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  “She needed choice meat.”

  Aleytys gasped.

  “You asked,” he said tautly. “These are difficult times for these river pigs. That jealous old bitch slaughtered any of her daughters who showed the least bit of strength or intelligence. When she knew the next egg would be the last, would be the carrier of her essence, she sent the kipu searching for a special host. And the kipu found you. Strong, young, empath, healer, linguist, psi-potent to an almost unmeasurable degree. The perfect host.”

  Aleytys shuddered. “How do you know?”

  He stroked a finger down her cheek, then curled a strand of hair around his wrist. “A harem’s a hotbed of gossip.”

  “Harem?”

  “The queen’s bedmates, narami.”

  She twitched her nose. “How could you?”

  “I live how I must, narami. And there are drugs.”

  “And me?”

  “A joy and a delight.” He bent down and kissed her lightly, then pulled the sheets and cover back over her. “You’re tired. Why don’t you go back to sleep, narami.”

  “Not yet.” She pulled him down beside her. “Tell me the rest, Burash.”

  He slid his arm around her shoulders and held her against him. “It isn’t good telling, Leyta.”

  She said nothing.

  After a minute he began again. “You saw the egg. You saw them put it in your leg. As soon as the opening was sealed the egg began changing, triggered by the blood and warmth. Within an hour it had sent out a thousand thousand cilia through your body so that even the cleverest surgeon couldn’t clean them out and it dissolved itself into a hundred nodes scattered around the webbing.” He spoke very rapidly, sliding the words out with a desperate casualness as though he were not pronouncing sentence on her.

  “The nodes grow but not much.” His voice lowered so she had to strain to hear it. “She develops detail but remains small so that she does not inconvenience the host. She acts as a symbiote, taking food in return for comprehensive care of the host’s well-being, doing this by instinct rather than conscious decision. For a year.…” He stopped again and pulled her tight against him.

  Aleytys found it hard to comprehend what he was saying. The words dropped like rain onto her head, cool and quiet. She finally registered his silence. “After a year?”

  He sighed. “She reels in the cilia and reassembles herself.” He went silent again, then began speaking faster than ever so that some of the words escaped her entirely. “Changes … and goes … dormant … one week … transforms … larva … paralyzes the host … eats her way free … eats prodigiously … consumes … flesh, blood, bones … doubles in size hourly … half adult size when … host body gone … body alters radically … casts off old skin … emerges … young nayid queen … leaving the patterns of instinct for the life of an intelligent being.”

  Aleytys pulled back and stared at him, her tongue slipping around dry lips.

  He caressed her face with fingertips like butterfly wings. “Don’t, narami, don’t think about it. I told you it wouldn’t help you. You’ve a year, a whole year. There’ll be no pain. You’ll never feel any pain.” He held her shuddering body in tender arms, rubbing his hands up and down her back until her cold skin warmed and the knotted muscles softened. “Do what you want, Leyta. Don’t waste your spirit fighting what you can’t change. It’s done. Go to sleep now, my soft soft narami, go to sleep. You’ll feel stronger, wiser tomorrow, tomorrow … tomorrow.” He held her close until she sank into a heavy exhausted sleep.

  CHAPTER IV

  Aleytys scuffed through the aromatic grass, staring up at the yellow sun that hung solitary and strange over the eastern wall of the enclosed garden. Each time she saw that pale yellow splash on the pallor of the blue-green sky, it shook her to remember the incomprehensible distance separating her from the high mountain valley where she was born. At the ancient live oak she jumped lightly onto the low arching branch that curved out over the stream and ran along it to a secondary branch thrusting up at a wide angle at the highest point of the arch.

  Clinging with one hand to this branch she lowered herself onto the rough bark and dangled her legs over the water, shaking her hair, enjoying the feel of the morning breeze slipping along her scalp. She kicked her feet and watched with delight as the rose chiffon of her garment billowed out and subsided gracefully.

  Beneath her feet the water glimmered brilliantly in the long slanting light of the sun while the water magic sank into the marrow of her bones, soothing, healing, strengthening. She stretched out against the secondary branch, her body slowing until she drifted into a dreamy haze. For the first time in days the itch went away from her back and her head was clear of the artificially induced chaos.

