An amplifier boomed. "Nobody move."
The silence was so deep Krinata could hear the pool's pump, and a huge bird winging by overhead.
When the commander was certain he had everyone's attention, he announced, "You are harboring four conscriptees who were ordered to report to the Duke's forces two days ago. Not only are these four to be taken from your midst, but I am thus authorized to collect every able-bodied male here. And as many females as I see fit."
The voice and accent was human, not Lehiroh—possibly from nearby Ramussin, which was also of the Nineteen Stars.
A rustle of dismayed protests rippled through the crowd. The amplifier boomed, "Since you've violated Ducal law, no consideration will be made for Ensyvian custom."
Krinata heard a low, shivering note from Rrrelloleh. Now they understood what Storm hadn't wanted to discuss out on the street. She wasn't at all surprised when the grooms responded to the four names called out by the commander.
Armed men flanked by men leading Rashions approached the edge of the wheel formed by the celebrants. In a moment of tense defiance, the outermost people in the wheel, whose ribbons were much longer, raised them into a chest high, satin barrier before beamer proof armor.
The troopers paused, looking neither left nor right, as if they were at parade attention. The amplifier barked, "Forward!" The troopers all took a step in unison, breasting the wall of satin ribbons. For a moment, Krinata thought there was going to be a riot—or massacre.
But the celebrants dropped their ribbons. The soldiers worked up the wedge-shaped spaces between lines toward the center where the four reluctant conscriptees waited.
The detachment targetted on Storm halted. "This is an unforgivable outrage," stated Storm, his voice carrying emphasis because of its colorless lack of passion.
"You mean," said the human squadron leader, "you didn't expect the Duke to enforce his decrees in the most memorable way? Think! After this, no one will resist for any reason."
"After this," said Storm, and Krinata felt genuine regret in his words, "no one will obey, for any reason."
The trooper made an uncivilized sound and grabbed the Lehiroh's shoulder, propelling him back along the wedge-shaped avenue, between lines of his men, all human.
As the last of the troopers turned to go, he noticed Rrrelloleh. "I thought Ensyvians were too incestuous to let outsiders into their ceremonies. Or are you a convert?"
She felt Rrrelloleh stiffen, but he remained patiently silent, eyes fixed on the high distance. Emulating, Jindigar literally was not there. This being was Lehrtrili, and Krinata knew it so deeply that even the Rashions surrounding her could not have found a hint to the contrary in her mind.
The officer who'd taken Storm dumped him on two of his men and returned to inspect Rrrelloleh.
"Answer, Lehrtrili! You're wearing a voder!" He poked at the box on Rrrelloleh's chest.
Krinata said, "He's elderly and unwell. His name is Rrrelloleh, and I am his nurse. I will answer for him."
The officer kept his weapon on Rrrelloleh, but eyed Krinata, taking in every detail of her costume.
Around them soldiers were culling men from the lines of celebrants, pushing and kicking them into a bunch near the door Krinata had marched out of. Protests were rising from the crowd. Some of the Lehiroh men, she noted for the first time, had enlarged breasts. Those men were being defended by others who insisted on replacing the lactating ones.
The women were massing, protecting the pregnant ones. She knew they were perfectly capable of tackling the armed humans, might kill a few before the beamers cut them down.
The officer inspecting her pulled her roughly away from the
Lehrtrili, noting she was human, not Lehiroh. Suddenly, she didn't like the wolfish grin she could see below his eye shields. "You're a brave one, Sister. I like that." He held his weapon to her temple, and ordered, "Farmer, sic your beast on this one. Gravitz, take the Lehrtrili."' He focused on Rrrelloleh. "Now, what are you two doing here? Should I ran you in for sedition—or espionage?"
Krinata's heart leaped to her throat. The Rashion crouching at her feet growled thoughtfully.
Rrrelloleh presented his leptolizer, butt first, to the officer.
"My entry visa, sir, in perfect order. Walking through the park, we saw an Ensyvian groom pacing nervously in front of this house. Curious, I invited myself to his wedding, promising to abide by his customs thereafter."
The officer seated the butt of the leptolizer in a socket on his armored hip. It gave out a bleep and projected the port-of-entry seal. "This can easily be checked. If it's legal, then the charge will be espionage."
He tightened his grip on Krinata. "Now, you."
"She doesn't carry a leptolizer, only an identdisc."
"Let's have it."
Fingers shaking, Krinata fished the disc out of her belt pouch. He snatched it, turning it over and over. "Looks real.
Could be forged, though." He watched the Rashion as he snapped, "State your name and your business here!"
"Marietta of the Sisters of Jacob, nurse to Rrrelloleh."
As she spoke, the Rashion's uneasy murmuring grew to a roar, and he went for her throat, teeth bared.
