Eyes shut, he said, 'Don't be an idiot. Go on without me.'
'Bakhtiian, did it ever occur to you that I probably can't find the horses, much less the jahar, by myself?'
He was silent.
'By God. Now that's a compliment.'
One corner of his mouth tugged upward. He opened his eyes. 'You're right.' He coughed again, but it was a trembling sound. 'I don't know how I could have thought that.' They both laughed.
And, eyes meeting, cut off their laughter abruptly. Silence. A bird sang in the distance, a little five-note figure over and over. Bakhtiian grasped his walking stick and pushed himself up. He winced, took a step, winced, took another. They went on.
His pace was so slow that night made no difference to their progress. Animals accompanied their retreat: noises fading out into the brush, drawing closer when they halted, a snuffling once, that skittered away when she threw a rock in its direction.
Each time they halted he counted. Each time, he reached a higher number before he rose and struggled on. Now and then she had to help him over a fallen log, through a thick scattering of rocks, past a screen of branches. Wet vegetation slapped her face. Vines caught at her legs or brushed, slippery and damp, across her hand. Once she fell asleep balanced on a log, but when Ilya rose the log shifted under her and she woke, startled. Dawn came before they reached the end of the valley. It was another hour at least before they staggered into the copse where the horses were tethered.
Ilya sank down onto the ground. Deep circles smudged his eyes. 'I can't go on right now.' He covered his face with his hands and slumped forward.
'You have to eat.' She brought him food from their bags.
He took the food but did nothing with it. 'You should sleep,' he said. 'I'll wake you.'
'You should sleep.'
'I can't sleep. I'll watch.' He shut his eyes again and leaned back, resting against a tree trunk.
Tess rubbed her face. She checked the horses, forced herself to eat, forced herself to refill the water flasks before she allowed herself the luxury of lying down on her cloak three meters behind Bakhtiian, facing the high screen of bushes. Here, in the close wood, the leaves were the brightest green at the tops of the bushes, lit by the sun, shading down to a dark green near the earth, where shadows obscured most of the ground. Encased in gloves, her hands felt almost warm. She fell asleep.***
The palace in Jeds looked out over the sea, over the wide mouth of the bay, out toward the islands littering the horizon like so much flotsam cast back to drift. Marco Burckhardt stood alone on the sea wall, watching the waves slide in along the strand and murmur through the hedge of rocks scattered at the base of the wall. Spray lifted in the wind and misted his face. To his left lay the crowded harbor, sailing ships anchored out in the bay, galleys and boats moored to the docks; beyond it, crawling up and down the hills, the fetid sprawl of Jeds itself. And to his right, set a little away from the city in the midst of neat fields, the university, established at least a century ago but transplanted to its new grounds twenty years past by the first prince of the new line in Jeds.
'Admiring your handiwork?' Cara Hierakis came up beside him and slipped a hand into the crook of his elbow. The wind blew the curls of her black hair away from her face.
'My great masterpiece.' Marco grinned.
'I hate to remind you, my dear, but the new buildings were actually built after you died and Charles inherited.'
'I meant my death. I think I engineered it very well, dedicating the grounds and then being crushed under stones in that horrible accident.'
'Yes, you do like coming close to death, don't you?'
'It's how I know I'm alive. Although an engineered accident does lack something, especially that frisson of risk. The best part of it was getting to become a new man afterward, with a new face and a new name.'
'Marco, have you ever considered psychoanalysis?'
'Isn't that outdated?'
'Of all the inhabited planets you could spend your time on, which do you choose? It's only fitting.'
They stood awhile in silence, watching Jeds.
'I love this city,' said Marco at last. 'Because I found it. And don't tell me the Jedans already knew it was here. You know what I mean.'
'Yes, it was convenient of old Prince Casimund to be on his deathbed and with no immediate heirs but nephews whose mothers had married lords in the other city-states. You never told me how you convinced him you were one of those nephews and the true heir to the princedom.'
'And I never will. You wouldn't approve. I only did it for Charles, my love.' Cara laughed. Marco looked offended. 'You know very well that I didn't want the position for myself. But we had to get a toehold on the planet somehow. I grasped the opportunity where I found it.'
'It's true it chafed you soon enough, all that responsibility.'
'Your flattery is boundless, Dr. Hierakis. As well as your cynicism.'
'A good scientist must be skeptical. It isn't the same.'
The tide was coming in, swelling up under the distant docks. Men worked, tiny figures loading and unloading the ships and the galleys, tying Jeds in to the greater world of Rhui and feeding out goods and knowledge brought forth in the renaissance that gripped Jeds under the rule of Prince Charles the Second, 'son' of the late and lamented Charles the First, whose reign had been short but merry.
'A message came in,' said Cara. 'That's what I came out to tell you. Charles got a bullet from Suzanne, from Paladia Major. The Oshaki put in at Paladia Minor and hasn't stirred for a month. She found no indication that Tess disembarked at Minor.'
'Could she still be onboard the Oshaki? Where do you think she is?'
'I think Charles expects her to be like him, but she isn't. You can't make silk out of a sow's ear. Which is not to compare Tess to a sow's ear, though pigs are certainly my favorite domestic animals. But I think you grasp the analogy.'
'You didn't answer my question.'
'I don't have enough evidence to make a guess. Where is Tess? Why is a high-ranking merchant of the obscenely wealthy Keinaba house loitering on Odys, frittering away his valuable time in endless discussions about the hypothetical worth of Dao Cee's resources-and in Anglais at that? Why did that shuttle flight follow a most inefficient path? And I will not bore you with the number of questions I have about the human population on this planet, such as, why are they homo sapiens, how did they come to have better health than the humans of Earth's ancient past, and, if I can solve the antigen problem, can we interbreed?'
Marco stared out at the gray water and the white flash of sun on the distant isles. 'We already know that we can interbreed.' His hands curled, gripping hard on the stone.
'I know, Marco,' she said gently. 'I meant, without endangering the pregnant woman's life. But at least the baby lived. She would have, too, if I could have got to her in time.'
'Sweet Goddess, it was an easy enough delivery.'
'Marco, there was nothing you could have done. You didn't know about the reaction that set in.'
'I damn well could have not gotten her pregnant!'
'Yes, you could have. One can take this going native business too far.'
'Thank you, Cara. Your sympathy overwhelms me.'
'My sympathy rests with that poor girl. Where do you think Tess is?'
'I think she's on Rhui. Just a feeling I have.'
'Then why didn't she come here? Where could she possibly be? Marco, can you imagine the kind of danger she could be in, if that's the case?''
Marco smiled, but mockingly, without any humor at all. 'Yes, in fact, I can.'
The horns woke Tess. She started awake, standing abruptly. A white rump flashed, an animal bounding away into the trees. Twigs snapped. A bird shrieked.
Bakhtiian woke just before she reached him, one hand on his saber hilt, the other open, out in front of him as if he were confused. Tess halted out of range of his saber.
'Bakhtiian?'
He pulled his hands in and looked up at the sky. His eyes followed the invisible trail of the sun to the rim of
