“Lord Kta did not give you this,” she said.
“No,” he said, “but you may give it back to him.”
She clasped it in both hands and continued to stare at him. “If you bring a weapon into the Afen you kill us, Kurt-ifhan. All Elas would die.”
“I have given it back,” he said. “I am not armed, Mim. That is the truth.”
She slipped it into the belt beneath her overskirt, through one of the four slits that exposed the filmy
pelan
from waist to toe, patted it flat. She was so small a woman: she had a tiny waist, a slender neck accentuated by the way she wore her hair in many tiny braids coiled and clustered above the ears. So little a creature, so soft-spoken, and yet he was continually in awe of Mim, feeling her disapproval of him in every line of her stiff little back.
For once, as in the
rhmei
that night, there was something like distress, even tenderness in the way she looked at him.
“Kta wishes you come back to Elas,” she said.
“I doubt I will be allowed to,” he said.
“Then why would the Methi send you here?”
“I don’t know. Perhaps to satisfy Kta for a time. Perhaps so I’ll find the Afen the worse by comparison.”
“Kta will not let harm come to you.”
“Kta had better stay out of it. Tell him so, Mim. He could make the Methi his enemy that way. He had better forget it.”
He was afraid. He had lived with that nagging fear from the beginning, and now that Mim touched nerves, he found it difficult to speak with the calm that the nemet called dignity. The unsteadiness of his voice made him greatly ashamed.
And Mim’s eyes inexplicably filled with tears—fierce little Mim, unhuman Mim, that he could have thought interestingly female to Kurt but for her alien face. He did not know if any other being would ever care enough to cry over him, and suddenly leaving Elas was unbearable.
He took her slim golden hands in his, knew at once he should not have, for she was nemet and she shivered at the very touch of him. But she looked up at him and did not show offense. Her hands pressed his very gently in return.
“Kurt-ifhan,” she said, “I will tell lord Kta what you say, because it is good advice. But I don’t think he will listen to me. Elas will speak for you. I am sure of it. The Methi has listened before to Elas. She knows that we speak with the power of the Families. Please go to breakfast. I have made you late. I am sorry.”
He nodded and started to the door, looked back again. “Mim,” he said, because he wanted her to look up. He wanted her face to think of, as he wanted everything in Elas fixed in his mind. But then he was embarrassed, for he could think of nothing to say.
“Thank you,” he murmured, and quickly left.
4
All the way to Afen, Kurt had balanced his chances of rounding on his three nemet guards and making good his escape. The streets of Nephane were twisting and torturous, and if he could remain free until dark, he thought, he might possibly find a way out into the fields and forests.
But Nym himself had given him into the hands of the guards and evidently charged them to treat him well, for they showed him the greatest courtesy. Elas continued to support him, and for the sake of Elas, he dared not do what his own instincts screamed to do: to run,—to kill if need be.
They passed into the cold halls of the Afen itself and it was too late. The stairs led them up to the third level, that of the Methi.
Djan waited for him alone in the modern hall, wearing the modest
chatem
and
pelan
of a nemet lady, her auburn hair braided at the crown of her head, laced with gold.
She dismissed the guards, then turned to him. It was strange, as she had foretold,—to see a human face after so long among the nemet. He began to understand what it had been for her, alone, slipping gradually from human reality into nemet. He noticed things about human faces he had never seen before, how curiously level the planes of the face, how pale her eyes, how metal-bright her hair. The war, the enmity between them—even these seemed for the moment welcome, part of a familiar frame of reference. Elas faded in this place of metal and synthetics.
He fought it back into focus.
“Welcome back,” she bade him, and sank into the nearest chair, gestured him welcome to the other. “Elas wants you,” she advised him then. “I am impressed.”
“And I,” he said, “would like to go back to Elas.”
“I did not promise that,” she said. “But your presence there has not proved particularly troublesome.” She rose again abruptly, went to the cabinet against the near wall, opened it. “Care for a drink, Mr. Morgan?”
“Anything,” he said, “thank you.”
She poured them each a little glass and brought one to him. It was
telise.
