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sufficient, once a caravan had entered, to keep the contrary and exceptionally stupid vleks from wandering out into the desert.
    The sides of the rectangle were formed by seemingly identical rows of buildings, individual units sharing one side wall with its neighbor, each one opening onto the compound through a small square-cornered doorway. Markasset knew that the doors I faced across the compound led only to cubicles lined with sleeping blocks which were padded with the plainest possible pallets.
    The room I had left, however, was only the beginning of the larger compound which was the living area of the Fa’aldu. From somewhere in its private interior, the Fa’aldu brought the water. I searched Markasset’s memory as closely as I could; he had no idea how the Fa’aldu drew water from the wasteland of the desert. He did know about wells, it seemed, and was certain that they were not used here. It was a generations-old secret among the Fa’aldu clans.
    Wondering about it was pointless—and it was putting off the inevitable.
    I walked out to the watering troughs in the center of the large yard. There were three of them, the larger two almost exactly twice and three times the length of the smallest. They were made of large, semi-cylindrical tiles laid with the rounded side down and supported by short walls of brick-shaped salt blocks. The smallest trough contained only one tile, flanged at both ends and fitted with half-discs of tile. It was a darkish brown in color, and glazed to be watertight.
    The longer troughs were made of two and three of these tiles, the edge of one fitted exactly within the flanged lip of the next, the extreme edges sealed as this one was.
    I set the meat down on the edge of the trough, and untied the knot at the neck of the waterskin, carefully holding the opening closed until I had the skin in position over the trough. Then I let some of the water run out, feeling my arm indent the lower surface of the skin. I re-tied the opening, set the skin on the ground, and took a deep breath.
    “Keeshah!” I called.
    As though he had been waiting for that summons, the sha’um came easily, gracefully, over the high wall to my right. As he had done out on the desert, he kept his distance, padding back and forth along the wall, watching me and making growling noises in his throat.
    “I have brought you water, Keeshah. Come and drink.”
    He stopped pacing and came a few steps nearer, stretching out his head to sniff in my direction. Then, with a roar, he shook his head and sidled off.
    Does the water smell bad, Keeshah?
I thought.
Or is it me? Scratch that—it’s a silly question.
    It had never occurred to me that the cat might accept me simply because I
looked
like the Markasset he knew. Even in the world of Ricardo Carillo, domestic cats were sensitive to personality changes and moods in the humans they chose to live with. No, Keeshah knew I was different. He had proved it already by hanging back for so long while I made my way across the desert. And if he had been confused then, when I wasn’t sure who I was, he must be even more skittish now that I had a strong conviction of an identity which was alien to him.
    I watched the huge cat pacing, and fear gave way to admiration. I had never seen such a powerful animal. His muzzle was a broader wedge than that of a tiger, the mouth cut deeper into it and, I thought, lined with even more teeth. Ridges of muscle flowed from the powerful jaw along his smooth throat to help form the wide shield of pectorals that rippled across his chest as he paced about.
    His legs were thick, his paws easily the size of my head; their claws, retracted now, must be proportionately large. His long body looked lean, but I remembered how it had felt beneath me: wide, supportive, secure.
    *
Markasset?
*
    At first I didn’t know what it was. A pulsing from somewhere inside me, familiar, compelling. A warm touch directly to my mind—friendly, yet wary.
    Of course: