Boxmaster's Home
by
Jacqueline Lichtenberg 

Chapter Two

Family Decision

"I'm sure glad that's over!" Odirin slumped onto one of the seating cushions in the front room, scrunching around until his all too human spine found support.

Tsjaim stretched out in another cushion to Odirin's right and propped his feet on the low table between them. "Is it really over?"

"I hope so. The Guild lawyers will take care of the rest."

After he'd gotten rid of Archer, Odirin had refused to talk about what had brought him here. The way Lii clutched at Yran, it seemed any mention of leaving immediately would trigger another emotional explosion. And the news Odirin carried was even worse than what they'd been through with Archer. But now that the strangers' odors had dissipated and they had one of Tsjaim's great meals under their belts, it had to be faced. In a few minutes.

Lii and Yran were putting Terrel to bed. Like human children, Kethsem children needed more sleep than adults. And very like humans, at a certain age, they resisted that necessity, wanting in on all the adult transactions appropriate to the late night. Terrel, it appeared, had reached that age during this recent absence of Odirin's and the excitement of the day hadn't helped.

The child's high voice drifted down the hall from his bedroom, chattering at a blistering speed, sounding anything but sleepy. However, he was no longer hysterical, just keyed up.

Because of that tension, Yran had refused to sing with Terrel this evening because he said the tension wasn't good for Terrel's developing voice. He wouldn't even let him do his voice exercises or sing the new song Lii had taught him.

"But I want to show you how good I can do it now. I need a new lesson. You'll be gone in the morning!"

"No he won't," Lii said.

There was a long silence from the bedrooms during which Tsjaim laid his head back, closed his eyes and just breathed, and Odirin visualized Lii kissing Yran while Terrel blissfully soaked up the pheromones Lii produced under Yran's influence. It had nothing much to do with sex and everything to do with family bonding. But Yran still needed to have sex with Lii. He needed it body and mind, and Lii's kisses, however potent, however necessary, were no substitute. How can I give them time? I don't have any. Aloud, he said, "Tsjaim, the Guild lawyers will keep them out of your life from now on, but - "

Yslanta, coming in from the kitchen, picked up on that. "Guild lawyers. I'm not completely happy with that state of affairs. I don't want to belong to the Guild."

From the hall door, Yran said, "That's why Guildmasters only marry Guildmasters - no one else with any sanity wants anything to do with the Guild." He went to Yslanta and snugged himself under her arm, offering a brief kiss.

"I didn't exactly mean it that way, Yran." She accepted the taste of Lii dreamily. "You know we'll marry you the moment you say so." Another kiss. "In fact, maybe a few moments before you say so. How about tonight? I forget how perfect you are when you're gone."

Tsjaim glanced toward the doorway beyond which Lii was coaxing Terrel into bed. "I don't think we have a choice about marrying Yran even though he comes wrapped in the Guild. Lii's made up his mind, and I got smart enough not to argue with a ral when I was younger than Terrel."

Odirin said, "The Guild lawyers are minding Yran's affairs, not yours."

"It makes a difference?" asked Tsjaim.

Yran said, "Not that I can tell. My affairs are yours."

Lii came in closing the door to the hall behind him. Then he scooped Yran out of Yslanta's grasp. "I'm glad to hear you say that because my affairs are yours, too." His mouth found Yran's ear and Odirin barely heard a whisper that might have been, "You're mine!" in Oaurdin.

Yslanta settled next to Tsjaim sharing the taste of Yran with her ansha spouse, and Yran pulled the ral down with him onto the long cushion Odirin occupied. That put the ral between Odirin and Yran. Odirin started to move to another cushion, but Yran reached around Lii's shoulders and plucked at Odirin's sleeve. "So what did you say to Archer that made her turn sane and reasonable?"

"Oh, this and that."

"Come on, share the secret," said Tsjaim. "From the minute she walked in, I got the distinct impression she wanted to see us executed for high crimes and misdemeanors. What was that we read in that old novel - drawn and quartered?"

