Cuckoo's Egg by C. J. Cherryh

too."
    "That's not what I need."
    "What is?"
    "Is Dogossen still around?"
    A silence. "She moved to Rogot, a husband. Second, now."
    The years caught up to him, all in one dull ache. "Well. Hounai? Same?"
    "You want a woman, Duun? I'll ask around on the staff. Maybe—"
    "No hatani." He looked down, studied the patterns of his hands, whole and half. "I don't want a hatani. Nothing like. It's been a long time."
    "I hope to the gods it has."
    Duun looked up. It had been half a joke. Ellud's ears drew back and lay down tighter to his skull under Duun's stare. "Believe me," Duun said.
    " Hire someone. I don't want conversation. By the gods I don't want another wife. Let's keep it business. Not a staffer either. Someone at the port. Let security worry itself."

    73

    Cuckoo's Egg

    "I'm not your—"
    "Call it friendship." Duun's voice was rough and hoarse. His hands clenched and unclenched when he knew it. And Ellud's ears lay back.
    Ellud went on looking at him as if Ellud wished to look away.
    "Duun-hatani—" Carefully. With fear and offended sensibilities and prudent questions boiling in him Ellud would never ask. Like harm. And solitude. And sanity. The silence stayed there a long, long time.
    "I'll want staffers too," Duun said. (So what have you done, Ellud no Hsoin? What do you dread? Violence? Old friend— what do you expect?)
    "Good ones. Young ones who know how to take orders."
    "That's a contradiction in terms." Ellud's laughter was hasty as if he much wanted to laugh, to turn matters elsewhere. To be light with him. But the laughter died. "How many?"
    "Four, five. Male and female. I'll let you do the picking. He's got to learn people. They can be older, Say— twenty, twenty-five. They'd better to the gods be stable. You understand."
    A long silence. "I want those tapes started."
    "You've forgotten," Duun said softly. "This is your office. But you don't control things. I do. Old friend. I'm not your backwoods employee come to the big city. I'm not one of your staffers."
    "They're putting pressure on me, Duun."
    "They."
    "They council."
    Duun drew a deep breath. Shut his eyes and thought again of the woods.
    "Duun."

    74

    Cuckoo's Egg

    His eyes opened. Ellud sat there as if frozen. "They don't run this either,"
    Duun said. "Sixteen years. Memories are short."
    "Two members have died. Rothon and—"
    "I know. I read all the news out there. What do you think I was doing? I know who's in and I know what they can do; and that's too bad: they dealt with a hatani. They can't undo that."
    "Duun— they might try to kill you. Even that."
    Duun laughed.
    "Politics," Ellud said. "They'd be fools to try, but politics has made fools before. Don't take it lightly, Duun. That's my guard at your door. You'd better thank the gods it is. And the woman will be from my staff. I'd feel better. Be polite, Duun-hatani. Some of these young fools worship you."
    He laid his ears down. "Dammit, Ellud."
    "You want to work off something else than that, Duun-hatani?"
    "Rescue me from fools."
    "I'm trying to. From one I used to love, Duun."
    Duun stayed still a long, long time. Grinned finally, and felt the scar pull at his mouth. Laughed once shortly; Ellud looked alarmed. "Gods," Duun said, "I'm drowning, and someone has a rope."
    Ellud looked the more disturbed. His eyes showed whites.
    "I own the world," Duun said. "Women don't see my scars, my charge adores me, and my last friend calls me a fool." He laughed again, flung his feet down to the sand and stood up. "I cherish that," he said. And left.

    * * *
    75

    Cuckoo's Egg

    Young muscles strained, knotting and stretching under a hairless, sweat-drenched back: the arm held, and Thorn hauled himself upward on the exercise bar, up and down, up and down. Duun walked up on this in the gymnasium, walked up quietly on the well-trampled, sweat-pocked sand and stood there with arms folded a while. Finally Thorn's efforts flagged, became an upward struggle. In perverse humor Duun landed a swat on a