“Majat,” she said, “killed the azi you replaced. Was that a hazard, running the depots?”
“They’re all over,” he said hoarsely. “Farms—armed camps for fear of them.”
Cold settled on her at that. She nodded. “Ever see them in the open?”
“Once. Far across the fields. We drove out of it, fast as we could.”
“What do you suppose they would do?”
“There’d been trucks lost. They’d find the trucks. Nothing else.”
She nodded slowly. “It fits, ser Mundy. It does fit. Thank You. Rest now. Get some sleep. You’ll not be bothered. And I’ll get you back to Tallen in one piece if you’ll stay in this room. Please don’t try my guards. A scratch from a majat is deadly as a bite. But they won’t come into this room.”
She rose, left, walked out among the Warriors. The door closed behind her. She singled out one of the larger ones, touched it, soothed it. “Warrior, many azi, many, in blue. hive? Weapons?”
“Yes.”
The hives have taken azi, taken food?”
There was a working of mandibles, a little disturbance at this question. “Take, yesss. Red-hive takes, goldss take, greens take, blue-hive, yessss. Store much, much. Mother says take, keep, prevent other-hives.”
“Warrior, has blue-hive killed humans?”
“No. Take azi. Keep.”
“Many azi.”
“Many,” Warrior agreed.
v
Jim sat on the bed, massaged his temples, tried to still the pounding in his skull. Never panic; never panic. Stop. Think. Thinking Is good service. It is good to serve well.
He seldom recalled the tapes verbatim. The thoughts were simply there, inwoven. This night he remembered, and struggled to remember. He was unbearably tired. Strange sights, everything strange—he trembled with the burden of it.
The other Kontrin had gone, that at least, away around the world; but the majat would not go, nor this flood of azi. He remained unique: he sensed this, clung to it.
He had here, and the others did not. He had this room, this place he shared with her, and the others did not.
He rose finally, and went through all the appropriate actions, born-man motions, for although the Jewel had rigid rules about cleanliness, there had been no facilities such as these, even in upper decks. He showered, coated himself liberally with soap, once, twice, three times . . . in sheer enjoyment of the fragrance, so unlike the bitter detergent that had come automatically through the azi-deck system, stinging eyes and noses. He worked very hard at his personal appearance: he understood it for duty to her, to match all these fine things she had, the use of which she gave him; and she was the measure of all the wide world through which she drew him. He had seen rich men, powerful men, in absolute terror of her; and majat who feared her and majat who obeyed her; and another Kontrin who treated her carefully; and he himself was closest to her, an importance as heady as wine. On the ship he had been terrified by the reaction of others to her; he had not known how it would be to live on the other side of it, shielded within it.
He was in the house, and others were not. He had seen new things, the details of which were still a muddle to him, most even without words to call them or recall them, without comparisons to which to join them, only some that her tapes had given him. He had been with her in places far more important than even those powerful rich men had been, that society which drifted through the salon of the Jewel, offering snippets of their lives to his confused inspection, a stream dark before and dark after. He had gone out, into that unimaginable width in which born-men lived, and she was there, so that he was never lost.
He had stood back over the pens, which he had half-forgotten, as all that time before the Jewel was confused in his memory, hard to touch from the present, for it had been go empty, so void of detail. Today he had looked down, as he had looked down in earlier times, and known that he was not on his way back from exercise, to return again to the pens and the half-world of the tapes breathing through his mind. This time he had come to look, and to walk away again, at her back, until the stink purged itself into clean air and light. There was no fear of that place again, forever.