"Flayed alive," suggested Yslanta. "And they would cut off people's heads and put them on spikes over the city gates. They even burned people to death. Nice folks, humans."

Half facetiously, Odirin suggested, "Maybe you want me to leave?"

Tsjaim curled around Yslanta. "I didn't mean it as a slur on your ancestors. You got Archer calmed down fast enough. Yran always says you're part neral, and you surely proved it today. She was like a ral gone berserk only without sense enough to get violent and get it over with."

Odirin wasn't sure if the compliments around here hurt worse than the insults.

Yran said, "They're right. When I arrived, she was ready to call in a bombing raid to destroy this den of iniquity."

"I don't doubt it," said Odirin. "But is it surprising a human woman would react to me differently than to you?"

Lii dragged his attention away from stroking his neral long enough to scrutinize Wesdayne's resident human. "What did you do, have sex with her?"

Every last blood cell in Odirin's body rushed to his face. He heard a strangled noise issue from his throat and then he doubled over into a coughing fit.

Lii squirmed around to support Odirin's upper body with one strong arm, holding his forehead as if he were vomiting. Odirin regained control and fought free, but Lii wouldn't let him scramble to his feet and eventually he subsided onto his end of the cushion and Lii moved away to give him space.

Lii started to say something, thought better of it, and looked to Yran. Yran hazarded, "Actually - I - uh - was thinking the same thing. But I wouldn't have said it."

"Should I apologize?" asked Lii of Yran.

"No," said Odirin. "I should. I didn't think I had a reaction like that left in me." He took a deep breath and let it out carefully. At least his throat was working again. "In the culture I was raised in, sex isn't a family living room topic, nor is it suitable during business transactions. I think Archer has a similar background. If I'd done or said anything even remotely invitational, she'd have taken it as confirmation of her beliefs about this family and her hostility would have doubled."

"Then what did you do?" asked Yslanta.

For Yran, the light finally dawned. "The agro station!"

Tsjaim asked, "What agro station?"

Yran poked his head around Lii to make eye contact with Odirin. "That's it, isn't it? That's your Number Eight downstairs. I knew I recognized that shardsong. And your Eight had Station Eleven for about six months. Must have been terrible resolution from way out there."

"Yes, but she didn't know how far out of spec it was. I did manage to read the calendar in the dojo office." To Lii, he said, "Terrel's grown fast."

"I know. I thought you didn't have a box here."

Odirin explained ending, "I'd have suggested it right away, but I didn't realize I had any useful images until I was showing her the lab. That was brilliant, Yran, invoking boxed evidence against the allegations."

"Yes," agreed Yran frowning as he wriggled back into the cushion.

He wasn't an ego-maniac, just nonhuman, but it was unusual for him, after so many years in the all-human Guild, to miss a simple conversational cue. In the dim lighting, Yran's eyeshields were transparent enough to reveal the worry in his eyes.

Lii tightened his arm around Yran, possession in every line of his body.

Odirin warned, "I've brought bad news, Lii."

Yran put his head on Lii's shoulder and murmured something. Then to Odirin, he said, "Tell us. Just lay it out plain."

"It's top secret."

"They're cleared and you know it."

"Well, it's worse than top secret. Yran, do you know what utmost discretion means?"

Yran sat up a little and said to the other three Kethsem, "It means it's an assignment that was never made. It means that if something goes wrong, the people who gave the orders never heard of you or the mission. It means that you go out and do what has to be done on your own initiative, and if it goes wrong, you and you alone take all the blame and all the penalties - which are usually maximum. It's more than secret. It never happened."

"The Union doesn't do things like that," said Tsjaim.

Odirin corrected, "The Union never did things like that before the invasion. And the Guild has resisted absolutely, until now." And I don't know why they've capitulated now.

"Yran, I called you here secretly because I was given this assignment in person, - you don't know by whom, and you never will because nobody gave it to us. There's no breath of it in any record system anywhere, nor in any communication system anywhere. It never happened. We're just two boxmasters taking matters into our own hands. If it comes down to it, that excuse will be believed because all we'll be doing is retrieving two of our boxes, and everyone knows how you and I always retrieve our boxes."

