“Probably you are recently kameth, for I cannot believe that Chimele would have chosen a stupid being to serve her. I could have broken your neck, m’metane. I simple did not choose to.”
And he let the human go, steadying him a moment until he had his balance; the m’metane seemed more defensive now than hostile; he stumbled backward and nearly tripped over a chair.
“I should prefer to reason with you,” said Tejef.
“If that’s your aim, try reasoning with Chimele. Haven’t you sense enough to know you’re going to get yourself killed?”
“Then it is important,” said Tejef, “to do so properly, is it not? What does your asuthe say to that?” •
Daniel told him, plainly; and Tejef laughed.
“Please,” Daniel pleaded. “Where is Arle? Is she all right?”
“Yes. Quite safe.”
“Please let me see her.”
“No,” said Tejef; but he knew his anger on the subject was, in human terms, irrational. The child herself incessantly begged for this meeting, and, child of the dhis as she was, she was human, only human, and knew Daniel for nas—a friend, as she put it. It was not the same as if she had been iduve young, and it was well for him to remember it.
Then it occurred to him that a human according to his peculiar ethic would feel a certain obligation for the favor: niseth-kame, paradoxical as the term was.
“Arle is not from Ashanome” Daniel persisted. “She is no possible harm to you.”
Tejef reasoned away his disgust, reminding himself that sometimes it was necessary to deal with m’metanei as m’metanei, expecting no arastiethe in them.
“I shall take you where she is,” said Tejef.
Margaret answered the call to the door of the dhis, but Arle was not far behind her, and Tejef was quite unprepared for the child’s wild shout and her plunge out the door into Daniel’s arms. The man embraced her tightly, asking over and over again was she well, until she had lost her breath and he set her back. But then the child turned to Tejef and wanted to embrace him too. He stiffened at the thought, but as he recoiled she remembered her manners and refrained, hands still open as if she did not know what else to do with them.
“You see,” Tejef told her. “Daniel walks; he is well. Be not so uncontrolled, Arle.”
She dried her face dutifully and crept back to the shelter of Daniel’s arm: the touch between them frayed at Tejefs sensibilities.
“He hasn’t hurt you—he hasn’t touched you?” Daniel insisted to know, and when Arle protested that she had been treated very well indeed, Daniel seemed both confused and relieved. He caressed the side of her face with the edge of his hand and gave a slight nod of courtesy to Margaret and to Tejef. “Thank you,” he said in the kalliran tongue. “But when your time is up and Chimele attacks—what is your kindness to her worth?”
“For my own kamethi,” Tejef admitted, “I have great regret. But I shall not regret having a few of Chimele’s for serach.”
“There’s no sense in all these people dying. Where is the arastiethe in that? Give up.”
“Hopelessly irrational, m’metane. Arastiethe is to possess and not to yield. I am iduve. Express me that thought of yours in my own language, if you can.”
That set the human back, for of course it was a contradiction and could not be translated to mean the same thing. “But,” Daniel persisted, “you iduve claim to be the most intelligent of species—and can’t you and Chimele resolve a quarrel short of this?”
“Yet your species fights wars,” said Tejef, “and mine does not. I have a great m’melakhia for your kind, human, I truly do. I do not willingly harm you, and if I were able, I would spend time among your worlds learning what you are. But you know my people, however lately you are kameth and asuthe. I think you know enough to understand. There is vaikka involved; and to yield is to die; morally and physically, it is to die. One cannot survive without arastiethe.”
“And what arastiethe have you,” Daniel cried, “if you are unable to save even your own kamethi, that trust you?”