SIX

Under a morning sun already molten, Samwan wel comed Bailey at her dock. The mistress was dressed for labor, in simple pants and jacket, but even these were fine. Samwan was one of the lucky ones: a firstborn child who inherited an islet from her landed mother or father.

“Mistress Samwan,” Bailey said as she relinquished her skiff to a hoda, “you look wonderful.”

Samwan smiled. “Oh Bailey, one is dressed for labor.” As she led Bailey into the compound, women waved— Samwan's half-sisters and full sisters, aunts, grandmothers. The compound filled with a chorus of Bailey's name, the human name without t's, k's, or, heaven forbid, zh's.

The grounds were baked hard, though the rainy season was only one week past. Under her hat, Bailey squinted into the glare of the day wishing for sunglasses. Perhaps she would put the concept out and see what the industrious hoda might devise.

Amidst darting children, the yard teemed with work as women dug trenches to rebury ceramic water pipes exposed by the erosions of the river. In addition, Samwan was reconstructing her generator hut, where a new engine was being installed, driven by her household's hydrowheels in the Puldar, here in this land where people had no concept of public utilities.

As they approached the generator hut, Samwan cried out to one of the hoda workers. Frowning, she climbed a ladder, talking so fast Bailey couldn't keep up, but clearly showing the laborer how things should be done. Leaving Samwan to her construction project, Bailey wandered off, having grown more accepted in the compound, and hoping to see all sides of things, even things the Dassa did not wish seen—because of course everyone had something to hide. You didn't live to be seventy-eight without knowing that.

Proper Dassa and hoda alike worked in the long morning shadows of the huts or played with the dozens of children, here in this world of women's compounds and shared child-raising. Because so many female relatives chose to household with Samwan, the compound's allocation from the judipon was extensive, both in goods and slaves. Children nestled in hoda laps and mothers’ laps, or rushed about in small gangs. Like the boys, the girls were lavishly tended, but unlike the boys, girls grew up and toward their sharply defined fates: to become proper Dassa or hoda. Bailey turned from those thoughts. It made her like Samwan less.

But every child here looked plump and healthy. Nick said that the adult-rich environment fostered a thriving, cooperative, child-rearing culture. Even the nonbreeding adults shared child-care duties, relegating kinship to a minor consideration. So Nick said, debriefing Bailey after each of her excursions, all the while resenting her freedom of movement, chafing at the restrictions the palace placed upon him. And then, yesterday, Anton had left Nick out of the trip to the ruins …

She passed two hoda who were caressing each other's arms, perhaps applying a lotion or salve—no, hands were straying under tunics and whatnot. In broad daylight. And worse, beside them two youngsters no more than five years old were mimicking them. Bailey turned away, appalled. She hoped that children's skin was not easily aroused. But then, why not really? They weren't human.

Toward the perimeter of the compound, Bailey found herself gazing at a piece of folk art called a wallishen, a “picture of one moment.” It was one of those miniature stages that sprouted like altars in the compounds. Crouching down, Bailey saw stairs in front, replicating the entrance to the king's pavilion. And there, amidst the columns of the royal river room, were the viven, all dressed in robes of finest cloth, despite their diminutive size.

On the stage, one figure was dressed in black and gray, in fine brocade. That would be Vidori, of course. This figure knelt before a doll dressed in green, with black hair. Its face was a stark, unflattering white, and even in miniature, its expression was subtle and cruel, nothing like Anton Prados. On the steps of the river room were two dolls dressed in green with their heads removed.

Bailey stood, smoothing her clothes. A nasty little drama, so out of place in this tidy and friendly compound. If it was tidy and friendly …

She continued her rounds, feeling less buoyant. From the shade of a small hut came a sound. Something startling, almost improper. A sung melody.

An old hoda sat on a small riser, those ubiquitous stools that hung from pegs when not in use. She was crooning to an infant in her arms, spinning out a wordless hum, primitive and artless, perhaps, but arresting. Bailey hadn't prepared herself for this, least of all from the silent hoda. She hadn't heard music for three years. On the ship, when the crew played their appalling music in her presence, she retreated to privacy

The hoda stopped her humming.

“Please continue,” Bailey said, hoping to hear more. The old woman's fingers formed a response that looked like, My pardon or Many pardons. Bailey hadn't quite got the knack of looking at hands.

Samwan was at her side. “Oh, Bailey, please pardon us.” Samwan's smile fell off her face as she glared at the hoda. The humming stopped. “This hoda is vulgar, naturally. Thankfully, you do not have to listen.”

