Chapter 7

As more hara continued to make their way into the hall, Lisia sat stiffly in his chair staring at his hands, which were tightly folded in his lap.

At Swift's urging, Cobweb had decided to accompany Lisia to the portion of the hearings devoted to the testimony of former breeding facility hostlings and staff. The night before Lisia had been sullen, obviously dreading the proceedings. Waiting for the audience seats to fill up and the House of Choice to convene, Cobweb felt almost as enthusiastic about being there as did his companion, but he was prepared to offer any support he could. "Do you have any idea who exactly will be testifying?" he asked.

"No, I don't," Lisia replied softly, not turning his head. "I suppose if I had wanted to, I could have asked specifically and gotten names, but I decided not to, as it would have distracted me from my own testimony."

Cobweb nodded and cast his eyes over the assembly. The hall had been constructed the winter before as a place for the legislative chamber to have its meetings and for large public forums. Rectangular in design, the room had been designed with a podium, stage, tables and witness stands at the front, then half a dozen rows of seats and tables for House members, with the remaining seats set up for public audiences. Almost all the House members were there, talking to one another, while the public was still filing in down the aisles. Cobweb and Lisia sat off to the side in the row immediately behind the legislators.

Lisia was obviously tense. Cobweb endeavored to get him at least talking about what was on his mind. "So," he began, "what are you personally expecting as the result of these hearings?"

Finally Lisia stopped looking at his hands and lifted his head. "Well, for the two hostlings, I hope to have them able to share their experiences and then be moved on to re-education and freedom the way I have been."

"And the other two?" Cobweb prompted. "The staff?"

Once again Lisia looked away, this time somewhere across the room. "I'd like to see them punished, of course," he replied.

"I see," said Cobweb, whose mind could not help but think of the punishment the Gelaming had delivered on the Varr army, in particular Terzian. "And just what form would this punishment take?"

For a long moment Lisia did not respond, although obviously he was considering the matter. Finally, chin resting in his hand, he admitted, "I'm not exactly sure. The Gelaming and Parasiel have both told me that it's going to be something more than just purely punitive, but has to teach them something, force them to see the 'error of their ways' and evolve."

He glanced over to Cobweb. "I really don't know what that would be. I mean, a part of me wishes they could really understand how it was for us hostlings -- maybe force them to bear a couple dozen pearls and then not let them--"

He broke off, closing his eyes, clearly stopping himself from going too far with his remarks. When he opened his eyes again, he continued levelly, "But on the other hand, it just sort of seems like that's all behind us and anyway, it could have been a lot worse for us. So I'm not sure what would be appropriate. Still, I want them to at least admit what they did!"

Cobweb said he could well understand that. He was about to say more when just at that point the session was called to order. Swift and Seel were sitting together on the stage with the top legislators. Chairs scraped against the floor and the babble dropped as an elegant, willowy har took to the podium. This was Gella, once a consort of a Varr general and since the Fall risen to the position of being a respected politician in his own right. Gella called the first witness, a har by the name of Springtime.

The har was ushered in through a side door and brought to the witness stand at the front. Petite with insanely bounteous blue-black curls, Springtime arranged his long skirt around him as he sat. He pointedly avoided glancing in Lisia's direction.

Gella began the question and answer session. "Good morning, Tiahaar."

"Good morning."

"First, allow me to introduce myself," the House member began. "I am Tiahaar Gella." To Cobweb it was clear from Gella's body language and voice that he was going out of his way to be even more soume than usual, probably to make the former hostling more comfortable. "Now please tell me, Springtime, is that your real name?"

The har's expression was indignant. "Yes! Of course!"

Another member of the House stood. "Excuse me, but I'd like to point out that we can easily verify this by asking our previous witness. Tiahaar Lisia?"

Not having been expecting such a question, Lisia was surprised and stood up nervously from his chair. "Yes, that is Springtime. He is four years younger." As he spoke he was staring right at the witness stand; Cobweb noticed that Springtime looked the other way.

Gella resumed his questioning. "All right then, Tiahaar Springtime, let's begin. Now to confirm some basic facts... like Tiahaar Lisia, you were raised at the facility now known as Harling Gardens?"

"Yes," he conceded.

"Like Tiahaar Lisia you were raised to be a hostling?"

"Yes."

"And you produced harlings at the facility?"

"Yes."

"How many?"

"A total of eight."

"Over what time period?"

"Two years."

Just as when Lisia had delivered his testimony, there was much murmuring in the crowd. Every har there wondered how any har could produce so many pearls. "And how old were you when you bore your first pearl?" Gella continued.

"About nine."

Once again there was an audible reaction among the assembly. It wasn't nearly as loud as when Lisia had spoken, but nevertheless, the admissions were shocking.

