Текст книги "Cuckoo's Egg"

Автор книги: C. J. Cherryh

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(I always remembered that.)

"Boy."

The machine went off, Sagot's intervention. He blinked at Sagot, who had brought him a pill and a small cup of water. (Gods, it ismeds. What's wrong? Do they just want to look at me?) "Sagot, I don't want to swallow that. I'm not sick."

She went on holding it out. There was no choice, then. He picked the pill off her black, wrinkled palm and put it in his mouth. He had no need of the water to swallow it, but it made his stomach feel better; it threatened upset. (Is that what has Sagot acting strange? Is there something really the matter with me? Does Duun think so?)

"I want you to go next door with me," Sagot said. "Yes, it's meds. You're going to lie down a while and I want you to be good about this."

(You smell afraid, Sagot. So do I, I think. Gods, what's this about?) 138

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He got up. He towered over Sagot, but Sagot reached and took his hand.

(I'm hatani, Sagot, you're not supposed to—) But he never told Sagot no.

She led him by the hand to the door in the side of that room, and led him through it into a small room that left no illusions about meds in this room.

It was a cramped small place, all machinery and a table. Sagot's hand held his. She was evidently not going to argue the matter. (She's afraid. What should Ibe?) But he stood there while meds came out and told him to take off his kilt and lie down.

"I'll be all right," he told Sagot; he did not want to undress with her there, not because he would shock her– (I have fourteen great-great-grandchildren, boy)– but precisely because it would not, she would look on him as a child, and child-Thorn was already too naked. But Sagot stayed, and Thorn turned his back and unfastened his kilt and got up on the table when the meds told him to. His head swam; his limbs felt distant from his brain; he drifted in a vast calm which itself alarmed him.

(It was a drug Sagot gave me. Does Duun know? Does he know where I am, what they're doing, did he order this?)

They pasted electrodes about his body. He felt this far distant from him.

They spoke in whispers or his hearing had gone wrong. They adjusted a screen above his head. Something soft and rough settled over his naked body and he realized vaguely that someone had put a sheet over him; he was dimly grateful. (It's cold in here; they never realize how cold I get sometimes, they've got a coat and I don't and I'm sweating now—) Something tight went over his legs, once again over his chest. " Talkto him, for the gods' sake, he's not a piece of meat you're handling."

"Sagot-mingi, we have to ask you to be still, with respect, mingi Sagot."

Something weighed on his shoulder. Shook at him. "Keep your eyes open.

Look up."

Thorn obeyed that voice. He heard the sound of his tapes over and over again.

"Blink. That's right. You can blink when you have to."

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"He's following that, isn't he?"

The voice drifted out again. He heard another voice babbling at him; there were images, he was in the simulator; more voices, more images, there were people like him moving in the dark, there were faces that babbled at him, there were machines and more machines—

He tried to leave this.

Eyes stared at him, mirrorlike. More machines that spun in dark and arms that moved—

He fought. He evaded and escaped and fought.

"This is your heritage," a voice told him out of the dark. "Accept it, Haras-hatani. This is your heritage. Accept what you hear and see. Stop resisting.

Accept this. This is your heritage."

Chaos of images.

"Listen to the sounds. Learn this, Haras-hatani. Remember these things."

"Wake up."

He was lying on the table. The sheet was over him. He was drenched in sweat. He wanted only to lie there and his eyes stung as if sweat were in them; it might be. Someone wiped his face and the cloth was neutral-feeling, wet and rough but neither cold nor hot. Someone lifted a weight off his chest and legs. "Are you sure you ought to? He's not awake yet."

He was, but he preferred to keep that secret to himself, and stare at the stark steel of the machinery, ignoring the faces and the touches, the sudden nakedness of his body as they peeled electrodes away in small twitches he ought to have felt keenly and did not.

"His color isn't good."

(I'm cold, fool.)

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Something stung his arm. It was not a great pain. In a moment he began to feel his heart thumping the way it did in nightmares.

(Go away. Let me alone. Don't touch me.)

"Hold him, don't let him move."

He blinked. Meds held his limbs in a hurtful grip. He lifted his head. "Let go. I'm awake. I want to sit up."

They looked foolish, with a dropping of their ears. After they had mulled it over they let him go and one at his side got a hand beneath his back and one and another helped him sit up, holding him.

"Are you through?" Thorn said.

"We're through," one said. They rarely spoke to him at all. "We'll put you to bed awhile."

