Cuckoo’s Egg by C.J. Cherryh

“He could have made the woman’s husband adopt the girl!”

“Indeed he could, and there was a husband. If the girl had asked him to judge between herself and her mother’s husband he might have done that. That was also how Ehonin suspected she would not be hatani. She asked in haste even when she’d had ample time to think. Or she didn’t want anything to do with the husband. That’s also possible. In any case he had nothing to work with: to have gone to the mother and asked her truth would have been pointless. There was no recourse in her. And the daughter had asked none. That left himself and the daughter for principals. He had no other answer.”

“If she hadn’t asked him a hatani solution he might have helped her.”

“Indeed he might.”

“She was a fool, Duun-hatani.”

“She was also very young and angry. And she hated her father. None of those things helped her.”

“Couldn’t he warn her?”

“She was old enough to have walked across a province. What point to warn her? But perhaps he did. Anger makes great fools.”

“This is the velocity of the system through the galactic arm.”

“Is it absolute?” Thorn asked. He had learned to ask; and Elanhen looked pleased. “No,” Elanhen said. “But consider it so for this problem…”

They were back to physics. At least two of every five-day set.

There was history. “… In 645 Elhoen calculated the world was round. This was his proof…”

“… in 1439 the hatani took down the shothoen guild and set up the merchant league in its place-”

“… in 1492 the Mathog railway joined the Bigon line and cities grew along the route-”

“… in 1503 Aghoit made the first powered flight. By 1530 Tabisit-tanun flew across the Mathog… He crashed in the attempt at a polar crossing. His son and his daughter inherited his interest in the guild and the daughter was lost in a second attempt when ice on the wings forced her landing in Gltonig Bay. That was the last radio message. The plane was found abandoned and no one knew what became of her. The son made the flight successfully in 1541.”

“… Dsonan became capital…”

“… The Dsonan League took the Mathog. Bigon resisted. The hatani refused to involve themselves without an appeal from Bigon and there was bloodshed until both sides appealed for settlement. It was the first use of aircraft-‘

“… Rocket-bombs were first developed-”

A great unease stirred in him. He turned and looked for help… not Cloen’s. About the room the others were at their desks. He held the keyboard on his lap and put in Betan’s name.

“W-h-a-t?” the reply appeared white-lettered at the bottom of the screen.

Thorn hesitated. Typed. “W-h-a-t y-e-a-r a-r-e w-e i-n?” His face burned. He waited for an answer with his heart pounding. Nothing touched the screen. He looked up and saw Betan leave her desk and walk across the sand to him with a puzzled look on her face.

“I don’t need your help,” Thorn said. “It’s just a question.”

Betan looked at the screen and looked at him. Her ears flicked down and up and her fine mouth pursed. Standing this close, she smelled of warmth, of flowers, and he wanted Sheon back, he wanted the world as simple as it had been, and the smells of earth and dust and the answers he used to know. “It’s 1759,” she said. And gulfs opened up about him. Doubtless Betan thought him a fool. Of course they had all grown up in the world and he had had only Sheon. She laughed at him. “Why?”

“It never came up, that’s all.” He sent the screen on another scroll. It stopped at 1600. Ended. “I need a new cassette.”

Betan sat down on the edge of his desk, rested her hand above his knee. The touch burned him. He looked desperately elsewhere, searching with the tail of his vison for where the others were, but they were all on their desks.

“I’m sorry,” Betan said. “I shouldn’t have laughed.” And she smelled of difference and warmth and his heart pounded against his ribs. She pressed against his ribs. She pressed on his knee and strained his leg and he wished he could get her hand off before something else happened. “Sheon’s not quite the world capital, is it? Look, if you need help with that I’d be happy to stay.”

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