Tully gazed into the vast hall filled with the silvery Eldests, all clad in their elaborately brocaded robes, sitting in orderly rows, calmly considering whether or not they would allow the Jao to save them or just go off to die on their own. Late morning light slanted down from broad open windows that lined the walls just below the vaulted ceiling and it was so cold, he could see the white plume of his breath.
Ed Kralik had come with them, and Caitlin had been giving him a quiet translation throughout. Judging from the sourness of Ed's expression, things weren't going smoothly. Well, Tully could have predicted that. The Jao had a bad history with these folks. That damned tall tale Kaln constructed had eased things at first, but was now making everything worse.
At least fifty unassigned crowded in around the doors, having followed him along with Miller, Mallu and Kaln up the winding mountain path. They'd had to come on foot the whole freaking way because all the available transports had already gone up the mountain.
"You cannot abandon those in the dochaya to their deaths without their consent," he said to the Lleix leadership, trusting Lim to translate.
Her voice rang out through the hall. The Eldests jerked around to stare at him, apparently in shock at being so rudely addressed. Then Lim spoke for herself and her fellow unassigned. "We will go with the humans and Jao to Terra," she said, pausing every few words to translate for Tully, "even if the elian would rather push their faces into the snow and pretend that they have better choices from which to choose. We of the dochaya do not plan to remain here and die!"
"Graceless creature, you know that you are not permitted to speak in this sacred place!" Old Grijo lurched to his feet.
"We have been permitted nothing except labor, food, and sleep!" Lim cried, "yet we are your children, the same as any ever accepted into an elian!"
"You are not the same!" an immense Lleix elder boomed. "You were turned away at the Festival of Choosing, quite rightly refused, because you have been judged by those with knowledge to be without sufficient value. And such behavior as this proves that judgment correct!"
Caitlin saw Lim's fleshy corona tremble, but the unassigned darted into the hall to confront the elder, even though he towered over her. "Humans have an elian for such as we." She pointed back at Caewithe Miller. "That one belonged to it at one time, before she joined their soldier elian."
"What is this nonsense?" demanded one of the huge elders. "How can unassigned belong to an elian? You do no work."
Lim wasn't giving an inch. "That is nonsense. We do whatever work is needed for the other elian. That is a task of its own, which we organize—not you! So we should be an elian also."
Several of the elders started to speak but little Lim's voice was loud enough to rise over them. "We have accepted the name the human Caitlin proposed for us. We are the Workorganizers. And we insist we have the same rights as all other elian."
The booming voices of huge elders finally rode her down. For a while, the hall rocked with terms like "nonsense" and "preposterous" and "outrageous."
But Lim fought out from under it. "And it doesn't matter, anyway!" she shrilled. "Accept us, or don't." She pointed at Tully. "He accepts us, and he commands the human and Jao soldiers on this world. And he has spoken with the commander of the fleet"—she didn't mention that the commander was Jao; no mean diplomat herself, it seemed—"and the commander says we will be given passage to Terra. So we are leaving—whether you say we can or not. It doesn't matter!"
A lifetime of misery gave the next sentence a tone that was harsher and more bitter than even the wind. "You no longer command here. You have hardly any ships, even for yourselves. So stay here and die. No unassigned will mourn you, be sure of that."
She turned and left the hall, the other unassigned following. Had she been human or Jao, Caitlin would have said she "stalked off." But that phrase just couldn't be applied to the graceful gliding walk that the Lleix always seemed to use, no matter how mad they might be.
After Caitlin gave Tully a quick explanation of what had happened, he looked around at the elders gathered in the hall. Truth be told, he had no use for them either. "What she said. Die and be damned."
He left then, following Lim and the people of the dochaya. To hell with it. He was no diplomat. If the pigheaded elian elders could be persuaded not to commit suicide, Caitlin would have to do it.
Tully looked down the mountain trail and saw a long line of silvery forms that stretched all the way back to the city. I'll be damned, he thought. The whole blasted dochaya had apparently decided to come up to the hall. But now, as Lim and the ones around her moved down the line toward the city, Tully could see the unassigned starting to turn around and go back. The word was obviously spreading.
That was probably a good thing for the elders, he thought, if there was any parallel at all between the Lleix and humans. The big crowd of unassigned would have easily been able to storm into the hall and physically overpower the elders. As enormous as they were, the elian leaders were almost all very old as well.
I wonder what the Lleix term for "lynch mob" is? he wondered, quite cheerfully.
Ed Kralik put an arm around Caitlin's shoulders and pulled her close. "I can signal Lexington and bring down the jinau to round them up," he said. "The Lleix have weapons on their ships, but so far I haven't seen any sign of handguns. I doubt there would be much hand-to-hand resistance."
