"(Denial)!"

"You owe me (blood-debt/life-debt)," she repeated, using their own images back at them.

"(Blood-debt?) There can be no (debt) with Humans." The soft, yellow-

bright voice was like a fingernail scraped across slate.

"Death is always a debt," she snarled back. "Look at what you have done."

The images of the scattered dead from an Ancient city-dome spilled into her mind. The skeletons, bare and twisted, lay where their bodies had fallen, eight hundred years ago. Dion pulled on the threads that bound her to the wolves, and death howled back out of the packsong. Images she herself had seen and images eight centuries old mixed and projected like blades into the

minds of Aiueven. "(Blood-debt)," Dion said harshly. "(Blood-debt/life- debt) and (payment/retribution)."

"We (traded/agreed) with Humans long ago," one of the aliens projected.

"But there was no debt between us."

"(Agreement)," another said. "Knowledge was (traded/paid-for) for the safety of the dens. We have no other agreement."

"You reneged on the one agreement you had," Dion snapped back at them.

Her eyes were open, but she could see only with her mind, and the swooping, tearing of the Aiueven's mental talons pitched her fear higher than a physical tear could ever have done. "You flew (death/pain) into the (bargain/trade) so that the knowledge was (destroyed/lost) after being given." She had had the fever herself, and she had touched it in others. Now she stretched into the memories of the wolves and let them fill her mind.

Like a soiled stream flowing beneath a heavy sky, the memories streaked in. Old death stank in Dion's mind. Fevers burned and convulsions broke bones. Minds shattered as hearts burst. Hallways filled with fallen men and women, and the tiny bodies of a thousand children twisted in the throes of the plague. The Gray Ones' grief, the Ancients' grief, Dion's own grief splashed into alien minds. And the death mounds rose, and the white stones grew, and the smoke lingered on the funeral pyres.

Even the Aiueven shuddered.

"It knows grief," Whose-wings-make-the-grass-flow said softly. "It brings that (grief/debt) to us."

The yellow-bright alien stirred. "That is your (father's father's mother's)

debt," it said to the purple-dark voice. "It is your (honor/stigma) to clear."

"(DENIAL)!".

One of the others raised his wing, and the icy blast it sent shut the other up.

He sent a shaft of demanding (rage/skepticism) to Dion's (mother).

"It is Named. It cannot lie," Whose-wings-make-the-grass-flow said in a determined voice.

There was silence.

"Then there is debt," the silver-ice voice said finally. "The Human must be

paid."

The purple-dark voice was thunderous. "Balance cannot be found in this, no matter what debt is paid. Kill it and the debt is gone, lost in the centuries."

The others hesitated.

"The debt died long ago," urged the purple-dark voice. "Let this... (Human/ horror) live, and the debt (grows/reaffirms) again." His images were clear.

"Kill it... " The sharp-blue voice seemed to roll the idea around between

them. The horror that had hit them with their realization of her was suddenly a prod. "Kill it?"

The dark, purple voice said almost softly, "Kill it."

The Aiueven seemed to converge. Death seemed to center in their minds, and the power they focused shook her.

"(Mother)!" Dion screamed. She threw up one arm, the other protecting her belly.

Abruptly, their movement stopped.

Dion opened her eyes. Whose-wings-make-the-grass-flow was in front of her. The alien's slender white arms stretched away from her wings, leaving a hollow among the furred feathers. And the mother-creature blocked the talons of the others.

"Do not touch it," the Aiueven warned, her soft, gray-blue voice like steel.

"If it is to die, then I will do it. My own (youth/horror/child-debt) betrays me, so I must (betray/kill) myself."

"(Contrition)." The sharp-gray voice acceded.

"(Agreement). (Contrition)," voiced the others. The Aiueven stepped back.

The mother-creature turned to face her, and Dion's chill did not lessen.

"You would kill me to (hide/deny) your debt?" she threw out desperately.

"What stigma does that create?"

The blue-gray voice hesitated.

Dion stared at the talons that seemed poised before her and waited for them

to strike. It didn't matter that the talons were small-almost delicate to her.

It didn't matter that they were no longer than her fingers. The sense of power they radiated was enough to tear her without touching her flesh, and she knew suddenly how other humans died.

Yet the alien still stood without moving.

Dion stared at her, stared deep into yellow eyes. Like knives, each pierced the other's mind. Hurts and dreams and joys and griefs swam together in a howling sea. They bit at each other, then blended. They cut at each other, then melted together. And in a flash, Dion understood. The link between her

and the mother-creature was already fixed, Like a twenty-year bond with a wolf.

Her voice was quiet. "You can kill me, but not who I am," she said. "I am

too strong in your mind already. And no matter how quickly you do it now, my death won't hide your debt."

Dion's words echoed into their minds and hung there like ice.

"It calls for honor," said the sharp-gray voice finally.

"It is Human," the dark one returned.

"Still, it calls for honor."

The purple-dark alien shoved the shock out of his voice with so much effort that the air shook around him. It was minutes before he controlled the enraged flashes of power. "Human," he said rigidly. "What is your payment?"

"Knowledge." Dion's voice shook. She steadied it carefully. "Knowledge

(equal) to that (lost/taken) by your plague."

"It is too much!" The furious clamor rose instantly. "How can it ask for such from us?" And, "How can it be worthy, this Human?"

At the last voice, the others fell silent. The sharp-blue voice added, "There is debt, and the (debt-price/repayment) is within honor, except that it is paid to a Human. How can it be (worthy) of such knowledge which was already given in trade?"

"Paid for, then stolen back by death," Dion said harshly.

"My (youth) is right," her mother agreed unwillingly. "The bargain was never honored."

"So I must honor it to a Human like this-one with no flight at all?" The

purple-dark birdman spat at her feet. "At least her (father's father's ancestors) could fly with us to (talk/trade). Show me that it can Fly, and then I will pay the debt-price."

"That is right, (too)." The consensus was relieved, as if a test of flight