The third of the brothers was eldest: Khasif, a giant of a man, strikingly handsome, sullen-eyed—older than Chimele, but under her authority. He was of the order of Scientists, a xenoarchaeologist. He had a keen m’melakhia—an impelling hunger for new experience—and noi kame made themselves scarce when he was about, for he had killed on two occasions. This was the man Isande so feared, although—she had admitted—she did not think he was consciously cruel. Khasif was impatient and energetic in his solutions, a trait much honored among iduve, as long as it was tempered with refinement, with chanokhia. He had the reputation of being a very dangerous man, but in Isande’s memory he had never been a petty one.
“How fares Daniel?” asked Chimele. “Why did you ask sedation so early? Who gave you leave for this?”
“We were tiring,” said Aiela. “You gave me leave to order what I thought best, and we were tired, we—“
“Aiela-kameth,” Chaikhe intervened gently. “Is there progress?”
“Yes.”
“Will complete asuthithekkhe be possible with this being? Can you reach that state with him, that you can be one with him?”
“I don’t—I don’t think it is safe. No. I don’t want that.”
“Is this yours to decide?” Ashakh’s tones were like icewater on the silken voice of Chaikhe. “Kameth—you were instructed.”
He wanted to tell them. The memory of that contact was still vivid in his mind, such that he still shuddered. But there was no patience in Ashakh’s thin-lipped face, neither patience nor mercy nor understanding of weakness. “We are different,” he found himself saying, to fill the silence. Ashakh only stared. “Give me time,” he said again.
“We are on a schedule,” Ashakh said. “This should have been made clear to you.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Specify the points of difference.”
“Ethics, experience. He isn’t hostile, not yet. He mistrusts—he mistrusts me, this place, all things alien.”
“Is it not your burden to reconcile these differences?”
“Sir.” Aiela’s hands sweated and he folded his arms, pressing his palms against his sides. He did not like to look Ashakh in the face, but the iduve stared at him unblinkingly. “Sir, we are able to communicate. But he is not gullible, and I’m running out of answers that will satisfy him. That was why I resorted to the sedative. He’s beginning to ask questions. I had no more easy answers. What am I supposed to tell him?”
“Aiela.” Khasif drew his attention to the left. “What is your personal reaction to the being?”
“I don’t know.” His mouth was dry. He looked into Khasif s face, that was the substance of Isande’s nightmares, perfect and cold. “I try—I try to avoid offending him—“
“What is the ethical pattern, the social structure? Does he recognize kalliran patterns?”
“Close to kallia. But not the same. I can’t tell you: not the same at all.”
“Be more precise.”
“Am I supposed to have learned something in particular?” Aiela burst out, harried and regretting his tone at once. The idoikkhe pulsed painlessly, once, twice: he looked from one to the other of them, not knowing who had done it, knowing it for a warning. “I’m sorry, but I don’t understand. I was primed to study this man, but no one will tell me just what I was looking for. Now you’ve taken Isande away from me too. How am I to know what questions to start with?”
His answer caused a little ruffling among the iduve, and merry Rakhi laughed outright and looked sidelong at Chimele. “Au, this one has a sting, Chimele.” He looked back at Aiela. “And what have you learned, thus ignorant of your purpose, o m’metane?”
“That the amaut have intruded into human space, which they swore in a treaty with the Halliran Idai they would never do. This man came from human space. They lost most of his shipment because these humans weren’t acclimated to the kind of abuse they received. Is that what you want to hear? Until you tell me what you mean to do with him, I’m afraid I can’t do much more.”
Chimele had not been amused. She frowned and stirred in her chair, placing her hands on its arms. “Can you, Aiela, prepare this human for our own examination by tomorrow?”
“That’s impossible. No. And what kind of—?”
“By tomorrow evening.”
“If you want something, then make it clear what it is and maybe I can learn it. But he wants answers. He has questions, and I can’t keep putting him off, not without creating you an enemy—or do you care?”
“You will have to—put him off, as you express it.”
“I’m not going to lie to him, even by omission. What are you going to do with him?”
“I prefer that this human not be admitted to our presence with the promise of anything. Do you understand me, Aiela? If you promise this being anything, it will be the burden of your honor to pay for it; make sure your resources are adequate. I will not consider myself or the nasul bound by your ignorant and unauthorized generosity. Go back to your quarters.”
“I will not lie to him for you.”
“Go back to your quarters. You are not noticed.” This time there was no softness at all in her tone, and he knew he dared not dispute with her further. Even Rakhi took the smile from his face and straightened in his chair. Aiela omitted the bow of courtesy, turned on his heel and walked out.
He had ruined matters. When he was stressed his voice rose, and he had let it happen, had lost his case for it. He had felt when he walked in that Chimele was not in a mood for patience; and he realized in hindsight that the nasithi had tried to avert disaster: Rakhi, he thought, Rakhi, who had always been kind to Isande, had wished to stop him.
He returned to the kamethi level in utmost dejection, realized the late hour and considered returning to the lab and requesting to have a sedative for himself. His nerves could bear no more. But he had never liked such things, liked less to deal with Ghiavre, the iduve first Surgeon; and it occurred to him that Daniel might wake prematurely and need him. He decided against it.
He went to his quarters and prepared for bed, settled in with notebook and pen and diverted his thoughts to record-keeping on Daniel, then, upon the sudden cold thought that the iduve might not respect the sanctity of his belongings, he tore up everything and threw it into the disposal. The suspicion distressed him. As a kallia he had never thought of such things; he had never needed to suspect such ikastien on the part of his superiors.