"They need to come of their own free will," Caitlin said, "not as prisoners. That would be a terrible start, especially given their past history with the Jao. It would be years before they'd ever come close to trusting us again."
The Eldests were still arguing, more softly now, though they clearly were not even close to running out of steam. They had a such a civilized, fastidious way of disagreeing with each other—like old ladies squabbling in a sewing circle. Caitlin wanted to personally shake the teeth out of every single one of them.
Jihan was watching the proceedings with narrowed black eyes. Her body was very still. Finally, she strode up to Grijo's immense chair, tilted her head back so that she could look straight up at him, and spoke in a clear, ringing voice. All other conversation died.
"Jaolore will go to Terra also. We will join the unassi—the new Workorganizers elian."
Jihan tried to say more then, but the chamber filled with another uproar, much louder than before, the agitated voices rolling like a great wave. Jihan waited it out, gazing steadily at the elders. Then she spoke again.
"I belong to a new elian," she said, "so maybe that is why it is being given to me to think so many new thoughts. And, as most of you know, because there was much work for Jaolore and I could not wait for the Festival of Choosing, I accepted one from the dochaya. Rather than being unworthy for such elevation, I find Pyr talented and hardworking, industrious beyond understanding."
She gazed around the hall. "I have to order him to stop working and take care of his nutritional needs. I have to demand that he sleep at least a short time each night. My former elian, the Starsifters, were competent and focused, doing their duty for the colony without fail, but no one there, including me, had that kind of dedication." Her corona flared with determination. "I believe the dochaya harbors many such individuals and we have been forcing them to live in quiet desperation when they could have been giving their talents to the colony and enriching us all. When the dochaya goes to Terra, they will need to understand the Jao. I will take Jaolore and go with them to see what they build there."
"You would choose the dochaya over the combined wisdom of the colony's Eldests?" Grijo rose, his body stiff.
"I choose life over a so-called graceful death," Jihan said. "I choose the chance to think new things and experience a world that welcomes us. I choose to avoid Last-of-Days."
"You are breaking sensho again, child, even more grievously than before," an elder said, rising from a bench in the front. His robes were embroidered with starbursts and planets. "Have your errors these past days taught you nothing?"
Jihan started to shrink under his scrutiny, then raised her head. "What you forget, Eldest, is that I was right when I broke sensho. The Jao had returned. The information I possessed was crucial to understanding our situation. Sensho is useless when it causes us to turn away from the truth."
"Truth," Grijo said, seizing control again. "Which we were not given by these creatures, these Jao and humans."
"Because they feared it would lead to this," Jihan said. "Pointless, endless bickering while the Ekhat prepare to kill us all. And look at yourselves! Think how you have spent your time this day, invaluable, irreplaceable moments, when we could have been saving ourselves. Instead, they are just slipping away so that each can stand and make themselves heard, saying the same thing over and over! The Jao and humans were right to mislead us. I only wish they had kept the truth to themselves until we had reached Terra—but they were too honorable to do that."
Jihan turned to glare at Caitlin. "I weary of honor—on both sides!" she said. "Honor will not bake our bluebread, plant our fields, or raise our children! It will not mend our ships or fabricate new parts! It will not fight off the Ehkat!"
Grijo sat, slowly, as though his legs simply would not hold him for another breath. Caitlin gazed at the silvery Lleix faces, oriented as one upon Jihan like flowers tracking the sun. What were they thinking?
Then, in one of the foremost rows, a sturdy male topped by a dark pewter corona rose. "Weaponsmakers will go to Terra also," he said stolidly. "I am not certain how I feel about the unassigned claiming themselves to be a new elian. But I agree with the Eldest of Jaolore on all the rest. She is right, little as she may be. She is right now, as she has been right all along."
Weaponsmakers, Caitlin thought. That didn't bode well for the rest who would have to fight future battles on their own. Murmurs rippled through the crowd as the Lleix officials processed the information.
Grijo started to speak, but then from the middle rows, an aged female Eldest rose. Her robe was decorated with vivid scenes of Lleix youth, seemingly at play. She gathered her garment's folds before she spoke so that the fabric draped perfectly. Her corona stilled. "Childtenders will also go to Terra," she said.
Mouth agape, Grijo visibly wilted in his great seat. "Mahnt, you cannot mean that," he said. "If Childtenders go, then—"
"We take the Children's Court with us," she said, her posture very straight.
And the children were the colony's future, Caitlin thought. Jihan had done it. She'd put the ultimate squeeze on the other elian. They couldn't go off on their own without their children. What would be the point? Within a generation, their precious elian—so many of which had been lost already, over the long centuries of exile—would all start to die off.
Except the ones on Terra. The new ones, being raised and created by the unassigned with whatever help they could get from the Childtenders and the Weaponsmakers.
