C. Cherryh - Kutath

Melein sat there, with a few of the sen'ein about her; and with Niun, and Hlil, and Seras, with two more of the dusei. Hlil rose as they walked in, inclined his head. "You do not have his service," Melein said to Boaz, "but he will be under your orders as regards his presence on your ship. He is my Hand reached out to humans. He is Hlil s'Sochil, kel-second; and the beast that is HliTs; it goes with him too.”

"We thank you," Boaz said, "for sending him. We will do all we can to make him welcome.”

"Kel Hlil," Melein said, kissed him and received his kiss dismissal; and from that distance; "Good-bye, sen Boaz.”

It was dismissal. Formalities between mri and tsi'mri were always scant. Boaz gave him one look, a touch of the hand, walked away alone, and Hlil summoned his dus to him, paused to embrace Niun, and walked after.

Only beyond him he paused yet again, at the curtain, to look on a certain kel'e'en. "Life and honors," he bade Ras, lingered a scant moment, walked on, with wounding in the dus-sense. By Melein's side, Niun gathered himself to his feet But Hlil had gone, with brief reverence to the Holy. "Permission," Ras said, a thin, faint voice. "She'pan." "You ask a question, kel Ras?" "I ask to go.”

"It is not," said Melein, "a walk to the rim and back. And do you serve the People, kel'e'n or why do you go?"

"To see," she said; and after a long moment; "We are old friends, she'pan, Hlil and I. And I ask to go.”

"Come here," Melein said; and when she had done so, took her hand. "You know all that Hlil knows. You can agree with my mind. You can do what I have bidden Hlil do.”

"Aye," Ras said.

Melein drew her down, kissed her, was kissed in turn, let her go, with a nod toward the door. "Haste," she said.

Ras went, her dus after her, with a respect to the Holy and a quiet pace; she would surely have no difficulty overtaking a small, plump human.

Melein sank back in her chair, looked at Niun, looked out at Duncan, and suddenly at other kel'ein, with a quick frown. "Ask among all the Kels," she said. "Quickly; whether there is not one in all this camp, a kel'e'en who will go with them, that they can have a House. Kel Ras is right; they ought not to be alone among strangers.”

It was the kel'e'en Tuas who went, who went striding out to the human ship in the last hour before their parting, and the camp turned out to wish her well; paused again in its labor when the ship Flower lifted, to watch it until it was out of sight

"They will see Kesrith," Niun murmured, that night before they slept, in Kel-tent

"Would you have gone?" Duncan asked. "Have you not had enough of voyaging?”

"A part of my heart went." Niun sank down on his arm, and Duncan did, and the dusei settled each at their backs. There was now besides them, only Rhian's, in the hao'nath camp, and the wild one, somewhere in the far north. "I have wondered," Niun said, "why the dusei chose… why ourselves, why Rhian, why Ras and Hlil, and Taz. I thought it might be for your sake, sov-kela; you have always had a strange way with them. But look you look you; they chose those who would go out Who would meet strangeness. Who would look longest and deepest into the Dark. That is how they always chose. I think that is so."

Duncan did not answer for a moment. . . gazed at the dus, at him. "No more. Only we hold it off here. Long enough." "We wait," Niun said. "And we hold it off.”

It was a larger city, after so many years; sprawling buildings and domes and covered avenues in the place of regul order. The scent of the wind was the same; acrid and abrasive; and the light… the red light of Arain. It must have rained that morning. Puddles stood at the curb before the Nom, and Boaz stopped a moment to stare about her, to reckon with change.

The three kel'ein with her did not make evident their curiosity. Doubtless they were curious, but they were under witness, and did not show it It was much from them, that they all came, leaving the dusei on the ship… her asking.

Governor Stavros was dead, years ago; she had learned that even while Flower was inward bound. And there were changes more than the buildings.

"Come," she bade her companions, noting sourly the escort of military personnel which formed for them, with guns and formalities; she had her own, she reflected with grim humor. They walked through the doors of the Nom and into the once-remembered corridors, into a reception of officials, outstretched hands and nervous smiles for her, simply nervous looks for her tall companions.

"The governor's expecting you," one advised her, showing her the way to offices she remembered very well without. She went, and the kel'ein walked after her.

Stavros dead; and more than Stavros. The uniforms were different, the official emblems were subtly changed. There was a moment's feeling of madness, to have come back to the wrong world, the wrong age. There was a new constitution, so they had said at station; civilian government, a dismantling of the powers that had been AlSec and a reorganization of the bureaus; a restoration of institutions abandoned in the war, as if there was any going back. Kesrith had become a major world, an administrative headquarters for wide regions.

For a moment she yearned for Luiz, for his comfort; and that was gone. He had died by a world of a yellow star, whose name humans did not know, and probably the kel'ein did not. . . died in jump, still lost in the vertigo of no-time, in a place where human flesh did not belong, between phases. Luiz had always leaned on the drugs. She had, until the last, that she and some few of the crew risked what the mri did, to take jump without them; she played at shon'ai with the keFein, as the sen played, with wands, and not with weapons. four hands are not apt to weapons, they told her.

She blinked, offered a handshake to the middle-aged man who was introduced to her. Governor Lee.

And uncertainly Lee offered his hand to the kel'ein. She opened her mouth to warn, sensed laughter behind the veils, a slight crinkling of Hlil's amber eyes as he touched the offered hand with his fingertips. So Tuas touched. Ras would not, but stood with hands behind her; that was courtesy enough.

"Mri representatives," Lee said. "And the report is a mishap overtook die other ships; and the regul.”

"A mishap, yes," she said. "I understand regul are scarce here.”

Lee's eyes slid from hers. He offered her and the mri chairs, seated himself behind his desk. Boaz sat down in the chair, but the kel'ein sat down on the carpet, against the wall where they might see the governor, which was for them more comfort.

"It is open knowledge," Lee said, "that the regul have detached themselves. We don't know why, or in what interest They've gone from Kesrith, abandoned worlds nearby, left every human vicinity. They explore in their own directions, perhaps. You can't answer… from your own viewpoint ... or from events where you come from why, can you?”

"They don't like us," Boaz said.

"No. Clearly they don't. Many who stayed here… many who were closest in contact with us ... suicided." He shifted uncomfortably. "The mri envoys ... do they understand?”

"Every word.”

"They agree to peace?”

Boaz shook her head slightly. "To contact. Across an expanse wider than you imagine, sir. And regul are mightily afraid of them. A virtue as anxious as I've heard the colonies are, out here. But the mri are explorers… from here to the rim.”

"And mercenaries," Lee said. "On our side? Is that the proposal?”

"We have been mercenaries," Hlil said, "if that is the use of the hire we offer.”

"But there is cost," Lee said.

"Always," Has answered.

"What cost? In what do you expect payment?”

"A place to stand," Ras's quiet voice pursued. "For that, the Kel is at your bidding, so long as you maintain us a world where only your feet and ours touch. And supplies, of course. We are not farmers. And ships; we shall need them.”