Born to a drugged, mindless Gen in a brutal Gen-breeding encampment, Deah had been adopted by an idealistic renSime couple during the first heady days of Unity.
        She proved a bright, eager child, and excelled at everything she tried. Her parents taught her by example to revere the Tecton and idolize its heroic leaders: channels like Risa Tigue and Klyd Farris.
        Since she'd been born of two Gens, it was improbable that she'd change over at all, much less become a channel. So when it happened, it was a child's wildest fantasies come true, and her parents' as well.
        In his assessment of Deah as young, naive and filled with honor at the chance to serve the Tecton as a channel, Pico Waik had hit the nail on the head. If anything, in fact, it was an understatement.
        And when the instructors had tested her and found her field to be among the most powerful they'd ever seen, the fairy tale was made complete: she was not only a channel, she was a channel of heroic proportions, a First Order channel, destined for greatness!

        There was only one problem.

        The students giggled behind their hands. Hajene Doem's bald "Dome" purpled with frustration and Deah's face quickly matched it with embarrassment.
        "Deah, you've asked that three times already."
        "I'm sorry, Hajene Doem." Deah writhed in humiliation. "I just forgot." The other students laughed even harder.
        They all thought she was faking stupidity to pull Doem's leg. Even Doem thought so. How could anybody with a nager like hers not understand what they were talking about in class?
        But the first day, when Doem had assigned 300 pages of reading, Deah had only managed to read 150 pages. The second day, he'd assigned 600 pages of reading, and she'd finished the previous day's missed 150 instead. Now, two weeks into her new life as a channel trainee, she was an entire week behind in the reading, and each day in class she was utterly lost before the first 10 minutes were over. But why? It wasn't as if she was slacking off. In fact, she was working harder than she ever had in her life.
        "Turn to page 1548 in the Terwinger and read line 23," said Doem.
        As muffled giggles continued to burst out sporadically around the room, she opened her book and turned to the correct page. There, in plain Simelan, was the answer to her question. It did seem terribly familiar.
        "Did you do the assigned reading, Deah?" asked Hajene Doem. She could zlin that he was doing his best to be nice to her, but she could also see a big vein pulsing on the front of his Dome. He really did think she was mocking him, and she could see why. Her big nager could be shielding mischievousness from him, and how would he be able to zlin that? How could he ever be sure?
        Deah swallowed. "No, Hajene Doem. I'm really far behind."
        "Well then," said Doem, "I strongly suggest you catch up."
        Her shoulders wilted. "Yes, Hajene Doem."
        She glanced at Arat. He sat in the farthest corner of the room, wearing the dark, brooding expression that was typical of him. He kept his nager to himself. It was understood that during the classes, the instructors controlled the ambient.
        But even when he held his nager still and uninteractive, he cast an undeniable presence that demanded attention. When Deah deliberately forced her attention away - to follow along in class, for example - she had the sense that she was turning her back on a tiger... or royalty.
        Deah wasn't the only one who found it difficult to concentrate when Arat was in the room; everybody's attention strayed in that direction again and again.
        She recognized the response as pure Sime instinct, the instinct to obey the Tuib or person with the most influential nager. But what made Arat that person? It couldn't be nager size alone. She and Arat were supposed to be comparable in that area, and though she did have nuisance "followers", nobody was having trouble paying attention to Doem just because she was there. And it couldn't be his background; while that might be influencing the others, she certainly wasn't letting it influence her.
        Yet, she couldn't help but need-to-know what his reaction was to Doem's rebuke of her. He wasn't laughing with the others. He never laughed at anything. He met her eyes soberly and Deah got the distinct impression that he could zlin she was not playing with Doem, and was really genuinely falling behind in class. For some reason that made her twice as uncomfortable as the others' misunderstanding. She looked away.
        She could see Jeniard looking at her curiously, too. She couldn't tell if he knew what was really going on, but he ought to know how it felt. Up until two weeks ago, he'd been the slowest one in class.

