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talk into it softly, or even subvocalize; I won’t stand over you, it would only make you nervous, but I’ll be right over here at my desk if you need me for anything,” she said, and went away. Jaelle sat still, trying to decide what to do first. She said half aloud, “I’m still not sure I know how to handle this thing - ” and heard the small humming and rattling sound; luminous letters swam on the screen and she saw in the slightly unfamiliar letters of Standard, her words in Casta: “I’m still not sure I know…”
Chagrined, she pressed the clearing key and saw the letters disappear into flashes of light, as her paper cup and dinnerplate had vanished into nothingness. Is anything permanent here ? she wondered; yet Bethany had been speaking of making her report accessible for all time. It was a sobering thought.
She said slowly, “I don’t know where to start…” and as the machine hummed again, she saw the words appear in light on the screen. But this time it did not trouble her. How many times, she wondered, had she started out a report to Kindra, or to one of the Guild Mothers, of some mission accomplished or failed, with those very words? As if she had been sitting in the great gathering-room in Thendara Guild House, with the Guild Mothers and her sisters waiting to be told of what she had done, she began in a composed, formal way:
“On a certain night about ten days before Midwinter, I was traveling north to Nevarsin Monastery. With me were a band of the Comhii-Letzii , with myself, Jaelle n’ha Melora, as elected leader, Gwennis n’ha Uriel, Sherna n’ha Lia, and Devra n’ha Rayna on their way to take the places of three of our sisters who had been living in Nevarsin to copy records there, and Camilla n’ha Kyria, my oath-sister, as escort and guard. Because of a severe oncoming storm, we camped in a travel-shelter situated half a day’s journey north of Andalune Pass. We found the place already tenanted by a band of strange men, about twelve in number; but invoking the traditional neutrality of the travel-shelters, we greeted them politely and made our camp at the opposite end of the building. Shortly after dark, a woman traveling alone, and in the ordinary dress of a Renunciate, entered the building; she identified herself as from Temora Guild House and was welcomed to our fire. This woman I learned later to be Magdalen Lorne - ” She struggled with Magda’s Terran name and was quite sure that what appeared on the screen was not what Magda’s name looked like in Terran letters. She had once seen it written. She must have mispronounced it so grossly that the machine could not compensate and was reduced to a phonetic transcription of what she had actually said . She hit the clearing key and, biting her lip, called Bethany to ask the proper spelling.
To her great relief Bethany showed no exasperation, no sense that she had asked anything terribly stupid; she matter-of-factly spelled it for her and went back to her own desk, and Jaelle went on.
“We did not know her to be Terran or an Agent of Intelligence. We simply made her welcome among us and shared food as was traditional when Renunciates meet on the trail. While we were all sleeping there was a disturbance - “
She went on, the words flowing smoothly now, telling how Magda had been attacked by one of the bandits, breaking the travel-shelter’s law of neutrality; when the men had been evicted from the shelter, Magda, under questioning, had been exposed as an intruder, and as the law provided, had been required to take the Oath. The next day Jaelle had turned over her leadership of the group to Camilla n’ha Kyria, in order to escort her new oath-daughter to Neskaya Guild House; when the others had gone, she and Magda had been attacked by two of the returning bandits and had fought them, in an encounter where Jaelle had been severely wounded. Magda, wounded herself, had saved Jaelle’s life; and although she could then have ridden away