But there was dimly in his mind a belief that he had something yet to do, that there was a duty yet undone.
Someone had told him this. He could not remember.
He tried to rise, succeeded in sitting up for an instant before his arms began to shake uncontrollably and he collapsed. Duncan"s arms caught him, gentle and yielding him to the mattress.
Thereafter it was easier to drift back into the Dark, where there was no remembrance at all. But Duncan would not let him. A cold cloth bathed his face, shocked awareness back into him.
"Come on," Duncan kept saying to him lifted his head once again and poured water between his unwilling lips. Then followed salt-laden meat broth, and Niun"s stomach threatened rebellion.
"Water," he asked, after he had swallowed the mouthful; and receiving it, took one sip. It was all that he could bear.
He drifted away for a time then, and came back, found himself propped half-sitting. A comfortable rumbling sound filled his ears, numbed his mind for a time; he felt warmth upon his hand, a movement. He looked and saw to his confusion that a great dus had come to sit beside him. It pushed at the cot, making it shudder, then settled, soothing his mind with its contentment And Duncan returned upon the instant in the dress of humans: he noticed this for the first time. Duncan had rejoined his own kind, as was proper. It was a human place. For the first time Niun began to take account of his presence not as delirium, most real and urgent of the images that peopled his wakings, but as a presence that had logical place among humans.
Whose reasons were doubtless human, and threatening.
Disturbed, the dus looked about at Duncan, then settled again, giving only a weary sigh. It tolerated the human; and this perplexed Niun frightened him, that even the incorruptible dusei could be seduced. He had no protection left.
Dark crossed his mind, memory he did not want, towers falling, the she"pan"s pale face in the darkness, eyes closed.
The dus lifted its head again, moaned and nosed at his hand.
"Melein," he asked, focusing on Duncan, on white walls and reality, for he had to ask. He remembered that he had trusted his human: hope surged up in him, that no guilt touched Duncan"s face when he asked that question.
The human came and sat by him, touched the dus in doing so, as if he were utterly easy with the beast; but fear . . . fear was in him: Niun felt it. "She is here," Duncan told him. "She is well as well as you are."
"That is not well at all," Niun said thickly, with a twist of his mouth; but it was true, then; it was true, and he had not dreamed it among the other dreams. He could not close his eyes, lest the tears flow from them, shaming him. He stared at Duncan, and fingered the velvet skin of the dus between them, a hot and comforting sleekness.
"You are free," Duncan explained carefully, distinctly, as one would talk to a child. "Both you and she. We are on a ship, headed out from Kesrith, and I am the only one besides you aboard. I"ve done this because I trust you. Do me the favor of trusting me for a little while."
This, incredible, mad as it was, had the simple sound of truth in it: there was no flinching in Duncan"s gaze. Niun accepted, bewildered as he was, and began at once to think of escort ships, of themselves surrounded, proceeding toward some human captivity, of a myriad other treacheries; but there was Duncan.
There was Duncan, on whom all hopes rested, who alone of human enemies and regul had understood him with honor, whose heart was honorable, a kel"en of the human folk.
He flexed his hands, trying their strength, found the numbness that had blanked his mind and weakened his limbs so long now retreating. Drugs: he recognized the probability of it; but they were losing their grip on his senses, leaving them increasingly clear. Duncan gave him water to drink again, and he drank; and more of the horrid broth, and he drank that too, and clamped his jaws and fought his stomach to keep his meal down.
The she"pan was alive: his true sister Melein, Mother of the People. She was his duty. He was kel"en, a warrior, and the sickness and the wound and the drugs had taken from him his strength and his quickness and his skill, which were all the possession he had ever owned, for the only purpose of his life, which was to serve the she"pan.
He did not let himself think of what had become of him, only of the necessity of standing on his feet, of finding again the strength to walk and go to her, wherever she was.
Until then he would bear with anything.
Duncan returned after a dark s.p.a.ce; and in his hands he bore a black bundle of cloth, that he laid on the table by the bed.
"Your clothes," Duncan said. "If you will let me, I will help you."
And Duncan did so, carefully, gently, helping him to sit for a moment that his senses spun and went gray, then settled him back again, wrapped in the familiar comfort of a kel"en"s inner robe, and propped on cushions.
Duncan sat beside him, waiting until he had his breath again. "The she"pan is doing well," he said. "She took food and demanded her belongings and told me to go away. I did."
Niun slipped a hand within his robe, where a scar crossed his ribs, and knew that he should have died: they both should have died. "Tsi"mri medicines," he objected, his voice trembling with outrage; and yet he knew that these same forbidden things had kept them both alive, and he was, guiltily, unwilling to die. He was twenty-six years old; he had expected to die before this: most kel"ein did, but most kel"ein had had honors in plenty by this time. Niun had gained nothing wherewith he was proud to go into the Dark. All that he had almost won, he had lost, being taken captive, allowing the she"pan to be taken. He should have died.
