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the Tecton would sorely have killed him despite all Digen could do trying to
disjunct him. Yet here he hadn't actually harmed anyone, and he was happy.
"You do have a point."
"You should have seen Roshi's face this morning when he heard what you'd
done! It's got to turn into a hundred-year legend, for sure imagine, everyone
in transfer at the same moment! Roshi heard Shurban and Aliase snickering in
the dining room you know how those girls are at their age. He called them in
and gave them the stern-father routine and made them tell what was so funny.
Then he went all stony and said, "That's an example of what happens when you
turn a Tecton channel loose in Rior! Consider yourselves fortunate you weren't
there.' So they pulled long faces and went outside to snicker some more, this
time over what you did to Roshi. Before I left, they made me tell them all
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about what channel's transfer feels like!"
Digen enjoyed Skip's oh-so-grown-up amusement, while at the same time
thinking,He's just a kid himself yet. First year can be the best year of your
life . They worked in silence for a while, then Digen caught a glimpse of a
moving nager over Skip's shoulder. "It seems," he said, "that we are going to
find out how Roshi feels about it all, right now."
At about the same time, the others became aware of the approaching horsemen
and stilled their scythes. The Gens caught up with them, and they all stood in
a group, awaiting Roshi. Suddenly Skip whirled and shouted, "Dr. Hogan!" Arms
wide in eager greeting, Skip went toward Hogan.
Not recognizing the boy, Hogan stepped backward, his fear plain to every
Sime. The Gens around him melted away, leaving him to face Skip alone. In
English, Skip said, "Don't you recognize me? I'm Skip!"
Hogan's face lit with a smile and most of the fear vanished. Most, but not
all. Digen moved between them, saying hastily to Skip, "Joel isn't used to
being around Simes." At about the same time, Im'ran worked his way through the
crowd toward Hogan and took charge of the fields. Digen stepped clear to give
him room to work.
Hogan, still in the grip of surprise, said, "I see you made it, Skip. We all
wondered, you know."
"Well, I couldn't very well send a telegram home," said Skip facetiously.
Digen saw die boy's emotional hunger for contact with home, with his old
life. It was normal for changeover victims from out-Territory. Hogan's fear
had given way to his usual curiosity. For him, too, this meeting was a touch
of a past so distant that it had already become nostalgia.
At that point Roshi arrived on his roan stallion, kicking up dust and
spooking the wagon mules. Staying mounted, he said, "Digen Farris!"
Digen stepped out before him.He's afraid of me. But he's not admitting that
even to himself . None of the other Simes had the acuity or training to read
Roshi's nager in such fine detail. They saw only his righteous anger whipped
up over the preceding hours.
"You are a houseless man," said Roshi, "come among us on sufferance. But you
have betrayed our trust subverting my sister and then, last night, using your
physical endowments to manipulate my members, exposing them all, shamelessly,
to the part of you that has been made into an abomination.
"Leaving aside the atrocity you committed upon me, I have sufficient reason
to demand your banishment or execution."
Ilyana, mouth agape in stunned amazement, finally pulled herself together
enough to believe her ears. She stepped out in front of Digen. "Roshi! Subvert
me? Betray trust? Digen? He's been a model guest in this House. I gave the
order for the celebration you never said why there shouldn't be one and I got
Digen to play the shiltpron." She gestured at the crowd around them. "As far
as I can see, nobody's complaining about the results!"
There was a general murmur of agreement, which only provoked Roshi's anger to
greater heights. "Well, you ought to complain!" He focused on Digen. "I have
to protect my people. We've sheltered you in good faith. Now I think it's time
you returned that. Pledge Rior, now, to me, with the understanding that your
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life is forfeit should you use that body of yours again on any of us, and your
'  indiscretion of last night will be considered an accident of drunkenness, a
fluke never to be repeated."Pledge Rior ?
Ilyana stood, lips compressed, hands clenched together. Digen guessed she was
thinking that if any pledge was to be given, it should be to her, not Roshi.
Roshi had not, to Digen's knowledge, ever been called upon to accept a pledge.
For Digen to offer his pledge to Rior unto Roshi would be to acknowledge with
all the weight of the traditional position of the Sectuib in Zeor, parent
house to Rior whether or not he was acknowledged here as such Roshi's right
to head the House of Rior and the Distect. But, by custom, Rior was always
headed by a Gen, and by right the position was Ilyana's. She had never
revealed that during her stay in the Tecton..
"If I were to offer any pledge to Rior," said Digen, "I would offer it to
Ilyana as Sosectu ambrov Rior under Rior's charter from my great-
great-grandfather, Klyd Farris. No Sime may be more than Regent in Rior."
There was a stirring that gathered into a firm, bright approval among the
onlookers. But there were others who supported Roshi in place of the slender,
often ill, sometimes temperamental Ilyana.
Roshi noted the crowd's approval. "This is not the time or the place to
discuss the succession in Rior. It's your crime that's being considered, not
Rior's politics."
Digen was beginning to feel a sense of desperation. He had not yet fully
assimilated the news that he could leave Rior and go back to the Tecton. He
could not now confront the idea of pledging Rior and leaving behind him
forever the life of the Tecton. To him, a pledge was far too sacred a thing to
be entered with any quiver of uncertainty.
Digen turned to the group around them, tentacles spread in open appeal.
"What I did to you all was wrong," he said. "By everything I believe about
the dignity of the individual, the right of consent, and the ethical use of
the power I carry in this Tecton-molded body what I did was truly an atrocity.
I am sorry. I didn't know it would happen like that. I'd never played in a
mixed crowd before. I didn't know any such thing was even possible. Had I
known, I would not have entered that hall even to please Ilyana. But I did go,
and I did play, of my own free will. I accept full responsibility for the
consequences of my choice. If there is anyone in all of Rior who would have my
life for this then my life is forfeit without argument." [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

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