conformed to the default route, although given where it detached from the Oshaki, one could model any number of north-continent landing points given their usual flight patterns.'
'And they are so damned efficient,' said Dr. Hierakis. 'Always the shortest line between two points. It's the national religion, I think. It must have been deliberate.'
Delay. 'Karima, any indications of unauthorized landing? Has the station picked up any planetside communications?'
'None. Off here.' She clicked off her pickup and concentrated on scrambling.
'Which doesn't say a hell of a lot,' said Marco.
'Thank you, Karima. I'll want a model of the most likely interim landing points if the shuttle did indeed make an unauthorized landing. It's true, we've suspected Chapalii incursions in the past but never been able to prove anything. Damned chameleons. Marco, you were talking before about taking ship northward, up the north coast and into the inland sea.''
'Yes. I haven't explored that way yet.'
'Make an itinerary that can overlap with points on Karima's model. Then hold tight. I'll be back to you. Cara, wasn't it the Keinaba trading consortium that the medical establishment first worked with on the aging breakthrough?'
'Yes, in fact, it was. Why do you mention that?'
Marco made some noise, but not speech.
'I've got a cat and mouse up here. Echido is clearly acting as emissary for his family, but he's being very circumspect. They want something, something very delicate.'
'Not just transport rights to Tau?' Marco asked.
'Something much deeper. Something linked all the way back to Chapal, and possibly to the emperor himself.'
'Do you want me to come back?' asked Marco.
'Not yet. Echido speaks Anglais.'
Marco whistled.
Dr. Hierakis said, 'Damned right they want something badly if he's bothered to learn human talk.'
Even Karima paused for an instant in her scrambling, astounded by the thought of a Chapalii not of the serving ranks speaking Anglais.
'Keep searching. No further transmissions until I get word from Suzanne. Soerensen off.'
Karima spread a burst of static over the Odys line and shut it down. 'What do you think, Marco?' asked Dr. Hierakis, and then Karima shut down the Jeds line as well and went back to the trace of the cargo shuttle, running the pattern again and again.
Crawling out of her tent in the morning, Tess was first distracted by the smell of food cooking, and then by the acute fear that everyone knew about her and Fedya. But she heard no whispered comments. Fedya passed her as she saddled her remount, but he merely smiled quickly and went on. Beyond, the short grass on the sacred hill shone white under the early sun. The standing stone hulked black against the pale blue of the morning sky. If Bakhtiian had seen anything after leaving her the night before, he showed no sign of it now, eating his stew with relish and chatting and laughing with Niko and Josef and Tasha. The Chapalii stewards rolled up and folded their tents under Rakii's supervision. Ishii reclined on the ground while Garii wrote laboriously with a stylus to Ishii's dictation. She was too far away to hear what they were saying, and this morning she could not summon up the stubbornness to break in on their business.
'Good morning, Tess.' Yuri led his saddled horse up to her. 'Have you eaten already?'
'Yuri.' She folded her arms, considering him, as she recalled what Bakhtiian had said the night before. Yuri raised his eyebrows questioningly. ' 'Have you ever repeated things I've said to you to Bakhtiian?'
Yuri flushed, but he did not look away from her. 'The welfare of the jaran must be my first consideration. Surely you understand that.''
'But if you told him things I said in confidence, things I might otherwise not have said-'
'Gods! You don't think I've repeated anything… intimate that you said to me? Violated a sister's confidence!' He looked disgusted. 'You'd think that of me?'
She laughed, and Yuri laughed with her. His flush faded. 'I'm sorry. That was stupid of me. Of course you didn't.'
'It's good to be stupid now and again. It isn't healthy to be right all the time. That's why I worry about Ilya.'
'Easy enough. We'll have a contest to see who can catch him out first.'
'What will be the prize?'
'Satisfaction, Yuri. Pure satisfaction.'
'Tess! You're wicked!'
'No, merely practical. He sets himself too high, our Bakhtiian.' And then, because she had been thinking about it all morning, because she didn't want anyone to know but had to tell someone, she hesitated. 'There's something else. A secret.' She crouched down. Following her lead, he knelt beside her, so close their sleeves and thighs brushed. The horses grazed placidly behind them. He put his hand to her knee. 'About Fedya.' Her voice slipped to a murmur.
'Tess! You didn't. You did! Hah!'
'Shh! Yuri!'
He lifted one hand to yank playfully at her braid. 'By the gods, we'll make you jaran yet. Sonia said we would.'
'Did she? When was this?'
An approaching horse interrupted them. 'We are leaving,' said Bakhtiian, far above them, his face and hair framed by the sky. Tess and Yuri stood hastily, brushing off their clothing. They exchanged furtive looks, stifled giggles, and Tess went with Bakhtiian.
Much later, they paused to water the horses.
'They had a light,' said Bakhtiian. 'Neither a torch or a candle. Can you explain this?'
'No,' said Tess truthfully, meeting his gaze.
'I think they were worshiping the stone, or its god. I couldn't make out their rituals. It was too dark.' An animal rustled through the grass. 'I wouldn't care to be a god confined in a rock. Do you know if that is what they worship?'
'I don't know. But I do know that people worship many strange things in many strange ways. There is a people in my land-'
'In Jeds?'
'No, in the land overseas where I studied. They worship their god by abstaining from all earthly pleasures.'
'All of them?' Bakhtiian looked like a boy being told a tale he did not believe but could not disbelieve. 'Wouldn't they starve, or die of thirst?'
Tess looked away to hide her smile. 'They eat and drink enough to stay alive, of course.'
'Of course. Undoubtedly.' He looked at her, eyes widening. Tess grinned. 'You don't mean to say they don't- By the gods, what insanity.'
'No.' She blinked, straight-faced. 'They are filled with the passion of God's divinity.'
'But how tedious.' They both laughed and, quite suddenly, he blushed and looked away from her. They rode on, but later he demanded that she explain how such a religion could exist after one generation.
Two days and four days and six and eight, and then, to vary it, she counted in threes: three days and six days and nine and twelve. It grew warmer and windy. The Chapalii remained polite, and she left them alone, for the moment. They set up their tents every night and packed them up at dawn, all as they had done before, but now the stewards occasionally unbent so far as to gamble with the riders: they taught each other a few simple games and played for ridiculous stakes-beads, needles, necklaces, trinkets. Tess could not see that one or the other ever had the advantage. However technologically superior the Chapalii might be, in these gambling games wit and luck were all that counted. Niko learned how to say 'good morning' and 'good evening' and 'the weather is fine today' in formal Chapalii, but when Garii requested that he be allowed to give Sibirin further lessons, Ishii refused, just as he refused when Garii asked to be allowed to scout with Bakhtiian and Tess.
