Stop it, Isande. Be kallia for once. Feel something.
She had not realized about Daniel, not known him so utterly vulnerable and frightened of them. Now she saw him through Aiela’s eyes.
“Please,” said Daniel, who had not been privy to that small exchange, but was painfully aware of the silence that excluded him. “I am an inconvenience to you both—but save us all embarrassment. Tell me why I have been brought here, why I have been—unwelcomely attached—to you both.”
Isande was dismayed and ashamed; but Aiela looked on the human with as much respect at that moment as he had felt for any man.
“Yes,” said Aiela, “I think it is time we went aside together, the three of us, and did that”
It would have been merciful, Aiela reflected, if Chimele had elected to talk to the human with as little distraction about him as possible. Instead, when he and his two asuthi entered the paredre, there were not only the nasithi-ka-tasakke, but what Isande flashed them in dismay was the entire Melakhis. The blue screen was thrust back, opening up the audience hall, and nearly fifty iduve were there to observe them. Kamethi, Isande sent, are not normally involved before the Melakhis. Iduve together are dangerous. Their tempers can become violent with no apparent reason. Be very careful. Daniel; be extremely careful and respectful.
Chimele met them graciously, gave Aiela a nod of particular courtesy. Then she looked full at Daniel, whose heart was.beating as if he feared murder…
Be calm, Aiela advised him. Be calm. Isande and I are here to advise you if you grow confused.
“Please sit,” said Chimele, including them all. She resumed the central chair in the paredre—a ceremonial thing, perhaps of great age, ornate with serpents and alien or mythical beasts worked in wood and gold and amber. “Daniel. Do you understand where you are?”
“Yes,” he answered. “They have explained to me who you are and that I must be honest with you.”
Some of the elder iduve frowned at that; but Chimele heard that naive reply and inclined her head in courtesy.
“Indeed. You are well advised to be so. Where is your home, Daniel, and how did you come into the hands of the amaut of Konut?”
Suspicion ran through Daniel’s mind: attack, plunder— these the agents of it, seeking information. Isande had threshed out the matter with him repeatedly, assuring him of Ashanome’s indifference to the petty matter of his world. Suddenly Daniel was not believing it. Fight-flight-escape ran through his mind, but he did not move from his chair. Aiela seized his arm to be sure that he did not.
“Pardon,” Aiela said to Chimele softly, for he knew her extreme displeasure when Daniel failed to respond. She had shown courtesy to this being before her people; and Daniel for his part looked into those whiteless eyes and met something against which the alienness of the amaut was slight in comparison. They had shown Daniel iduve in his mind; he had even seen Chimele—shadowy and indistinct in his cell; but the living presence of them, the subtle communication of arrogance and their lack of response to emotion, he hated, loathed, feared. Their pattern is different, Aiela sent him. It is affecting you. Don’t let it overcome you. Instinct is not always positive for survival when you are offworld. You are the stranger here.
“M’metane,” Chimele said, labored patience in her voice, “m’metane, what is the difficulty?”
“I—” Daniel shared a moment into Chimele’s violet eyes and tore his glance away, fixing it unfocused on the panel just beyond her shoulder. “I have no way to know that we are not still in human space, or that this is not the upper part of the ship where I was a prisoner. I have seen amaut on my world. I don’t know who sent them. Perhaps they brought themselves, but on this ship they take your orders.”
There was a great shifting of bodies among the iduve, a dangerous and unpredictable tension; but Chimele leaned her chin on her hand and studied Daniel with heightened interest Of a sudden she smiled, showing her teeth. “Indeed. I hope you have not seen much similarity between the decks of Ashanome and that pestiferous freighter, m’metane. Yet your caution I find admirable. Amaut on your world? And where is your world, Daniel? Surely not in the Esliph.”