"You could love the Diet? After all they've done?"

With a throat-wringing near-sob, he nodded mutely and turned from her, rising to go toward the door. He moved with the jerky stiffness of an old man, such a sharp contrast to his normally fluid motions. This man, who had professed willingness to give her direct transfer in violation of his stiff-necked Tecton loyalty, who had proposed marriage in defiance of his Householding's custom, was willingly relinquishing hope of having her because he thought she hated the Diet for what they'd done to her and required him to hate as well.

But it's Yuan who's hagridden by hatred. Her whole life had been dedicated to eliminating a basic cause of hatred in the world, the killer Sime. The Diet required Yuan for their enemy. She wanted no enemies in the last days of her life.

She darted around in front of the slow-moving Gen, stopping him with hands on his shoulders, standing on tiptoe to reach. "Shanlun, would you have risked your life to save me, the way Yuan did, if you'd been close enough? Would you have fought for me—against the Diet?"

"May God give me the chance to demonstrate it, yes."

The bone-deep vibration of those words, carried on that powerful nager, made her shiver with the sudden fear that his prayer would be answered.

"Then I choose you, not Yuan. Because he hates. And that's—that's like being junct. He gets so—so vicious on the subject of the Diet—"

His eyes spilled over as he kissed her, grabbing her by the waist and holding her, feet dangling in midair. Then he set her down, breathless, and said, "There is no viciousness in you. Your first disjunction was genuine. It has held under the harshest of tests. Your second disjunction will be a rebirth that will set you free." He spoke with an easy certainty that evoked an irrational surge of recognition in Laneff. This Gen truly understands disjunction!

Before she could recover enough to even think that there was no such thing as a second disjunction short of the grave, he went on, fishing his little silver starred cross out of his shirt and placing it in her hands.

"Swear to me, by the validity of that inner choice you once made, by the inner harmony it gave you, that you will hold my confidence to the grave and beyond, and I will explain what you must know."

"By the choice I once made and the harmony it gave me, I swear to keep your confidence." "To the grave and beyond," he prompted. "To the grave," she repeated, and added, though it sounded silly, "and beyond."

He relaxed, circling her in his arms and his core nager. His face smoothed into that of a young boy, and his nager turned inward, drawing her into a realm of misty stillness, a point at the hub of reality, and then soaring with her on an updraft of ecstasy. Everything in all existence seemed right, embraced by love.

She came up out of it feeling refreshed, her eyes locked to his as he drew her gently down to duoconsciousness.

"How do you do that? What did you do?" she demanded.

"I'm sorry, I should have asked if you wanted to pray with me. But I have so much to give thanks for now that didn't exist a day ago! Forgive me?"

Pray? It hadn't felt like any praying she'd ever witnessed, but she said, "Of course. I didn't know gypsies prayed."

"As with everyone, many don't pray."

"But you are one of them, aren't you? You speak their language."

"I spent my formative years training under Azevedo, not in the Tecton schools. Then I was chosen to go to Digen because the Tecton had no Donor who could handle his Endowment."

"Azevedo taught you to serve the endowed? Then he is endowed? Are all gypsy channels endowed?"

"No! Azevedo is—exceptional in all ways. Azevedo isn't his name. It's a title. It means, well, maybe Wisdom translates it. I've loved him all my life, Laneff. But I can't go back—and I don't want to. I've chosen the Tecton, and Mairis—and Zeor."

"But you were scheduled to give Azevedo transfer."

"It wouldn't have put me out of phase with Mairis. Much. And I'd have been better able to serve Mairis for it, too. That's why Azevedo was waiting for me. But now," he said collapsing onto a lab stool, "he's got to go easy on Yuan." He looked into her eyes levelly. "That's what I was objecting to, in Yuan's office. Desha can't really handle Azevedo yet, and Yuan is totally inadequate. I'd been feeling very happy that I could finally repay some of what Azevedo had done for me. I was going to demonstrate to him all that I'd become through Digen and Zeor, hoping he'd then understand why I didn't go to him at Digen's funeral."

She frowned. "Azevedo volunteered to take Yuan in transfer. But the Tecton has left the gypsies alone because they never traffic in selyn except within their own tribes."

"Azevedo—and I—are not really gypsies, in the full historical sense. We go among the tribes, but we're not of the tribes. Yet we adhere to the codes, so you can think of us as a gypsy tribe, except we don't always observe taboo."

"Does your tribe have a name?"

"Yes, though I don't use it because I'm not of them anymore. But by the laws of the universe as I learned them from Azevedo, now that you've chosen me and I you, now that you've sworn an oath of secrecy, a way will open for us to live our lives out together, though the price may be higher than either of us guesses right now."

"Forgive me for thinking your faith naive. I can't take a husband now or plan for the future. My life is cut off by a black wall maybe five months from now when I'm too strung out with disjunction crisis to work. A year from now I'll be dead. If any of the rest of my life is to have meaning, I can't afford to waste a moment of the time left me on developing intimate relationships simply for pleasure."

"We have all the time in the universe for that. Death will not part us, if we choose each other, forever."

He's crazy. Gentle, but raving.

As he did so often Laneff hardly noticed anymore, Shanlun answered her thought. "No, I'm not crazy. I'm just using a different model of reality than you use. With time, I'll teach it to you."

"A gypsy reality?" she asked. "Which includes mind reading?"

"No."

"Shan—Desha calls you Shan. Is that a gypsy name?"

He laughed. "Yes, it is. Desha has called me Shan since she was in diapers!"

"May I call you Shan?"

"Or anything else you like and I'll take it for my name."

His seriousness was mixed with such ardor that she had trouble keeping her mind on her question. "You haven't told me anything that ought to demand such a mighty oath."

He sighed. "Mairis is the only one in the Tecton who knows I'm from this tribe, trained by them, eternally oathbound to them. If others knew that there could be occasions when I'd cheerfully break any Tecton law, I wouldn't be trusted in the position I hold. If the Tecton took me away from Mairis and the endowed, demoted me to a mere four-plus Donor, I couldn't survive the underdraw for long. I've left Azevedo with no going back. There'd be no place for me."

She understood now how he'd given her great power over him. "But you won't even tell me the name of this tribe you won't go back to but are eternally bound to."

"I must discuss it with Azevedo first. But your oath means you're not an outsider anymore. Your oath protects not just me but all of us, just as if you were adopted."

She grinned. "An adopted gypsy! like a children's story!" Only this one can't end happily. I'm going to die.

He scooped her onto one of his knees, as if she were a child and he was about to tell a story. Grinning back at her, he said, "These gypsies even have a little magic of their own. So it's possible, Laneff—oh, it's a very slim chance, but it is possible you may survive this. I'm going to fight for it."