Brothers of Earth

II

A large nail was on the third level. Its walls were of the same irregular stone as the outer hall, but the floor had carpets and the walls were hung with tapestries. The guards sent him beyond this point alone, toward the next door.

The room beyond the threshold was of his own world, metal and synthetics, white light. The furnishings were crystal and black, the walls were silver. Only the cabinet at his left and the door at his back did not belong: they were carved wood, convolute dragon figures and fishes.

The door closed softly, sealing him in.

Machinery purred and he glanced leftward. A woman in nemet dress had joined him. Her gown was gold, high-collared, floor-length. Her hair was amber, curling gently. She was human.

Hanan.

She treated him with more respect than the nemet, keeping her distance. She would know his mind, as he knew hers; he made no move against her, would make none until he was sure of the odds.

“Good day, Mr. Morgan-Lieutenant Morgan.” She had a disk in her fingers, letting it slide on its chain. Suddenly he missed it. “Kurt Liam Morgan. Pylan, I read it.”

“Would you mind returning it?” It was his identity tag. He had worn it since the day of his birth, and it was unnerving to have it in her hands, as if a bit of his life dangled there. She considered a moment, then tossed it. He caught it.

“We have one name,” she said, which was common knowledge. “I’m Djan. My number-you would forget. Where are your crewmates, Kurt Morgan?”

“Dead. I’ve told the truth from the beginning. There were no other survivors.”

“Really.”

“I am alone,” he insisted, frightened, for he knew the lengths to which they could go trying to obtain information he did not have. “Our ship was destroyed in combat. The life-capsule from Communications was the only one that cleared on either side, yours or ours.”

“How did you come here?”

“Random search.”

Her lips quivered. Her eyes fixed on his with cold fury. “You did not happen here. Again.”

“We met one of your ships,” he said, and his mouth was suddenly dry; he began to surmise how she knew it was a lie, and that they would have all the truth before they were done. It was easier to yield it, hoping against expectation that these Aeolids would dispose of him without revenge. “Aeolus was your world, wasn’t it?”

“Details,” she said. Her face was white, but the control of her voice was unfaltering. He had respect for her. The Hanan were cold, but it took more than coldness to receive such news with calm. He knew. Pylos also was a dead world. He remembered Aeolus hanging in space, the glare of fires spotting its angry surface. Even an enemy had to feel something for that, the death of a world.

“Two Alliance IST’s penetrated the Aeolid zone with thirty riders. We were with that force. One of your deep-ships jumped into the system after the attack, jumped out again immediately when they realized the situation there. We were nearest, saw them, locked to track-it brought us here. We fought. You monitored that, didn’t you? You know there were no other survivors.”

“Keep going.”

“That’s all there is. We finished each other. We suffered the first hit and my station capsuled then. That’s all I know. I had no part in the combat. I looked for other capsules. There were none. You know there were no others.”

An object was concealed in her hand. He caught a glimpse of it as her hand moved by her many-folded skirts. He saw her fingers close, then relax. He almost took the chance against her then, but she was Hanan and trained from infancy: her reflexes would be instant, and there was the chance the weapon was only set to stun. That possibility was more deterrent than any quick oblivion.

“I know,” she said, “that there are no other ships, that at least.” Her tone was low and mocking. “Welcome to my world, Kurt Morgan. We seem to be humanity’s orphans in this limb of nowhere, there being only the Tamurlin for company otherwise, and they’re not really human any longer.”

“You’re alone?”

“Mr. Morgan. If something happens to me at your hands, I’ve given the nemet orders to turn you out naked as the day you were born on the shore of the Tamur. The other humans in this world will know how to deal with you in a way humans understand.”

“I don’t threaten you.” Hope turned him shameless. “Give me the chance to leave. You’ll never see me again.”

“Unless you’re the forerunner of others.”

“There are no others,” he insisted.

“What security do you give me for that promise?”

“We were alone. We came alone. There was no way we could have been traced. There were no ships near enough and we jumped blind, without coordinates.”

“Well,” she said, and even appeared to accept what he said, “well, it will be a long wait then. Aeolus colonized this world three hundred years ago. But the war . . . Records were scrambled, the supply ship was lost somehow. We discovered this world in archives centuries old on Aeolus and came to reclaim it. But you seem to have intervened in a very permanent way on Aeolus. Our ship is gone-it could only have been the one you claim to have destroyed; your ship is gone-you claim you could not be traced; Aeolus and its records are cinders. Exploration in this limb ceased a hundred years ago. What do you suppose the odds are on someone chancing across us?”

“Then there is no war. Let me leave.”

“If I did,” she said, “you might die out there; the world has its dangers. Or you might come back. You might come back, and I could never be sure when you would do that. I would have to fear you for the rest of my life. I would have no more peace here.”

“I would not come back.”

“Yes, you would. You would. It’s been six months since my crew died here. After only that long, my own face begins to look strange to me in a mirror; I begin to fear mirrors. But I look. I could want another human face to look at ... after a certain number of years. So would you.”

She had not raised the weapon he was now sure she had. She did not want to use it. Hope turned his hands damp, sent the sweat running down his sides. She knew the only safe course for her. She was mad if she did not take it. Yet she hesitated, her face greatly distressed.

“Kta t’Elas came,” she said, “and begged for your freedom. I told him you were not to be trusted.”

“I swear to you, I have no ambitions, only to stay alive. I would go to him-I would accept any conditions, any terms you set.”

She moved her hands together, clasping the weapon casually in her slim fingers. “Suppose I listened to you.”

“There would be no trouble.”

“I hope you remember that, when you grow more comfortable. Remember that you came here with nothing, with nothing-not even the clothes on your back, and that you begged any terms I would give you.” She gazed at him soberly for a moment, unmoving. “I am out of my mind.

But I reserve the right to collect on this debt someday, in whatever manner and for however long I decide. You are here on tolerance. And I will try you. I am sending you to Kta t’Elas, putting you in his charge for two weeks. Then I will call you back, and we will review the situation.”

He understood it for a dismissal, weak-kneed with relief and now beset with new doubts. Alone, presented with an enemy, she did a thing entirely unreasonable. It was not the way he had known the Hanan, and he began to fear some subtlety, a snare laid for someone.

Or perhaps loneliness had its power even on the Hanan, destructive even of the desire to survive. And that thought was no less disquieting in itself.