        Hajene Doem's thoughts must have been running along similar lines. "Hajene Jeniard. Why don't you come up here and demonstrate what we've just covered?"
        Jeniard stood. He seemed nervous, but eager. The other students whispered to each other; Jeniard had always dreaded the in-class demonstrations before, but had mysteriously begun to develop an interest in them in the last few days.
        He walked to the front of the class and sat on the stool provided for student "volunteers". Their class Donor for the day, Sosu Mileay, moved his own stool up a little so he was in proper position to support Jeniard - or at least would have been, if he were capable of it.
        Mileay's nager was full and strong to zlin, but when one attempted to accept support from him, that strength slipped away like a too-small log pushed down into a lake by a swimmer's weight. It had become a joke among the students, who called him "Mushy Mealy" and speculated as to whether Mileay was aware of what his nager did, and how one might go about training him out of the problem.
        As he was, the 3rds could use his support, the 2nds could use him as long as they didn't make the mistake of actually depending on it, and Deah didn't even try. Neither did Jeniard, from what she could tell. They just let Mileay sit there while they did their functionals, and Doem never called them on it.

        As Jeniard settled into working mode, all of the students focused their attention upon him. Deah tried to do so as well.
        Unfortunately, being behind in the reading and having Arat lurking nearby weren't her only problems. The truth was, she'd never quite been able to make out what the teachers were asking her to zlin. It always seemed as if there were a mask of something else in the way, complicating her perceptions and obscuring the lesson at hand.
        On top of that, Deah had recently experienced her first turnover. Trying to concentrate was even harder now than it had been before. Her friends told her to enjoy this phase while it lasted; in another week, transfer would seem like the answer to everything, and even thinking about thinking about anything else would be out of the question. Deah didn't find this at all reassuring.

        "Yes, Jeniard!" said Doem, quite surprised. "That was extremely well done. I couldn't have done it better myself. If you keep doing that well, you will be ready for advancement in a matter of days!"
        "Yes, Hajene Doem." Jeniard bowed to Doem, his nager held carefully clear.
        "You may return to your seat."
        "Thank you, Hajene Doem."
        Jeniard showed no emotion as he walked between them and took his seat. But afterward, his eyes darted across the room to meet Arat's, and nobody could have missed the subtle nod of recognition Arat gave him, or the resultant surge of pride that lifted Jeniard's nager.

        Nobody knew what had happened during Arat and Jeniard's first few days as roommates. This was a subject of much speculation.
        Those who wished to curry favor with Arat quickly learned to not tease Jeniard, but instead to allow him to lurk unmolested at the periphery of their group. And Jeniard, in order to avoid Sorel's people's less inhibited attentions, did so as much as they'd allow, though he could hardly have been comfortable in their company.
        Perhaps it was simply that Arat refused to be associated with a loser. Or, maybe Arat was capable of more compassion than it seemed from the outside. In either case, it was clear that Jeniard - goofy, academically failing Jeniard, childishly chubby, bespectacled, wrinkled of uniform and fusty of hair do - who should have been the last person Arat would be caught dead socializing with, had lucked out in his seemingly random assignment to him as a roommate.

        As Doem's lecture began to drone on again, Deah hoped the teacher wouldn't call on her next. It wasn't just that she had no idea what he was talking about; the thing was, she had never able to make her nager do what they wanted in demonstrations. Her control of it simply wasn't fine enough. Her big nager remained perfectly controlled so long as it was simply lying there inert, though. In fact, inertia was one thing her nager did really well. Too well. People paired with her for joint exercises complained she was difficult to manipulate, and soon nobody wanted to get stuck with her, even the people who were her friends outside of class. Her big nager was a nuisance and a frustration. At this point, she'd have been better off with one like Sorel's!
        Doem apparently decided to have mercy on her. "Hajene Arat, would you care to come demonstrate?"
        Everybody turned to Arat, looking and zlinning, relieved by the chance to do what they'd been wanting to do all along.

