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to one of the House, and his will she dares not cross, for cause of the threads woven into her throat." She paused, meeting her sister's stare with a lift of the chin. "I would have had her deliver to her master a message, that the Kapoori yet tend their tithe."
    Katauba raised her brows. "That were bold, when we had agreed between us not to recall us to the House."
    Pinori shrugged. "Bold or not, she would not carry my word. Her master would beat her, she said, and make no alterations in his course."
    "Hah." Katauba pressed her lips together, and pulled her hands gently from the grip of the vines. "What is the name of this master?"
    "Zanith vel'Albren, so she had it," Pinori said--and went forward a step as her sister thrust out a vine-sheathed hand.
    "Do you know him?"
    Silence, while Katauba stared, her pupils the merest black slits bisecting her wide golden eyes.
    "Sister?" Pinori dared another step forward, though the vines coiled and reached, plucking at her.
    "Of him," Katauba murmured, in a strained voice unlike her usual rich tones. "I know of him."
    "And . . ." Pinori ventured when yet more silence had grown between them, "is it . . . an ill knowing, sister?"
    "Ill?" Katauba's eyes suddenly sharpened, blazing bright. "It may be ill, certainly, from such a Houseling. Well it was, sister, that your respectful, humble human refused your order."
    Pinori considered that. "Surely," she said at last, brushing her hands down her garment, and shooing the vines away. "It is of no matter if she would take my word or refuse it. This Houseling --this Zanith--deliberately sets her 'mong our honor and forbids her to trim elsewhere. I would judge that to mean that the House has recalled us well, and that therefore we may deliver our message personally."
    "Ah," said Katauba, turning back to her vines. "Perhaps . . . perhaps that would be best. We shall speak of it at twilight, over the cup."
    That was clear dismissal, and in truth, she was wanted among her own vines, yet Pinori hesitated. "I might go myself," she offered. "Now, and see the thing done. I--I fear me what might transpire, should the Old One should find Seltin in the vineyard."
    "The Old One agreed that you would speak to the human today," Katauba said, her attention already focused on her work. "She will not act before the day has gone and the cup has passed between us."
    This was true enough, Pinori owned; the Old One was almost too odd for her to comprehend, root and kin though they were, but she kept most scrupulously to the very least syllable of her word. Seltin would be safe, should she venture back into the vineyard before the day was done.
    Pinori bowed. "Until day's end, sister," she said, and moved off through the wistful vines, to that portion of the vineyard which was particularly under her care.
    *
    Seltin saved her data and stretched, careful of her back. Her life before her arrest and conviction had been reasonably active, but the time she had spent in the tank, between sentencing and Zanith vel'Albren's purchase of her bond had robbed her muscles of tone. Happily her master saw fit to put her to hard labor immediately upon her revival, she thought wryly, so that soon she would be as muscle-bound as any kobold.
    She stretched again, high on her toes this time, finding an obscure comfort in the movement of the long muscles, aches or no.
    All about her was darkness, her little island of industry the only light in the cavernous lab. By rights--by reason--she should be gone herself within the next few moments. All that remained was to seal the file, log off and go--upstairs, where her master awaited her.
    Even as she reached for the chording wand, she saw again the woman who had spoken to her in the vineyard that afternoon. The Kapoori, and before she had time to think, her fingers had moved along the wand, and the House library interface was opening in a subscreen.
    The subscreen--that was clever, she thought, detached, as if her fingers belonged to someone