"There can only be one reason, Gwyn. See, Tess is with her. She stayed to be with Tess."

Tess's arrival in the camp brought a sudden flare of life to the quiet gathering.

Tess kissed the women, hugged children, and seemed to have a separate greeting for each one of the score of people around the fire. Diana watched with interest as Vasil drew himself into her orbit and promptly became her other half, sharing in her progress as if he had been part of it all along.

"Scene stealer," she muttered.

Gwyn chuckled under his breath. "Tess Soerensen?"

"You know who I mean."

"Yes, and it was subtly done, too. Very natural. Wouldn't he be awful to act with?

He'd pull focus every time he came on stage even worse than Anahita does, and she's shameless."

"Diana! I'm so pleased to see you here." Tess came up to them. Her entourage now included Arina and Kirill as well as the doctor and Vasil. "Gwyn. I watched a bit of your rehearsal of-the one about the woman who saves the child from the revolution. I quite liked it, although I'm not sure the jaran will understand a man acting as Judge in such matters. I'll have to mention that to Owen. Do you think he'd be willing to change the Judge to a woman?"

"If you present the case strongly enough," said Gwyn, "and you think it would enhance the audience's understanding, I suspect he'd be willing."

"Oh, here, Cara." Tess turned and beckoned the doctor forward. Vasil had retreated back one step, watching these proceedings with a keen eye. "Here's Lavrenti." She delivered a long comment to Arina in khush, and Arina glanced at Kirill, bit her lips, and then nodded. "Diana, let Cara see the baby."

Diana handed the infant over. Dr. Hierakis handled the child briskly, for all its seeming fragility. "Clearly he's premature. I'd like to examine him, but I'll want somewhere enclosed and warmer. And you and the mother as well, to answer questions. Perhaps you can find out who attended the birth? I'd like to talk to her, too."Now that the baby was gone, Diana realized how little its weight had been. She did not feel lightened of any burden with her arms now empty. Tess spoke in rapid khush to Arina and Kirill, and then, with a sudden, almost sly smile, turned and addressed an order to Vasil. The handsome man looked startled, but then he smiled and spun and walked swiftly away into the darkness. His golden-haired daughter ran after him, deserting her mother.

"Karolla Arkhanov and one of the Telyegin sisters attended the birth," Tess said to Cara in Anglais. "I sent Vasil to fetch Lydia Telyegin. Karolla is here. And, Cara-" She hesitated, glancing sidelong at Arina's good-looking husband. "Kirill is the one I told you about-with the injured arm. If there's anything you can do . . ."

"I'll have to diagnose the injury first. But if he's gone three years with it, it can wait. This baby needs my immediate attention. Come on, then."

Dr. Hierakis did not even acknowledge the two actors but merely strode away in the direction of Arina Veselov's tent. Arina walked beside her, looking anxious. Tess did not move immediately, and Kirill, strangely enough, lingered beside her. Diana noticed how close he stood to her, rather closer than mere acquaintances usually stood.

"Diana, I am truly glad you've come to this camp. I don't know-" Tess broke off. "Well, it isn't my part to give you advice, especially since you haven't asked me for any.''

"No, please. What were you going to say?"

Tess sighed. She wore, as she usually did, men's clothing-the scarlet shirt and black pants of the jaran riders-and she wore a saber at her belt. She looked to Diana as if she fit in easily with the people she had decided to live among, and somehow Diana could not see herself existing so entirely within the jaran, so unconsciously at ease. "You've brought your life with you, Diana, and however more realistic it might seem to try to keep the two things apart-that is, Anatoly and the Company-I think you have to consider finding some way to bring yourself into his circle, but also him into yours. Otherwise he will feel that you are deliberately keeping something from him." At her side, Kirill watched her intently while she spoke, although he obviously would have no reason to understand Anglais.

"But I am-we all are keeping things from them."

