Shon'jir

The tone was suddenly gracious; it threw him off his bal­ance, and for an instant he stared at her, who moved and took her chair, expecting him to settle at her feet.

"By your leave," he said, remembering Niun, "I ought to go back. I think Niun wanted to follow me. Let me go and bring him.”

A frown creased Melein's smooth brow. "That would reproach him, kel Duncan, if you let him know why. No. Stay. If there is peace in the House, he will know it; and if not, he will know that. And do not call him by his name to me; he is first in the Kel.”

"I am sorry," he said, and came and sat at her feet, while the dus came and cast itself down between them. The beast was uneasy. He soothed it with his hand.

"Why," asked Melein, "have you been driven to come to me?”

The question struck him with confusion rude and abrupt, she was, and able to read him. He shrugged, tried to think of something at the edge of the truth, and could not. "She'pan, I am a resource you have. And I wish that you would make use of what I know while there is time.”

The membrane flashed across her eyes, and the dus lifted its head. She leaned forward and soothed the beast, her fin­gers gently moving on its velvet fur. "And what do you know, kel Duncan, that so suddenly troubles you?”

"That I can get you home alive." He laid his hand on the dus, fearless to do so, and looked into the she'pan's golden eyes. "He has taught me; is not managing ships a part of the skill of a kel'en? If he will learn, I will teach him; and if not then I will take what care of the ship I can do myself. His skill is with the yin'ein, and mine never will approach his but this I can do, this one thing. My gift to you, she'pan, and worth a great deal to you when you reach your home.”

"Do you bargain?”

"No. There is no if in it. A gift, that is all.”

Her fingers did not cease to stroke the dus' warm hide. Her eyes lifted again to his. "Are you my kel'en, kel Duncan?”

Breath failed him an instant. The hal'ari, the kel-law had begun to flow in his mind like blood in his veins: the ques-tion'stood, yes or no, and there was no going back afterward.

"Yes," he said, and the word almost failed of sound.

Her slim fingers slipped to his, took his broad and human hand. "Will you not turn on us, as you turn on your own kind?”

The dus moved at his shock: he held it, soothed it with both his hands, and looked up after a moment at Melein's clear eyes.

"No," she judged, answering her own question, and how, or of what source he did not know. Her sureness disturbed him.

"I have touched a human," she said, "and I did not, just then.”

It chilled. He held to the dus, drawing on its warmth, and stared at her.

"What do you seek to do?" she asked.

"Give me access to controls. Let me maintain the machinery, do what is needful. We went wrong once. We ca

He expected refusal, expected long days, months of argu­ment before he could win that of her.

But controls, he thought, had never been locked. And Me­lein's amber eyes lowered, by that silent gesture giving per­mission. She lifted her hand toward the door.

He hesitated, then gathered himself to his feet, made an awkward gesture of courtesy to her, and went.

She followed. He heard her soft footfalls behind the dus. And when he settled at the console in the brightly lit control room, she stood at his shoulder and watched: he could see her white-robed reflection in the screens that showed the star-fields.

He began ru

"It is good," he told Melein.

"You feared something in particular?”

"Only neglect," he said, "she'pan.”

She stood beside him, occasionally seeming to watch the reflection of his face as he glanced sometimes to that of hers. He was content to be where he was, doing what his hands well remembered: he ran through things that he had already done, only to have the extra time, until she grew weary of standing and departed his shoulder to sit at the second man's post across the console.

Lonely, perhaps, interested in what he did: he recalled that she was not ignorant of such machinery, only of that human-made, and he dared not try too much in her presence. She surely knew that he was repeating operations.

He took the chance.

Elapsed time, he asked of the records-storage.

It flashed back refusal. No record.

Other details he asked. No record. No record, it answered.

Something cold and hard swelled in his throat. Carefully he checked the status of the navigational tapes, whether re­trace was available, to bring him home again.

Classified, the screen flashed at him.

He stopped, mindful of the auto-destruct linked into the tape mechanism. Suspicion crept horridly through his recol­lections.

We want nothing coming home with you by accident.

Stavros' words.

Sweat trickled down his side. He felt it prickling on his face, wiped the edge of his hand across his mouth and tried to disguise the gesture. Melein still sat beside him.

The dus came nearer, moved between them, close to the delicate instruments. "Get out of there," Duncan wished it. It only lay down.

"Kel'en," said Melein, "what do you see that troubles you?”

He moistened his lips, shifted his eyes to her. "She'pan we have found no life ... I have lost count of the worlds, and we have found no life. What makes you think that your homeworld will be different?”

Her face became unreadable. "Do you find reason there, kel'en, to think we shall not?”

"I have found reason here ... to believe that this ship is locked against me. She'pan, when that tape runs to its end, it may have no navigational memory left.”

Amber eyes flickered. She sat still with her hands folded in her lap. "Did you plan to leave?”

"We may not be able to run. We will have no other op­tions, she'pan.”

"We never did.”

He drew in his breath, wiped at the moisture that had gone cold on his cheek, and let the breath go again. Her calm was unshakable, thoroughly rational: Shon'ai ... the throw was cast, for them by birth. It was like Niun with his weapons.

"She'pan," he said quietly, "you have named each world as we have passed. Do you know the number that we have yet to see?”

She nodded in the fashion of the People, a tilt of the head to the left. "Before we reach homeworld," she said, "Mlara and Sha, and Hlar and Sa'a-no-kli'i.”

"Four," he said, stu

"I have told him." She leaned forward, her arms twined on her white-robed knees. "Kel Duncan, your ships will come. They are coming.”

"Yes.”

"You have chosen your service.”

"Yes," he said. "With the People, she'pan." And when she still stared at him, troubled by his treachery: "On their side, she'pan, there are so many kel'ein one will not be missed. But on the side of the People, there is only one twice that, with me. Humankind will not miss one kel'en.”

Melein's eyes held to his, painfully intense. "Your mathe­matics is without reproach, kel Duncan.”

"She'pan," he said softly, moved by the gratitude he real­ized in her.

She rose, and left.

Committed the ship to him.

He sat still a moment, finding everything that he had sought under his hands, and suddenly a burden on him that he had not thought to bear. Had he intended betrayal, he did not think he could commit it now; and to do to them again what he had done on Kesrith, even to save their lives

That was not an act of love, but of selfishness… here, and hereafter. He knew them too well to believe it for their own good.

He sca

Or perhaps as SurTacs had been expended before it was pla

There was the pan'en, and the record in that; but under Saber's firepower, Fox was nothing… and it was not im­possible that the navigational computer would go down as the tape expired, crippling them.

He reached for the board again, plied the keys repeatedly, receiving over and over again No Record and Classified.

And at last he gave over trying, and pushed himself to his feet, reached absently for the dus that crowded wistfully against him, sensing his distress and trying to distract him from it.

Four worlds.

A day, or more than a month: the span between jumps was irregular.

The time seemed suddenly very short.