She sat down again, leaned back and sipped at her own. “Let me make a few points clear to you,” she said. “First: this is my city; I intend it should remain so. Second: this is a nemet city, and that will remain so too. Our species has had its chance. It’s finished. We’ve done it. Pylos, my world Aeolus—both cinders. It’s insane. I spend these last months waiting to die for not following orders, wondering what would become of the nemet when the probe ship returned with the authority and the firepower to deal with me. So I don’t mourn them much. I—regret Aeolus. But your intervention was timely, for the nemet. That does not mean,” she added, “that I have overwhelming gratitude to you.”
“It does not make sense,” he said, “that we two should carry on the war here. There’s nothing either of us has to win.”
“Is it required,” she asked, “that a war make sense? Consider ours: we’ve been at it two thousand years. Probably everything your side and mine says about its beginning is a lie. That hardly matters. There’s only the
now,
and the war feeds on its own casualties. And we approach our natural limits. We started out destroying ships in one little system, now we destroy worlds. Worlds. We leave dead space behind us. We count casualties by zones. We Hanan—we never were as numerous or as prolific as you; we can’t produce soldiers fast enough to replace the dead. Embryonics, lab-born soldiers, engineered officers, engineered followers—our last hope. And you killed it. I will tell you, my friend, something I would be willing to wager your Alliance never told you: you just stepped up the war by what you did at Aeolus. I think you made a great miscalculation.”
“Meaning what?”
“Aeolus was the center, the great center of the embryonics projects. Billions died in its laboratories. The workers, the facilities, the records—irreplaceable. You have hurt us too much. The Hanan will cease to restrict targets altogether now. The final insanity, that is what I fear you have loosed on humanity. I do much fear. And we richly deserve it, the whole human race.”
“I don’t think,” he said, for she disturbed his peace of mind, “that you enjoy isolation half as much as you pretend.”
“I am Aeolid,” she said. “Think about it.”
It took a moment. Then the realization set in, and revulsion, gut-deep: of all things Hanan that he loathed, the labs were the most hateful.
Djan smiled. “Oh, I’m human, of human cells. And superior—I would have been destroyed otherwise; efficiently engineered—for intelligence, and trained to serve the state. My intelligence then advised me that I was being used, and I disliked that. So I found my moment and turned on the state.” She finished the drink and set it aside. “But you wouldn’t like separation from humanity. Good. That may keep you from trying to cut my throat.”
“Am I free to leave, then?”
“Not so easily, not so easily. I had considered perhaps giving you quarters in the Afen. There are rooms upstairs, only accessible from here. In such isolation you could do no possible harm. Instinct—something—says that would be the best way to dispose of you.”
“Please,” he said, rationally, shamelessly, for he had long since made up his mind that he had nothing to gain in Nephane by antagonizing Djan. “If Elas will have me, let me go back there.”
“In a few days I will consider that. I only want you to know your alternatives.”
“And what until then?”
“You’re going to learn the nemet language. I have things all ready for you.”
“No,” he said instantly. “No. I don’t need any mechanical helps.”
“I am a medic, among other things. I’ve never known the teaching apparatus abused without it doing permanent damage. No. Ruining the mind of the only other human accessible would be a waste. I shall merely allow you access to the apparatus and you may choose your own rate.”
“Then why do you insist?”
“Because your objection creates an unnecessary problem for you, which I insist be solved. I am giving you a chance to live outside. So I make it a fair chance, an honest chance; I wish you success. I no longer serve the purposes of the Hanan; I refuse to be programmed into a course of action I do not choose. And likewise, if it becomes clear to me that you are becoming a nuisance to me, don’t think you can plead ignorance and evade the consequences. I am removing your excuses, you see. And if I must, I will call you in or kill you. Don’t doubt it for a moment.”
“It is,” he said, “a fairer attitude than I would have expected of you. I would be easier in my mind if I understood you.”
“All my motives are selfish,” she said. “At least in the sense that all I do serves my own purposes. If I once perceive you are working against those purposes, you are done. If I perceive that you are compatible with them, you will find no difficulty. I think that is as clear as I can make it, Mr. Morgan.”
