Try the ship, she pleaded with him. Chimele will want you back. Aiela, please—as long as you can hold open any communication between Daniel and myself—the revulsion crept through even at such a moment—we are a threat to Tejef.
Forget it. I can’t reach the port. They’re between me and there right now. But even if I do get help, all I want is an airship and a few of ths okkitani-as. I’m going to come after you.
Simplest of all for me to tell Tejef where you are, she sent indignantly, and I’m sure he’d send a ship especially to transport you here. Oh, you are mad, Aiela!
One of Tejef s ships is an option I’m prepared to take if all else fails. That was the cold stubbornness that was always his, world-born kallia, ignorant and smugly self-righteous; but she recognized a touch of humanity in it too, and blamed Daniel.
Aiela did not cut off that thought in time: it flowed to his asuthe. No, said Daniel, I’m afraid that trait must be kalliran, because I’ve already told him he’s insane. I can’t really blame him. He loves you. But I suppose you know that.
Daniel was not welcome in their privacy. She said so and then was sorry, for the human simply withdrew in sadness. In his way he loved her too, he sent, retreating, probably because he saw her with Aiela’s eyes, and Aiela’s was not capable of real malice, only of blindness.
Oh, blast you, she cried at the human, and hated herself. Stop it, Aiela sent them both. You’re hurting me and you know it. Behave yourselves or I’ll shut you both out. And it’s lonely without you.
“Your asuthi,” asked Tejef, coming through Daniel’s contact. He had risen from Margaret’s side, for she slept again, and now the iduve looked on Daniel with a calculating frown. “Does that look of concentration mean you are receiving?”
“Aiela comes and goes in my mind,” said Daniel. Idiot, Aiela sent him: Don’t be clever with him.
“And I think that if Isande were conscious, you might know that too. Is she conscious, Daniel? She ought to be.”
“Yes, sir,” Daniel replied, feeling like a traitor. But Isande controlled the panic she felt and urged him to yield any truth he must: Daniel’s freedom and Tejefs confidence that he would raise no hand to resist him were important. Iduve were unaccustomed to regard m’metanei as a threat: they were simply appropriated where found, and used.
Through Daniel’s eyes she saw Tejef leave the infirmary, his back receding down the corridor; she felt Daniel’s alarm, wishing the amaut were not watching him. Potential weapons surrounded him in the infirmary, but a human against an amaut’s strength was helpless. He dared go as far as the hall, closed the infirmary door behind him, watching Tejef.
Then came the audible give of the door lock and seal. Isande backed dizzily from the door, knocking into a table as she did so. Tejef was with her: his harachia filled the little room, an indigo shadow over all her hazed vision. The force of him impressed a sense of helplessness she felt even more than Aiela’s frantic pleading in her mind.
“Isande,” said Tejef, and touched her. She cringed from his hand. His tone was friendly, as when last they had spoken, before Reha’s death. Tejef had always been the most unassuming of iduve, a gentle one, who had never harmed any kameth—save only Reha. Perhaps it did not even occur to him that a kameth could carry an anger so long. She hated him, not least of all for his not realizing he was hated.
“Are you in contact with your asuthi?” he asked her. “Which is yours? Daniel? Aiela?”
Admit the truth, Aiela sent. Admit to anything he asks. And when she still resisted: I’m staying with you, and if you make him resort to the idoikkhe, I’ll feel it too.
“Only to Aiela,” she replied.
“This kameth is not familiar to me.”
“I will not help you find him.”
A slight smile jerked at his mouth. “Your attitude is understandable. Probably I shall not have to ask you.”
“Where is Khasif?” Aiela prompted that question. She asked it.