Serpent's Reach (12 page)

Dry, combed, composed, she hauled a sheet out of storage, wound into it and ventured the chill air of the outer rooms, back to the console with a new object in mind.

Jim’s papers were on the desk. She flicked through them, keyed in ship’s store with a few requests for display. Samples in simulacrum flashed onto the screen, accurate representation of his body-type with one and another suit. She indicated approval for several and put them on her account, selected a travelling case from the same source, along with an assortment of necessary personal items and a few of jewellery.

Doing so amused her. She anticipated his delight. But after the screens went dark and the only pleasant necessity of the morning had been cared for, she sat still on the bench and faced the prospect of Istra itself, of other things, in a sudden dark mood which had some origin in a morning headache.

Perhaps it was overmuch of drink the night before. She had certainly overindulged.

Perhaps it was the azi, who had a melancholy about him which touched strongly at her own.

She bestirred herself finally and dressed…plain, beige garments, close-fitting. And, which she had not done on the ship, she put on the sleeve-armour, which was simple ostentation. Light, jewel-toned chitin strung on the lightest of filaments, it ran from the living jewels of her right hand to her collar: the beauty of it pleased her, and the day wanted some ceremony, after such long voyaging.

She laughed bitterly, staring back at the replacement of her fortunes, who slept, still oblivious, and thought her all-powerful. Where it regarded a ship like
Andra’s Jewel
, this was surely so.

There were several cloaks among her belongings. She took out the beige one, and intended to put it on, to hide the sleeve armour, as it would hide the weapons she carried constantly when she left the stateroom. But it went back into the locker, the beige cloak; she fingered another, that was blue, white-bordered, forbidden.

Even to have it was defiance of the Family. In almost two decades no one had worn that Colour.

She did now, in the consciousness of isolation—quiet, furtive defiance; let some beta make inquiry, let some description and name be sent back to Council: at least let it be accurate, so that had they had missed all other signals, they might read this one, clear beyond all doubt. She shrugged it on, fastened it, looked back again at the azi.

Jim had worked himself into the farthest corner of the large bed, into the angle of the two walls, limbs tucked, foetal position. He had done it before, also in sleep. It was somewhat disconcerting, that defensive tactic; she had thought he had relaxed beyond it.

“Wake up:” she called sharply. “Jim. Wake up.”

He moved, disorganised for the moment; then untucked and sat up within the webbing. He rubbed at his eyes, wincing at what was likely a headache to match hers. He looked strangely lost, as if he had misplaced something essential this morning, perhaps himself.

He wanted time, she decided. She paid him no further attention, reckoning that the best thing. He stirred out after a moment, gathered up his clothes from the floor and went to the bath. There was long running of water, then the hum of the shower fans.

Cleanly
, Raen thought with approval. She keyed in the Operations channel and sank into a comfortable chair to wait, feet propped, listening to chatter, watching the screen with the mild interest of one who had been herself many times at the controls of a ship on station approach. The meticulous procedures and precautions of the big commercial liner were typically beta, fussy and over-cautious…but neither was putting a ship of this size into station berth a process forgiving of little errors. They would spend an amazing amount of time working in, nothing left to visual estimation.

Channel five afforded view of their destination: this was what she had been looking to see. There was the faint dot of the station, due to grow rapidly larger over the next few hours…and Istra, a bluish disc as yet without definition. On the upper quarter screen, filtered, was beta Hydri itself, the Serpent’s Tail, a malevolent brilliance which forecast less than paradise on Istra’s surface.

Two major continents, two ports onworld, a great deal of desert covering those two continents. The weather patterns of Istra bestowed rain in a serpentine belt, low on one continent and coastally on the other, storms breaking on an incredible mountain ridge which created wetlands coastward, and one of the most regrettable desolations of the Reach on the far side. The rainfall patterns never varied, not during all human occupancy. Such life as Istra supported before humans and majat came had never ascended to sapience…and such as dimly knew better had retreated from the vicinity of majat and humans both.

