C. Cherryh - Shon'jir

"We are heirs of the People.”

"We do not know that his reckoning is right.”

"Niun, Niun, he knows. Can you be so slow to understand what we have seen along the track of the People? Can there be so many worlds that have failed of themselves after we have passed?”

"I do not know," he said desperately. "I am only kel'en, Melein.”

She touched his face, and he felt the comfort that she meant, apology for her words, and they did not speak for a time. Long ago it seemed long ago, and impossibly far he had sat by another she'pan, Intel of Edun Kesrithun, and leaned his head against the arm of her chair, and she had been content in her drugged dreams to touch, to know that he was there. So he did now, with Melein. Her hand restlessly stroked his mane, while she thought; and he sat still, unable to share, unable to imagine where her thoughts ran, save that they went into darkness, and into things of the Pana.

He heard he'r breath shudder at last between her teeth, and forebore to breathe, himself, fearful of her mood.

"Intel," she said at last, "still has her hand on us. The she'pan's kel'en: she held you by her until I wonder you did not go mad; and passed you to me to see that her chosen successor succeeded not only to Edun Kesrithun, but to rule all the People. That Intel's choice survive. She would have waded to her aim through the blood of any that opposed her. She was the she'pan. Old but age did not sanctify her, did not cleanse her of ambition or make her complacent. O gods, Niun, she was hard.”

He could not answer. He remembered the scarred and gentle-eyed Mother of Kesrith, whose hands were tender and whose mind was most times fogged with drugs; but he knew that other Intel too. His stomach tightened as he recalled old angers, old resentments Intel's possessive, adamantine stub­bornness. She was dead. It was not right to cherish resent­ments against the dead.

"She would have taken ship," Melein said in a hollow voice, "and gods know what she would have done in leaving Kesrith. We no longer served regul; we were freed of our oath. She sent me to safety; I think she tried to follow. I will never know. I will never know so many things she had no time to teach me. She talked of return, of striking against the enemies of the People ravings under the komal-dreams, when I would sit by her alone. The enemy. The enemy. She would have destroyed them, and then she would have taken us home. That was her great and improbable dream, that the Dark would be the last Dark, to take us home, for we were few already; and she was, perhaps, mad.”

Niun could not bear to look at her, for it was true, and it was painful to them both.

"What shall we do?" he asked. "May the Kel ask permis­sion to ask? What shall we do for ourselves?”

"I have no power to stop this ship. Would that I did. Duncan says that he cannot. I think that it is true. And he “

There was long silence. Niun did not invade it, knowing it could bring no good; and at last Melein sighed.

"Duncan," she said heavily.

"I will keep him from your sight.”

"You have given him the means to harm us.”

"I will deal with him, she'pan.”

She shook her head again, and wiped her eyes with her fin­gers.

The dusei came: Niun was aware of them before they ap­peared, looked and saw his own great beast, and welcomed it. It drew close in the wistful, abstracted manner of dusei, and sank down at Melein's feet, offering its mindless solace.

Afterward, when Melein breathed easier, Niun felt another presence. Astonished, he saw the lesser dus standing in the doorway. It also came, and lay down by its fellow.

Melein touched it; it offered no hostility to the hand that had caused its hurt. But somewhere else in the ship there would be pain for that touching. Niun thought on Duncan, of his bitter isolation, and wondered that his dus could have been drawn here, by her whom Duncan hated.

Unless he had brutally driven it away or unless his thoughts had turned the dus in this direction.

"Go see to Duncan," Melein said finally.

Niun received back his veil from her hands and flung it over his shoulder, not bothering to wear it. He rose, and when his own dus would have followed him he bade it stay, for he wanted it by Melein, for her comfort.

And he found Duncan, as he had thought he would, back in kel-hall.

Duncan sat still in the artificial dawning, hands loose in his lap. Niun settled on his knees before him, and still Duncan did not look up. The human had veiled himself; Niun did not, offering his feelings openly to him.

"You have hurt us," Niun said. "Kel Duncan, is it not enough?”

Duncan lifted his face and stared toward the screen, where the world that had been called Nhequuy was no longer in view.

"Duncan. What else will you have of us?”

Duncan's dus was with Melein, touched and touching; he was betrayed. When his eyes shifted toward Niun there was no defense there, nothing but pain.

"I argued," said Duncan, "with my superiors, for your sake. I fought for you. And for what? Did she have an an­swer? She knew the world's name. What happened to it?”

"We do not know.”

"And to the other worlds?”

"We do not know, Duncan.”

"Killers," he said, his eyes fixed elsewhere. "Killers by nature.”

Niun clenched his hands, that had gone chilL "You are with us, kel Duncan.”

"I have often wondered why." His dark eyes returned to Niun's. Of a sudden he pulled the veil away, swept off the tasseled headcloth, making evident his humanity. "Except that I am necessary.”

"Yes. But I did not know that. We did not know it be­fore.”

It touched home, he thought; there was a small reaction of the eyes. And then Duncan turned, a wild, distracted look on his face as he looked to the door.

Dus-feelings. Niun received them too, even before he heard the click of claws on tiling. Senses blurred. It was hard to remember what bitterness they had been about.

"No!" Duncan shouted as it came in. The beast shied and lifted a paw in threat, then dropped it and edged forward, head slightly averted. By degrees it came closer, settled, edged the final distance to Duncan's side. Duncan touched it, slid his arm about its neck. At the door appeared the other beast, that came quietly to Niun, lay down at his back. Niun soothed it with gentle touches, his heart pounding from the misery that radiated from the other schism between man and dus: the very air ached with it.

"You are hurting it," Niun said. "Give way to it. Give it only a little.”

"It and I have an accommodation. I do not push it and it does not push me. Only sometimes it comes too fast. It for­gets where the line is.”

"Dusei have no memories. There is only now with them.”

"Fortunate animals," Duncan said hoarsely.

"Give way to it. You lose nothing.”

Duncan shook his head. "I am not mri. And I cannot for­get.”

There was weariness in his voice; it trembled. For a mo­ment there was again the man who had been long absent from them. Niun reached out, pressed his arm in a gesture he would have offered a brother of the Kel. "Duncan, I have tried to help you. All that I could do, I have tried.”

Duncan closed his eyes, opened them again; his fingers at the dus' neck lifted in a gesture of surrender. "I think that, at least, is the truth.”

"We do not lie," he said. "There are the dusei. We can­not.”

"I can understand that." Duncan pressed his lips together, a white line, relaxed again, his hand still caressing the dus.

"I would not play at shon'ai with a man in your mood," Niun said, baiting him, searching after hidden things. They had not, in fact, played in some time.

The dus began slowly to give forth its pleasure sound, relaxed to Duncan's fingers as Duncan eased his arm about its fat-rolled neck; it sighed, oblivious to past grief, delighting in present love.