“The storm shields,” Stavros advised him. It was hailing now, a rapid patter that threatened the window. It was coming from their direction.
Duncan quickly activated the shutters. They whisked across and cut off the daylight; the room lights compensated. Then he went back at once to see to the windows in his own quarters, appalled, even afraid to approach the glass under the violence that battered against it.
The thunder broke overhead as he reached for the switch. His heart was pounding as the storm shield slid over the window. Distantly he could hear an alarm in the building, and for a moment the hiss of air in the ducts ceased and he could feel a pressure in his eats like ascent in an aircraft.
He went to the door, opened it. Regul were whisking about in sleds along the corridors in mad confusion. The pressure eased then. He heard a sound that was too deep for sound, shuddering through the building.
“Nai chiug-ar?”—What is it?—he asked the first regul he saw afoot. “Nai chiug-ar?”
“Sak noi kanuchdi hoc-nar,” the youngling spat back, which had something to do with the port, but nothing else he could understand. “Sak-ak toc dac,” it hissed at him then. Keep to quarters, favor.
He retreated, closed the door and called the main desk for information. No one would respond to his calls. Eventually everything seemed to grow calm outside, only a rush of rain against the storm shields. He ventured finally to open the shields and saw nothing but a wash of water, distorting everything outside. He closed them again.
And from Stavros’ room, long silence.
He gathered together his shaken faculties, berating himself for his panic, and went in to see about the old man, expecting cynical amusement at a SurTac who feared storms.
The cup was on the floor, a brown stain on the carpet. He saw the old man half across the bed, still in his nightclothes.
“Sir?” he exclaimed. He went and touched his shoulder fearfully, then turned him over and obtained faint movement, a gasp for breath, a flutter of the right eye. The left remained drawn, that side of the mouth peculiarly distorted. Stavros tried to talk to him, unintelligible.
In the next instant Duncan ran from the room, from his quarters to the hall and the duty desk, trying every word that would come to mind to express his need.
“Stavros,” he said at last, “Stavros!” and this finally seemed to impress itself on the youngling. It rose, lumbering in its gait, and came with him.
* * *
It stood, for a considerable time, at the foot of the bed. “Elder,” it said finally, with the regul equivalent of a shrug. Here was an elder. It did not seem capable of rising; this was natural for an elder. Duncan seized its massive arm and raised his voice.
“Sick,” he insisted.
Slowly, with ostentatious slowness, the youngling turned and went to the console, coded, in a call and spoke to higher authority.
Authority responded, in a bewildering patter of words. Duncan sank down and bowed his head into his hands, despair knotted in his stomach.
And when an array of important regul arrived, and began with dispatch to load Stavros into one of the sled transports, Duncan stayed nearby constantly, and insisted with forceful gestures that he intended to come with Stavros.
A regul seized him, firmly but without violence, and held him, while the sled moved and departed. Then the regul let him go. It was all the restraint that need have been applied; there was no way for him to follow down that web of tracks.
He sank into a chair in his quarters, shivering with anger and terror, and utterly, utterly helpless to do anything for Stavros.
Outside the storm pattered against the shields. It continued for an hour or more. He left the room four times during that period to go down to the duty desk and demand information on Stavros’ condition, each time arming himself with applicable phrases from his dictionary and lesson sheets.
The regul on duty had learned quickly enough that it need not be silent to express disdain; it needed only to shower words at him as rapidly as it could speak, impressing on him his incapacity to understand.
“Dal,” it said finally, “seo-gin.”
Go away. It repeated it several times more.
He turned away, not for the apartment, but for the forbidden first-level ramp, down which bai Hulagh had his offices: Words shrilled after him. A trio of regul closed in on him and marched him firmly enough to his door, pushing at him to make him enter.
“Stavros sick,” one said finally.
It was the sum of information available until the morning, an entire night in sleepless anxiety.
But with dawn they came in numbers, and transferred a brown wrapped bundle from a sled to the bed; and Duncan, roughly thrusting himself into their midst, saw Stavros conscious, but still with that deadness about his left side.
And then there was deference in plenty among the younglings, for a hum sounded at the door and a sled console eased through the ample doorways to rest in their midst.
Bai Hulagh.
Words came from Stavros, distorted, unrecognizable in either language.
“Honorable Stavros. Rest now.” The bai rose within his sled with great effort and looked directly upon Duncan. “Youngling, the affliction is to the nervous system.”
“Bai,” Duncan said, “help him.”
The regul shrugged. “Human structure is strange to us: We regret. We are in the midst of considerable disaster. The storm toppled a tower at the port. There was a great loss of life. Our facilities are strained by this emergency. Our information on the human system is very scant.”
“I can provide you—I can provide you myself, bai, if your medics would—”
“Youngling,” said the regul, a basso profundo that vibrated with disdain, “we do not have information. We do not experiment on living beings. This moderate restoration of function we could accomplish, no more. This is an elder of your people. He will be made comfortable to the utmost of our abilities. Do you, youngling, question this statement?”