        He was surrounded by empty chairs. According to the students' Arat-lore, that meant it was a bad day. On a good day, he let people sit near him - if they happened to be in favor. Ever since that first Assembly, when he'd been mobbed nagerically and forced into the dare against Deah, he'd been extremely particular about who he'd allow anywhere near him.
        He wore the regulation uniform, of course. Under that, he wore the hypoallergenic undershirt usually prescribed to students who proved allergic to the uniform fabric. Even so, angry red dots marked his throat and upper arms. As if to make up for the advantage of his fame, fate had saddled him with a preposterous number of adult-onset allergies. He was allergic to chalk dust, too, and that was a serious business. He had already missed several hours of classes because of wheezing brought on by dust. The teachers washed their blackboards with water instead of using erasers, but nothing could control the plaster dust from the construction.
        Other than that, his grooming was perfect down to the fastidiously bound tip of his long black braid, and his showfield was of course pristine.
        His nostrils flared. He looked proudly and coldly at Doem. "I refuse to work with Sosu Mileay."
        A sparkle of scandalized fascination danced through the student ambient. Irritation surged through Doem's field, not particularly well disguised.
        "And just who would you prefer to use instead?" asked Doem sarcastically. "As you can see, Sosu Mileay is who has been assigned to work with us today."
        "I would be willing to demonstrate the procedure with Sosu Randon instead," said Arat stiffly.
        Sosu Tebithaux Randon, or Teb as the students had nicknamed him, was arguably the best Donor at the Othwol Institute. A Second on paper, Sosu Randon had crossed the line into Firstdom in the recent past. His field work was expert, firm yet delicate. There wasn't a single student in the school, including Deah and Jeniard, who didn't look forward to being supported by him. And ever since Teb had served Arat's second transfer, Arat had been spending all his free time in Teb's office.
        As for Sosu Mileay, Arat's tolerance for the man had vanished utterly the first time Mileay failed to support him properly, and Arat had had nothing but contempt for him since.
        Arat was, in the slang of Donors, a "leaner". That meant that he demanded heavy support at all times, and leaned on that support so hard that if anything went wrong with it, he risked actual injury.
        It was also hard on the Donors. A Donor, having only one field, had to match the channel with the same field he or she generated with his or her life functions. The more the channel leaned, the harder the Gen's body had to work to maintain a normal internal balance. While it was natural for a Gen to want to support a Sime, supporting a monstrous First very closely was hardly a natural situation. A Donor capable of such a thing was the equivalent to a marathon runner in constant training - a person whose every bodily function had been subordinated to one overall purpose.
        Needless to say, the majority of the school Donors were not on that level, nor did they have to be or want to be. They had far fewer health problems, as a result.
        Deah saw Arat's leaning as weakness. Certainly he didn't do it by choice; pride and arrogance demanded self-sufficiency, not dependency. Why did he seem to require more support than everybody else? Was there some physical reason, that she and Jeniard did not share?

        Doem's upper lip quivered, but he managed to rein in his temper.
        "That is not an option, as you can see. Please come to the head of the class." It was not a request.
        Arat paused for a long moment, and then rose to his feet and walked slowly to the the front of the room. His nager was frosty, and his body language clearly registered the affront to his dignity. Doem took a step back, and Deah realized that he was not immune to Arat's aura. Doem's authority as teacher seemed utterly irrelevant now that they were side by side; there was only Arat, and Arat was going to do the demonstration but if he'd decided not to there was nothing Doem could have done about it. Deah thought that if Arat's parents compelled the same respect Arat did, it was no wonder they'd persisted so long as leaders in the face of overwhelming political opposition.
        Arat ignored the stool and turned to face the class. His gaze dropped momentarily to Mileay, regarding him with an expression of undisguised loathing. Mileay hunched his shoulders and licked his lips in unconscious submission. After a moment, Arat looked away from him, and began his demonstration.

        ----

        During break, Deah did not go directly to the lunch room. She had something else she had to do instead.
        She had to do something about how badly she was doing in school. She was just too far behind to ever catch up. As it was, she spent most of her free time studying, even when the other students went shopping or played sports. Yet nobody believed her when she said she was in trouble; not the teachers, not her fellow students, nobody. What they believed in was her big nager. What a joke! Even Betta and Sorel, who she'd tried to explain it to a thousand times in as many different ways, told her she was just being too hard on herself and should learn to relax a little.
        She'd been meaning to talk to Old Dome about her problems for the past few days, but he only had office hours twice a week and they came right during her physical fitness sessions. She didn't want to miss those as they were the only thing she was getting a good grade in! It'd proven impossible to talk to him in class, as he (like all her other teachers) tended to show up late for class and leave slightly early, often in the middle of his final sentence and in a bit of a hurry.
        But today she was determined to do something to help herself, and if she couldn't make it during his office hours and couldn't catch him in class, there was only one other option: to brave the Institute's main office.