Several things happened simultaneously. The officer snarled,
"She's lying!" A child screamed, falling from a window and landing with a sickening thud. Someone pushed two of the armored men into the pool where they sank like stones, while their buddies tried to fish them out. And Rrrelloleh clamped both hands around the Rashion's wrists, flipping him to the end of his leash and pulling his trainer off balance.
In three graceful moves, Rrrelloleh had the Rashion that had been watching him knocked unconscious, the officer and his two men tumbling in different directions. Grabbing Krinata's wrist, he ran toward the knot of conscriptees.
A beam cut a black swath across their path. Dragging Krinata, Rrrelloleh ripped off his mask, and leaped over the beam. They were heading for the most guarded door, the multicolored glass one leading into the large room. It was suicide. Yet she kept running.
The conscriptees were fighting their guards now, rolling and tumbling, some with amateurishness, and some with keen professionalism. Already two guards lay bleeding a dark bluish blood she knew was really red, human blood. The armor might be total protection from beam weapons, but it was a handicap hand-to-hand. A detached part of her mind wondered why armored men had been sent against the obviously unarmed. What did that imply about the Duke and his men? Cowardice akin to Rantan Zinzik's?
Jindigar waded through a heap of bodies to the four grooms, and snapped, "Let's get out of here! With us gone, they won't have any reason to persecute the family!"
One of the grooms, the one wearing dirt-smeared yellow, raked the Dushau-faced Lehrtrili with a glance, froze in the act of disemboweling a guard with the guard's own weapon, and exclaimed, "Jindigar! Dear God, he's alive. He's alive!"
Storm tossed an armored guard over his head and grunted, "We can't leave without Bell!"
Another kneading his shoulder where a beamer had singed his blue sleeve, leaving a rent that exposed sculpted muscles, said, "Bell's..." he sidestepped as one armored man charged him, "around here somewhere."
The yellow-clad groom flipped the charging trooper onto the stack of dazed men with an absentminded air as he followed blue's gesture, looking for his bride.
The blue groom heaved a trooper off another Lehiroh, admonishing, "You can't do that to my cousin!" Over his shoulder to Storm, he said, "Guard Jindigar, I'll find her."
The yellow groom exclaimed, pointing up at the roof. "They've got her!" An automatic spraybeamer was set on its tripod, aimed at the riot below. The red-clad bride was held between two burly men, standing on the edge of the roof.
The amplifier let out a blast of music followed by the commander's voice. "Surrender at once or the bride dies!"
Paralysis swept the courtyard. The only sound was the rattling of armor as the troopers picked themselves up. Many, too horrifyingly many, celebrants did not stir. Others gazed fixedly at the red wisp on the roof above them.
The yellow groom had lifted Krinata by the shoulders, out of the way of a falling trooper. Now, he gazed into her eyes, and said, quizzically, "You're human!"
Storm grunted, "Friend of Jindigar's," but his eyes were on the red-clad woman above them.
Yellow answered abstractedly, eyes on Bell, "Oh. That's all right, then." He set Krinata on her own feet.
At the next amplified command, the troopers locked shackles and tanglefoot fields onto the living celebrants.
Six men secured Jindigar, and were about to take him away when the commander ordered, "The Sister, too."
Krinata didn't know whether to be relieved or terrified.
Two huge vertical landers, with Ducal seals newly painted on their scarred old sides, swept down into the court. The entire family was packed into those riot-squad wagons. The only resistance was a bit of sullen foot-dragging. The grass was littered with too many corpses dressed in festive white, smeared darkly with blood. And now gas burpers had been brought up. Hostility would be met with an excruciatingly painful gassing that wasn't always entirely harmless.
A wall of guards and Rashions separated Krinata, Jindigar, and the bride and grooms from the others. The riot wagon was so crowded, people were unable to sit. The air rapidly filled with the stench of beamer burns, human and Lehiroh sweat, and in one case, vomit.
Storm turned to the wall, curled in on himself, agonizing over the result of defying the conscription order. "I never thought they'd do such & thing. Never!"
The blue groom gripped his shoulder and whispered, "Neither did we. We all discussed it. Everyone agreed."
"Shut up, you!" The bruised and grass-stained squad leader who had ogled Krinata now held a beamer on Jindigar.
Blue turned from Storm. Without so much as a narrowing of the eyes as warning, blue yelled, "Was it worth it?"
The fierce cheer was deafening in the confined space. Suddenly, the floor tilted, then tilted the other way, rocking them from side to side. The amplifier said, "Keep it down in there or you'll get seasick!"
But the atmosphere had changed. The guards sensed it, and Krinata saw fear in their eyes. If the entire Ensyvian population felt like this, did the Duke have a chance? Apparently, they could conscript Ensyvians, tax them into poverty, and take away all freedoms with impunity. But infringe on their religion, and whole families—even the least religious—would proudly fight to the death.
When they'd landed, they were offloaded through a chute reeking of animal dung into a huge bam jammed with lines of people being processed like prisoners. Storm whispered to Jindigar, "I wish now I hadn't invited you."
