The Terrorists of Irustan (13 page)

Lili pulled Ishi away. “Come on, little sister, let her sleep a bit. We’ll bring her supper up when it’s ready.”

“No, Lili, I’m going to sit with her!” Ishi said.

Zahra felt almost too weary to speak. “Ishi,” she whispered, “please go and keep Qadir company at supper. I’m all right. Really. I just need to rest.” Ishi’s eyes glinted stubbornly but she gave in to the pressure of Lili’s hand on her arm. “I’ll be back, though,” she warned Zahra, her childish voice stern. “You sleep, and then I’ll be back with your broth.”

Zahra closed her eyes before they had even left the room, but sleep felt very far away. She tried to think about Rabi, about what she could do for her, but the ghastly picture of Kalen, bleeding on the white sheets of Nura’s surgical bed, would not leave her mind. The memory was twenty years old, but it was as fresh and painful as if it had happened this very morning. She was tired beyond bearing.

Some time later Ishi came upstairs with her broth, tapping gently on the door before opening it. Zahra lifted her head at the knock to see that Qadir had followed Ishi up. “Zahra, our young medicant here is quite worried about you,” he said from the doorway. He wouldn’t come in if there was a chance she was ill.

Ishi puffed pillows with her hands and Zahra sat up with her back against them. Ishi arranged the tray on her lap, and pulled the chair closer to the bed so she could watch Zahra eat.

Qadir lingered in the doorway. “Do you need a medicant?” he finally asked.

Zahra shook her head. “No, I’m not ill. You can come in.”

She saw his hesitation do battle with his concern. He moved as if to step into the room, one hand on the doorframe, but then he smiled ruefully and stepped back. “No, no, I think I’ll go get some work done. Ishi can come for me if you need anything.”

Zahra paused, a spoonful of broth in her hand, and looked into her husband’s face. His eyes were shadowed, his brow creased with a mixture of shame and affection—and anxiety. She didn’t want to see it, didn’t want torecognize it. He was afraid—Qadir, who never had doubts about anything. He was afraid for her. She mattered to him.

“I’m all right, Qadir,” she told him softly. “Only very tired.”

He nodded. “Good, good. Well, I’ll leave you in Ishi’s hands. Rest well. I’ll see you in the morning.”

“Thank you for coming up,” she said, only just able to keep the wryness from her tone.

On another night, he would have come to kiss her forehead before going to his own room, but not tonight. The taboo was too strong. “Good night,” he said, and was gone.

*   *   *

It was that same night, perhaps even at the same time, that Maya B’Neeli suffered her last injuries. The clinic alarm sounded an hour after midnight, and Asa answered it to find B’Neeli on the step with his wife’s limp body in his arms.

Zahra hurried to the surgery. She patched the tube of the master syrinx to Maya’s arm and snapped swift orders into the medicator. She engaged the respirator and she tried to stabilize the woman’s fluttering heartbeat. She labored over Maya B’Neeli for the remainder of the night hours while Asa prayed on his side of the dividing screen.

When morning came, and the star rose above the white city, Zahra stripped off her gloves, scrubbed her hands, and buttoned her veil. She left Maya lying on the exam bed and walked into the dispensary where B’Neeli had waited the night through on the long couch. Asa came after her, hobbling quickly to keep up.

Zahra took a deep ragged breath and stared through her veil at B’Neeli’s unshaven face and reddened eyes. “Asa,” she said.

“Yes, Medicant.”

“Tell this man that he has finally done it. He has killed his wife.”

twelve

*   *   *

The ExtraSolar Corporation recognizes that its offworld employees have made great sacrifices. Every effort will be made to provide all Port Force and Port Authority workers with all they require for their comfort, their safety, and their health.

—
Offworld Port Force Terms of Employment

J
in-Li joined
the line of Port Forcemen and women straggling past the steam tables. The meal hall was full this morning. No shuttle was expected for days, and the longshoremen came late to breakfast and lingered at their tables, talking and laughing. Local news and videos flickered on a large reader in one corner.

Jin-Li selected citrus fruits and a sprig of olives. One of the cooks, a young man with an elaborate tribal scar on his face, gave Jin-Li a mug of tea made with a splash of steaming water and a net of fragrant tea leaves. These were local foods Earthers could eat. Jin-Li had tested the recommendation against eating Irustani native fish, and had found that Port Force was right; Earth stomachs didn’t have the right enzymes. A day of misery had ensured no more experiments.

A girl from the Port Force offices waved with a rattle of the metal bracelets covering her forearms. Jin-Li smiled at her, but went to an empty table near the news reader. Most longshoremen were interested solely in news of Earth, which they got on entertaining holos in the common room.

