Gundhalinu bowed his head, with the gesture avoiding having to look anyone in the eye. He wondered, in that moment, why it had to be that such an honor, which once would have meant more to him than life itself, was given to him now, when it scarcely meant anything at all.
When he raised his head again, Vhanu was nowhere in sight. Someone spoke his name, behind him, and he turned around. Moon came toward him, with Sirus, and her family around her. “Thank you, Justice Gundhalinu, for your defense of my reputation and my family,” she said.
He nodded, hiding the surge of emotion he felt as he saw her face. “It was no more than what was due… to any of us, to set the record straight, Lady.” He avoided Sparks Dawntreader’s gaze, the silent watching eyes of Ariele and Tammis; turning to Sims, instead: “My gratitude, sadhu.”
Sirus’s mouth quirked up in a slightly embarrassed smile. He was a tall man, large-boned for a Kharemoughi Technician; Gundhalinu remembered vaguely having been told that he was in fact half Samathan—a son of the Prime Minister’s from some distant visit to Sirus’s homeworld. The accident of Sirus’s birth had helped him to become an important political leader on Samathe; he had been invited to fill a vacancy in the Assembly, on their next visit. “I would be grateful, Gundhalinu-sadhu, if you would consider the scales equal between us, after what must be, for you, so long.”
Sirus glanced away, at Sparks and at Ariele and Tammis. Tammis stood behind his mother, beside Merovy, his own young wife. “We in the Assembly have been unstuck in time, due to our travels, for all these centuries. But now you have given me the chance to see what great things my son and his wife have accomplished … to see my grandchildren. It was something we put much store by, among my mother’s people—something I have regretted about my choice in joining the Assembly.” He put an arm around Sparks’s shoulders, turning to him. “I know I have not had the chance to be any kind of father to you, Son; and perhaps my pride is presumptuous. But it is heartfelt, nonetheless. And it seems you have done extremely well with your life, in spite of my absence.”
Sparks smiled briefly, looking back at his father. But the smile disappeared as quickly as it had come. Gundhalinu wondered what doubts and regrets and secrets hid behind the expression that replaced it; suddenly sure, somehow, that Dawntreader’s expression hid as many secrets as his own had a few minutes past.
He stood with them, making desultory polite conversation as an excuse to go on watching them speak and interact among themselves. He knew that he should be mingling with the crowd, doing his duty, however unpleasant; and yet he was somehow unable to make himself leave Moon’s side, unable to take his eyes off her, to stop watching her surrounded by her family.
Her family. He glanced at Ariele, whose face was still so much like he remembered her mother’s, except for the chronic mocking smile, the restless impatience in her eyes. She had pasted a stim patch from the passing tray in the middle of her forehead like a third eye. Her cropped, cream-white hair was caught up in a cascade on top of her head; she wore a clinging dawn-colored bodysuit and loose soft trousers knotted around her slender waist, relentlessly expensive and sophisticated, as usual.
Her gaze settled momentarily on Sirus as he spoke to her mother; glanced away again, and Gundhalinu suddenly found himself being stared at. She half frowned, glancing at Sirus and back at him, and then at Sparks, the man she had always known as her father. Just for a moment Gundhalinu saw her mocking mask slip, saw the confusion of a lost child in her eyes. She turned away as she caught him still watching her, and disappeared into the crowd. He wondered if she had gone looking for that miserable little snot Elco Teel. Kirard Set Wayaways and his family were here tonight, being too influential to snub, although so far he had managed to avoid even the sight of them by some good fortune.
“It is quite remarkable, isn’t it?” Sirus said to him, gesturing at Ariele’s disappearing back. Gundhalinu looked over at him. only then realizing that he had been staring, and the others had noticed it. “The resemblance between her and her mother, I mean.”
“Yes,” he said, glad to take that as an excuse for his behavior. “I actually mistook her for the Queen, the first time I saw her.” He smiled, glancing at Moon, seeing her surprise.
“Tammis here takes after his father more.” Sirus’s smile widened, as he turned to the young couple still standing beside him. “He has the look of a Kharemoughi about him; don’t you think, Gundhalinu-sadhu?”
Gundhalinu hesitated, feeling five sets of eyes suddenly fixed on his own face. “Yes,” he said softly, “he does.” Tammis glanced down; Gundhalinu thought the boy was simply avoiding his gaze, until he realized that Tammis was staring at his trefoil. Tammis’s hand rose, touching his own sibyl sign; dropped away again, to take and hold his wife’s hand. Gundhalinu saw her try surreptitiously to avoid his touch, and then give in. He had heard that they were having marital problems.
He looked back at Sirus. The First Secretary seemed mercifully oblivious to the undercurrents of tension, caught up in the pleasure of his illusory fantasy about his son’s family life. He would not have to be here for long enough to see it shattered, if he was fortunate … any more than he ever had to be anywhere for long enough to experience more than an illusion of life in the real world, with all its pain and pitiless imperfection.
Gundhalinu had wondered from time to time what could make someone like Sirus choose to join the Assembly, to sever his ties so completely with the life he had always known. Now, tonight, he thought that perhaps he finally understood. He was suddenly aware of the music that was playing—a limpid fuguetheme work from his homeworld. Somehow the music he had always known had never seemed as beautiful to him, or as poignantly sad.
Sirus turned back to Moon, as she spoke his name. “Please, call me Temmon—”
“Temmon,” she said, nodding, with a brief smile, “you said that we might discuss the mers.”
“Yes, of course; it’s obviously a question that needs to be addressed. Sit with me at dinner, and we’ll—” He broke off, as guests began to stir and mutter across the room.
Gundhalinu strained to see past the random motion of half a hundred heads turning toward the doorway. He made out Tilhonne, standing at the focus of a small open space, holding up something vaguely familiar. He froze as recognition hit him, hearing Moon’s audible gasp: Tilhonne held a vial of the water of life.
“Sadhanu, bhai,” Tilhonne announced, raising his voice to be heard above the crowd’s. “Dinner waits for us. But first, thanks to the diligence of our new Hegemonic government, and the cooperation of our Tiamatan friends—” he gestured, and suddenly Kirard Set Wayaways was standing beside him, smiling and bowing, “we have a special gift for our honored visitors tonight. The first fruits of a renewed harvest. The water of life.”
A murmur of surprise and eager anticipation spread through the crowd; ripples of motion followed, as the Assembly members began to press forward toward Tilhonne.
Gundhalinu stood motionless, feeling the people around him suddenly staring at him again. He looked at Moon, seeing disbelief and betrayal in her eyes.
“Well done, Gundhalinu-sadhu!” Sirus said, his face beaming. “No mere speech could have silenced the arrogant bigotry of certain fools so neatly.” He clapped Gundhalinu on the shoulder. “You have given them their dream—you and the Lady.” He turned to Moon, but she had looked away, watching in anguished fascination as the Assembly members passed the vial from hand to hand, lifting it to their mouths, inhaling, swallowing the spray of heavy silver droplets with an eagerness approaching lust.