"I'm going home." Thorn gave a sudden heave and landed with his feet on the floor. His feet were numb, but his knees held. The med reached and he stopped that reach with a backhand lift of his arm, slow-motion, gentle warning. The med took the warning when his stare followed the turn he made, and backed off.

"Sagot," someone said, "Sagot, get in here fast."

Thorn waited then, if Sagot was coming. He remembered he was naked. "I want my clothes." A med gave him his kilt, and he took it and worked with numb fingers and diminished balance to put it on.

A door opened. He looked up at Sagot. "Sagot," he said; he was very careful to be polite. Duun would hit him if he was rude to the meds, and he was desperate. He made his voice ever so calm and courteous, and stood as easily as he could. "Sagot, they think I ought to go to bed here and I'd much rather go to my own and sleep. Please get me home, Sagot."

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Sagot looked at him with her thin mouth all taut. A long while she stood there. "All right," Sagot said. "Call his guard and call Duun and tell him we're coming back." Sagot came and took Thorn's arm, wound her thin, fragile forearm about his and locked both her hands on his, and he walked with her, out of that room.

"We'll wait here a moment," she said in the other room; and stood there with him, holding to his arm. In a moment the door opened and the guard was there who walked with him everywhere. Ogot was his name. He said little, but he was a pleasant man; he was Duun's, and if Ogot had taken him to this place and never told him, perhaps Ogot had not known half as much as Sagot had. Ogot looked worried to see him, and Thorn felt ashamed to be so helpless.

"It's all right," Sagot said, "they've just given him a little sedative; we'll walk slowly. The boy wants to go home now. Come on, Thorn."

* * *

He was not in his bed, he was lying on cushions on the riser that touched the main room wall, the windows showed branches lashing in the rain, glass spotted and distorted with water. The audio played thunder and rain-sound. Lightning flashed. The air-conditioning wafted moist, cool air and the smell of woods in rain. He lay against the cushions in the room he knew (but the walls always changed) and blinked. He knew those trees, the one that bent, the crooked limb, the rocks, the way one could climb—

"Here." Duun sat down on the riser and took a cup and poured him tea.

"It's got aghos in it, don't spit it: you could use the calories."

He took it in one hand and sipped at it. The spice was sickly sweet, but it tasted better than his mouth did. He blinked at Duun. His neck was stiff; he had been sleeping wrong.

"That's good," Duun said. "I moved you in here."

"Carried me?" He remembered bed; remembered Duun rousing him once and making him drink.

"I still can."

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"Duun, they—"

"Hush."

Thorn caught his breath. So he had been about to embarrass himself. (You have a need, Thorn.) He felt drained and placid now after the storm before.

The illusory rain spattered the windows. "That's Sheon, isn't it?"

"I saved that image. I had it done about a year ago. I thought I'd use it someday."

(Some special day. Today? Is it a gift? To make up for the other thing?)

"More tea?" Come on. I want you to wake up now. We're going to have a round in the gym this afternoon."

"You'll kill me."

"I'll go easy, minnow." Duun's face staring at him, half good, half bad, with that forever mocking smile. "You'll manage."

(Is he happy with me now? Was it a test I passed?) "Duun, they had me—"

Duun lifted his right hand, the single finger. Silence, that meant. (I don't want you to talk.)

"They—"

"It didn't happen."

"Dammit, it—"

"It didn't happen. Hush."

Thorn's pulse picked up. He lay there staring at Duun's scarred face, at the unblinking stare. His heart thumped against his ribs. (What are you doing to me? What are you doing to me, Duun-hatani?)

* * *

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"You're slow, Thorn. Slow. Speed!"

Thorn tried. He spun and lost his centering, dived backward to save himself as the capped knife crossed his belly: he felt the touch of it, spun away and brought his blade up in defense at what followed. Time, Duun called, and hunkered down. Thorn sat down and wiped his face.

"I'm off. I'll get it back."

"You'll go on practicing." Duun said,

"What– 'go on'?" (Has something changed? What's wrong?) Go onhad the sound of finality.

"Three mornings of a five you'll have your study. Every other day you'll go back to that room. It's another kind of study."

"Duun—"

"—which we won't talk about."

"Duun, I can't!"

"Can't?"

Thorn flinched. He clenched his arms about his knees. "Have you? Have you been through it?"

"We won't talk about it. Every other day you'll face that. You'll know you're going to face it; and you'll walk in on your own and be polite with the meds. This is the only time I'm going to tell you this. If you truly begin to suffer they'll put you down to once a five-day. But that's something the meds will decide for medical reasons, not your untutored whims."