A video on the reader showed a colorful, crowded scene, and Jin-Li recognized the interior of the Doma from other pictures, its arched ceiling, wide tiled floor, walls lined with mosaics and sculptures. One of the Port Force archivists had taken a palmcam to an Irustani funeral and was broadcasting live to the port. Scarlet-veiled women knelt around a central dais, and white-clad men stood in ranks behind them. On the dais rested a large and elaborate whitewood coffin. The beaky nose of the deceased was just visible to the palmcam, but nothing else showed above the edge of the coffin except a few threads of thin hair, gray wisps against a scarlet silk pillow.

Jin-Li sat down, leaning close to the reader to say, “Sound on.” The volume rose and dipped, adjusting itself to compensate for the noise in the room.

Rocky came to the table with a tray of muffins, eggs, meat, and coffee. He sat down, his tray bumping Jin-Li’s as he leaned to peer at the reader. “Watching that?” he asked.

Jin-Li lifted a hand in greeting without turning away from the screen. “It’s an Irustani funeral. Big one.”

Rocky took a forkful of eggs, eyes following as the palmcam panned the gathering. “Filled the Doma right up, didn’t he?” he said. “Some official? They got a million of ’em.”

Jin-Li nodded. “Right.”

At least a hundred Irustani women swayed on their knees around the dais. The men wore little scarlet rosettes pinned to their white shirts, and stood behind the women, as far as possible from the open coffin.

“Really want to look at a dead body while you eat?” Rocky asked through a mouthful of food. Jin-Li chuckled.

The palmcam swerved suddenly in a stomach-lurching arc, shifting from one side of the Doma to the other. A high-pitched sound rose from the kneeling women, swelling in a wave from one veiled figure to the next. It seemed random, but the wailing produced an odd sort of polyphony.

“What’s that?” Rocky asked. He swallowed and pointed at the reader with his fork. “All that screaming?”

“Not screaming,” Jin-Li told him. “Keening.”

“Keening? What’s keening?”

“A kind of crying—a ritual mourning.”

Rocky shook his head. “Wild. How d’you know all that?”

Jin-Li shrugged. “Reading. Holos.”

“Wild,” Rocky said again. He forked meat into his mouth. “Hey, Johnnie, is that all you eat back home? Tea and fruit?”

“Different things. Rice. Fish.”

“Fish for breakfast? Sounds awful.”

Jin-Li said, “But there’s fish in that stuff you’re eating.”

Rocky laughed and speared more meat. It wasn’t really meat, though it looked like it and tasted fairly close. Soy, fish, fat, and spices combined to make a meat substitute that approximated sausage. Oil dripped from it onto Rocky’s plate. “At least it’s Earth fish, and they hide it well enough for me. Put what you want for breakfast on a form, though, send it to the Comm Office. They’ll fix what you like, even fish and rice. Keep us happy!”

Jin-Li shrugged again, and leaned to speak to the reader. “Louder.” The volume rose sharply.

Whoever was holding the palmcam had found something to rest his arm on. The picture steadied and zoomed on a tall, balding man at one end of the Doma. “IbSada!” Jin-Li exclaimed.

Rocky said, “Who? Who’s that?”

Jin-Li pointed. “Chief director of Irustan. Qadir IbSada.” The medicant’s husband.

The women on their knees around the coffin fell silent, silk-shrouded heads lifted to the podium. The tall man stood looking out across the crowd, waiting, poised. When all was quiet, he began to speak in a level voice, easily picked up by the palmcam’s mike. Jin-Li was transfixed, fascinated by the man who was Zahra’s husband.

IbSada said, “The Maker teaches us through grief and loss.” His gray eyes scanned the assembly. It was evident why it was this man who had been selected, at a relatively young age, to administer the mines. He stood with one hand in the pocket of his trousers, the other resting lightly on the podium. His chin dropped slightly so that his gaze seemed to meet all the eyes below him. The chief director’s bearing was both simple and commanding, and in the Doma there was no sound except his voice.

“In mourning together we are reminded of the brevity and value of life. We remember that every member of our community is precious to the Maker. And we understand that when the One calls, we will go to Him, each in our own time.”

Jin-Li stared at the ranks of veiled women. No way to guess which might be Zahra, but surely she was there, somewhere, among the anonymous red-swathed figures.

“Today,” IbSada continued, “we say good-bye to a fine man, a tireless worker, a devoted husband and father. With his bereaved family, we honor his life. He spent it in service to Irustan, in the mines, in the directorate, here in the Doma. His devotion to his duty and to the Maker is an example for all men to emulate.

“We grieve at the empty chair in the Office of Water Supply. We regret the work left undone, the plans unrealized. We sorrow with his widow at the sad truth that he will never preside at his daughter’s cession, or celebrate the births of his grandsons.”

The chief director paused then, and nodded toward the center of the Doma. The palmcam followed two of the scarlet-veiled figures as they rose from their knees and approached the dais, climbing two shallow steps to stand beside the coffin. One of the women took something from her hand and laid it inside the coffin while the other stood with folded hands and bowed head. After a moment, a third woman joined them, to lay a square of white cloth precisely over the face of the dead man. Then, together, the three lowered the lid of the coffin. The third woman walked around it, sealing its metal clamps.