“Be gracious,” he murmured, reserving decisions to others; he moved to Stavros’ side, took the good hand in his. A mild pressure answered. Stavros’ pale eyes glittered wetly, alive, fully cognizant and trying to command him something, a stern and reprimanding look. He tightened his hand in reassurance and looked up at the bai.
“Favor, reverence,” he said. “I am distressed for him.”
The bai gestured him to come. He let slip Stavros’ fingers and did so, submitted to the touch of the regul bai, whose rough fingers rested on his shoulder, a considerable weight.
The bai spoke curtly to his servitors, who hastened about their business. Then the wrinkle-enfolded eyes looked into Duncan’s, and the bai’s ringers tightened until it was hard not to wince.
“Youngling, I am informed you have neglected food and drink. This is an expression of grief? This is religion?”
“No, reverence, I will eat.”
“Good.” The word rumbled forth, almost incomprehensible in its depth. The pressure increased until Duncan felt the joint give. He flinched. The bai dropped the hand at once.
And the bai turned ponderously and levered himself back into his sled, settled. It whined, backing, and turned and retreated.
Duncan stood and stared after it, after the others, who withdrew almost as quickly. A sound came from Stavros.
“Sir?” he asked at once, trying to keep his voice natural. He turned and saw Stavros beckon toward the table. Stavros’ notes were there. He gathered them up and offered them, but Stavros with his right hand fumbled after the tablet only. Duncan understood and found the pen to give him: He knelt down and braced the tablet as Stavros wrote, heavily, with childlike awkwardness.
Regul not upset, he read. Process with them natural to age. Mobility may return. No reason for panic. The awkward, slanted writing reached the accessible limits of the page. Duncan reversed the tablet, braced it higher.
Humans due soon, Stavros resumed. Disaster at port—truth. Regul evacuation schedule
hampered; Hazan damaged. Regul much concerned. Mri—need to find out what mri doing. This most urgent. Listen to regul talk, learn of mri, don’t provoke.
“Even leaving the Nom if I have to?”
SurTac—now become diplomat. Careful. Take my instructions. Regul kill younglings here—many. Consult first on everything. Move me. Now. Console.
He did not want to move him; but Stavros cursed at him thickly and ordered him aloud, and evidently was determined. Duncan carefully, tenderly gathered up the old man and placed him within the sled console in the corner, supported him, adjusted the form-fitting cushions to hold him securely. Stavros’ right hand sought after controls, made further adjustments. The sled console turned. The screen turned independently. A message, hand-keyed, crawled across the small screen.
Can learn even this.
“Yes, sir,” Duncan said with a tightness in his throat. He was suddenly concerned for this man, for Stavros personally.
The message-crawl resumed. Order food for you. Rest.
“And for yourself, sir?”
Stavros turned the sled, jerkily maneuvered it next to the bed. He operated the console arm to dim the lights. I wait, the screen said. No needs.
Chapter Ten
“Truebrother.”
On the step beside the dus, Niun looked over his shoulder. It was seldom now that he met his sister informally, brother and sister, daithon and daithe, as they had been before. She surprised him with the dus. He was embarrassed to be found at this charity: there had been a distance between them, though they had been much together in the she’pan’s hall. He did not like to be with her, alone, not any longer. It was painful, that the closeness between them was gone.
He continued a moment, trying to tempt the dus with a scrap of food, for until she had come, he had deceived himself that there was the slightest flicker of interest in the dark eyes of the dus. Now it would not come. But he had so deceived himself many a time since its coming to the edun. He shrugged and casually tossed the prize to the dus, letting it land between its massively clawed forepaws. Sometimes, eventually, it would eat. It accepted just enough to stay alive; and sometimes he would see the scrap shrivelled and neglected that evening, and the dus moved slightly elsewhere until it was taken away; for the dus was very proud, and did not really want to eat.
Someone else saw that the waterbowl by the step was constantly full. This was great extravagance on Kesrith. Ordinarily a sick dus simply complained when thirsty and received what it needed; and a healthy one derived all its moisture requirement from food it ate. Niun suspected kel Pasev of this wasteful charity. She had her own dus; but she was capable of such feelings toward a good animal. He was not himself so deft in his offerings as was Pasev. Doubtless everyone in the edun knew how desperately he tried to feed the creature, and claim it, and how it stubbornly refused him.
Doubtless another kel’en would be feeding it if he did not. The dus shamed them all in its loyal grief. It found not one of them worthy to take it; and rarely would they transfer affection, but he still hoped, desperately, for the life of this one.
“Sometimes,” said Melein, “they simply cannot be saved.”
She sat down on the dusty step with him, heedless of her robes of caste: but the granular Sand of the edun grounds did not cling so much as white lowlands powder. She wore the light veil over her silken mane in the out-of-doors, for the Sen disdained to cover.
The body of a kel’en is itself a Mystery of the People, the teachings held, and therefore the kel veils; the body of a sen’en is a veil to that within, which is a Mystery of the People, and therefore the Sen veils not.
Save to the unacceptable.
The weather was fair after the storm of days past, in which wrack and disaster had blown down the passes and dealt havoc in the regul town. The smoke of the destruction in the lowlands had been visible even through the rain, and when the worst of the storm was done, the kel’ein had looked out from the summit of the Sen-tower with a new and bitter satisfaction.
