“Chimele forbade us to go to Khasif,” she said, foreknowing failure. He would have a vaikkato suffer for that: he reckoned that and hoped that he would even have the chance. His mind already drifted away from her, toward the dark of Daniel’s consciousness, toward the thing he had come to do.
He is HUMAN!The word shrieked through her thoughts with a naked ugliness from which even Isande recoiled in shame.
You see why I cannot touch you,Aiela said, and hated himself for that unnecessary honesty. She could not help it: something there was that set her inner defenses working when she found Daniel coming close to her, though she strove on the surface to be amiable with him. Male and alien,her reactions screamed, and in that order.
Did Khasif do that to you?Aiela wondered, not meaning her to catch it; perhaps it was too accurate—she threw up screens and would not yield them down. Her hands sought his, her mind inaccessible.
“How do you think you can help him?” she asked aloud.
“There are all the resources of Weissmouth. Out of the amaut and the human mercenary forces, there has to be some reasonable chance of finding a way to him.”
What she thought of those chances leaked through, dismal and doomsaying. Dutifully she tried to suppress it.
“Khasif favors me,” she said. “Greatly. He will listen to me. And I am going to seal myself somewhere I won’t compromise his security or Chimele’s, so that you can communicate with Ashanomethrough me—instantly, if you need to. Maybe Chimele will tolerate it—and maybe we’re lucky it’s Khasif: outside the harachiaof Chimele he can be a very stubborn and independent man; he may decide to help us.”
He might be stubborn about other matters: she feared that too, but she would risk that to influence him to Aiela’s help. Aiela caught that thought in dismay, almost dissuaded from his plans. But there was no other way for Isande, no other hope at all. He took her small valise from the bureau and helped her, arm about her waist, toward the door. Her faint hope that mobility would overcome the sensation of falling vanished at once: it was no better at all, and she dreaded above all to be in open spaces, with the sky yawning bottomless overhead.
Aiela expected Kleph outside. To his dismay there were three amaut, bowing and bobbing in courtesy: Kleph had acquired companions. He was surprised to see the gold disc of command on the collar of one, a tall amaut of middling years and considerable girth. That one bowed very deeply indeed.
“Lord and lady,” the amaut exclaimed. “ Sushai.”
“ Sushai-khruuss,” Aiela responded to the courtesy. “ BnesychGerlach?”
Again the bow, three-leveled. “Most honored, most honored am I indeed by your recognition, lord nas kame. I am Gerlach son of Kor son of Thagrish son of Tophash son of Kor son of Merkush fourteenth generation son of Gomek of karshGomek.” The bnesych,governor of the colony, was being brief. In due formality he might have named his ancestors in full. This was the confidence of an immensely important man, for anyone who had been in trade in the metrosiknew karshGomek of Shaphar in the Esliph. They were the largest and wealthiest of the karshatuof the colonial worlds. Gomek already controlled the economy of the Esliph, and their intrusion into human space had been no haphazard effort of a few starveling colonials. KarshGomek had the machinery and the support to make the venture pay, transporting indentured amaut vast distances at small cost to the company, great peril to the desperate travelers, and everlasting misery for the humans docile enough and tough enough to survive the life of laborers for the amaut. This place could be made a viable base of further explorations in search of richer prizes. Daniel’s kind were indeed in danger, if struggle with the iduve had weakened them or thrown them into disorder. As long as the human culture had within it the potential for another and another Priamos, with humans selling each other out, the amaut, who did not fight, could keep spreading.
“And this,” added the bnesych,bending a long-fingered hand at the young amaut female that stood at his elbow, “this is my aide Toshi.”
“Toshi daughter of Igrush son of Toshiph son of Shuuk of karshShuuk.” A person of middling stature, Toshi was as fair as Kleph was ugly—not by kalliran standards, surely, but palest gray. Her flat-chested figure was also flat-bellied and her carriage was graceful, but her pedigree was modest indeed, and Aiela surmised uncharitably what had recommended the young lady to the great bnesych.
Are you satisfied with your allies?Isande’s xenophobia pricked at him, she restless within the circle of his arm. In her vision they were pathetic little creatures, ineffectual little waifs of dubious morality.
Mind your manners,Aiela fired back. I need thebnesych’s good will.
Don’t trouble yourself. Kick an amaut and he will bow and thank you for the honor of your attention. You are nas kame. You do not ask in the outside world: you order.
“You may serve us,” said Aiela, ignoring her, “by providing us transportation to the port.”
“Ai, my lord,” murmured bnesychGerlach, “but the noi kame said you were to remain here. Are the accommodations perhaps not to your liking? They are humanish foul, yes, for which we must humbly beg your pardon, but you have been among us so short a time—we have gathered workmen who will repair and suit quarters to your most exacting order. Anything we may do for you, we should be most honored.”
“Your courtesy does you credit.” The kalliran phrase fell quite naturally from Aiela’s lips, irritating Isande. The arastietheof Ashanomehad been damaged; Chimele would have bristled had she heard it. “But you see,” Aiela continued over her objections, “I shall be staying. My companion will not. And I still require a means to go to the port, and I am in a hurry.”
BnesychGerlach opened and shut his mouth unhappily, rolled his lips in, and bowed. Then he began to give orders, hustled Toshi and Kleph off, while he clung close to Aiela and Isande, managing amazingly enough to scurry along with them and bow and talk at the same time, assuring them effusively of his cooperation, his wish to be properly remembered to the great lords, his delight at the honor of their presence under his roof, which he would memorialize with a stone of memory in his karshnest on Shaphar.
Isande, ill and dizzied, fretted miserably at his attendance, but bowing to Aiela’s wishes she did not bid the creature begone. When they descended in the antiquated cable lift, she lost all her combative urges and simply leaned against Aiela, cursing the nine thousand years of noi kame which had produced a being such as herself.
On ground level they found themselves in an immense foyer with glass doors opening onto a street busy with amaut pedestrians. A hovercraft obscured the view, dusting all and sundry, and settled to an awkward halt outside their building.
“Your car,” said the bnesychas Toshi and Kleph rejoined them. “Is it not, Toshi?”
“Indeed so,” said Toshi, bowing.
“Please escort our honorable visitors, Kleph.”
Now Kleph began the series of bows, curtailed as Aiela impatiently paid a nod of courtesy to the bnesych,to Toshi, and helped his ailing asuthe toward the door. Kleph hurried ahead to open the door for them, pried the valise from Aiela’s fingers, rushed ahead to the door of the hovercraft, and had the steps down for them in short order, scrambling in after they settled in the tight passenger space.