Kutath fs-3

by C. J. Cherryh

"Mri," Suonava spat. "Mril”

  Harris brought his head up. "Didn't say that," he insisted, forcing the words. And because he was already committed; "And I don't think so. The feel was wrong. I don't think so.”

  There was silence after, sober-faced men and women settling about the table. No one spoke. It would be all over the ship by the next watch, on Santiago by the next. Harris did not plead for discretion. Suddenly advancements and careers shifted into small perspective.

  "That doesn't leave us in a good spot," Montoya said, "does

  "Quiet," Hayes muttered.

  Cups were refilled, one after the other retreating to the dispenser and returning. Pilots settled back at the table and drank their coffee, grim-faced. No one said much. Harris stared into the lights reflecting off the coffee, thinking and rethinking.

  It was a joyous sight, the appearance of a kel'en standing high among the rocks near the camp. Hlil flung up an arm and waved, and the sentry gave out a cry taken up by others. The very rocks seemed to come alive, first with black figures, and then with gold and blue. The weary column hastened, finding new strength in galled limbs and aching backs, as brothers and sisters of the Kel hurried out to their aid, as even blue-clad children came running to lend their hands, shouting for delight.

  Only the sen'ein who drew the Pana accepted no help until others of the Sen could reach them to take the labor from them. And Hlil, freed of his burden by another kel'en, walked beside them up into the camp. Where the Pana went there went a silence in respect, a pause, a gesture of reverence, before celebration broke out again.

  But all was quiet when they drew near the center of the open-air camp, where the she'pan waited, conspicuous in her white robes, seated on a flat stone. The sen'ein who drew the sled on which the Pana rested stopped it before her, and Hlil watched with a tautness in his throat as she lifted her eyes from that to him.

  "Kel-second," she said. He came, half-veiled as he was, dropped to his knees in the sand before her and sat back.

  "There are three dead," he said in a calm, clear voice that carried in the silence about them. "Sen Otha, sen Kadas, Kel Ros. At An-ehon ... a collapse killed them. The edun is in ruin.”

  Her eyes lowered to the Pana, lifted yet again. "Who recovered it?”

  "I," he said, "for any harm that attaches." He removed the headcloth, for all that there were children present. "Merin and Desai and Ras by my asking.”

  "And the power in the city… live or dead, after the col-lapser

  "Live," he said. "I saw; forgive." "How far alive?”

  For all the dignity kel-law taught him, his gesture was uncertain, a helpless attempt to recall what he had tried to wipe from his mind. He built back what he had seen, shut his eyes an instant, recalled with the meticulous care with which he had been trained to retain images. "Each row… some lights, mostly red, some gold; generally two hands of lights; more, the third row of machines. It spoke; I gave it my name and yours; it called for you.”

  She said nothing for the moment. He stared into her face… young and cold and scarred with kel-scars. A curse, he thought, that would be her gift to him. A chance for her to be rid of him, who was of the old order.

  "Was the Pana damaged, kel Hlil?”

  "No.”

  "You sent back half the force you took. We here thank you for that. We are without deaths in this camp because you sent us strength enough to shelter us. We could hardly have kept the sand clear without that help.”

  He blinked at her, confused, realizing dimly that this was honest, that this cold young she'pan offered him praise.

  Ttai are owed you," she said. "Every one." She bent forward, kissed his brow, took his hands and rose, making him rise.

  "She'pan," he murmured, and stepped back to let others through. One by one, to the very last and least, she took hands and kissed them, and there were bewildered looks on the faces of more than one of the Kel, for she had no reputation for such gestures.

  Only Has hung back, and when she was too obviously the last; "The kel'anth is not back," Ras said to his hearing and that of too many others. "Where is he, she'pan? I ask permission to ask.”

  "Not back yet," said Melein.

  And Ras simply turned her back and walked away.

  "Ras," Hlil hissed after her, his heart sinking; he hesitated between going after her and staying to plead with the she'pan, who must reprimand the rudeness; someone must. It could not be ignored. It was on him, kel-second, and he stood helpless.

  But Melein turned her face away as if not to notice Ras's leaving. "Make camp," she said into that deathly silence… clapped her hands with a sharp and commanding energy. "Hai! Do it!”

