There was a temptation to them all to over-indulge in the drink, the biting regul brew that filled the stores, ashig, fermented of the same source as soi. But at least, Niun thanked the gods, there was no komal, that had kept his last she'pan in thrall to drug-spawned dreams, illicit and shameful dreams in which she had laid the plans that had launched them forth; dreams that were as guilty as ever Duncan was in ruining the People, in creating the danger they now knew followed them.
He saw again the arrogance of the she'pan who had no mercy for her own children.
But such a thing as that he dared not say to Melein, could not quarrel with her, whom he loved more than life and honor, over a tsi'mri who had tangled them in so much of evil. It was only when he looked at Duncan's face that it hurt, and the human's pain gnawed at him.
Each evening for four days they ate common-meal, and talked little, for most questions had been answered. There was during that time a chill in the she'pan's presence, and afterward a chill in kel-hall weapons-practice cold and formal and careful, concerned more with rituals than with striking blows, with the traditions of combat rather than the actuality of it. At times there was such sickness in Duncan's eyes that Niun forbade him the yin'ein, and refused to practice with him at all.
Duncan had betrayed his own.
And there was no peace for such a man.
"Tsi'mri," Melein said of him in Duncan's absence, "and a traitor even to them, who shaped him blood and bone. How then should the People ever rely on him? This is a weak creature, Niun. You have proved that.
Niun considered him, and knew his own handiwork, and grieved for it.
The venom-fever left, but the misery did not: the dus, rejected by turns and grudgingly accepted, mourned and fretted; the man grew silent and inward, a sickness that could not be reached.
The ship departed that star, and jumped again and again.
Chapter Fourteen
THEY PASSED close, this time, to the worlds of the System, dangerously close. For many days their course had been taking them for the yellow star and its worlds, until now the largest of the inner planets loomed before them, dominating the field of the screen in kel-hall.
Home? Niun wondered at first, and held his hope private in Melein's silence: if she knew, he reckoned, she would have told him. But as days passed a worried look settled on Melein; and often now she looked on the screens with fear in her eyes. It ceased to look as though they were hurtling toward the world rather that the world filled their sky and was falling down on them, a half-world first, that lent Niun some hope they would hurtle just past it terrifying, but an escape, all the same: but the disc began to rise in the scanner.
They were caught, going earthward like a mote in a bur-rower's sandpit: the image came unwelcomely to Niun as he sat by Melein's side and stared at the starscreen she had set in her own hall, to look constantly on the danger. He felt his own helplessness, a kel'en whose knowledge of ships was all theory; all his knowledge told him now was that everything was wrong, and that Melein, who likewise had never set hands to ship's controls, knew little more than he.
Perhaps, he thought, she knew the name of the world into which they were falling: but it was not going to stop them.
And the outrage of it grew in him that they should die by mischance. For a time he awaited a miracle, from Melein, from some source, certain that the gods could not have directed them so far only to this.
He waited on Melein; and she said nothing.
"You have two kel'ein," he reminded her at last, on the day that there was hardly any darkness left in the starscreen.
Still she said nothing.
"Ask him, Melein.
Her lips made a taut line.
He knew the stubbornness in her: they were of one blood. He set his own face. "Then let us fall into the world," he said, staring elsewhere. "Surely there is nothing that I know to do, and your mind is set.
There was long silence between them. Neither moved.
"It would assure," she said at last, "that one danger did not reach our destination. I have thought of that. But it would not stop the other. And in us is the knowledge of it.
Such a thought shook at his confidence. He felt diminished, who had thought only of their own survival, who have been forward with her. "I spoke out of turn," he said. "Doubtless you have weighed what we ought to do.
"Go ask him," she said.
He sat still for a moment, finding her shifts of mind as unsettling as transit, and his nerves taut-strung at the thought that the matter did indeed come down to Duncan.
Then he gathered himself up, called softly to his dus, and went.
Duncan sat, beneath the screen that held the scanner image, eternally whetting away at the blade of an av-tlen that he had made out of scrap metaclass="underline" it was laser-cut and of a balance that Niun privately judged would never be true, but it kept Duncan's hands busy, and perhaps his mind, whatever darkness hovered in it. The dus lay near him, head between paws, eyes following the sweep of Duncan's hands.
"Duncan," Niun said. The noise of the steel kept its rhythm. "Duncan.
It stopped. Duncan looked up at him with that bleak hardness that had grown there day by day.
"The she'pan is concerned," Niun said, "about our near approach to this world.
Duncan's eyes remained cold. "Well, you do not need me. Or if you do, then you can find some means to work around me, can you not?
"I respect your quarrel with us." Niun sank down on his heels, opened his hands in a gesture of offering. "But surely you know that there is no quarreling with the world that is drawing us into it. We will die, and you will have no satisfaction in that. As for your cause with us, I do not want to quarrel at all on this small ship, with the dusei in the middle of it. Listen to me, Duncan. I have done everything I know to give you an honorable way to put aside this grievance with us. But if you threaten the she'pan, then I will not be patient And you are doing that.
Duncan went back to his task, sweeping steel against steel. Niun fought with his temper, knowing the result if he laid hands on the tsi-mri: a dus that was already precariously balanced on the verge of miuk, and the ship plummeting toward impact with a world with some things indeed there was no quarreling. It was likely that the human was no more rational than the dus, affected by the ailing beast. If the dus went over the brink, then so did the mind that held knowledge of the ship.
Melein's handiwork. Niun clenched his arms about his knees and sought something to say that would touch the man.
"We are out of time, Duncan.
"If you cannot deal with this," Duncan said suddenly, "then you certainly could not land safely when you reach your home. I do not think you ever intended to be rid of me. You two seem to need me, and I think the she'pan has always suspected that. That was why she let you have youft way. It was only a means of making me less an inconvenience than I would have been, a way of getting past my guard and getting from me what she wanted. I am not angry with you, Niun. You believed her. So did I. She had what she wanted. Only now I am needed again, am I?" The ring of steel continued, measured and hard. "Become like you. Become one of you. I know you tried. You armed me but you never reckoned on the beast. Now you cannot deal with me so easily. It and I... make something new on this ship.
"You are wrong from the beginning," Niun said, cold to the heart at such thoughts in him. "There is an autopilot to bring us in. And the she'pan never lied to you, or to me. She cannot.
Duncan's eyes lifted suddenly to his, cynically amazed, and his hands fell idle. "Rely on that? Maybe regul automation is better than ours, but this is a human ship, and I would not trust my life to that if there were a choice. You could come down anywhere. And would you know how to engage it in the first place? Perhaps the she'pan is simply naive. You do need me, kel Niun. You tell her that.