People shrank from Jindigar muttering that even to speak to a Dushau was death. But Storm and the whole family showed no signs of shunning him.
They were strip-searched. Krinata was amazed to see groups of all the other Razum species also being herded through. This was either a conscription center or a massive jailing operation. Were they impressing all criminals?
In line behind her, Jindigar muttered, "They're going to have a time stripping me." He began to pluck indigo and yellow feathers from his arms.
In the line ahead of Krinata, there was a scuffle as a trooper ripped the garment from a Lehiroh woman. The male Lehiroh in line behind her protested she was pregnant. The guard answered, "That can be taken care of handily."
This is not real. Please, don't let it be real. Krinata had been raised an aristocrat on one of the oldest colony worlds of humankind, amid traditions of uncompromised honor. No noble could lend a good name to such proceedings.
The feeling she'd had in the park came back. There were huge gaping cracks in the secure walls of the Allegiancy. The Empire just wasn't what she'd always imagined it to be. Was it ever? A nostalgic pain filled her eyes with tears.
Hearing her sniffle, Jindigar, behind her, risked muttering, "This is war, Krinata. A despot's war for power. It couldn't have happened two centuries ago. That Allegiancy was worthy of your loyalty... and mine."
With that consolation echoing in her mind, Krinata had to grasp all her courage and Zavaronne pride to disrobe before a man whose groin pulsed at her every move. He took his time stamping an ID on her belly, noticing her humanity with relish. Then he stamped the indelible number on her forehead, lingering as if he was going to kiss her. His breath was hot, but not foul. Yet she was revolted, her whole body quivering with disgust.
Jindigar, neither looking at her nor averting his gaze, stumbled deliberately. The handful of feathers he'd gathered flew into the guard's face, and he sneezed. Jindigar apologized profusely, meanwhile tangling his avian feet amid the human's boots. They both went down in a heap, Jindigar crying out a contrite apology for each new offense.
Krinata stared for a moment, then used the time to pull her robe about her. Jindigar helped the human to his feet, brushing stray feathers from the man's now dusty uniform, contriving to thrust more of them under the man's nose.
"As you can see," grunted Jindigar, "I've been trying to remove this costume, but it takes butyloline and alcohol to strip the adhesive."
The man swallowed his anger, looking Jindigar up and down. He snatched the walking stick away from the Dushau with a lurid epithet, and spat, "I know you people don't carry weapons, but this is forbidden. Next!"
At the exit line, they were issued a thin turquoise shirt and trousers outfit, cut the same for everyone and fitting no one. They wouldn't let her keep her robe even when she complained of the cold. Jindigar again claimed he needed solvent to "change clothes," but was issued an outfit with pants too short for him, and shirt too narrow. He handed them to Krinata, saying, "Two layers might help."
She gratefully donned the second layer, and whispered her thanks for helping her. He answered, "My situation could hardly be worse, so it was no risk."
Many of the pregnant Lehiroh could not wear the trousers at all and settled for the oversize shirts that almost covered them. Then they were herded out into the afternoon sun, separated into a number of groups, loaded into surface vans, and carted a short distance to another building Krinata never saw from the outside.
They lost touch with the rest of the family, but the bride and four grooms were shoved into an underground cell with Krinata and Jindigar.
Hours later, guards came and took Jindigar away. He forbade Krinata to fight for him, and Storm held her as she lunged reflexively at the guards. When he was gone, she cried. Bell came to sit with her, offering only a warm shoulder in comfort, for it was all she had.
But Jindigar returned, cleaned and dressed in turquoise shirt and pants that almost fit, and a grave expression.
When the guard left, he said, "Truth has been taken. There was nothing Arlai could do, and no one aboard had his central keys, so he's behaving under Allegiancy strictures. But everyone is being ferried down here."
In horror, she imagined the session he'd gone through that had yielded those few terse sentences. Yet he showed no outward sign of the strain. That worried her.
Hours passed in which guards tromped up and down outside their cell. It was one of five force-field enclosed cells at the end of a corridor. Strangers, Holot, were crammed into the cell next to theirs, and a group of humans into the end cell. Yet the two opposite were left empty.
Then, when Krinata was sure it was late night despite the relentless bright light, Truth's passengers arrived, bewildered, some still "walking wounded." Grisnilter was supported between two Dushau, his right leg dragging. The humans, Cassrians, Dushau and Holot were herded into the two opposite cells. They could see each other, but not hear.
Jindigar, though, had the answer. He questioned the other Dushau via sign language, explaining that it was a code often used in noisy environments.
Arlai, it seemed, was all right for the time being, his parting remark to them having been a pledge to keep Imp out of trouble until they returned. The authorities had assumed he was still under full Allegiancy restriction, but soon some Sentient would notice Arlai had not taken the new Allegiancy delimiting programming. Meanwhile, Arlai was determined to play it straight until he could rescue them.
