Ellud looked at him; Duun looked back with a forever-twisted smile. It was humor and Ellud seemed finally to decide it was and not to like it. "The deed's been settled. The countryfolk are abjectly grateful. The matter is closed."

"Good."

"I'm fending queries off your neck, Duun. You know that."

"I know. They'll keep their hands off him. Tell them all that. He'd never seen a copter. He can run all the household things, well, the dishwasher he'd not seen. He's what I am. I told you that. The meds will respect him. Or I'll deal with them. No. He will. I'll give him leave."

"I wouldn't advise that."

"He's hatani, Ellud."

"A handful of farmers damn near killed him. For the gods' sweet sake, man, they'd have killed him! What were you doing about it?"

"Running. They almost killed me, you know. A half dozen men with guns aren't to disregard. I didn't teach a fool. And they surprised him. Not with the guns. With their reaction. They're lucky he ran. They're very lucky. Even with the guns. You can tell your staff that."

"They won't provoke him."

"They're not to talk to him. That rule still holds. Please, thank you, and sit down. Breathe in, breathe out. No comments. Nothing. And respect. They'll respect him. I do mean that."

Ellud drew a long, long breath and let it go. "How mature is he?"

"Very-in some ways. Not at all in others. I'm telling you: no one talks to him."

"For how long?"

"As long as it takes."

"They want to use the tapes."

Duun frowned. "Give me a little time with that. I'll say when."

"You've had sixteen years!"

"So has he. Who knows what he needs? I want your meds away from me, Ellud. Or I find another place. Somewhere the other side of the world if I have to."

"As long as it takes, is it?"

"That's the way."

"All right. I'll keep them off your neck. I'll talk to staff. Maybe you should get some rest. Have the meds check you too."

"That's not what I need."

"What is?"

"Is Dogossen still around?"

A silence. "She moved to Rogot, a husband. Second, now."

The years caught up to him, all in one dull ache. "Well. Hounai? Same?"

"You want a woman, Duun? I'll ask around on the staff. Maybe-"

"No hatani." He looked down, studied the patterns of his hands, whole and half. "I don't want a hatani. Nothing like. It's been a long time."

"I hope to the gods it has."

Duun looked up. It had been half a joke. Ellud's ears drew back and lay down tighter to his skull under Duun's stare. "Believe me," Duun said. "Hire someone. I don't want conversation. By the gods I don't want another wife. Let's keep it business. Not a staffer either. Someone at the port. Let security worry itself."

"I'm not your-"

"Call it friendship." Duun's voice was rough and hoarse. His hands clenched and unclenched when he knew it. And Ellud's ears lay back.

Ellud went on looking at him as if Ellud wished to look away.

"Duun-hatani-" Carefully. With fear and offended sensibilities and prudent questions boiling in him Ellud would never ask. Like harm. And solitude. And sanity. The silence stayed there a long, long time.

"I'll want staffers too," Duun said. (So what have you done, Ellud no Hsoin? What do you dread? Violence? Old friend-what do you expect?) "Good ones. Young ones who know how to take orders."

"That's a contradiction in terms." Ellud's laughter was hasty as if he much wanted to laugh, to turn matters elsewhere. To be light with him. But the laughter died. "How many?"

"Four, five. Male and female. I'll let you do the picking. He's got to learn people. They can be older. Say-twenty, twenty-five. They'd better to the gods be stable. You understand."

A long silence. "I want those tapes started."

"You've forgotten," Duun said softly. "This is your office. But you don't control things. I do. Old friend. I'm not your backwoods employee come to the big city. I'm not one of your staffers."

"They're putting pressure on me, Duun."

"They."

"The council."

Duun drew a deep breath. Shut his eyes and thought again of the woods.

"Duun."

His eyes opened. Ellud sat there as if frozen. "They don't run this either," Duun said. "Sixteen years. Memories are short."

"Two members have died. Rothon and-"

"I know. I read all the news out there. What do you think I was doing? I know who's in and I know what they can do; and that's too bad: they dealt with a hatani. They can't undo that."

"Duun-they might try to kill you. Even that."

Duun laughed.

"Politics," Ellud said. "They'd be fools to try, but politics has made fools before. Don't take it lightly, Duun. That's my guard at your door. You'd better thank the gods it is. And the woman will be from my staff. I'd feel better. Be polite, Duun-hatani. Some of these young fools worship you."

He laid his ears down. "Dammit, Ellud."

"You want to work off something else than that, Duun-hatani?"

"Rescue me from fools."

"I'm trying to. From one I used to love, Duun."

Duun stayed still a long, long time. Grinned finally, and felt the scar pull at his mouth. Laughed once shortly; Ellud looked alarmed. "Gods," Duun said, "I'm drowning, and someone has a rope."

Ellud looked the more disturbed. His eyes showed whites.

"I own the world," Duun said. "Women don't see my scars, my charge adores me, and my last friend calls me a fool." He laughed again, flung his feet down to the sand and stood up. "I cherish that," he said. And left.

Young muscles strained, knotting and stretching under a hairless, sweat-drenched back: the arm held, and Thorn hauled himself upward on the exercise bar, up and down, up and down. Duun walked up on this in the gymnasium, walked up quietly on the well-trampled, sweat-pocked sand and stood there with arms folded a while. Finally Thorn's efforts flagged, became an upward struggle. In perverse humor Duun landed a swat on a vulnerable backside, claws out, and Thorn flinched and made the lift, then dropped, turning in the movement. Gasping then for breath, but bright-eyed with the morning and his health. Duun pursed his mouth. "Not sore, is it?"

"No." And a little wariness crept in. Duun studied him. Thinking. Thorn had gotten easy; and now Duun was thinking, and looking at him that way, and that was cause enough for wariness. There was a great deal in this place where things went on behind the walls, where Thorn waked to find himself adrift in the night sky, and stifled a scream which would have brought Duun's swift disgust. So Thorn turned on the stars each night himself, and walked dizzily to his bed, and flung himself down and made himself look up, about, lying wide-limbed as he had lain on a summer hillside, undefended against the sky that slowly turned. He remembered how it felt to fly. Remembered the land turning giddily under his sight, and the shifts of weight, the falling-feeling amplified by height enough to turn cattle into insects and valleys into folds of cloth. And the dark and the stars took him and whirled him until that flying sensation was back, and he lay there deliberately, overcoming his fear, and going to sleep with it. Some fears Duun set into him for a reason; at this one Duun would laugh, Thorn felt that this was so-and Duun's scorn was worse that the heights, worse than any falling. He hoped now for Duun's approval… the quickly hooded glance, the tightening of the mouth-for such small things he worked, but they had meaning. The slap that stung- that was a joke; Duun joked with him, and dared him, and that meant-meant perhaps an end to Duun's restraint with him-Duun's pity. Duun's -(he felt)-disgust with this place and what had brought him to it. (Forgive me, Duun-hatani. Forgive me for all of it. For us being here. For me being helpless and disappointing, and, gods-don't be angry, Duun.)