"I think you hit me," Duun said, with a darkness in his eyes; and sudden fear washed over Thorn like icewater. Thorn backed up. He had not hit Duun; and one thing came to him at once: that someone had been on the phone when he came in. "What should I do about it?" Duun asked. "Well, Haras-hatani?"
"I'm sorry, Duun." Thorn sweated. (Gods, move on me! Come on!) His concentration shredded. He dared not back out now. And he had never faced Duun in temper; he had never looked to. (O gods, Duun, don't kill me!)
"The knife, minnow. Lay it down. Do you hear me? I'm telling you-lay it down."
Thorn went off-center, shifted his balance back with a lifting of his head. Stood there with his arms loose and a quaking in his knees. "That's good." Duun patted his cheek. "That's very good." (O gods, Duun, don't!)
The clawtip traced a gentle path down to his jaw. "I want to talk to you." The hand dropped to his arm and took it, hurling him staggering to the center of the floor. "Duun-hatani, I'm sorry!" "Sit down."
He sat down on the fresh-raked sand. Duun came and hunkered down in front of him.
"Why are you sorry?" Duun asked. "Because of Cloen or for me?"
"You, Duun-hatani. I shouldn't have done it. I'm sorry. He-" "What did he do?"
"He hates me. He hates me, that's all, and he's subtle about it."
"More subtle than you? Haras-hatani, I am confounded by his capacity."
Heat rushed to Thorn's face. He looked at the sand. "He tries to be subtle. Anything I do is wasted on him."
"You're different; just like Cloen with his baby-spots. And you suspect everyone's noticing. And you want to make sure they respect you. Am I halfway right?"
"Yes, Duun-hatani."
"You have a need, Haras. Do you know it? Can you say it to me?"
"Not to be different."
"Louder."
"Not to be different, Duun-hatani."
"Was it reasonable, what you did?"
"He won't despise me!"
"Is that so important? What do you own? What does a hatani own?"
"Nothing. Nothing, Duun."
"Yet here we live in a fine place. We have enough to eat. We don't have to hunt-"
"I'd rather hunt."
"So would I. But why are we here? We're here because of what we are. You own nothing. You have no self-interest. If this Cloen should ask you to remove him from a difficulty you would do it. He would have no right to dictate how you did it; or when or where-but Cloen is your charge. The world is your charge, Haras-hatani. Do you know-you can walk the roads and go from house to house and no one will refuse you food or drink or a place to sleep. And when someone comes to you with a thing and says: help me-do you know what to warn him: Do you know, Haras-hatani? Do you know what a hatani will tell him?
"No, Duun-hatani."
"You will say: 'I am hatani; what you loose you cannot recall; what you ask you cannot unask; what I do is my solution.' There was a wicked man once who called a hatani. 'Kill my neighbor,' he said. 'That's not hatani business,' the hatani said and went away. The wicked man found another hatani. 'My life is wretched,' the wicked man said. 'I hate my neighbor. I want to see him die.' 'That is a hatani matter,' the hatani said. 'Do you give it into my hands?' 'Yes,' the wicked man said. And the hatani struck him dead. Do you understand the solution?"
Thorn looked up in horror.
"Do you understand?" Duun asked. "His problem was removed. And the world was eased. That's what you are. A solution. The helper of the world. Do you want my solution for your problem?"
Thorn's heart beat very fast. "What should I do, Duun-hatani?"
"Tell Cloen to hit you once. Tell him to use his judgment in the matter."
He looked at Duun a very long time. His gut ached. "Yes," he said.
"Remember the lesson. Do as you're told. Someday you'll be wise enough to solve problems. Until then, don't create them. Do you hear?" Duun reached out and closed his hand on Thorn's shoulder. "Do you hear?"
"I hear."
Duun let him go.
VIII
"It certainly didn't help matters," Ellud said, with the report aglow in his lap. He flung it aside and the optic draped itself over the stack of real paper and went on glowing with ghostly, damning letters. "I chastised my staffer. I don't know why I picked him. But, dammit, Duun-you passed him."
"For his faults," Duun said. "As well as his virtues. I never expected perfection. I didn't want it. That's why I stayed by your choices." "Damn hatani tricks," Ellud said after a moment. "I understand what you're doing. But I don't like it with my staff. Cloen could have been killed."
"I didn't judge so. In that, I was right."
"It's in the record what happened. It was too well witnessed. I can't get rid of it. And with all the sniffing about the council's doing, I wish to the gods I could."
"What did happen was my fault. Power without restraint. I counted on two more years at Sheon. Haras was restrained. I'll tell you something which should be evident. Hatani solutions are too wide for young minds. His morality is adequate to hold his power back. It isn't adequate to use it."
"To make him hatani-Duun, that's what's sent the wind up the council's-"
"I know."
"I took it for a figure of speech. That it was all you could teach. It was what you knew how to teach."
"Come now."
"Well, that it was easier. But you mean to go all the way with this. When they get that rumor-"
"Try to be discreet."
"If the Guild could just devise something- clever, if they could find a halfway status-"
"There's no halfway. To give him what I've given him-with nothing but restraint to manage it? No."
Ellud reached and turned off the recorder. There was dismay on his face. Terror. "For the gods' sake, Duun. Have you lost your senses? What are you after? What are you after, Duun?"
"Shbit will have gotten my letter by now. Things should be quieter, from council quarter."
A brief silence, no more comfortable. "What did you tell him?"
"I offered him salutation. I felicitated him on his council appointment. I wished him health. I signed it. It was a simple letter. He hasn't answered. I expect your supply difficulties to clear up slowly, but I do expect them to clear up."
"You're not the man I knew." Ellud fidgeted with the hem of his kilt. "I don't know how to understand you."
"Old friend. You had courage enough to stay in office this long. I trust you'll keep on with it."
"I have to. Without this office I'm a naked target. They'd go for me. Shbit and his crew. Dammit, I've got no choice. They'd eat me alive."
"I'm here. Trust me."
Ellud stared at him.
"Did Cloen hit you?" Duun asked when Thorn got home. Duun leaned easily in the doorway of his office, ears pricked.
"No," Thorn said. There was no satisfaction in that tone. (How much do you control, Duun? Do you know already? Do you always know?) Duun gave him no clues. " 'Cloen,' I said. 'I was wrong in what I did. I'll let you hit me once.' Cloen stood there with his ears back and he raised his hand no then. And walked off across the room and got busy."
Duun turned and went back into his office.
"Duun?" Thorn pursued him as far as the doorway. Duun sat down and turned on the computer. "Duun, did I do what you wanted?"
"Did you do what I wanted?"
Thorn was silent a moment. "I tried, Duun."
"Do I hear can't?"
"No, Duun."
The sounds grew less hard. Thorn worked, his eyes shut, his lips moving in repetition of the tape. When it played back it was the same.
"It sounds identical," Cloen said. "I can't tell a difference."
Cloen was careful, since that day. Cloen's face never betrayed anything but respect. And fear. There was that too.
"I've finished it then."