" Forever?For the rest of my life?"

Duun hesitated. Duun rarely hesitated in answers, though he might stop to consider. In this, the pause was minute and Duun frowned. "It's a test, 144

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minnow. You're not going to fail it, hear? I'm not going to tell you how long it lasts. You're not going to bring the matter through that door. Next time you'll sleep it off in the medical section. When you can walk home on your own you'll do it; and you'll walk in at whatever hour and say Hello, Duun, I'm home, what are we going to do?– the way you do every day.

Sagot was soft and let you do as you pleased, and I should have sent you back right then and not coddled you. Life's not likely to coddle you."

"Neither are the meds, Duun! It hurt,it– I don't know how to handle it.

Duun, give me some help, for the gods' sakes tell me how I ought to handle it!"

"Accept it. With dignity. Embrace it. With all the strength and cleverness you've got."

"Did I fail today?"

"No." Duun said. "No, you did marvelously well. You can be proud of yourself. You've made a lot of people happy with you, people you've not met. But we won't talk about it anymore. You'll come home and you won't have to talk about it; we'll do everything we always do. I think you'll be glad of that."

"You won't shout at me."

A second time Duun looked taken aback, and that was rarer still. "No, minnow. I won't shout at you."

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XI

"Good morning," Sagot said.

Thorn walked across the sand the length of the room to where Sagot sat, as she had sat the first time he saw her. Reprise. He walked to the riser facing hers and sat down on the edge, feet dangling, hands locked in his lap.

Sagot's face was a stranger's face, withholding everything behind the eyes, an aged, white-dusted mask.

"How are you, Thorn?"

(As if we started over.) "I'm fine, Sagot. Duun says I have to go back there tomorrow. Is it going to be the same?"

"I can't discuss it, Thorn."

He sat there a moment. "I want to know, Sagot. What are they doing?"

"I can't discuss it. Can we get to our lessons?"

"Will you go with me tomorrow?" (Please, Sagot.) A long silence. "I don't think I can really make much difference. They won't let me bring you home; they're going to insist you stay there; they think they woke you up too fast. They weren't happy at all about my taking you out of there; you were on your feet and you were being reasonable—" Sagot's mouth puckered in humor. "—but a drunk hatani's not to argue with. Tomorrow you'll know what to expect and you won't argue with the meds, all right?"

"I know. I'd still like for you to stay."

"Thorn—"

"Don't talk to Duun about it. I know he'd say no. Just do it, Sagot. I don't trust the meds. I've never liked them."

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"I'll be there." Sagot smoothed the heavy fabric of her kilt and rested her hands on her ankles. "Let's talk about the weather– like atmosphere. Like the interaction of the oceans and air masses. When I was at the north pole, that was back in '87, I flew up there, but I went out on this exploration ship, Uffu Nonwas its name. Ask me about the hothonin some time—"

' "What are hothonin?"

"It's this kind of fish, about shonun size. They catch birds. That's right.

They have this white spot on their heads which looks like a small fast-swimming fish when they run just below the surface; a bird dives down, the hothun dives up– snap,no bird. See what assumptions do? Anyway, we put out of Eor port and headed out to sea—"

* * *

"He's still sane," Duun said. Ellud faced him, hands on knees, in the normal clutter of Ellud's desk. Duun sat opposite, in the accustomed place.

"Let's not push it, Ellud."

"I'm not pushing it," Ellud said. "Council's pushing me. Betan'ssurfaced.

She's alive."

Duun let his face relax in his surprise. "That's no good news. Where?"

"She's in seclusion. Shbit's got her, of course, in his house. That's the report that's gotten to me, via a councillor who talked to a councillor who talked with her. Don't go in there, Duun. For the gods' sake, don't try it at this point. Everything's going our way and Shbit's got nothing but a failed agent."

"The bureau agents must be in Shbit's bed if they're sure what he hasn'tgot. I don't like their complacency. Tell them that."

"Stay out of it, Duun, Gods, you go after Shbit and you could blow this whole thing into the public eye again, and gods know we've been there too often as it is. The council's riding even just now. The appropriations keep coming."

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"I know when Shbit will move. Shbit doesn't know it yet." Duun decided on the tea and poured himself a cup. "One has to suppose he restrains Betan; but I'd rather not suppose at all. What's the report from Gatog? Any details?"

"They've got the problem solved. It turned out to be a software glitch.

They took each other out."

