No.
But they do it.
Yes. Those who can. They rotate servicethe length of time they can work outside of the Thaalaan differs from person to person. He paused. Ybelline is very strong. Strong enough to be gentle, he added quietly. She doesnt pity us, and she doesnt fear us. She half understands.
She can keep her experience of our world to herself.
Exactly.
So it doesnt pollute the hive mind.
He frowned. Theyre not insects, Kaylin. But yes, there are experiences that they would never otherwise have, and only those who can live with the isolation of individual experience can serve. It is very, very hard for the Thaalani.
They had no escort as they emerged from the large, rounded dwelling. Epharim was gone, and no one in armor stood ready to take his place. Kaylin was nonplussed. She chose to let us walk here, Severn told her.
She didnt seem to worry about you.
No.
Why?
Weve met before, he replied carefully. Where carefully meant completely neutrally in that dont-ask-me-questions way. I am not, perhaps, the ideal person from whom to draw information, but neither was I afraid of her, or her kin. They cant create memories, he added. They cant erase them. And what happened, happened.
Im not proud of a lot of my what happeneds, Kaylin said in a quiet voice. If I wanted people to know, Id tell them.
That is a luxury, he told her as he continued to walk. And a daydream. Learn to care less about what other people think.
I dont want my life paraded through the office like yesterdays gossip.
It already is yesterdays gossip.
You know what I mean.
Yes. I do. I dont agree with you, but I do know what you mean. We dont have privacy, Kaylin. We have the illusion of privacy. Nothing more, nothing less.
And we have no secrets?
He shrugged.
I dont want my children to knowto know about things that Ive done. She thought of the Foundling Halls, and the children she visited there. Shuddered to think of how much it would hurt them to know what she was capable of.
That, I understand. Children are very absolute in their judgment. Do you truly think she would tell them?
Not her.
And the others?
Kaylin cursed in Leontine. Not them. But the people they inform
Would you change your past?
Parts of it. In a heartbeat.
He shrugged again.
You wouldnt?
I cant. I dont waste time thinking about changing what cant be changed.
And youre never afraid that someone will judge you? That they wont misunderstand you or misconstrue you as you are now?
People judge me all the time. Be careful of that, he added, pointing at a trellis that grew near the roadside. Vines were wrapped around it, and they rustled in the nonexistent breeze.
But they dont have the right
They have the right to form their own opinions. I have the right to disagree with them in a fashion that doesnt break the Imperial Laws.
But
Im not afraid of the judgment of strangers, he told her quietly. I live with my own judgment. Thats enough. And I judge others, and live by those judgments, as well.
I dont want to be despised or hated. She couldnt quite frame the words with her lips, they sounded so pathetic as a thought.
But Severn had her name; she felt it tug between them, its foreign syllables not so much a sound as a texture. Ellariayn.
He stopped walking and caught her face in his hands, pulling it up. She met his eyes. Then stop despising and hating yourself, Kaylin. Were not what we were. Were not what we will be. Everyone changes. Everyone can change. Let it go.
If you are always afraid to be known, you will never understand anyone else. If you never understand anyone else, youll never be a good Hawk. Youll see what others see, or what they want you to see. You wont see whats there.
She pulled herself free. Said, thickly, Lets go find these friends.
Because he was Severn, he let her wander around in circles before she realized that she had no idea where those friends were. Because she was Kaylin, it took another fifteen minutes before she asked him where they were going. He didnt laugh. Exactly. And she didnt hit him, exactly.
But she watched the streets unfold as she walked, half-lost, in this section of the huge city of her birth that shed never willingly visited before today. Saw the neatly tended houses, the profusion of green that seemed to be a small jungle around the rounded domes. If there was order to it, it wasnt the kind of order that the human nobility favored; each gardenif that was the right wordwas its own small wilderness.
Every so often she could see one of the Thaalani, dressed in a summer smock that seemed so normal it looked out of place, kneeling on the ground, entwined by vines and flowers. They were working, watering, tending; they didnt even look up as she and Severn passed.
The children often did, and one or two of them waved, jumping up and down to catch her attention. She had the impression of chatter and noise, but they were almost silent, and their little antennae waved in time with their energetic, stubby hands. They were curious, she thought, but they werent in any way afraid. And they were happy.
She waved back. Severn didnt. But he walked more slowly, and as he did, the nature of the streets changed, widening as they walked. The greenery grew sparserif things that grew could be sparse in this placeand the buildings grew larger, although they never lost their rounded curves. Street lamps, guttered by sun, stretched upward along the roadside; even the Thaalani couldnt see in the dark, it seemed.
Where are we going? The market?
He nodded slowly. The market is there, he said.
She recognized evasion when she heard it. But she was now curious herself; markets were markets, but the streets here were not so crowded as the streets surrounding any of the city markets on her beat.
There were children here, as well, but here there were fences. They were short, often colored by clean paint, and obviously meant as decoration and not protection; the children were almost as tall as the fences, and could be seen poking arms through them and touching leaves or petals. Adults came and went, and it was hard to attach any particular child to any of the adults who walked or milled around the street in silence.
And that was the thing that was strangest to her: It was eerily silent, here. Once or twice the children cried out in glee or annoyance, and the adults would murmur something just out of audible rangebut there was no shouting, no background voices, nothing that wasnt the movement of feet against the cobbled ground.
For the first time, Kaylin understood why she was referred to as deaf by the Thaalani; she felt it, here. The deafness, the odd isolation her need for the spoken word produced.
Wheres the market? she asked Severn, to break the silence, to hear the sound of words.
Beyond the lattice, he replied, and pointed.