“Ah,” Eddan had said, when they noted the smoke and the fire, “Kesrith has her way with the masters even yet.”
It was likely that many regul had perished in the conflagration. Such satisfaction was a thing that once no mri would have thought or felt. But that was before the death of a kel’en unaccounted for on a regul ship, and before it was clear that humans would possess the world.
Now the stars of evening began to show in a clear sky, and there was no wind to stir the sand and make the mez advisable. Such crystal evenings were frequent after the greatest storms, as if the very world lay exhausted after the recent violence.
He dropped his own veil and, looped it under his chin, refastening it. There was no likelihood of tsi’mri here, and he did not need it.
“Shall we walk?” Melein suggested.
He had no such thing in mind; but rarely did Melein ask anything of him any longer. He arose and offered her his hand to help her up. Thereafter they walked, side by side in the direction Melein chose, on the small trail that led from the corner of the edun to the rocks at the top of the causeway. He found himself remembering the times that they had run that distance, they three, agile as the dusty lizards, children without the veil, small slim-limbed boys and smaller girl, racing illicitly for the vantage point from which they could see the ships at the port come and go.
They had been ships with magical names then, mri ships, regul ships: Mlereinei, Kamrive, Horagh-no, that came from distant stars and the glory of battles. As children they had played at war and duel, and imagined themselves great kel’ein, glittering with honors like the far-travelled kel’ein that visited from the ships and departed their own ways again—like their truemother and their father that left separately with the ships and never visited homeworld again.
Tonight they walked, he of the Kel, she of the Sen, weighted with their robes of caste and their separate laws. When they reached the rock that overlooked the valley, he leaped up first and pulled her up after with a single tug—there was still the girl Melein within the golden robes, agile and quick as a kel’e’en, unbecoming the gravity of her caste.
They sat together while the red sun vanished, and watched the whole of the Valley, and the glow of lights where the port was, and the wound the storm had made there, a darkness amid the lights near Hazan.
“Why did you ask me here?” he asked of her at last.
“To talk with you.”
He did not like this manner in her. The last light touched her face. It was that of a stranger for a moment, someone he should remember, and did not, quite. It was not Melein as he knew her, but a sen’e’en that contained quiet, secret thoughts. He suddenly wished she would not pursue the opening he had given her. He foreknew that she might rob him of his peace; and he could not stop her from doing it.
“You do not smile anymore,” she said. “You do not even look up when you are named.”
“I am not a child.”
“You do not love the she’pan.”
“I come. I sit. I wait. This seems to be all she wants of me. It is her right.”
“You do not much go out of the edun.”
“I have given up, Melein. That is all.”
She looked up, where the stars glittered. Her arm resting on her raised knee pointed toward Elag’s star, that shone and danced above the hills. “There are humans now,” she said. “But this is different, here—Kesrith. This is homeworld. Sanctuary for the people. The Holy.”
He looked at her, sullen, frightened. “Remember that I am kel’en.”
“The Kel must remain unlearned because the Kel ventures where our enemies are, and where knowledge that cannot serve the Kel cannot be permitted. For all traditions, however minor, there are reasons. You are a kel’en of homeworld, and you will hear what it would not be good for a kel’en elsewhere to hear.”
He rose and set his back against the rock, leaning there with his arms folded and the rising breeze touching him with more chill than was comfortable.
It was night now, the last of the sun slipped from view. He did not know why she had wished to come out here. The hills were full of menace. The ha-dusei, wild relatives of the tame companions of the kel’ein, were not to be trusted. There were windflowers and burrowers, and serpents that hid in the rocks. He owed a sen’e’en his protection; and it was arrant stupidity to be out here with Melein in his charge after dark. Her value to the edun was incalculably above his.
“We can talk elsewhere, later,” he said. “I do not think we should have come here at this hour.”
“Listen to me!”
Her voice was edged, cruel, a blow that stunned. Melein was his little sister. She had never used that tone with him.
“Today,” she said, “the she’pan called me in private. Today she gave me rank with Sathell. And you understand this.”
She’pan’s successor, her Chosen.
In the nethermost parts of his mind he had known it would come, this the only reasonable purpose behind Intel’s snatching Melein out of Kel and into Sen.
Not to bear children, but to learn the Pana, the Mysteries; not to continue the People, but to rule them.
And Intel had taken him likewise, to defend challenge herself, to guard her—to kill, if need be, any overanxious successor, and the kel’en that supported her challenger’s cause.
He gave a single bitter curse; understanding; and saw the hurt leap into Melein’s eyes.
“I am sorry that you take it so,” she said.
“Why must she have kept me by her and not Medai?”
“She trusted you, and never Medai.”
He considered that, and its reasons; “She trusted you,” he said softly, “while I guard her sleep. While she could set me against you.”
The hurt became shock. The thought seemed to startle her. “No,” she said. “I am not apt to challenge her.”
“Not so long as you have regard for me,” he answered. “She feels her; mortality on her or she, would not have named you yet. And some kel’en will guard her tomb.”
“She would not take you, Eddan—Sirain—they would seek the honor. But not you.”