5
Kta was not in the
rhmei
as Kurt had expected him to be when he reached the safety of Elas. Hef was, and Mim. Mim scurried upstairs ahead of him to open the window and air the room, and she spun about again when she had done so, her dark eyes shining.
“We are so happy,” she said, in human speech. The machine’s reflex pained him, punishing understanding.
It was all Mim had time to say, for there was Kta’s step upon the landing, and Mim bowed and slipped out as Kta came in.
“Much crying in our house these days,” said Kta, casting a look after Mim’s retreat down the stairs. Then he looked at Kurt, smiled a little. “But no more.
Ei
Kurt, sit, sit, please. You look like a man three days drowned.”
Kurt ran his hand through his hair and fell into a chair. His limbs were shaking. His hands were white. “Speak Nechai,” he said. “It’s easier.”
Kta blinked, looked him over. “How is this?” he asked, and there was unwelcome suspicion in his voice.
“Trust me,” Kurt said hoarsely. “The Methi has machines that can do this. I would not lie to you.”
“You are pale,” said Kta. “You are shaking. Are you hurt?”
“Tired,” he said. “Kta,—thank you, thank you for taking me back.”
Kta bowed a little. “Even my honored father came and spoke for you, and never in all the years of our house has Elas done such a thing. But you are of Elas. We are glad to receive you.”
“Thank you.”
He rose and attempted a bow. He had to catch at the table to avoid losing his balance. He made it to the bed and sprawled. His memory ceased before he had stopped moving.
Something tugged at his ankle. He thought he had fallen into the sea and something was pulling him down. But he could not summon the strength to move.
Then the ankle came free and cold air hit his foot. He opened his eyes on Mim, who began to remove the other sandal. He was lying on his own bed, fully clothed, and cold. Outside the window it was night. His legs were like ice, his arms likewise.
Mim’s dark eyes looked up, realized that he was awake. “Kta takes bad care for you,” she said, “leaving you so. You have not moved. You sleep like the dead.”
“Speak Nechai,” he asked of her. “I have been taught.”
Her look was briefly startled. Then she accepted human strangeness with a little bow, wiped her hands on her
chatem
and dragged at the bedding to cover him, pulling the bedclothes from beneath him, half-asleep as he was.
“I am sorry,” she said. “I tried not to wake you, but the night was cold and my lord Kta had left the window open and the light burning.”
He sighed deeply and reached for her hand as it drew the coverlet across him. “Mim,—”
“Please.” She evaded his hand, slipped the pin from his shoulder and hauled the tangled
ctan
from beneath him, jerked the catch of his wide belt free, then drew the covers up to his chin.
“You will sleep easier now,” she said.
He reached for her hand again, preventing her going. “Mim, what time is it?”
“Late,—late.” She pulled, but he did not let her go, and she glanced down, her lashes dark against her bronze cheeks. “Please, please let me go, lord Kurt.”
“I asked Djan, asked her to send you word—so you would not worry.”
“Word came. We did not know how to understand it. It was only that you were safe. Only that.” She pulled again. “Please.”
Her lips trembled, and eyes were terrified, and when he let her hand go she spun around and fled to the door. She hardly paused to close it, her slippered feet pattering away down the stairs at breakneck speed.
If he had had the strength he would have risen and gone after her, for he had not meant to hurt Mim on the very night of his return. He lay awake and was angry, at nemet custom and at himself, but his head hurt abominably and made him dizzy. He sank into the soft down and slipped away. There was tomorrow. Mim would have gone to bed too, and he would scandalize the house by trying to speak to her tonight.
The morning began with tea, but there was no Mim, cheerily bustling in with morning linens and disarranging things. She did appear in the
rhmei
to serve, but she kept her eyes down when she poured for him.
“Mim,” he whispered at her, and she spilled a few drops, which burned, and moved quickly to pour for Kta. She spilled even his, at which the dignified nemet shook his burned hand and looked up wonderingly at the girl, but said nothing.