“Sir?” Arle was in the doorway again, looking up at him with great concern (arastiethe? Vaikka?) in her kallia-like eyes. “Sir, where’s Daniel?”
“Gone. Up. With Margaret. With Dlechish. He can talk for her. She has great avoidance for amaut: I think all humans have this. But Dlechish—he cares for her; and Daniel will stay with her.” It was one of the longest explanations in the human language he had attempted with anyone but Margaret or Gordon. He saw the anger in the child’s eyes soften and yield to tears, and he did not know whether that was a good sign or ill. Humans wept for so many causes.
“Is she going to die?”
“Maybe.”
The honest answer seemed to startle the child; yet he did not know why. Plainly the injuries were serious. Perhaps it was his tone. The tears broke.
“Why did you have to hit her?” she cried.
He frowned helplessly. He could not have spoken that aloud had he been fluent. And out of the plenitude of contradictions that made up humans, the child reached for him.
He recoiled, and she laced her fingers together as if the compulsion to touch were overwhelming. She gulped down the tears. “She loves you,” she said. “She said you would never want to hurt anybody.”
“I don’t understand,” he protested; but he thought that some gesture of courtesy was appropriate to her distress. Because it was what Margaret would have done, he reached out to her and touched her gently. “Go back to the dhis.”
“I’m afraid in there,” she said. The tears began again, and stopped abruptly as Tejef seized her by the arms and made her straighten. He cuffed her ever so lightly, as a dhisais would a favored but misbehaving child.
“This is not proper—being afraid. Stand straight. You are nas.” And he let her go very suddenly when he realized the phrase he had thoughtlessly echoed. He was ashamed. But the child did as he told her, and composed herself as he had done for old Nophres.
“May I please go up and stay with Margaret too, sir?”
“Later. I promise this.” The prospect did not please him, having her outside the dhis, but the illusions must cease, for both their- sakes: the child was human, and there was no one left in the dhis to care for her. The time was fast running out, and it was not right that the child should be alone in this great place to die. She should be near adults, who would show her chanokhia in their own example.
“Are you going there now?” Arle asked.
“Yes,” he conceded. He looked back at her standing there, fingers still clenched together. “Come,” he said then, holding out his hand. “Come, now. With me.”
Most of the lights in the paredre of Ashanome were out save the ones above the desk, but Chimele knew well the shadowy figure that opened the hall door, a smallish and somewhat heavy iduve who crossed the carpets on silent feet. She straightened and lifted her chin from her hand to gaze on Rakhi’s plump, earnest face.
“You were to sleep,” he chided. “Chimele, you must sleep.”
“I shall. I wanted to know how you fared. Sit, Rakhi. How is Chaikhe?”
“Well enough, and bound for Weissmouth. We considered, and decided it would be best to pursue this adjustment long-distance.”
“But is the asuthithekkhe bearable, Rakhi?”
The nasith gave a weak grin and massaged his freshly scarred temple. “Chaikhe bids your affairs prosper, Chimele-Orithain. She is very much with me at this moment.”
“I bid hers prosper, most earnestly. But now you must close down that contact. We two must talk a moment. Can you do so?”
“I am learning,” he replied, and leaned back with a sigh. “Done. Done. Au, Chimele, this is a fearsome closeness. It is embarrassing.”
“O my Rakhi,” said Chimele in distress, “Khasif is gone.
Now I have sent Ashakh in his place, and to risk you and Chaikhe at once — ”
“Why, it is a light thing,” he said. “Do not mere m’metanei adjust to this? Is our intelligence not equal to it? Is our self-control not more than theirs?”