  Dimly she felt a stirring at the back of her head. “Well, hello there,” she murmured. Immersed in the tranquillity that was the water’s gift, she accepted the advance, willing to wait the pleasure of the rider in her skull. After the difficult and dangerous collaboration on Lamarchos she no longer felt the horror and anger at her possession she had suffered when the rider had first touched her. After a while she murmured,

  “Who are you who share my body?”

  The presence stirred again. Surprise.

  She swung a foot. “I was busy on Lamarchos. No time to press for exclamations. Now it seems I’ll have considerable leisure.”

  A chuckle rippled across her mind.

  “So who are you? What are you?” She brushed the hair out of her eyes. Sunk in gentle contentment she watched the water flow past.

  Feeling of frustration. The disc flashed and vanished.

  She kicked the chiffon out again, humming with delight at the rosy glow. “The damper. Mmmm. I’ve got to get rid of that some way. You’re my hope of getting out of this. You heard what the queen egg means?”

  Agreement and anger.

  “Right. Since you climbed inside my head you’ve got me into more messes.”

  Strong objection.

  She laughed. “All right. Not your fault.” The garden scents came strongly to her … flower sweetness … dark brown tang of moist earth … cool astringent bite of greenery.… She moved her shoulders in vague discomfort against the limb that was propping her up. “I’ve got to get rid of that thing.”

  Quiet agreement.

  She sighed and let the water magic wash away the strident emotions. After a lazy dreamy time she closed her eyes. “You have any ideas?”

  An image formed in her mind.

  “Burash,” she whispered.

  Approval and a touch of impatience.

  Aleytys smiled up at the canopy of leaves.

  The image of Burash changed slightly. He held a knife in his right hand. Then he knelt beside the nude figure of a woman stretched out face down on the grass. He cut open her back and nudged the disc out of the flesh with the point of the knife. The woman sat up, winced, tossed the disc on a rock, brought a smaller rock down hard on it, a fierce pleasure in her intent face.

  “Would he really do it?” she whispered.

  A mental shrug.

  “So I persuade him.” She frowned. “Another one. Use him? Like I used Miks? When does it end?”

  A mental shrug.

  “No. I won’t. I can’t.”

  Impatience.

  “I’ll ask him, though. I suppose I have to. But he has to make up his own mind.”

  Acquiescence and more impatience.

  “It’ll hurt like hell. If I start threshing around, he’ll crack wide. Once that thing’s out of me I can heal myself. Can you cut the pain before?”

  Acquiescence.

  “What about after that?”

  “Talking to yourself?” The tenor voice broke into her musing.

  Aleytys twisted her head around. Burash stood on the sandy bank of the stream holding onto the tree so hard his knuckles had turned white. “I came to say farewell, Leyta.”

  Aleytys rubbed a finger against the corner of her mouth while she examined his face
, aware that she could only guess what the subtle twists and turns of muscle meant. Her mind began to jump in spasms even now as it automatically struggled to reach him. She had to catch tight hold of her responses to keep from veering off into a chaotic jumble of bits and pieces of image and idea. It took her a while to sort herself out. When she opened her eyes she saw him quietly turning away.

  “Wait.” She scrambled onto her feet and stood perched unsteadily on the gently swaying limb. “What do you mean, farewell?”

  He turned. When he saw her standing, he flinched, looked away, and leaned against the tree, focusing on the water tumbling past, his chest fluttering rapidly as he gasped for breath. Aleytys watched, puzzled and more than a little disturbed by his manifest agitation. Finally he said, “Farewell. A word meaning I wish you well and happy but will not see you again, narami.”

  She took a step toward him and nearly fell off the limb. “What are you talking about, Burash?”

  He wouldn’t look at her, staring instead at the eternally changing eternally persisting patterns of the water flow, his antennas fluttering wildly, their iridescent colors rippling through pattern after nervous pattern. When he spoke she had to strain to hear, balancing uneasily on the rough bark aware at the same time of the feel of it under her bare feet, the smells of the growing things, the shrill buzzing of insects she couldn’t see. She was surprised to find how much he’d become a part of her.

