Kate Elliott - Jaran

Earth, Nairobi Port A.L.C. 261 month 5 day 3

Terese Soerensen to Charles Soerensen

Dear Charles,

Please don't think I'm running away. I really did mean, when I decided to go to Dao Cee system, to visit you on Odys-but I need to be by myself right now, without you trying to give me well-meant advice or telling me that being your heir is just a technicality and that it doesn't mean that much. Because it's not true.

Charles, I didn't tell you that I got engaged six months ago. He insisted that we keep it a secret, and now I know why. Obviously he figured you would see through his "love" for me to his real motives. I made the mistake of telling him that under Chapaliian law a sister loses all right to her brother's [INSERT: or her father's] goods and titles upon marriage-that she assumes, totally, her husband's position. That was one month ago.

One month ago I was still engaged, and I didn't know that humiliation could help a person do six month's work in five weeks. I feel sick. I hate myself for being so stupid. And I can't even tell you his name, because he's studying Xenodiplomacy at the Sorbonne, and I'm afraid he'll think I sabotaged his career. He's one of those men who think women have no honor. Can you understand how I fell in love with him? Because I can't.

I thought that I had the courage to tell you to your face that I don't want to be your heir, that I'm sick and tired of people implying that my success at Univerzita Karlova is due to your position and not to my talent, that I'm never seen as myself but only as an extension of you. Can't I just abdicate being your sister and let you adopt? Or is it only death or marriage that will remove me from your title? Not, of course, that I'm likely to find either situation appealing. God, Charles, I feel like I have no direction, that I can't trust my own judgment, that I've been abandoned in the middle of nowhere. And I hate being melodramatic.

[ERASE DOCUMENT]

Earth, Nairobi Port

A.L.C. 261.5.3

Terese Soerensen to Charles Soerensen

Dear Charles,

I finished my thesis early (with honors, by the way) and Univerzita Karlova agreed to give me a leave of absence. I've let out my flat in Prague and I'm going to visit Dr. Hierakis at the palace in Jeds. I know I don't have an official clearance for Rhui, but I do have a copy of the preserve regulations, and you know how well I speak Rhuian. I'm going to appropriate a place on the Rhuian cargo shuttle of the next ship headed to the Dao Cee system. I'm thinking of doing my dissertation on one of the Rhuian languages, so I'll be researching as well. I'm not sure how soon I'll get to Odys. Your loving sister, Tess

Two young women sat on a padded bench by the huge overlook. One, black-skinned and black-haired, watched the work below. The second, looking pale and light-haired mostly in contrast to her companion, studied the words she had just typed into her hand-held computer slate. She frowned.

"What are you writing, Tess?" asked the first, turning back to her friend. Then she grinned. "Sweet Goddess, what language is that in?"

Tess tapped save and clear and the words vanished. "Just practicing." She shrugged. "That was late American English. It's only about 300 years old, so you could probably puzzle it out given time. I built in a translation program. Here's how the same thing would look in classical Latin." Words appeared again. "Ophiuchi-Sei." The letters shifted to a fluid script. "And here's court Chapalii. Formal Chapalii. And colloquial enscribed Chapalii. You'll notice how the glyphs differ in written form only in the tails and in the angling of the curve-"

"You are nervous, aren't you? What if the captain refuses you passage?"

"He won't refuse," muttered Tess. She brushed her hand across the screen, clearing it. "And steward class Chapalii of course has no enscribed counterpart at all, so I've transcribed it into Anglais characters. What do you think, Soje? It's an act of rebellion, you know, for stewards to write."

Sojourner lifted her brows questioningly and glanced out at the new port building rising behind them along alien lines. Along Chapalii lines. "Is that why the chameleons think we humans are barbarians? Because we allow everyone to write?''

Tess laughed. "That doesn't help. No, because our spoken tongue and written tongue are the same, and a standard. Because we're too egalitarian. Because we're so young, as a species, as a culture, compared to them."

"Because our physiological system is so inefficient, compared to theirs?'' Sojourner waved toward the building behind them. "Just like our technology is primitive? I hate them." She glanced around the waiting chamber. The walls, a muted orange in the fading daylight, curved in at the top; their dullness diminished the thirty meters between the ends of the room. The air smelled of heat and spices: cinnamon, cloves, and cardamom. It was an alien room, designed for the taste of Chapalii, not humans. "No. I don't hate them. They've proven neither cruel nor harsh as our masters."

"Their grip is soft," said Tess in an undertone.

Sojourner gave her a sharp glance. "But it chafes," she replied, quieter still. "Tess, are you sure you really want to go see your brother? Jacques isn't worth this. He was a spoiled, pretty rich kid who wanted to get ahead without working for it. He's not worth your running away-"

Tess winced. "I'm not running away. I finished my thesis. I've got obligations to Charles now."

"What about your research? I know you don't want to follow in Charles's footsteps. Why go now?"

"Soje, leave be. " The force of her comment silenced both of them. "As if I could follow in his footsteps anyway," Tess murmured finally.

Sojourner lifted up her hands in defeat. "Goddess, you're stubborn. Go. Be miserable. Just remember I told you so. You've always hated Odys. You always say so, and that one time I went there with you, I can't say as I blame you. Ugly planet."

"It wasn't before the Chapalii got through with it," said Tess so softly that Sojourner did not hear her.

A chime rang through the room. A seam opened out of orange wall to reveal a nondescript man in police blues. His shoulders shrugged in an exaggerated sigh when he saw them.

"Office is closed," he said, obviously used to saying that phrase frequently. "And it's off limits to humans at all times, except for the midday hour if you've got a dispensation." He regarded them, measuring. What he saw, Tess could well imagine: two young women, only a single valise between them, dressed without any particular style that might mark them out as rich enough or important enough to rate a dispensation or otherwise be allowed entrance into the private corridors of humanity's alien masters.

"If you'll allow me to escort you out," he said, firmly but kindly.

Sojourner looked at Tess expectantly. Tess felt frozen. Again it came down to this: retreat with meek dignity, as any other human on Earth would have to, or use her brother's name like a weapon. How she hated that, having a name that meant something in four languages. Having a name that, through no work of her own, had become so identified with humanity's one great rebellion against the Chapaliian Empire that the name was now synonymous with that rebellion. Charles had come so early to a realization of what he had to do in his life that surely he could never comprehend her struggle. But she had backed herself into a corner and had no choice but to go forward.

"You must leave," he said, coming briskly toward them.