Jindigar swore. "I wish I had a way to tell him to sit tight. There's no reason he has to go down with us. Why didn't he take off as planned? At least they'd be safe!"
"Ask," prompted Krinata.
Jindigar put the question and Grisnilter answered. Jindigar translated, "Because he refused to abandon us." He paced a circle, fretting, "But I ordered him to!"
"Maybe he knows how to get us out of this. Disobedience isn't built into him, is it?"
"He's mature. He had discretion. I hope he uses it."
"Have you ever had reason to mistrust him?"
Storm said, "Not exactly mistrust, no, but I remember the time on Dilatter when Arlai was orbiting empty while the Oliat and the entire team were encamped. He'd warned us there were hailstorms in the area, remember?"
Jindigar's mood lightened. He smiled as he said, "And we divined that none were going to hit our camp?"
Another of the Lehiroh said, "And Arlai..." And he gasped into silent laughter.
Another groom finished, talking to Bell and Krinata, "Arlai sent a probe into the upper atmosphere and disrupted the air currents just so one of those dratted storms drenched us when dinner was half-cooked!"
"And then he had the nerve to claim innocence!"
"He had a reason," argued Jindigar. "We'd become too complacent. But guarding ourselves against another practical joke, we set the double watch which saved our lives. Even an Oliat can't afford to become overconfident."
Storm squatted comfortably on the floor of the bare cell, toying with a thread. "I've often wondered if Arlai is psychic. Or maybe you've secretly trained him as an Oliat?"
Jindigar chuckled. "I've wished I could." He translated for those in the opposite cells. All but Grisnilter laughed. That began a marathon session of reminiscences in which Krinata submerged herself, not wanting to face where they were or what was to become of them.
When she'd long since given up expecting food, a meal of sorts arrived. It was a bucket of raw yeast-grown protein amenable to all their various metabolisms, palatable to none. It arrived on a tray via a trap in the wall, accompanied by a pile of plastic bowls—no spoons.
The five Lehiroh gulped it down willingly. Storm commented, "After two days of fasting, even this tastes good." To Bell he said, "It wasn't what I was planning for your wedding night, though."
For a moment, Krinata thought Bell's staunch good humor would hold. Then the woman broke into human-sounding sobs. If it were my wedding night, I'd be inconsolable.
The four grooms gathered about their bride, self-conscious. Krinata wished they could at least have some privacy, but knew that even if she wasn't there, the spy eyes in the ceiling would be active. Voyeurs! She made a rude gesture at the spy eyes and was rewarded with no reaction.
Exhausted, Krinata slid down the wall to slump at its base. The room was kept at a fairly amenable temperature, but she thought she'd never fall asleep. Yet she did.
The next morning, they were taken to a sanitation stall, open, public, brutal. She relieved herself and showered, wondering how she was enduring this, while knowing it was much worse for those whose cultures had nudity taboos.
By midmorning, they were taken from their cells—all twenty-eight Truth passengers and the five Lehiroh—to go before a magistrate where they were arraigned for espionage.
The magistrate's computer had only one entry under her name: wanted by the Emperor. Jindigar wasn't listed at all. She assumed the records showed he'd died on Cassr, meaning at least one of those soldiers had survived to tell the tale.
Krinata's understanding of Allegiancy law was worthless. Besides, martial law was in force, and they had no rights at all. All her aristocratic heritage made not the slightest impression on this Duke's magistrate. The Allegiancy may as well have never existed. It doesn't really exist anymore.
Remanded to the custody of a prison reputed to be impossible to escape from, they were herded into a large, windowless groundbus, fully automated so there was no driver to overpower. Rows of hard benches lined each side, with one long bench across the rear. As the door slammed and the bus began to move with a grinding roar that became a white-noise background, Krinata surveyed the hullmetal panels protecting the bus's onboard brain. It probably wasn't Sentient. But Jindigar was a circuitry wizard. Perhaps they could take over the bus. Where to go after that was the problem. She wasn't even sure where they were in relation to the spaceport.
With the Dushau clustered in the rear, ignoring everyone, she gathered the rest and started talking before she had a plan worked out. She was beyond desperation, and had to try something. The others listened, in the same mood.
"I could get us to the spaceport," offered Storm. "I grew up around here."
Bell eyed the hullmetal panel, ran a hand over it, and said, "The welds are softique, the stuff used in gross circuits. A current would melt them away in a flash."
"The light!" exclaimed Trassle, climbing onto his seat and ramming the light fixture with his closed, chitin protected hand. Dimness descended as the only light left came from the rear fixture. But Trassle pulled a live wire down. "Luckily, this bus must date from pioneer days."
Storm said they had plenty of time since their new prison was more than two hours from where they'd started. Bell went to work on the bulkhead and Krinata went to the rear to talk to Jindigar.
She was stopped by a wall of indigo bodies. Desdinda stood off to one side, arms crossed, watching something on the bench spanning the rear of the bus. Her ah– of bristling disapproval told Krinata she was looking at Jindigar.
