Suddenly she was on her feet, shaken with a wild anger. The flung cup arched out into emptiness with maddening slowness; there was nothing on the planets or between that could express the wash of loathing she felt. They were there, too, the Yankees, the destroyers of all happiness, the oaf-lump impediment that stood always in the Race’s path. This single city, an ornament above a fortress, when the Moon might be laced with them like living jewels. Scorched meat made of lordly golden boys who should be here playing tag with eagles, or going out to make green paradise of frozen Mars and burning Venus. Always intriguing, threatening with their sly greasy-souled merchant cunning, menacing the future of her blood. Gwen, Nikki, Holden, Johanna still unborn, whose years ought to stretch out before them like diamonds in the sun . . .
“I will be back with them, in you despite,” she said in tones quiet and even and measured. “Everythin’ you are, we’ll bring to nothin’; we’ll grind you bones to make our bread, and you children will serve mine until the end of days.”
With an effort she turned back into the office. A consummation devoutly to be wished, she thought. To which end, I’m going to get Uncle Eric to tell me precisely what’s been goin’ on here.
“Message,” she said to the sensors. “Strategos Alman Witter, Vice-Commandant; Allie, I’m droppin’ down to HQ fo’ the week. You step in as per, stay on top of the patrol incident an’ keep me posted soonest. Message: Transport, Aresopolis to Archona”—she looked at her desk: 2140—“departin’ 1100 to 1200 tomorrow. Message: private, code follows—”
“One-hundred-forty-nine, one-hundred-fifty,” Marya Lefarge gasped as she finished the series of situps, and sank back on the exercise table, panting.
No more. That finished her daily three-hour program, but there was a druglike pleasure to exhaustion as hard to fight as sloth. The 1-G exercise chamber was crowded and close, a slight smell of sweat among the machinery that glistened in the overhead sunlamps. The floor had a slight but perceptible curve; it was a wedge section of a giant wheel spinning deep beneath Aresopolis. Dual purpose like most things offplanet, a flywheel storing energy for burst use, but time here was still limited and rationed. Most of the occupants were pregnant brooders, wearily putting in their minimum on exercise bicycles, with a scattering of others whose owner’s credits allowed or tasks required high-gravity maintenance. Mostly they leafed through picture books, listened to music on ear plugs or chattered among themselves, leaving her in a bubble of silence.
Cows, she thought bitterly, looking at them as she swung her legs off the table. Then: That’s unfair. Not their fault. Some of them looked back at her out of the corners of their eyes, then away again. She felt the slight ever-present tug of the controller cuff on her right wrist, more than enough reason to shun her; who knew what she had done, to need an instant pain paralyzer? Guilt was contagious, especially here, where every word and gesture were observed by the never-sleeping senses of the computers and the endless probing vigilance of the AI programs.
There was a man working with spring weights near her who did not look away. Handsome, younger than she, a Eurasian with smooth olive skin and bright blue eyes; he smiled, lifted his brows. Lithe-bodied and strong, he could be anything from a dancer to a Janissary . . . Why not, she thought, hesitating a second, then shook her head as she smiled and left, towel thrown over one shoulder. She felt his eyes on her neck, memorizing her number. Probably he could reference it through Records; probably he would sheer off when he learned who owned her.
And it would be too easy, too easy to make yourself comfortable with little compromises until there was nothing left. Better not to start, just as it was better not to talk too much. When every word could kill, talk meant fear. Fear until you censored the words, then the dangerous thoughts to make that easier, then stopped having the thoughts. Better to talk to yourself in the safety of your head.
Marya walked inward toward the hub, up steps that gradually flattened into floor as the centrifugal force weakened and lunar gravity took over. She ignored the faint ferris-wheel feeling of disorientation from her inner ears and halted before the gate; it slid open, and she stepped into the narrow chamber and pressed her back against the antispinward wall. There was a brief pressure as the inner ring of the wheel slowed and stopped; the inner door opened, and she walked through into the hub.
Showers and sauna were crowded, too, but at least they were not open-plan. She stripped off the exercise shorts and threw the disposable fabric into a hamper, nodding to a few persons she knew as she waited in line for a cubicle, studying herself in the mirrored walls. Not bad, she decided. Especially for fifty; not much sagging, although of course the light gravity helped, and the daily exercise she had kept up as a silent gesture of self-respect . . . and the fact that Strategos Yolande Ingolfsson bought her personal servants top-flight Citizen Level medical care, which meant the best in the solar system. Viral DNA repair, cellular waste removal, synthormone implants, calcium boost, the works. There were strands of silver in her long black hair, crow’s-feet beside her eyes, but for the rest she could have passed for mid-thirties.
A woman in her mid-thirties who had borne a child and breastfed it. Her fingers traced lightly over the cracked-eggshell pattern on the taut muscle of her stomach.
“Not now,” she murmured to herself, her eyelids drooping down as she turned attention within, finding the pattern of calm. Her gaze was cool as she raised it back to the mirror. Yes, not bad. That could be important, she thought with cold realism. Things are moving to a crisis; you’ve got to know. Clandestine-ops mode. Think of yourself as a sleeper. She grinned sardonically at the joke as she stepped into the vacated cubicle.
* * *
“Sector Three, level two,” the transporter capsule said.
The lid hissed open, and Yolande stepped out into the station, past the unmoving guards. Probably unnecessary; the machinery would simply not obey unauthorized personnel. On the other hand, there were ways to fool machinery, and it was not in the Draka nature to trust too completely to cybernetics. The Orpos were the regular pair, and saluted briskly; she blinked back to awareness of her surroundings and returned it. Downside there might have been actual physical checks.
Lucky we’re not quite settled enough to start importing surplus bureaucrats, she thought wearily. Sector Three was command residence country; Civil, War Directorate, Security and Combines both; status was being close to the main transport station. Yolande sighed slightly as she palmed the lock of her outer door; the inner slid open as the corridor portal cycled shut, another emergency airlock system. It might have been more efficient to pack everything close together in one spot, but this was supposed to be a fortress. Carving rock was no problem either, not when the original function of Aresopolis had been to throw material into Earth orbit to armor battle stations. So the city beneath was a series of redundantly-linked modules, any of which could function independently for a long, long time.
“Hiyo, Mistis,” Jolene said, waiting with a hot lemonade. The entranceway was a circular room ten meters in diameter, with a domed roof over a central pool and fountain. The walls were holo panels between half-columns, right now set to show a steppe landscape: rolling green hills fading into a huge sky, wind rippling the grass, distant antelope.