“The more it changes. Venus 14 is enjoying its third government in two years, or was, when I left, who knows but they’re on their fourth by now, and Mars is threatening to send the Army in. Mars had their mid-term elections last summer, and the Newrose coalition lost. Cam Savenia was elected First Secretary of the Council.”
Paula turned around, startled. He nodded. “Check. She’s all for sending the fleet to Venus 14, she wants the Earth to admit all the Interplanetary Police apparatus and hold elections to the Council, she wants to null the Styth truce and cut off the trade between Mars and the Styth cities. She has a monomania about Saba. Never heard the name Tanuojin. Thinks Saba is plotting to take over the Universe. Fortunately, if Newrose has no majority, neither does the Sunlight League, and Dr. Savenia, I’m pleased to say, is no master of nuts and bolts politics.”
“No—she’s an actor on the stage of life.”
Bunker smiled at her. “Her opinion of you is baroque. Jefferson can handle her. So far. Somebody took a shot at General Marak.”
“Who?” She opened the top drawer in the desk, exposing a clutter of weapons, tapes, and small junk.
“I think the Sunlight League, but I hate them, so my opinion doesn’t count.”
“What do they think of you?” The other drawers held clothes. She went to the rack in the wall and looked in among Ketac’s shirts.
“What are you doing?” Bunker said.
“His mother will want to know how he’s living. What’s of interest to the Committee in Vribulo?”
“Your friends seem to be—”
“Don’t call them that.”
“I’m using the word in the Styth sense. They seem to be rising to new heights.”
She knelt by the bed and slid her hand under the mattress pad. Bunker was watching her sleepily. She said, “Saba is the Prima Cadet now, yes. I wouldn’t call that particularly high.” Deep under the mattress, her fingers grazed something long and flat. She tickled out a packet of papers.
“That depends on your ambitions, doesn’t it?” he said. “What you call high. Which is something I’d be interested to know.”
She slit the seam on the packet with her thumbnail and unfolded it. Inside was a coded message and a white card punched with holes and lines. She pressed the seam closed again and rammed the packet back under the bedpad.
“That certainly looked like the key for a photo-relay,” he said.
She stood up, frowning. Ketac was lying; he had heard from his father. That meant Ybix was coming home. She sat down next to Bunker’s feet, her mind busy with arithmetic. Certainly in that amount of time they could have gone no farther than the Asteroids.
“Is there anything else you want to tell me?” she asked.
“Something I want you to tell me. Who are you working for?”
Her gaze snapped up toward his face. “Anybody who will pay me. What kind of a question is that?”
Bunker leaned toward her, his body rolled into a ball. “Junior, I don’t know what you’ve talked yourself into. What I know is you are cheek to cheek with two men who shoot holes in the Universe as a matter of routine.”
She wiped her hand over her mouth, staring at him. Finally she called, “Ketac!”
The door creaked on its hinges. Ketac stepped in across the threshold. He had been listening to them. She waved at Bunker.
“Take him to Yekka. There’s a boat leaving in ten hours for Mars. Put him on it.”
“Why should I—”
“Damn it, Ketac,” she said, “don’t run me over. Get rid of him before Machou finds him.” She brushed past the young man into the next room.
MATUKO
When she left the bus in Matuko three strange men closed in around her. They hustled her off across the city to Dakkar’s compound, in the Tulan, the rich district. Dakkar was sitting in a chair under the biggest bilyobio tree in his yard. When she went up before him, he stood, swelling his chest with breath. She knew him little. He had his own family, and he and Saba disliked each other, so he seldom visited his father’s compound. He gave her a cold imperious stare.
“I can’t place you,” he said. “You don’t fit in. You aren’t a wife, you aren’t a slave, you live with him but you aren’t kindred. I don’t like things that don’t fit in, it makes me nervous. Why did you go to Vribulo?”
“It’s a nice ride,” she said.
“My father told me specifically to know where you are, all the time.”
She set her teeth together. “Well, that’s where I was. Vribulo.”
“You show me respect, woman.”
She raised her head. In the two-story house behind him, a window screen moved: someone watched them. Dakkar sat down in his chair. All around the curl of his ear little red stones glittered.
“Ask your brother,” she said. “I was with him the whole time.”
“My brother,” he said, contemptuous. “The next time you leave Matuko I’ll have you arrested.”
“May I go now?” she said. “Akellar.”
“Go.”
She went back through the Varyhus toward Saba’s compound. One of the men who had taken her to Dakkar followed her, making no attempt to stay hidden. In the little market between the Varyhus and the Lake District she stopped to buy a drink of water. The slave vendor recognized her.
“Out spying, nigger?” he said. “Sneaking around for the blacks?” She dropped the money and the cup into the street and walked away.
Several watches went by. Illy and David took up her energy. Illy’s constant demands had rubbed Paula’s feelings to callous. For the fifteenth time she made up her mind to break off the affair. As usual she decided to wait until Saba came back, which would muffle the explosion. David fought in the street, in the yard, with his brothers, with strangers. He was always battered. She wondered if he knew about her and Illy. With no warning, Dakkar had her dragged off across the city again.
He was sitting in the same chair where she had last seen him, as if he had not moved in twenty watches. Now there were three other men standing around him. When she was before him, he said, “Two watches ago a pack of slaves murdered an old man, down in the Varyhus. What do you know about it?”
“Nothing,” she said, impatiently.
“Do you recognize this dirt?” He flicked out his hand, and the man on his right gave her a holograph: a pale slab-jawed face.
“No,” she said. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen him.”
“It won’t do you any good to lie.”
She held the holograph out to his aide. Saba’s son scowled at her. Her temper was burning short. “I’m not lying,” she said.
“These street-dirt kicked and beat an old man to death.” His right hand on the arm of the chair flexed, unsheathing his claws. “You were seen talking to that slave in the Varyhus market.”
“Oh,” she said. “The water vendor. I don’t know anything about him.”
“There are half a million slaves in Matuko, and you talked to that one just by coincidence?”
“If you ask the slaves, Dakkar,” she said angrily, “you’ll find they don’t like me any more than you. Why don’t you leave me alone?”
“I can make you talk,” he said. He made a gesture, and his soldiers took her off behind the bilyobio tree. She stood uneasily watching Saba’s son while he signed a document and read a tape. He would not dare hurt her, or even threaten to hurt her. After a while two more of his men brought Pedasen into the yard.
Her stomach knotted. She sank her teeth into her lower lip. Dakkar straightened.
“Take them inside.”
She reached her house again in the low watch, lay down across her bed, and cried. When she ran out of tears and sobs, she rolled onto her back. David was standing at the foot of the bed. She sat up.