        The corridor was dim and quiet. Great rolls of insulation stacked up end-to-end down its length, and gaslights blossomed weirdly from the shadowed ceiling.
        Deah picked her way past glass windows with unlit rooms beyond, following a faint glow and the zlin of a lone renSime nager. As she neared her goal, brand new textbooks began to manifest themselves in dusty stacks. Boxes and kraft paper bundles came next, followed by a series of wooden crates bearing the Householding Frihill symbol.
        Light spilled out onto boxes of newly arrived shipping, bundles of mail, and a litter of plaster-spattered nuts and bolts. Deah paused in the doorway of the main office and took it all in in amazement:
        A wallpapering rig was set up against one wall, apparently only recently abandoned by its crew. Filing cabinets of every description were crammed together around the rest of the room's perimeter. Some drawers sagged open, bristling with papers. More papers were piled in shaggy mounds atop the filing cabinets, on the floor in corners, and on the desk of a rather harassed looking clerk who was in the process of filling out some forms.
        The woman wore the regulation uniform, but way too much makeup and her hair was piled high with falsely red curls. She looked permanently haggard, as if she'd gone to one too many Zhag and Tonyo concerts before the Tecton had ensnared her in gainful employment.
        "Can I help you?" asked the renSime dubiously.
        "I was wondering if you could tell me how to get ahold of Hajene Doem."
        "His office hours are - "
        "I know, but I can't wait two days, I have to speak to him now."
        "I'm sorry, that's just not possible."
        "But I'm a student," said Deah helplessly. "I require help really bad. Doesn't that count for anything?"
        The clerk pursed her lips in annoyance. "My heart bleeds for you."
        Deah's jaw dropped. "Er... what?"
        "You think you're the only one has problems? Try sitting in my chair for a few hours. I'm in here every flecking day, sunrise to sunset, trying to do my duty to family and Tecton, and all I ask is a little peace and quiet. Do I get it? No. Every five minutes I get some drippy nosed kid coming in whining about his or her personal problems, or so-and-so construction worker wanting to move my desk so he can work on the pipes over my head, or oh-my-God there's a big emergency next door, and since I'm in need I have to come sit next to some Gen who stepped on a nail. Like that's on my job description!"
        "But - "
        "And at the end of the day, do you think I get to go the bar, hang out with my friends? Shen, you must be dreaming. First, I go pick up my kids at the day care. I don't know why I bother, they see so little of me they barely know who I am anymore. Then we go pick up my husband, he's doing two and a half shifts of masonry work in the city. We get home and my husband puts the kids to bed and takes care of the horses while I hit the sack for four hours. Then I get up and do the housework and bills while he crashes out for his four. Real romantic way of life, I tell ya. The next day? Another round of the same. If that doesn't break your heart I don't know what will.
        "And now, since you're all warmed up, try puttin' yourself in Hajene Doem's place. When he's not wiping noses and rear ends for whining little prima donnas like yourself, he's putting in full shifts in the Sime Center and half shifts on administrative duty. What, you surprised? Don't you know every Sime here has three jobs and every Gen has two? You think building a whole city from scratch is like baking a cake or something? Until Plate Tectonics Central gets off its ass and assigns the Sime Center and the City Controller's Office their own staff, nobody's gonna have time for people who just wanna whine. So. You got any more questions?"

        Deah slank the rest of the way to the lunchroom with her tail, proverbially speaking, firmly between her legs.

