“I don’t know why. They came—they came. Unprovoked.”
“Human ships had not crossed to the Esliph?”
“No,” he said quickly, surprised by the accusation. “No.”
“How do you know this?”
He did not. He was no one. He had no perfect knowledge of his people’s actions. Aiela sent him an urging to keep still, for Chimele frowned.
“M’metane,” said Chimele, “disputing another’s experience is most difficult. Yet there remains the possibility that the amaut responded to a human intrusion into Esliph space. They are not prone to act recklessly where there is an absence of threat to their own territory, and they are not prone to aggression without the certainty of profit. When there is either motivation, then they move most suddenly and decisively. Our acquaintance with the amaut is long, but I am not satisfied that you know them as well as you believe. Consider every detail of your acquaintance with these uncommon amaut, from the beginning. Let Isande have these thoughts.”
He did so, the image of a ship, of amaut faces, another ship, a city, fire—he flashed backward, seeking the origin, the first intimation of danger to human worlds. Merchant ship, military ship—vanished, only gaseous clouds to mark their passing. Ships grounded. Another vessel. Alien. A human war fleet, drawn from worlds to the interior of human space: this the real defense of their perimeters, large, ships technologically not far from par with the metrosi. Demolished, traceless. Mindless panic among human colonies, wild rumors of landings in the system. A second, local fleet gone, thirty ships at once.
Daniel still sent, but Isande had glanced sharply at Chimele, and Aiela did not need her interpretation to understand. Amaut karshatu maintained weapons on their merchantmen, but they were not capable of disposing of whole warfleets: the karshatu never combined. In that respect they were as solitary as the iduve.
Amaut, Daniel insisted, and there were amautish ships in his mind, such as he had seen onworld, great hulking transports, hardly capable of fighting: carriers of equipment and identured personnel; smaller ships, trade ships that plied the high-speed supply runs, taking back the only export these raw new worlds would supply as yet, not to make an empty run on either direction: human cargo, profitably removed from a place where their numbers made them a threat to places where they were a commodity. But these amaut were not fighters either. Daniel, confused, searched into dimmer memories.
Darkness, images on a viewing screen, a silver shape in hazy resolution, lost to view almost instantly, pursued in vain. Isande caught at the memory eagerly, drawing more and more detail from Daniel, making him hold the image, concentrate upon it, focus it.
“He has seen an akites,” Isande’s soft voice translated. “Distant, his ship pursued, lacked speed, lost it. He thinks it was amaut, knows—this was what arrived—disorganized the entire human defense. They resisted—mistook it for several ships, not knowing its speed—perhaps—perhaps more than one, I can’t tell—they provoked—they provoked, not knowing what—Daniel, please!”
“Was it yours?” Daniel cried, on his feet, closing screens with abrupt violence. Iduve moved, and Aiela, hardly slower, sprang up to put himself between Daniel and Chimele.
“Sit down,” Aiela exclaimed. “Sit down, Daniel.”
Contempt came across: it was in Daniel’s eyes and burning in his mind. Theirs. Not your kind either, but you crawl at their feet. You come apart inside when they look at you—I’m sorry— He felt Aiela’s pain, and tears came to his eyes. What are you doing to us? Not human. Aiela!”
Aiela seized, held to him, shamed by the emotion, shamed to feel when their observers could not. Isande—she, apart, despising, angry. He gained control of himself and forced the dazed human into a chair, stood over him, his fingers clenched into the man’s shoulder.
Calm, be calm, he kept sending. After a moment Daniel’s muscles relaxed and his mind assumed a quieter level, questioning, terrified.
Why are they asking these things? he kept thinking. Aiela, Aiela, help me—tell me the truth if you know it. And then at the angry touch of Isande’s mind: Who is Tejef?
Terror. She flung herself back, screened so violently Daniel cried out.
And the iduve were utterly still, every eye upon them, the nasithi gathered close about Chimele, with such a look of menace that they seemed to have grown and the room to have shrunk. Indeed more had come, dark faces frowning with anger, unasking and unasked. Still they came, and the concourse began to be crowded with them. None spoke. There was only the sound of steps and the rustling of thousands of bodies.