Yama said, “Why did they not give up the strike?”
“They did, after twenty days. They would have held out longer, but there were children, and there were people who didn’t live there at all but happened to be passing through when the blockade went up. So they presented a petition of surrender, but the magistrates kept the siege going as punishment. That kind of thing is supposed to make the rest of us too frightened to spit unless we get permission.”
Tamora said, “There’s no other way. There are too many people living in the city, and most are fools or grazers. An argument between neighbors can turn into a feud between bloodlines, with thousands killed. Instead, the magistrates or the militia kill two or three, or even a hundred if necessary, and the matter is settled before it spreads. There are a dozen bloodlines they could get rid of and no one would notice.”
“We’re the strength of Ys,” Pandaras said defiantly, and for once Tamora didn’t answer back.
They reached the docks late in the afternoon. The same stocky, shaven-headed guard met them in the shadow of the lighter. He looked at the brandy-filled flask and the strings of nerve tissue that floated inside and said that he had already heard that the merchant was dead.
Tamora said, “Then we’ll just take our money and go.”
Yama said to the guard, “You said you would need to test what we brought.”
The guard said, “The whole city knows that he was killed last night. To be frank, we would have preferred less attention drawn to it, but we are happy that the task was done. Do not worry. We will pay you.”
“Then let’s do it now,” Tamora said, “and we’ll be on our way.”
Yama said quickly, “But we have made an agreement. I would have it seen through to the letter. Your master wanted to test what we brought, and I would have it done no other way, to prove that we are honest.”
The guard stared hard at Yama, then said, “I would not insult you by failing to carry out everything we agreed. Come with me.”
As they followed the guard up the gangway, Tamora caught Yama’s arm and whispered fiercely, “This is a foolish risk. We do the job, we take the money, we go. Who cares what they think of us? Complications are dangerous, especially with the star-sailors, and we have an appointment at the Water Market.”
“I have my reasons,” Yama said stubbornly. “You and Pandaras can wait on the dock, or go on to the Water Market, just as you please.”
He had thought it over as they had walked through the streets of the city to the wharf where the voidship lighter was moored. The star-sailor who piloted the lighter had said that it knew something of Yama’s bloodline, and even if it was only one tenth of what the merchant had claimed to know, it was still worth learning. Yama was prepared to pay for the knowledge, and he thought that he knew a sure way of getting at it if the star-sailor refused to tell him anything.
Inside the ship, in the round room at the top of the spiral corridor, the guard uncapped the crystal flask and poured its contents onto the black floor, which quickly absorbed the brandy and the strings of nervous tissue. He set the gold circlet on his scarred, shaven scalp and jerked to attention.
His mouth worked, and he said in a voice not his own, “This one will pay you. What else do you want of me?”
Yama addressed the fleshy blossom which floated inside its bottle. “I talked with your crewmate before he died. He said that he knew something of my bloodline.”
The star-sailor said through its human mouthpiece, “No doubt he said many things to save his life.”
“This was when he had me prisoner, and my friends, too.”
“Then perhaps he was boasting. You must understand that he was mad. He had corrupted himself with the desires of the flesh.”
“I remember you said that I had abilities that might be useful.”
“I was mistaken. They have proved . . . inconvenient. You have no control over what you can do.”
Tamora said, “We should leave this. Yama, I’ll help you find out what you want to know, but in the Palace of the Memory of the People, not here. We made a deal.”
Yama said stubbornly, “I have not forgotten. The few questions I want to ask will not end my quest, but they may aid it.” He turned back to the thing in the bottle. “I will waive my part of the fee for the murder of your crewmate if you will help me understand what he told me.”
Tamora said, “Don’t listen to him, dominie! He hasn’t the right to make that bargain!”
The guard’s mouth opened and closed. His chin was slick with saliva. He said, “He was driven mad by the desires of the flesh. I, however, am not mad. I have nothing to say to you unless you can prove that you know what you are. Return then, and we can talk.”
“If I knew that, I would have nothing to ask you.”
Tamora grabbed Yama’s arm. “You’re risking everything, you fool. Come on!”
Yama tried to free himself, but Tamora’s grip was unyielding and her sharp nails dug into his flesh until blood ran. He stepped in close, thinking to throw her from his hip, but she knew that trick and butted him on the bridge of his nose with her forehead. A blinding spike of pain shot through his head and tears sprang to his eyes. Tamora twisted his arm up behind his back and started to drag him across the room to the dilated doorway, but Pandaras wrapped himself around her legs and fastened his sharp teeth on her thigh. Tamora howled and Yama pulled free and flung himself at the guard, ripping the gold circlet from the man’s head and jamming it on his own.
White light.
White noise.
Something was in his head. It fled even as he noticed it and he turned in a direction he had not seen before and flew after it. It was a woman, a naked, graceful woman with pale skin and long black hair that fanned out behind her as she soared through clashing currents of light. Even as she fled, she kept looking back over her bare shoulder. Her eyes blazed with a desperate light.
Yama followed with mounting exhilaration. He seemed to be connected to her through a kind of cord that was growing shorter and stronger, and he twisted and turned after his quarry without thought as they plunged together through interlaced strands of light.
Others were pacing them on either side, and beyond these unseen presences Yama could feel a vast congregation, mostly in clusters as distant and faint as the halo stars. They were the crews of the voidships, meeting together in this country of the mind, in which they swam as easily as fish in the river. Whenever Yama turned his attention to one or another of these clusters, he felt an airy expansion and a fleeting glimpse of the combined light of other minds, as if through a window whose shutters are flung back to greet the rising sun. In every case the minds he touched with his mind recoiled; the shutters slammed; the light faded. In his desperate chase after the woman through the country of the mind, Yama left behind a growing wake of confused and scandalized inhabitants. They called on something, a guardian or watchdog, and it rose toward Yama like a pressure wave, angling through unseen dimensions like a pike gliding effortlessly through water toward a duckling paddling on the surface. Yama doubled and redoubled his effort to catch the woman, and was almost on her when white light blinded him and white noise roared in his ears and a black floor flew up and struck him with all the weight of the world.