"Um," Thrr-gilag said noncommittally, looking at the ocean himself and wishing like blazes he knew what Klnn-torun was thinking right now. Was he taking what Thrr-gilag had just said at face value? Or was he simply playing along with what he perceived to be a subtle, between-the-lines concurrence with his conspiracy theory?
An Elder appeared. "Klnn-torun?" he called, his voice faint over the noise of the waves. "You are summoned to the hall."
"I understand," Klnn-torun said. "What about Thrr-gilag?"
A faint flicker of disgust crossed the Elder's face. "He can come, too," he said grudgingly. "But be quick about it, both of you. They're waiting."
He vanished. "Don't let him rattle you," Klnn-torun advised Thrr-gilag as the two of them started back across the rocky beach. "If they've just called us, they can hardly have been waiting very long."
"Yes," Thrr-gilag said, his tail spinning hard even in the cool sea air. This was it. The judgment of the family and Dhaa'rr clan leaders on him and Klnn-dawan-a.
"Thrr-gilag; Kee'rr?" a voice murmured in his ear.
Thrr-gilag turned, leaning his head to the side to try to focus on the Elder hugging close at his side. A female, no one he recognized. "Yes?"
"Shh!" she said urgently before vanishing.
"What was that?" Klnn-torun asked, turning to look at him.
"Ah—nothing," Thrr-gilag said, frowning to himself as he glanced around. Clearly, that Elder wanted to talk to him, and to him alone. Something having to do with Klnn-dawan-a? "Look, why don't you go on ahead," he told Klnn-torun. "I'll catch up in a hunbeat."
Klnn-torun looked puzzled, but he nodded. "All right," he said. "Don't be long."
He headed off, hunching forward a little as he labored uphill through the sand. Thrr-gilag glanced around, then stepped over into the lee side of a sea-grass-coated boulder and waited.
He didn't have to wait long. A few beats later the Elder was back. "I'm sorry for this," she said, her face a mirror of rapidly shifting emotions. "Really, I am. Actually, I shouldn't even be talking to you—I mean, you're not even Dhaa'rr, and—"
"It's all right," Thrr-gilag interrupted soothingly. "Besides, anything that concerns Klnn-dawan-a is something I have a right to know about."
The Elder blinked in surprise. "Klnn-dawan-a? This isn't about Klnn-dawan-a. It's about Prr't-zevisti."
Thrr-gilag drew back a little toward his boulder. "I see," he said carefully.
"No, you don't," the Elder said, her face and voice flashing sudden anger and frustration. "You don't understand at all. Or maybe you don't even care that they're going to take away his last chance. His very last chance. Don't you care about that?"
"Hold it," Thrr-gilag protested, holding up a hand. "Just wait a beat, please. I'm afraid you've lost me. Who are you, and who's trying to take away whose last chance?"
The Elder closed her eyes briefly. "My name is Prr't-casst-a. I'm Prr't-zevisti's wife. The one who was lost on the Human-Conqueror world of Dorcas."
"Yes, I know who he was," Thrr-gilag said with a quiet sigh. So Prr't-zevisti's wife was here. Probably one of those sitting in judgment on him and Klnn-dawan-a. Terrific.
"Not was, "she snapped, her face flashing the anger and frustration again. "Not was. Is! He's not dead, Thrr-gilag. I know he isn't. He can't be."
Thrr-gilag winced. "Look, Prr't-casst-a, I know how you feel. But—"
"Just be quiet," she cut him off. "Be quiet, and listen to me. The Dhaa'rr leaders have decided to call final rites for Prr't-zevisti three fullarcs from now. Including the ceremony of fire."
A shiver ran through Thrr-gilag. The ceremony of fire: the ritual of destruction of a dead Elder's fsss organ. It didn't happen all that often anymore, but when it did, it was always traumatic for those involved. The final act of farewell to one who would never be seen again...
He frowned suddenly, the timing here belatedly catching up with him. "Wait a hunbeat. Final rites already? It's been only, what, ten fullarcs or so?"
"Twelve," Prr't-casst-a said. "That's all. Just twelve fullarcs since he's been seen."
"That doesn't seem nearly long enough," Thrr-gilag said. "Certainly not to make a final declaration of death. What reason are the clan leaders giving for it?"
Prr't-casst-a waved a hand helplessly. "They invoked some ancient law of the Dhaa'rr. Something obscure that laid out fifteen fullarcs without contact as being the proper waiting period."
"Doesn't seem long enough," Thrr-gilag said again, trying to remember if he'd ever heard of the Kee'rr having anything similar in their legal structure. But he couldn't. "Must be really ancient, though. Before preservation methods were even halfway reliable."
"That's exactly right," Prr't-casst-a agreed. "I asked one of my family to look it up. He couldn't find it in any legal documents created since the time the Dhaa'rr moved off Oaccanv onto Dharanv."
Which made the law at least 350 cyclics old. Hardly the sort of law invoked twice a fullarc as a matter of course. "So why are they doing it?"
"I don't know," Prr't-casst-a said, a look of pain and helplessness settling onto her face. "They won't tell me anything. The servers just repeat the law to me, and say that the ancient traditions of the Dhaa'rr must be maintained. The clan leaders won't talk to me at all."
"There's probably more than just tradition at work here, then," Thrr-gilag said grimly. "Sounds to me like something political."
"I think you're right," Prr't-casst-a said. "That's why I came to you. You're not of Dhaa'rr politics. And yet you must care about the Dhaa'rr—otherwise, why would you bond with a Dhaa'rr? But I don't have much time. Prr't-zevisti doesn't have much time. Can you do anything to help us?"
Thrr-gilag looked at her agitated face, feeling a wave of understanding for this part of his mother's fear of Eldership. To be alive and aware, yet so fundamentally powerless.
But Thrr-gilag was hardly in a position to do anything himself.
But how could he just refuse her?
"I'll try," he sighed. "I'll do whatever—well, I'll try."
"Thank you," Prr't-casst-a breathed. Already she seemed calmer. "What will you do first?"
"First thing we need is a better idea of what's really going on," Thrr-gilag told her, glancing across the beach. Klnn-torun was nearly to the first line of scrub plants, dotting the sand a few strides beyond the high-water mark. "I've got an idea, but right now I have to get to the meeting hall and hear what the Klnn and Dhaa'rr leaders have decided to do about Klnn-dawan-a and me. Do you have a cutting nearby?"
"No, my family shrine is near a town thirty thoustrides inland from here."
"All right," Thrr-gilag said. "Let's set it up this way. Half a tentharc after the hearing is over, we'll meet back here on the beach."
"There's a small cave over in that headland," Prr't-casst-a suggested, pointing to a rocky finger of land jutting out into the waves a couple hundred strides down the beach. "It would give you a little shelter, at least."
"Sounds good," Thrr-gilag agreed. "We'll meet at the cave. Now, the next part's up to you. Between now and then, you'll need to find me a secure pathway to my brother. Commander Thrr-mezaz, commanding the ground warriors on Dorcas."
"I can do that," Prr't-casst-a said. "Yes, I can do that."
"And I mean really secure," Thrr-gilag warned. "The fewer Elders who are in on this conversation, the better. And they all have to be good friends of yours, who can be trusted not to let anything we say slip out to anyone else. If the Dhaa'rr leaders get wind that you're talking to me about this, it'll be the end of any chance for Klnn-dawan-a and me."
"Oh," Prr't-casst-a said, suddenly looking stricken. "I hadn't even thought about that. I'm sorry. I—I don't—"