Shon'jir

Men.

Shapes wandered his subconscious. Memory, no. Some elsewhere saw, cast vision, guided him. He knew this.

Shapes obscured in sand, a half-dome. Jaws closed on his hand, gently, gently ... he realized that he was down, and that the dus urged him. He gathered himself up again and started moving, staggered as his boot hit something buried and something whipped at the leather, but it did not pene­trate, and whipped sinuously away in the amber murk. Dus-feelings raged at it, and ignored it thereafter, preferring his company.

Night was on them, storm-night and world-night, friendly to them, hiding them. He knew the ship near, stumbled on pieces of it, bits of wreckage, bits of heat-fused sand, before its alien hulk took shape in the ribbons of sand, and he saw the havoc that had been made there.

And a half-dome, squat half-ovoid on stilts, the red wink of lights beaconing through the murk.

Dusei ringed him, all of them; fear-desire-fear, they sent.

"Yai!" he cried at them, voice lost in the wind. But his stayed, plodded its turn-toed way beside him as he walked toward that place, that alien shape on Kutath's dead seashore.

He knew it as he came near, vast and blind as it was, knew the patterning of its lights

And for an instant he did not know how to name it

Flower.

The word for it came back, a shifting from reality to real­ity.

"Flower," he hailed it, a cracked and unrecognizable voice in the living wind. "Flower open your hatch.”

But nothing responded. He gathered up a fist-sized stone and threw it against the hull, and another, and nothing an­swered. The storm grew, and he knew that he had soon to seek shelter.

And then he saw the sweep of a sca

There was long silence.

"Flower!" he cried.

The lights stayed fixed. He stood swaying in the gusts of wind, and held one hand firm against the dus' back so that the beast would stand.

Suddenly the hatch parted and the ramp shot down, invita­tion.

He walked toward it, set foot on the ringing metal, and the dus stayed beside him. He lifted his hands, lest they mistake, and moved slowly.

"Boz," he said.

It was strange to see her, the gray suddenly more pro­nounced in her hair, reminding him of time that had passed. He was conscious of the guns that surrounded him, of men that held rifles trained on him and on the dus. He took off the mez and zaidhe, so that they might know him. He smoothed his hair, that he had let grow: there was the stubble of beard on his face, that no mri would have. He felt naked before them, before Boaz and Luiz. He looked at their faces, saw dismay mirrored in their eyes.

"We've contacted Saber," Luiz said. "They want to see you.”

He saw the hardness in their looks: he had run, taken the enemy side; this, not even Boaz was prepared to understand.

' And they had seen the mri track, the desert of stars.

"I will go," he said.

"Put off the weapons," said Liuz, "and put the dus out­side.”

"No," he said quietly. "You would have to take those, and the beast stays with me.”

It was clear that there were men prepared to move on him. He stood quietly, felt the dus' ward impulse, and the fear that was thick in the room.

"There are arguments you could make hi your defense," Boaz said. "None of them are worth anything if you make trouble now. Sten, what side are you playing?”

He thought a moment. Human language came with diffi­culty, a strange, deja-vu reference in which he knew how to function, but distantly, distantly. There were ideas that re­fused clear shaping. "I won't draw my weapons unless I'm touched," he said. "Let Saber decide. Take me there. Peace." He found the word he had lost for a time. "It's peace I bring if they'll have it.”

"We'll consult," said Luiz.

"We can lift and consult later. Time is short.”

Boaz nodded slowly. Luiz looked at her and agreed. Orders were passed with gestures, and a man left.

"Where are the others?" Luiz asked.

Duncan did not answer. Slowly, carefully, lest they misin­terpret any move, he began to resume the zaidhe, which made him more comfortable. And while Luiz and Boaz con­sulted together, he put back the veil, and adjusted it to the formal position. The dus stood beside him, and the men with guns remained in their places.

But elsewhere in the ship came the sound of machinery at work preparation for lift, he thought, and panic assailed him. He was a prisoner; they had him back, and doors had closed that he could not pass.

Warning lights began to flash in the overhead. He looked about apprehensively as another three regulars came into the compartment, rifles leveled at him, and Luiz left.

"Sit down," Boaz advised him. "Sit down over there and steady that beast for lift. Will it stay put?”

"Yes." He retreated to the cushioned bench and settled there, leaned forward to keep his hand on the dus that sat at his feet.

