“Gorak watches all pilots; we don’t want that; the job takes me off his list.”
“As long as you’re supposed to be coughing your lungs out, he won’t bother his head over you.”
“If he believes it.”
“You think he’s going to push his way in here and time your spasms?”
“If he wants to, he will.” He rubbed at his eyes; he’d been noticing a haze-effect for several weeks. Eyes, lungs, his whole body was breaking down. He was averaging four hours’ sleep a night. It was weeks since he’d had any appetite, he hadn’t seen Lirrit for… how long? Gray day melted into gray day. He didn’t know how long. Too long. He hadn’t even thought about her for days. He closed his eyes, shivered as he realized he couldn’t bring her face to mind. No time for thinking, less for contemplating marriage; he and Lirrit would wed when times were easier, but in the miasma of weariness, fear, horror that usurped his day and dreamtime lately, it was impossible even to dream of such things. Maybe it was just as well he got out, he was running on autopilot, abdicating his responsibility to himself, depending on Elmas for direction and impetus. Some time to himself… he savored the thought, then put it aside. It wouldn’t happen this month or the next; there was too much to do. After then? Who knew, not he. “Zaraiz,” he said. “I don’t know him. How old is he? You told me his line name, but I don’t remember it.”
“Memeli. He’s a first year middler, no discipline, he’s insolent, a bad influence on everyone.” She slapped her hands on the chair arms. “Memeli, tchah! Had I been Ommar that generation, we wouldn’t have the problem, we never would have affiliated that collection of losers.”
Karrel Goza lowered his eyes, played with his cup. The intolerance of a Dalliss, her inability to see worth in folk who didn’t conform to her personal standards, it was the ugly side of their Ommar. He tilted the cup, gazed at the rocking tawny fluid as if he saw Elmas Ofka’s face there; that intolerance, that ignorance, that inflexibility were her faults too, they’d bothered him from the first. He’d forgotten that… no, not forgotten, he’d stopped thinking. With the end so close, yes, take the time, yes, go back to thinking, yes, be there to stand against her when the need arises, yes… Hands heavy with weariness, he rubbed the crackling from his eyes. “All right,” he said, “I’ll talk with the boy. Maybe it’ll do some good.” He coughed, gulped down a mouthful of the lukewarm tea. “In the morning,” he said, “locate Zaraiz Memeli for me; don’t bother him, just let me know where he is, I’ll collect him myself.”
“I will do that, yes.” She lifted the teapot, beckoned him over and refilled his cup with the aromatic liquid; she had expensive taste in teas and indulged it more than she should in times like this; sitting here, savoring the flavor, he resented it, his sweat and pain bought her these luxuries and she took them as her right when there were children of the House-not Goza, no, but of the House as much as any Goza child-who needed food, clothing, medicine. This can’t keep on, he thought, it has to change, we’ve got to make it change. He thought of the teacher at the Mines and what she’d been telling her students; it was not happy hearing; we’ll be different, he told himself, we’ll make this work. When he was seated again, she said, “Ommars tell me that slaves are disappearing, not one or two but whole chains of them.”
“Oh?”
“Is that all you’re going to say?”
“Yes.”
The Ommar leaned forward again, her eyes fixed on him, trying to get past the face he presented to her. After a minute she sucked at her teeth, shook her head. “This can’t go on,” she said.
He looked up, startled by the echo of what he’d been thinking; then he realized that she meant something far different.
“Inci is better off than most from what I hear, but give her another few months and she’ll be burning down around us. Before Herk lets that happen, he’ll call on the stingers and blast those lunatic children out of the air and he won’t care what else he levels. I’m telling you, Kar, you tell her and the rest of them. Do something. If her lot won’t or can’t, then we crawl to Herk and lick his toes. We’ve got no time left for playing hero games.”
He got heavily to his feet; it was more difficult than he’d expected. The comfort of that chair, the warmth of the room, the soothing fragrance of the chamwood burning on the hearth, these things were like chains on his arms and legs. At the door he turned. “I will pass your message on, Hanifa Ommar, but I will say this, though I probably am talking too much, this is not a good time to insult her.” He went out.