"Yes." Tess grimaced. "But we have to do it delicately and we have to try our best to make it seem that we are not."

"I think I understand."

"It won't be easy. Now, I really must go." She nodded at them and walked off to Arina's tent with Kirill.

"Do you think they can save the child?" Diana asked.

Gwyn blinked once, twice. "We'd better go, Diana. Rehearsal starts in eleven minutes."

"Where did you get that retinal chip implant, anyway?" she asked after they had taken their leave of the family and started back through camp. "My family was never able to afford anything like that, but one of my father's sisters got one when she qualified for the fleet navigation academy."

"Got it in prison," said Gwyn with a grin.

"Oh, I'll certainly believe that." Then she sobered. "But really, Gwyn, do you think they can save the baby?"

"I don't know. On Earth, there would be no question."

"It seems wrong, somehow, knowing how much we could improve their lives and then not doing anything about it. Hiding it from them."

"Who are we to judge what is best?"

Diana sighed. At the Company's encampment, Joseph had rigged an awning over the platform and now he and Yomi hung lanterns out to light the stage. A group of jaran children together with a steadily growing number of their elders gathered about thirty paces from the stage, waiting patiently for the spectacle to begin. Owen had decided early on that letting them watch rehearsal might help them understand the idiom. Diana recognized some of the faces-some of the children came every night- and she waved at them, and they waved back, eagerly, with smiles.

"Now." Yomi called them to order. "We'll start with a run-through, and then go back through the scenes. Anahita and Diana, your entrance."

CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN.

"Do you think you can save the baby?" Tess asked. She sat in front of a low table that seemed to be made of burnished black wood. But the field projected above the wood belied that illusion: a screen of three dimensions on which Tess manipulated words into a matrix by which a person ignorant of khush could learn the language quickly.

Cara Hierakis sat at a separate console, running a.n.a.lyses of blood samples. "I'm not equipped to run a hospital here. The fact that the baby has survived a month is hopeful. The lungs are the greatest risk, and it shows no severe signs of respiratory distress. It's small and weak. It needs to be kept warm; it needs food-they're doing that now. If I could design an enhanced formula . . . but I'm not equipped for that."

She turned in her chair to regard Tess. "Now do you see why I suggested to Charles that we take you back to Jeds?"

Tess stared into the matrix, shifting colors, floating words. Her shoulders tensed, and she did not look around at Cara. "You have to test Ilya."

"That's true. The more I know, the better placed I'll be to act correctly when the time comes. As it will."

"You said yourself that as far as you know the reaction doesn't set in until after delivery."

"As far as I know.""You also said that you're equipped to give a blood transfusion here."

"I'm equipped for a rough field surgery, yes." Now Tess could hear a certain amus.e.m.e.nt creeping into Cara's voice. "Let me see if I can reel off the rest of the list.

The other baby lived, which implies that it's a medical problem that can be overcome.

I took blood from most of Charles's party before they rode north, thus supplying me with a bank. Bakhtiian would make a fuss, and he doesn't yet know you're pregnant anyway."

"Can't know, Cara. Not for another month or two."

"Yes, it must be hard for them to diagnose the condition any earlier than ten or twelve weeks' gestation. But what you're really saying, Tess, is that you've weighed the odds and are choosing to believe that I can pull you through under these conditions."

"I believe in you, Cara. And anyway, you told me that the woman who bore the child who's now living almost survived."

"Yes. If I'd reached her an hour earlier, I would have saved her as well as the baby.''

Now Tess did turn. In the artificial lights illuminating the interior of the tent, the sharp planes of Cara's face were softened. "Who got her pregnant, anyway? You never told me."

"None of your business, my dear. But he was no more foolish than you've been.

Don't you people stop to consider that life grown on other planets is bound to have certain subtle and possibly lethal differences?"

Tess chuckled. "But they're so like us. And they did come from Earth originally.''

