“If you use any word that means ‘us all,’ but mention someone by name, that person is excluded?”
“Right. If you want to include that person, you don’t mention him, her, or it by name or you use the other set of words that just means ‘all.’ What our serving woman actually said was, ‘May the Gracious One allow all other persons to continue in beauty.’ “
“The implication being … ?”
“By the Great Org Gauphin, Trompe, I don’t know! Either that the Gracious One is unbeautiful, or that the Gracious One can’t appreciate beauty, or that the Gracious One is not concerned with beauty. How did she feel when she said it?”
“I wasn’t paying attention,” he said, slightly shamefaced.
Lutha shook her head. “Whatever it is, it doesn’t concern us!”
“We’re not the scapegoat, in other words.”
“Right. And that’s remarkable, Trompe. Outsiders are almost always suspect.”
They rose from the table as the servitor bestirred herself to collect their dishes. Lutha gathered Leely into her arms and started for the porch outside the window where they had been sitting.
“Lady … ” The woman spoke from behind them. “Are you going out?”
“I had thought it would be pleasant,” Lutha replied in careful dialect. “Should I not do so?”
“If you go to enjoy the air, do not leave the porch. Stay behind the grille. Such is the proper pattern of dusk behavior.”
Lutha bowed, thanking her, then murmured a translation for Trompe’s benefit.
“This time I was paying attention. Her emotion had something to do with safety,” he mused, when they were outside, looking through the grille into the clearing and past it to the thorn forest. “Or a taboo of some kind. One of those negative commandments you were talking about?”
“I have no idea. Suppose we sit awhile in these comfortable-looking chairs and enjoy the evening. I’m weary, but not sleepy yet.”
“Can I take the boy? He looks very heavy.”
“Leave him. He’s all right, aren’t you, Leely-baby? Of course he is, all snuggled down on Mommy’s shoulder. Sit, Trompe. As the girl says, enjoy the air. One thing we will have to say about Dinadh; it has wonderful air.”
They sat, breathing the resinous fragrance of day-warmed trees, the cool water-scented wind that came up from the canyons. The sky was pure lapis, not yet black, with several large planets pulsing in the last glow at the horizon. Empty planets, Lutha told herself. With a few abandoned mines. And beyond this single system, everything else wiped clean by the Ularians.
“Dana,” whispered Leely, pointing with one chubby hand. “Danana.”
“What is it?” whispered Trompe.
Lutha shook her head. She couldn’t tell what it was. Something emerging from the forest: flowing draperies, melting mists. A wraith? A ghost? A creature oozing from among the trees into the clearing, seeming almost to glow in the dusk. Soon it was joined by others, half a dozen, ten, beings that lifted on their wings, circling.
Ethereally slender, androgynous in form, fairylike in effect. As Lutha’s eyes adjusted to the dark, she could see more clearly the delicate arms, the twig-thin fingers, the pearly membrane of the wings. They danced at the edge of the forest, arms beckoning.
“Tempting to get a closer look,” murmured Trompe. “If we hadn’t been warned off.”
The young woman who had warned them stood in the window, watching as they were watching.
“What are they?” Lutha asked.
The girl replied softly. “Kachis. Sim’midi-as-yah.”
“Them, the beautiful people,” Lutha translated in a whisper as the girl turned abruptly and went back into the building. “Which doesn’t tell us much.”
“Which tells us a good deal,” said Trompe soberly. “Her voice didn’t betray it, but her feelings did. She’s … awestruck. And … hopeful. And … afraid.”
“Frightened?” Lutha asked. “Surely not.”
“I’m a Fastigat, lady. Remember?”
Lutha regarded the slowly circling forms, pale against the shadows of the forest. Their eyes were large, seeming almost to glow, though it was more likely they simply reflected ambient light as did the eyes of many nocturnal creatures. The forms were almost human, the faces those of smiling children, though they all seemed to be male, if the long, semierect organs paralleled earthian forms. They called and beckoned, their delicate feet prancing upon the grasses. Ridiculous to be afraid of these, Lutha thought.