“I was enjoying it, Samwan-rah.”

“Oh, Bailey, you're making a joke.”

“Actually I'm not.” But to forestall further trouble for the hoda, Bailey turned away from her toward the shed under construction. “Samwan-rah, how is the new engine coming along?” The Dassa called all mechanical things engines. They would add new words, no doubt, as their nascent technology demanded it.

“Slowly, Bailey. The palace promised me an engineer today. But perhaps he is sleeping late.”

Bailey knew the palace was the center for engineering. Dassa society parceled out the disciplines to the Three: the king oversaw engineering, astronomy, and history; the uldia chemistry, surgery, and biology; and the judipon numeration, dreamaturgy and law. These disciplines in turn fit into the larger division of the realms, where the king was the guardian of the river and borders, the uldia presided over birthing, and the judipon oversaw society and wealth. There were missing disciplines. The geosciences seemed not to occur to the Dassa. Maps of the region and the world were poor to nonexistent. The only lands that mattered were those of the Olagong—where the fulva grew, and the variums thrived. Nowhere else so easily supported life. The latitude of the world in which the weather was conducive to the fulva was a narrow one.

Alone once again, Bailey felt the sun crushing down upon her, despite the shelter of her wide-brimmed hat. Near the perimeter of the compound, she was drawn toward a frondy wall of low-growing palms, with its promise of shade.

A path led into the thick underbrush, where the sweat on her skin immediately congealed. Breath came more easily. Branches rustled above, evidence of that canopy highway used by small mammals, some of whom never came to ground level, she'd heard.

She entered a tended field where the path was built up by layers of canes and woody stems. The byway was above the level of the plantings, the staple langva, an unusual, ruddy-hued plant with edible tubers and leaves. Hoda labor here was supplemented by the efforts of proper Dassa, both men and women, for the hoda population was not large enough to give the fields over entirely to slave labor. The hoda's primary task was directed to the most precious crop of the Dassa: their children.

Smiling and waving at field-workers, who murmured her name as she passed, she took a side path. The temperature was at least twenty degrees cooler in the deep shade. Up ahead was a fallen tree limb that would serve as a chair. It was quiet here, and shielded from the langva field by a line of trees. Bailey rested. A deep sigh came up through her body.

She hadn't realized until this moment that she was happy here, in this land of rivers and huts. Unaccustomed as she was to the outdoors, to forests, the beauty of it made her feel like singing.

Perhaps just one little song. After all, there was no one to hear. She opened her mouth. A few notes came out, and faded into the lush green foliage. Ah, Mozart. She began again. Stopped. Then she let it come out, a song she had sung many times, in an earlier age. The haunting “Vedrai, carino,” from Don Giovanni.

Bailey held her throat. The gesture stopped her song. This was not what she should be doing. But wasn't it fine to spill notes into the air? And such notes: her beloved Mozart. She stood up, relaxing her diaphragm. She sang louder, oh, yes, crescendo. Con bravura.

Doloroso. The notes faded.

A green silence descended. She had forgotten her vow. The vow was important; it was penance.

She turned, hearing a noise. Several hoda were peering at her from the bushes, their bald heads looking like the polished gourds of some strange tree. They wanted to hear. By their eyes they did want to hear. It was a group of a half-dozen hoda. An audience …

And so she sang again, for these women, these girls, remembering how far more satisfying it was to sing for someone other than yourself. She looked into the rapt faces of her audience. Some of them were so young. Like Remy having died young. Her daughter. Or was it her sister?

Oh my girl, it is with your voice that I sing. But it's because of your voice that I must not sing…

Her voice trailed off. It was all so confusing. Standing, she said to them, “I don't sing.” What a ridiculous thing to say, when she had just done that very thing. They kept gazing at her with those looks of surprise and admiration. “Please,” she murmured, brushing the dust from her slacks, “please just go away I'm terribly sorry, but I don't sing anymore.” A mistake had been made. Worse, there were witnesses.

The hoda began moving forward, out of the trees, reassembling closer to her, waiting for another song. She waved them off, charging through the barrier of women, rushing down the path, away from them.

Those hoda with the enthralled expressions. People were so quick to admire, to confer celebrity. She had had enough—more than enough—admiration. One should have to earn such a thing. And she would earn it. It was what her whole mission was for. To do the one good thing.

If people would just leave her alone to get on with it.

Anton and Nick wound their way through the inner compound and across the east bridge over the inlet. Soldiers were moving in the palace, deploying to the border, to meet a Voi incursion. The king was leading the troops, as he did occasionally.

