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or to cry. It was recent, yes, alien and primitive, and there was a trail leading away, a trail she could follow.
    She set off immediately. Ran sometimes, thinking she had seen something, stumbling, falling once into a freezing hard layer of snow, walked again, catching her breath and rubbing her cold cheeks with her bare hands. But as midday passed into afternoon, the grass thickened and lengthened, the hills ended abruptly, and the trail disappeared.
    She stood silent on the edge of a vast plain. At first she merely stared. Nothing but grass, and grass and sky met in a thin line far in the distance, surrounding her, enclosing her in their vast monotony.
    The wind scoured patterns in the greening grass. A single patch of flowers mottled a blazing scarlet through the high stems. A body could lie a hundred years in such space and never be found. In a hundred years her brother would be dead.
    Her throat felt constricted. Tears rose, filling her eyes. But this was not the time to cry—think, think. She coughed several times, eyes shut. That, perhaps, was why she did not notice his approach.
    A stream of words, incomprehensible, delivered in a steady, commanding voice.
    She whirled. A man stood on the slope above her. He had dark hair, cut short, a trim dark beard, and the look of a man hardened by many years of difficult life, yet he had no coarseness. He waited patiently. His shirt was scarlet and full, his trousers black; his high boots were tanned leather and fit closely to his ankle and calf. A long, curving blade hung from his belt. He took one step toward her and asked another question in the same incomprehensible tongue.
    She held her ground and replied in Rhuian. “Who may you be, good man?” she asked, remembering formality somehow, perhaps only because it was all that was left her. Here, not even her brother’s name mattered, except as a courtesy. “I am Terese Soerensen. I have nothing in my possession that could harm either you or your people.”
    His unreadable expression did not change. He spoke a third time in his strange tongue, motioned to her, and turned to walk up the hill. She hesitated the barest second. Then she followed him.

Chapter Two
“Speech is the shadow of action.”
— DEMOCRITUS OF ABDERA
    H E WAITED FOR HER just over the crest of the hill, one hand loosely grasping his horse’s reins. Compared to the horses she had traveled downside with, this was a stocky animal, with no beauty whatsoever; its legs were thick, its neck short and powerful. Its thin mane straggled over a dense coat, and its muzzle had a blunt shape that gave it the look of some prehistoric creature. Against its imperfections, the man standing at its head looked faultless: His red shirt was brilliant against the dull grass, his posture utterly assured, his eyes a deep, rich brown, his face—
    Too hard. There was too little kindness in his face. Wind stirred Tess’s hair and a bird called in the distance, a raucous cry. The man’s eyes as he examined her in his turn were intelligent. She recalled her conversation with the merchant: intelligent enough to suspect her off-world origins? How could he, when Jeds itself—thousands of miles away but at least still on his planet—was likely a meaningless word to him? When Rhui was interdicted, protected from the knowledge of the space-faring civilizations that surrounded it? Without realizing she was doing it, she shook her head. The movement made her dizzy. Her hunger and thirst flooded in on her, and she stumbled.
    She did not even see him move, but his hands were under her elbow, pulling her up. She jerked away from him.
    “Damn it,” she said, ashamed of her weakness. “I suppose it was too much to hope that you would speak Rhuian.” He stood very still, watching her. “God-damned native wildlife,” she added in Anglais, just to make herself feel better, but even her tone made no dent in his impassivity. He simply retreated to his horse, returning to her side a moment