Chapter Six

R egi hated waiting, but Gimi a'Onidba had asked him to remain in this office, and so he waited. He had refused to visit the growing season temple for years before leaving the Empire, but the carved dafs corona were familiar. The long, legless symbol of the goddess of midwives glided through carved trees. Their wooden eyes watched the moon carved into the frieze lining the walls.

As a child, he'd been excited every time he'd seen a real dafs corona slide through the trees. Everywhere his mother walked, the creatures would gather. Each was no longer than a forearm and no thicker than a thumb, but they would mass in such numbers that the more timid Kowri would flee.

But childless would-be parents would follow the creatures to his mother and beg her to speak to her goddess for them. Pregnant Kowri who had been warned their pregnancies were medically dangerous would ask Minait a'Otutha to attend their births.

As a boy, Regi had been excited to see his mother take such an important role in their world. However, now the creatures represented his mother's choice to put her calling ahead of her child, ahead of her husbands. Ahead of everything.

Regi sighed. He wished the debate was still at the cold-weather temple. He took comfort in the number of dops now waddling through the corridors of that temple. Perhaps he stepped around the creatures, but Dante had done a superb job of convincing him dops had pleasant personalities and they would rather avoid spearing others with their poisonous quills.

The door opened, and Regi stood, expecting Gimi a'Onidba to appear. Instead Dante came around the corner, his tall frame and almost furless face more out of place here than in the cold weather temple. "Dante, what are you doing here?"

He stepped into the room. "Gimi suggested that it would be a good idea to come meet you."

"Where is Vk?" He moved to the door and peered out as though expecting to see his security second-in-command in the corridor, although obviously that was ridiculous. The pronaos guards would never allow her inside. He was surprised that Dante had been allowed in, even though the exalteds had agreed the sacred animals' defense of him in the temple sanctuary served as definitive proof of Divashi's favor. Still Regi's digestive system rebelled at the idea of Dante's helplessness. Those who wished to see Dante and all the outsiders dead would not always announce themselves prior to arranging for a convenient murder. Alb proved that.

"Vk is waiting with the pebafri outside the temple." Dante studied the wood carvings on the wall. "This place is a lot different from the other temple."

Regi attempted to see the world through Dante's eyes. This was the temple he had grown up in. During his Mother's Years when he had accompanied her to her temple obligations, this had been his benchmark for normal. Like every Kowri, he had visited the other temples during the appropriate celebrations and ceremonies, but he judged them all against the growing season temple and, for the most part, had found them lacking.

Despite that, he could see similarities. The wide entrance allowed supplicants to approach the temple. Guards stood in the pronaos, acting as guides. There were enough gods that someone might require assistance appealing to the correct one or identifying the best offering for their sacred animal.

Each of the temples had curving hallways with arched niches every few steps where supplicants could leave offerings, and each had a guarded sanctuary entrance where acolytes stood to prevent any foolish young Kowri from entering the enclave where sacred animals gathered.

He tried to look at it through Dante's eyes and see the differences instead. The warm browns and vivid greens of the growing season temple welcomed in a way the harsh white granite and stark blue decorations of the cold-season temple never had. Here, honey-brown trellises were attached to dark stone, giving a home to flowering vines. In other places, metal planters antiqued in bronze tones and greened copper were fastened to cream stone walls. A month or two earlier, the temple would have been a riot of colors as various blossoms competed for the attention of pollinating insects. But right now only the infinite shades of green broke up the light and dark dirt colors.

To call the temples different revealed a certain emphasis on color or decoration rather than function or form. No doubt Ean would find that interesting.

"Why is the council meeting here?" Dante asked.

That was a more complex answer than Regi wanted to confront, but he gave the least emotionally fraught answer. "Matters of great import are typically addressed in the temple of the highest ranking exalted. For us to meet here implies that a new exalted who has served longer than Nawr has arrived on planet."

"Is that a positive or negative development?"

"That depends entirely on who the exalted is."

"They haven't told you?" Dante's expression would have appeared to express confusion on a Kowri face, but Regi suspected the lifted arch over the eye indicated concern.

"I have not asked."

"Why not?" Now the muscles pulled that part of the forehead with its line of fur down closer to the eyes.

Regi looked away from Dante and watched a single gibuks crawl up the wall toward a copper-green and excrement-brown planter. "I fear I will not like the answer."

"Have they brought someone in to rig the trial against Ter?" Dante's voice grew louder, and as they were standing at the door of the office rather than inside, the sound traveled. A guard at the far end of the hallway stiffened but did not turn toward them.

