Kutath

"Enemies have followed us. They have destroyed our ship and our city, but to destroy us, no, the gods forbid and the Mystery forbids. Tsi'mri do as they will. We Niun and I we have done what we set out to do. The dream is true. We have it in our hands. Tsi'mri are here, within reach of our hands, and nothing in a hundred thousand years… has promised such as we bring you.”

It was back, that fierceness of her first night among the ja'anom; it glittered in the eyes of the Kel, ja'anom and stranger alike; even in the eyes of the Sen, and shone in the mild face of the kath'anth. Of this the shameful flight had cheated them, driving them hunted across their own land; of this they had been frustrated, hiding and cowering from tsi'mri weapons, not alone in these days but in earlier days and on other worlds, dying helpless and uncomprehending of purpose. They were suddenly Melein's, hers, clenched in her fist.

This hope… within reach, Melein had said.

Duncan.

A great cold washed over Niun, realization why Melein had been willing to cast even himself from her hand in the chance of finding Duncan, why she had remained silent while the tribe fell apart in quarrel, and had no answer until she could find Dun-can again, knowing full well where he had gone, as she had known about the messages to humans which Duncan had tried to send, which the regul had destroyed.

O my brother, he mourned, but grief stayed from his face, the habit of the Kel, that there was no link between heart and countenance, not before the adversary.

"Kel'anth," said kel Seras of the Husbands, "say to the she'pan that she is our Mother and that the ja'anom Kel is with her, heart and hand."

"And that we hear," said the kel'anth Rhian, "a message we are anxious to bear to our she'panei.”

"Aye," muttered other kel'anthein.

This should have given him the most profound, the uttermost joy. It did not. He looked up into Melein's eyes, glad that there was no dus by them, to catch up the she'pan's inexorable and calculating coldness and hurl it into him, keener than any blade. "You hear," he echoed hoarsely. "And in all matters ... I am the she'pan's Hand.”

"Kel'anth," she said, "the message which came to us from tsi'mri, that we should come and speak with them… tell me, kel'anth of the ja'anom, what will tsi'mri do if we should fail that rendezvous they ask? Will they attack?”

"Am I tsi'mri, to answer what they will do?”

"Your knowledge of them is best of all but Duncan's. What will they do if their expectations are thwarted? What would kel Duncan have done, when he was human?”

He glanced down, lest the membrane betray his disturbance. "I would expect of a human… first, distress; puzzlement that things did not agree with his hopes; then anger. But humans are more likely to come probing at us than to launch devastating attack, unless cornered. Regul. . . regul are another species; and they are up there too; and that is different. Duncan believes humans are restraining them but humans reckon patience from moment to moment, and a day is soon to them. That is what I dread, that their patience is too short even to comprehend how slowly a man must walk in this land. They live with machines, and expect everything to come quickly.”

"And once challenge has been made?”

Niun sat still, eyes unfocused, seeing a place he was forbidden to recall, fire and night, ships lacing back and forth above ruin. "Humans fight in masses; so do regul, no single combat. The People lost thousands before we learned this fact and the thinking behind it. But " He struck his palm upon the floor, looked suddenly at Kel and Sen. "But they make other replies. Duncan is one. When it was all over, when regul had effectively finished us and humans had fought us to our ruin… Duncan came alone, as none of them had ever come alone to our challenges; and handed us himself, and struggled for us, gave us the ship in which we came here. Ask him why. He has no idea that he can express. Instinct? A response of his kind? He did not know the answer when he was human. Now he is mri. Perhaps he remembers enough that Council might call him, ask him why, or how humans think. Ask Mm.”

"No," Melein said softly. "No. Can mri give a tsi'mri kind of answer? We are ourselves, kel'anth. Do not look so deeply into the Dark that you lose your balance.”

He caught his breath, looked up at her, his heart beating against his ribs.

The dus stirred. Duncan caught up something, vast sorrow, and stopped in mid-word, looked about at the Kel and shivered in a sudden breeze.