Duun frowned. "I figured. False alarm, then. Dammit, Ellud. Those ears go down again and we'll have councillors in the trees."

"It could be worse."

"Believe me, I never quite forgot that." Duun picked up the cup with two fingers of his right hand and turned it with his left, feeling the incised design, natural clay, the costly happenstance of obu art, which was like Ellud, both clever and lacking plan. The paradoxes of the man confounded him lifelong. "I want to see the reports on Shbit. I want to know when he breathes in and how long he holds it. To the second, Ellud, tell your agents that."

* * *

"…in 1582 the first reactor went on line in toghon province—"

"…in 1582 the Dsonan League established the international council. The immediate motivation was the drought which occurs in cycles in Thogan and which in that year had created considerable hardship on the seventeen million who inhabited the region stretching from—"

"…in 1593 the first satellite was launched from the Dardimuur coast—"

(Satellite?)

"…in 1698 Botan no Gelad became the first shonun into space."

"Sagot." Thorn's heart beat very fast. He looked up from his monitor at a placid, aged face. "Sagot, we're in space."

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"I was a little girl when Nagin walked on the moon. I remember my oldest brother coming and bringing me to the television and telling me that was the moon and shonun were walking on it. Nagin and Ghotisin and Sar. I went outside in the dark– it was spring and it was a clear night; I looked up at the moon and tried to see where they were, but of course I couldn't. I stared and stared and my brother came out and stood beside me. 'I'll go up there someday,' he said. He did. He flew all the way to Dothog and he walked on another world. He sent me a picture of him standing there in front of a sea of red dunes, you can't tell it's him, of course, the suit's big and cumbersome, and the sunvisor's down, but I know it's him. I still have it."

(Machines in the dark. Things spinning.)

("The world's wide, minnow, wider than you know.")

"Can I see it? Can I meetyour brother?"

"He's dead. He died, oh, forty years ago. He had an equipment failure, out on the Yuon desert, on Dothog. Air ran out. I've got the picture, though.

I'll bring it."

"I'm sorry, Sagot."

"Child, you grieve and you get over things. I just remember my brother now, not the end of him, just the living. You know the shuttleport, just outside Dsonan? You can feel the ships take off. You can hear them when they come in, like thunder, even through the walls—"

"Is thatthat sound?" ("Duun, what's that?" "I don't know, buildings have a lot of sounds. Mind on your business, minnow.")

"—about every five-day. They carry cargo up to the station, pick up what the station makes, medicines and such, and bring it back down. There's still the Dothog base, it's quite a little town now, all domes and connecting tunnels. All scientists. About once a year you can get a tour out from the station, but it's horrendously expensive, the kind of thing only the rich can afford and too rough to please most of that sort, but they still have a few 149

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visitors. I've dreamed about it, I'd like to go, but it takes a year each way; and something always comes up. I don't know—" Sagot looked at her hands and looked up. "I think, I think deep down I'm superstitious about it, I think my brother's still there, still climbing about over the dunes and enjoying himself, but if I went there it'd be just a place, I'd see the town all grown up and the damn tourists and I'd go out in the desert and he wouldn't be there. Then he'd be dead for me, really dead– oh, gods. I'm sorry, boy, the old woman talks on and on. You wanted to ask me about space."

"Have you been there?"

"I've been up to the station. It's a barren kind of place, all tubes and tunnels—"

(Tunnels. Metal tunnels. Going on and on, bending up when you walk them—)

"—and one part of it looks a lot like all the other parts. And strangely enough you don't really get to see the stars much. You can see them from the shuttle if you get up front– they let you do that. It's beautiful. The world's beautiful. Haven't you seen it in pictures?"

(The dark globe with the fire coming over it, the spinning place—)

"No, of course you haven't. I've got this marvelous window-tape. I bought it on the station. It's the earth from space. I think I can find a copy for you.

You get to watch the sun come up over and over again round the curve of the world; you get to see all the seas and the clouds all swirled—"

* * *

"He's coming round– he's coming round. Hold the injection. He's coming out of it."

"That jolted him. Somethinghappened."

"Quiet. He can hear. Let's get him out of here."

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"Do you hear us, Thorn? Move your hand if you hear us."

* * *

"Aaaaaaaaiiiiii!"

It was his voice. Thorn was the one screaming. He came fighting up out of the dark, and dark was about him, stars aglow in giddy distance.

Light blazed, white and awful; he flung himself out of bed blind and hit the wall with his back before he saw Duun in the doorway, against the dark of the hall, Duun naked from his sleep and staring at him. "Are you all right, Thorn?"

