But she hadn't sung in years. Not since that night when Kokor came home to find her husband Obring bouncing away on Sevet's nubile loins. Koya, acting more out of fitful temper than a sense of justice, lashed out at the person she hated most in all the world, her sister Sevet. The blow took her in the larynx, and Sevet hadn't sung a note since. Not that the damage was physical. She could speak, and not in a monotone, either. And she hummed lullabies to the children as they were born. But singing, her voice full out and strong, that was over. And so, of course, was the fame in whose bright shadow Vas had so reveled. So there was nothing much attractive about Sevet anymore. Unfortunately, however, she was Rasa's daughter and they all got caught up in the nonsense that trapped them into coming out in the desert and so the marriage had not ended even though any spark of love that had once been between them ended on the night she betrayed him with her sister's pathetic miserable stupid loathsome worm of a husband, Obring.

So Vas was as lonely as Eiadh, and for similar reasons-both had discovered that their spouses were moral cretins, incapable of even a spark of human decency. Vas had endured his loveless marriage and even sired three children on the bitch and no one guessed how much he hated even to touch her. And it wasn't just her thickening waist or the loss of their fame-gilt life in Basilica. It was the image of her legs wrapped around Obring's white naked flaccid hairy thighs and knowing that she didn't even do it to betray Vas but rather to spite her vicious untalented little sister Kokor. Vas no doubt didn't even enter into Sevet's thoughts at all as she... .

Many years ago, it was many long years ago, and a hundred years of interstellar flight, not to mention years in the desert and another year, almost, in this new world, but to Vas it was yesterday, perpetually yesterday, and so Vas remembered very dearly the vow he had made when Elemak stopped him from killing Obring and Sevet to redeem his honor and manhood. He had vowed then that someday, perhaps when Elemak was old and feeble and helpless, Vas would put things back in balance. Vas would kill Obring and Sevet and then, the blood still fresh on his hands, he would come to Elemak and Elemak would laugh at him and say, You still remember? For that, so long ago, you killed them? And Vas would say to him, Elemak, it wasn't long ago. It was in this lifetime. And so it is in this lifetime that I will restore the balance. Them, for their betrayal. You, for stopping me from taking this vengeance hot. When it's cold, it takes more blood to make it work. Yours now, Elemak. Die at my hands, the way my pride died at yours.

Oh, hadn't he imagined it ten thousand times since then? Over and over again, when Elemak tried to kill Nafai or Volemak and they stopped him, battered him down, humiliated him, Vas had watched them, saying silently, Don't kill him. Save him for me. Ten thousand times he had imagined the way Obring would whimper and plead for mercy, and Sevet would scornfully disdain him, not believing he would kill her until that look of unspeakable surprise as the knife went in-oh, it would have to be a knife, a weapon of the hand, to feel the flesh break under the pressure of the stabbing blade, to feel the steel slide into the blood-lubricated flesh, probing inside until it found the heart and the blood gouted out under his hand, spasming up his arm in the last climax of Sevet's miserable life. ...

The day will come, thought Vas. But first, why not prepare for it properly? Elemak thought that it was nothing for another man to sleep with my wife. Won't it be right and just, then, as he lies dying, for me to tell him in his last moments of consciousness that, Oh yes, Elemak, my friend, you remember what my wife did to me? Well, your wife did it to you, too, and with me. And Elemak will look into my eyes and know that I am speaking the truth and then he'll realize that I wasn't a passive creature after all, was never the mindless tool he thought I was for so many years.

The only trouble with that dream was Eiadh herself. Even if she wasn't sleeping with Elemak, that didn't mean she'd spare a thought for Vas. He wasn't a fool. He was an observant man, that's all. He knew that this was a rime of vulnerability for her. Loneliness. And Vas could be compassionate. He would not come to Eiadh in anger or seeking vengeance on Elemak, no, not at all. He would come to her as a friend, offer a strong arm of comfort, and one thing would lead to another. Vas had read books. He knew this sort of thing happened. Why not to him? Why not with Eiadh, whose waist had not thickened despite bearing twice as many children as Sevet? Eiadh, who still sang, not with the power of a famous entertainer like Sevet, but with a lustrous intimacy, a voice that could waken all the longing in a man's soul, ah, yes, Eiadh, I have heard you singing and I have known that someday that voice would moan, that sweet throat would arch backward as your body shuddered in response to mine.

"Yes?" asked Eiadh.

He hadn't even clapped his hands. She must have seen him coming. How awkward. "Eiadh," he said.

"Yes?" she said again.

"May I come in?" asked Vas.

"Is something wrong?" asked Eiadh. He could see her taking mental inventory of her children.

"Not that I know of," said Vas. "Except that I'm concerned about you."

Eiadh looked confused. "Me?"

"Please, may I come in?" he asked.

She laughed but let him through the door. "Of course, Vas, but I have no idea what you're talking about. Except that I'm tired all the time, but that's the same complaint that everyone else has. If you've come to cut the vegetables for supper, then I'm delighted."

"Do you really need help with the vegetables?" asked Vas.

"No, that was a figure of speech. I'm actually sewing. Volemak insists that we all learn to sew with these awful bone needles. They're so thick that with every stitch they open gaping holes in the fabric but he insists that someday there'll be no more steel ones and so-well, it makes no sense to me, not even in the desert did we have to-I'm boring you, aren't I?"

"I'm sorry," said Vas. "Not boring me. But I was listening more to your voice than your words, I hope you'll forgive me. Elemak is a lucky man, to have a wife whose common speech is so like music."

She looked puzzled at the compliment, but then laughed lightly. "I don't think Elemak feels very lucky," she said.

"Then Elemak is a fool," said Vas. "For him to turn away from such goodness and beauty as-"

"Vas, are you trying to seduce me?" asked Eiadh.

Flustered, Vas could only deny it. "No, I can't-did I lead you to think that I-oh, this is embarrassing. I came to talk. I've been lonely and I thought perhaps you-but if you think it's not proper for us to be alone in the house here-"

"It's all right," said Eiadh. "I know my virtue is safe with you."

Vas put on his best wry smile. "Everyone's virtue is safe with me, apparently."

"Poor Vas," she said. "You and I have something in common."

"Do we?" he asked. Was it possible she felt toward him as he felt toward her? Perhaps he shouldn't have denied his seductive intent so quickly and emphatically.

"I mean besides the obvious," she said. "It seems that both of us are fated to play secondary roles in our own autobiographies."

Vas laughed because it seemed that she was waiting for him to laugh. "By which you mean..." he said,

"Oh, just that we both seem to be buffeted here and there by the choices that other people make. Why in the world were we ever brought aboard a starship, can you think of a reason? Just a matter of chance. Falling in love with the wrong person on the wrong day at the wrong point in history."

"Yes," said Vas. "Now I understand you. But can't two bit players like ourselves nevertheless make our own little plays, on a small stage in the wings, while the famous actors make orotund speeches before the great audience of history? Can't there be some kind of happiness snatched in the darkness, where the only audience is ourselves?"