  “The old queen … her rites are tomorrow … no, the day after … she … her favorite things … live and dead … they’ll all be burned … up there.” He nodded his head at the precipitous cliff rising behind the pile of rock the nayids called the mahazh. “The rite of passage,” he muttered. “I was her favorite just before … the egg is fertile from me … I will … they’ll drug me … lay me at her feet … tie some hiiri around her … they won’t bother to drug them … them … clothes … other things … these aren’t my people, not my ways … I told you.” He clutched at the tree again and lifted his eyes with painful effort. “I wish you farewell, Aleytys.”

  She ran down the limb and bent over him. “You’re joking.”

  “I don’t feel very amused.” His mouth twisted into a wry, self-mocking smile. “Or very honored. It’s supposed to be an honor, you know.” He glanced up at her and looked rapidly away again. “Leyta, would you please come down from there?”

  “Why don’t you come up here?” She straightened. “It’s cool and more comfortable than it looks.”

  He shuddered. “God, no. Just looking at you gives me the shakes.”

  “Madar!” She caught hold of the chiffon and pulled it taut against her body. “Move over a little, will you?”

  He shuddered again and turned his back. Aleytys shook her head and jumped lightly down beside him. She put her hand on his arm and felt the bunched muscles quiver at her touch. “Heights bother you that much?”

  He turned to face her, his mouth twitching into a brief self-deprecating smile. “One step off the ground and I panic. Shall we sit down? I’m feeling a little weak in the knees.”

  They sat on a stone bench near a miniature waterfall, a mimo-soid scattering lacy shadow over them. She sighed and leaned against his shoulder, eyes shut, feeling half home again.

  “What are you going to do?” she asked dreamily.

  “Nothing.” He shook his head. “There’s nothing I can do.”

  Aleytys sat straight and stared at him. “Look,” she said sharply, “can’t you get away?”

  “Do you think I’m any less a prisoner than you?”

  “Madar!” She shifted uneasily on the bench. “But … even if they aren’t your people, they’re still your species. You could get away, lose yourself in the city. You said there’s a city out there. Anything.… Isn’t it worth a try?”

  He shrugged but said nothing, enigmatic insectoid eyes fixed on his long elegant feet.

  She examined his face, then shook her head. “You knew this would happen, didn’t you. As soon as the old hag died you came to me. Why?”

  He sat silent a minute then looked unhappily at his hands. “Yes. I knew.” His fingers closed into white-knuckled fists. “I wondered.… I wondered what kind of person you’d be. Aleytys … I’ve got no claim on you, none at all. There was a moment of sharing … a little thing … a giving back and forth between two tired and lonely people.” His antennas twitched and twitched again. “There is no debt.” He opened his hands and closed them again. His antennas jerked now in long agitated swoops. “The first moments of tenderness since I.…” He broke off again, swallowed, stood up. “I came to say good-bye to you, I couldn’t go without that.” He reached out and touched her hair with a shaking hand.

  Aleytys caught hold of the hand. “That. All that. It means there is a way and you don’t want to tell me.” She pulled him back beside her. “Look. We, neither of us … we’re different species. I don’t even come from this damn world. They stuck a thing in my back that keeps me from … never mind. I imagine there’s a million mistakes we make a minute about how the other is feeling, what the other is thinking. I believe you. In spite of all that. Do you hear me? I believe you because I have to. And I want to.” She smiled suddenly. “You came to me for one reason.… one you haven’t told me yet … and stayed with me for a whole different other reason.”

  His mobile mouth spread into a trembling smile. “God, I’m afraid, Leyta. To be burned alive.” He trembled so that his antennas shook like trees in a storm wind. “But I won’t whore for you. For my soul’s sake, Aleytys, believe me. I couldn’t have coupled with you if I hadn’t shared the joy in it with you.”

  “I believe you,” she repeated gently. “Tell me how I can save you.” His hands were warm in hers. She could feel them tremble.