Rinperee said, "Don't interrupt them."
Craning her neck, Krinata could make out Grisnilter lying on the rear seat, Jindigar seated next to him, speaking in the dreadfully kind whisper usually reserved for the terminally ill. "What's the matter with Grisnilter?"
Jindigar looked around. "Krinata?"m face, as if the woman's wildest surmise of perfidy had been triumphantly confirmed. / must be misreading that! Krinata pushed it out of her mind and concentrated on Jindigar and Grisnilter, kneeling beside them, rolling with the sway of the floor. She told them of her half-baked plan, ending, "So all you have to do is figure out how to scramble the onboard and reprogram our destination."
A pinched, haunted anxiety descended on Jindigar's eyes. He gazed at Grisnilter. The old Dushau showed pale teeth, holding Jindigar's eyes with his own. Grisnilter's air of intense demand was replaced by silent helpless pleading.
At last Jindigar spoke. "In the time we've got left, I can either try to rewire this bus, or try to take your impression. Grisnilter, how many lives is it worth?"
Desdinda started to say something, but was silenced by the others. Rinperee said, "All of our lives, and more."
"I'm not trained for this!" protested Jindigar.
"You've a supreme talent, though. It runs in your family, and I've seen your farfetch test," argued Grisnilter. "You'll never go episodic, Jindigar. You're too stable."
Into Jindigar's anguished silence, Grisnilter said, "You'll still be able to work Oliat. Your conscious mind will have no access until you are trained."
Krinata, intrigued but impatient, interrupted, "You can do whatever it is after we escape."
"No, Krinata, you don't understand," said Jindigar. "Grisnilter is dying. The strain of this ordeal is too great."
"Don't get dramatic now!" commanded Grisnilter. "It's a perfectly natural phenomenon, death. Even Ephemerals do it. But I've a responsibility. I must not die until I've passed the Archive."
It finally penetrated. Dying. Had she caused this attack by her anger that one time? She took the old Dushau's hand, capturing his eyes. "I'm sorry I was so rude on the refugee's ship. I didn't mean it, and I've no excuse except I was worried about Jindigar. I hope what I said didn't make you ill. I've been meaning to apologize."
"I haven't been so polite, myself, child. You may not have meant it, but you were absolutely correct to call me down. I've treated Jindigar shamelessly."
She wanted to hug him, but instead she just patted his hand. "Rest now. We're going to get you out of this."
Jindigar, rising and steering her away through the press of Dushau bodies shielding their elder, said, "He knows it's unlikely we could steal a lander and make it to Truth with a semi-invalid in tow. After what he'd been through before we rescued him, that rescue itself, the affair with the seeker craft, now this—even if we got him back to Arlai's sickbay, there's a frighteningly high probability his memory will be impaired and he won't be able to give the impression."
"Impression?" interrupted Krinata.
"I told you, remember? Grisnilter's an Archivist, carrying our Compiled Long Memory. If he dies without having impressed that memory on a younger Historian, it will be lost. But I'm the only one here who has a chance of taking the impression, even though I'm no Historian."
This, the Historian's profession, was what Jindigar had been desperate to avoid all along. It might even be his reason for exiling himself from Dushaun.
"Wouldn't Arlai have a better chance of helping him than any doctors at the prison?"
"He can't make it," said Jindigar, his voice heavy with defeat. "I've fought him as long as I can. There are loyalties– like your loyalty to the Allegiancy—to one's species, to one's civilization, to life itself, that take precedence over personal loyalties."
She looked up into his eyes. He doesn't believe that. Yet he was pleading for her understanding without realizing that, in the bitter aftermath of her disillusionment with the Allegiancy, she was on the verge of repudiating the very part of herself capable of loyalty to an impersonal idea. She'd thought she'd understood him, with his intense loyalty to individuals who had proved their worth. She'd never been capable of that before meeting him. And now she had nothing else. Looking up into his eyes, she realized Grisnilter had called him to serve abstract, unjudgeable future generations of Dushau, not real stood before her, broken, pleading for her approval so he wouldn't hate himself quite so much for abandoning them.
His nailless fingers were on her cheek, and she knew his fear in her bones. He doesn't believe he's immune to going episodic. But she also knew his determination. She said, "You don't have to wire this bus for us. We can manage. Do what you must. I understand."
"I'll come to help, if I can. After Grisnilter's had his way with me. But I warn you, there might not be much of me left." Head bowed, he went back through the screen of Dushau.
She went back to the front of the bus, ignoring the grating sound of Desdinda's voice as she issued her final warning to Jindigar. It was as if the woman felt he, Grisnilter, and the others who helped them, were committing a sacrilege. Perhaps they were, but from what she'd gleaned of this whole situation, Jindigar was taking the first step toward purifying his reputation among his people. She wished she understood why he didn't want this. Certainly, it was more than the fear of going episodic. He might be evolved prey, but he didn't lack for courage, and that was something she had to emulate now.
