"I don't understand. Have I done
something wrong?"

"No, at least nothing you could help," Jason said calmly. "You've
simply outlived your usefulness. I thought I owed you the satisfaction
of a trip here, then the belief that you were dying to save me; you
were worth that much effort. Still, the fact remains: I wish you to
leave me. I no longer need you."

Dana was stunned by the cold finality in his voice. He knew what he
was saying, too, what he was doing--he was condemning her with an
Imperial English paraphrase of the High War words that were a thakur's
way of telling his 'na, "Thou hast dishonored me."

But maybe he didn't know exactly what that meant. "Thakur--what am I
supposed to do?"

Jason shrugged. "That's up to you. Whatever a Sandeman 'na does when
@'s no use any more, I suppose. Mentally you've always been more
Sandeman than Terran anyway . . . yes, that would be best. Imitate
your Sandeman idols again." He started to turn away.

"Yes, Thakur." Dana went as cold as his voice had been, wishing she
had died back in the mountains, never had to hear this.

"Mister Jason!" the w'woman snapped.

He turned back. "Yes? You don't approve?"

"I do not, but I cannot interfere between thakur and 'na. So long as
you both live and she wears your mark, however, she is yours; no one
else may be involved in what you order for her."

"Oh? All right." Jason took a folding knife from his pocket, opened
it, and bent over his 'na.

Dana felt cold sharpness against her cheek, and she gasped. Then the
knife bit, four quick shallow slashes, followed by a tugging, and she
cried out more in loss than in pain. By the time the tugging stopped,
she was sobbing quietly, the salt of her tears accenting the pain of
her missing tattoo. When she was able to see again, Jason was gone and
the w'woman was standing over her, cleaning her cheek.

Dana raised the head of her bed, trying to think. Her thakur--her
former thakur--had admitted seeking her death, but he had that right; a
'na's gift of @self was absolute. She had even imagined circumstances
where she would welcome death at his hands, or give him his own--but
those had been honorable circumstances, where death was preferable to
the alternative. This was . . . She shied away from the thought
momentarily, then forced herself back.

Her thakur had ordered her to die, in humiliation and agony, even as he
had said she had done nothing to deserve such a dea