Yran hitched himself up straight, sitting sideways, one hand on Lii's shoulder. "Something's happened to one of our sites? And retrieval is - illegal?"

"Brace yourselves," warned Odirin. "This hasn't been on the news - it's being kept under wraps. It just happened a few days ago and the shockwaves haven't reached the top yet - officially anyway. It's Keth - "

Yslanta gasped. "Kethsem's been captured!"

Tsjaim restrained her. "When? How bad is it?"

Yran and Lii stared at one another, sarone flickering through various reactions. Yran's knuckles paled where he clutched at Lii.

Odirin said, "Contact was lost about ten days ago."

"Ten days!" Yslanta flicked from shock to disbelief. "They couldn't keep something like that off the news."

"They can and have before," said Yran bleakly.

To Yslanta, Tsjaim said, "Yran would know. I believe him."

Lii said, "You should just let those boxes go. You can't save Kethsem from the Sxome. After ten days, it's too late. I don't want you to die trying."

Yran looked torn between Lii's obvious ulterior motive of separating Yran from his boxes and the horrible truth of Lii's words.

Odirin continued. "It's true, the Sxome usually exterminate the locals, but it takes more than a few weeks to accomplish that without destroying the ecology. Loss of the Kethsem residents would mean genocide for your people. That hits a very tender nerve in the Union. The response will be explosive, and - certain people - want to direct that explosive response. If we succeed in this mission, the Union will take Kethsem back and draw the new border there, defend it for all we're worth.

"If we fail, the Sxome Alliance will probably take Simmerflux next. It'll be a route. Other planets will fall to the Sxome. No telling where the retreat will end."

Lii's shock exploded across the room. While Yslanta and Tsjaim gasped and waited for Yran to damp Lii's reaction, Odirin reminded himself that Kethsem had never developed the art of war. What seemed obvious to Odirin was bizarrely improbable to them.

Odirin said to the ral, "Current thinking at the highest military levels is to make a stand a hundred light-years inside this position - to sacrifice eighteen more colony worlds and dig in behind a defensible perimeter. The people who want our boxes retrieved want to stand at Kethsem. Without our boxes, their plan is hopeless. If we pull off this retrieval and deliver our boxed data to Union Intelligence before the Sxome know we've taken them, we can save both planets and thousands of lives."

"How can you be so sure your boxes can defeat the Sxome?" asked Yslanta.

Tsjaim added, "Until you get them, you won't know what's in them. You could be taking a terrible risk for nothing."

"Yran has a box at the spaceport near Bridgehead City, the only spaceport on the planet worth mentioning. Mine is in the capitol building nearby. If the Sxome run true to form, they'll use that area as their planetary control center. Those boxes will have their ship deployments and movements, their security codes, their supply situation, their strengths and their weaknesses. With the data our boxes have collected since the invasion, our Intelligence will have all the strategic information needed to break the Sxome advance and hold the line here."

"What if they've found your boxes?" said Lii. "They could have hurled them into a star or something."

"They haven't," said Yran positively. "We'd know."

"That's why we have to go instead of sending someone expendable. If the boxes have been moved, we can find them when nobody else could. A boxmaster - senses - his shard."

"They won't find mine," said Yran.

"Nor mine," said Odirin. Not without special instruments, anyway. "But Lii is right. This is a very dangerous mission. There's no way to justify sending someone who couldn't find the boxes if they've been moved - and mine could have been moved without having been recognized. So we have to go. That's what it means to be a boxmaster. We retrieve our own boxes - no matter what. That's what all our training is for - to go into any situation, get our boxes, and get out again. Any situation. We can do this, Lii."

The silence was awful.

Odirin felt better now that he'd gotten it off his chest. Then he felt ashamed because his relief was their pain. But he had to add, "So we have to leave tonight. Hours ago would have been better. Plans have been in progress for days, a way to get us in and out again secretly. They're waiting for us now. Timing is everything on this one."

Incongruously, Lii relaxed suddenly, letting out a gust of a sigh. "You're not going. If any little thing went wrong, I'd never see you again. Let them send a pair of guildmasters to retrieve your boxes. I won't allow this."

