<I would have thought of my responsibility to my clan,> Songstress retorted, but her gaze fell once more as she tasted Golden Voice’s gentle rebuke. Songstress was hands of turnings older than Golden Voice, yet in that moment Golden Voice had somehow become by far the elder, and her mind voice was chiding.
<I, too, thought of my responsibilities, Memory Singer,> she said almost kindly. <Did you think I could not have done so? Yet that was not my question. I asked you if you would have refused the hunger for the human mind glow if it had come upon you.>
<I—> Songstress began, then hesitated. The moment of hesitation stretched out, and then it became something else. The memory singer met Golden Voice’s eyes once more, her very silence an admission of the younger female’s point, for she had tasted that hunger and need in the memory songs of others. As no one but a memory singer could, she had shared it and become one with it, and as such, she knew—as no one but a memory singer could—how impossible it was not to answer.
<I do not think I envy you, sister-of-choice,> Wind of Memory said into the silence. <Any memory singer knows the need to embrace the mind songs of the People, to hear and feel and taste all those who have come before us as they live again through us. And because we have sung the songs of those who bonded with humans, even in the days when the human life span was so short that to do so was to embrace death as well, any memory singer knows that hunger and need, as well. To choose between them…”
She shook her head slowly, in a gesture the People had borrowed from their human friends, but Golden Voice looked at her serenely.
<Life is choice, Memory Singer. The fact that no one of the People has ever made the choices I have made, or lived the life I have lived, cannot change that, and if there have been times of pain and loss, there has also been joy and love.> Her prehensile tail reached out, wrapping itself gently but tightly about Laughs Brightly. <I have Laughs Brightly, and our kittens—yes, and his human, as well, for Dances on Clouds has love enough for a hand of hands of People, and just as Laughs Brightly, she and the humans who follow her have become as much my clan as ever Sun Leaf Clan was. Perhaps that is the reason one who might have been a memory singer bonded with a human yet also mated.>
<What do you mean?> Wind of Memory asked intently, and Golden Voice regarded her levelly for several long breaths. Branch Leaper tensed and felt the same reactions from the other members of his clan—especially Songstress and Echo of Time—as they tasted her mind glow. There was deep serenity in it, despite her youth, but also an inflexible determination, unyielding as the duralloy of the metal knives and axes the humans had given the People. It was not challenge. It went beyond that, like some irresistible natural force—like the wind that toppled even the mightiest picketwood or crown oak. He had no idea what lay behind it, yet at that moment, he felt almost sorry for the elders and memory singers of Sun Leaf Clan who must have encountered something just like it when they tried to force her to become a memory singer herself.
<I mean that the time to end our great deception has come, Memory Singer,> Golden Voice said very quietly. <It is time and past time for us to reveal our full cleverness to the humans.>
<No!> It was not one of the memory singers, but rather Bark Master, second of Bright Water’s elders, whose mind voice shouted the instant denial. All eyes turned to him, but he did not retreat. <Sings Truly herself told us we must conceal our full cleverness, and she was right,> he said stubbornly. <It was the path of wisdom to hide it until we had learned more of the humans, and it is the path of wisdom now. We are protected by the human rangers. They aid us in the hard times of the cold turnings, their healers have conquered many of the illnesses which once came among us and killed, we have learned much from them yet remained always ourselves. We may no longer distrust them, yet we do not truly know how they will respond when they discover that we have deceived them for so long. And even if that were not true, it would be foolish to unsettle and change everything between our two peoples when we already have all that we might desire!>
<With all respect, Elder , you are wrong,> Golden Voice said, and in that moment her mind voice held the regal assurance which echoed still in the mind songs of Sings Truly herself. She was perhaps a quarter of Bark Master’s age and the newest member of his clan, to boot, yet she faced his vehemence with neither trepidation nor personal challenge, and Branch Leaper felt a deep respect for her—and an even deeper envy of Laughs Brightly.
<Why so, sister-of-choice?> Wind of Memory asked. She alone tasted almost as calm as Golden Voice, yet she watched the younger female unblinkingly, her concentrated gaze a pale reflection of the intensity with which she tasted the other’s mind glow and mind voice.
<Because it is no longer necessary… and because we are no longer kittens, Senior Singer,> Golden Voice told her. <There is no need to learn still more of the humans. Surely you, who have sung the songs of every human who has ever been adopted, of every one of the People who has ever returned to tell of all he and his person have seen and done, must see that. You know the name of every human—their human names, as well as those the People have given—who has ever been adopted. You know the full songs of their lives, of how they have protected and kept our secrets… and of how the other humans with whom we share this world have also learned to protect and accept us. We might hide our full cleverness forever, but if we do so only to insure the safety of the People while we learn more of the humans, then we have hidden it long enough. If we are never to reveal the truth, then we must find a better reason than fear of the humans’ reaction, Senior Singer.>
Wind of Memory considered that, then flicked her ears in agreement.
<More than that, though,> Golden Voice continued, <great changes are about to befall our humans—and through them, us—on all sides. They are at war—> she used the human word, for the mind voices of the People had no matching reference, yet all who heard it knew of what she spoke <—with an enemy with far more nests, far more people, than our humans. Laughs Brightly and I have met some of those enemies.> The tail wrapped about her mate tightened again, and his tail slipped comfortingly about her, as well. <I lost my human to them, and Laughs Brightly has lost those he cared for deeply, and who Dances on Clouds loved, to them, as well, and some of them are truly evil, in a way few of the People could ever fully understand. Most are not, of course. Indeed, the mind glows of many of those we have met might equally well have been the mind glows of our own humans. Yet Laughs Brightly and I have also seen the weapons they use and tasted the fear of many of the humans—of the enemy humans, as well as our own—of where this war may lead. It may come even here, for our humans are dreadfully outnumbered. They are brave and determined, and I believe they fight much better than their enemies, yet not the bravest heart may hold back the ice days or forbid the mud days’ floods. Their weapons can kill even worlds, Senior Singer—accidentally, as well as deliberately. I know our humans would die before they willingly permitted such weapons to be used here, for this is their world, as well, and they would protect us as fiercely as they do their own younglings. Yet still it may happen, and what would become of Bright Water Clan, or the memory songs of its People, if such a weapon should strike here, in this central nesting place?>
