She frowned. "Azevedo volunteered to take Yuan in transfer. But the Tecton has left the gypsies alone because they never traffic in selyn except within their own tribes."
"Azevedo—and I—are not really gypsies, in the full historical sense. We go among the tribes, but we're not of the tribes. Yet we adhere to the codes, so you can think of us as a gypsy tribe, except we don't always observe taboo."
"Does your tribe have a name?"
"Yes, though I don't use it because I'm not of them anymore. But by the laws of the universe as I learned them from Azevedo, now that you've chosen me and I you, now that you've sworn an oath of secrecy, a way will open for us to live our lives out together, though the price may be higher than either of us guesses right now."
"Forgive me for thinking your faith naive. I can't take a husband now or plan for the future. My life is cut off by a black wall maybe five months from now when I'm too strung out with disjunction crisis to work. A year from now I'll be dead. If any of the rest of my life is to have meaning, I can't afford to waste a moment of the time left me on developing intimate relationships simply for pleasure."
"We have all the time in the universe for that. Death will not part us, if we choose each other, forever."
He's crazy. Gentle, but raving.
As he did so often Laneff hardly noticed anymore, Shanlun answered her thought. "No, I'm not crazy. I'm just using a different model of reality than you use. With time, I'll teach it to you."
"A gypsy reality?" she asked. "Which includes mind reading?"
"No."
"Shan—Desha calls you Shan. Is that a gypsy name?"
He laughed. "Yes, it is. Desha has called me Shan since she was in diapers!"
"May I call you Shan?"
"Or anything else you like and I'll take it for my name."
His seriousness was mixed with such ardor that she had trouble keeping her mind on her question. "You haven't told me anything that ought to demand such a mighty oath."
He sighed. "Mairis is the only one in the Tecton who knows I'm from this tribe, trained by them, eternally oathbound to them. If others knew that there could be occasions when I'd cheerfully break any Tecton law, I wouldn't be trusted in the position I hold. If the Tecton took me away from Mairis and the endowed, demoted me to a mere four-plus Donor, I couldn't survive the underdraw for long. I've left Azevedo with no going back. There'd be no place for me."
She understood now how he'd given her great power over him. "But you won't even tell me the name of this tribe you won't go back to but are eternally bound to."
"I must discuss it with Azevedo first. But your oath means you're not an outsider anymore. Your oath protects not just me but all of us, just as if you were adopted."
She grinned. "An adopted gypsy! like a children's story!" Only this one can't end happily. I'm going to die.
He scooped her onto one of his knees, as if she were a child and he was about to tell a story. Grinning back at her, he said, "These gypsies even have a little magic of their own. So it's possible, Laneff—oh, it's a very slim chance, but it is possible you may survive this. I'm going to fight for it."
He'd lost the fight for Digen's life, but then Digen had been very old. She remembered a small brown vial of medication against a white sheet, spirited away and never mentioned on Digen's charts. "I've been wanting to ask you: what was it you gave Digen?"
Startled, he set her on her feet again, holding her by the shoulders. "Now who's reading minds?" At her puzzled expression, he rushed on. "What makes you ask?"
She told him what she'd observed. "Obviously, it was something Digen was accustomed to taking for 'tertiary entran' so it couldn't have caused his death directly. But I can't blame K/A alone without knowing what that stuff was."
He sighed, and then thought about it. "Laneff, you now have the right to know all I know about it, which isn't much. But I have to consult Azevedo first. Frankly, I don't see how the information can help you. Your goal now ought to be to teach someone else to run your K/A synthesis. Mairis has had teams on it ever since you were kidnapped. Even in your own lab, nobody has yet duplicated your results."
She leaned against the bench, idly pushing flasks around. "I was afraid of that. Jarmi hasn't been able to do it yet. And I've got nothing until it can be duplicated." This is supposed to be science, not magic. The operator doesn 't count.
She was still ragingly posttransfer, and the emotions of depression and hopelessness had taken over in the absence of sex. She plucked a bottle of the pure K/A crystals from a padded rack and turned it, watching the clean cascade. "It's so simple."
He took the bottle, turning it expertly, and said, "I wonder if– No. But . . . would you mind if I take this to show Azevedo?"
"What could he possibly do with it? We have to class it as poison
until we know if it caused Digen's death." But she gave it to him, andhe pocketed it.
"Would you try to teach Azevedo the synthesis?"
She scoffed, "He belongs behind a horse cart, not in a lab!"
Shanlun laughed uproariously. "Azevedo's a gypsy, so he must be ignorant and primitive?"
"I'm sorry," she muttered, crushed. Toying glumly with a half-empty beaker of trin tea, she sighed, "Things were so much simpler before you came!"
He slid off the stool and turned her away from the bench, his nager melting her tension until she leaned into his chest, listening to him breathe. His voice came as a rumble. "It's unhealthy to let post syndrome deteriorate into depression. And now that I'm here, there's no reason to."
Duoconscious, she was enjoying the texture of his nager counter-pointing the dark velvet voice, hesitant to let herself enjoy it. "In a moment, you'll go all colored-confetti again, and spoil this."
"Colored confetti! You zlin in color?"
"Doesn't everybody?" she asked languorously.
He shrugged. "Perceptions vary. Do you like this better?"
He was all golden now, seductive as he'd been with Digen. "I wouldn't if I were in need. Or rather, I would–but—"
"But you're not in need. Zlin me."
He stood back an arm's length, his formidably trained Donor's attention wholly on her. It wasn't what Yuan had done. But Shanlun held out his hands to her, and she took them, stepping into the fierce core of his nager as if into a different world. Something of the same effect she'd felt on greeting him hours ago burst through her body, only this time she could identify it, for it lacked the painful intensity. It's as if I were Gen!
The tide of life itself that surges within the Gen, erupting into manifestation at the core of each cell in the form of selyn, surged now in Laneff, rhythmically washing away the detritus of death left by need. Each wave felt better than the last, drawing her to anticipate a further thrill with the next.
Her tentacles twined themselves about his cool, Gen arms, complementing their deep, exploratory kiss. Without her volition, her laterals found contact, too, and his welcome of that sensation she gave him brought exultation. But even then, a tiny voice within had to reassure her: it's safe. You could never hurt him. In that moment, though, she couldn't imagine ever needing killbliss.
Hypoconscious, losing all touch with selyn fields, she was aware only of the tactile presence of male skin, fine tough male hairs, clean rough male pores, hard Gen muscle encompassing her as if she were a delicate treasure to be protected. The sharp perfume of him stung her nose.