Thorn leaned against the cold surface at his back. His limbs began to shake in aborted reaction. "I'm sorry, Duun."

Duun kept on staring at him. Duun's ears were back. Thorn peeled himself off the wall. The windows were sunrise now, sun coming up over grasslands. Duun had disrupted the timer. The air-conditioner wafted grass-scent, dewy and cold, Thorn shivered again, feeling the draft on his skin. Bedclothes made a trail over the side of the bed and onto the sand, the route his flight had taken.

"It was a nightmare," Thorn said. "I dreamed…." (Faces. Sounds.) He began to shake again. "Faces like mine,Duun– they didn't make me up!"

Duun said nothing. His face had that masklike look that it had when he was not going to say anything.

"Did they?" Thorn persisted.

"Who said they didn't make the tapesup?"

"Don't do this to me, Duun!"

"You don't sound sleepy. You want a cup of tea, a bit to eat?"

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Thorn surrendered. Duun was being kind. Duun was leading him off again. Thorn knew the tricks. He ripped the sandy bedclothes loose and threw them down on the floor. The bed wanted turning and thumping anyway, and the blankets could use washing. Duun had left the door and left it open. Thorn pulled the bin open in the side of the riser and took out yesterday's clothes, but it was before baths and he had to dress again before class.

Duun was in the kitchen when he came in, setting the teapot on the riser.

"Sobasi?"

"It's all right." The microwave was busy. It went off and Thorn pulled the plates out and set them on the table. (Faces. Faces. The station. Ships coming and going. Dots and symbols. Chemistry. The value of pi.

Numbers.) Thorn sat down and swung his legs about, crossed; Duun did the same and poured tea for himself. "I drink too much of this stuff," Duun said, "it ruins my sleep."

"So do I. Duun, can we talk about it– once?"

Duun's ears went flat.

"Dammit, please!"

Duun held out the teapot to him with a bland look on his face. "One question. I'll listen to it. Only one, Haras-hatani. You don't have to ask it now if you want to think about it. Snap judgment's never good."

Thorn took the teapot, composed his face and poured. (I hate him. I hate him. He hasn't got a nerve in his body.) "I'll tell you when I ask it: I don't want you taking the first question I ask and claiming that lets you off.

Have you got a lover?"

(Got him.) Duun's ears flicked; the eyes dilated and contracted. "Was that the nightmare?"

"No. I'm just curious."

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"None now. A companion for a while. I sent her off." Duun filled his mouth and swallowed.

"Why?"

(Another strike. I hadn't thought that.) "She would have wanted marriage eventually. I didn't."

"How old are you?"

"Minnow, when you started this, we were talking about one question. Is this all pertinent?"

"You were onto me yesterday because I always take the defensive; attack sometimes, you said. I realize I do that even outside the gym. So I'm attacking. Do you think you're old?"

Duun grinned. "You'll go too far pretty soon, Haras-hatani, and I'll call this game. Do youthink I'm old?"

"What was your solution for the government?"

"To make you hatani. Which I've done."

"Why didn't you want me to learn about the world the way it is?"

"You have now, haven't you?" Duun shrugged. (Gods, not a flicker.) "It never came up; too much of Sheon and too little of the world. When we came here– two years early, and not quite my planning, I might remind you—" (Counterattack and hit.) "You were pretty badly shaken, if you'll recall, and you knew too damn much you were unusual." (Hit again. Gods!

he's got no mercy.) "What was I going to do? Throw the world at you in a day? Listen, minnow, I had a problem on my hands, I had a boy to bring up without newscasts, without pictures of cities, without any hint what went on outside Sheon's woods, because any photograph with people in it was going to show a smart young lad that people all look a lot like me and none of them like you. I had to educate you without educating you, if you see the problem, because I didn't want you to suffer with your difference. I 153

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wanted to give you a childhood, and I gave you the best one I knew: I gave you mine."

(He's working on me. He's telling the truth. What wasthe experiment?

They're not done with it. It's still going on.) Thorn felt sweat gather in the folds of his knees and beneath his arms.

"You have to admit," Duun said, "the last two years there's been a lot poured into your head. A lot of facts. You've come from the past to the present. I'll tell you: when I started I didn't know what your mental capacity might be, whether it was normal, you understand. I didn't know whether I coulddo what I planned. I had to know that before I let anyone else set hands on you… whether you could be hatani. Remember Ehonin's daughter."

