and breathlessly attractive to him, and he could not help but think longingly, for an instant, of Tess's more supple temperament. But Tess was as far out of his reach now as was the Chapalii control room. And Dina was here.
'What have you done for me today?' Nadine asked him, falling into step beside him. She spoke Rhuian precisely and without a trace of accent, as if she had learned the language through Tess's matrix and not by the laborious process of one word at a time. Even her uncle spoke with an accent, although his command of the language was equally impressive.
'A lintel,' he replied, 'from the southwest transept.' He withdrew a rolled-up square of parchment from his belt-pouch and halted to smooth it open on the modeler.
Nadine studied it, frowning. 'This pattern, here… isn't that repeated, but backward, on the northeast transept? And reversed, too.' She stared as if she could puzzle out some vital information from the drawing. 'You have a fine hand,' she added.
'No doubt,' said Maggie, with a smirk. David cast her a glare.
Nadine stepped back. Her lips quirked up, but she did not smile. 'I want to add to my uncle's maps on the way back. We'll probably be riding far into Habakar territory, and eventually, riding south, the land route must come to Jeds. Someday I'd like to map both routes to Jeds, by ship and by horse.'
'Would you, indeed?' said Maggie under her breath in Anglais. 'No doubt your uncle would as well.'
'If you will,' said the old priestess, who had waited patiently through this exchange. 'The prince and the other priests are waiting only for your presence to begin the meal.'
''Of course.'' David rolled up the parchment and stuck it back into his pouch. They had to match their stride to the priestess's limping walk, so it took some time to wend their way through the maze of the palace and into the back rooms where the jaran priests lived. 'How long have the jaran sent priests here?' he asked Nadine as she sat down next to him on a bench in the dining hall.
'Since we found it here. Surely you can see that the gods have touched this place, so we honor it.'
'How long ago was that?'
She shrugged. 'Perhaps Mother Avdotya knows. Perhaps my uncle guesses. A long time ago, in any case. But my uncle says that these zayinu from over the sea built this shrine, the zayinu called khepelli. Do you think this as well?'
'Yes, I do. But surely you know that, if you've spoken with Tess.'
' 'There are many things Tess does not speak of,'' said Nadine cryptically. 'And many things she speaks of without saying much. I will come to your bed tonight, if you wish it.'
David felt heat burn in his cheeks and hoped that Nadine was still unfamiliar enough with his coloring that she could not tell he was blushing. 'Yes.' He managed to force out the syllable through a suddenly choked throat. Although the word was barely audible, Nadine smiled and returned her attention to her food.
Later, as they finished eating, Charles signaled to his crew, and they left together to go meet in the tiny room allotted to him. He sat on the edge of the narrow bed. Rajiv sat in the one chair, a hemi-slate resting on his knees, and Maggie on the edge of the wooden table. Jo sank down onto the floor with catlike grace. David remained standing with his back to the door.
Charles regarded them one by one. 'What progress today?'
'I've got a tentative date on a ceramic sample,' said Jo. 'Ten thousand years, minimum. It's got to be that old. Ten to fifteen, by my best estimate. I incline to the later date.'
'Does that surprise any of you?' Charles asked. He, of course, did not look surprised, but then Charles had become as adept at maintaining a blank expression as his Chapalii counterparts in the high nobility.
'Yes,' said Maggie emphatically. 'A thousand years, perhaps. But look at this place. Not here, but the rest of it. How could it have survived in such good condition? What does humanity have left from fifteen thousand years ago? That's Paleolithic times. Some obsidian blades and a few cave paintings?'
'Margaret,' said Rajiv primly from his chair, 'what you are not doing is thinking clearly. I cannot believe we know a thousandth part of the extent and sophistication of Chapalii technology. I will present you with an analogy. Take one of these jaran. Take a curious, intelligent one, such as the woman Nadine Orzhekov. What she knows and imagines of our life and technology is likely closer to the truth than what we know and imagine of Chapalii technology.'
'Furthermore,' said David, shaking a finger in front of his own lips, 'it's the only reasonable window of opportunity for the human migration that was needed to populate this planet. If the Tai-en Mushai moved an entire Homo sapiens population here to work as his-slaves? for his amusement? for who the hell knows what reason? — then that time frame would be reasonable. Hasn't Tess found some correspondence between Rhuian languages and Earth languages?'
'I don't know why the Mushai brought humans here,' said Charles quietly, 'but I do know from the evidence in that cylinder that he was using this as a base to foment rebellion against the emperor. If that was fifteen thousand years ago… have things really changed that much in the Empire? Have they changed so little?'
Rajiv tapped his fingers lightly on the hard surface of his slate. 'We will not know how much additional information was hidden within the interstices of that cylinder unless we can install it on the original equipment it came from, the equipment here. The Keinaba house consoles could only access the top layer of information, and there was clearly more coded in underneath.'
'So.' Charles said the word and then said nothing for a long moment. Through the small window set high up in the wall, David saw stars and the thick leafy crowns of trees. 'This we know. I think we have no choice but to call down an expert from Keinaba house.'
'Call down a Chapalii?' Maggie asked. 'On planet? That would be breaking your own interdiction.''
Charles snorted. 'I'm already breaking my own interdiction. And they've seen Chapalii here before. Any other objections?''
Rajiv bent his head. 'You know my feelings.'
'What are your feelings?' Maggie demanded.
Rajiv glanced up at her, his dark eyes glinting. 'I suggested it. There is one technician I have worked with. She is one of these ke, one of the nameless ones of their lowest caste, but she is an artist with this machinery. I cannot forgive a society that condemns such intelligence and promise to that kind of subjugation for no better reason than that her parents were born of parents who were born of parents… and so on.' His eyes flashed with anger. His dark brows were drawn down, and a pulse beat in his jaw.
'A Chapalii female!' Maggie exclaimed. 'I've never met a Chapalii female. I thought they were all in purdah or something. Restricted. Secluded.'
'It is true,' said Charles slowly, 'that they are rarely together with Chapalii males. Beyond that, I have formed no sense of what their status is. But the Tai-en Naroshi offered me the services of his sister to design a mausoleum for Tess.'
'How morbid. At least you didn't take him up on it.'
'But I did.' Charles smiled, not with amusement precisely but at some ironic joke. 'They work at a slower pace than we do, though. Cara believes they're quite long-lived.' He brushed his hands together briskly and stood up with decision. 'Then if there is no more discussion, I'll send for a deputation from Keinaba.'
'But Charles,' said David, 'can you trust them? Surely asking them to uncover this information-the Tai-en Mushai is almost a Lucifer kind of figure in their history, as far as I can tell. Or at least, that's how Tess described him to me once. Will the Keinaba family agree to help you uncover his past? To start in motion what may prove to be another rebellion against their own emperor? ''
'I think that they'll do anything I tell them to do. This is one way to test that.''
David just shook his head. 'You're damned cool.'
'Don't forget that I saved their house from extinction by my intervention. They owe me everything. They are bound to me like-' He shrugged. 'Well, aren't there any historians here who can provide me with a good analogy?'
David had known Charles for forty-five years now. He and Charles and the other Charles-who was now Marco-had gone to university together. David's path had parted for a time from that of Charles after university, but in the end he had come back to him, to the cause, to the rebellion, to the endless struggle for freedom. David felt more and more that he knew Charles less well the longer they were together. As if the closer David got, the more Charles receded, or at least that the force repelling David grew stronger the longer he was exposed to it. Not that Charles was in any way cold to him, that he didn't trust him, listen to him, even joke with him now and again in the
