Political columnist Matt

Usage examples of bai.

Duncan walked the corridors and gathered the appropriate materials and releases from the library for the honorable gentleman to read, and carried to the pneumatic dispatch whatever communications flowed from Stavros to Stavros’ regul counterpart bai Hulagh Alagn-ni.

It was likely that, in all the time they had yet to spend among regul, they would never meet the honorable, the reverence bai Hulagh Alagn-ni, only the younglings that served him as crew and aides and messengers.

He realized what he had suspected already, that this was the bai himself who had come to call on them, bai Hulagh Alagn-ni, high commander of the ship Hazan, successor to the Holn, and provisional governor of Kesrith’s zones during the transfer of powers from regul to human.

It was concluded with a series of courtesies and gestures, and the bai subsided into his sled and vanished, and Stavros closed the door for himself, before Duncan could free himself of his confusion and do so.

Stavros, it would leave Duncan himself helpless, unable to communicate with the general run of younglings, and, as Stavros had once pointed out, regul younglings would not admit him to contact with the likes of bai Hulagh, who were the only regul capable of fluent human speech.

Perhaps in the bai’s eyes it was minor: the regul were not supposed to be able to lie.

We bring you the regrets also of bai Hulagh, in whose service this kel’en gained great distinction.

It is bai Hulagh’s profound regret—his most profound regret, that this meeting is an inauspicious one, and that he makes the acquaintance of the People in such a sad moment.

What you say he did is not reasonable unless the bai offended against his honor.

It is an hour of crisis for Kesrith, in which this kel’en would have been of great service to the bai and to yourselves, surely.

The bai wishes his ship manned at all hours, and he wishes the crew, naturally—” The youngling moved uneasily, looking at Eddan, who did not move.

Then the wrinkle-enfolded eyes looked into Duncan’s, and the bai’s fingers tightened until it was hard not to wince.

Even the front walk was guttered with erosion channels, and with the sled grinding to a halt, bai Hulagh looked on that irregular surface with dread.

Yet in spite of this tradition of the ancestors, a bai now lied, to save lives, for a good cause and the welfare of two species: but the truth had been altered, all the same, and now the lie shaped truth to cover it.

It would not be seemly or lawful for me to refuse to send one of us with you in your need, o Hulagh, bai of Kesrith.