honor." She smiled,
and raised him to his feet. "I will to you later speak, ruesten. Now
come. You n'ruhar have to meet, after you are to the Lords
introduced."

Tarlac holstered his blaster, following his Clan Mother and clanmates
into the building. The entranceway was about ten meters square, with
halls to either side and double doors straight ahead leading to the
clanhome's heart, the gathering hall. When the double doors slid open,
Tarlac couldn't see much except Traiti. The hall was filled with them,
leaving only one open lane down the center of the room. He knew what
the hall looked like, from Hovan's descriptions: a hundred meters wide
by a hundred and fifty deep, and unlike the rest of the clanhome,
undecorated. Its only furnishing, except for special occasions, was
the silvery two-tiered altar opposite the entrance. The clan's Speaker
for the Circle of Lords, Daria, waited there to introduce Tarlac to the
Traiti gods.

He smiled at that. He and Hovan had, inevitably, touched on religion
in their discussions, and Hovan had found his agnosticism at first
baffling, then amusing. It seemed the Traiti took their gods pretty
much for granted, absolutely certain of their reality but expecting
nothing from them other than acceptance at death. Hovan had finally
given up on that debate with the extended-claw gesture that was roughly
equivalent to a shrug, saying that Steve would learn.

Well, there was always a chance that Hovan was right. Tarlac was well
aware the universe held a lot more things than he knew, but this was
one he had no intention of bothering about. If the gods were
interested in him, they'd shown no signs of it, and he saw no reason to
change his stand on the matter unless they did.

The procession including Tarlac, Hovan and Yarra was at the altar by
then, and this time the new clanmember was the only one who didn't
kneel. He bowed to the green-robed Speaker standing on the dais, then,
at her gesture, ascended the three steps to stand facing her. She
grasped his wrist, led him to the altar, and indicated that he should
place his hands on it, palms down.

Tarlac cooperated willingly, but his attention was less on what he was
doing or the chant Daria had begun than the statuettes on the altar's
upper tier. There were eleven of them, images of the Traiti gods--
three of whom were actually, by his definition, goddesses--as
exquisitely crafted as a cloudcat-made tapestry. They were a