tthe government’s, however bad it tasted to either. A phrase from centuries agone surfaced before him. “Equality of dissatisfaction.” But what when that left the great basic contest unresolved?
Carefully prosaic, he said, “Nothing is firm, you know, my lady. So far it’s words exchanged between individuals and … sophotects. Most officials, not to mention the public, haven’t heard of it, or anything about the whole affair.”
“Yet I foresee the end of our Luna.” Her voice was steely, devoid of self-pity; she stood straight beneath the heavens.
“No, not really—“ Did he detect a flick of scorn across her lips? “A new beginning, anyhow.”
“Belike a new cycle,” she gave him, “albeit a stranger to everything that was ours.”
No more millennial metaphysics, he decided. Aloud: “My lady, first we’ve years’ worth of business to do. Most important to me, you made Aleka Kame a promise.”
Lilisaire finger-shrugged. “Eyach, she shall have her island and its’ waters. Why not? What slight power that ever I wielded in these parts is slipping from my hands.” She touched her chin, frowned, then smiled a tiny, cold bit. “Moreover, to have friends on Earth may someday prove useful.”
It took him a moment to catch her entire intent. “You don’t want to go to Proserpina yourself, do you?”
“Nay. Why should such be my wish? Here are the holdings of my forebears and their ashes, their ancient graces and sureties, memories of them on every mountain and memories of me that would have abided. Those shall I surrender for starkness and hardship and the likelihood of early death.”
“You needn’t,” he said around an unawaited thickness in his throat. “You can live out your life here in luxury.”
Her laugh rang. It sounded real, as if he had cracked some Homeric joke. “Hai-ah, how comfortable the cage! How well-mannered the visitors who come to peer! And if any of them should stray too near the bars—“ She shook her head. Mirth still bubbled. “Moreover, how could I hold back from this last insolence?”
He recalled her ancestor Rinndalir, who fared to Alpha Centauri. Had Li lisa ire finally forsaken the shade of Niolente?
Seriousness struck down upon her. She stood for a span unspeaking, her look gone outward, before she said most softly, “And as for death yonder, it will be the death of a Beynac.”
“Why, you, you can survive to a ripe age,” he stammered.
She ignored his attempt. “I am going, and in the vanguard. But therefore I can ill keep the promise I gave you, my captain, that you would be chieftain over my emprises in space, and dwell with me as a seigneur among the Selenarchs.”
“It doesn’t matter.”
“Ey, it does.” She smiled anew. “You lie right gallantly.”
In hammering bewilderment, Kenmuir groped for words. “My lady, I’m glad if I’ve helped you, and if I, I harmed you instead, it wasn’t my wish, and—It’s enough for me that I served you.”
He wondered whether he meant it.
“It is not enough for me,” she answered. Her hand reached forth to his. “I pray you, let me see how I can redeem my pledge a little, at least a little.”
What he saw, amazed, was that she stood there as lonely and woundable as any other human creature.
The breeze was light. Aleka motored two or three kilometers from Niihau harbor before she deployed mast and sail. Then her boat ghosted along over wavelets of shining blue and green laced with glassy foam. They murmured to themselves and lapped against the hull. Sometimes a crest broke, briefly white. The sun declined westward. Its rays burned across the waters. Out here, though, the air was cool. A frigate bird soared on high.
Kenmuir sat on a bench in the cockpit by the cabin door, opposite Aleka, who had the tiller. She wore just a cap and a sleeveless tunic. Her skin glowed bronze, A stray lock of hair fell across her brow. He kept his face steady while he gathered courage.
She looked from the sea to him and said nearly the first words between them since they cast off. “You’ve changed, lan.” Her voice stayed low and he was not sure whether he glimpsed a phantom smile,