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with the same happy illness, but then she saw some waving and occasionally drinking from delicate globes filled with something soft green and sloshing.
    So that’s what intoxication was. Her people didn’t have that sort of thing, since their touch turned any beverage to water. She’d heard the human plague survivors talk about it—among the older ones, especially, who spoke of wishing they could get drunk. They could not, of course, because in order for supplies to be safe for consumption, a Linyaari had to decontaminate them with horn touch, which meant that the intoxicants lost their ability to intoxicate.
    The fancily garbed celebrants danced and sang and whirled each other around. Some walked with an odd gait, indicating that their equilibriums had been compromised. Others spoke or sang with strange accents so pronounced she felt a LAANYE would be helpful at understanding them. Their numbers had dwindled by the time she turned from the waterfront road onto the one leading from the ballroom up the hill and past the building where the time device and her sister’s former quarters were located. Music still poured from the ballroom, and some of the revelers sang or hummed snatches of tunes. One of these jumped into her head and onto her tongue before she realized it, and she twirled and skipped up the hill. Though Linyaari vocal cords did not lend themselves to humming, she made noises that approximated the tune and thought it sounded lovely.
    “Narhii?” a voice said behind her. She thought the woman was calling a friend until she said more sharply, “Narhii! What are you doing out here at this hour, child?”
    Khorii paused in midtwirl and faced Akasa, accompanied by a large male wearing a feathered cloak.
    “I went to visit the Ances—the Others,” she said. “Ariin?”
    “I’m busy” her sister replied tersely.
    “Where are you? I may need your help here. Akasa is right behind me.”
    “Stall her,” Ariin said, and though she did not answer Khorii’s question, Khorii could feel her sister ahead of her, places and numbers—dates?—occupying most of her thoughts.
    “You’re at the timing device, aren’t you?” Khorii asked. “What are you doing there?”
    “Researching. I found out something important, but I have to follow it up.”
    “Good. I’ll come, too.”
    “You can’t. You have to keep them busy. Ah! There it is. Don’t worry. I’ll be back before you know I’m gone.”
    And then she was gone—her thoughts and presence vanished out of Khorii’s mind. All she had gleaned from Ariin’s mind was a set of numbers, but they didn’t mean anything to her.
    “Don’t scold her as if she were still a child, Akasa,” the male said. “Our little Narhii is becoming quite the grown-up female these days. See how she likes to dance?”
    Without asking, he grabbed her hands and spun her around and around in the middle of the road until she felt quite dizzy. He was dizzier than she was, however, and pulled her to a stop so he could lean on her. They both fell down, and, for a quite-alarming moment, he lay on top of her and leered down at her, his thoughts full of mating. It was far more straightforward than Marl Fidd’s sadistic fantasies but no more appropriate. The drunken Friend was very strong and quite heavy. Bits of him pinned her arms and legs. She took a deep breath, ready to pull her knees up sharply in an attempt to dislodge him, when Akasa grabbed the feathered cape and jerked him upward. Khorii noted that the female was extremely strong.
    “You’re frightening her, Odus,” was all Akasa said. Khorii was not so much frightened as she was disgusted. No wonder Ariin had wanted to escape this place and these people. Odus clearly had no moral qualms about forcing himself on her, not because he was actually cruel but because he was so conceited he believed he was doing her a favor, that she did not offer to mate with him because she was intimidated and made shy by his magnificence.