The Braided World (22 page)

“It is the law,” the king said. He let a feral smile claim the moment, but his eyes were hard as fused glass. He turned to

Maypong. “Tell him that it is granted.” And then he strode from the clearing. Slowly, the viven followed.

Anton watched Vidori go. Well, it was over then, their friendship. He and his crew would be outside the palace now, under Anton's authority. Now that the king's authority was intolerable. So be it.

He realized he was still gripping Maypong's hand. Her face was so pale it looked as if she were wearing a mask of silver, but it was only the rain. He released her hand, realizing with an odd emptiness that she had at last become his true chancellor.

When all the viven had left, Maypong and Anton followed. They were not to bury the hoda. Anton would not be allowed to so much as cover her body. Even the hoda would not allow it.

As they left the enclosure of the trees, the king's raptor came flapping into the marshes, flying to Vidori's wrist, obedient.

Behind Anton, from the clearing, he heard the slaves singing, but softly.

DOMINION OF CLOUDS

In the mist, the sun sat hazy and low in the sky, like
melting butter. Standing on the island of land the mission claimed as its own, Nick watched the sunset with mixed feelings. There was so much beauty here. But a few meters away, the rotting carcass of a quasi-monkey lay tangled in floating tree branches, another marker of the great storm that had wreaked such havoc on the Olagong.

This world had two faces. It was an almost happy land of palace-raised and slave-raised. And Nick was split in two as well: He thought he'd cracked the world's secret, with the discovery of the immune-boosting langva; on the other hand he was dying.

Of the same thing they were all going to die of. Oh, death was afoot, and now it had kicked him in the gut. The little rosy growths on his skin were just showing below the cuff of his shirt. He pulled the cuff down.

He didn't want to die. God, life was more precious than ever. He didn't want to die at twenty-four, before he'd made his life worth something. As a test subject for what langva could do. For humanity's pri. All he had were a few hints
from Oleel. But in this land of hints and innuendo, this world of deep jungle and murky waters, he may have made a breakthrough.

The sun was going down fast, as it did in this part of the world. He welcomed it, knowing he looked bad in daylight, and needing just a little more time. Zhen still took the daily blood samples, popping them into the rack for analysis, but he had no worry on that score. He'd reconfigured the program to read Anton's blood sample twice, in place of one for Nick Venning. Anton had been pronounced clean. So had Nick.

It was poetic justice, that Anton should provide cover for Nick. Anton had made his own shipmate irrelevant, traded the mission's anthropologist for the native one, Maypong. Nick was an appendage, good for errands and construction projects, but not vital anymore. Because Anton couldn't stand to take advice, couldn't stand to be wrong.

Water formed at the corners of his eyes. The Olagong was so lovely, even though the glare of the sunset deepened his headache.

He noticed every small pain from his body wondering if it was the infection. He was exhausted, yet tense. He had a light case of diarrhea, despite Oleel's infusions. Or maybe
because
of her infusions. He accepted that there might be side effects. But so far, there was just a slight fever, and unlike Strahan and the others, he was still on his feet a week after the first symptoms.

He mused that he might feel healthier if his dose were stronger—especially since he'd given half his most recent dose to Zhen to analyze. He'd made up a story for her, that he'd persuaded an old Dassa man to give him some, that he'd even tried a taste and it had made him feel energetic.

“You tried a local medicine?” Zhen said, incredulous. But it was a plausible story, because Zhen thought he was stupid anyway. He pulled his cuff down again, over the spot on his wrist. He disguised a similar spot on his cheek with a stubby
growth of beard. People noticed he didn't look well, but ascribed it to the Dassa potion.

Nick walked out onto the small dock he and Anton had built. At his hip was the mission's one side arm—loaded, in case anyone threatened Zhen. Anton judged that the king would allow them to protect Zhen with force. Nick hoped he wouldn't be asked to kill a Dassa for the sake of someone like Zhen. But he kept an eye out for trouble, all the while searching the Puldar upriver for both Bailey's and Anton's skiffs, which should be returning soon. Bailey was at Samwan's compound. Maypong and Anton were off trying for an interview with the judipon.

The judipon. It took a murdered pregnant hoda to do it, but at last Anton had heeded Nick's advice and reached out to the other powers. Easier to do, now that Vidori was off this past week leading a sortie along the border. Anton was fond of the easy route—when what they needed was the
fast route.
For the crew's sake. Sergeant Webb was scared; Nick could hear it in his voice. In two weeks, the new outbreak had killed eight crew members—a 90 percent fatality rate, leaving the crew numbers badly depleted at twenty-two. And some of those were sick. Odd. Usually virulent strains weren't fast. The microbes had no future if they killed off all the hosts. Well, maybe for the next go-round, the virus would learn to go easy. Of course, by then, there'd be no crew left.

Zhen's shadow moved against the wall of her work hut. She was always working, oblivious to the fact that one side arm was little protection from fanatics. Zhen's lab was the first thing they'd built, a sturdy hut protecting her equipment that Vidori had summarily dumped in the center of the islet. Next came construction of the elaborate composting toilet system and a bartered-for water pump and generator. Then, having assured herself that the river laws were being followed, Maypong finally approved the building of sleeping huts.