Yran looked stricken. Yslanta gnawed her lips in a most human gesture. Tsjaim watched Yran alertly.

Odirin said, "It has to be us. Think, Lii. The first thing the Sxome will do is execute offworlders. This is occupied Kethsem. I'm the only one in the Guild, other than Yran, with a working knowledge of one of your languages without a translator - and a translator would be noticeable. Yran can blend in with the background - the invaders won't notice him. And our people are working on a way to disguise me." He shifted to Yran. "It doesn't have to fool other Kethsem, just the invaders. It'll work. And - I wouldn't let you go alone."

"He's not going," said Lii adamantly. "Tell him, Yran."

Yran's mouth worked but no sound came out. Then his voice came down into human audio in mid-word. " -missed Lii. If he says I can't go, then I can't."

Guessing, Odirin asked, "What did you promise Lii?"

"I won't leave until he says to."

Odirin studied the pair, Lii clinging to Yran for dear life. There was a whole lot more going on here than sexual arousal though earlier he'd seen that, too. Lii, being ral, was the natural sexual aggressor, but he'd never displayed it blatantly in front of Odirin. The business with Archer had shaken the ral more deeply than Odirin could measure.

"Lii, we're talking about your home world, your whole species. It's war."

"It doesn't have anything to do with me."

"How can a martial arts master take an attitude like that? War is the natural extension of - "

Tsjaim interrupted, "War isn't the issue here. Lii meant that the fate of Kethsem has nothing to do with us."

"How can you say that?"

Yslanta tried to explain. "Each of us has been disowned because we chose to leave. Poor Yran has faced it several times over for his various choices. When he has to go there to tend his box, they're barely civil to the boxmaster. They never talk to Yran. There is no place for us on that world."

Odirin glanced at Yran. Odirin knew it had been bad, but not that bad. Rudy had given Yran the Kethsem boxing contracts thinking it a boon, but when - from apprenticeship on - had Yran ever complained? The only times Yran had mentioned layovers on Kethsem, he'd talked of renting equipment and camping and hiking in the countryside, of shopping for musical instruments or attending concerts, buying toiletries in his favorite scent, and spices for Tsjaim to cook with. Come to think of it, those were all things one could do alone.

Odirin shifted his gaze to Lii. "Where else but Kethsem are we going to get a neral to be a sibling for Terrel never mind find spouses for him? We've searched for seven years and not found a single other breeding group of Kethsem on any other planet. Terrel would be the first - if he had anyone to breed with. Do you want him to live out his life and die as the last of his species?"

Lii's eyes flicked toward the hall door to Terrel's wing and the extra room already prepared to welcome his neral companion. The human had never seen such expression on the ral's face. And when Lii spoke, his voice sounded like ripping wallboard. "Go then! Go." He lunged to his feet and arrowed toward the opposite hall, toward his own room.

Yran sprang up, but froze, one knee on the cushion, the other foot on the floor. He looked back at Odirin with Lii's mask of horror on his face. "Shit!" He spat in Oaurdin, but it translated perfectly - a gut punch aimed at the clumsy human. Yran never swore and never took out his temper on anyone.

Odirin offered, "I didn't realize he'd take it like that. It's just a logical - "

"Not now, Lyle," snapped Yran. "I'll go with you, of course. You know I will. But not until I've taken care of this. Just pretend you really are ansha for a while." He launched himself across the room beckoning Yslanta and Tsjaim to follow.

Yslanta caught up with Yran, but Tsjaim paused to say, over his shoulder at Odirin, "That was cruel."

"Not intentionally - "

"Lii will understand that - later. Much later, maybe. When he's able to remember you have no sense of smell and very little common sense. You shouldn't pretend to be ansha if you can't live up to it."

Odirin swallowed his protest. He had a perfectly normal sense of smell for a human male, and until this moment, the family had welcomed his ansha identity. But the Kethsem, when they let their cultivated galactic personas slip, always said he couldn't see or hear or smell. He knew they really meant, "I'm too tired to deal with aliens right now. Don't annoy me anymore."

