Chimele was perturbed.  It was evident in her brooding expression and her attitude as she leaned in the corner of her chair; she was not pleased; and she was not alone for this audience: four other iduve were with her, and with that curious sense of déjà vu Isande's instruction imparted, Aiela knew them.  They were Chimele's nasithi-katasakke, her half-brothers and -sister by common-mating.

The woman Chaikhe was youngest: an Artist, a singer of songs; by kalliran standards Chaikhe was too thin to be beautiful, but she was gentle and thoughtful toward the kamethi.  She had also thought of him with interest: Isande had warned him of it; but Chimele had said no, and that ended it.  Chaikhe was becoming interested in katasakke, in common-mating, the presumable cause of restlessness; but an iduve with that urge would rapidly lose all interest in m'metanei.

Beside Chaikhe, eyeing him fixedly, sat her full brother Ashakh, a long-faced man, exceedingly tall and thin.  Ashakh was renowned for intelligence and coldness to emotion even among iduve.  He was Ashanome's chief Navigator and master of much of the ship's actual operation, from its terrible armament to the computers that were the heart of the ship's machinery and memory.  He did not impress one as a man who made mistakes, nor as one to be crossed with impunity.  And next to Ashakh, leaning on one arm of the chair, sat Rakhi, the brother that Chimele most regarded.  Rakhi was of no great beauty, and for an iduve he was a little plump.  Also he had a shameful bent toward kutikkase - a taste for physical comfort too great to be honorable among iduve.  But he was devoted to Chimele, and he was extraordinarily kind to the noi kame and even to the seldom-noticed amaut, who adored him as their personal patron.  Besides, at the heart of this soft, often-smiling fellow was a heart of greater bravery than most suspected.

The third of the brothers was eldest: Khasif, a giant of a man, strikingly handsome, sullen-eyed - older than Chimele, but under her authority.  He was of the order of Scientists, a xenoarchaeologist.  He had a keen m'melakhia - an impelling hunger for new experience - and noi kame made themselves scarce when he was about, for he had killed on two occasions.  This was the man Isande so feared, although - she had admitted - she did not think he was consciously cruel.  Khasif was impatient and energetic in his solutions, a trait much honored among iduve, as long as it was tempered with refinement, with chanokhia.  He had the reputation of being a very dangerous man, but in Isande's memory he had never been a petty one.

"How fares Daniel?" asked Chimele.  "Why did you ask sedation so early?  Who gave you leave for this?"

"We were tiring," said Aiela.  "You gave me leave to order what I thought best, and we were tired, we -"

"Aiela-kameth," Chaikhe intervened gently.  "Is there progress?"

"Yes."

"Will complete asuthithekkhe be possible with this being?  Can you reach that state with him, that you can be one with him?"

"I don't - I don't think it is safe.  No.  I don't want that."

"Is this yours to decide?"  Ashakh's tones were like icewater on the silken voice of Chaikhe.  "Kameth - you were instructed."

He wanted to tell them.  The memory of that contact was still vivid in his mind, such that he still shuddered.  But there was no patience in Ashakh's thin-lipped face, neither patience nor mercy nor understanding of weakness.  "We are different," he found himself saying, to fill the silence.  Ashakh only stared.  "Give me time," he said again.

"We are on a schedule," Ashakh said.  "This should have been made clear to you."

"Yes, sir."

"Specify the points of difference."

"Ethics, experience.  He isn't hostile, not yet.  He mistrusts - he mistrusts me, this place, all things alien."

"Is it not your burden to reconcile these differences?"