At the entrance to the baths, they found the communal room empty. Nick and Anton judged that this time of the morning was the best time to clean up, when most Dassa were attending to their morning duty of the variums. The vaulted room held a large ceramic-lined pool with steps into the bath waters. Along the sides lay risers for sitting, and wooden scrapers to cleanse the skin.

Anton ditched his clothes and walked into the pool. The pipes feeding the bath passed over fragrant slabs of wood, infusing the room with a sandalwood scent. He submerged and came up streaming.

Nick sat on the edge of the pool, feet in the water. “She could have given us advance notice.” He was still smarting over yesterday, when the king's barge left without him, and he somehow blamed Maypong for it.

Anton wiped the water from his hair. “I've said, Nick, that she didn't know.” He looked at Nick directly. ‘And neither did I.”

Nick's face flickered with reflected light from the bath. It was a face that had once been open to him, and too often now was flat or frowning. Nick's missing out on the trip to the Quadi ruins had formed a wedge between them. There'd been no time to find him as the party set out. Nick knew that, but it made no difference to him. Meanwhile, Zhen had dated the shards of rock at 10,500 years old, placing the Quadi intervention, if that's what it was, in the time frame of the Dark Cloud's passage through Earth's system.

But they had more to worry about than the ruins. The ship reported three more crew stricken with the new virus. So far, they were keeping them transfused, keeping them hydrated. And trying new serums. Which the pathogens easily mastered …

“I've been thinking about Homish,” Nick said.

“The chief judipon,” Anton said. “He's old and infirm, according to Vidori.” Anton picked up a scraper lying on the pool's edge and began scraping his arms.

“Maybe old, but still powerful. We should give him some respect.”

Anton waved the notion away. “Vidori has already said no to this, Lieutenant.”

Nick bit the side of his cheek. “Of course he has. It's how he keeps things out of balance. The whole Olagong depends on the Three being equal. Homish is old and decrepit, time to be replaced. But Vidori won't allow the judipon to choose a new chief.” He kicked at the water. “I've been investigating. It's widely known. Only the king can approve when a chief—of the other two powers—can be deposed. It adds stability Vidori wants a weak judipon. That way his only obstacle to consolidation is Oleel.”

Anton stopped scraping, trying to deal with this idea that Nick would not let go of, his theory of Vidori as a tyrant. “Keep your eye on our goals, Nick. In Vidori we have at least one powerful ally. Offend him, and we might have none.”

But Nick was relentless. “But by befriending others, we could hedge our bets. Pay a call on Homish—make it clear where we stand.”

“But it's not where we stand.” They eyed each other, having come to the same chasm as before when Nick had been keen on reaching out to Oleel.

Nick said, “The judipon hoard the radio technology; they may know something.”

“They don't hoard it. Radio is new to these people, that's all.” The judipon used radio like a more reliable telephone, communicating tithe delivery times up and down the rivers so that the compounds would be ready to receive them. The broadcasts that the ship had picked up from space had been heavily laced with manifests, dates, and accounting details. The ship's language programs had pieced together a working vocabulary from these scraps, but it had been time-consuming. The judipon were no wizards of technology.

Anton went on, “I don't think anyone here is hiding information.” He ignored Nick's little smile. “We have to get out and investigate, that's all. The drone has sent back visuals of an extensive pathway system in the uplands. That's where we'll go next.”

“We could spend forever poking around, Captain. There's the whole planet. How many of us will be left in a week, in a month?”

It was the same question they were all asking themselves.

A rustle drew their attention. Both men looked up.

It was the Lady Joon. She stood framed in the morning sunshine of an open screen, accompanied by her chancellor, Gitam. “Oh,” she exclaimed. “I did wonder why the bath was so silent.”

She and Gitam approached the edge of the bath. Joon was dressed in an elaborate robe of pale blue with silver filigree.

Anton began moving toward the pool steps. “We will leave the baths for you, Lady. Pardon us.”

Joon laughed, holding Anton's gaze. “No, but Nick may leave.”

Nick exchanged glances with Anton. Joon was taking command of the baths, as was clear when Gitam came forward with Nick's clothes and a large drying cloth.

“You're on your own, Captain,” Nick said. He hurriedly dressed, and then began backing up as Joon herded him out of the room with the skill of a sheepdog.

Anton was moving to get out of the bath, but Gitam blocked his way up the stairs.