"Why is it important– to have me be hatani?"

"Is that your question?"

"I told you I would say when it was my question."

"Well, I'll tell you that one someday."

"This is my question: Why do the things they make me see have the station in them and why is the station full of people like me?"

"That's two questions."

"It's one. A hatani ought to see the unity."

"Well, I'll treat it as one. The station isn't, it's full of ordinary people, and I told you the truth, you're unique. Probably the tests are making you dream in strange ways; it's got psychological implications I'm sure the meds are interested in."

"The experiment's still going on, isn't it?" (Gods, he's twisted me up again.

Everything. Everything's an illusion, like the windows.) "Isn't it, Duun?"

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"That's still another question. I'm not going to answer that. I told you I didn't want to bring the matter through the door; I'd think you'd be glad of a place where people didn't take your mind apart and play games with what you know."

"Gods, tell me where that is!"

Duun smiled; or maybe it was the scar. "Eat. You woke me up. You can damn well eat the breakfast you made me cook."

* * *

"It's a language, Sagot. Why don't they just tell me that?"

"Hush. I can't talk about it."

"What are they doing to me?"

"Thorn, there's no way I can discuss it. Please."

"I ache when I get out of there. I feel like someone's taken me and twisted me inside out. I see things in my sleep. I've had the windows changed. It was stars. I'd wake up and not know where I was and I felt like I was falling, like the sleep-falling, only worse. It's woods now, and sometimes Sheon's woods in the rain, I can't sleep without that. I wish they'd change that awful desert picture in the lab."

"It's meant to be restful."

"There's too much sky in it. It's dead. I dream of a place like that and I don't like it."

"I'll ask them to change it. I'm sure they will. They really try to be good to you, you know that."

"They hate me."

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"Boy, they're professionals. They have to be cold. Their minds are busy thinking what to do and they're like all professionals, they get to handling people just like they push their buttons and expect things to work. They forget there's a person attached to that leg and that arm because they're looking down into their minds seeing on a different level, like how the veins and nerves run. On that level your body's just a map with pathways going here and there, and I'm afraid they're on those tracks without much thinking that somewhere up that network there s a skull with a brain in it and a very anxious young man living there and watching and listening to what they're saying to each other."

(Sagot, you're redirecting. I know that trick. I'm a boy between two crafty adults and they keep me off my balance all the time. I get tired of fighting the storm. I just want to sink down and quit sometimes.)

"I'm thinking about killing myself."

Panic. Sagot looked at him in shock. Thorn grinned and ached inside.

"I was joking. You're very good at getting me off the subject. I thought I'd do it too."

"Don't joke about a thing like that, boy. I had a husband do that on me. I don't think it's funny at all."

"Don't tell me about your husband! You're doing it to me again! I won't listen to you!" He flung himself off the riser and stalked across the sand, headed out. Sagot was silent behind him. He got as far as the outside door, in the room with the vase and branch; and the door was locked. He hit the switch. Hammered on the door. "Open it up! I want out of here!"

There was no escape. Eventually he had to go back (as Sagot planned) into the room. But he sat down on the last riser and folded up his legs and studied the veins on his hands and ankles, which were distended in anger.

Maps. Pathways. Sagot's husband hadprobably killed himself, she was not making it up. She was sitting up there with an ungratefully rude boy sulking in front of her and he had struck at her in a hatani way. He had hit Cloen. He had hit Sagot. Both times he had perverted what he knew.

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He got up finally, and walked up and sat down in front of Sagot. "You can shout at me, Sagot. Please."

"I don't need to."

(Hit. Deft and killing as Duun's wit when he was crossed.) Thorn flinched inside. "Forgive me, Sagot. Sagot, don't hate me."

"Wicked boy. By guile and redirection. I can tell you're Duun's handiwork.

Back to the meds, are we?"

"Just don't tell me they don't. I can read bodies; I can read eyes, Sagot.

They hate me and they're afraid of me and they made me what I am. Is that reasonable of them?"

"Maybe it's the hatani they're afraid of. Did you think of that? People don't like being read. A hatani stops at your door, you give that hatani food, a place to sleep, and you start thinking over every move you make because you know you're being read, constantly, every tiny move. It would take a very stupid person or a very innocent one to relax with a hatani under his roof."

"A hatani doesn't judge if he's not asked to. Sometimes not even then.

Why should they worry?"

"Guilt. Everyone's guilty of something. A hatani makes you know what you're guilty of."

"Even hatani are guilty, Sagot."