After a moment Hallach waved the finger at her, letting her take the bowl and go.
It was many days later that I came upon Shalumn in a corridor. She knew me by the borders painted upon my outer robe. Had she not painted them? Had the robe not been her gift to me? Now she turned away, as she must, and began to speak to the corridor wall. She told the wall about songfather, and Hazini, and how songfather had looked and what songfather had said. She knew I was standing in an alcove just behind her. She knew I could hear.
“Songfather looked very sad,” she said. “Songfather looked very strange. I went away then, stumbling a little. I wept. I miss my friend.” She gulped, and I saw her wipe her face with her hand. “I miss my love. I will always miss my love.” She walked away then, not glancing at me, but her cheeks were wet.
Shalumn’s were the only tears I saw shed for me. Song-father could not show grief. Chahdzi could not show grief. Hazini would not grieve, nor Zinisi, nor any of the people of the hive. Weaving Woman sends the shuttles to and fro, light and dark, youth and age, good and ill, wisdom and stupidity. Belief and doubt, also. Belief and doubt.
Often the pattern is not as we ourselves would weave it.
Masanees brought Saluez back to the hive and her story stopped. Time went by, yes, but Saluez did not care much about that. She did not hunger or thirst. The women around her forced her to eat and drink. Her prayers to Weaving Woman had not been answered. Her shuttle had not carried light. Her pattern was dark, only dark, and no one could see its end. There was no story of Saluez.
What was true of me was true also of Snark. During that time, she had no story. She was as she was, and little changed from day to day. We were stopped, our shuttles still, our colors waiting. During this time, the story was Lutha’s story, the pattern was Lutha’s pattern.
“My name is Trompe paggas,” the Fastigat said into Lutha’s annunciator. “I’ve been assigned as your assistant.”
She opened her door to the surging traffic. A hurrying passerby bumped her visitor hard enough to carom him into her, and clutching one another, they almost fell into her rooms. She stumbled to the door and shut it against the noise of the crowded concourse while her disheveled guest brushed himself off. He seemed more annoyed than the minor trampling warranted.
“How do you stand it?” he growled.
“Stand what?” She was puzzled.
“Living in all this mob!”
Her face cleared. It wasn’t a mob. It was just the ordinary workaday crowd, but this man was used to Fastiga, where things were managed differently, or to Prime, which was, if anything, too sparsely populated. Trompe Paggas had even put on a coverall so he wouldn’t be contaminated by rubbing up against people. Now, before he had even divested himself of this garment, he said, “You’re ambivalent about me.”
She laughed, the sounds fluttering up her throat like startled birds. This was so familiar, so like Leelson, this Fastigat habit of holding her feelings up before her, as though she didn’t know how she felt unless he told her! Even his gently concerned tone of voice was the same, even his expression, kindly and questioning.
“Trompe, don’t tell me. Please. Let that be a rule between us. Of course I’m ambivalent about you. I’m ambivalent about everything! About the trip. About taking Leely. About finding out something, or not finding out anything. About the Ularians wiping out humanity!”
“Ambivalent, even about the prospect of destruction?” he asked, shocked.
“Sometimes. Sure. Some days, doesn’t it seem like a good idea we should all be wiped out? Some days, don’t we make a royal mess of things?” As an official translator, she was aware of that mess, if he wasn’t. Words of impassioned rage and raw desperation flowed through her workstation every day. Broken treaties. Misinterpreted promises. Endless renegotiation. Forged certifications. Lies and evasions. She laughed again, seeing his expression.
“No,” he said soberly. “It does not seem like a good idea. All problems can be solved. It merely takes the will and attention to do so.”
She shrugged, smiling: he was so very Fastigat!
“All right, I won’t make problems. I realize you’ll know how I feel. I’ll tell you right now, you probably won’t ever know how Leely feels about anything. Let’s accept that. Your job will be to use your abilities to help me cope while we search for anything Bernesohn Famber might have left on Dinadh. You’re not here to tell me how I feel or help me deal with my emotions or any of that Fastigat stuff. I’ve had that. I don’t need it.”
He shrugged, making a face like a Leelson face. Physically, he was as unlike Leelson as possible, being short and chunky and dark instead of tall, slender, and bright-haired. A man of gold, Leelson. A man of iron, this. In his favor, he had astonishingly alert blue eyes and was also quite young. Younger than Lutha, at any rate.
“Can I see the boy?” he asked.
She pointed. The door between the office room and the sleeping room was open. He went through it with her behind him.
Leely was standing naked before the window scene, which was dialed to forest. His clothes lay as he’d dropped them in the corner. He had decorated the wall near the window with a feces finger painting, an extraordinary impression of the blown trees in the forest scene. He turned toward them with a lovely smile and a lilting laugh.
“Dananana,” he purred. “Dananana.”
“Excuse me,” she murmured to Trompe. “If you’ll give me a moment.”
Trompe nodded expressionlessly.
She was aware of him watching
