“Aiela,” she said in her accented voice, “Aiela Lyailleue: I am Chimele, Orithain of Ashanome.And such action is hardly an auspicious introduction, nor at all wise. Takkh-ar-rhei, nasithi.”
Aiela found himself free—dizzied, bruised, thoroughly dispossessed of the recklessness to chance another chastisement at their hands. He moved a step—the iduve behind him moved him back precisely where he had stood.
She spoke to her people, frowning: they answered. Aiela waited, with such a physical terror mounting in him as he had never felt in any circumstances. He could not even shape it in his thoughts. He felt disconnected, smothered, wished at once to run and feared the least movement.
And now Chimele turned from him and returned with the wide band of an idoikkheopen in her indigo fingers—a band of three fingers’ width, with a patchwork of many colors of metal on its inner surface, a thread of black weaving through it all. She held it out for him, expecting him to offer his wrist for it, and now, now was the time if ever he would refuse anything again. He could not breathe, and he felt strongly the threat of violence at his back; his battered nerves refused to carry the right impulses. He saw himself raise an arm that seemed part of another body, heard a sharp click as the cold band locked, felt a weight that was more than he had expected as she took her hands away.
A jewel of milk and fire shone on its face. The asymmetry of iduve artistry flashed in metal worth a man’s life in the darker places of the Esliph. He stared at it, realizing beyond doubt that he had accepted its limits, that no foreign thing in his skull had compelled the lifting of his arm; there was a weakness in Aiela Lyailleue that he had never found before, a shameful, unmanning terror.
It was as if something essential in him had torn away, left behind in Kartos. He feared. For the first time he knew himself less than other beings. Without dignity he tore at the band, but of the closure no trace remained save a faint diffraction of light—no clasp and no yielding.
“No,” she said, “you cannot remove it.”
And with a gesture she dismissed the others, so that they stood alone in the hall. He was tempted then to murder, the first time he had ever felt a hate so ikas—and then he knew that it was out of fear, female that she was. He gained control of himself with that thought, gathered enough courage to plainly defy her: he spun on his heel to stalk out, to make them use force if they would. That much resolve he still possessed.
The idoikkhestung him, a dart of pain from his fingertips to his ribs. At the next step it hurt; and he paused, measuring the long distance to the door against the pain that lanced in rising pulses up his arm. A greater shock hit him, waves enough to jolt his heart and shorten his breath.
He jerked about and faced her—not to attack: if he had any thought then it was to stand absolutely still, anything, anything to stop it. The pulse vanished as he did what she wanted, and the ache faded slowly.
“Do not fear the idoikkhe,” said Chimele. “We use it primarily for coded communication, and it will not greatly inconvenience you.”
He was shamed; he jerked aside, hurt at once as the idoikkheactivated, faced her and felt it fade again.
“I do not often resort to that,” said Chimele, who had not yet appeared to do anything. “But there is a fine line between humor and impertinence with us which few m’metaneican safely tread. Come, m’metane-toj,use your intelligence.”
She allowed him time, at least: he recovered his composure and caught his breath, rebuilding the courage it took to anger her.
“So what is the law here?” he asked.
“Do not play the game of vaikkawith an iduve.” He tried to outface her with his anger, but Chimele’s whiteless eyes locked on his with an invading directness he did not like. “You are bound to find the wager higher than you are willing to pay. You have not been much harmed, and I have extended you an extraordinary courtesy.”
“I don’t think so,” he said, and knew what to expect for it, knew and waited until his nerves were drawn taut. But Chimele broke from his eyes with a shrug, gestured toward a chair.
“Sit and listen, kameth. Sit and listen. I do not notice your attitude. You are only ignorant. We are using valuable time.”
He hesitated, weighed matters; but the change in her manner was as complete as it was abrupt, almost as if she regretted her anger. He still thought of going for the door; then common sense reasserted itself, and he settled on the chair opposite the one she chose.
Pain hit him, excruciating, lancing through his eyes and the back of his skull at once. He bent over, holding his face, unable to breathe. That sensation passed quickly, leaving a throbbing ache behind his eyes.
“Be quiet,” she said. “Anger is the worst possible response.”
And she brought him a tiny glass of clear liquid. He drank, too shaken to argue, set the empty crystal vessel on the table. He missed the edge with his distorted vision: it toppled off and she imperturbably picked it up off the costly rug and set it securely on the table.
“I am not responsible,” she said when he looked hate at her.
There was something at the edge of his mind, the void now full of something dark that reached up at him, and he fought to shut it out, losing the battle as long as he panicked. Then it ceased, firmly, outside his will.
“What was done to me?” he cried. “What was it?”
“The chiabres,the implant: I would surmise, though I do not do so from experience, that you reacted on a subconscious level and triggered defenses, contacting what was not prepared to receive you. This chiabresof yours has two contacts, mind-links to your asuthi—your companions. One is probably in the process of waking, and I assure you that fighting an asuthe is not profitable.”
“I had rather be dead,” he said. “I would rather die.”
“ Tekasuphre.Do not try my patience. I called you here precisely to explain matters to you. I have great personal regard for your asuthe. Do I make myself clear?”
“Am I joined to one of you?”
“No,” she said, suddenly laughing—a merry, gentle sound, but her teeth were white and sharp. “Nature provided for us in our own fashion, m’metane.Kallia and even amaut find asuthithekkhepleasant, but we would not.”
And the walls closed about them. Aiela sprang to his feet in alarm, while Chimele arose more gracefully. The light had brightened, and beside them was a bed whereon lay a kalliran woman of great beauty. She stirred in her sleep, silvery head turning on the pillow, one azure hand coming to her breast. There was the faint seam of a new scar at her temple.
“She is Isande,” said Chimele. “Your asuthe.”
“Is it—usual—that different sexes—”
Chimele shrugged. “We have not found it of concern.”
“Was she the one I felt a moment ago?”
“It is not reasonable to ask me to venture an opinion on something I have never experienced. But it seems quite possible.”
He looked from Chimele to the sweet-faced being who lay on the bed, the worst of his fears leaving him at once. He felt even an urge to be sorry for Isande, no less than for himself; he wondered if she had consented to this unhappy situation, and was about to ask Chimele that question.
The walls blinked smaller still, and they stood in a room of padded white, a cell. At their left, leaning against the transparent face of the cell, was that same naked pink-brown creature Aiela remembered lying inert in the corner on his entry into the lab. Now it turned in the rapid dawning of terror: one of the humans of the Esliph, beyond doubt, and as stunned as he had been that day—how long ago?—that Chimele had appeared in his cell. The human stumbled back, hit the wall where there was no wall in his illusion, and pressed himself there because there was no further retreat.