        ----

        "When the waves hit the shore, more waves come behind them," said Sorel, gesturing in illustration. "It's like the Tecton: always driving forward, always advancing. But underneath them, there's different water, water that's had its wave and spent it. Like Family Audnes. It's getting sucked back, back into the ocean."
        "Undertow." Deah couldn't see what the point of this was. They were standing in line at the food counter, and Sorel was trying to explain to her how her problems were all trivial and she shouldn't worry about being behind in class.
        "Right. Now, just because Undertow has ahold of Arat, doesn't mean it has you too."
        "Maybe it does. My real parents were Pen Gens, you know. Maybe I'm part of the past just as Arat is, and...."
        "Bull-oney, Deah." Sorel snorted in exasperation. "Get a grip." She was clearly annoyed at Deah wrecking her analogy.
        Deah sighed. "I'm sorry, Sorel. It's just... I wish they would give me special tutoring or something. Like Arat gets."
        Sorel looked at her in astonishment. "Special tutoring? You think that's what he's getting?" She reached out and stopped Deah's hand. "You don't want to eat that."
        Deah looked at the small, round sandwich with what looked like dark green vegetable spread filling. "Why not?"
        "Trust me. Mold on a Bun is the worst thing ever made by Tecton cafeterias."
        Deah sighed and put the sandwich down. She hadn't been that hungry since her turnover, anyway. She moved farther along the line. "OK, so if what Arat's getting isn't special tutoring, what is it?"
        "Teb is just using him," scoffed Sorel. "He used to use Jeniard for the same thing. He has all these ideas about becoming a super Donor, and he likes to have some poor sucker around to practice on. That way if he screws up, he'll know."
        "Oh come on, that can't be all."
        "Sure it is. You know Arat, everything is a big drama with him. If Teb messes up, you can be sure he'll find out right away."
        "No, I mean, Arat must be getting something out of the deal. To hang out with a teacher every afternoon like that - there must be all this extra education on the side. And Sosu Randon could answer his questions and stuff. That's what I want, a mentor to help me."
        Sorel shook her head in disbelief. "Good grief. Haven't you heard a word I've said? Or did your pessimism get lost on the way to your turnover party?" She turned away from the food line and carried her tray toward the table where the others were waiting. Deah hurried after her, wending her way through the crowded cafeteria.
        "Sorel, I was thinking. If all of the teachers are too busy to give us extra time, then what I have to do to is trade more time back to them than they give. I could fill out paperwork, grade tests, clean up offices - shen, I'd walk dogs and do babysitting if it'd free up 20 minutes of somebody's time to help me each day."
        "Deah, please try to get real. Who's going to let you do all this stuff for them?"
        "I don't know yet, but all the teachers' offices are on the same corridor. I'll just start at one end and work my way down, signalling on every door. Maybe I'll even find more than one."
        "Hey guys," said Sorel to the others. "Get a load of this."
       
        Deah thought Sorel was about to repeat her plan to them and get a laugh at her expense. But then she realized Sorel's attention was on Jeniard, who had just entered the cafeteria. He had a big smile on his face.
        "You should have seen Jeniard in class today," said Betta, as Sorel and Deah sat down. "He did a perfect demonstration and Doem was all, whoa!"
        "You should have seen the look between him and Arat," said Ramy enviously. Ramy was still hanging out with Sorel and Betta's group, but she was in the throes of Arat-lust and would probably cross over to the other camp instantly if given an invitation.
        "Yeah," agreed Betta. "Arat must have shown him how to do it right."
        "He and Arat must be getting way friendly," added Ladlo.
        "Oh yeah?" said Sorel. She didn't sound pleased.
        "Yeah," said Ladlo. "He looked at him like, 'right on, good job!'"
        During the several Assemblies that had taken place in the last two weeks, it had become obvious to all the students that Arat was far superior to them nagerically. Not only could he perform amazing nageric stunts, but he had an uncanny sensitivity and could zlin through anybody's best showfield - even the teachers'. However, in his towering arrogance, Arat felt he had nothing to prove. It was so difficult to convince him to take part in dares that the convincing had become a dare in itself.
        In classes, he seemed to grasp new material before the explanations were even finished. He regularly read ahead in the literature, and he'd begun borrowing extra texts from Teb Randon.
        In short, Arat was a paragon of channelling ability, as well as ridiculously famous. It wasn't difficult to see that Sorel was actually jealous of Jeniard's success in winning Arat's approval. In fact, all of them were. But why? Did they want that acceptance themselves, or was it that they felt comfortable knowing there was one person who would always be a loser? These were questions that no amount of zlinning could ever answer.

        "Hey Jeniard!" Sorel shouted, loudly enough to startle the people around them. "I dare you to try to get Arat to eat the Mold on a Bun."
        The entire lunchroom silenced. Jeniard stared at her in open shock.
        "Well?" prompted Sorel.
        Everybody looked on in fascination. It was an re-initiation of sorts, a re-hazing. Would Jeniard take the dare and prove himself? Had Sorel deliberately picked one too terrifying to accept, in order that they could ridicule him for refusing?
        "But that's insane," began Jeniard. "He'd...."
        "That's why it's a dare," said Sorel sweetly.