Standing at the entryway Nick said, “Will you be needing anything else, Captain? From me?” he added, with a smirk.

“No,” Anton managed to say.

As Nick left, Joon breathed a satisfied sigh. ‘Anton,” she said. “Now we have leisure to have conversation. Would you allow me to have conversation?”

He didn't think he should say no. And she was blocking the stairs. The moment stretched out, and neither of them moved. The sound of running water from the many pipes was the only other sound besides the distant chatter of birds in the trees outside.

Joon murmured, “I hope you will pardon that I have stumbled upon your luxury of private bathing.”

Anton doubted that she had stumbled in here. “I will dress and we can talk, Lady” he said.

She stepped closer to the water's edge. “So we can be equal, as to being dressed or not? Is that the human convention?”

“Yes.”

“Hmm. Then Gitam,” she said, turning to her aide, “kindly remove this gown.”

Gitam came forward and got busy at the fasteners in back of Joon's gown. For all the elaborations of her dress, it was quickly shed, and soon lay in a pile at Joon's feet. She stepped out, quite naked.

Her body commanded his attention. So much for Zhen's theory that the Dassa women had underdeveloped secondary sexual characteristics as a result of not bearing children. Joon was full-figured, superbly conditioned. Breathtaking.

“Now we are equal,” Joon said. ‘Are we not?”

Anton tried to summon a response. Nothing came immediately to mind. There was nothing, in fact, on his mind but Joon standing naked.

“Equality,” Joon said, “is something that I have thought on. It is what you have so much of, in your distant home, is it not?” She descended the steps until the water came up to her thighs. “Where you have no slaves, no removing of tongues.”

“That is so,” Anton said, watching the water level move up her body trying to remember what Maypong had told him about male-female sexual relations. Not that he needed to know, he told himself. She was being friendly. It was only a bath, usually a quite communal event. But somehow, he doubted that anything communal was on her mind.

He summoned to mind: Dassa did not have … conventional sex. There was no penetration, for one thing. Not usually. This was considered a degenerate practice. But Maypong described a great variety of other ways of achieving “sexual closeness.” Anton thought her lectures rather more detailed than the mission required, but Maypong could not be diverted from revealing the things she deemed it necessary he know in order to become civilized.

Joon dipped into the water, swimming to the middle of the expansive bath, keeping her head above water, not disturbing her hair. “Have you no high and low among humans, Captain?”

“We have rich and poor. But not a system to keep them so.” He watched her deft strokes against the water, her dark arms flashing like burnished fish.

She swam back to him and sat on the steps, submerged to her shoulders. “Relax with me here, Anton,” she said, noting his discomfort. “Soon enough, when my father returns, the palace will fill with soldiers. There is so little leisure to become friends.” She looked up at him, and the middle of her brow furrowed. “Unless you do not wish to become friends?”

“Lady I…”

Calmly, she waited, completely at ease, making him feel as if he was making something out of nothing, causing her concern for no reason.

He managed to say, “I don't know what you mean by friends. Friends do not bathe together.”

“Hmm. But enemies do?”

He didn't bother to answer. She would have her way, and perhaps it would be merely a chance to talk of rich and poor, slaves and freedom.

The water shimmered around her, distorting the image of her body in its depths, but not enough to cloak its beauty.

“Tell me of Erth, Captain. I know nothing except of the Olagong, which I will one day hold in my protection. But all around me are enemies, the Voi and others. My education is incomplete. Compared to yours.”

“What do you wish to know?”

“You have strange strengths and odd weakness. No slaves, but little pri.”

She thought the absence of slaves was a strength. Perhaps her generation had more liberal ideas, certainly more liberal than Vidori's. He wondered what kind of queen she would be, when her time came. He would have liked to be here to see.

“On Earth, in my father's compound,” Anton said, “we had no slaves, but my father left those people to starve who became stricken with illness… with lack of pri.”

“You did not approve.”

“No.” He glanced up. They were alone. Gitam had left.

Joon murmured, “It is difficult to go against one's own powerful father.” Her voice had a strange clarity here in this large pool.

“Yes, Lady.”

She turned to him, stretching her legs along the submerged step. “Sometimes it is necessary to have different opinions than one's powerful father.”

“Sometimes.” It was strange to have such a discussion in a bath. It was all strange. He had a fancy to unhook her hair. He wondered if it came undone as simply as her robe. There were combs and twists, all very complicated.

Joon lay stretched out upon the stair, her legs almost but not quite touching him. “Lately I have been thinking that it is time for the hoda to be brought higher. In human ways. For the sake of equality. Would you agree, Captain?”