  "Move!" kel Seras called out, and clapped his hands, an echo of hers. Kath'ein called to children and sen'ein joined kerein in helping Kath divide the loads they had brought

  Hlil stood still, caught the she'pan's eyes as she glanced back across an intervening distance. Her calm face considered him for a moment, face-naked as he was, and turned from him.

  There was canvas overhead this night, the brightness of lamps, the comfort of mats spread on the ground, in the place of the cold sand and rocks which had been their bed; enough to eat, and warmth besides closeness of bodies. But most of all ... the Pana. Melein kept it by her once opened, to be sure that the precious leaves within were intact. She had her chair, robes for her lap, and outside, evident in laughter happiness in the camp, after all past sorrows.

  Concerning Niun, she refused to give way to fear; there had been the storm, and the desert and Niun's mission kept no schedules. He could fend for himself no less than those born to this land; she convinced herself so.

  She sat, throned in her chair, the pan'en beside her, veiled again. She reached out her hand and touched it from moment to moment, this object which had come with her all her long journey and which contained all the voyage of those before. She feared… not personally, unless it was a fear rooted in her pride, an unwillingness to fail when millennia of lives rested on her shoulders. It was a burden which might drive her mad if she allowed herself to dwell on that. Kel-training had given her the gift of thinking of the day as well as of the ages, as Sen thought. It was said that she'panei the great and true ones acted in subconscious foreknowledge, that the power of the Mystery flowed through their fingers and the shapings that they shaped were irresistible that they sat at the hinge-point of space and time. From such a point events flowed about one, and all who stood nearest. Time was not, as Kel and Kath perceived, like beads on a string, event and event and event, from which Darks could sever them, breaking the string. There was only the Now, which extended and embraced all the Past which she contained and the pan'en contained, and all the past which had brought Kutath to this moment; and all the future toward which she led.

  She was not single, but universal; she inhaled the all and breathed it through her pores. She Saw, and directed, and it was therefore necessary to do very little, for from the Center, threads ran far. It was that, to believe in one's own Sight. There was no anger, for nothing could cross her. There was no true pride, for she was all-containing.

  And at other moments she left that vision, suspecting her own sanity. She was kath Melein, kel Melein, sen Melein, who desired most of all to shed the burden and take only the black robes of Kel ... to have freedom, to take up arms, to strike at what should offend her honor and to walk the land empty of past and future.

  Years in voyaging, and, but for an occasional hour… quite, quite alone, to study and meditate on the pan'en. One's meditations could become convolute and bordering madness.

  Did she'panei truly believe the Sight? Or was it pretense? She did not know; she had become she'pan in the People's dying… last, quite lost; and her own she'pan had not prepared her… had herself been on the edge of madness.

  If she entertained one keen fear, it was that; that she was similarly flawed, that she was heir to madness, that the ancestors who had gone out had spent themselves and the World's life to no sane purpose or
that the Sight had perverted itself, and had brought her home as the logical end of things, the mad she'pan of a mad species, to destroy.

  "She'pan.”

  A shadow moved, gold-robed as it entered the light. Sathas, sen'anth. She blinked and lifted her hand, permission; and the aged sen'en came and sat at her feet. She had called the anth'ein, the seniors-of-caste; she drew a deep breath, regarded Sathas with quiet speculation.

  New to his post; none of the original anth'ein had survived the march out of An-ehon, save if one counted Niun; the tribe was crippled by that loss of experience. But of all castes, Sen was the rock on which she stood.

  "Sathas," she said softly, "how goes it?”

  "Surely you mean to ask us that.”

  "I ask of the tribe, Sathas.”

  He frowned… kel-scarred like herself, one of very few of this Sen who had come up through that caste as she had; and she treasured him for that, fiat core of common sense that came of kel-training. Wind and sun and years had made of his face a mask in which the eyes alone were quick and alive, the planes of his countenance creased with a thousand lines.

  "As she'pan… or as Mother?”

  It was well-cast She lowered her eyes and declined answer, looked up and saw the kath'anth and Hlil in the parting of the curtains. "Come," she bade them.

