Teyeo shot a glance at Solly: Patience, patience.
'Bisexual actors,' Solly said, disregarding him, but fortunately Kergat was determined to disregard her.
'A clever man,' Teyeo said, 'with connections.
He could help us. You and us. It could be worth it- If he's still here. We must make haste.'
'Why would he help us? He is Voe Dean.'
'An asset, not a citizen,' Teyeo said. 'And a member of Hame, the asset underground, which works against the government of Voe Deo. The Ekumen admits the legitimacy of Hame. He'll report to the Embassy that a Patriot group has rescued the Envoy and is holding her safe, in hiding, in extreme danger. The Ekumen, I think, will act promptly and decisively. Correct, Envoy?'
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Forgiveness Day
Suddenly reinstated, Solly gave a short, dignified nod. 'But discreetly,' she said. 'They'll avoid violence, if they can use political coercion.'
The young man was trying to get it all into his mind and work it through. Sympathetic to his weariness, distrust, and confusion, Teyeo sat quietly waiting. He noticed that Solly was sitting equally quietly, one hand lying in the other. She was thin and dirty and her unwashed, greasy hair was in a lank braid. She was brave, like a brave mare, all nerve. She would break her heart before she quit.
Kergat asked questions; Teyeo answered them, reasoning and reassuring. Occasionally Solly spoke, and Kergat was now listening to her again, uneasily, not wanting to, not after what he had called her. At last he left, not saying what he intended to do; but he had Batikam's name and an identifying message
from Teyeo to the Embassy: 'Half-pay veots learn to sing old songs quickly.'
'What on earth!' Solly said when Kergat was gone.
'Did you know a man named Old Music, in the Embassy?'
'Ah! Is he a friend of yours?'
'He has been kind.'
'He's been here on Werel from the start. A First Observer. Rather a powerful man — Yes, and 'quickly/ all right. ... My mind really isn't working at all.
I wish I could lie down beside a little stream, in a meadow, you know, and drink. All day. Every time I wanted to, just stretch my neck out and siup, siup, slup. .. . Running water ... In the sunshine ... Oh God, oh God, sunshine. Teyeo, this is very difficult.
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This is harder than ever. Thinking that there maybe is really a way out of here. Only not knowing. Trying not to hope and not to not hope. Oh, I am so tired of sitting here!'
'What time is it?'
'Half past twenty. Night. Dark out. Oh God, darkness! Just to be in the darkness ... Is there any way we could cover up that damned biolume? Partly? To pretend we had night, so we could pretend we had day?'
'If you stood on my shoulders, you could reach it. But how could we fasten a cloth?'
They pondered, staring at the plaque.
'I don't know. Did you notice there's a little patch of it that looks like it's dying? Maybe we don't have to worry about making darkness. If we stay here long enough. Oh, God!'
'Well,' he said after a while, curiously selfconscious, 'I'm tired.' He stood up, stretched,
glanced for permission to enter her territory, got a drink of water, returned to his territory, took off his jacket and shoes, by which time her back was turned, took off his trousers, lay down, pulled up the blanket, and said in his mind, 'Lord Kamye, let me hold fast to the one noble thing.' But he did not sleep.
He heard her slight movements; she pissed, poured a little water, took off her sandals, lay down.
A long time passed.
'Teyeo.'
'Yes.'
'Do you think ... that it would be a mistake ... under the circumstances ... to make love?'
A pause.
Forgiveness Day
'Not under the circumstances,' he said, almost inaudibly. 'But — in the other life — '
A pause-
'Short life versus long life,' she murmured.
'Yes.'
A pause.
'No,' he said, and turned to her. 'No, that's wrong.' They reached out to each other. They clasped each other, cleaved together, in blind haste, greed, need. crying out together the name of God in their different languages and then like animals in the wordless voice. They huddled together, spent, sticky, sweaty, exhausted, reviving, rejoined, reborn in the body's tenderness, in the endless exploration, the ancient discovery, the long flight to the new world.
He woke slowly, in ease and luxury. They were entangled, his face was against her arm and breast;
she was stroking his hair, sometimes his neck and shoulder. He lay for a long time aware only of that
lazy rhythm and the cool of her skin against his face, under his hand, against his leg.
'Now I know,' she said, her half whisper deep in her chest, near his ear, 'that I don't know you.
Now I need to know you.' She bent forward to touch his face with her lips and cheek.
'What do you want to know?'
'Everything- Tell me who Teyeo is. .. .'
'I don't know,' he said. 'A man who holds you dear.'
'Oh, God,' she said, hiding her face for a moment in the rough, smelly blanket.
'Who is God?' he asked sleepily. They spoke Voe Dean, but she usually swore in Terran or
FOUR WAYS TO FORGIVENESS
Alterran; in this case it had been Atterran, Seyt, so he asked, 'Who is Seyt?'
'Oh — Tual — Kamye — what have you. I just say it. It's just bad language. Do you believe in one of them? I'm sorry! I feel like such an oaf with you, Teyeo. Blundering into your soul, invading you — We are invaders, no matter how pacifist and priggish we are —'
'Must I love the whole Ekumen?' he asked, beginning to stroke her breasts, feeling her tremor of desire and his own.
'Yes,' she said, 'yes, yes.'
It was curious, Teyeo thought, how little sex changed anything. Everything was the same, a little easier, less embarrassment and inhibition; and there was a certain and lovely source of pleasure for them, when they had enough water and food to have enough vitality to make love. But the only thing that was truly different was something he had no word for. Sex, comfort, tenderness, love, trust, no word was the right word, the whole word. It was utterly intimate, hidden in the mutuality of their bodies, and it changed nothing in their circumstances, nothing in the world, even
the tiny wretched world of their imprisonment.
They were still trapped. They were getting very tired and were hungry most of the time. They were increasingly afraid of their increasingly desperate captors.
'I will be a lady,' Solly said. 'A good girl. Tell me how, Teyeo.'
'I don't want you to give in,' he said, so fierce-a*s 120 A<?
Forgiveness Day
ly, with tears in his eyes, that she went to him and held him in her arms.
'Hold fast,' he said.
'I will,' she said. But when Kergat or the others came in she was sedate and modest, letting the men talk, keeping her eyes down. He could not bear to see her so, and knew she was right to do so.
The doorlock rattled, the door clashed, bringing
him up out of a wretched, thirsty sleep. It was night or very early morning. He and Solly had been sleeping close entangled for the warmth and comfort of it; and seeing Kergat's face now he was deeply afraid. This was