Rig. The translation matrix provided an image of ropes and cables attached to a complex system that shifted between huge lengths of cloth and complex cogs and cracks in cliffs. Regi understood it to be a complex mechanical system used to exert control over something larger. A trial could not have literal rigging, so perhaps he referenced a person brought in to manage the flow of information and order of speakers. In which case, it might be fair to metaphorically compare the new arrival as rigging. "The part that causes me distress is the potential that the person as rigging in this trial is my mother."

Dante stared at him, his eyes wider than normal. "Your mother?"

"As an exalted, she would have been privy to the reports of my arrival, and the length of time we have been here is roughly equivalent to how long it would take to travel from the third-tier worlds where my mother practices midwifery. That combined with her senior position within the temple structure and our change of venue would suggest it is a possibility."

Dante stared at him for a long time. "Are you unhappy about this possibility?"

"Would you be displeased at learning the success or failure of your endeavors would be dependent upon your absent parent returning?"

"Oh, I'd be fucking furious," said Dante.

Regi hoped the juxtaposition of copulation and anger was more Ter-like application of a bodily function to language. "I'm not furious, but I am concerned. My mother is not an exception when it comes to my people's xenophobia."

"She hated that you moved to the Coalition, didn't she?"

"She thought I was ungrateful and would regret my decision."

"And have you?" Dante leaned against the wall, one side of his hip canted much higher than the other.

Had anyone else asked, Regi would have given them a quick and incomplete answer. But this was Dante. "Perhaps sometimes," he admitted. "Particularly in the beginning. However, I have since learned to appreciate the Coalition and I have not found cause to regret leaving the Empire in many years."

"Then that's what you tell her. If she comes in and tries to do the mom thing and make you feel guilty about leaving your people, you tell her you don't regret it."

Regi studied Dante. His answer fell into the category of na?ve; however, it appeared he wanted Regi to accept the advice literally. "And if that reflects poorly on Ter's case?" he asked.

Dante winced. Evidently he did understand the conundrum. Regi might be willing to confront his mother and her unrealistic expectations for his loyalty. He might be willing to confront one more xenophobic exalted who tried to dismiss outsiders as little more than barbarians and animals. But the idea of confronting both those individuals in one was enough to make him wish to avoid consciousness until the time had passed for any confrontation at all.

And perhaps he was being paranoid. Perhaps Gimi a'Onidba had forgotten the name of the exalted who had caused this change of venue. And yet, Regi could not convince himself that that was possible. She was too fond of discussing potential strategies for addressing the prejudices in other Kowri. No. It was far more likely Gimi a'Onidba suspected he would be displeased enough that she would rather avoid the topic than rile him.

Dante moved closer and rested his hand on Regi's shoulder. "Parents suck," he said in a tone so serious Regi understood he offered empathy. "Whatever you need, let me know. Should I stay here, or should I grab Vk and head back to the ship?"

Part of him did want to get Dante out of the building before he could witness an uncomfortable confrontation. Regi knew full well he lacked logic when it came to his mother. Even his fathers could trigger his frustration when they attempted to excuse her every fault. Regi still remembered when he had been seven or eight years old and had been preparing for the harvest season festival. All four of them had dressed in their most outlandish harvest colors—golds and purples and oranges and reds.

Regi had been bouncing about the house, so excited about the ceremony he couldn't sit still long enough for his da-father to attach the flower wreath around his shoulders. Harvest festival was the favorite of all children. It was the festival of excess with sweets and baked goods and preserves and singing and dancing late into the night.

And then his mother had come out of the back room dressed in clinical green with her midwifery bag in hand.

Regi had started crying and insisted that his mother had to go with him. There were other midwives who could attend a birth, but he had only one mother. At that age, he had understood the lives of a mother and unborn child were worth infinitely more than sweet preserves, and yet, he had not been able to stop. All he could remember from that entire harvest season festival had been the tears and his fathers searching for some toy or activity or treat that would replace his missing mother. And with each failure, they had grown more short-tempered.

He and his mother had such a history between them that Regi did not trust himself to be logical even after all these years, and he yearned to keep Dante clear of any conflict. Regi was also weak, and he did not wish to see his mother without at least one member of his crew at his back.

Dante waited, those oddly colored and intense eyes of his gazing steadily at Regi. "Can you come?" Regi asked.

"Absolutely," Dante agreed, showing his teeth in a strange huuman gesture of support. Regi found it comforting. Strange, given that showing teeth was considered a universal threat.