And then another stone came down from the wall. And this, perhaps the biggest stone of all. Grijo bowed his massive head. Outside, the wind gusted, blowing snow in through the open windows so that it sifted against their faces. "Dwellingconstructors will go, too, then," he said after a long pause. "We cannot leave our youth without shelter."
After that, a cascade of Eldests rose to make the same commitment, most reluctantly, though Caitlin thought that at least some of them were secretly relieved not to have to face the Ekhat without allies.
In the end, they didn't achieve complete participation. Some of the most hidebound elian remained firm in their refusal, including two called Stonesculptors and Distributionists. Why those particular elian were holding out, Caitlin hadn't the faintest idea, but their crafts didn't sound essential. Most likely, the new Lleix colony could do without them. She was pretty sure some of the dochaya unassigned had some idea how to fill in the missing services, anyway. They'd spent their lives working as servants in all those snobbish elian-houses. They'd certainly know far more about the crafts and services than any of their so-called "betters" suspected.
"What about the holdouts?" Caitlin asked Ed as the Eldests headed for the transports parked down the mountain a ways. She and her husband were standing with Tully, Miller and Lim not far from the hall. Mallu and Kaln were with them also. "Do we force them to come with us anyway?"
"Ronz will have to make that decision. Hold on a sec, hon." Ed brought up his communicator and spoke into it briefly. Then, waited while Ronz was summoned. Eldest after Eldest passed the little group, none looking at them. Their bare feet shuffled through the drifting snow as though they were too upset to pick them up and walk properly.
When the Preceptor was listening on the command ship, Kralik gave a quick summary of the situation.
"Do not use force," Ronz said. "Most of the Lleix have now agreed to come to Terra. If we use force against those still recalcitrant, it will most likely cause the others to change their minds again."
"Yes, sir. That's my opinion also."
"We will provide coordinates to Terra," the Preceptor said, "then allow them to take as many of the functioning Lleix ships as they require and go off on their own, if that is what they wish. Perhaps they will reconsider before it is too late. Their numbers will be too few to maintain genetic viability even if they do locate a suitable planet before their ships give out." After a brief pause, he added: "And to be realistic, it will probably make our task easier if we leave behind those who are most strongly opposed to us."
"They're dooming themselves for their stupid pride," Caitlin said, as she watched the Lleix exodus. "I guess there's nothing we can do."
"Pride is important to Lleix," Jihan said, coming up beside Caitlin. "It means one is always correct and does things properly, that she can hold herself tall in her own elian, before her elders as well as the Han."
"You mean it's important to the elian," Tully said. He rubbed his ears, which were going numb in the frigid wind rushing in through the doors. "I can't see as how anyone has ever allowed the unassigned anything in which they could take pride."
"We will take pride," Lim said, "when we go to Terra. We will learn sensho and conduct ourselves as properly as anyone else."
Grijo and another Eldest stopped before Jihan, gazing at her in what Tully interpreted as a reproachful air. "I thought better of you, littlest," Grijo said, then headed out into the driving wind. The sun shone outside, but clouds were coming in.
The other Eldest only turned his silver face away and followed.
The humans, Jao, Jihan and Lim followed them down the icy path. Jihan was silent. Finally, the Lleix turned to Tully and Caitlin. "I have behaved badly again this day," she said, as they reached the turn led to the transport staging area.
"You saved your people by making them see what they had to do," Caitlin said. Her cheeks were red from the bitter wind. "You were very brave to stand up to them like that."
Jihan stared mutely out into the vast drop-off of the mountain side, her eyes gone very narrow. Brown flying creatures no bigger than a silver dollar wheeled overhead in the wind. "You do not understand," she said. "Lleix value sensho more than being accepted into an elian, more than graceful service, more even than breathing, but somehow I always have no choice but to break it." Her corona drooped. "I may have saved them, but they will never forgive my crude behavior. Perhaps I have more in common with the dochaya than I thought."
"Don't sell yourself short," Tully said. "From what I've seen, there's a lot of raw energy and untapped talent in the dochaya. I think those folks are going to do some amazing things once they get to Terra."
"But I am short," Jihan said. "Can you not see that for yourself?" She rippled her fingers at him, a gesture which probably had significance, though he had no idea what. It would take years to truly know these people, he thought, and some corners of their minds would most likely always be inaccessible to human understanding. Probably Jihan was right. They would never forgive her, though her words had saved them.
The colony spent the next three days in frantic preparations to abandon Valeron. Jihan had relatively little to do since her elian had existed for only a short time and they possessed nothing to pack beyond two viewers and a few crates of records. So Ronz, who seemed to be the equivalent of a Jao Eldest, appointed her his representative. Her job was to go to each of the elian and see what they needed, if anything, from the humans and Jao, to be ready to go, and then to make a schedule, assigning them a departure time.