  The kath'anth seated herself, inclined her head in respect; Anthil, a fiftyish kath'en, and never, perhaps, beautiful; but the weathering of years had given her the placidity that kath'ein attained. Young Hlil s'Sochil quite otherwise, she thought; he would have a face like Sathas's someday, all grimness.

  That it was Hlil, and not Niun… she tried not to think on that

  "She'pan," they murmured greeting.

  "Anth'ein," she responded, folding her hands in her lap. "Can we move camp tomorrow?”

  Heads inclined at once, although there was no happiness in the face of the kath'anth, and that of kel Hlil was as impassive as one could look for in a kel'en.

  "Understand," she said, "not. . . back to your own range; but to a place I choose. We have come home; there are old debts; a service to discharge.”

  Membranes flickered in the eyes of the kath'anth and of Hlil, disturbance. "The Kel," Hlil said hoarsely, "asks permission to ask.”

  "We have lost An-ehon, kel-second; but what you saw there confirms what I hope, that we are not without resources. There is a city beyond the hills, youngest of cities, one never linked to us in the attack… nor ever one of our own.”

  "Elee," Hlil murmured, shock plain in his unveiled face.

  "The city Ele'et," said sen Sathas. "Sen agrees with the she'pan in this undertaking. We may perish. We do as we must.”

  "She'pan," Hlil murmured faintly.

  "Elee were our first service," Melein pursued him. "Is not the return… appropriate? Of the raees which came of this world, are we two not die last? And in the trouble that attends us I think it an appropriate direction. I have consulted Sen, yes. Long since." She flicked a glance at Anthil. "I have seen Kath withered in the House of my birth, kath'ein and children lost by my own she'pan, who killed them in the forging that shaped my generation, on a world too harsh for them… but not so harsh as Ku-tath itself. You are stronger, Kath. But ask, and I will part you from the tribe, give you into some shelter and set kel'ein to guard you.”

  "No," the kath'anth exclaimed at once.

  "Think on it before answering," Melein said.

  "We go," the kath'anth said, a voice gentle as befitted her; and unyielding. "I shall ask; but I know Kath's answer.”

  That pleased her. She inclined her head, accepting glanced at Hlil. Not unthought, that she appealed to Kath before Kel; the others were true anth'ein, no surrogates; and the others knew their authority. "Kel-second," she said, "do you understand now… what the matter is before you? My own keFanth we came of such a struggle, he and I; of tsi'mri, and ships, and the serving of a service. It has been a long time, has it not, for this Kel? Nigh a hundred thousand years you have served to the service of living, of surviving the winds, of providing for Kath and Sen… and perhaps ... of waiting. Do you hear me, kel Hlil? The world has tsi'mri over its head… and you, for the moment, wield the Kel; you are my Hand… and the People have need. It may be the last age, kel-second. Can you lead if you must. . . even into the Dark?”

  The membrane nicked rapidly across his eyes; the kel-marks stood stark upon his face. Such distress was for her to see; he did not give her the blankness that was for strangers.

  "I beg the she'pan put kel Seras in my place.”

  "He is experienced," she agreed, and felt pain for this man, that he should make such a retreat… fear, perhaps. She met his eyes and a curious sense came on her that something very tough rested at the core of this kel'en. "No," she said. "I ask you; why did kel'anth Merai s'Elil set you to be kel-second?”

  Hlil looked down at his hands, which were like himself, unlovely. "I was his friend, she'pan, that is all.”

  "Why?" she returned him; and when he looked up, plainly confounded; "Do you not think, kel-second, that it had something to do with yourself?”

  That, was a heart-shot; she saw it. After a moment he bowed his head and lifted it again. "Then I have to report," he said in a still voice, "That we are missing one of the Kel. That kel Ras is not in camp. Should we do something in that matter, she'pan?"

  She let go a slow breath, looked on the man and read pain. The eyes met hers, quite steady and miserable.

