"Grandfather?" The tension in her father’s voice seemed to lift M'kar off the bench.
"He says we have to leave. He says not to
trust anyone but the Ankuar," she hurried to tell him.
"Does he now?"
"Take the little one to safety, boy," Aquid
said as he struggled to his feet. "She's worth more than the entire clan combined.
This one is going to fix things. She's going to remove the poison from the craters.
You are leaving, aren't you? It's not just an old man's daydreams? I dreamed
this one right, for once?"
"Yes, Grandfather." Ashrock held out
his hand and M'kar ran to him. He took tight hold of her hand.
"Good boy. Always knew you were the smartest one out of them all." He nodded and tottered out of the room, muttering, "Good boy," several times, until he moved out of earshot.
Ashrock slowly went to the door and closed it, then sat down on the same bench Aquid had used. He had M'kar repeat back for him everything the old man had said. Her father never told her if he talked to the one-eyed man or the woman with the ahsnaq, but she shivered when she glimpsed the pilot of the shuttle they took early in the morning, two decs and eight days later, as the last of the winter storms sputtered out. He was a typical Ankuar, with white hair and cocoa-dark skin, and silvery-blue eyes.
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