3
Zaraiz Memeli was a small youth, black hair curling tightly about a face sharp enough to cut wood. He was digging without enthusiasm at a tuber bed, leaning on his spading fork whenever the harassed middler girl turned her back on him to deal with some especially egregious idiocy of another of her punishment detail. She had to keep watch on the garden, the laundry room and a workshed where three girls were sorting rags and stripping discards of reusable parts. Usually there would be several middlers acting as overseers. Karrel Goza found this lone harried girl even more disturbing than the aberration he was supposed to deal with this morning. Why was she alone? Was the Ommar losing her grip, letting work details fall apart? Was she letting favorites play on pride and refuse such work? He didn’t know his home any longer. His fault. The Ommar was right that far. So busy saving the world he forgot about his Family; he was almost a stranger here. For the past year anyway. Up at dawn, hasty breakfast, toast and a cup of tea, maybe a sausage if he could force it down, then the retting shed, work there till the second shift came on, midafternoon, scrub the chemical stink off his body, try to get the taint of it out of his lungs, eat if he could, tumble into bed for a restless nightmare-ridden nap; dark come down, off to the taverns for carousing or conspiring or out to the Mines to fly for Elmas Ofka, his attention turned outward always, the House too familiar for him to see it; he simply assumed that it continued to exist as it existed in his memory. By the time he reached the tuber patch off the Memeli Court, he was in no mood to put up with sass from a know-nothing bebek who was setting the House in danger with no purpose except to tickle his urges.
“Zaraiz Memeli.”
The boy looked up after a deliberate pause, his face guarded. Custom and courtesy required a response; he leaned on his fork in a silence more insolent than words.
Karrel Goza swallowed bile and kept his temper. “Come,” he said. This wasn’t starting out well and he didn’t see how he could improve things, but he slogged stubbornly on. The young overseer came at a quick trot, questions on her lips. He silenced her with the Ommar’s order, took the fork from Zaraiz Memeli and gave it to her. He tapped Zaraiz on the shoulder and pointed toward the Memeli court. “We’ll talk there.”
Eyes like obsidian, wrapped in a resistant silence, the boy strolled along, refusing to recognize the compulsion put on him. A sly scornful smile sneaked onto his face as Karrel pushed through the wicket and stopped, the noise and clutter of the busy enclosure breaking around him. Crawlers and pre-youngers littered the flags, crying, yelling, playing slap-and-punch games; older prees chased each other around the baby herds and their mothers, fathers, uncles, aunts, cousins who were working, singing, cross-talking in endless antiphon, a tapestry of sound.
Karrel Goza glanced at the boy, watched his bony unfinished face go wooden and unresponsive. For a moment he felt like strangling the pest, then, abruptly, he didn’t know why then or later, the absurdity of the whole thing hit him and he laughed. “Not here, obviously,” he said and backed out. He frowned at Zaraiz. There was always the Ommar’s garden, but instinct and intellect told him that would be a very bad idea; the peace and lushness of that pocket paradise was too stark a contrast to the Memeli Court, it would exacerbate the boy’s disaffection. He thought about leaving the House and walking out to the wharves, but he was supposed to be down sick and it would be stupid to confirm the Sech’s suspicions. Problem was, except for the Ommar’s quarters, there wasn’t much privacy, Gozas and Duvvars and Memelis working everywhere, even the oldest doing handcraft and repair, and those who weren’t working were talking and watching, gossiping and prying into other folk’s business. He dug deep into memory for the places he went when he was a younger and wanted to get away from the soup of life simmering inside the Housewalls. He didn’t feel like climbing a tree or burrowing into a dust-saturated attic; he smiled, didn’t suit the dignity of the moment. It was a gray day with rain threatening; yes, the clotheslines on the roof of the weaving shed, there wouldn’t be anyone hanging out clothes today.