"Tell me about Aliom."

He smiled softly, and gestured to the displayed lightning flash. "I just did. All about it."

"Oh."

He hooked one knee over the back of a chair and perched there, settling as if about to lecture. She felt a sinking disappointment when he only asked, "Why don't you ask me about specific acts of mine, and let's see if I can explain."

"Well," she thought, sorting through the myriad questions plaguing her. "Why, if we are trying to rescue people you feel obligated to, rescue them from enemies who'd kill them, why were you so careful not to injure any of those enemies on the Intentional Act?"

"Because we're not rescuing my friends from my enemies."

"I don't understand."

Again he seemed to grope through his mind. She added, "Don't you realize that imperial troops will be against us all the way now? Trassle and his wife killed without compunction to rescue us. We'll have to kill now too. People who kill each other are usually enemies."

He looked at her blankly. "They are?"

She was dealing with a member of a species not evolved from predators. "Usually they are. Those imperial troops are certainly going to look at it that way. By disregarding imperial commands and by killing imperial troops, we've declared ourselves enemies of the Allegiancy."

"I'm beginning to understand your problem," he said, again groping for a referent. "Krinata, can you for a moment regard this situation from the Dushau point of view? Picture the Allegiancy as a wild giant piol pup that's come to live in our back garden. We've fed it, played with it, taught it a few things, and watched it grow, expecting it to turn feral as non-domesticated animals often do. But it's remained friendly and never hurt us. Now it's old and senile. But it's huge, with sharp claws and wild instincts. In its death throes, it thrashes about the garden, destroying—but blindly, without malice. There's nothing we can do to save it. We can only collect our valuables from the garden and run in the house and slam the door."

For an instant, she did see it. There was no way an Immortal could be enemy to an Ephemeral. But the Ephemeral might feel victimized or trapped and spend a lifetime fighting the Immortal—futilely. She could only stare at Jindigar, for the first time comprehending what he was and wondering why he even noticed Ephemerals, let alone felt he owed them anything.

She almost asked him, but he said, "I'm sorry I said that. It sounds as if I'm regarding you as wild beasts. A beast could be put out of its misery if necessary. The Allegiancy can't. It must live out its natural span."

"I think I know what you mean. You said you recognize a trait in me that your philosophy lauds. That puts me a cut or two above a mere animal, doesn't it?"

"Many cuts."

"But what about those Cassrian troops who died? If you'd had the weapon, would you have killed them?"

"No." There seemed to be no conflict in him over that instant answer. "I'm Dushau, Krinata. Killing is not one of our methods of survival." Again he sighed, groping for some way to reach her. "Evolved predators have to fight to subdue the killing instinct and break the chains of karma. Evolved prey have to struggle just as hard, transcend their natures, to subdue the hide/flee instinct." He met her eyes. "I don't think I could kill even to save Dushaun from certain destruction." He frowned, adding, "Though someone like Lelwatha or even Grisnilter might."

She was nowhere near him, yet she could almost feel an invisible tremor shaking his body, a fear not quite subdued. He was prey baring himself to a predator with no hope of survival. Thou shalt not kill would be a totally superfluous commandment to Dushau. "I guess that was a stupid question. And I've got an even worse one."

"I will answer."

She scanned the room. "And Arlai? Could he kill?"

He calmed as he said, "You've believed those scare stories about Sentients destroying the League? That's as much nonsense as Dushau conspiring to strangle the Allegiancy. Think! Why would Sentients do such a thing?"

She searched his eyes, finding only innocence. "Because they felt wronged, kept down, used, abused."

"You don't think it's abuse to strap and hamper a free mentality with the stringent Allegiancy programming?"

She granted that silently, and he called, "Arlai, why did you stay with me when you found out what the Allegiancy insisted on doing to you?"

Arlai vanquished the gray column with its lightning display and projected his Dushau simulacrum there. "Because you'd won my highest regard. You were my friend. I hope we'll always be friends."

"And didn't I promise you it wouldn't be forever, just until

the Allegiancy's lifecycle was over?"

"Yes. But I'd have stayed anyway. The alternative was to be turned off, as Thirlein has been."

"We'll do what we can for her, Arlai." He turned to Krinata again. "Arlai was not educated by a professional who turned him over to me. I was there when he first came to consciousness, and I educated and trained him. I'm as much a father to him as possible. Under League law, that was the requirement for owning a Sentient. Personally, I feel the Allegiancy's commerce in mass-produced Sentients is horrifyingly abusive. Krinata, Arlai consented to wear chains on his free will and initiative merely to stay with me, and I freed him as soon as I ethically could. If I hadn't, we'd be dead by now. But he has no desire to harm incarnates. And his programming includes the injunction against doing such harm. He hurts when it happens by accident, just as much as we do."

She was aware of the Sentient standing patiently beside Jindigar. "I'm sorry Arlai, I don't mean to talk about you as if you were a thing. I do trust you, but..."

"I understand, Krinata. Slaves are expected to revolt. But we're not slaves. We're a different life form, with different methods of survival."

"What methods?" asked Krinata. Then she remembered the escape from Act. "Jindigar, you kept telling Thirlein that she mustn't hurt anyone. You'd given her the same freedom you've given Arlai. Why don't you keep telling Arlai not to injure incarnates?"

"Thirlein is much younger than Arlai, and hadn't matured free of Allegiancy chains. She was already under extreme stress when we boarded Act, and she hadn't been properly prepared for her freedom. I simply didn't trust her. She'll have to be handled very carefully when we wake her."

"Sentients are individuals, just like the members of any other species," said Krinata. "There could have been criminal Sentients. By Allegiancy law, Arlai's a criminal."

"What is it you want me to say?" asked Jindigar, "The concepts of law and criminal don't translate from Standard to Dushauni. Are you insisting we must obey the letter of Allegiancy law, even now we've been cast out by the Emperor?"

Put that way, it did sound absurd. "Sensible people don't obey laws because they're laws, but because they're right, or sometimes because uniform standards are necessary to keep a society functional. Is it right to just pick which laws it's convenient to obey?"

"Right? Now I see what's bothering you." He wasn't groping this time. He pulled both feet onto the chair so he was sitting on the back, then leaned forward, elbows propped on his knees, eyes piercing her as he said earnestly, "I have consciously chosen to follow a very stringent code of ethics derived from the Aliom philosophy. My ethic kept me bound to Allegiancy law because of my vow to the first Emperor. When that vow was made null by Zinzik's betrayal, I no longer felt any call to consider Allegiancy law. But that doesn't mean I'm free to trample other people's rights by my personal whim. My conscience still measures my deeds against the Aliom code, and I must answer for those deeds when next I face Renewal. And Renewal can be a harsh judge of souls, Krinata." The expression on his face and in his voice made her shudder with the truth of that. And she didn't know why.