Winter in Eden

returned.
    "I have been told that the okhalakx are dying in great numbers—and you, and everyone else, know that they are my favorite meat. I see the shadow of Ambalasi darkening those bodies. Go to the orchard, you Ostuku, go quickly for you are getting fat and the walking will do you good, go and bring Ambalasi to me at once. That is my order."
    Just thinking about the terrible fact that the okhalakx might be destroyed gave Saagakel a sudden pang of hunger; she sent at once for a haunch of meat. It arrived with great promptness and she tore off a large mouthful, was still grinding the last slivers of flesh from the bone with her back teeth when the small procession entered the ambesed. Ostuku led, while strong guards walked on both sides. Ambalasi was between them, moving slowly and leaning on the broad shoulders of her companion.
    "I ordered the presence of Ambalasi alone," Saagakel said. "Remove the other."
    Winter in Eden - Harry Harrison
    "Then remove me too," Ambalasi said, signing indignant irritation. "You condemn me to that wet orchard, to sleep on the ground at my age. Chilled and damp at night so now I lean on this one when I walk. This strong one remains—I will not walk without her."
    Saagakel made a gesture that showed this part of the discussion was beneath her attention, then stressed the importance of what she said next.
    "The okhalakx die in the groves. What do you know of that?"
    "Do they stiffen and lie helpless? If they do it is the lung disease brought by the wild ones from the forest."
    "But you cured that disease a long time ago. How can it return now?"
    "In the forest of ecology there are countless paths."
    "Did you infect them?"
    "You can believe that if you wish." A dubious answer that could be taken two ways. Before Saagakel could order a clarification Ambalasi spoke again. "But no matter how disease reaches the beasts in the field it is a fact that only I can cure it. Do you wish this done?"
    "It will be done and I order you to do it."
    "I will accept your desire—but not your order. In return I ask my release from that damp orchard, the release as well of she-I-rest-my-weight-upon. When I decide that my legs are as they should be you can send her back to the orchard."
    And you as well, ancient fool , Saagakel thought in unmoving silence. "Do your work at once," she ordered aloud, then turned her attention away with movements of distaste and dismissal.
    Ambalasi waved the guards back with irritated movements and hobbled from the ambesed, leaning heavily on Elem's broad shoulders. She did not speak while they went through the city, remained silent until the outside doors of her own buildings had closed behind them. Only then did she straighten up and walk easily to her private laboratory. There was a gulawatsan on the wall here, claws holding tight, mouth clamped to a sapvine. Ambalasi pushed hard on the ganglion in the center of its back and it turned sightless eyes to her, liquid dripping from its lips—then screamed piercingly through its wide-gaped mouth. Elem stepped back, numbed by the volume of the sound. Ambalasi nodded approvingly at the clatter of rapid footsteps as her assistants hurried in.
    "You," she ordered the first arrival. "Get the okhalakx serum from the cold cabinet and administer it to Winter in Eden - Harry Harrison
    the sick animals. While you, Setessei, will accompany this Yilanè to her place of studies to obtain charts."
    "I have been forbidden entrance," Elem said.
    "Only the Eistaa stands above me in this city," Ambalasi said warmly. "Therefore in this city I will be obeyed. Setessei will speak in my name and will take you there. You will return with all of your navigation charts. Is the order understood?"
    As Elem started her gesture of acceptance, Ambalasi turned away and issued rapid instructions to her other assistants. There was much to be done and very little time to do it in. Only the fact that she had been preparing for this move for over a year enabled its completion now. Enge's arrival was fortuitous and, on impulse, Ambalasi had angered the Eistaa and brought her leaving time forward. It was a minor matter.
    She had long been dissatisfied with this boring city and had been prepared to move on. Life was certainly going to be more interesting in the near future.
    Her only fear was that the Eistaa had cancelled an earlier order putting an uruketo at her disposal. But the order had been issued a long time ago, when there had been need to go upriver