C. Cherryh - Cuckoo's Egg

Thorn slept that night, and waked about the middle of the dark with the stars giddy about his bed and the air breathing false chill winds as if they came off winter snow; everything was still, and he had some vague terror that he could put no name to.

(Duun was here. He was here a while ago.) Perhaps it was a subtle scent the air-conditioning had dispersed. But the door was closed.

Thorn's eyes searched the room, the dark, seeking outlines and knowing Duun's skill. (Is he still in the room? Is he waiting till I move?) Thorn's heart raced, the veins pounding in his throat. (This is foolish. How could he pass the door? It's noisy; I couldn't sleep that soundly.)

(Could I?)

His heart hammered wildly. (He wouldn't. He couldn't . Not after Betan. He knows I'm mad. I hate him. I hate him that he does this to me.)

He hurled himself out of bed. (Never trust him. Never take Duun for granted-) But there was nothing there, only the false stars in their slow dizzy movement.

Thorn sat down again on the edge of the bed. His heart still slammed against his ribs.

(What's the world like? Full of Sagot's kind? Or Duun's? What's he up to? What was I made for? Why does the government care whether I live or die-enough to call on a hatani to solve my problem? He could kill them. Kill me. He gives me a chance, he says… a chance against what? )

(A hatani dictates others' moves. A hatani judges. A hatani wanders through the world setting things to rights again. A hatani can leave a pebble in your bed-in your drink-can pass a locked door and track you in the dark. He's a hunter… not of game. Of anyone he wants. What else is he?)

(Everything Duun does has a cause. And Sagot's his friend. Maybe-maybe Betan was. No. Yes. O gods, maybe it's all set up. Could Betan take a thing like me by preference? Was she curious? Curious-about what she'd let do that with her?)

(Sphitti laughing and joking with me, Elanhen too, from the time we met. Wouldn't it be natural to flinch? But they were prepared for it. They knew what I'd look like. Maybe Cloen was the only honest one-the only one who ever told me the truth.)

(Fool, you knew that, you knew it from the time you walked into that room and you wanted to believe something else. You saw how Betan moved-you thought hatani then and put that thought away.)

(She flinched at the last, she flinched and I reacted-I smelled the fear, her nerve broke-I pushed back, it scared me, it was reflex, she was up against me and I smelled the fear-)

(Thorn, where's your mind? Did you leave it at Sheon, on that hill, when you went back for him? Can you forget how Duun works?)

(I love him. Does he love me?)

(Is even Sagot real? All her chatter-from the start-'I like you, boy.' Thorn, you fool.)

(Did Duun tell the truth, what I am and where he got me?)

Thorn sat there with his hands locked between his knees; and at last he got up and turned on the lights, checked the bed, as if there could be a pebble there. There was none.

(I hate him. I hate him for what he's done to me.)

(It was the best thing in the world when he smiled at me today.)

"Again."

They used the wer -knives this time, the blades cased in clear plastic. Duun bent and took the pass, snaked from Thorn's strike and Thorn evaded his, fell and flipped up on his feet a distance away. "Is that a move you invented?" Duun asked dryly, and Thorn lowered his head and looked under one brow in that way he had when he had done something foolish. "I invented it just then," Thorn said, "when I landed on my heel. I'm sorry, Duun." It was well-done, nevertheless. Duun laid his ears back. "Again."

Three more times. The wer -knives met in a way they never met when they were naked steel, plastic touching plastic and giving too much resistance. Duun floated back and stripped the cover from his blade. Thorn's eyes betrayed dismay, but Thorn pulled the sheath from his and threw it aside.

Naked steel. Duun gripped the knife in his maimed right hand, held the left close to it, ready to change off on short notice. Thorn did the same, maneuvering and watching nothing but his eyes and that blade.

Duun moved, not the feint that was his habit, but straight attack, aborted at the last instant when he saw Thorn cover; evade; to a feint, double-feint, hand-shift, retreating circle, sideslip, hand-shift.

Blade hissed on blade and slid clear; continuing drive, a floating attack.

Thorn escaped it with a fall and roll, came up again with sand in his hair and a desperate parry, for Duun kept coming and the wall was coming at Thorn's back.

Thorn sensed it and moved, too quickly. Duun shifted hands and blade rang on blade as Thorn backed up in free space again.

Duun called time. "Dammit, that steel's too fine to be treated like that! Keep edge off edge!"

"Yes, Duun." Thorn sucked breath in. Sweat ran in his eyes and he wiped it.

"It's that damned handedness again. You know what you did?"

"Went to the right," Thorn said. His shoulders sank. He wiped sweat again. "I feinted left."

"But you went to the right, fool!"

"Yes, Duun. I thought you'd think I'd go left this time for sure."

"Not when you never do it! Gods, surprise me once!"

Thorn's face was all chagrin.

"Up!" Duun struck, lizard-quick. Thorn escaped, escaped, escaped, attacked and escaped with a ringing of the blades.

Duun hit him then, averted the blade and struck his arm up with his fist. Thorn flung his own arm up to lessen the force, skipped back and covered himself again.

Duun called time again and Thorn looked down at his wrist as if he expected to see blood. "At least," Duun said, "you didn't stop when I hit you."

"No." They had hammered that one out in painful lessons, beginner habits unlearned with bruises. "I'm sorry." Breathless, with another wipe at the sweat. Thorn meant the blade-touch.

"You've developed a whole new form of fence, the artful covering of your mistakes! You're best at your escapes!"

"I'm sorry, Duun-hatani."

"This isn't hand-to-hand. In this, young fool, you've got a damn sharp claw! Rearrange your thinking and use it. Again!"

Thorn came at him. He evaded it, struck, evaded, struck.

"Hold!"

Thorn flinched back. Stood there with the breath rasping through his mouth and sweat running in his eyes. He straightened. "I'm sorry, Duun." It had gotten to be a refrain. There were always mistakes. His look was contrite.

Duun reached a hand toward his face, slowly. Thorn stepped back. There was threat in that stance, wariness. Duun smiled.

Thorn straightened his shoulders back, panting. (Why do you shout at me? Why do you curse me? What's wrong today? I'm trying to listen, Duun, don't make fun of me like that.)

"Let me touch you, minnow. This once."

The knife-hand lowered. Thorn stood still. Duun came close and put his palm in the middle of Thorn's chest, on flesh gone pale without sunlight, on flesh slickly sweating so that hands slipped off it, if one grappled without claws. The heart jumped beneath his hand in steady, labored pulses. There was no flinching. No shivering. Duun moved the hand up to the side of Thorn's neck and felt the same pulse. A slight flinching. Reflex. Or teaching. He looked into alien white eyes: it was curious how little the blue centers had changed from the first time he had looked into them, an infant lying on his lap; a round-bellied child clambering on his crossed ankles and trying to pull his ears; a boy's face gazing up at him in sudden shock at finding him on the trail-

They had never seemed to change size. The bones about them did. The face became hollow-cheeked and the jaw lengthened and its skin roughened in dark hair Thorn kept shaved… (They'll laugh at me, Duun; my body hair just doesn't get thick enough and I'm not going to grow it on my face like that, all patched up and thick here and not there.") Thorn shaved his body here and there too, where the patchiness was worst. Clipped and groomed and gods, tried, not to grow a coat any longer, but at least not to let the changes in his body overcome the Thorn they both had gotten used to. Thorn smelled different than he once had. The chest and shoulders were wider and muscled, the belly flat and hard, the loins narrow, the legs long-muscled and agile. Strong, Thorn could lift him nowadays, though gods knew Duun had no intention to let him try.