widely, is it?”
“No,” he agreed. “The emperor insisted on keeping the ancient language alive, so that the roots of our people would endure. He considers that language is the basis of culture.”
“I see. So the Dectat uses it in discussions, and the kehmatemer use it among themselves, since they protect the officials of the Dectat.”
He smiled. “Exactly.”
She closed her eyes and drank in the exquisite fragrance of the canolithe, which grew in the nearby woods. “I smelled canolithe for the first time in a library on Altair 6 where we were on maneuvers,” she recalled with a smile. “It had been recorded in the sensor logs and reproduced by an olfactory process known only to the Altairians.”
He turned and looked down at her with quiet appreciation of her beauty, enhanced by the child she was carrying. His child. He felt possession wash over him like a wave. He had never felt it like this, certainly not for the Dacerian woman long ago whom, he was only beginning to realize, had an agenda that he had never perceived.
She became aware of his scrutiny and looked up. “Is something wrong?”
He shook his head. “I was remembering the day I brought you here, when I showed the canolithe to you,” he said with a gentle smile.
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