At The Edge Of Space (Hanan Rebellion) (55 page)

Now, confronted by an iduve at the door of the
paredre,
he could scarcely gather enough fluency to explain his presence in any civilized language. The iduve looked at him sharply, for his behavior showed a mental disorder that was suspect, but Chimele had given standing orders and the man relented.

“Aiela?” Chimele arose from her desk across the room, her brows lifted in the iduve approximation of alarm. Aiela bowed very low. Courtesy demanded it, considering the news he bore.

“Daniel has encountered a difficulty,” he said.

“Be precise.” Chimele took a chair with a mate opposite and gestured him to sit.

“The Upweiss raid,” Aiela began hoarsely: Chimele insisted upon the chronological essentials of a thing. He forced his mind into order, screened against the random impulses that fed from Daniel’s mind and the anxious sympathy from Isande’s. “It went as scheduled. Anderson’s unit hit the Mar estate. Daniel hung back—”

“He was not to do so,” Chimele said.

“I warned him; I warned him strongly. He knows Anderson’s suspicions of him. But Daniel can’t do the things these men do. His conscience—his
honor,
” he amended, trying to choose words that had clear meaning for Chimele—“is offended over the killings. He had to kill a man in the last raid.”

Chimele made a dismissing move of her hand. “He was attacked.”

“I could explain the human ethical—”

“Explain what is at hand.”

“There was a child—a girl. It was a crisis. I tried to reason with him. He shut me out and took her away. He is still going, deserting Anderson—and us.”

There were no curses in the iduve language. Possibly that contributed to their fierceness. Chimele said nothing.

“I’m trying to reason with him,” Aiela said. “He’s exhausted—drained. He hasn’t slept in twenty hours. He lay awake last night, sick over the prospect of this raid. He’s going on little sleep, no water, no food. He can’t expect to find water as he’s heading, not until the river. They can’t make it.”

“This is not a rational human response.” That was a question. Chimele’s voice had an utter calm, not a good sign in an iduve.

“It is a human response, but it is not rational.”

Chimele hissed and rose, hands on her hips. “Is it not your duty to anticipate such responses and deal with them?”

“I don’t blame him,” he said. Then, from his heart: “I’m only afraid I might have done otherwise.” And that thought so depressed him he felt tears rise. Chimele looked down on him in incredulity.

“
Au,
by what am I served? Explain. I am patient. Is this a predictable response?”

Aiela could have screamed aloud. The
paredre
faded. He shivered in the cold of a Priamid night, the glory of spiraling ribbons of stars overhead, the fragile sweet warmth of another being in his arms. Tears filled his eyes; his breath caught.

“Aiela,” Chimele said. The iduve could not cry; they lacked the reflex. The remembrance of that made him ashamed in her sight.

“The reaction,” he said, “is probably instinct. I—have grown so much into him I—cannot tell. I cannot judge what he does any longer. It seems right to me.”

“Is it
dhis
-instinct, a response to this child?”

“Something like that,” he said, grateful for her attempt at equation. Chimele considered that for a moment, her eyes more perplexed now than angry.

“It is difficult to rely on such unknown quantities. I offer my regret for what you must be feeling, though I am not sure I can comprehend it. Other humans—like Anderson—are immune to this emotion where the young are concerned. Why does Daniel succumb?”

“I don’t live inside Anderson. I don’t know what goes on in his twisted mind. I only know Daniel—this night—could not have done otherwise.”

“Kindly explain to Daniel that we have approximately three days left, his time. That Priamos itself has scarcely that long to live, and that he and the child will be among a million beings perishing if we have to resort to massive attack on this world.”

“I’ve tried. He knows these things, intellectually, but he shuts me out. He refuses to think of that.”

“Then we have wasted fifteen valuable days.”

“Is that all?”

There was hysteria in his voice; and it elicited from Chimele a curious look, the embarrassment of an observer who had no impulse to what he felt.

“You are exhausted,” she judged “You can be sedated for the rest of the world’s night. You can do nothing more with this person and I know how long you have worked without true rest.”