Reaching the front, she called with forced cheerfulness, "Well, Jindigar can't spare the time right now, so who else has an idea how to do it?"
Trassle gave it a try, with Terab kibitzing.
A spark leaped, and Trassle was thrown back into the watching crowd. The vehicle ground to a halt. Nothing they could do after that would cause the doors to open.
The air began to go stale very quickly. The Dushau also wilted. She never saw what Grisnilter did to Jindigar, but her last memory before she passed out—sure she was already dead—was Jindigar huddled in on himself, clutching his head and moaning softly. She didn't have the strength to crawl to him and hold him as she had in the imperial antechamber.
She woke up in a long barracks building. The roof overhead was a parabolic curve. The bed under her was scratchy and hard with a lumpy contoured sag under her ribs. The air was hot. She heard water running somewhere.
Head spinning, she dragged herself upright, incuriously noting the entire complement of Truth laid out on similar beds spaced only arm's length apart. There were other beds, empty, marching off into the distance.
She got to her feet and essayed the long, long walk toward the running water. She found Jindigar in the shower, steam billowing around him. When the napped skin was wet, it showed the dark blue number stamped on forehead and torso. He was slumped, dull-eyed, and pale-toothed. He didn't seem to notice her. She tried to force life into her voice, calling over the rush of water, "How can you stand that!"
He turned it off, looking at her without recognition. She remembered, There might not be much of me left.
"Grisnilter's dead, Krinata. He was right. He must have been right. It must be that I've been wrong—"
Dear God! His mind! Her own brain still foggy, she made a snap decision, remembering how he could always pull himself together when others depended on him. "Look, Prince Jindigar, you made me a promise, and you're going to keep it. We're stuck in a rat trap with no hope, but you still owe me transportation to a nice safe planet where I and my progeny, if any, can live in peace, freedom and security. I need an Oliat officer to accomplish that, not an Historian!"
Her indignation, by the time she finished, was genuine.
He stood silently before her, naked, dripping, amazed. Then he threw his head back and let out a cry neither sob nor laugh. Two steps, he scooped her up and spun her around, his wet nap soaking her turquoise suit. "Krinata, oh, you are so real! Of course, I'll keep my promise. Don't I always?"
But over the next days, Krinata barely saw Jindigar. The Dushau protected him fanatically, as if he were an invalid in critical condition. Lonely as she was, she had no success thawing the others toward her. Days later she found out why. She was using the shower stall in a corner, and had turned off the water to dry herself when the four humans came in, the two women moving toward Krinata and the men away. One of the women was saying, "They think he's going to die, that's why they won't let her near him."
"If Gibson's right, and she's sleeping with him..."
"How could he be wrong, after she came out of his cabin like that?"
"Even so, Gibson oughta keep his mouth shut. Now all the Dushau know because he let Desdinda find out, and it's clear enough she hates Jindigar. Now the rest of them think Krinata harmed him. Imagine, they think a little natural could do any harm. I warrant that's what the man needs!"
"You volunteerin'?"
"Hell, no! Don't get me wrong. I couldn't care less what other kinds do, but that don't mean I'd do the same. She wants him, she kin have 'im. But I don't hafta talk to 'er."
"Still, Jindigar's different from the rest o' them Dushau. He's good folk. Solid. Don't like ta' see 'im ailing like this. I hope they know what's good for 'im."
They chattered on as they washed, and Krinata had to wait, hoping she wouldn't be found eavesdropping. She'd almost forgotten the time she'd come out of Jindigar's cabin wearing his robe. Gibson had drawn the logical and ridiculous conclusion. Without knowing the Dushau lifecycle, what else could they think? But the disapproval of cross-species fornication had frosted her already cool relationship to the rest of the Truth's complement.
It was worse because Jindigar didn't acknowledge the relationship, for those who didn't disapprove didn't know how to treat her. Knowing this, she could handle it. But did Jindigar know of the rumor or was he being protected from it?
Certainly the Dushau were keeping her away from Jindigar mistakenly, when she might even help him, Krinata began to note her surroundings and plan. They were in a desert. A force dome covered twenty-five identical barracks. One building was an infirmary. Once a day they were allowed to go to a larger building where they were fed adequate but revolting food. And though prisoners in other barracks were led off to a huge, flat building to work, all they were given to occupy their time was the maintenance of their own building .This they were all forced to do with primitive tools as guards stood over them and made sure they were properly humiliated.
Even Jindigar, as much as his fellows tried to protect him, was forced to scrub floors while guards gloated over the high and mighty prince brought low. But he took it with his usual disregard for the trappings of dignity, which in itself was a kind of genuine dignity of true royalty. Krinata took her cue from this, and threw herself into her tasks with a childlike glee that soon baffled the guards into leaving her alone, calling her simpleminded.