        Shortly after Arat had arrived at the Othwol Institute it had become clear that he was perfectly neurotic about food: he refused to eat and would become furious if anybody said anything. Those who wanted to be on his good side were careful not to bring it up.
        As Simes nobody ate as much as they used to, of course, and in fact if there hadn't been strict rules about eating three times a day, most of them would have only done it once. They all lost weight quickly, child-fat replaced by the hard slenderness of Simehood. Even Jeniard would lose it eventually, though he seemed to be taking his sweet time about it.
        But Arat had been difficult in this matter even as a child. According to Betta, he'd only eat what his caregivers made if they used his parents' peculiar recipes. It was one of several reasons why he'd been juggled between foster homes and even sometimes returned to his parents.
        As Jeniard turned slowly away and the volume of talk in the room began to rise to normal, Phylissa asked, "Do you think he'll do it?"
        "Shen, no," exclaimed Sorel. "Arat wouldn't eat Mold on a Bun if his life depended on it. I don't think I would."
        They giggled.
        "No, I meant, do you think Jeniard will ask him?"
        Deah figured that if Jeniard took Sorel up on the dare, Arat would be so offended by the imposition that he'd shun Jeniard forever, roommate or no. The dare was just Sorel's nasty way of breaking up the friendship before it could really get started. It seemed so childish and destructive to Deah. She didn't like Arat much but she thought Jeniard required all the help he could get. Why did Sorel have to interfere? She slumped miserably, picking at her fruit cup.

        When Arat did enter the cafeteria some ten minutes later, the entire room silenced instantly. Even the students who had nothing to do with dares and the Assemblies turned to stare.
        Arat came up short when he realized dozens of people were staring and zlinning. He stood looking around the room for a moment, his head high, his nager stiff, his dark eyes at once prideful and suspicious.
        Then, since he did not know what to do about the situation, he did the most arrogant thing at all - he ignored it. Deah felt his attention leave them utterly, as if all of them had simply vanished.
        He walked past the ranks of tables to the tea counter, took one of the cups from the stack and inspected its interior. As the silence crept onward, he set that tea cup aside and selected another, inspecting the new one even more minutely.
        If there had been anyone in the vicinity of the lunch line, they had silently and furtively slipped away. Even the counter help was nowhere to be zlinned. The stage was set for the dare. A breathless quiet reigned.

        And then, the sound of a chair scraping backward rang through the room. Jeniard skittered across the floor over to where Arat was, his body language comically submissive.
        They looked at each other for a moment, Arat with the same dark expression, the same careful scrutiny he'd given the whole staring room, and Jeniard cowering before him. After a moment, Arat gave him a small nod of acknowledgement, and turned back to the tea table. He gave the teacup another, final inspection and then moved over to the jars of leaves.
        Jeniard turned to the food line. He found the Mold on a Bun and picked one up. He quailed indecisively for a moment, and then slowly walked over to where Arat was. Arat ignored him. Literally; his attention simply was not on him, palpably and provably.
        But when Jeniard straightened and reached out as if to touch Arat's shoulder, Arat shied away from the touch, was forced to turn to face him head on.
        Again, a frozen moment. Everybody watched and zlinned, fascinated, as Jeniard waited with his face turned away. His nager was open and submissive. Arat stared at him, his expression wild and wary. It seemed that he did not know how to handle a person approaching him in this way any more than he knew how to handle a person who screamed "hogwash!".
        "Do you want this?" asked Jeniard, without moving.
        Arat's stare moved down Jeniard's arm to the pro-offered Mold on a Bun, and he looked visibly ill.
        "No," he said shortly. He turned his back and set about pouring some hot water into his tea.
        Jeniard took a faltering half-step toward Arat's back.
        "You'll have to eat something, sometime."
        Arat froze. Then, he set down the water and turned suddenly on Jeniard, with a murderous glare. Titillated gasps sounded around the room as Jeniard cringed back. Arat seemed about to utter some acid retort, but then decided the better of it. He picked up his tea cup and stalked past the rows of tables to leave the cafeteria.

        There was one more moment of silence, and then the entire lunchroom broke into thunderous applause. The ambient was a heady mix of glee and approbation. Deah could not zlin Jeniard anymore, but could see him with his back to her, still looking after Arat. She and he were like two islands in isolation.
        And then Jeniard turned, and she could see he was upset. He threw the Mold on a Bun into the trash. Only then did he look up at all of the people clapping and cheering for him. His expression darkened and he went to the counter and began gathering foods, not bad things but items most people liked, like apples and mushrooms and sweet breads. When his hands were full, he ran out the door in pursuit of Arat, to a burst of even louder cheering.
        Was this bravery, in Jeniard? Or was it simply a coward's sidling adaptation to an unbearable situation? Deah realized she was impressed either way. Jeniard would not let the fragile friendship die, dare or no.
        A smile broke out on Deah's face and silently within herself, she too applauded.