Before Odirin could figure out how to say, "I really blew it!" in both the Oaurdin language and culture, Tsjaim was gone, pointedly closing the hall door behind him. Odirin's own room was behind that door, opposite Lii's room, the room with the bed big enough for four though they each had their own rooms, their own beds big enough for four.

Tired as he was, he made no move toward the hall. He felt like an intruder for the first time since he'd come here with Yran to deliver Terrel into Lii's care. Yran had insisted then that he was able to handle Lii's sexual advances, and Odirin had never doubted it. That had been the first time he'd really understood that Yran wasn't the equivalent of the average twenty-year old human who'd just graduated from the Academy naive in the ways of the worlds.

By that time, Yran had been through two marriages and two tragedies. He'd built and abandoned a career, and put himself through a degree program his compatriots would never have understood. Then he'd tackled the Academy and won through that, too.

Yran would know how to handle Lii. That's what neral did for a family, anyway.

I should have kept my mouth shut and let Yran do the arguing with Lii. But Lii had never acted like this before. Then he remembered that one charge against Wesdayne had been that Yran wasn't married to them, and without a neral parent, this wasn't a fit home for Terrel. Without Yran, Lii would lose Terrel, and Odirin was forcing Yran to risk his life. Damn, I should have kept my big mouth shut!

Odirin scrunched down into the large cushion that molded itself around him, partially covering him, touched his eyeshields to dark, and let himself drift off to sleep thinking that in a couple of hours, if the crisis wasn't resolved, he'd have to do something.

One way or another, I'll be on Kethsem soon enough. If he was going to pull off this masquerade, he'd have to do better than this. A lot better. The thoughts faded away.

"What are you doing there?" Lii's voice, soft, melodious, relaxed, normal.

Odirin touched up his eyeshields and groaned to a sitting position.

"Why didn't you go to bed?" asked Lii. "Your back must be killing you from sleeping all twisted."

It was. "Not at all. What time is it?"

"A bit after midnight."

"Zeesh!" He rubbed the back of his protesting neck, trying to translate that into ship's time. "Planet lag is hell." He rubbed crusts from his eyes. He'd slept for hours.

Lii sat down on the low table before Odirin's cushion. He was wearing a long gown and voluminous white robe both gifts from Yran bought on Kethsem. His sarone looked damp, as if he'd just stepped out of the shower. "Lyle - can you accept an apology? I behaved - I'm very embarrassed."

"Well, me too. I hit you when you were down. I didn't mean to. I should have had sense enough to keep my mouth shut." He was talking to a completely different person from the one who had fled the room a few hours before. This was the Lii he knew and admired, the Lii he came home to, the Lii he looked forward to seeing, who always had some new move to teach him, who always wanted to learn something new. He wondered if Tsjaim and Yslanta would return to normal, too.

The ral frowned, a semi-human expression that might have been part Kethsem. "You might be able to alter your behavior by simple intent. I never will. Never. I can't do what I should - only what I must. I will offend you again. I know it. But it embarrasses me."

"Don't worry about it. You're no problem for me. I know I miss a lot of what's really going on around here because I can't pick up the pheromone cues. Maybe it's presumptuous of me to expect I can play Kethsem even if just for the invaders, but with or without Yran, I'm going."

Lii met Odirin's gaze, puzzled. "Of course Yran is going. He knew - he knew - oh, Yran is neral, and about as perfect as they come." He rose. "Don't get me started again. Come on, I'll make you hot chocolate with fresh delyen milk." He headed for the kitchen.

Odirin followed, working the kinks out of his back. "Sounds great. I'll be right back," he called as he ducked down the cellar stairs. When he returned, he had his box which he tossed onto a cushion by the front door.

Lii turned from the sink, drying his hands. "You really are leaving. Now. Aren't you?"

"Got to. Is Yran in the shower or something? We should get moving."