"Order!" Gella cried, staring down the House and audience members before refocusing his gaze on the hostling, who by that point was staring into his lap, disliking the attention. "So, Springtime, so far your story is sounding very much like that of Tiahaar Lisia. Would you agree with that statement?

"I suppose."

Gella moved closer to the witness stand. "Now let me ask you a personal question -- more personal, that is." He paused, briefly glancing out over the assembly. "How did you feel about having pearls?"

Springtime looked up and said flatly, "Fine. I wanted to have them."

Gella's face registered surprise and there was once again whispering throughout the hall. "You wanted to? Did you have a choice?"

"Of course I had a choice!" Springtime shot back. "We hostlings were all trained to open our own seals, and so we were the ones who decided."

Although Lisia had said as much two days earlier, this statement gave Gella pause. The former consort had borne two harlings, Cobweb knew.

"Ah, but did Calla, the hostling Tiahaar Lisia mentioned, have a 'choice' when he was sent away for conceiving a pearl without permission? And what about choosing your own partners? You didn't choose the fathers of your pearls," Gella argued.

"No, but that didn't matter," Springtime insisted, completely ignoring mention of Calla. "We were helping the war effort."

"But what about the pearls?" Gella was once again surveying the crowd, seemingly looking for support. "The harlings were going to be raised as soldiers and sent to war."

"As far as I was concerned, Tiahaar Gella, they were going to keep us all safe -- from the Gelaming." The hostling's voice conveyed an unmistakable overtone of not just resentment, but hatred.

"But they didn't protect you, Tiahaar." This remark was unfair, Cobweb thought, but he understood the easiness of crossing the line in such questioning.

"That's not our fault!" Springtime spat back.

Again, loud murmurs of comments filled the hall. "All right, Tiahaar, point taken. Now I'd like you to calm down and simply answer the questions. Now tell me, when the facility was ordered abandoned, where did you go?"

"Off with everyone else," Springtime replied carefully. "Since they gave me the choice, I took one of the very young harlings with me. He's about two now. I call him Mountainspring."

"I see. Now when you were found, you were not alone. Besides the harling, you were living with another former hostling, Buttercup, and a former administrator, Phaden, correct?"

"Yes, correct," Springtime agreed.

Gella faced the House members. "They will be testifying later today." He then turned to the witness stand. "If I may ask, what compelled you to remain with these two?"

"What do you mean?" he hosting asked, puzzled.

"Well it would seem to me you'd want to separate yourself from your past after--"

"Well, I don't want to!" Springtime announced angrily. "Phaden takes good care of us!"

Gella waited for the crowd's reaction to quiet down. "You and Buttercup, I assume."

"Yes, of course," Springtime explained. "He knows about the world. He's protected me, Mountainspring, Buttercup and Buttercup's harling Sunset almost ever since we left. We couldn't have survived without an ouana har like him."

Cobweb looked over to Lisia, who, as he'd expected, had a pained look on his face. When Lisia saw he was being observed, he shook his head. "Springtime is still very young, not truly experienced with ouana hara," he said softly. "That's what he believes. I can understand that."

At that point the hostling's testimony effectively ended. The second hostling, Buttercup, took to the witness stand and gave almost the same response at the first, saying that he'd been fine delivering the pearls -- in his case "only" four, as he'd been among the youngest hostlings -- and that everything would have worked out if only the Gelaming hadn't defeated them. He too was happy to be under the protection of the former administrator. The subsequent testimony of Phaden completed the picture, with the administrator saying that in carrying out the facility's mission, he had been acting on orders of his superiors and thus held no personal responsibility. He intended to continue on with a normal life with both former hostlings as his consorts, possibly having more harlings in addition to the two the hostlings had adopted.

When Phaden exited the witness stand, a ten minute recess was announced.

"Well, those three are obviously in league," Cobweb observed. He glanced over to Lisia, who was chewing on his knuckle. "What did you think of all that?"

Lisia started, jolted out of his thoughts. "I was just thinking that I can understand why they're doing it. I mean... You know that har Vlaric... the instructor I was close to for a bit... wanted me to escape, didn't you?"

"No," Cobweb said, "I didn't know that. Remember, I didn't read your journal."

Lisia sighed. "Well, after I refused to abandon the harlings, he came up to me begging me not be 'foolish' and stay -- to go along with the rest of them. He told me he would be able to escape the main group and probably I could escape with him, maybe others too. He was offering to protect me."

"But you didn't accept that offer."

"No, I couldn't. I had to protect the harlings. It was much more important than protecting myself."

That, Cobweb thought to himself, is the big difference between you and the hara who just testified. You think of others first; they thought only of themselves.