Cara smiled suddenly. "That was well done, Tess. Getting that Chapalii cylinder to Charles, with the heart of the Tai-en Mushai's private data banks encoded into it."

Warmth filled Tess at Cara's words. "Praise from you is rare, indeed. I love having this modeler at my disposal. Besides this matrix, I'm running several programs off the early language data base and seeing if I can find the evolutionary links between Rhuian languages and Earth languages. But my time is so limited."

"Which I remind you has been your choice all along. You are welcome to return to Jeds any time. Which you won't do. Be that as it may." Cara rose and came over to stand beside Tess, resting a hand on Tess's shoulder and peering at her matrix, which rotated slowly on the screen in front of them. "If we can only coordinate our research.

... I can't yet prove that the Chapalii genetically engineered the humans they transferred from Earth to Rhui, although I know they did."

"How do you know?"

"If you study the history of disease and mortality among humans, which I've done, and then compare the Rhuian humans to Earth models, the Rhuians are too healthy and too long-lived given similar conditions."

"The human mechanism must seem horribly inefficient to the Chapalii," Tess mused. "Naturally they'd tinker with it.''

"So speaks the woman who understands them so well. I can't give more than a rough estimate of how long ago it happened. Not less than 5,000, not more than 40,000 years ago. I can't prove it until I understand how they did it."

"And once you understand how they did it-"

"Then their knowledge is my knowledge. I think I'm close to a serum that could well double the human life span."

"Double it? Lord, what would we do with doubled life spans?"

"That's not my question. Nor my answer to give. But surely you can find some clues in your language research on the time frame involved."

"Which would also give us insight into the history of the Chapalii Empire, insight that we're denied by the Chapalii Protocol Office. Philology wasn't my specialty, but I'll do my best."

"When do you think that matrix will be done? Translation takes up far too much time for me. There's a lot more basic information I can give the jaran healers on fundamental medical principles, and I'd like to communicate straight to them."

Tess played with the screen, dividing it into three discrete parts and spinning one until a series of pathways arcing away toward an unseen horizon filled one side of the field. "A full-blown matrix would take months to construct, under better conditions than these. What I'm doing is a series of trees. They each contain a finite set, and instead of gaining the language pretty much entire, you simply accelerate the learning curve of what would otherwise be unenhanced acquisition. So you seem to be learning it quickly, and efficiently, but not too d.a.m.n quickly."

"So they won't become suspicious when we all turn around one day speaking fluent khush? Very neat."

"Cara." Tess glanced up at the older woman. "Why can't Charles see that I'm not the right person to be his heir?"

Cara patted her on the shoulder and walked back to her console. "Charles thinks strategically, Tess, not tactically. Other than that, I can't tell you what's in his mind."

From outside, a bell rang once, then twice. "Ah. We have a visitor. Close off the back half, Tess. I'll go see who it is."

Tess spoke two words and the field over the table vanished, leaving only the smooth black surface. Then she drew closed the curtain that screened off the back section of Cara's tent-and the equipment laid out there-and tied it shut. A moment later, the entrance flap to the tent was twitched aside-it, too, tinkled, sewn all along its edge with warning bells-and Cara ducked back inside followed by- "Ilya!" Tess grinned stupidly and threw her arms around him and kissed him soundly on the lips. "I thought you were days ahead of us."

He glanced at Cara, who watched them with a smile, and disengaged himself from his wife. He frowned. "Has Vasil been bothering you?" he demanded.Tess blinked. The question surprised her, as did his obvious anger. But she had to think back to recall how much she had seen Vasil over the past days. "I saw him tonight," she began. His expression clouded. She went on hastily. "But only because we went over to the Veselov camp to see Arina and Kirill, and the baby.''

"Ah." A pained expression chased the anger off his face. "They have two children already. And Vladi and Elena have a child."

"Ilya." Tess glanced at Cara and then back at her husband. She took his hand between hers and held it tightly. "I feel sure that we will have a child soon, too. Kirill and Arina's new baby isn't strong. It was born early. They may well lose it."

