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along the side creeks. I am sorry. The brethren. I believe they are interested
in the pitchblende."
"You have evidence?"
"Only intuition at this point."
Silth accepted intuition as a reliable data base. Gradwohl nodded. "Can you
guess what their motives might be?"
"I think that brings us full circle, back to the problem that put me in a
position to learn what I have. I think their ultimate goal is the destruction
of the silth. Not just the Reugge, a minor Community, but all silth
everywhere."
"That is stretching intuition into the wildest conjecture, Marika. Into
implausible conjecture."
"Perhaps. Yet there were those who said that about the connection between the
rogues and the enclave brethren. And there is no evidence to the contrary.
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Nothing to show any great tradermale love for silth. Not so? Who does love us?
We even hate ourselves."
"I will not permit that kind of talk, Marika."
"I am sorry, mistress. Sometimes I grow bitter and am unable to contain
myself. May I proceed upon my assumptions?"
"Proceed? It seems to me that you have handled the situation." Gradwohl glared
suspiciously, sensing that Marika wanted to cling to power momentarily gained.
"Now it is time we started planning your Toghar ceremonies."
"There will be more incidents, mistress. The brethren have been allowed to
create an alternative society. One with far greater appeal to the mass of
meth. One in which silth are anachronistic and unnecessary. In nature, the
species that is unnecessary soon vanishes."
"I am becoming fearful for your sanity, Marika. Intuition is a fine thing, but
you persist in going far beyond intuition, into the far realms of speculation,
then treating your fantasies as though they are fact. That is a dangerous
habit."
"Mistress, the brethren have created a viable social alternative. Please think
about that. Honestly. You will see what I mean. Their technology is like a
demon that has been released from a bottle. We have let it run free for too
long, and now there is no getting it back inside. We have let it run free so
long that now it nearly possesses the power to destroy us. And we have no
control over it. They have cunningly held that in their own paws so long that
tradition now has the virtual force of law. Our own traditions of not working
with our paws cripple us."
"My head understands your arguments. My heart insists you are wrong. But we
cannot listen to our hearts always. I will reflect."
"We cannot confine ourselves to reacting to threats only, mistress. As in the
old folklore, devils spawn devils faster than they can be banished. They will
keep on gnawing off little chunks of us unless we go straight after the demons
who raise the demons."
Gradwohl set aside a traditionalist silth's exasperation with ideas almost
heretical. That, more than her grasp of silth talents, was the ability that
had fueled her rise to the first position among the Reugge. "All right,
Marika. I will accept your arguments as a form of working hypothesis. You will
be replacing Utiel soon. By stretching the imagination, the problems you
conjure will fall within the purview of fourth chair. You may pursue
solutions. But be careful who you challenge. It will be years yet before the
Reugge are in any position to assert independence from the brethren."
Marika controlled her features carefully. She exulted inside. Saying that,
Gradwohl revealed far more than she knew. She did believe! And somehow, though
she did not want it known, she was moving to loosen the chains of tradermale
technology.
"As you wish, mistress. But let us not remain so enamored of our comforts that
we allow ourselves to be destroyed for fear of losing them."
"The ceremonies, Marika. All your arguments, all your desires, all your
ambitions are moot without Toghar. Will you stop ducking and changing the
subject? Are we going to secure your future? Or deliver it into the paws of
those who would see you fail?"
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Marika sighed. "Yes, mistress."
"Can we set a date, Marika? Sometime soon?"
Fear twisted Marika's guts. What was the matter with her? Toghar was simple.
Countless silth had survived it. None that she had heard of had not. It was
less to be feared than facing down the brethren over a few dozen criminals.
Why could she not overcome her resistance? "Yes, mistress. I will begin my
preparations immediately."
Maybe something would come up to delay it.
III
"Grauel... I'm terrified."
"Thousands have been through it, Marika."
"Millions have been through birthing."
"No one has ever died."
Hard edge to Grauel's words. The birthing remark was the wrong thing to say
before her two packmates. "It's not that. I don't know how to explain. I'm
just scared. Worse than when the nomads came to the packstead. Worse than when
they attacked Akard and we all knew we were not going to get out alive. Worse
than when I was bluffing Bagnel about attacking brethren aircraft if they
tried to leave the enclave."
"You were not bluffing."
"I guess not. I would have done it if he had forced me. But I didn't want to.
And I don't want to do this."
"I know. I know you're scared. When you're genuinely terrified, you can't shut
up."
Startled, Marika asked, "Really? Do I give myself away so easily?"
"Sometimes."
"You will have to educate me. I can no longer allow myself to be easily read."
Barlog stepped around Grauel, held out the white under-shift that was the
first of the garments Marika would don. She appeared less empathetic than did
Grauel. But when Marika leaned forward to allow her to slide the shift over
her head, Barlog hugged her.
Each huntress, in her own way, understood well the price of becoming silth.
Grauel, who never could bear pups, and Barlog, who had not been allowed since
accepting the Reugge bond. Barlog said, "It isn't too late to leave, Marika."
"It's too late, Barlog. Far too late. There's nowhere we could go. Nor would
they tolerate us trying. I know too much. And I have too many enemies, both
within and outside the Community. The only way out is death."
"She's right," Grauel said. "I've heard the sisters talking. Many hope she
won't go through with it. There is a powerful faction ready to take all our
heads."
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Marika walked to a window, looked out on the cloister. "Remember when we rated
nothing better than a cell under Akard?"
"You've come a long way," Grauel admitted. "You've done many things of which
we couldn't approve. Things I doubt we can forgive, even knowing what moved
you. There are moments when I can't help but believe what some say, that
you're a Jiana. But I guess you've only done what the All demands, and that
you've had no more choice than we do."
"There's always a choice, Grauel. But the second option is usually the darker.
Today the choice is Toghar or die."
"That's why I say there really isn't any choice."
"I'm glad you understand." She turned, let Barlog pull the next layer of white
over her head. There would be another half-dozen layers before the elaborate
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