Free The Best of All Possible Worlds by Karen Lord

promise. Joral’s face was more conflicted: subtle shades of
     anger and grief mingled with awe and gratitude. Dllenahkh … the first brilliance had
     faded, tempered with sorrowful acceptance, but still he smiled.
    I don’t know how long the team stayed on the hill—the Cygnians watching the Sadiri,
     the Sadiri watching the dogs. I left them there and went for a short walk and a cry
     before going back to camp. I wanted to be the first to tell Dr. Daniyel all about
     it when she woke up.

HAPPY FAMILIES
    “ S o,” I said to Qeturah, “I have this friend …”
    She gave me a smile. It was the classic opening line for any counseling session. “Go
     on,” she prompted.
    “Well, they’ve got some fairly strict ethics about stuff like … telepathy and emotional
     control and such. They feel pretty strongly about it. Thing is, they’ve had to deal
     with a situation where someone was operating without those ethics.”
    “I see,” she said. “Did they feel vulnerable in this situation?”
    “Maybe they did. Maybe they felt they were strong enough to handle any direct attack.
     But I think what’s worse is that they felt responsible for others who might be hurt
     by this person.”
    “The person without the ethical standards,” she queried.
    “Yes. Because no one else seemed to think that there was anything wrong with how that
     person was behaving. Maybe they couldn’t see it, or maybe they thought it was normal.
     I don’t know. I think I’m kind of afraid to ask.”
    “What do you want for your friend?” she asked quietly.
    “I want them to feel … like they don’t always have to be responsible for other people.
     Like it’s okay to not be the strong one all the time. Maybe even okay to ask for help.”
    She was silent for a while. “Well,” she said carefully, “you can let your friend know
     that if they ever want to ask for help, I’m here to listen, I won’t judge, and I have
     ways of getting things done without breaching confidentiality.”
    I swallowed, feeling a thickness in my throat. “Yes, ma’am. Thank you. I hope I can
     get my friend to come talk to you directly.”
    Some people might think it’s kind of strange having your boss also be your doctor
     and psychiatrist, but we were a small team and Qeturah was a very good small-team
     leader. She took an interest in everyone, and she knew instinctively which voice to
     use and which hat to wear in which context. There were a lot of hats to juggle over
     the next few days. Central Government wanted the Sadiri and the Commissioner to come
     in for an inquiry about the situation in Candirú, which remained volatile. The day
     after the flight from Candirú, we were off to Ophir, the nearest town with full facilities
     for teleconferencing.
    Dllenahkh gave his brief testimony first. There was a Sadiri savant among the investigators,
     and though he spoke little, he looked at Dllenahkh as if cataloging any and every
     sign of unusual behavior. Superficially, Dllenahkh seemed fine to me apart from an
     air of constant preoccupation, yet I was aware that unexpectedly discovering a much-loved
     breed of hometown fauna isn’t really what you might call a complete cure. That Sadiri
     savant must have seen something I missed, because during the tea break, Qeturah was
     kept in for a brief private consultation that then turned into orders for me.
    “Delarua, you know the Montserrat region pretty well?” she said as soon as she emerged
     from the meeting room.
    “I’ve got some family there; why?” I asked. Instinct honed by years of experience
     in the Civil Service made me drain my teacup and reach for an extra slice of cake
     to add to my napkin. It wasgood cake, and I didn’t want a little thing like duty getting in the way of enjoying
     it.
    “I want you to go with Councillor Dllenahkh to the Benedictine monastery at Montserrat.
     They’ve got a Sadiri priest and some monks housed there, and they’ll help him realign