“I might ask you the same question.” Tendlathe turned so that he was out of the sun and stood beside Warreven, looking back toward the Embankment and the bars of Dock Row above it. The burned-out shells of the bars made a conspicuous gap in the orderly row, and Warreven made a face, seeing it, thinking of the ghost ranas.
“I had business here—I am seraaliste now, remember, thanks to your father.”
“So you’re going through with that contract?” Tendlathe asked. His voice was mild, deceptively so, and Warreven lifted an eyebrow at him.
“Yes, I’m going through with it. I told you that last night. I’m not going to change my mind.”
“You’re making a mistake, dealing with these people,” Tendlathe said.
“It’s hardly Stane business, it’s our contract,” Warreven said, deliberately misunderstanding, and Tendlathe scowled.
“It’s Stane business, my business, because it’s politics. The system works as it stands—works very well, Raven, especially for your kind. I don’t know why you have to try to change it now.”
Warreven looked at him, silhouetted against the stage platform. The mosstaas commander was crouched on one corner, talking to a pair of troopers. “But it doesn’t work, Ten. You know that as well as I do.”
“It works well enough,” Tendlathe said, and sounded almost conciliatory. “We don’t need changes, not if it brings in the off-worlders.”
“Are you crazy?” Warreven glared at him. “We’ve already changed. We’ve been dealing with the off-worlders for exactly a hundred years, of course we’ve changed, only the system hasn’t caught up with us. And it’s breaking down because people like you won’t admit it.”
Tendlathe shook his head. “No, the system’s breaking down because people like you—” He waved his hand, the gesture barely indicating Warreven’s body. “—gellions, halvings, you don’t, you won’t admit there’s something wrong with you.”
“Fine,” Warreven said, through clenched teeth. His good intentions evaporated, fueled by the anger and the fear of the night before. “Treat it like it’s my fault for being born. But I do exist, we exist, halvings—” He broke off, angry that he’d used the old word, substituted the creole terms, awkward on the tongue. “—herms, mems, fems, and we’ve existed since our people left Earth. You can’t possibly believe it’s sin, unresisted entropy, whatever the vieuvants are calling it these days. Hyperlumin is mutagenic, it made us—space travel made us, you can’t go FTL without the drug.”
“That’s what the off-worlders say,” Tendlathe said. His face was tight and set behind the thin beard. “It’s their excuse. But we don’t have to be like them. We’re not the same.”
“We’re not that different, either,” Warreven said. “You talk like they’re aliens or something.”
“They are,” Tendlathe answered. “In every way that matters, they are aliens. That’s what this is really about, Raven, don’t you see? We aren’t like them, and we can’t become like them. We, what we are, is too important, we’re all that’s left of what people, human beings, are supposed to be, and if we change, that’s lost forever.”
Warreven stared at him for a long moment, shook his head to hide the fact that he had no idea what he should say. He could smell dried broadleaf kelp, wondered if a crate had broken open somewhere along the Gran’quai. “We’ve already changed. We’re the same species,” he said at last, and wasn’t surprised when Tendlathe shook his head.
“Not anymore we’re not. And I refuse to believe that they are human.”
“You’re fucking crazy,” Warreven said.
Tendlathe laughed. “I’m right. Right for Hara, anyway, right for us. Just because I recognize the truth doesn’t make me crazy.”
“If they’re not human,” Warreven said slowly, “what does that make me, Ten? I’m a herm, that’s real, I’ve got tits and a cock and a cunt, and what does that make me?”
“You can pass for a man,” Tendlathe said, after a moment. “You can make the effort.”
“Pass for human,” Warreven said bitterly. “Fuck you, Tendlathe.” He turned away, blind angry even in the relative shade, started toward the stairs that led to the Embankment. Tendlathe’s voice floated after him.
“I meant what I said, Warreven.”
Warreven swung around, seeing the dark shape against the sunset sky. “So did I.”
He took the long way to Blind Point, as much to give himself time to calm down as to avoid the streets where the ghost ranas had been seen. At the fountain that marked the intersection of Hauksey and Blakelams streets, he stopped and scooped water from the pool, splashing some on his face before he drank. The fountain on its raised triangle of land was quiet, as quiet as the Harbor Market, and he seated himself on its broad ledge, looking back toward the sea. Normally, the little square would be full of vendors, selling everything from sweetrum to feelgood and doutfire, but today there was only a thin herm with a half-empty basket of flowers. She was dressed like a woman in thin, clinging trousers and the traditional tight-laced bodice, carelessly stuffed to make her breasts seem larger than they were. From where he sat, Warreven could see the outline of the pads beneath the fabric. She saw him looking, and turned toward him, tucking her basket under her arm.
“Æ, brother, did you come from the Market?”
Warreven nodded, not moving.
“I have friends there,” she said, “and I worry.”
“They should be all right,” Warreven said. “I was there. The mosstaas shut down the ranas that were there—” He bit down hard on his own anger, seeing the same shock reflected in the other’s face, and continued more calmly. “Nobody was hurt, though, everyone went peaceably.”
The flower seller sighed, and set her basket between them on the lip of the basin. “That’s good news, brother.” She reached into the water, cupping a double handful, and drank noisily. She shook her hands, water still running down her chin, and said, “I heard there was going to be trouble. But I also heard that Temelathe told the mosstaas hands off.”
Warreven hissed between his teeth, the country sound that indicated incredulity. “I wouldn’t count on it, my sister.”
The flower seller shrugged, wiping her hands on her thighs. The fabric clung, sweat-damp, outlining thin legs. Warreven was suddenly aware of their shape, of the fullness in her— 3er—crotch, and the breasts padded to fill the too-large bodice. It had been years, it seemed, since he had looked at another halving, another herm, besides Haliday, and really seen the bodies that mirrored his own. And even Haliday had always seemed more man than herm or woman, if only because they’d been boys together…. And Haliday was right, he realized suddenly. They couldn’t pass, none of them, no matter how much they tried, at least not well enough to satisfy Tendlathe and the people like him.
“If they haven’t done anything,” the flower seller said, “it might be true.”
“They haven’t done anything yet,” Warreven said, and 3e grinned, revealing a missing tooth at the side of 3er mouth.
“And I don’t intend to count on that, my brother.” Ȝe hoisted 3er basket, resting it on 3er narrow hip—a woman’s gesture? a human gesture?—and stepped gracefully off the edge of the fountain.
He didn’t watch 3er go, suddenly, coldly, afraid.
~
Jillamie: (Hara) literally “girlfriend"; always very casual, and can easily become an insult.