Lii picked up a plate of crisp yellow cubes, holding it under Odirin's nose. "Flexaberry crunch. When we got your message this morning, Terrel ran out before dawn to pick the berries, then got Tsjaim up early to bake these for your breakfast. Tsjaim would be sad if you left without tasting one."

"He's already mad at me." He took a cube. Tsjaim was the cook around here, not Lii.

"What makes you say that?"

"You mean he's not mad at me?" He munched. Ambrosia.

"Not that I could tell. I'd hardly miss something like that - under the circumstances."

Without planning it, Odirin found himself seated at the kitchen table. With a minimum of puttering, Lii swept a large crockery mug full of the chocolate flavored milk into Odirin's hands, and he drank the steaming brew greedily. The combination of flavors was a favorite, and somehow it always tasted better in this kitchen than if he took it with him and ate on his ship.

Fetching a mug for himself, Lii asked, "Should I talk to Yran about Tsjaim for you? If there's a problem - "

"There's no problem. He was angry because I upset you - or maybe I upset Yran's plans. I honestly don't know exactly what I did, but I do know I should have kept my mouth shut."

"Not because of me, you shouldn't." He settled across the table from Odirin.

"But I hurt you."

"You spoke the truth. In my house, that's all that's required of you."

Odirin remembered his own reaction when Lii had asked if he'd had sex with Archer. Lii had only voiced the simple, frank question in everyone's mind. Archer's change in attitude had been very much like Lii's after a little sex with his spouses. Lii had asked a perfectly reasonable question - from a Kethsem point of view.

Lii added, "Perhaps next time, you might think to phrase matters differently - to blunt the impact - taking ral insanity into account."

"I'll work on it. Humans have little sensitive moments, too, you know." Fretting at the passing of the minutes, Odirin took another crunchy cube, and asked, "Should I go wake Yran? Or is he up?"

Lii cradled his mug and breathed steam. "He isn't up, but he's awake. It would be cruel not to let him finish what's been started. There's just so much punishment that flesh and blood can take."

Ooops.

Misinterpreting Odirin's abashed expression, Lii murmured, "You know you'd be welcome - if you wanted to join them - or me. You've never doubted that, have you?"

"No! I mean - oh, Lii, haven't we had this out before?"

"Many times. But I can't figure why you slept in the living room when your own bed is only a few steps away. Could you have been feeling - well - rejected? If you'd come to me with Yran, it would have been one of the most joyous moments of my life."

Oh, boy. But if he was going to use his Kethsem ansha persona as a cover, he'd have to learn to deal with a ral coming on to him as if he were really ansha.

"Lesson time," Odirin said in the code that meant time-out for the sensory-deprived human to be instructed. "How does an ansha put off a ral when it's very, very important not to hurt the ral's feelings?"

Lii studied his face for a long moment, then reached over the table and took Odirin's right hand away from where it clutched his left. "Like this." He placed Odirin's right hand on the table between them, palm up, fingers spread. "Just like this." And he put his own hand over Odirin's. "That's all. If there is no response, interest withers. Instantly. I know what arousal in a human male smells like. There is no failure of response in you."

The problem, of course, was that Odirin was human. To be brutally honest, he had to admit that maybe his body had been miscuing the ral. Badly.

"Sometimes," said Odirin, still gripping the ral's hand palm to palm on the table, "sometimes, for the human male, physical responses operate independently of psychological response." When they get hitched together, the real trouble starts!

"That comes from the confusion of being part ral and part ansha, with overtones of scal, too. In fact, I sometimes even see a neral's optimism in you. It's very confusing - sometimes." And sometimes it's unbearably attractive. Lii's unspoken words hung between them.

"Lii, what you're sensing doesn't mean what you think it means, or what you'd like it to mean. It's not personal, Lii, it's just physical. And I don't want it to become personal."

"Oh." The ral looked crushed. Rejected.

"No, I didn't mean it like that! You and everyone in this family are personally important to me. I don't want to get human sexuality all mixed up in this because then I'd want things from you that you aren't able to give. I'd want those things because you mean a lot to me. That wanting would spoil the comfort of feeling at home in your house. I value this home above petty physical desires. I have other ways to take care of physical needs, but I haven't anything else like a home. I won't spoil it."

