"Will it hurt?" Kamoj asked.

"I can anesthetize the area. What I did with your foot the other night. You won't feel anything."

"Nothing?"

"Nothing." In a healer's gentle voice, she added, "I'll make the hurting stop."

"Yes," Kamoj said. "Do that."

"We need to separate you from Governor Ironbridge. It that all right?"

"No."

"We won't hurt him."

"What will you do with him?"

"He's just sleeping," Dazza said. "We'll leave him here with his healer. He'll wake soon enough."

Kamoj looked up at Vyrl. "You told me that you would protect me last night if I asked for your help. I asked. This is what happened. If I ask again, will I get hurt again?"

Vyrl sat on the bed, ignoring Dazza's warning look. "If I could take back last night" His voice caught. "I can't change what happened. But I can promise it won't happen again."

Moving with care, Kamoj set Jax's head on the bed. She slid closer to Vyrl and nausea swept over her. She waited for it to subside, then moved another hand span. The nausea surged. She was dimly aware of everyone watching her, but she didn't care. Right now all she could deal with was this journey of hand spans.

After an eon of starts and stops, fighting nausea, she came close to Vyrl. She looked up into his face. "I want to go with you." Reaching her arms out to him, she said, "Take me home."

Vyrl folded her into his embrace. No one spoke. No one told him to let her go.

No one made a sound. His scent soaked into her, from his hair, his body, and his clothes. Tears ran down her face, but she didn't make a sound as she cried.

XIII.

ROSE POOL.

Asymptotic State.

Moonlight lit the bedroom, flowing through the window above the desk.

Kamoj sat with Vyrl, leaning against the headboard of the bed, surrounded by pillows, he still wearing his slacks and turtleneck, she in a farm tunic. The room's warmth and the potions Dazza had given her lulled her into a doze . . .

Voices woke her. Opening her eyes part way, she saw the room was lit now, and Dazza had settled into her usual armchair by the bed.

"won't let you leave the palace," the colonel was saying.

"Why?" Vyrl asked. "Where do they think I'll go?"

"Nowhere," Dazza said. "That's not the point. It's a house arrest. The only reason Ashman let you come down here at all was because now that we know the truth, we realize it's better for Kamoj. But if you leave the palace, he'll order your return to the Ascendant."

"What, so he can 'throw me in the brig himself'?"

The doctor spoke quietly. "He acts in the best interest of the people. Your people."

Vyrl was silent for a moment. Then he said, "I know that. It doesn't make it any easier."

"If we could settle this mess with Ironbridge, Ashman would be a lot happier."

"Ironbridge doesn't want to settle. He wants to punish me." Anger edged Vyrl's voice. "He's a real piece of work. You would think after five thousand years, the owner genes would have disappeared here."

"Why? Genes aren't altruistic." Dazza tilted her head. "But you know, about forty-five percent of his DNA traces to slave stock. In some ways he's the ultimate product of the breeding program. His endurance is incredible. Can you imagine the metabolism he must have? He also has a triple stomach. How does it fit in his body? I would love to examine him. His DNA is like nothing I've seen."

"How do you know his DNA so well?" Vyrl asked.

After an awkward pause Dazza said, "From Kamoj."

Vyrl swore. "I can't believe she's letting him get away with it. How can she insist we don't use the evidence against him?"

Dazza answered in a quiet voice. "She and Governor Ironbridge love each other."

"Love, h.e.l.l."

"They've a long history." The doctor paused. "I doubt he was violent all the time. Erratic positive reinforcement can be remarkably effective. The more he withheld his love, the better it must have felt when he finally gave it to her, and the harder she probably tried to attain it."

He made an incredulous noise. "Why isn't she angry? Why am I the only one who wants to see that b.a.s.t.a.r.d drawn and quartered?"

"She is angry," Dazza said. "What do you expect her to do, Vyrl? She's been in this situation almost her entire life, with no out, at least not in her view, as Argali's future leader. She probably felt she had to repress her anger for the survival of her people. She's not going to show it in ways you expect. She might turn it inward, become moody or withdrawn. Or she may lash out at you."

"Me?" He sounded startled. "Why me?"

"Because you're here." Dazza's voice gentled. "And because she trusts you.

She knows you won't strike back."

He blew out a gust of air. "What should I do, then?"

"Just be yourself. Doctor Tager is going to work with her, but she will still need time. Don't pressure her."

"I won't."

They sat in silence for a while. Then Dazza said, "G.o.ds know, I wish she would press charges."

"Maybe Jax would bargain," Kamoj said.

Dazza jerked at the sound of her voice and Vyrl jumped.

"You're awake," Vyrl said.

"How are you feeling?" Dazza asked.

"Better." Kamoj regarded her. "If I threaten to 'press charges' against Jax, he won't know I'm bluffing. He might reduce his complaint." It would infuriate him to discover an Inquiry could investigate what he had done with her in his bed. To lose face that way, in front of his people, was something she knew he could never tolerate.

"It might help," Dazza said.

"It will," Kamoj said. She knew Jax.