“Yes.” She had finally asked a question he was sure about.

She smiled, keeping her lips together, but every expression was magnified on this woman of such calm demeanor. “Then we have a satisfying end to our conversation, yes?”

“If you say so, Lady.”

“No, you must say so, Anton.” She moved her legs aside, into the deeper water, gazing out into the middle, waiting for him.

What were they talking about? Anton had entirely lost track.

She kicked her feet under the water, causing ripples to course over Anton and her.

She was waiting for him. Waiting for him to say something, to do something. Her waiting was a powerful inducement. She left all the time in the world for him to say or do. He moved to her, as though commanded. He reached out, touching her face, turning her chin toward him.

“I say so,” Anton said.

She moved into his arms, kneeling on the steps. He felt her breasts against his chest. Her piled-up hair must come down. He reached into it, plucking out the pins and combs. Anton felt her hair come down, surrounding them in a canopy. One of her combs floated beside them like a fabulous miniature skiff.

Joon was trembling as he touched her, her head thrown back onto the lip of the basin, her throat exposed. He caressed her neck. She reached for him under the water, and his hands roamed over her skin, slick and warm. Maypong's voice nagged at him. What was he supposed to do and not do? He ran his hand down her arms, and she arched her back and neck, causing her hair to trail into the water.

When he paused, she took his hand and stroked her shoulders with it, teaching him the extraordinary ways of her body the skin that she kept so carefully covered, the body that hummed to his touch. And though he wasn't Dassa, she began to teach him the ways of his own skin.

She whispered, “Is it better to be cordial, Captain?”

“Yes,” he said, pushing her back against the stairs, where her hair spread like ink through the water, curling around his arms.

He floated above her. She encircled him with her long legs, pulling him toward her. This course of things was taboo. But her heels pressed into his back, pulling him down. She couldn't be making a mistake, so deliberate she was. He pushed away from her for a moment, but her grip would not release him. And in truth, he hadn't tried very much to evade her.

His last thought before he entered her was: Not her kind of sex. But the heels in his back were insistent.

Mistress Aramee confronted Gilar, holding the offending discovery in her hand.

“Gilar, what is this that I have found?” Aramee stood beside a hot brazier, keeping her distance from the heat.

Beside Gilar, also kneeling, was Nuan, the chief hoda. Nuan poked at Gilar, commanding her to answer.

My hair, Aramee-rah.<

Aramee glanced at Nuan, inviting another sharp poke to Gilar's ribs.

“No, Gilar,” Aramee said, “this would not be your hair, thankfully.”

Gilar glanced up at the mistress. Aramee knew very well it was Gilar's hair. Why would Gilar keep anyone else's hair? She had only been one week in servitude, not enough time for her hair to dissolve under the cleansing broth, so Nuan had shaved it off. Gilar had scooped up a thick lock of hair and hid it. Not well, apparently.

“What is this that I have found, then, Gilar?”

Nuan turned to Gilar. You will say that it is the hair of a Dassa whom you no longer are.<

Not wanting a beating, Gilar signed, It is someone's hair. <

They had taken everything from her: her hair, her clothes, her mother, her tongue. Truly, she was no longer a proper Dassa. But Gilar knew that she could never be silent and submissive, like the unctuous Nuan, like the relentlessly cheerful Bahn. She had figured out that some hoda were above others.

Some hoda commanded air ships and went where they pleased. These were called humans.

That was where the terrible mistake had been made, that they thought Gilar was the other kind of hoda. There were high hoda and low hoda. Gilar knew which kind she was.

Satisfied that Gilar had repented, Aramee turned to leave. As she did, she dropped the offending lump of hair onto the brazier, filling the hut with an acrid smoke.

Gilar watched the strands curl and turn incandescent on the coals, keeping their shape for a moment before collapsing of too much brightness.

If the mistress hoped to intimidate Gilar, she had failed. That was the thing about hair.

It could grow back.

The hoda filled their pails with excrement at the sludge pit, humming and vocalizing as they worked, making jarring, vulgar sounds. At their sides, Gilar shoveled the stinking loads into her pail.

Bahn signed to her, Fill the pail to the brim, Gilar, so we make better progress. <

Gilar looked at her, wondering how she could see buckets of excrement as progress. But she threw another dollop in her pail.

As they headed to the fields, Gilar hoped that—burdened by her pail—Bahn would shut up, but she managed to carry it in the crook of her arm and still harangue Gilar. She constantly chatted of the palace. Like most low hoda, she was dazzled by the nobles, always prating on about this noble or that one.

