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still giving the namethe Darkhovan inflection, “I know nothing really bad of your people, but I know little of them that isgood. I suppose they are like most people, some good and some bad, and most of them neither one northe other. If you were a bad man, I do not think my daughter would be so ready to marry you, against allcustom and common sense. But you cannot blame me if I am not quite happy about giving my best-lovedchild to an out-worlder, even one who has shown himself honorable and brave.”
    Andrew, next to Ellemir on the bench, felt her hands clench tight as he spoke of Callista as hisbest-loved child. That was cruel, he thought, in her very presence. It had been Ellemir after all who hadstayed at home, a dutiful and biddable daughter, all these years. Indignation at the old man’s tactlessness

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    made his voice cool.

    “I can only say, sir, that I love Callista and I will try to make her happy.”
    “I do not think she will be happy among your people. Do you intend to take her away?”
    “If you had not consented to our marriage, sir, I would have had no choice.” But could he really have taken this sensitive girl, reared among telepaths, to the Terran Zone, to imprison her among tall buildings and machines, to expose her to people who would regard her as an exotic freak? Her very   laran   would have been regarded as madness or charlatanry. “As matters stand, sir, I will remain here gladly. Perhaps I can prove to you that Terrans are not as alien as you think.”
    “I know that already. Do you think me ungrateful? I know perfectly well that if it had not been for you,
    Callista would have died in the caverns, and the lands would still lie under their accursed darkness!”
    “I think that was more Damon’s doing than mine, sir,” Andrew said firmly. The old man laughed a short,
    wry laugh.
    “And so it is like the fairy-tale, fitting that you two should be rewarded with the hands of my daughters, and half my kingdom. Well, I have no kingdom to give, Ann’dra, but you have a son’s place here while you live, and if you wish, your children after you.”
    Callista’s eyes were brimming. She slipped off the bench and knelt beside her father. She whispered, “Thank you,” and his hand rested, for a moment, on her fine, copper-shining braids. Over her bent headhe said, “Well, come, Ann’dra, kneel for my blessing.” The harsh voice was kind.
    With a sense of confusion, half embarrassment, half ineradicable strangeness, Andrew knelt beside Callista. On the surface of his mind were random thoughts, such as how damn silly this would seem at Headquarters, and when in Rome… but on a deeper level, something in him warmed to the gesture. Hefelt the old man’s square, calloused hand on his head, and with the still-strange, newly opened telepathicawareness with which he had not yet wholly made his peace, picked up a strange melange of emotions:misgivings, blended with a tentative, spontaneous liking. He was sure that what he sensed was what theold man felt about him; and to his own surprise, it was not too unlike what he himself felt for the Comynlord.
    He said, trying to keep his voice neutral, though he was perfectly sure the old man could read histhoughts in turn, “I am grateful, sir. I will try to be a good son to you.”
    Dom Esteban said gruffly, “Well, as you can see, I’m going to need a couple of good ones. Look here,are you going to keep calling me   sir   for the rest of our lives, son?”
    “Of course not, kinsman.” He used the intimate form of the word now, as Damon did. It could mean “uncle,” or any close relative of a father’s generation. He rose, and as he moved away he encountered the curious stare of the boy Dezi, silent behind Esteban, filled with an angry intensity— yes, and what Andrew could feel as resentment, envy.
    Poor kid , he thought.   I come here a stranger, and they treat me like family. He’s family   —   and theold man treats