Others gathered it up without understanding it Duncan looked toward the door of the she'pan's tent, knowing direction, and a great fear bore down upon him.

"Kel'en," said Peras, and Peras in leaning forward touched the dus. The spilling of emotions touched him too, and the veteran's eyes nictitated, amazed and chagri

"What is wrong?" asked old Da'on. "Perns?”

The feeling faded, like something passing out of focus. It was hard to imagine that it had been there. Duncan stroked the velvet fur with both his hands, bowed against it, lifted his face again.

"The tsi'mri called regul," jel Ras prompted him.

"Dead," Duncan said hoarsely. "I killed her. She stirred her younglings to attack, and I killed her and gave the matter over to humans. Only " He found himself saying more than he wanted to and ceased, but the dus betrayed him, gathering up feelings and weaving them together, himself and his hearers, himself and Ras who sat against the beast. A dread was on him and they shared it, perhaps without knowing why.

"O my brothers." It was the idiom of the hal'ari, and he meant it in that moment "The Dark is very wide out there, and all about this world, there is no life, none at all. They have seen it. And they are afraid.”

"We move on," said Melein, "as we have been moving. I will say no more of it; I do not bind myself with words; I do as the Now asks. Tell your she'panei we move with the dawn. A double hand of kel'ein will hunt outward from our column to feed us. If any she'pan will draw back and not lend to me, I do not permit; I challenge. If any will challenge me, well, there is honor in that, and if she will take up my robes and stand where I stand, that is well. But I do not believe the gods will permit me to fall; I shall absorb that tribe and take them for my children. The gods have not preserved me through so much to fall in tribal rivalry. If any she'pan will lend me her children in my need, I shall write her in the Holy's last table, and in the begi

Silence hung in the air, trembling with force.

"Go," she said, a whisper like a sword's slash. "And come back to me.”

It was a moment before bodies stirred, before any had the temerity to move… and in a thick silence the Kel stood, the kath'anth withdrawing first in the precedence of leaving. Kel'ein waited. Niun moved, realizing it was on him, and walked out into the forechamber of the tent where the Shrine was, paid shaken homage to the Holy, wishing to gather up the threads of all that had been cast him, that drank up reason and made madmen of them all.

But others swarmed about him, a dark and fearsome presence, the blackness of Kel, his own and others', crowding the Shrine and the door out of which Sen must come. It was chaos, and he stifled in it, moved for the door and daylight, to disperse them by his leaving, but a hand caught his arm, familiarity none of them ventured with him.

"Kel'anth," said Hlil.

He resisted, but Hlil was determined. "Kel'ein?" he asked, without moving or looking particularly at any of them. "Kel'anth-ein?”

The hand tightened with force. "Aye," Hlil said. "You never give us your face, even when the veil is down. You have your secrets. But what the she'pan has finally said, kel'anth, we have waited to hear, and others have. She has the Seeing, is it not so?”

"That may be so," Niun said hoarsely. "I have sometimes thought so.”

"You are kin to her.”

"Was.”

"They are here, other kel'anthein, other tribes; you are kel'anth to us, and we know your ma

"That may be," he said, finding breath difficult. He no more looked at them than before. "If that is so, then I deserve blame for it”

"What is in you, kel'anth?”

"Let go of me, Hlil.”

"Once, reach out your hand and take up this Kel. Or what will they go back and say? That the kel'anth preferred other company?”

He understood the gist of it then, set his face and glared at Hlil. "Ah. My orthodoxy. That I defended kel Duncan. That is at issue.”

"Answer.”

"I was taught kel-kw; we kept it strictly in my House. I ca

He would have torn away, Hlil's hand clenched tighter still. "I hear you," Hlil said. "Long since, I have heard you. Now someone else does.”

Heat crept to his face, resentment toward Hlil, toward witnesses of this humiliation. Then he thought; before my own Kel it would not shame me to say. And secondly; my own Kel. This was.