Once, Desdinda saw her chance to strike a blow at Jindigar, and surreptitiously knocked over the bucket from which he was scrubbing the latrine floor. Krinata, working at the other end of the room, could do nothing when the guard flattened Jindigar with the butt of his weapon.
The daytime heat was crushing, somewhere beyond human endurance. The nighttime chill was enough to leave ice on the bathroom floor. She was issued extra clothing, but it hardly helped. She spent a lot of her time wrapped in her blankets, curled on her bed, shivering. Or else, she'd lie prone, waiting for the heat to abate. So there was very little time when she could pursue Jindigar.
Finally, late one afternoon, she went out onto the porch for some air, and found Jindigar sitting at last unguarded. She sat down beside him. "I hope you're feeling better."
"So do I," he replied.
At least he's talking. "I'm going to be awfully blunt and candid, but I have to know. Have you been avoiding me? Do you want me here?"
She hadn't noticed two Dushau coming .out of the door behind her. They circled to confront her. "Leave him alone!"
She said calmly, "I was only talking to nun."
"I said leave him alone! He is not to be disturbed."
"I wasn't 'disturbing' him!" she retorted, beginning to feel anger building. How could they talk about him as if he weren't even there?
"I say you were."
Krinata didn't even know the Dushau's name. She stood up and faced him squarely, "Don't you think Jindigar should be the judge of that?"
"He's in no condition to judge anything."
She looked down at Jindigar who was staring blankly off into space. God, maybe they're right. But she wasn't going to make a scene that would put more stress on him. She made a frustrated sound and whirled to stalk back to her bunk and fling herself face down, trying not to cry.
Later, Rinperee found her there, and sat beside her waiting to be noticed.
"What do you want?" Krinata challenged, wishing she didn't sound so belligerent.
"To try to explain. I know you're important to Jindigar. And I know you want to help him. But..."
"If you're talking about that horrid rumor, it's not true!"
After a shocked pause, Rinperee asked, as if truly seeking information, "Can you honestly tell me Jindigar means nothing to you?"
She sat up, crossing her legs. She had to be civil, now that one of them was at least acknowledging her existence. "He's probably the best friend I have left now. But I'm nothing to him except a fairly competent programming ecologist who's a pretty mean bluffer, too. That stupid rumor is a lie."
"Krinata, I'm Dushau. You don't have to explain the 'stupidity' of that rumor to me. But you are wrong to think you're nothing to Jindigar but a programmer. And therein lies a dreadful danger to him. It was none of my business what he did to himself as an Oliat, but he's an Historian now, and his clarity of access to the Archive depends on his not acquiring any emotional scars to lie between him and that spliced memory. If he nurtures friendship for you, he will grieve hard at your death, and lose countless precious facts Grisnilter and all his forebears suffered so to preserve.
"That is why we guard ourselves so from entanglement with Ephemerals. When it was just his personal memories he was throwing away, few could intervene. Now, we all have a stake in his well-being. And I'm the closest we have to an expert on treating his condition. I've asked the others to keep you away from him, so I feel I owe you an explanation."
"Explain this, then. What's wrong with him? How do you know he doesn't need to talk to me?"
"In absorbing the Archive, he's undergone an intense mental strain, a challenge to his ability to sift reality from phantasm.
He's struggling on the verge of going episodic. Do you know what that means?"
"I'm a certified Oliat debriefing officer, and within a couple of credits of getting my field liaison rating. You may know Historians, but I'll bet I know more about Oliat."
Humor melted the stern expression on Rinperee's face. As if sharing a private joke, she bent toward Krinata and intimated, "My father, two of my brothers, and my sister are Oliat. I've no talent for it, or I would be also. I've taken a lifelong interest in it. I can't claim ignorance."
Abashed, Krinata apologized. "I have my little prides."
"And you're well entitled to them. I can't belittle what you've accomplished for Jindigar and all the rest of us. What can I say to bring you to trust my judgment?"
Krinata's curiosity wakened, and she set a test. "The Dushau unanimously deny being telepathic. If trading memories isn't telepathic, what is?"
"Telepathic, as it's commonly used, refers to perception of worded but unvoiced conscious thoughts of others. Few Dushau have such ability, and never very strongly. What Historians do in keeping the Archive—what the Oliat does to constitute and balance—have no comparison among Ephemerals. Therefore we deny the application of such concepts as telepathic or psychic or precognitive. It is simply our mode of awareness that is different."
"All right," said Krinata, chalking it all up to tangled semantics. They're telepaths, never mind what they say. "But Jindigar's undergone some kind of immense psychic shock of the same magnitude as losing his Oliat, and that nearly wiped him out. I know, I lived through it with him. And I helped him then. Ask him, if you don't believe me. What makes you think I can't help him now?"
"I'm neither Historian nor Oliat; I'm a Sentient psychologist. But I know enough to recognize a Dushau under an intolerable burden. Such is Jindigar. He needs time and quiet to assimilate events. You may have helped him before, in the short run. But, innocently enough, you were setting him up – now, or fifty or a hundred years from now when you must die – to take a grieving. Do you know what a grieving is? What it does to Dushau?"