  He pulled free and cupped his hands around her face. “If you go to the kipu,” he said rapidly. “And ask her for me, they’ll take another of the queen’s bedmates for the fire.” He watched her face go blank and turned away, dropping his head into shaking hands. “I don’t blame you, Leyta.” His voice came low and muffled, full of pain.

  She ran her fingers distractedly through her hair. “Madar! what a choice! Damn. What do I know about the world? I woke up on a cutting table … ahai!” She plucked at the thin shoulder straps. “After all I went through, to end up like this.”

  Burash caught hold of her jerking fingers and held them till she grew quieter. “At least you’ll have a year, Leyta.”

  She shuddered and straightened her back. “She won’t conquer me, that kipu, I swear that, Burash. She might have bought me, but I’ll never be her slave. Never!”

  Burash pressed his hand across his mouth. Speaking so softly she could barely hear the muffled words. He said, “You haven’t a chance, Leyta. Even if you get away. You carry your doom with you.”

  “No!” She jumped up and began pacing back and forth on damp sand that crunched and squeaked under her feet. “I’ll believe that when I’m dead,” she said fiercely.

  “Sit down, Aleytys.”

  “What?”

  “I said sit down. Don’t fight the air. It’s a waste of time and effort.”

  Reluctantly she came back and sat down beside him. “Sometimes I feel like exploding. It’s not fair. What have I done that all these things happen to me?” She leaned back, folding her hands behind her head. “Forget that. Can you get hold of a knife. A sharp one?”

  He stiffened. “You won’t.…”

  “No, naram.” She laughed. “I’m not going to kill myself and I damn sure won’t try to fight my way out of this trap with a silly little throat slitter. And.…” She touched her thigh with probing fingers. “I’m not foolish enough to expect to cut the incubus out of myself. But I do need a knife.”

  “I’ll see what I can do.”

  “No hurry.” Aleytys smiled at him. “I’ll see the kipu this afternoon.”

  He slumped beside her, eyes shut, hand trembling on his thighs, his body loose. “I feel sick,” he said after a w
hile.

  She looked speculatively at him, wondering whether to tell him about the operation. It didn’t seem to be quite the right time. “Tell me more about your people. I’m sorry, I just wasn’t listening last night.”

  Smoothing his kilt over his thighs, he stared thoughtfully at the water. “I never wanted to be here.” He mused for a while, then leaned back and gazed dreamily into space, his voice slow and thick with memory.

  “My family lived in the high country among the pines. We were herders of immeranu. My mother was well known. All over the island the name of Dannana meant the best of blood line, firm taut flesh, long silky fleece, spirit and intelligence. We lived quietly but well, with buyers from the cities coming thick in the fall and breeders when winter turned to spring so that our holding was filled with bustle and excitement twice a year. I remember.…

  “My mother. She was strong, vivid, alive. So alive her strength flowed like a river through us all, warm and blessing. And she was tender, gentle as a male, not like these river pigs. She was secure in what she was so she could afford to show a male tenderness. My father. He was gifted. His weaves and designs brought high praise and high prices and the things he carved from the wood he seasoned himself … even traders from the star city came looking for them. It was a good time. I was happy.…

  “One day.…” He shivered. “Kanuu, Gammal, and I had the black herd out. I remember it was just after foaling and the young ones were wobbling about, chasing each other and bumping into things, falling and getting up with sheepish sly sets to their gangly bodies. Even though spring was still new, it was quite warm in the patches of sunlight although the chill lingered in the shadows. The pine branches had pale green needles at their tips and a few poppies shone deep orange in the tender new grass thrusting up through the old year’s yellow matting. When I close my eyes I can see the smallest detail.…

  “Kanuu saw the skimmers first and yelled a warning. We ran under the trees but it was already too late.” His mouth tightened. “The bitch queen was bored again, sent raiders out for young males, sent them in the skimmers the starfolk sold her. She still hated us on Sep for throwing her out and they pandered to her hatred for their profit.” He closed his eyes and leaned against the stone back of the bench. For a moment he was silent. Aleytys waited patiently.