But not here, not like this.
"It was not your fault," Duncan said.
"I have lived too long," Niun answered him, which was the truth: both he and Melein had outlived their kind, outlived the People; and that was bitter fact. He did not know what she would choose to do when she found him again, or what she would bid him do. He looked on Duncan with regret. Duncan"s eyes were, Niun saw, shadowed with weariness, his person unkept, as if he had slept little. At the moment he looked distraught.
"The regul would have taken you," Duncan said hoa.r.s.ely. "I had the chance to put you among my people, and I took it. The she"pan did not object. She knew what I did."
The a.s.sertion shook at his confidence of things trustworthy. Niun stared at Duncan for a moment, and at last put down his pride, asked questions as he would of a brother of the Kel.
"Where are my weapons?"
"Everything you own is here," Duncan said. "I will bring you your weapons now if you insist; but you"ve been half asleep and you"ve been sick, and I thought you might not know where you are or understand what"s going on. I"d hate to be shot in a misunderstanding."
This was at least sensible. Niun let go a carefully controlled breath, reminding himself that this human tended to tell the truth, contrary to the experience of the People with tsi"mri in general. "I am not sick anymore," he said.
"Do you want me to go and bring your weapons?"
Niun considered the matter, staring at Duncan"s naked face; he had challenged . . . Duncan had answered with an offer, though his truth had been doubted, insulting him. "No," Niun said, making an effort to relax. "You go and come much; when you come again, you will bring them."
"I would prefer," said Duncan, "to wait until I am sure you are well. Then I will bring them."
Niun glanced aside unhappily: face-naked, he felt the helplessness of his wasted limbs and lay still, compelled to accept the situation. The dus stirred, uncomfortable in his distress. He moved his hand and comforted it.
"I have brought some food," Duncan said. "I want you to eat."
"Yes," Niun agreed. He thrust himself up against the cushions as Duncan went out into the corridor to fetch what he had brought; he took the moment to catch his breath, had steadied himself by the time Duncan returned, and determined to feed himself, though his hand shook when he picked up the bowl.
There was cold, offworld fruit, of which delicacies he had heard, but never eaten; there was a sort of bread, too soft for his liking, and thick, but it was easy to eat; and soi, for which he had a fondness. He took the bittersweet cup in both hands and drank it down to the bitter last, for it was the only familiar, Kesrithi thing, even if it were regul, and he knew that it was good for him. He had eaten a great deal for his abused stomach to absorb; he rested very still when he had eaten, reckoning that to remain very still was the only means of keeping it down.
"At that rate," said Duncan, taking the tray and setting it on the table, where immediately the dus began to investigate it, "you"ll recover soon enough." He rescued the tray and took it out to the corridor, followed by the traitor dus, which trailed him with that mournful, head-lowered gait, hoping for charity.
Niun shut his eyes and rested; hearing activity down the hall and measuring the distance from him: there was the rattle of dishes; he could hear no voices, only the explosive whuff .of a dus, that the beasts expressed for their own reasons.
Melein? he wondered desperately. He had asked once; he had been refused in the matter of his weapons. He would not expose his anxieties a second time. It was necessary to remember that Duncan was tsi"mri, and the enemy.
Duncan returned after a long time, in which the meal had somewhat settled and Niun felt his stomach the easier for it. Duncan showed him a panel within reach of his arm, how to dim the lights and how to call for help if he needed anything, where the sanitary facilities were, also; and with that instruction a strong admonition against attempting to walk alone.
Niun said nothing, only absorbed all the instructions he was offered, and lay staring at Duncan.
"Sleep awhile," Duncan wished him after a moment, evidently feeling the ill will. He walked to the door and looked back. "There"s food whenever you want it. You only have to call me."
Niun gave no response, and Duncan left, leaving the door open, the lights dimmed, the illumination coming from the corridor outside.
And when somewhere a door closed and sealed, Niun began, methodically, to try to move, to work muscles long unaccustomed to move. He worked until he was exhausted, and when he had rested a time, and slept, he found the dus returned. He spoke to it, and it came, laying its ma.s.sive head on the edge of the bed. He set his hand on its great back and used it to steady him so that he could stand. Then he walked a few steps, leaning on the beast that moved with him, and walked back again, legs trembling so that he fell across the bed. For a while he lay still, breathing hard, close to being ill; it was a few moments before he could even drag his strengthless legs into bed again and rest.
But when he had rested, he began to move again, and arose with the help of the dus and began again to essay those few possible steps.
A long sleep: a day pa.s.sed, more or less, time meant nothing. It was measured only in the arrival of food and those periods when he was alone, that he could attempt to bring life back to his limbs.