"I know it's a terrible thing. But everyone grieves. One can't refrain from emotional attachment for fear of the pain of parting."
"True, parting is a normal aspect of life. A certain number of grievings must come into every life—it's necessary to the maturing process. But when a Dushau grieves, the emotions are, um, wrapped tightly like filaments, into a fibrous wall across memory. Depending on the intensity of the grieving, that wall can be translucent or opaque and unbreakable. A Dushau who has only Dushau friends will have a manageable number of grievings. A Dushau who befriends Ephemerals, will have so many scars, so many mind blockages, however faint they may be, that his sanity becomes endangered. A Dushau's life depends on investing his emotions wisely, you see."
She had known all the facts, but had never put them together quite like that. The concept stunned her. No wonder Dushau seemed so aloof and uncaring; they were afraid to care.
"But I'm only one person, and he doesn't care for me."
"Jindigar has spent a large part of his life involving himself ever deeper in the affairs of Ephemerals. He may decide to change that now, and I think you owe him that chance—when he's healed enough to think straight again. If, when he's healed, he decides to throw away the Archive he's paid so dearly for and continue to develop friendships with Ephemerals, then there's nothing any of us can do. All I'm asking, Krinata, is that you have the sensitivity to allow him to make that decision, when he's healed enough to make any kind of decision. Don't force it on him now, when he'll grab at anything for immediate relief. With this, he has become truly a prince among us. We would, any of us, except perhaps Desdinda, give our lives for his. If he truly means anything to you, give him the grace of your absence."
Krinata could only agree. But her life became suddenly bleak and hopeless. In voluntarily giving up Jindigar, she felt she was giving up something that had cost her as dearly as the Archive had cost him. It could take him fifty years to recover, and he'd regard it only as a medium-length convalescence. She had to shut herself off from whatever had kept their prison and their hopeless future from sapping her spirit. Her days became listless, and her nights sleepless. And in the end, it was a resolve too difficult to keep.
One night, she was awake during the seventeen-hour darkness. She went out onto the cool porch. Sitting, watching the stars, wondering which was Truth, or even if Truth was still in orbit, she heard a sound.
She froze, listening, wondering if other prisoners were digging an escape tunnel. But now, the scrabbling was not furtive. She crept around the end of the building, and found a scrawny, three-quarters starved piol digging in the moist ground under the skirt of the elevated building.
As she watched, it increased its tempo frantically. Then it jerked back and came up with a wriggling something in its claws which it promptly devoured. But when Krinata made a move toward it, it scampered away.
After that, she set herself to tame the wild one, putting out bowls of water and scraps of food. Soon, she had it eating out of her hand, and figured that it had once been tame. Finally, she arranged for Jindigar to find her in the shower room bathing the piol, thinking one could love such an animal but not grieve over its death as over a person's.
And that was the beginning of Jindigar's recovery. Deciding the piol was female, he named her Rita. Each day, he fed and groomed and played with her. She soon became part of the barracks life.
Prey proclaimed Krinata a genius. Storm made her part of his small family where before he, too, had been adamant about keeping her away from Jindigar. And when Bell finally got up the nerve to ask if the rumor about her and Jindigar were true, Krinata could explain to someone who believed her. It was such a relief.
As the days passed Krinata spent a lot of time wondering why the Dushau and all of Truth's complement hadn't been executed out of hand. But there were no answers.
The hashmarks she made on her windowsill showed they'd been there ten local days, though it seemed like ten years, when the rest of Storm's family was thrown in with them. They looked tortured and starved, and she was sure there were fewer of them. All they talked of was those who had died, many in prison. The survivors were hardened and proud, defending their religious principles.
Krinata overheard snatches of conversations held in tense undertones about whether the marriage was really valid, interrupted in the middle as it had been. The newlyweds maintained it was. Some of the older, more orthodox said it wasn't. The group polarized with Storm and his mates joining the Truth complement, and the family keeping to themselves.
Her tally of days had reached fifteen when a flurry of activity swept the camp, the guards forcing everyone to clean, polish and mend everything in sight. Rumor had it that they were about to be inspected.
Something in Krinata woke to hope again, and escape plans began to form in her mind, plans involving Jindigar. Just thinking of working with him raised her spirits.
The big morning arrived. The guards, all spit and polish in their best uniforms, paraded the prisoners outside then– barracks, seeming to expect the nonmilitary prisoners to form up as if they were a precision drill team.
Then, amid imperial magnitude drum rolls, the compound was invaded by smart-stepping imperial troops, armed and armored, carrying the Emperor's banner.
Krinata's heart sank when she saw Zinzik, robes flying, crown flashing, marching amid his Honor Guard. She despaired even before he stopped in front of their ranks, singled her out, and said, "Step forward, Krinata Zavaronne."