"Only if the Mrachanis know," the Eighteenth pointed out. "And they won't."

The Prime looked across his desk, at the couch where Speaker Cvv-panav had been sitting a little over a fullarc ago. Speaker Cvv-panav, who had great ambitions for the Dhaa'rr clan... "Perhaps," he told the Eighteenth. "Perhaps."

There were a half-dozen Elders floating around as Thrr-pifix-a walked toward her house. Just floating there, almost invisible against the cloudy sky, doing nothing.

Watching her.

She avoided their eyes, wishing they would go away, hoping desperately that none of them would try to talk to her. She didn't know how much they knew about what had happened, but the last thing in the universe she wanted right now was to have strangers asking questions about her shame. Especially strangers who were also Elders.

They watched her until she had reached the door and unlocked it. But to her relief none of them approached or spoke to her. Closing the door behind her, she shut off their silent stares.

Not that the door was any barrier to them. She could only hope that their manners would be stronger than their curiosity.

For a few hunbeats she just wandered around the house, looking at her things, her mind and heart aching with a dull hollowness. It was her same house, with everything exactly as she'd left it. And yet, at the same time, it was also now forever changed. Before the warriors had taken her out through that doorway two fullarcs ago, this place had been a haven for her. Safe and secure, and comfortably anonymous. She herself had been comfortably anonymous.

But not anymore. Thrr-pifix-a; Kee'rr, was a criminal now, with her name listed in who knew how many records files across Oaccanv. It didn't matter that the charges had apparently been dropped, for some reason no one would talk to her about. That fact would surely be lost to the gossipers. What would be remembered amid the swirl of whispers and furtive looks was that she'd been caught with her stolen fsss organ in her house.

Delivered to her by those two young Zhirrzh, the ones who'd called themselves simply Korthe and Dornt. The young Zhirrzh who had echoed her own horror for the role of Elder, which loomed so close before her now. Who had sympathized with her desire to reject Eldership and had promised to take that decision from the hands of the family and clan leaders and to put it instead into hers.

They'd put the decision into her hands, all right. Just in time for warriors of the Overclan Seating to burst in and catch her with it.

All because she'd trusted them. How many times, she wondered, had she cautioned her own sons about simply accepting the words of a stranger?

Her gardening tools were still laid out in the kitchen where she'd left them to dry two fullarcs ago. She ran her hands over them, concentrating on the texture of the wooden handles and ceramic blades sliding along beneath her fingertips. Trying to fix the memory of their touch firmly in her mind.

For when this aged physical body of hers finally failed and she was raised to Eldership, these memories would be all that would remain of touch. There would be no more touch, or scent, or taste, but only sight and hearing and thought. She would be trapped in a vague half existence, with all the things she loved most about life forever inaccessible to her.

She didn't want to live like that. Couldn't bear the thought of living like that. But it was painfully clear she was not going to be permitted that choice. All Zhirrzh became Elders, and that was just the way it was going to be.

Abruptly, she froze in place, her hand gripping the handle of her trowel. There it was again: the sound of a ceramic blade hitting dirt. Coming from beyond the kitchen wall to her right.

Someone was digging behind her house.

A spark of anger appeared within the mist of the tired hopelessness clouding her thoughts. If some ill-mannered stranger thought he could just walk in and dig up her Kyranda bushes, he'd better think at it again. Holding the trowel in front of her like a weapon, she marched across the kitchen and pushed open the back door.

There was indeed a Zhirrzh back there, and he was indeed digging at the roots of one of her Kyrandas. But he was hardly a stranger. And he certainly wasn't ill mannered.

"Why, hello, Thrr-pifix-a," Thrr-tulkoj said, getting hastily to his feet. "Forgive me—I didn't know you were back."

"I wasn't expecting to be back," Thrr-pifix-a admitted, the spark of anger fading again into the mist as she lowered the trowel to her side. Thrr-tulkoj, a family cousin, had been her younger son, Thrr-gilag's, best friend when they were growing up. Cyclics ago their paths had split: Thrr-gilag had become a searcher specializing in alien cultures and artifacts, while Thrr-tulkoj had chosen to remain close to home, rising to the position of chief protector for the Thrr-family shrine near Cliffside Dales.

Though perhaps he wasn't chief protector there anymore, the thought suddenly occurred to her. He was probably facing charges of his own for his failure to prevent the theft of Thrr-pifix-a's fsss organ from the shrine.

Not only had she ruined her own life and reputation, but she'd ruined Thrr-tulkoj's, too. Just one more poisoned tongue slash to burn in her conscience. "What are you doing here?"

"Oh, I just thought I'd come over and see if your plants needed any attention," he said, looking down at the hole. "I didn't know how long you'd be away, and someone told me this is the time of cyclic to do core hydrations."

"That was very thoughtful," Thrr-pifix-a said. "But whoever gave you that information wasn't much of a gardener. That hole is far too big."

"Really?" Thrr-tulkoj seemed taken aback. "I'm sorry—I thought I'd be doing you a favor. I'd better fill it in, then."

"Well, fill in half of it, anyway," Thrr-pifix-a said, walking out toward the row of bushes. "Here, move two plants over and I'll show you how it's supposed to look."

They spent the next tentharc digging small holes into the Kyrandas' root systems; and when they were finished, Thrr-pifix-a was feeling almost as if the past two fullarcs had never happened. "I'm glad you came by this postmidarc, Thrr-tulkoj," she told him as he washed the dirt off his hands and arms beneath the kitchen waterflow. "I guess what I really needed was some company."

"I'm not surprised." Thrr-tulkoj paused. "What happened in Unity City? If you don't mind talking about it, I mean."

"I lived through it—how could talking about it be any worse?" Thrr-pifix-a countered. "They put me in a restrainment room for two fullarcs. Then they brought me out and took me to someone very official looking, who told me I was free to come home."

Thrr-tulkoj flicked his tongue. "I'm sorry, Thrr-pifix-a," he said quietly. "I feel responsible for all this."

The sound that escaped Thrr-pifix-a's mouth was somewhere between a laugh and a sob. "You've got that backward, Thrr-tulkoj. I'm the one who got you in trouble, not the other way around. Me and my stupid—" She broke off, turning her face away from him.

"Your wish not to become an Elder?" Thrr-tulkoj finished gently for her. "It's not stupid, Thrr-pifix-a. Whether it's ethical or proper, I don't know. But it's not stupid."

"All I know is that it got you into serious trouble," Thrr-pifix-a said. "Along with me. In my book that makes it stupid."

"You can hardly take all the blame for yourself," Thrr-tulkoj insisted. "There were other Zhirrzh involved."

"Who everyone believes I hired to steal my fsss," Thrr-pifix-a said bitterly.

"Well, I don't believe it," Thrr-tulkoj assured her. "You gave the Overclan leaders their names, didn't you?"

"Of course I did: Korthe and Dornt, who said they were from an organization called Freedom of Decision for All."