Rain drummed the window like an impatient giant. Lightning flashed, followed by a crash of thunder. Kamoj gave up being stoic and slipped out of bed. The beads in the archway clacked when she walked through them. In the main bedroom, rain pattered against the shimmer curtain in the window. As she climbed onto Vyrl's bed, a flash filled the room, followed by thunder, like a giant clapping his hands around her head. She scrambled under the covers and yanked them up until only her eyes showed.

"Hmmm." Vyrl slid his arms around her. "It's good to have you back." He sounded half-awake. "I had thought . . . "

"Yes?"

He hesitated. "That you annulled our marriage because you found out I was crazy."

"It isn't annulled. And you're not crazy."

"Damaged, then."

"Nothing is wrong with you."

Vyrl opened his eyes. "Don't look at me with blinders, Kamoj. Just because I haven't had a drink in a few days doesn't mean I no longer have a problem. It will be with me for the rest of my life even if I never take a drink again."

"Everyone has problems." She brushed her fingers over his cheek. "Yours are on the outside. Under them, you're a good person. Jax looks good outside, but underneath he's cruel. You're trying to solve your problems and he doesn't think he has any. He's the one who is damaged, Vyrl. Not you."

Pressing his lips against her hair, he murmured in a voice so soft, she almost didn't hear him. It took her a moment to realize he had said thank you, not in words but in her mind. Oddly enough, it felt natural, not alarming at all.

Aloud, all he said was, "I filled out the forms to alter my visa."

"Visa?"

"Permission to let me live on Balumil. Right now it's a technicality, since I'm in ISC custody. But eventually I will need doc.u.ments for permanent residence here."

Kamoj stared at him, afraid to hope, afraid she had misheard. "You will live here? Always?"

His face gentled. "Yes. Of course."

"I thought General Ashman wouldn't let you stay."

"I do have to leave soon, for a while." He shifted her in his arms. "ISC is planning a mission to take my home world of Lyshriol from Earth's forces.

They need me to pull it off, not only because I know Lyshriol, but also because the Lyshrioli people will follow me." Tightly he added, "But ISC can't hold me for the rest of my life, controlling where I go and what I do. I will come back, Kamoj. Soon."

She made herself ask, "What about your family? Your farm. Your children.

Their children." And on down the generations that called him patriarch.

"Your life."

He kissed her forehead. "I've already lived that life. Argali needs you, its governor, but my children are all grown."

"Hai, Vyrl." She hugged him, unable to find words to express her appreciation for the gift he had given her. Despite his attempt at nonchalance, she felt the depth of the love he shared with his family and knew how much he would miss them.

Vyrl sighed, holding her close. She turned her head up for his kiss, but he only brushed his lips over her hair. She hesitated, unsure now. Did he no longer want her because of what had happened with Ironbridge? Or because she didn't feel ready yet to be a wife to him? It unsettled her how much she needed to believe he would still want her when her emotions had healed.

He kissed her forehead. "Of course I do." Awkwardly he said, "You are just so young."

Dryly she said, "You, who married at fourteen, think I'm young?" She touched his cheek. "I've no interest in how your legal people count time. I neither think nor love like a child."

Softly he said, "And can you?"

"Can I?"

"Love. Me."

"Hai, Vyrl." Raising his hands to her lips, she kissed his knuckles. "Always."

His smile gentled his face. "I too, water sprite. Always."

For a while she lay in his arms. Then she asked, "Your people take longer to grow up, yes?"

He nodded. "Apparently your bodies pa.s.s through childhood faster than ours do. Your brains establish neural connections at a quicker rate, so your minds mature faster."

She could tell he was leaving out something. "But?"

He spoke quietly. "You lose a child's mental flexibility and learning capacity sooner. It limits your intellectual development. Which was probably the intent. It's why your people have so much trouble with education, why you struggle with complex concepts, and why you had trouble maintaining a more advanced civilization here."

Disappointment flooded her. "You mean I can never learn to read?"

His voice gentled, "Kamoj, I think you could learn anything you set your mind to."

"I hope so." She laid her head against his and closed her eyes. Thunder rumbled again, more distant now, less threatening . . .

She awoke alone in the dark. Then she heard a splash in the bath chamber.

Going to investigate, she found Vyrl swimming laps in the pool. Moonlight poured through the stained gla.s.s window, filling the room with ghostly gem colors. The radiance reflected off the water and made patterns on the tiled walls.

Kamoj was struck again by his athletic grace. She recalled his question: it is accepted for men to dance here? And Dazza had referred to his "artistic temperament." Watching him, it finally made sense. Of course. Vyrl liked to dance. She had no doubt he did it well. Yet for whatever reason, it wasn't accepted for men where he came from. Such a simple matter, but it was something she could offer in return for his leaving his home to live on Balumil. Here he could dance if he wanted.

She imagined him at the harvest festivals, swinging her around in the central square of the village, or in the Dance of The Skylions, surrounded by the rest of Argali's people, everyone whirling beneath the aurora borealis. No more cowl and cloak, no more metal mask. Perhaps he would always have to wear a shimmer that sheathed his body, but once her people knew him, knew the good man beneath it all, they could accept his differences.