Shon'jir

Chapter Seventeen

KDTATH.

Duncan inhaled the air that blew into the hatch, the first breath off the surface of the world, cold and thin, faintly scented. He looked beyond the hatch at the red and amber sands, at the ridge of distant, rounded mountains, at a sun sullen-hued and distorted in its sky.

And he did not go down. This was for the mri, to go first onto their native soil. He stood in the ship and watched them descend the ramp, Melein first, and Niun after her children returned to their ancient mother. They looked about them, their eyes surely seeing things in a different way than his might, their senses finding something familiar in the touch of Kutath's gravity, the flavor of its air something that must call to their blood and senses and say this is home.

Sad for them if it did not, if the People had indeed voy­aged too long, and lost everything for which they had come. He did not think they had; he had seen the look in Niun's eyes when they beheld the world beyond the hatch.

He felt his own throat tight, his muscles trembling with the terrible chill of the world, and with anxiety. If he felt any­thing clearly, it was a sense of loss and he did not know why. He had succeeded for them, had brought them home, and down safely, and yet there was a sadness on him.

It was not all he had done, that service for the People.

Across the system a beacon pulsed, a marker on the path incoming ships would use; and on Kutath, the ship itself now served as a beacon. Silent the pulse was, but it was going now… would go on so long as power remained in the ship and that would be beyond their brief lifespans.

Friendship, friendship, the ship cried at the heavens, and did human ships care to inquire of that signal or the other, there was more.

He had not confessed this to Niun or Melein. He did not think they would approve any gesture toward tsi'mri, and therefore he did not ask their approval.

He saw the dusei go, whuffing and sniffing the air as they edged their turn-toed way down the ramp rolling with fat from their long, well-fed inactivity on the ship, sleek and shining under the wan sun. They reached the sand and rolled in delight, shaking clouds of red powder from their velvet hides when they rose up again. The greater one towered up on his hind legs, came down, playing, puffing a cloud of dust at the mri, and Niun scolded him off.

The beasts went their own way then, circling out, exploring their new world. They would allow no danger to come to the mri without raising alarm about it, and their present ma

Where plants grew, there was surely water, be it ever so scant. Duncan looked on that sparse growth with satisfaction, with pride, for he had found them a place where life existed in this otherwise barren land, had put their little ship down within reach of water

And close also to the power source that scan detected.

There was no reaction to their presence, none in their descent, none now. The ship's instruments still sca

He felt the pleasure-feelings of the dusei, lotus-balm, and yielded.

Almost timidly he came down the ramp, feeling out of place and strange, and approached the mri silently, hoping that they would not take offense at his presence: well as he knew Niun, he felt him capable of that, toward a tsi'mri.

"She'pan," he heard Niun say softly, and she turned and noticed him, and reached out her hand to him. They put their arms about him as they would a brother, and Duncan felt an impulse to tears that a man who would be kel'en could not shed. He bowed his head for a moment, and felt their warmth near him. There was a healthy wind blowing, whip­ping at their robes. He put his arms about them too, feeling on the one side the fragility that was Melein and on the other the lean strength of Niun; and themselves alien, beast-warm, and savoring the chill that set him shivering.

The dusei roved the area more and more widely, emitting their hunting moans, that would frighten anything with ears to hear.

And they looked about them, and save for the ship's alien presence, there was nothing but the earth and sky: flat in one direction, and beyond that flatness at the sky's edge lay mountains, rounded and eroded by time; and in the other direction the land fell away into apricot haze misted with purples, showing a naked depth that drew at the eye and dis­turbed the senses no mere valley, but an edge to the very world, a distance that extended to the horizon and blended into the sky; and it reached up arms of cliffs that were red and bright where they were nearest and faded into the ambig­uous sky at the far horizon.

Duncan breathed an exclamation in his own tongue, for­bidden, but the mri did not seem to notice. He had seen the chasm from above, had brought them down near it because it seemed the best place easier to descend than to ascend, he had thought when choosing the highlands landing, but he had kept them far from the edge. From above it had seemed per­ilous enough; but here, themselves reduced to mortal perspec­tive, it gaped into depths so great it faded into haze at the bottom, in terraces and slopes and shelves, eroded points and mounts… and distantly, apricot-silver, shone what might be a lake, a drying arm of what had been a sea.

