan's naked face assumed a calm, untroubled look that was more the man they knew. "All right," he said. "But, Niun, I needed those medicines. I needed them.”
Fear. Niun still felt it in the room.
And he was troubled after Duncan had gone away, whether he had in fact done murder. He had thought as mri, forgetting that alien flesh might indeed be incapable of what mri found possible.
And was it then wrong that aliens needed what mri law forbade?
It was not a kel-thought, not right for his caste to think or to wonder. He dared not even bring it to Melein in secret, knowing the thought beyond him and disrespectful to a young and less than certain she'pan, even from her kel'anth, senior of the Kel such of a Kel as she possessed.
He hoped desperately that he had not killed Duncan.
And in that thought he realized clearly that he wanted Duncan to live, not alone for Tightness' sake, but because jwo were a desolate sort of House, and because the silence in kel-hall could become very deep and very long. He called the dusei to him, soothed them with his hands and his voice, and went to find where Duncan had gone.