Fountains blossomed like flowers with water for petals and leaves of intricately carved stones. The slender spires of water that reached for the sky seemed almost magical to Kaylin as she stared at them. Small children were playing at their edges, and squealing as the water fell down again. No language was needed to understand the urgency of their pointing little hands, or perhaps all languages encompassed it.
Youve been here before, havent you?
Yes, Severn replied, using that voice again.
Who were you hunting?
Someone who understood the Thaalani geography, but not the Thaalani themselves, he replied. It didnt take long to find him.
She knew better than to ask what had happened to the man once theyd found him. Severn had probably already said too much.
Kaylin approached the fountains that were spread out on the points of an invisible grid. She dodged a running child, and avoided a spray of misaimed water or two. The fountains here clearly did not hold the invisible Do Not Touch signs that the fountains in the rest of the city did.
In fact, nothing seemed to.
Do not touch also did not extend to do not wade, and several of the children who were too old to be called little and to little to be thought of as anything else were thoroughly soakedor entirely nakedin the low rise of the water. They made the noise that the rest of the streets seemed to lack, and Kaylin gravitated toward them, promising to never again curse the sound of voices. Even when she was hungover.
But she stopped short because it wasnt only children who were making themselves at home in the water. Severn bumped into her back at her abrupt halt.
Entwined, legs tangled, half sitting, half covered in the shallow water, were two Thaalani who were obviously, but quietly, making love.
But the children played around them, sometimes over them, in their mad scramble to catch falling water; one or two of them had stopped to stare for a moment, and were still staring, but not the way Kaylin was. If her jaw hadnt been attached to her face it would be bouncing across the slick stones. She managed to control the urge to grab one of the children who was watching and haul him to safety.
Barely.
But there were other adults here, and they seemed entirely unconcerned. They barely seemed to notice, and this was almost as shocking as watching the couple themselves, skin water-perfect as they moved. Their eyes were closed, and their stalks intertwined; they were blissfully unaware of the world around them.
Kaylin teetered on the edge of action for a moment, and then began to walk forward toward them, half-embarrassed and half-outraged. Severn caught her upper arm.
Dont, he said very quietly into her ear. Its considered rude.
Stopping them fromfromthere are children here, Severn!
Stopping them from expressing their love and desire. Yes. Its considered intrusive here.
Butbut she spluttered as if she were the one who was half drowning. The children
The children are aware of them, he said. And as you can see, they are not concerned. They havent yet learned not to attempt to disturb, but thats expected of children. He paused, and then said, No, Kaylin, they have no shame. But the tone of the words conveyed no contempt and no horror, no shock, no judgment.
Certainly no embarrassment.
They want what they want. They are aware of it in the Thaalaan from the moment they touch it. They love as they love, and it is considered as natural as breathing, or eating, or sleeping. They make love without fear of exposure because in some ways there is no privacy. The thought and the impulse is extreme, and it is felt regardless of where they are.
But it isnt condemned, he told her. Not by them.
But
This is the other reason why the deaf are seldom allowed entry into the enclave. No race, not even the Barrani, can understand the total lack of possessiveness that this entails.
It doesntdoesnt bother you?
No. But I couldnt live with it, either. They are not lovers in the way we would use the word. They have no marriage, no fidelity, no sense of ownership or commitment. They feel no jealousy, he added, or if they do, it is minor. It does not drive them to acts of rage or despair.
They have no privacy because they dont need it.
Kaylin shook her head, almost compelled to watch, and uncomfortable in the extreme with the compulsion. A world with no privacy? It would be like hell. But worse. She could never escape
Escape what?
Do they never get angry?
Oh, they can.
Do they never dislike each other?
Possibly, he said. Ive never seen it, but I cant imagine it never happens. They are not all of the same mind.
But they cant hide it?
No. They dont try. He drew a sharp breath, and she knew that despite his composure he was not unaffected. But so many disagreements between people occur because they simply dont understand each other. Or they cannot see a viewpoint that isnt their own.
The Thaalani never suffer from that. They understand each other perfectly. Or as perfectly as I think its possible to understand another person. They dont get trapped by words. They dont interpret them differently. They cant lie to each other. And even if they could, they have no reason to. A lie is a thing we tell to hide somethingand they cannot hide from each other.
Love, hatred, fear, insecurityall of these things have been felt before, and will be felt again, and all of them are part of the Thaalaan. Long before pain festers or breaks someone, it is felt, addressed, uprooted.
At least that is my understanding.
Kaylin looked at Severn, at his expression. After a moment she said, You really like these people, dont you?
Yes, he said softly. Theyre almost entirely innocent, Kaylin. But I couldnt live among them.
Why?
Because Im not. Because even understanding them, I could not live as they live. I know why you fear them. But between the two of us, you could live more easily in the Thaalaan than I, in the end. What I want isnt part of their world. He turned and met her gaze, and his lips turned up in an edged half smile. I dont like to share.
She almost took a step back. We should go, she said, her voice low.
His smile broadened, but it lost the edge, changing the lines of his face. Unfortunately, he said, we cant.
Dont tell me She couldnt even finish the sentence.
These are the two we want to speak with.
It was several long, embarrassing minutes later. Maybe even half an hour. Kaylin hid itif it was possibleby engaging the children who were tugging at her legs with their wet little hands. She joined them in their fountains, assiduously avoiding line of sight with the couple; she couldnt actually watch them without feeling as if shed accidentally walked into someones bedroom. Or worse.
And explaining why she felt this way was not high on her list of priorities. Explaining why their nudity was embarrassing, explaining why public lovemaking was unacceptable behavior in the rest of the citythe words came and went, and she knew they would make no sense to these people.