A salt lake, it would surely be, and dead: minerals and salts would have gathered there for aeons, as they had in Kesrith's shallow, drying seas.

They stood still for some time, looking about them at the world, until even the mri began to shiver from the cold.

"We must 'find that source of power you spoke of," said Melein. "We must see if there are others.”

"You are close," said Duncan, and lifted his arm in the direction he knew it to be. "I brought you down as near as I dared.”

"Nothing responded to your attempts to contact.”

"Nothing," Duncan said, and shivered.

'We must put on another layer of robes," said Niun. "We must have a sled packed with stores. We will range out so far as we can shall we not, she'pan? and see what there is to be seen.”

"Yes," said Melein. "We shall see.”

Duncan started to turn away, to do what would be neces­sary, and finding no better time he hesitated, pulled aside the veil he had assumed for warmth. "She'pan," he said. "It would be better that I should stay with the ship.”

"We will not come back," said Melein.

Duncan looked from one to the other of them, found pain in Niun's eyes, realized suddenly the reason of that sense of loss.

"It is necessary," Duncan said, "that I take the ship to stand guard for you, she'pan. I will not leave this sun. I will stay. But it is possible that I may be able to stop them.”

"The markers that you have left... Are they for that?”

Shock coursed through him, the realization that Melein had not been deceived.

"Yes," he said, hoarse. 'To let them know that here are friends. And it may be that they will listen.”

"Then you will not take the ship," she said. "What message you have left is enough. If they will not regard that, then there is nothing further to be said. The ship carries no weapons.”

"I could talk with them.”

"They would take you back," she said.

It was truth. He stared at her, chilled to the bone by the wind that rocked at them.

"You could not fight," she said, and looked about at the wide horizon, lifted her arm toward it. "If they would seek us out in all of this, then they would not listen to you; and if they would not, then that is well. Come with us, kel Duncan.”

"She'pan," he said softly, accepting.

And he turned and ascended the ramp.

There were supplies to find: Niun named what was needed, and together they bolted aluminum tubing into what passed very well for a sled. They loaded it into the cargo lift, and se­cured on it what stores Niun chose: water containers, food, and the light mats that were for sleeping; aluminum rods for shelter, and thermal sheets tsi'mri luxury that they were, yet even Niun found the cold outside persuasive.

They chose spare clothing, and a change of boots; and wore a second siga over the first.

And last and most important of all they visited the shrfhe of the pan'en, and Niun gathered the ovoid reverently into his arms and bore it down to the sled, settling it into the place that was prepared for it. " "Take us down," Melein said.

Duncan pressed the switch and the cargo lift settled slowly groundward, to let them step off onto the red sands. It was already late afternoon.

Behind them, the cargo lift ascended, crashed into place again with a sound alien in all this desert, and there was no sound after but the wind. The mri began to walk, never look­ing back; but once, twice, a third time, Duncan could not bear it, and glanced over his shoulder. The ship's vast bulk dwindled behind them. It assumed a strange, frozen quality as it diminished, sheened in the apricot light, blending with the land: no light, no motion, no sound.

Then a rise of the land came between and it passed from view. Duncan felt a sudden pang of desolation, felt the touch of the mri garments, that had become natural to him, felt the keen cold of the wind, that he had desired, and was still con­scious that he was alone. They walked toward the sun toward the source of activity that the instruments had detected, and the thought occurred to him that did they find others, his companions would be hard put to account for his presence with them.

That there could come a time when his presence would prove more than inconvenient for Niun and Melein. It was a bad way to end, alone, and different. It struck him that in his madness he had changed places with those he pitied, and sorriest of all, he did not believe that Niun would willingly desert him.

Na'i'in set, providing them a ruddy twilight that flung the dying sea into hazy limbo, a great and terrifying chasm on their left, with spires upthrust through the haze as if they had no foundation. They rested in the begi