Boaz delayed, looking down at him: blonde, plump Boaz, who had grown thi

"You speak with an accent," she said.

He shrugged. Perhaps it was true.

The warning siren sounded. They were approaching lift. Boaz went to the opposite side of the room, to the bench there; the regulars with their guns clustered there, weapons carefully across laps. The dus lay down at Duncan's feet, as the stress began, flattening itself to bear it.

The lift was hard, reckless. Duncan felt sweat breaking from him and his head spi

It was long before they broke from the force of lift, before new orientation took over and it was possible to move again. Duncan sat still, not willing to provoke them by attempting to rise. He desired nothing of them. Boaz sat still and stared at him.

"Stavros did this to you," she said finally, with a look of

Pity-Again he shrugged, and kept his eyes unfixed and else­where, lost in waiting.

"Sten," she said.

He looked at her, distressed, knowing that she wanted re­sponse of him, and it was not there. "He is dead," he said fi­nally, to make her understand.

There was pain in her eyes: comprehension, perhaps.

"I feel no bitterness," he said, "Boz.”

She bit at her lips and sat white-faced, staring at him.

Luiz called; there was an exchange not audible to him, and the regulars stood by with lowered guns, kept them constantly trained on him. He sat and stroked the dus and soothed it.

The guards sweated visibly. To confront a disturbed dus took something from a man. They were steady. There was no panic. Boaz sat and mopped at her face.

"We're some little time from rendezvous," she said. "Do you want some water or something to eat?”

It was the first offering of such. A slight hesitation still oc­curred to him, consciousness that there was obligation in­volved, had they been mri.

Here too, obligation.

"If it is set before me," he said, "free, I will take it.”

It was. Boaz ordered, and a guard set a paper cup of water within reach on the bench, and a sandwich wrapped in plas­tics. He took the water, held it under the mez to sip at it slowly. It was ice-cold and strange after days on the desert Water: antiseptic.

Likewise he tore off bits of the sandwich with his fingers and ate, without removing his veil. He would not give his face for their curiosity. He had no strength to sit and trade hate with them, and the veil saved questions. His hands shook, all the same. He tried to prevent it, but it was weakness: he had been too long without more than the pipe for nourishment. His stomach rebelled at more than a few bites. He wrapped the remainder in the plastic again and tucked it into his belt-pouch, saving it against need.

And he folded his hands and waited. He was tired, inex­pressibly tired. In the long monotony of approach he wished to sleep, and did so, eyes shut, hands folded, knowing that the dus watched balefully those others that occupied the compartment, watching him.

Boaz came and went. Luiz came and offered a sincere of­fer, Duncan reckoned to give him treatment for the cough that sometimes wracked him.

"No," he said softly. "Thank you, no.”

The answer silenced Luiz, as he had silenced Boaz. He was relieved to be let alone, and breathed quietly. He stared at the man in command of the regulars knew that one's mind without the help of the dus, the cool mistrust, the almost-hate that would let the human kill. Dead eyes, unlike the liveliness of the mri among brothers: Havener, who had seen evils in plenty. There was a burn scar on one cheek, that the man had not had repaired. A line man, by that, no rear-lines of­ficer. He had respect for this one.

And the man, perhaps, estimated him. Eyes locked, clashed. Renegade, that was the thought that went visibly through the man's gaze; it wondered, but it did not forgive. Sucfr a man Ducan well understood.

This man he would kill first if they laid hands on him. The dus would care for the others.

Let them not touch me, he thought then, over and over, for he remembered why he had come, and what was haz­arded on his life; but still outwardly he kept that quiet that he had maintained, hands folded, eyes unfocused, sometimes closed. There was need for the moment only of rest.

At last came maneuvering for dock, and the gentle col­lision. Neither Boaz nor Luiz had been there for some time ... consulting, doubtless, with higher authority.

And Luiz nodded toward the door.

"You will have to leave your weapons," Luiz said. "That is the simplest way; otherwise they'll force it, and we'd rather not have that.”

Duncan rose, weighed the situation, finally loosed the belt of the yin'ein and the lesser one of the zahen'ein, turned and laid them on the bench he had quitted.,

"Boz," he said, "you bring them for me. I will be needing them.”

She moved to gather them up, did so carefully.

"And the dus stays," Luiz said.

"That is wise," he said; he had not wanted the beast thrown into the stress of things to come. "It will stay here. Have you made all your conditions?”