“No.” He assumed a taut control of his voice and slowed his breathing. “I know Daniel. Good sense will come back to him after he has run awhile. That area is swarming with trouble in all forms. He will need me.”

“I honor your persistence. Stay in the
paredre.
If you are going to attempt to advise him I should prefer to know how you are faring. If you change your mind about the sedation, tell me; if we are to lose Daniel, your own knowledge of humans becomes twice valuable. I do not want to risk your health. I leave matters in your hands; rest, if you can.”

“Thank you.” He drew himself to his feet, bowed, and moved away.

“Aiela.”

He looked back.

“When you have found an explanation for his behavior, give it to me. I shall be interested.”

He bowed once more, struggling between loathing and love for the iduve, and decided for the moment on love. She did try. She tried with her mind where her heart was inadequate, but she wanted to know.

In the shadows of the
paredre
a comfortable bowl chair, such as the iduve chose when they would relax, provided a retreat. He curled into its deep embrace and leaned his head back upon the edge, slipping again into the mental rhythms of Daniel’s body, becoming human, feeling again what he felt.

In the small corner of his mind still himself, Aiela knew the answer. It had been likely from Daniel’s first step onto the surface of Priamos.

Years and a world ago, when Aiela was a boy, the staff had brought into the lodge one of the hunting birds that nested in the cliffs of the mountains, wing-broken. He had nursed it, he had been proud of it, thought it his. But the first time it felt the winds of Ryi under its wings, it was gone.

7

Aiela was back. Daniel clamped down a silence against him, shifted the child’s slight weight in his arms, and felt her arms tighten reflexively about his neck. Above them a star burned, a blaze of white brighter than any star that had ever shown in Priamid skies. When people saw it they thought
amaut
and shuddered at the presence, aware it was large, but yet having no concept what it was. They might never know. If it swung into tighter orbit it would be the final spectacle in Priamos’ skies, that had of late seen so many comings and goings, the baleful red of amaut ships, the winking white of human craft deploying troops, mercenaries serving the amaut. When
Ashanome
came it would be one last great sunset over the world at once, the last option of the iduve in a petty quarrel that threatened the existence of his species, that counted one man or one minor civilization nothing against the games that occupied them.

You know better,
Aiela sent him. Simultaneous with the words came rage, concern for them, fear of Chimele. Daniel seized wrathfully upon the latter, which Aiela vehemently denied.

Daniel. Think. You don’t know where you’re going or what you’re going to do with that girl.
All right. Defeat. Aiela recognized the loathing Daniel felt for what they had asked him to do. Human as he was, he had been able to cross the face of Priamos unremarked, one of the countless mercenaries that looted and killed in small bands at the amaut’s bidding. He was a rough man, was Daniel: he could use that heavy-barreled primitive gun that hung from his belt. His slender frame could endure the marches, the tent-camps, the appallingly primitive conditions under which the human force operated. But he had no heart for this. He had been rackingly sick after the only killing he had done, and Anderson, the mercenary captain, had put him on the notice he would be made an example if he failed in any order. This threat was nothing. If Daniel could ignore the orders of Chimele of
Ashanome,
nothing the brutish Anderson could invent was enough; but Anderson fortunately had not realized that.

I can’t help you,
Aiela said.
That child cried for home, and you lost all your senses, every other bond. Now I suppose I’m the enemy.

No,
Daniel thought, irritated by Aiela’s analysis.
You aren’t.
And:
I wish you were
—for it was his humanity that was pained.

The word choice might have been Chimele’s. Daniel recognized it.
“Kill the girl.” Why don’t you just come out with the idea. “Kill her, one life for the many.” Say it, Aiela. Isn’t that what Chimele wants of me?
He hugged the sleeping child so tightly it wakened her, and she cried out in memory and fought.

“Hush,” he told her. “Do you want to walk awhile?”

