Daniel thrust his way into the circle, jerked at the shoulder of a young iduve to push his way past before the youth realized what had happened—and cried out in pain, collapsing under the discipline of the idoikkhe.
Pain backwashed: Aiela forced his own way through the breach, trying to aid his stricken asuthe, cried out Chimele’s name and felt the impact of all that attention suddenly upon himself.
“ M’metanei,” said Chimele, “this is not a place for you. You are not noticed.” She lifted her hand and the iduve parted like grass before the wind, opening the way to the door. When Daniel opened his mouth to protest the dismissaclass="underline" “Aiela,” she said most quietly. It was a last warning. He knew the tone of it.
Daniel rose, turned his face to Tejef, appealing to him; he wanted to speak, wanted desperately, but Daniel’s courage was the kind that could act: he had no eloquence, and words always came out badly. In pity, Aiela said it. Daniel would not yield otherwise.
“We interfered. I did. We are sorry.”
And to Aiela’s dismay the iduve gave back all about them, and they were alone in the center with Tejef—and Daniel moved closer to Isande, who clenched Arle’s hand tightly in hers, and gazed fearfully as Tejef gained his feet.
“Kamethi,” said Chimele, “I have not heard, I have not noticed this behavior. You are dismissed. Go away.”
“He had honor among his kamethi,” said Aiela, echoing what was in Daniel’s heart. It was important Tejef know that before they left. The idoikkhetouched, began and ceased. Isande radiated panic, she with the child, wanting to run, foreseeing Daniel’s death before their eyes—Aiela’s with him. It was her unhappiness to have asuthi as stubborn as herself—her pride, too. They were both mad, her asuthi, but she had accepted that already.
And Chimele looked upon the three of them: a kallia’s eyes might have varied, shown some emotion. Hers scarcely could, no more than they could shed tears. But Aiela pitied her: if he had disadvantaged her once before her nasithialone and merited her anger, he could only surmise what he did to her now with the entire Metakhisand nasulto witness.
“Chimele-Orithain,” he said in a tone of great respect, “we have obeyed all your orders. If a kameth can ask anything of you—”
A tall shadow joined them—Ashakh, who folded his arms and gave a nod in curt deference to Chimele.
“This kameth,” said Ashakh, “is about to encounter trouble with which he cannot deal. He is a peculiar being, this m’metane,a little rash with us, and without any sense of takkhenesto feel his way over most deadly ground; but his chanokhiaappeals to me. I oppose his disrespect, but I am not willing to see harm come to him or to his asuthi—one of whom is, after all, human as well as outsider, and even more ignorant of propriety than this one. I have borne with much, Chimele. I have suffered and my srahas suffered for the sake of Ashanome.But this kameth and his asuthi are of worth to the nasul.Here I say no, Chimele.”
“Ashakh,” said Chimele in a terrible voice, “it has not been the matter of the kamethi alone in which you have said no.”
“I do not oppose you, Chimele.”
“I perceive otherwise. I perceive that you are not takkhewith us in the matter of Tejef, that someone lends him support.”
“Then you perceive amiss. My m’melakhiahas always been for the well-being of Ashanome.We have been able to compose our differences before, nasith-tak.”
“And they have been many,” said Chimele, “and too frequent. No!” she said sharply as Tejef moved. He came no closer, for there were the dhis-guardians between, and Khasif and Ashakh moved to shield her as reflexively as they always had. The closeness was heavy in the air again: oppressive, hostile, and then a curiously perturbing fierceness. Chimele glanced at Rakhi in alarm.
“You do not belong here,” she said, but her anger seemed smothered by fright, and it was not clear to whom she spoke.
Tejef moved nearer, as near as the ghiakaiwould permit. “Chimele-Orithain. You cast me out; but Mejakh’s takkhenoisis gone and the touch of the nasulis easier for that, Chimele sra-Chaxal. I have always had m’melakhiafor this nasul,and not alone for the nasul.I was nas,Chimele.”
Chimele’s breath was an audible hiss. “And your life in the nasulwas always on scant tolerance and we have hunted you back again. Your m’melakhiais e-takkhe—e-takkheand unspeakably offensive to me.”
A fierce grin came to Tejef’s face. He seemed to grow, and set hands on knees as he fell to kneel on the carpets. His gesture of submission was itself insolence; slowly he inclined his body toward the floor and as slowly straightened.
Arle cried out, a tiny sound, piercing the intolerable heaviness in the air. Isande hugged her tightly, silencing her, for Ashakh sent a staccato message to the three idoikkheisimultaneously: Do not move!
“Go!” Chimele exploded. “If you survive in the nasul,I will perhaps not seek to kill you. But there is vaikkayou have yet to pay, o Tejef no-one’s-getting.”
“My sra,” answered Tejef with cold deliberation, “will have honor.” But he backed carefully from her when he had risen.
“You are dismissed,” Chimele said, and her angry glance swept the hall, so that Tejef had no more than cleared the door before others began to disperse in haste, projections to wink out in great numbers, the concourse clearing backwards as the iduve departed into that part of the ship that was theirs.
“Stay,” she said to the nasithi-katasakkewhen they would as gladly have withdrawn; and she ignored them when they had frozen into waiting, and bent a fierce frown on Aiela. The idoikkhesent a signal that made him wince.
M’metane, it is your doing that I bear this disadvantage. It is your doing, that gave this beingarastiethe to defy me, to draw aid from others. Your ignorance has begun what you cannot begin to comprehend. You have disadvantaged me, divided thenasul, and some of us may die for it. What are you willing to pay for that,m’metane that I honored, whatvaikka can you perceive that would be adequate?
He stared at her, pain washing upward from the idoikkhe,and was stricken to realize that not only might he lose his life, he might in truth deserve it. He had Isande’s misery to his account; now he had Chimele’s as well.
And in the disadvantaging of an Orithain, he had threatened the existence of Ashanomeitself.
“I did what was in me to do,” he protested.
Ashakh saved him. He realized that when the pain cleared and he heard Isande and Daniel’s faint, terrified presences in his mind, and felt the iduve’s viselike grip holding on his feet.
“Chimele,” said Ashakh, “that was not disrespect in him: it was very plain kalliran logic. And perhaps there is merit in his reasoning: after all, you found chanokhiain him, and chose him, so his decisions are, in a manner of speaking, yours. Perhaps when one deals with outsiders, outsider-logic prevails, and events occur which would not occur in an iduve system.”
“I perceive your m’melakhiafor these beings, Ashakh, and I am astounded. I find it altogether excessive.”