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looked a touch dismal, but it was still someone s front porch.
Once Bosaru stepped inside the door, though, his wariness dissipated. He took a
deep breath. Smells like home.
The restaurant because that s what it was, despite its obscure location was
brightly painted in the reds and oranges of the native Neotian foola blossom and
festooned with knickknacks and posters depicting long-gone scenes of Neotia Prime
cities, with the aromas wafting out of the kitchen making it smell like his parents home
on Neoti holidays.
And it looked like a popular restaurant too. There were customers at every table,
some of them clearly Neoti with celadon-colored hair, some clearly Vozuan with golden
hair, but none seemed to be overly alarmed at the other. In fact, Daegon was pleased to
see they looked comfortable.
A waitress who had just finished serving a customer noticed him. Her hair was
petal-pink, with the roots suspiciously golden. Would you like to be seated? she
asked. She wore a hoop through her eyebrow, marking her as a young member of the
Secont, Bosaru s mother s clan.
Actually, he said, Dame Mirel sent me I m looking for a room. I m Daegon en-
Bosaru.
The server brightened. Let me get my aunt. She s in the kitchen. Gesturing, she
flipped a sauce-stained towel over her shoulder and set off, expecting him to follow. He
did. You re from off-world? she asked, turning her head just enough for him to hear
her over the hubbub. You re a Bosaru? That makes you one of our cousins.
He had to think for a moment. I believe we have two forefathers in common a few
generations back, from what Dame Mirel was telling me.
That makes you a cousin. Aunt will like that, the server said with a grin. I m
Agie Secont Thonoy.
The regional name marked her as a relative from the southern hemisphere from the
home world, with Vozuan ties. Now, of course, it just meant his clan, far-flung as it was
now, was alive and well. That gave him some comfort.
40
Echoes of Passion
The kitchen was bright and filled with smells he wouldn t mind doing research
into. His mouth watering it had been quite a while since the tomozava salad at The
Web he followed his newfound cousin through the kitchen and ignored the urge to
take deep whiffs of interesting smells when he passed them.
A small, thin woman was sitting at a battered wooden table that looked as if it had
seen better decades, hunched over a pile of papers and holding her head with one hand
and a stylus with the other. She looked up when they approached, her brow wrinkled.
Aunt Jenatt, this is Daegon en-Bosaru, Agie said. Dame Mirel sent him for the
room. The Bosarus are cousins, aren t they?
The elder Secont brightened. Her hair was silver and gold, twisted into a messy
braid. Her niece s pink tresses were clearly not native, and the gold part marked her as
another Vozuan.
They are, from the northern reaches of the home world, on the Neoti side, but this
is the first time I have heard of the Bosaru family on the unnamed world. Cousin,
welcome, the woman exclaimed, smiling. It s rare we see anyone from our own clan.
After a few minutes establishing relationship Daegon was off by a generation in
his estimation, and it had been a forefather and a foremother, not two forefathers
cousin Agie and her aunt, Jenatt, showed him to the room. What he saw did please him,
considering he had had lurid images of unvented closets and fighting for space with
vermin, with his life in danger as much indoors as it would be out. But he was the first
to admit he hadn t had to scramble much in his life.
The room was tiny, scrubbed clean and whitewashed, with a small window high on
the wall, and by its angle Bosaru judged he would get a glimpse of the morning sun,
past the bars and the wire that protected the glass. The bed was narrow and covered
with threadbare linens bleached white, and he could tell at a glance it would be lumpy
even before his back touched the mattress, but it looked clean and he could live with the
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