  "I shall not ask what the Kel would do," she said. "You would judge harshly because you want not to. I am afflicted with an unruly Kel; can I heal it with impatience? Perhaps I should be concerned; but I am more concerned for those who remain. Let her go if she will; or return. I do not forbid. And as for the matter at hand," she said, going placidly about the matter of orders and looking instead at Anthil, "we abandon nothing, except by Kath's discretion. I do not urge it. Some of the least kel'ein can walk burdened, and some of the lesser sen'ein too. Settle that within your own castes. Divide the property of the dead according to kinship and need. I trust the Kel can bear another trek?”

  "Aye," Hlil said quietly, earnestly. Sathas and Anthil added soft assent

  "Then at dawn," she said, dismissing them with a gesture. They rose, pressed her hands in courtesy. Only Hlil held a moment more, looked at her as if he would speak… and did not.

  They withdrew. She leaned back in her chair, touched at the pan'en, stared before her with an unfocused gaze on the lamps.

  To manage others… had a bitter taste in the mouth, a taint of Intel, her own she'pan, who had known how to seize her children and wring the hearts out of them, who could choose one to live and one to die, who could use, and move, and wield lives like an edged blade.

  So she had sent Niun; and in cold realization of necessity, selected another weapon, for its hour.

  Only Ras.… She attempted, consciously, to use Sight, to know whether she was a danger or no; and Sight failed her, a vast blankness all about the name of Ras s'Sochil.

  The vision was at times not comfort enough; when she doubted it altogether, it was far less.

  Chapter Eight

  They were still there. Duncan rolled aside on the dune face and turned his head to regard Niun, who still rested on his belly and his forearms, though he too had slid down somewhat. The beasts rested down in the trough, needing nothing of vision to tell them where their enemies were, spread wide about the horizon of dunes under a morning sun.

  "Yail" Duncan said hoarsely, stopping that impulse, lest their followers use it to track to them.

  "We need to keep moving," Niun said. "When you can.”

  Duncan considered it, lay there, content to breathe. Food nauseated him; but he accepted the dried strip of meat Niun offered him while they waited. He thrust it into his mouth and finally chewed it and choked it down his raw throat. Things tasted of blood and copper, even the air he breathed. There were frequent moments when he lost vision, or when his knees threatened to bend the w
rong way in walking the uneven ground. His head pounded. Alone, he would have burrowed into the first stony cover he could find and prepared to fight if hiding failed; Niun would make other choices, that would get him killed.

  "Much farther?" he asked.

  "Some," Niun said. "Tonight, maybe.”

  Duncan lay still and considered that, which was better than he had thought. "And then what? You fight duel? You have walked twice their distance.”

  "So," Niun said. "But it remains what I said; that between she'panei… the challenge is single; must be. If we started the matter here, we would have bloodfeud, and no end of challenges." He drew a short breath, himself near panting. "Hai, and their kel'anth may not be with them; in that case challenge falls to their kel-second. That can only be in our favor.”

  Niun was very good. So, Duncan reckoned, might others be.

  "Do you want to go on from here?" Duncan said. "They do not have us always in sight; if I walk over your tracks you might be a good way back to “

  Dusei stirred below, uncomfortable. "No," Niun said. He touched his own face, where the veil crossed his cheeks and the blue edge of the kel-scars was visible. "You are unscarred; no kel'en should challenge you; but alone gods know what they would do.”

  "That is my difficulty, is it not?”

  By the look in Niun's eyes it was not.

  "Aye," Duncan said. Much, Niun had taught him aboard the ship, much is mind; what one will, one can. He had survived jump without drugs, as mri did, and that was called a physical difference. He sucked air slowly, measuring his breaths, warming the air through his hands, finally gathered himself up off the face of the dune and started moving. Niun swiftly overtook him, and the dusei, shambling along at a better pace than they had been making.

  "Do not overdo it," Niun said.

  He slacked a little, went blind to his surroundings and concentrated on breathing and pace and the little bit of sand about diem. Until night He reckoned he might last that long.

  It was back, the human ship Santiago, despite all maneuvers to shake it Bai Suth glared at the image of it, which was, even against Shirug's vast teardrop shape, a threat An elder human commanded Santiago, bai Silverman. We were only human younglings in question, Shirug might dispose of that nuisance and argue the point with bai Koch later, in confidence that human anger would not ascend to a hostile move against Shirug itself; humans had three ships; regul, one. It was a clear question of proportional damage.