Many of the Eldests refused to receive her, when she called at their elian-houses, but the youngers in residence cooperated and things got done in an orderly enough fashion.
Records, both written and recorded, would be taken, of course, and enough food for the journey to Terra, which would not be terribly long, according to Tully. They would need a few viewers for the records, though more could be constructed later. Seeds of their favorite foodstuffs, patterns for machinery, layouts for building houses—the list went on and on. Just when Jihan thought she had covered everything necessary to start their new lives, someone would point out an essential she had missed.
The unassigned evacuated to the Jao ships first. They had nothing to transport other than themselves. The dochaya housed little else. She toured the empty buildings afterward to be certain nothing was left behind. They were dreadful, dark and empty, barren and graceless. And Pyr had spent years here, she thought. That was what sensho had required, but how could it have been right?
Then she orchestrated the elian, transporting them in the same order of seniority which ordered their seating in the Han. By that standard, Jaolore would be last, which was proper.
The remaining holdouts, eleven elian in all, remained indoors as they prepared, steadfastly not-seeing this thing which mightily displeased them. She gave them the pick of what was left in the city after those going to Terra were ready, stores and foodstuffs, garments and tools. She'd had historical records copied for them and left the flats outside their doors when they would not accept them from her hand.
Tully predicted the hold-outs would not survive more than a few generations with such reduced numbers, but she hoped he was wrong. He was human. He did not know the strength of her kind. Many times, the Lleix had faced Last-of-Days and then found afterwards that they had lived through the crisis yet again. They were tougher than even they knew themselves. This splinter group might just surprise them all.
On the final morning, she made one last sweep through the abandoned city, making certain no one was left behind and revisiting one last time the elegantly sculpted trees, ornamental bridges, artfully placed light-posts, wandering streams, and mute Boh faces peering down from the rafters of every elian-house. For all the generations they had sheltered on Valeron, the Boh had never been with them. Would their gods finally look upon the Lleix again when they reached Terra, or would they always remain something wonderful left behind long ago on another of their headlong flights from the terrible Ekhat?
The reticent elian, the Stonecrafters, Distributionists, and all the rest, had taken the old Lleix ships and taken off two days ago in search of a new colony world. She had gone down to the landing field and watched, aching for the dangerous journey they were undertaking with no aid and little chance of success.
Now, pale-blue snow sifted down from a leaden sky and the wind swirled it against the vacant houses. She inhaled the sweet cold scent. The Lleix had known many homes down through the generations, but she had only lived here. Was there snow on Terra? She had forgotten to ask.
Pyr and Kajin waited for her as she crossed the final bridge to the landing field. Both were dusted with snowflakes and stood outside the small ship, ignoring one another as always. She had sent them ahead to load Jaolore's records along with their precious viewers.
All the other Terra-bound elian, as well as the dochaya, had already boarded the fleet of ships in orbit around Valeron. They were the most junior and last.
"Eldest!" Pyr rushed forward to greet her, his usually dull gray skin positively glowing. He looked almost presentable. "Tully says it is time to go! The other ships have already made the jump to Terra. Only the huge one, Lex-in-tun, is still in the system."
It was time, past time, most likely. They were just fortunate the Ekhat hadn't already come back. "Yes," she said. "I have finished checking. The city is indeed empty now."
Together, the three walked up the ramp into what the humans called an "assault craft." Swathed in heavy clothes against the chill, Caitlin stood just inside with a male of her species. His name was Edkraalek and he seemed oddly possessive of her, always touching Caitlin's hand or shoulder, never more than an arm's length away. "Welcome aboard, Jaolore," the little human said.
"I have been thinking about that," Jihan said, ducking through the undersized door into the crew's preparatory bustle, "and I believe we should not call ourselves Jaolore any longer."
Kajin's elegant eyes narrowed with angry suspicion. "Are we going to cast away even our name then and lose ourselves in the dochaya?"
"No," she said as a Jao crewman squeezed past to take a seat and strap in. "There will be no more dochaya once we reach Terra. The unassigned plan to form their own elian." She gazed around at the busy cabin, the humans and the Jao readying the ship for launch, working together without apparent concern for their many obvious differences.
Pyr watched her closely.
"Our knowledge of the Jao will be critical, but there is so much more to learn. We must understand humans and Terra and the history of the Jao from the time we last knew them until now, the events which transformed them into allies who reached out to assist us." She settled on the floor and braced her back against the bulkhead. "We need a wider, more inclusive—"
"Terralore!" Pyr exclaimed.
The designation fit. She tried it out in her mind, seeing if it would stretch to include everything needed. "Yes, youngest," she said, "I think you are right."
Kajin, as always, glowered.