She had deepstudied Istra, and knew it with what information the tapes had to give. It was not populous. The onworld industry was agriculture, and that was sufficient for self-support: the Family had never thought it wise to turn its most prosperous face to the Outside, The world was merely support for the station, that was the real Istra: the agglomeration of docks and warehouses swinging in orbit about Istra was the largest man-made structure in the Reach, the channel for all trade which passed in and out.

It was a sight worth seeing if one were out this far. She meant to do so. But it was also true that facilities at this famous station were primitive and that ships other than freighters did not come here. It was actually possible to strand oneself in such a place, if she let the
Jewel
go.

She went bleakly sober, staring at the screen with greater and greater conviction that she should stay aboard the
Jewel
, ride her home again to the heart of the Reach, where a Kontrin belonged. Other acts of irritation she had committed, but this was something of quite different aspect. She had accomplished part of her purpose simply by coming this far.

The Family knew by now where she was; it was impossible that they had not noticed.

An infinite lifespan, and enforced idleness, enforced uselessness, enforced solitude: it was a torment in which any variance was momentous, in which the prospect of change was paralysing. It might have taken her. The Family had planned that it should, that finally, it would take her.

Her lips tautened in a hateful smile. She was still sane, a marginal sanity, she reckoned. That she was here—at the Edge—was a triumph of will.

The blue light began to blink in the overhead: room service. She rose and started for the door, remembered that she had not yet clipped her gun to her belt and paused to do so.

It was, after all, only two of the azi, bringing breakfast and the purchases from the store. She admitted them, and stood by the open door while they set breakfast on the table and laid the packages on the bench, a considerable stack of them.

To take such a breakfast, from uncontrolled sources…was a calculated risk, a roll of the dice with advantageous odds here in the
Jewel’s
closed environment; but stakes all the same greater than she had hazarded in the salon. Accepting the packages was such a risk. The voyage, unguarded, among strangers, was a monumental one. Or taking an azi such as Jim: the tiny triangle tattooed under his eye was real, the serial number tattooed on his shoulder was likewise, and both faded with age as they should be; that eliminated one possibility…but not the chance that someone could have corrupted him with programs involving murder. Such risks provided daily diversion—necessary chances; one regarded them as that or went insane from the stress. One gambled. She smiled as the two bowed, their duties done; and over-tipped them extravagantly—another self-indulgence: the delight in their faces gave her vicarious pleasure. She was excited with the purchases she had made for Jim, anxious for his reaction. His melancholy was a challenge…simpler, perhaps, and more accessible than her own.

“Jim,” she called, “come out here.”

He came, half-dressed in his own uniform, his hair a little disordered, his skin still flushed from the heat of the shower. She offered the packages to him, and he was somewhat overwhelmed, it seemed, with the abundance of things.

He sat down and looked through the smaller packages, fingered the plastic-wrapped clothing and the fine suede boots, the travelling case. One small box held a watch, a very expensive one. He touched the face of it, closed the box again and set it aside. No smile touched his face, no hint of pleasure, but rather blankness…bewilderment.

“They ought to fit,” she said, when he failed of the happiness she had hoped for. She shrugged, defeated, finding him a greater challenge than she had thought. “Breakfast is cooling. Hurry up.”

He came to the table then, stood waiting for her to sit down. His precise courtesy irritated her, for it was mechanical; but she said nothing, and took her place, let him adjust her chair. He sat down after, gathered up his fork after she had picked up hers, and took his first bite only after she did. He ate without once looking at her.

Still, she persuaded herself, he was remarkably adaptable. Limited sensitivity, the betas insisted of the azi they created, what might otherwise have seemed abuses. She had not understood that when she was a child: there had been Lia, who had loved her; and she had loved Lia. But it was true that azi did not react to things in the way of born-men, and that there were, among them, no more Lias, never one that she had found.