Then he looked ashamed, as if by being jealous of their fortune in having two children where he had none, he had brought misfortune on them. "I hadn't heard. I'll go visit them tonight before I leave."

"You're riding south again tonight?" She lifted one hand to brush a smear of dirt from his face. He had a rather travel-worn look about him, as if he had not rested much during the seven days since she had seen him last. His hair was mussed, and the usually trim line of his beard had grown a little ragged. "Why did you come back?"

"I need more interpreters. I need you."

"I'm not part of the army, Bakhtiian," she said stiffly. "Or had you forgotten that?"

His gaze flicked to Cara and then back to Tess. "Excuse me," he said to Cara. In khush he said, "I do not intend to argue with you in front of another person, Tess. I won't let you ride with Yaroslav Sakhalin's jahar. Not so far away from me."

"And?" she demanded, not feeling much like compromising.

"If you'll excuse me." Cara slipped out of the tent. The bells chimed behind her and then stilled.

"Something your brother said to me-about envoys. Why not have a-a jahar of envoys? Diplomats, that's the Rhuian word. Anatoly Sakhalin has married a khaja wife, so I'll put him in command of half the jahar, of those who are primarily fighters, young men who will also learn how to communicate and deal with the khaja.

Eventually, we will need governors from their ranks. We'll have to be careful to make sure they marry well, marry a woman who can also learn about khaja ways and who will be willing to live among khaja for some time. That's where you and Josef come in."

"Josef and I? Josef Raevsky?"

"Yes. You know he'll never fight again. How can he, blinded? But with his knowledge-and yours-you two will be my other commanders of this jahar."

"Me?" Tess sank down into the chair that conveniently caught her knees when they sagged beneath her. "Did Charles put you up to this?"

"I would be a fool not to use your skills."

"And keep me out of battle." But somehow, knowing that she was pregnant made her less anxious to prove herself in war. Not to lose her fighting skills, not at all, but the sense of urgency that she had felt before about putting them to the test was eased.

And she did have other skills. ... "I don't know," she said reluctantly. "I might be good at that."

"You already are, in camp. Now you will be my right hand as well as my heart."

"I don't know," she repeated, but vaguely, already thinking about what she and Josef could do, building a kind of diplomatic corps for the jaran, to create-what? To create an empire. She did not doubt for a moment that Ilya could-that he would- forge one, the empire of the jaran. She could be instrumental in seeing not only that it would last and remain stable, but that it would hold to the rule of just law, a better rule, perhaps, than that many of the khaja lands bowed to now. Perhaps. d.a.m.n Charles, anyway. Certainly she could see his hand in this. He was grooming her to succeed him, by any means he could.

Ilya smiled brilliantly. "Then you will."

Tess had to laugh, because Ilya was so transparently pleased that his little scheme had worked: he could give her a place in his army and give her authority of her own without putting her in the line of fire. She lifted a finger. "But. I want Aleksi."

"Aleksi! Give up one of my finest fighters-?"

"He's lost in your jahar, Ilya, and he's unlikely to get a command of his own, even if he wanted one. But if he's mine, and he chooses a select group of young riders to be my escort, then I'll have the protection an envoy deserves, and a group of riders that Josef and I can call on at need."

"Hmm. Kirill has such a group of young riders. Misfits, most of them, like Aleksi. I'll give them to you. Now, Sonia has agreed to take Josef into our camp, and little Ivan will serve as his eyes. It's another five days to the mountains at this pace.

You and Josef can discuss your plans. When I see you there, you'll tell me what you and Josef have decided." He had been angry when he arrived, but Tess could detect no anger in him now, as if the emotion had evaporated once he had a new outlet for his energy. He paced to the inside curtain, and Tess jumped to her feet. If he even twitched it back a handsbreadth, and saw what lay within. . . .