"Just once? To bind the family?"

"There's no such thing as just-once for a human. You see what I mean? For you, sex is one thing, and for me it's something completely different. You need sex to bind me into this family, to make everything smell right. But for me, it would ruin the binding I cherish so very much. I've hurt you tonight, Lii, twice now, and I never intended it."

"You can see you've hurt me, but you can't see how much you give. I have no right to ask you to give more. I want it tonight because our home is about to be shattered by terrible events. To be completely bound would give us the strength to survive it all."

He's frightened. "I hadn't thought of it that way." But he should have. For Kethsem, that binding was more than ritual. It was biochemical and instinctive. It was the source of their psychological strength. He had only to compare the sane, rational Lii who sat before him with the frantic, obsessed, irrational ral of the afternoon, and it was perfectly clear what a little sex could do for a Kethsem.

Everything he knew about Kethsem was theoretical. It was something he knew about Kethsem, not something he knew. That might get him killed on this mission. What had Tsjaim said? You shouldn't pretend to be ansha if you can't live up to it.

Finally, the ral released Odirin's hand. "As long as you understand you're welcome to join us - anytime - even when I'm a little crazy - maybe more than a little crazy when Yran hasn't been around much . . .. I want you to feel that my house is your home. Always, Lyle. I may ask, but I'll never demand that you do anything that would spoil this home for you. I want you here. Your presence makes me happy."

"I understand." As far as Kethsem were concerned, a happy ral was the whole purpose of life.

While they were being communicative on sexual matters, Odirin asked, thinking he might have to know to carry off his impersonation on Kethsem, "I'm a little surprised that you're here - when they're there, doing all that - without you?"

Lii sat back and laughed. It was a pure, relaxed sound. "If I'd stayed, we'd be at it all night and maybe until afternoon. But Yran has to leave. He has to finish, first, though. Without me, it won't go any further than that."

Odirin drank some chocolate. "Oddly enough, that makes sense." Though he couldn't imagine who did what to whom with what and in what order. Maybe he should read some Kethsem pornography, if there even was such a thing. "How long do you think it'll take for them to run down?"

"Can you give them another half hour?"

Odirin sighed. "We're way off schedule."

Odirin rose, and Lii followed, stopping him at the kitchen door. "One other thing. There isn't much time left for Terrel. Recently, a student brought her newborn with her to class. Terrel cared for the infant while she worked. After class, when Terrel had to give the baby back to her, - Lyle, even if it was a human baby, Terrel was - was - Terrel has never seen a Kethsem baby!" Lii put a hand on his shoulder. "If you two can't bring someone back for him, we're going to lose Terrel. Archer will have had nothing to do with it. Simple biological stress will drive him mad or tear this family apart at the core."

"Now I see why Archer's attitude was driving you nuts. You're amazing. I'd have killed her."

"She doesn't know how close she came. Let's keep it that way."

Odirin touched Lii's shoulder. "I'm sure Yran has been thinking about all this - "

"Did I hear my name?"

They turned to find Yran, showered and dressed in his black thanahyde uniform. Softly closing the hall door behind him, Yran came toward them carrying his shoes in one hand. As always, after a session with his ral, the neral looked rosy cheeked, bright eyed, and glowed with vibrant health.

He sat down to put his shoes on, with every move shedding the exuberant neral demeanor of his native culture and donning the learned mannerisms of Boxmaster Yran.

Turning his eyes from the eerie transformation, Lii recounted his observation about Terrel. Then he turned to watch Yran, and the human needed no sense of smell to detect the ral's love or to see the fear that his love might not be reciprocated in kind. No, that's what a human would fear. This is something else. Lack of the family bonding?

Yran replied heavily, "Yes, I noticed." He traded glances with Lii. "I promised him. And I will be here. This mission won't take long. But it has to be done. Then - if we haven't found someone - I'll talk to Rudy about arranging for me to stay with Terrel this whole year."

"I know. I know." Suddenly, Lii turned to Odirin, coming close. "Lyle, please? May I? Just one taste?"

