She shook her head violently, tripped over her own feet, and would have fallen if David hadn't caught her. "No. No. I don't want them to see me like this." She went on, sounding angry, but she had lapsed into khush, and he couldn't understand her.
"Cara, your tent?"
Cara frowned. "I have equipment out that's not in place yet. Put her in your tent, and you sleep in mine."
"Cara, we are both adults. I think we can manage to sleep together without-"
"David. May I remind you that we are in a foreign land, whose customs we do not know?"
"Lady in Heaven. She's not one of them. If it was some young jaran woman… all right. All right. I'll tuck her primly in and retire to your tent. Or Charles's, if it comes to that. Or wherever it is Marco sleeps. I suppose you're right, although I can't imagine why they would care and how they would know.'' Then he recalled the distant sentry. "Or, anyway, why they would care. She's a foreigner, too, after all."
"David."
"I'm going." He led the unprotesting Tess to his tent, going on a brief side trip to their portable toilet, which they were using until he could devise something more permanent. For an instant, listening outside the tiny square tent, he thought he was going to have to give Tess instructions on how to use the thing, but she emerged at last, staggering and catching onto him for balance.
He tried to talk to her. She did not reply. He was not entirely sure she understood him. She seemed morose more than anything, but at least she was not crying. David hated crying drunks. He helped her inside his tent, sealed her up inside the sleeping pouch, and retreated.
By the time he got back to Charles's tent, the party had moved on. He could hear its remains over in the Company enclave. Hyacinth was singing an obscene song in his grating falsetto, with one of the women-Oriana, perhaps-providing the contralto descant.
Charles and Marco sat alone under the awning, in darkness. "Well?" Charles asked when David appeared.
"I'm disgusted." David chose not to sit down.
"Yes," said Charles. "I don't remember Tess getting drunk habitually when she was at the university, and she certainly wasn't particularly happy there."
"Not with her," snapped David. "With you. You just sat by and let it happen."
Charles arched an eyebrow. "It is not my part to dictate Tess's behavior."
Marco made a noise in his throat, a short, caustic laugh. "Just her life."
"Do I scent a mutiny?" Charles asked good-naturedly.
Marco sighed and leaned back in his chair, balancing it on the back two legs. "No. You're right, of course. You can't afford to lose her."
"What the hell are you two talking about?" David demanded. "Why would you lose Tess?"
"Where is Tess?" Charles asked.
"In my tent, sleeping it off."
Marco slammed down his chair. "David, you'd better move her. Here, or into Cara's tent."
"Cara wouldn't take her. I'd hate to wake her up."
"No, it's fine," said Charles. "You can sleep here, David."
"Charles." Marco stood. "I don't think this is a good idea, unless you deliberately want to set up your authority against his."
"But I do, Marco. That's just the point. Within our encampment, we will act according to our laws. It is only once we step outside it that we acknowledge theirs. Once their laws penetrate our world, then we have lost Tess. Don't you see?"
"So you'll make a point of it now. And what about our poor David?"
"Yes," broke in David, bewildered. "What about poor David? What are you talking about? What do jaran laws have to do with losing Tess?" He paused. "And furthermore, why are you even bothering to jockey power with Bakhtiian? He's nothing. He's not even important."
Marco cast a measured glance at the jaran encampment. "Try telling that to the people whose countries he's overrunning. Or to him, for that matter."
"You know what I meant. I meant compared to the Chapalii Empire. To space. You haven't answered my question."
Marco tucked his hands into his belt and whistled softly.
Charles pulled off his gloves and stood up. "Tess is married to Bakhtiian, under jaran law. Now, I'm going to bed." He went inside. The tent flap slithered down after him.
"Sit down," said Marco congenially. "You look awful."
David sat down. He stared blankly at the night sky, at the stars. He could even trace a few constellations. Then he jumped to his feet. "She's sleeping in my tent!"
Marco laid a hand on his arm and, firmly but inexorably, sat David back down again. "Don't you see? Charles wants to make it clear that Tess is one of us, not one of them. Let her stay."
"With me as the sacrificial victim? No thank you."
"Goddess, David, do you think for a minute Charles has any intention of letting anyone in his party get hurt?
How is Bakhtiian to know it's your tent she's sleeping in, anyway? Or that she's sleeping here at all?"
"Why didn't you tell me!" David demanded.
"Sorry, I was under oath. I really am sorry, David."
Easy for him to say. "His wife." David formed the words as if they were alien, and taboo. "His wife."
"Go to bed," said Marco kindly, and left him.
David slept soundly and without dreams, but he woke at dawn. He crept out of Charles's tent into the quiet of their camp. Beyond, the jaran camp was full of life. He went to use the portable and to wash: inside the little tent, beside the commode, he had rigged up a sterilizing and recycling unit for wash water. The water was bitterly cold, and he wandered outside into the cold dawn to pace out the size block he would need to set up the solar minis. How to disguise them? What water source was the jaran camp using? How did they remain supplied? Was this a permanent camp, or did it move?
Ursula el Kawakami came up, looking revoltingly awake at such an early hour.
"What do you think, Ursula?" he asked. "Do you think this is their permanent camp? Or that they move?''
"Of course they move. 'They commonly feed many flocks of cows, mares, and sheep, for which reason they never stay in one place.' That's Marco Polo. And this can't be the entire army, although I'll get a better sense of their numbers when we tour the camp today. Foodstuffs and fodder for the animals alone would deplete any one area within weeks. Days, perhaps. This is a good site, though. Well chosen. Good grassland for the herds, and a river about half a mile to the south. Can you mock me up a map so I can get an estimate of how close we are to the settled agricultural lands to the south? My sense is that Bakhtiian has control over the western seaports and is consolidating his control over the southern borderlands now."
David chuckled. "In other words, I shouldn't build anything permanent here."
Ursula surveyed the square tent that the actors called The Necessary. "Certainly I think this is elaborate enough. It isn't as if we're on some kind of safari vacation on Tau Ceti Tierce, after all. This is-"
"— an interdicted planet." David settled his left hand on the back of his neck and contemplated the ring of canvas tents belonging to Soerensen's party. His four tiny name braids, dangling from the nape of his neck down to brush his shoulder blades, tickled his knuckles. "Yes, I know. Well, if you'll excuse me…"He escaped from Ursula's uncomfortable presence and walked over to his tent to see if Tess was awake.
She was. She was lying on her stomach with the heels of her palms cushioning her eyes.
"Hello, Tess." He crawled into the tent and knelt beside her.
"I have a headache," she said without moving her hands. But her Anglais was precise and clear. "Where am I?"
"In my tent. Oh, ah, this is David."
She made a disgusted noise in her throat. "I know it's David. What am I doing here? Never mind, I know the answer, and I would be churlish not to thank you for taking care of me. I must have made a fool of myself."
"A bit. Luckily some of the actors were drunk, so you weren't alone. And you were among friends."