“Are you going to help us?” she asked him.

He took her into the lift and started it moving downward.

“You are mine, you, your friend. You must obey and I must take care for you. You stand straight, have no fear for amaut or human. I take care for you.” The door opened and let them out on the level of what had been the dhis,sealed and dark until now.

There was Margaret, whom he had not seen in two days. He did not smile at her, being put off by her instant attachment to the child, for she exclaimed aloud and opened her arms to the child, petting her and making much of her with all the protective tenderness of a dhisaistoward young.

In some measure Tejef was relieved, for he had not been sure how Margaret would react. In another way he was troubled, for her accepting the child made her inappropriate as a mate and made final a parting he still was not sure he wanted. Margaret was the most handsome of the human females, with a glorious mane of fire-colored hair that made her at once the most alien and the most attractive. He had taken her many times in katasukke,but she troubled him by her insistence on touching him when they were not alone, and in her display of feelings when they were. She had wept when he admitted at last at great disadvantage that he did not understand the emotions of her kind in this regard, and did not know what she expected of him. He had been compelled to dismiss her from the khara-dhisafter that, troubled by the heat and violence she evoked in him, by the emotions she expected of him. She certainly could not hold her own if he forgot himself and treated her as nas.He would surely kill her, and when he came to himself he would regret it bitterly, for her irritating concern was well-meant, and he had a deep regard for her, almost as if she were indeed one of his own kind. That was the closest he dared come to what she wanted of him.

“Margaret,” he said with great dignity, “she is Arle.”

“The poor child.” She had her arms about the bedraggled girl and petted her solicitously. “How did she come here?”

“Ask her. I want to know. She is a child, yes? No?”

“Yes.”

He looked upon the pair of them, women that had been his first mate and this immature being of her own species, and was deeply disturbed. He knew it was very wrong to have brought this pale creature to the dhisinstead of assigning her among the kamethi, but now that it was done it was good to know that the dhisheld at least one life, and that Margaret, whom he must put away, had the child he could not give her. It was an honorable solution for Margaret. It was hard to give her up. Desire still stirred in him when he looked at her, nor could she understand why he suddenly rejected her. Hurt pleaded with him out of her eyes.

“She is yours,” he told her. “I give her. You will transfer your belongings here. She is your responsibility—yes?”

“All right,” she said.

He turned away abruptly, not to be troubled more by the harachiaof them. He knew that the door opened and closed, that the dhis,where no male and no nas kame or amaut might ever go, had been possessed by humans at his own bidding. He was ashamed of what he had done, but it was done now, and a strange furtive elation overrode the sense of shame. He had acquired a certain small vaikka,not alone in the disadvantaging of Chimele, but in the acquisition of the arastietheshe had decided to take from him. The dhisthat had remained dark and desolate now held light, life, and takei—females; his little ship had a comfort for him now it had lacked before those lights went on and that door sealed.

The sensible part of him insisted that he had plumbed the depths of disgrace in letting this happen; but those who decreed the traditions of honor could not understand the loneliness of an arrhei-nasuliand the sweetness there was in knowing he had worth in the sight of his kamethi. It lightened his spirit, and he told himself knowingly a great lie: that he had arastietheand a takkhenoisadequate to all events. He clutched to himself what he knew was a greater lie: that he might yet outwit Ashanomeand live. Like a gust of wind he stepped from the lift, grinned cheerfully at some of his startled kamethi and went on to the paredre.There were plans to make, resources to inventory.

“My lord.” Halph, assistant to the surgeon, came waddling after, operating gown and all. He bobbed his head many times in nervous respect.

“Report, Halph.”

“The chiabresis indeed present, lord Tejef. The honorable surgeon Dlechish will attempt to remove it if you wish, but removing it intact is beyond his knowledge.”

“No,” he said, for the human prisoner would be irreparably damaged by amaut probing at the chiabresif he allowed it. The human was a danger, but properly used, he could be of advantage. Kameth though he was, Chimele had most likely intended him as a spy or an assassin: against an arrhei-nasulithe neutrality of kamethi did not apply, and Chimele was not one to ignore an opportunity; the intricacy of the attempt against him that had failed delighted him. “You have not exposed it, have you?”

“No, no, my lord. We would not presume.”

“Of course. You are always very conscientious to consult me. Go back to Dlechish and tell him to leave the chiabresalone, and to take special care of the human. Remember that he can understand all that you say. If it can be done safely in his weakened condition, hold him under sedation.”

“Yes, sir.”

The little amaut went away, and Tejef spied another of the okkitani-as,a young female whom her kind honored as extraordinarily attractive. This was not apparent to iduve eyes, but he trusted her for especial discretion and intelligence.

“Toshi, collect your belongings. You are going to perform an errand for me in Weissmouth.”

“The kamethi have now been sent to Priamos,” said Ashakh. “They will know nothing until they wake onworld. The shuttle crew will deliver them to local authorities for safekeeping.”

“I did somewhat regret sending them.” Chimele arose, activating as she did so the immense wall-screen that ran ten meters down the wall behind her desk. It lit up with the blue and green of Priamos, a sphere in the far view, with the pallor of its out-sized moon—the world’s redeeming beauty—to its left. She sighed seeing it, loving as she did the stark contrasts of the depths of space, lightless beauties unseen until a ship’s questing beam illumined them, the dazzling splendors of stars, the uncompromising patterns of dark-light upon stone or machinery. Yet she had a curiosity, a m’melakhia,to set foot on this dusty place of unappealing grasslands and deserts, to know what lives m’metaneilived or why they chose such a place.

“What manner of people are they?” she asked of Ashakh. “You have seen them close at hand. Would we truly be destroying something unique?”

Ashakh shrugged. “Impossible to estimate what they were. That is a question for Khasif. I am of the order of Navigators.”

“You have eyes, Ashakh.”

“Then—inexpertly—I should say that it is what one might expect of a civilization in dying: victims and victimizers, pointless destruction, a sort of mass urge to serach.They know they have no future. They have no real idea what we are; and they fear the amaut out of all proportion, not knowing how to deal with them.’

“Tejef’s serachwill be great beyond his merits if he causes us to destroy this little world.”

“It has already been great beyond his merits,” said Ashakh. “ Chaganokhruined this small civilization by guiding Tejef among them. It is ironic. If these humans had only known to let them escort Tejef in and depart unopposed, they would not have lost fleets to Chaganokh,the amaut would not have been attracted, and they might have had a fleet left to maintain their territories against the amaut if the invasion occurred. Likely then it would have been impossible for us to have traced Tejef before the time expired, and they would not now be in danger from us.”