CHAPTER Seventeen
KDTATH.
Duncan inhaled the air that blew into the hatch, the first breath off the surface of the world, cold and thin, faintly scented. He looked beyond the hatch at the red and amber sands, at the ridge of distant, rounded mountains, at a sun sullen-hued and distorted in its sky.
And he did not go down. This was for the mri, to go first onto their native soil. He stood in the ship and watched them descend the ramp, Melein first, and Niun after her children returned to their ancient mother. They looked about them, their eyes surely seeing things in a different way than his might, their senses finding something familiar in the touch of Kutath’s gravity, the flavor of its air something that must call to their blood and senses and say this is home.
Sad for them if it did not, if the People had indeed voyaged too long, and lost everything for which they had come. He did not think they had; he had seen the look in Niun’s eyes when they beheld the world beyond the hatch.
He felt his own throat tight, his muscles trembling with the terrible chill of the world, and with anxiety. If he felt anything clearly, it was a sense of loss and he did not know why. He had succeeded for them, had brought them home, and down safely, and yet there was a sadness on him.
It was not all he had done, that service for the People.
Across the system a beacon pulsed, a marker on the path incoming ships would use; and on Kutath, the ship itself now served as a beacon. Silent the pulse was, but it was going now… would go on so long as power remained in the ship and that would be beyond their brief lifespans.
Friendship, friendship, the ship cried at the heavens, and did human ships care to inquire of that signal or the other, there was more.
He had not confessed this to Niun or Melein. He did not think they would approve any gesture toward tsi’mri, and therefore he did not ask their approval.
He saw the dusei go, whuffing and sniffing the air as they edged their turn-toed way down the ramp rolling with fat from their long, well-fed inactivity on the ship, sleek and shining under the wan sun. They reached the sand and rolled in delight, shaking clouds of red powder from their velvet hides when they rose up again. The greater one towered up on his hind legs, came down, playing, puffing a cloud of dust at the mri, and Niun scolded him off.
The beasts went their own way then, circling out, exploring their new world. They would allow no danger to come to the mri without raising alarm about it, and their present manner was one of great ease. Unharmed by the wind of the ship, a clump of blue-green pipes grew nearby. The dusei destroyed it, munching the plants with evident relish. Their digestion could handle anything, even most poisons; there was no concern for that.
Where plants grew, there was surely water, be it ever so scant. Duncan looked on that sparse growth with satisfaction, with pride, for he had found them a place where life existed in this otherwise barren land, had put their little ship down within reach of water And close also to the power source that scan detected.
There was no reaction to their presence, none in their descent, none now. The ship’s instruments still scanned the skies, ready to trip the sirens and warn them to cover, but the skies remained vacant… both desired and undesired, that hush that prevailed.
He felt the pleasure-feelings of the dusei, lotus-balm, and yielded.
Almost timidly he came down the ramp, feeling out of place and strange, and approached the mri silently, hoping that they would not take offense at his presence: well as he knew Niun, he felt him capable of that, toward a tsi’mri.
“She’pan,” he heard Niun say softly, and she turned and noticed him, and reached out her hand to him. They put their arms about him as they would a brother, and Duncan felt an impulse to tears that a man who would be kel’en could not shed. He bowed his head for a moment, and felt their warmth near him. There was a healthy wind blowing, whipping at their robes. He put his arms about them too, feeling on the one side the fragility that was Melein and on the other the lean strength of Niun; and themselves alien, beast-warm, and savoring the chill that set him shivering.