Genetically determined insensitivity? she wondered, staring at Jim. She refused to believe it. Kontrin geneticists had never worked in terms so ill-defined as the ego and the emotions: and, Meth-maren, she knew the labs better than most. No, there had to be specific biological changes, unless betas knew something Kontrin did not, and she refused to believe that: there had to be something, some single, simple alteration, unaided by majat.

Less sensitivity to physical pain? She could conceive how that might be done, and it would have psychological consequences…advantageous, within limits. The biological self-destruct in-built in azi evidenced some beta expertise with gene-tampering.

Jim intrigued her suddenly, in that monomaniac way that she filled her days, even important ones, with distractions. She found herself thinking of home, and of comforts, and of Lia’s human warmth; and ordinarily she would have stopped herself at this point, dead-stopped, but that there was a distance possible this day, in this place, and she felt, suddenly, that life owed her something of comfort, some last self-indulgence, some…

And there the thoughts
did
stop. She turned them cold, and made the question merely intellectual, and useful, the matter of gaining knowledge. Jim was a puzzle, one fit for the time—not easy. She had the strange realisation that they were a puzzle she had never wondered about, the azi—a presence too useful and ordinary to question; as she wore clothing, and never perceived the technical skills involved in its making, until she had chanced to desire a cloak made, and had stirred herself to visit a place that might manage it. She had discovered by that, a marvellous workshop of threads and colours and machines, and an old beta who handmade things for the joy of them, who found pleasure in the chance to work with rare major silk. There was behind the production of the cloth an entire chain of ancient arts, which had quite awed her—at distance: there were gifts and gifts, and hers was not creative.

It was that manner of insight with the azi, had been so from the first night of the game, although it was only now she realised why the game had mattered: she had filled her time with it, and gained occupation—anesthetic for the mind, such occupations, a near-at-hand focus, a work of art to analyse and understand.

The highest one, perhaps. Weaving, sculpting, the composing of poetry—what more than this, that Kontrin left betas to practice? They made men.

His face was surely not unique: there would be others identical to him, at various ages, scattered across the vicinity of Andra. They would be high types, as he was: technicians, house-officers, supervisors, foremen, guards, entertainers—the latter a euphemism on jaded Meron, where anything could be done; a great many of his doubles were likely majat azi, for majat prized cleverness. That he was also pleasant decoration to an establishment would not occur to the majat, whose eyes could not determine that, but it obviously occurred to Andra Lines. All the serving-azi were of that very expensive class, although no two of them were alike. Obviously they were to please the passengers in capacities outside the salon, and Jim seemed to have had some experience of such duties. It was wasteful, as the elaborate decor of the ship was wasteful and extravagant, to settle the most sensitive and capable of azi to tasks far beneath their mental capacity. But that was typical of beta-ish ostentation: if one could pay, one bought and displayed, even if it was completely senseless.

Jim finished his breakfast and sat, staring at the plate between his hands, probably unsure what to do next, but looking distressingly like a machine out of program.

Many, many azi
were
machinelike, incapable of even basic function when diverted from their precise series of duties, or taken from the specific house or factory to which they belonged. A few even went catatonic and had to be terminated if they could not be shocked out of it and retrained. But Jim, had he won the wager, could have passed for beta…save for the tattoo; he was capable of living on his own: he was of that order, as mentally alert as any born-man.

Lia had been such.

Jim looked up finally, perhaps conscious of her concentration on him. There was again that sadness…the same that she had met in the night, a deep and unreachable melancholy, the same that had faced her mirror-wise across the gaming table: suspicion, perhaps, that some games were not for winning, even if they had to be played out.

“You don’t ask questions,” she said.

He still did not.

“We’re going to Istra,” she said.

“I’ll leave with you, then.”

That sounded like a question. She realised the drift of his previous thoughts, and leaned back, still studying him. “Yes. You should be well-accustomed to travelling, oughtn’t you? Haven’t you ever wanted to go downworld? I should think you might have had some curiosity about the ports this ship touches.”