Nick made his way to the crew hut, sitting on the steps,
and turned on his tronic notepad. Every time he saw the uldia, he added to his schematic of Oleel's pavilion. He thought there might be something to learn, maybe even something hidden by the ancient race itself. Oleel said the uldia's compound was built as a replica of the original stone home of the Quadi. Which, in turn, was a replica of the Olagong. There were the river courses set into the floor of the courtyard. Different rooms were islets—or islets as they once were, before the shifting erosion of the river. There were river steps, where all of the floor streams spilled out again into the Amalang River, just as the Sodesh poured into the great world ocean.

Who, in God's name, were the Quadi? How advanced might they be? And why had they abandoned this world without a trace of themselves? Perhaps, as Anton said, they didn't wish to be known, or it was of no cultural value to them, so they turned their backs on Neshar as if it were some minor feat. And yet they called to four distant stars, saying,
Come to Neshar, come see what we have wrought…
What the messages actually said, the science team didn't know.

The alien radio messages troubled him. How could the langva plant contain compounds suitable for other races, life-forms that might be based on entirely different chemical and DNA architecture? However, the newly found messages didn't invalidate his theory. Whatever benefits Neshar offered alien civilizations, this planet was clearly about
human
needs, and
Earthly
life. Where else in the universe would there be Dassa? And pineapples?

A boat that he'd had his eye on for a little while was now clearly making for the dock. He slapped the notepad shut.

Walking down to the river, hand on his side arm, but not drawing it, he watched the craft approach. Not a skiff; it was too fine to be a commoner's boat. For a moment he worried that Oleel was going to openly visit him here. She was hard to control, but seemed to want secrecy as much as he did.

He'd meant to tell Anton about Oleel. And he would, when he was sure of his breakthrough.

Watching the canoe approach, he squinted as the black waters threw shadows up into the faces of the passengers. But even in the growing dusk, he knew it wasn't Anton or Bailey.

It was the Princess Joon.

The canoe made straight for the islet. Hoda paddlers brought the canoe next to the dock, and one jumped out to help Joon debark.

She did so, standing in the dusk, her gown looking like congealed moonlight. She stood as still as a chess piece.

“Lady Joon, thank you,” Nick said in greeting.

She didn't answer him, but looked past him to the huts. The hoda climbed back into the canoe and sat with the three others, all of them unmoving, like pawns.

Now she approached him. “I think you are the one called Nick.” She couldn't say his name, of course, mangling it into
Nid.

“Yes, rahi.”

Stopping a few paces away from him, Joon seemed content to be quiet, not announcing her purpose or explaining anything. “Oh, you have three huts,” she said, scanning their handiwork. ‘And they have not fallen down, either.”

“Maypong was a good teacher,” he said, hoping to cut her, though it was only a hunch.

“Yes, Maypong is good with her hands.”

As she turned her profile to him, he frankly stared at her. The blue of her pendant ear ornaments brought out the dark hues of her skin, making her look like a fabulous queen. Her beauty stirred him. The idea that Anton had been intimate with her filled him with depression.

She turned back, looking closely at him for the first time. “You are here alone?” She saw a shadow on the hut walls. “Except for Sen?”

“Yes.” There was a sudden rush of hope that she had come now because Anton was gone. Come to deal with a
more receptive human. Perhaps Oleel had said that Nick was such a man.

She said, “Do you worry that the captain is abroad so late? My royal father would not want him to be in jeopardy ”

“He is well, I'm sure, Lady.”

“And you, Nick. Are you well?”

It was then that he saw her nostrils flare. She could smell him. His illness. It mortified him, that he might smell foul.

“I hope to be well” was all he could manage.

She smiled. “Do you bar my way?”

She was asking him if he meant to prevent her from leaving the dock. He moved to the side, and she went past.

His illness meant nothing to her. She was looking for Anton. Her hair, so perfect; her gown, barely rustling with her smooth movements. He had an urge to muss her, to shatter the placidity.

“And Bailey,” Joon said, “the old woman is still paddling so late?” When he didn't answer, she said, “We are all fond of Bailey, so she will be watched over, thankfully.”

“Anton, though, can be difficult,” Nick said, thinking she might open to him. Anton had told him that Joon was concerned for the plight of the hoda, that she didn't share all her father's views. He felt some attraction to her, a woman who dared to have contrary opinions.

“Anton speaks with my father's voice.”

Nick frowned. Was that good or bad, in her view? Bad, he decided. He replied, “Not everyone here feels the same about the hoda.”

“Oh yes, I have been learning about this
equality
of yours. Perhaps Anton turns away from hoda suffering, now that he has killed one. Even now, her bones lie like carrion in the grasses. Does this sadden you, Nick? You seem to be sad.”

He swallowed. It had been a long while since anyone had noticed how he felt. Joon was dangerous, yet appealing. And if Vidori were killed in battle, the mission would be
dealing with a new ruler, one who thought of
hoda
, and
sad
, in the same breath.

“Does it sadden
you
, Lady?” He was surprised he had voiced this question.

She turned an appraising gaze at him. “If I am saddened, it would be for what is coming, what I cannot prevent.”

“What, Lady?” But she wouldn't talk to him, was in fact already turning away, leaving him where he stood, helpless and sick, wanting to reach out to her. She'd come here for Anton; she would have talked to Anton. What could such a strong woman see in so weak a man? An ally for the hoda, for whom she had some unusual sympathy?