Another sleep: on that day he wakened alone, with only the dus for company. His limbs hurt from the exercise he forced, and Duncan still had not found it convenient to return his weapons. For a moment he lay still, in the darkness, staring out into the lighted corridor.
Then he rose, without the dus this time, and walked stiffly to the bath, washed in water and carefully dressed to the fullest in the clothing that had lain folded on the table. Last of all he put on the zaidhe, the ta.s.seled headcloth, visored against the light of unfriendly suns: but the visor he left raised; and with the zaidhe he put on the mez, the veil, which he fastened under his chin modesty abandoned here, alone with Duncan, who knew his face. In the black robes of the Kel he felt himself almost whole again, and felt a pang when he touched the gold honors that were his: the heavy symbol of Edun Kesrithun, stamped with the mark of an open hand ... on a chain, that ftal, for it had come from the neck of Intel, the departed Mother; and there was a small ring laced to the honor-belt memory flashed back at him, bitter and terrible from the hand of the Mother of Elag; and more memories, full of recent pain a small gold luck j"tai, in the shape of a leaf that had never grown on barren Kesrith: this came from an elder brother of the Kel, and called back others to his memory, the masters who had taught him arms and the law of the Kel.
And he received them back from the hand of a human.
He rested a moment against the wall, the dus nervously pushing at his leg; when he had caught his breath he went to the door, looked out, and walked out into the corridor unhindered, the dus behind him.
The very look of the place was alien: narrow, rectangular corridors, when he was accustomed to the slanting walls of his own ruined home, or the curving walls of regul interiors. It was hard to breathe, the air heavy and pungent with unfamiliar chemical scents. In his confusion he caught at the wall as his own dus shouldered him aside, and ahead of him, far down the corridor, he saw another dus thrust its broad head forth from a doorway. His shambled ahead to meet it, quite cheerfully.
He had known; somewhere in the drug-dazed depth of him, he had sensed the other presence, calming and drawing at him. Two dusei, and one with Melein, who had been of the Kel, who still might touch one of the beasts.
It was a long walk, the longest that he had tried; he thrust himself from the wall and went to that door, leaned upon the door frame and looked inside.
Melein, she"pan.
She was in truth alive; she slept fully dressed in her modesty, in her tattered yellow robes of Sen-caste, that she had outworn. So frail she had become, Niun thought with pain, so thin; it was one thing that a kel"en should be hurt and starved and kept numbed with drugs but that they should have dealt so with her: rage swelled up in him so that for a moment he could not see, and the dusei moaned and drew back into the corner.
He left his place at the doorway, came and knelt on the floor at her bedside, where she slept upon her side, her head pillowed upon her arm. The dusei returned, and crowded close about him; and he touched the slim ringers of her open hand.
Her golden eyes opened, nict.i.tated in surprise. She seemed dazed at first, and then put out her hand and touched his naked face, as if to see whether he were a dream or not.
"Niun," she whispered. "Niun."
"What shall I do?" he asked of her, almost trembling in dread of that question, for he was only kel"en, and could not decide: he was the Hand of the People, and she was its Mind and Heart.
If she would not live, then he would kill her and himself; but he saw the cold, clear look of her eyes, and this was not the look of defeat.
"I have waited for you," she told him.
Niun took the dusei with him. They walked before him, single-file, for they were too big to go abreast in the corridor. Claws clicked on hard flooring, slowly, slowly. They knew whom he sought, in that curious sense of theirs knew also that this was not a hunt in the way of game, with a kill at the end; but they were disturbed, nonetheless, perhaps because they had walked with him they hunted.
And they met Duncan in the narrow hall just beyond the turning.
Duncan was perhaps coming as he came so faithfully to see to them. He was not armed; he never had been, Niun recalled with a sudden confusion in his anger. And perhaps Duncan had tempted them to this moment, had waited for it. He seemed to know how things lay between them; he stood still before the dusei, waiting for Niun to say or do what he would. Surely he knew that his life was in danger.
"There are no others aboard," Niun reminded him, challenging him with his own statement.
"No. I told you the truth."
Duncan was afraid. Dus-feelings were close and heavy; but he did not give way to his fear, that would have killed him.
"Yai!" Niun rebuked the dusei, attracting their attention out of that single-minded and dangerous fixation. They shifted nervously and the feeling lifted. They would not defy him. "Duncan," he said then, as directly as he would speak to a brother of the Kel, "what did you hope to do with us?"
Duncan shrugged, human-fashion, gave a faint, tired twist of the mouth. Naked-faced as he was, he looked like a man long without rest either of body or of spirit. He was nai"ve at times, this man Duncan, but he was capable of having guarded himself, and knew surely that he ought to have done so. Niun momentarily put aside his thoughts of violence.
"I meant," Duncan said, "to get you out of the hands of the regul."
"You simply asked your people, and they gave you this for your own pleasure. Are you so great among them that they are that eager to please you?"