Feeling the ral once again pushed to the verge of irrationality, Odirin accepted the kiss. Lips touched. A tongue flicked briefly, tentatively, into his mouth and was gone. And Odirin was rewarded with the blissful expression on Lii's face, a sudden draining of tension. The Lii who stood back from that contact was again solidly rational.

Yran stood up, staring at Odirin in open astonishment and admiration. Then his eyes locked to Lii's for one of their silent conversations.

Decisively, the ral edged past Odirin and went to a breakfront in one corner of the living room. From a delicate china container he brought out a long, thin chain with something strung on it. A gold medallion.

The moment he saw it, Yran backed away shaking his head.

Lii came toward him relentlessly, holding the medallion out as if to loop it over Yran's head.

"Lii, no. We settled this - "

"Take it."

"I can't - "

"You must. Yran, I'll have nightmares with you masquerading - any bereaved ral would take one look at you and - I want everyone to know you belong to me. I have to know they know you're mine. You are - so - beautiful."

Really? Odirin looked at Yran as if he'd never seen him before.

Slowly, Yran backed away as the ral advanced.

When Odirin had first met Yran, the neral's short stature, wide eyes and pale, smooth skin, his small nose and high cheeks had given the impression of extreme youth, a perpetually startled youth when his sarone stood out from his head. His skin wasn't so smooth anymore, and his face not quite so full, but he was still beautiful. Often during the first year they'd worked together, Odirin's eyes had occasionally glimpsed a gorgeous human woman when he'd looked at Yran. Then an eye-blink later, all he would see would be an alien of indeterminate gender.

After Odirin had explained how Yran labeled himself as an incorrigible child with every bouncy, squeaky, enthusiastic word he spoke, Yran's behavior had altered. He was still short, wide-eyed, and pug nosed. But once he consciously donned his Boxmaster Yran persona, everything about him bespoke power, authority, maturity, and sober responsibility. These days, Odirin very rarely saw the robust feminine pulchritude he had at first perceived.

But that male persona was just a skillfully projected illusion, as Yran had explained while teaching Odirin the ansha manner. To a Kethsem, Yran's neral mannerisms bespoke a mature, sober power used with responsible authority. The illusion of Yran-the-formidable-male wasn't a lie. It was the truth translated. With that insight, Odirin had quickly mastered the ansha projection, though he'd never tried it on any Kethsem besides Lii's family. It'll work. With the disguise, it will work - at least on the Sxome.

He watched Yran stop and Lii approach him even more slowly. There had to be one whale of a silent conversation in progress and Odirin wished he could smell it. The ral held out the chain and begged, "Take it, Yran. Or I'll never be able to keep believing you really meant what you said tonight." His hands shook.

Yran's resistance crumbled, but he didn't let the ral put the chain over his head. He took it with his own hands, clutched the medallion longingly, then scooped it into his inside jacket pocket.

"Wear it," insisted Lii quietly. "Promise me you'll wear it."

"I'll wear it to make sure no ral would mistake me for eligible. I'll wear it because I'm Wesdayne. But when I return, I'll give it back to you to keep - for someday. You understand that? Not now, Lii. Only someday."

"Maybe I do understand. In my saner moments. I can't think about it. I don't know how - " He broke off, turning aside, gathering his hands back away from Yran. "You'd better get out of here."

But Yran cast one desperate glance at Odirin, then went to Lii with his hands out, palm up. After the slightest hesitation, Lii met those hands palm to palm. Yran said, "Terrel is mine. And one day I'll be yours. That has never been in doubt. There will be no other."

Lips compressed, Lii nodded and tried to withdraw, but Yran held his hands. "Pray for us, Lii. A ral's prayers are always answered."

"I put that away with childhood."

"Maybe it's time to dust off and tune up an old skill. Terrel says you taught him a prayer from The While. If you remember any more of it, teach it to him."

"Maybe you're right. The land has been challenged. The response is likely to be - overwhelming."

With his eyes, Yran motioned Odirin to the front door, then followed him out into the dark under the trees.

End Chapter Two