and most garish jewelry in preparation for the journey south to
Saraykeht to greet the returning fleet and see this Galtic girl who
would one day be Empress. Maati listened to it all, his frown deepening
until his mouth began to ache.
"It doesn't change anything," he said. "Otah can sell us to our enemies
if he wants. It doesn't affect our work here. Once we have the grammar
worked through and the andat back in the world-"
"It changes everything," Eiah said. "Danat is marrying a Galt. The
utkhaiem are either going to line up like sailors at a comfort house to
follow the example or resist and restart a war we'll never win. Or
worse, both. Perhaps he'll divide the utkhaiem so deeply that we turn on
each other."
Maati took the tea from the fire and filled his bowl. It was bitter and
overbrewed and scalded his tongue. He drank it anyway. Eiah was looking
at him, waiting for him to speak. The fire danced over the graying lumps
of coal.
"The women's grammar won't matter if the world's already passed us by,"
Eiah said softly. "If it takes us five more years to capture an andat,
there will already be a half-Galt child on its way to becoming Emperor.
There will already be half-Galt children born to every family with any
power, anywhere in the cities. Will an andat undo that? Will an andat
unmake the love these fathers feel for their new children?"
If it's the right one, yes, Maati thought but didn't say. He only stared
down into his bowl of tea, watching the dark leaves staining its depth.
"He is remaking the world without us," Eiah went on. "He's giving his
official seal to the thought that if a woman can't bear a child, she
doesn't matter. He's doing the wrong thing, and once a wound has healed
badly, Uncle, it's twice as hard to put right."
Everything she said made sense. The longer it took to bring back the
andat, the harder it would be to repair the damage he'd done. And if the
world had changed past recognition before his work was complete, he
wasn't sure what meaning the effort would have. His jaw ached, and he
realized he'd been clenching it.
"So what then?" Maati said, taking a pose that made his words a
challenge. "What do you want me to do I'm not doing already?"
Eiah sat back, her head in her hands. She looked like Otah when she did
it. It was always unnerving when he caught a glimpse of her father in
her. He knew what she would say before she spoke. It was, after all,
what she'd been steering him toward from the conversation's start. It
was the subject they had been arguing for months.
"Let me try my binding," Eiah said. "You've seen my outlines. You know
the structure's sound. If I can capture Returning-to-NaturalEquilibrium ..."
She let the words trail away. Returning-to-Natural-Equilibrium, called
Healing.
"I don't know that," Maati said, half-ashamed by the peevishness in his
voice. "I only said that I didn't see a flaw in them. I never said there
wasn't one, only that I couldn't see it. And besides which, it might be
too near something that's been done before. I won't lose you because
some minor poet in the Second Empire bound Making-Things-Right or