“I’ll try,” she said, and he chose a smooth place on the dirt road to set her down, she tugging in nervous modesty at the hem of her tattered gown. Her feet were cut with stubble and bruised with stones. She limped so it hurt to watch her, and held out her hands to balance on the edges of her feet. He swore and reached out to take her up again, but she resisted and looked at him, her elfin face pale in the moonlight.

“No, I can walk. It’s just sore at first.”

“We’re going to cut west when we reach the other road. Maybe we’ll find a refugee family—there’s got to be somebody left.”

“Are you going to leave those men and not go back?”

The question disturbed him. Aiela pressed him with an echo of the same, and Daniel screened. “They’ll have my hide if they find me now. Maybe I’ll head northwest and pick up with some other band.” That for Aiela.
A night’s delay, a day at the most. I can manage it. I’ll think of something.
“Or maybe I’ll go west too. I’ll see you safe before I do anything.”

A man alone can’t make it across that country,
Aiela insisted.
Get rid of her, let her go. No! listen, don’t shut me out. I’ll help you. Your terms. Give me information and I’ll take your part with Chimele.

Daniel swore at him and closed down. Even suggesting harm to the girl tore at Aiela’s heart; but he was afraid. His people had had awe of the iduve fed into them with their mothers’ milk, and he was not human; Daniel knew the kallia so well, and yet there were still dark corners, reactions he could not predict, things that had to do with being kallia and being human. Aiela’s people had no capacity to fight: it was not in the kalliran nature to produce a tyranny, not in a culture where there was no supreme executive, but a hierarchy of councils. One kallia simply lacked the feeling of adequacy to be either tyrant or rebel.
Giyre
was supposed to be mutual, and he had no idea how to react when trust was betrayed. Kallia were easy prey for the iduve: they always yielded to greater authority. In the kalliran mind it just did not occur that it could be morally wrong, or that the Order in which they believed did not exist off Aus Qao.

Daniel.
The quiet touch was back in his mind, offended, as angry as Daniel had ever felt him.
The things you do not know about kallia are considerable. You lack any sense about
giyre
yourself, so I suppose it does not occur to you that I have it for all beings with whom I deal—even for you. I am not human. I do not lie to my friends, destroy what is useless, or break what is whole. I can also accept defeat when I meet it. Abandon the child there. I will get her to safety, I will be responsible, even if I must come to Priamos myself. Just get out of the area. You’ve already created enough trouble for yourself. Don’t finish ruining your cover.

No,
Daniel sent.
One look at that kalliran face of yours and you would never catch her. Send your ship. But you’ll do things on my terms.

There was no answer. Daniel looked up again at the star that was
Ashanome.
A second brilliant light had appeared not far from it; and a third, unmoving to the eye. They were simply there, and they had not been.

Aiela,
he flung out toward the first star.

But this time Aiela shut him out.

The
paredre
blazed with light. The farthest side of it, bare of furniture, was suddenly occupied by consoles and screens and panels rippling with color. In the midst of it stood Chimele with her
nas-katasakke
Rakhi, and they spoke urgently of the startling appearance of two of the
akitomei.
The image of them hung three-dimensional in the cube of darkness on the table, projection within projection, mirror into mirror.

Suddenly there was only Chimele and the darker reality of the
paredre.
Aiela met her quick glance uneasily, for kamethi were not admitted to control stations.

“Isande has been summoned,” said Chimele. “Cast her the details of the situation here. Keep screening against Daniel. Are you strong enough to maintain that barrier?”

“Yes. Are we under attack?”

The thought seemed to surprise Chimele. “Attack? No. The
nasuli
are not prone to such inconsiderate action. This is
harathos,
the Observance.
Tashavodh
has come to see
vaikka
done, and
Mijanothe
is the neutral Observer, who will declare to all the
nasuli
that things were done rightly. This is expected, and unexpected. It might have been omitted. It would have pleased me if it had been.”

In his mind, Isande had already started for the door of her apartment, pulled her tousled head through the sweater; the sweater was tugged to rights, her thin-soled boots pattering quickly down the corridor. He fired her what information he could, coherent, condensed, as he had learned to do.