Gilar tuned out all this gossip of Dassa, who no longer held any interest for her. But when Bahn had news of the humans, Gilar paid attention.

Maypong had been appointed chancellor to the chief of the great air vessel. If Gilar were still of the palace, she would have seen this captain every day and talked of star barges with him, and they would have become friends, and then Gilar would have gone to Erth with the humans when they left, when they had found what they came for.

They had come, they said, on a great air barge that traveled the skies between stars, and they had come for help, being without pri, to the world of pri. But no one in the Olagong, not even Oleel, knew how to give pri to those without it.

This morning Bahn was full of the story of the human Bailey, of the pri of many years, and how she had sung in front of hoda, without shame. Many of the hoda at Aramee's compound gossiped about this, saying the humans were like them, being born to bear and liking to sing. Kea, walking in front on the path, had been one of those who heard Bailey sing. Now she was carrying her pail of dung and humming a new song.

Gilar dumped her bucket in the planting trench, and turned to go.

Smooth out the sludge with the hoe,< Bahn signed. It will ripen better if the air circulates freely through it.<

Gilar set her bucket down and eyed Bahn, the low hoda. Why do you care how much air the dung gets?<

Bahn smiled. Oh Gilar, the air cures the sludge, making it—<

Gilar interrupted. But do you care for turds so much?<

Bahn raised her hands to reply, then dropped them, confused.

If you want to be my associate, learn to talk of something less vulgar. < Gilar picked up her bucket and turned in the direction of the sludge pit. Bahn grabbed onto her arm, jerking it, and then dropped her hand away quickly so as not to arouse Gilar.

Bahn was standing on the path eye to eye with her. She signed, Know, my sister, that I am assigned to your training. I would be tending the babes this morning, except that you must carry turds for a punishment. No one else wanted to train you, but I took pity on you.<

Gilar looked at her pail, stained with excrement. In an awful, lucid moment she understood how she was perceived. They didn't regard her palace upbringing. They didn't think her fine or special. Even her own uldia no longer acknowledged her. She stood, bald-headed, on a path in the langva fields, carrying excrement. She looked just like Bahn. Just like all the slaves.

Turning from Bahn, Gilar walked swiftly back along the path. Tears gathered at her eyes; she blinked over and over to whip them away. How could she let Bahn's words cut her so? How could it matter what a low hoda thought?

Bahn was at her side, matching her stride, thankfully keeping quiet for once. Bahn didn't shame her by noticing her tears. But a hoda approaching from the opposite direction did notice. Meeting Gilar's eyes, she emitted a short bit of mewling song.

Turning to stare at the wretched hoda as the creature passed merrily along, Gilar thought she might hurl her pail at the woman.

Bahn urged Gilar off the path, into the undergrowth. Do not,< Bahn signed.

Do not what?<

Do not anything.<

Gilar sat on the ground, holding herself rigid, holding herself back from flying at the hoda, flying at all of them, ripping pails from their hands, pushing them into the muck of the fields.

Bahn's hands moved. That hoda said, “We cry with you, sister.“<

Gilar signed, That hoda said nothing to me.<

She said, “We cry with you.“<

Gilar looked back at the path. Hoda passed each other, nodding their greetings. Singing.

A long time passed as Gilar sat in the mud, with Bahn next to her. They watched the sun pierce the carmine trees and illumine the path now and then, as the wailing of the hoda stained the air in blotches.

Bahn hummed again. Then she interpreted. I just said, “It is a language.“<

A language?<

Bahn hummed, then translated. That is how you say, “Yes.”<

Looking up at the path, Gilar began to see what no proper Dassa ever saw, that hoda were not so submissive as they seemed. That they had a secret language.

It was a vulgar language of tones. But it could be helpful to speak what the mistress could not understand.

Gilar signed to Bahn, How do you sing, “I am human” ?<

A tone came from Bahn.

And though Gilar had never in her life sung, never once, she opened her mouth and repeated Bahn's few notes.

Bahn regarded her with a sudden, close focus. That was perfect, Gilar. <

Gilar sang it again.

Perfect, < Bahn repeated. You have tonal wisdom, my

sister. <

But it was simple to copy Bahn, and the sound on her ears was not vulgar, but clear and sweet.

Teach me another word.<

Bahn did, and then another. In the shade of the carmine trees, Bahn opened the realm of hoda song, and Gilar fled there.