Back | Next
Contents

Seventy

Juliassa Hanorissia did not want to leave the stage. And she was more than strong-willed. Polarized though she was and sometimes headstrong, with all the consequent can't know, as a schoolgirl she'd been one of the best in her class in meditation, had even perceived, on occasion, her Kirsan and Nasrik, though they'd never merged or even touched.

* * *

The southern edge of the vast cloud blanket roofing Haipoor l'Djezzer lay a hundred miles north of Theedalit. Thus Panni and Tassi sat under visible stars in the cooling, early-autumn night. Their backs were straight, even Tassi's, but not at all rigid, and their open eyes were unfocused. Both were smiling, though not widely.

Both had felt the call for help, but they did not effort to change what had happened. It had happened, and that was all right. Nonetheless, at a subliminal level, they were touching the intelligent psyches over all the planet, psyches marine and terrestrial, getting approvals, weaving a fabric of agreement, very lightly and without the least insistence. And with a very few exceptions, mostly among the Vrronnkiess, none would remember, on this side of reality, any of it at all.

When they roused from their trances, the two sages wouldn't remember it clearly either. At least Panni wouldn't. But he'd remember vaguely, as in a dream dimly recalled.

* * *

The masters, the more advanced initiates, and a few others, at the monastery at Theedalit and every other monastery in Hrumma, had wakened independently and gone at once to the chamber of meditation. In its clean-scrubbed darkness their "Hrums" resonated in the night.

* * *

As the scene was finalized, the knife had sliced deeply across her neck muscles on the right side, glanced off her jaw and across cheek and nose. The captain, alarmed by her scream and oriented by Jonkka's roar, had dropped through the hatchway, found the body, and controlled the bleeding by the pressure of his thumbs. She was weak and in shock, and the cut would leave a deep scar, but the role and body of Juliassa Hanorissia would continue.

Back | Next
Framed