Clarissia’s not working out either? Afra asked.
I do better running the station on my own, Dad, was the tart reply.
She’s been here nineteen weeks and she still turns pale when more than our `Dinis are present and you know that `Dinis notice colour changes. And she’s been moaning about that carrier ever since it got here. Not, and Laria’s mental tone altered, that I enjoy the sight, or more recently the stench from it. Prtglm is definitely deceased.
I’m beginning to think they don’t intend to move it, leaving it there as a reminder that a human was responsible for Prtglm’s ig’nominious end. Laria’s voice had a grim edge to it, then confusion coloured her thought. There’s ideographs all over it now. They’re andent ones and I can’t recognize more than the slashes for dishonour.
Tip arid Huf won’t translate: won’t even answer me when I ask what they mean.
Yoshuk’s a scholar of their ancient forms. what does he say? Or have you discussed this with him?
I have and he says it’s too obscure for him but he’s still trying to find references. He does reassure me that they’re not antihuman.
This is one of those occasions, Afra said firmly but soothingly, when you know that humans don’t interfere with `Dini customs.
The custom I can ignore if I understood even if the reek is omnipresent, but I have to be very careful about transfers.
Originally, Prtg/m’s carrier came down – hard – on the middle cradle. I was told not to move it to one side, but I didn’t, for one minute, realize it was going to take up such permanent residence! I could have used that cradle a hundred times.
Once again her tone altered to one less assured. Daaaad, does anyone there know why it’s being LEFT? most don’t blame Clarissia but I also need to understand what’s going on about it – Prtglm, I mean so I can deal with the reason it’s been left there so long. Is it a subtle way of punishing me because I’m Rojer’s sister – I doubt that!
Afra replied stoutly. `Dinis don’t think in those terms.
I sure hope so, Laria replied, exhibiting some of the distress she had been covering.
I can ask Jeff. I already did and he doesn’t know but he doesn’t have `Dinis. Do yours know anything?
We never did get any more answer to queries about Mrdini penal codes than that the miscreants were apt to be shipped out Afra paused since Laria would know what that could mean on a long trip. The cynical said that saved time, space and money and was an admirable use of expendables, but the thought made him shudder. He forced himself to more positive thinking for Laria’s sake.
Remember Prtglm is, or was, guilty of several . errors of judgement even in the `Dini lexicon, and certainly several against humans. They don’t want a repetition and that may be their way of driving home the lesson.
When one’s own son had nearly been a victim of PrtgIm’s coercion, it was very hard indeed not to take a judgemental stand. Once Afra knew that Rojer was responding to the discreet therapy of his grandmother, Isthia, on Deneb, he felt less bitterness, a most unusual emotion for him, towards the misguided Prtglm. The latest report was that Rojer could now mingle with both humans and `Dinis without the intense grief/loss/ deprivation reactions he had initially experienced.
He was becoming more and more engrossed in his practical engineering studies. His uncle, Jeran, Deneb’s Prime, was going to insist that, when the Hiver ship that had been `appropriated’ by the Rowan merge reached the investigation orbit at the Mars space facility, Rojer would have a place on that study team. Of course Rojer needed to meet the qualifications, but that had given him a definite goal and he was studying with good purpose and diligence to satisfy the requirements.
I know that, Dad, but to have that grisly reminder on my Tower field Afra could feel the anger flaring within his daughter’s mind, an unfocused anger and so ambivalent that it was no wonder that she was under great stress.