Duncan did not rise to the sarcasm. His expression remained only tired, and again he shrugged. "I"m alone. And I don"t plan to contest the control of the ship. You can take it. But I will point out that this is not a warship, we are not armed, and we are possibly doing already what you would wish us to do. I don"t think you can take actual contrbl; we are on taped navigation."
Niun frowned. This, in his inexperience, he had not taken into account. He stared at Duncan, knowing his own strength limited, even to go on standing. He could loose the dusei; he could take the ship; but the thing that Duncan said made Duncan"s calm comprehensible, that neither of them could manage the ship.
"Where are we going?" Niun asked.
"I don"t know," Duncan said. "I don"t know. Come with me to controls, and I will show you what I mean."
The ovoid rested in a case lined with foam, a shining and beautiful object, unique, holy. Not a flaw was on its surface, although Niun knew that it had tumbled down rocks and withstood the G.o.ds knew what afterward to come here. He knelt down, heedless of Duncan"s presence, and stretched out a reverent hand, touched that slick, cold surface as if it were the skin of a sentient being.
A piece of the mri soul, this object, this pan"en, this mystery, that he had carried until he could carry it no longer. He would have died to keep this from tsi"mri hands.
And from tsi"mri it had.come to them, touched and profaned.
Duncan"s doing. There was none other who could have found it.
Niun stood up, eyes blurring, the membrane betraying him for the instant; and before a stranger of the People, he would have veiled himself in anger, but Duncan had been closer to him than many another of his own kind. He did not know what manner of grace or threat was intended by this gift. He felt a counter at his back, welcome; his legs were foundering under him. The dus came, great clumsy-seeming creature, careful in this place of delicate instruments and tight s.p.a.ces. It lay down at his feet, its warmth and steadiness offered to him at need.
"You know the mri well enough," Niun said, "to know that you have been very reckless to touch this."
"It is yours. I got it back for you; would you rather it had been lost out there, left?"
Niun looked down again at the pan"en, up again at Duncan, still trying to reckon what lay behind that veilless face; and slowly, deliberately, he fastened the veil across his own face a warning, did Duncan chance to have learned that mri. gesture, that severed what was personal between them. "Humans are mad with curiosity. So my elders taught me, and I think that they were right. It will not have been in your hands without your scholars looking into it; and it is even possible that they will have learned what it is. Being only kel"en myself, I am not ent.i.tled to know that. Perhaps you know. I do not want to."
"You are right in your suspicions."
"Being human yourself, you knew that this would happen if you brought it to your people."
"I didn"t know what it was. I didn"t know that it would be more than a curiosity to them."
"But it is," Niun surmised; and when Duncan did not answer: "Is that why we are here? One thing the mri had left, one treasure we had, and here it rests, and here are you, alone, and suddenly we are given rewards, and our freedom a ship for our leaving, at great cost. For what service to humanity is this a just reward, kel Duncan? For the forty years of war we waged with your kind, are we given gifts?"
"The war is finished," said Duncan. "Over. A dead matter."
"So are the mri," Niun said, forced himself to that bitterness, repudiating tsi"mri generosity and all its complicated demands. The weakness was on him again, a graying of senses, a shudder in muscles too long under tension. He clenched his hand on the counter, drew a deep breath and let it go, brought focus to his vision again. "I do not know why you are aboard alone," he said. "One of us does not understand the other, kel Duncan."
"Plainly put," said Duncan after taking in that fair warning. "Perhaps ,J am mistaken, but I thought that you would realize I tried to do well for you. You are free."
Niun cast a look about at the controls, at the alien confusion of a system unlike the regul controls that he knew only in theory. A thin trickle of sweat went down his left side, beneath the robes. "Are we escorted?" he asked.
"We are watched, so far," Duncan said. "My people aren"t that trusting. And neither you nor I can do anything about that guidance system: we"re on tape. Maybe you can tear us free of that, but if you do that, I don"t doubt it will destruct itself, the whole ship."
This, at least, had the ring of sound reasoning. Niun thought it through, his hand absently soothing the head of the dus that sat up beside him.
"I will go present what you say to the she"pan," Niun said at last. He dismissed the dus ahead of him with a soft word and followed after it and its fellow, leaving Duncan in possession of controls. Duncan could kill them all; but Duncan could have done that long since if that had been his purpose. He could have put them in confinement, but it was possible that the entire ship was a prison, guarded from the outside. The question remained why Duncan chose to be in it with them. Niun suspected that it had to do with the human"s own curious feelings of honor, which apparently existed, far different from those of a mri.
Or perhaps it had nothing to do with Duncan"s bond to his own kind; perhaps it was that to him, that they were both kel"ein, and lived under similar law, under the directions of others, and one chose what he could, where he could. He could comprehend that a man might find fellowship with another kel"en, that he might one day have to face and destroy. It was sung that this had happened.