“But Chimele’s nasithi-katasakke broke into the paredre. What happened then, only they know, but probably there was no mating—there never was a child. Tejef escaped, and when Mejakh put herself in his way trying to keep him from the lift, he overpowered her and took her down to the flight deck. The okkitani-as on duty there knew something terrible was wrong—alarms were sounding, the whole ship on battle alert, for the Orithain was threatened and we sat only a few leagues from Tashavodh. But the amaut are not fighters, and they could do little enough to stop an iduve. They simply cowered on the floor until he had gone and then the bravest of them used the intercom to call for help.
“My asuthe Reha was already on his way to the flight deck by the time I reached Chimele in the paredre. He seized a second shuttlecraft and followed. A kameth has immunity among iduve, even on an alien deck, and he thought if he could attach himself to the situation before Tashavodh could actually claim Mejakh, he could possibly help Chimele recover her and save the arastiethe of Ashanome.
“But they killed him.” Screens held, altogether firm. She sipped at the marithe, furiously barring a human from that privacy of hers; and Daniel earnestly did not want to invade it. “They swore later they didn’t know he was only kameth. It did not occur to them that a kameth would be so rash. When he knew he was dying he fired one shot at Tejef, but Tejef was within their shields already and it had no more effect than if he had attacked Tashavodh with a handgun.
“The iduve—when the stakes are very high—are sensible; it is illogical to them to do anything that endangers nasul survival. And this was highly dangerous. Vaikka had gotten out of hand. Tashavodh was well satisfied with their acquisition of Mejakh and Tejef, but in the death of a kameth of Ashanome, Chimele had a serious claim against them. There is a higher authority: the Orithanhe; and she convoked it for the first time in five hundred years. It meets only in Cheltaris, and the ships were four years gathering.
“When the Orithanhe reached its decision, neither Chimele nor Kharxanen had fully what they had demanded. Mejakh had been forced into katasakke with a kinsman of Kharxanen; and by the Orithanhe’s decision, Tashavodh’s dhis obtained her unborn child for its incubators and Ashanome obtained Mejakh—no great prize. She has never been quite right since. Chimele demanded Tejef back; but the Orithanhe instead declared him out-kindred, outlaw—e-nasuli.
“So by those terms, by very ancient custom, Tejef was due his chance: a Kej year and three days to run. Now Ashanome has its own: two years and six days to hunt him down—or lose rights to him forever.”
“And they have found him?” asked Daniel.
“You—may have found him.” Isande paused to pour herself more marithe. She scarcely drank, ordinarily, but her shaken nerves communicated to such an extent that they all breathed uneasily and struggled with her to push back the thoughts of Reha. Revenge ran cold and sickly through all her thoughts; and grief was there too. Aiela tried to reach her on his own, but at the moment she thought of Reha and did not want even him.
“There is the vra-nasul Chaganokh,” said Isande. “Vassal-clan, a six-hundred-year-old splinter of Tashavodh, nearby and highly suspect. We have sixty-three days left. But you see, Chimele can’t just accuse Chaganokh of having aided Tejef with nothing to support the claim. It’s not a matter of law, but of harachia—seeing. Chaganokh will look to see if she has come merely to secure a small vaikka and annoy them, or if she is in deadly earnest. No Orithain would ever harm them without absolute confidence in being right: or-ithainei do not make mistakes. Chaganokh will therefore base its own behavior on what it sees: by that means they will determine how far Ashanome is prepared to go. If she shows them truth, they will surely bend: it would be suicide for a poor vra-nasul to enter vaikka with the most ancient of all clans—which Ashanome is. They will not resist further.”