Only when that was completed did six men come from the sides of the Doma to lift the coffin from its resting place and carry it down the steps. The women trailed behind them.

The short procession moved toward the doors of the Doma, and the wide doors opened. A blaze of sunshine hit the palmcam, washing out the scene momentarily. By the time the filters compensated, the scene had become a long silent parade of swaying scarlet figures followed by stiff lines of white-garbed men. Just as the coffin reached the doors, the chief director called out, “Let us say farewell now to Gadil IhMullah,” and the line of women burst forth again in ululation, their steps swinging left and then right, almost as one body.

Abruptly the palmcam picture shut down. A routine story replaced it on the reader, text scrolling across the screen. A bored voice read it aloud. Jin-Li said, “Sound off.”

“So, Johnnie—all that mean something to you?” Rocky sat back in his chair, cradling his coffee mug in his large tanned hands. He raised his thick eyebrows at Jin-Li.

“A traditional ceremony,” Jin-Li mused. “But why send an archivist?” Rocky ventured, “Maybe because the guy was an official?”

“Director, actually,” Jin-Li answered. “But still . . .”

Rocky drained his coffee. “Won’t matter to us, anyway,” he said. He set his mug on his tray, stood, and lifted the whole to carry to the busing station. “Well, I’m not wasting my day off sitting around. I’m off to the reservoir. Want to come, Johnnie? There’s room—got a rowboat already loaded in my cart. Plenty of trout for everybody!”

Jin-Li stood, too. “Thanks, Rocky, but I think I’ll go around to the port offices—see what’s on.”“You sure? Right! I’m getting away from here. See ya.”

“Right. See you.”

*   *   *

The Port Force offices filled the upper level of the terminal building. Longshoremen rarely went farther than the comm center, where the schedule of shuttle arrivals and departures rolled across several readers around the room. Jin-Li greeted the comm officer at her desk. “Hi, Marie. What’s on?”

Marie, well-groomed, intelligent, laughed and waved her hand in the air as if cooling burned fingers. “Things are hot, Johnnie,” she said. “And here you are! What a surprise.”

Jin-Li laughed too. “Hate to disappoint. So what is it?”

Marie pursed her lips. They were tinted a shiny lavender, vivid above the beige of her uniform. A crescent glowed on her left cheek, the same color. “An Irustani director died.”

“Hardly big news. What’s hot about it?”

“Better ask the general,” Marie said, gesturing toward the end of the corridor with one slender, purple-painted thumbnail.

“You can’t tell me?”

“Nope.” She smiled again, perfect teeth between the lavender lips, eyes angled up at Jin-Li. Flirting. Her eyes had been altered, made huge and round.

“Come on, Marie.”

“Nope, can’t. Strict orders from the general.”

“General” was not a military title. This man was the general administrator of Port Forces, and only called “the general” in his absence. In his presence, this slender, intense man from the African Confederacy was Mr. Onani, or Administrator. He was unlikely to answer questions put by Jin-Li Chung, longshoreman.

The general’s secretary, though, was accessible. Jin-Li gave Marie’s desk a friendly knock and winked at her before heading off down the corridor toward the general’s office.

Like other Irustani buildings, the Port Force offices were a blend of native sandrite and whitewood, stone, and tile. Unlike the directorate buildings, however, all the outer windows in this one were tinted to filter out the glare. The general’s office also sported a large rug, deep blue with red-and-green figures in it. Doubtless Mr. Onani had imported it from his beloved Africa, as Jin-Li had imported one piece of calligraphy from Kowloon Province.
So much in common!
Jin-Li thought.

In the outer office, the secretary’s desk was empty, but he emerged from a door beyond it just as Jin-Li approached. Tomas wore the Port Force uniform modified as much as he dared without violating the Terms of Employment. His shorts were so wide they fell in drapes about his plump thighs. His shirt puffed around his shoulders, and he wore looping earrings and necklaces. Round glasses all but hid his eyes.

“Hello, Johnnie,” he said gaily. “What are you doing up here? I waved at you this morning at breakfast but I guess you didn’t see me.” He pouted a little, then gave a small laugh. “I hope you came up just to visit!”

“Hi, Tomas.” Jin-Li leaned to the side to glance through the door of the inner office. Three men were huddled around the desk, and Mr. Onani’s slight figure was just visible behind it, phone at his ear. “I just thought you might tell me what’s on.” A quick smile. “You always know everything!”

“Too right.” Tomas looked back at the group of men and made a sour face. “One of the Irustani high-ups died. Director of Water Supply. Nasty business. Upset everybody.”

Jin-Li came close to Tomas’s desk. “But why, Tomas? Why the attention?” Tomas took off his glasses and wiped them with a tissue. He tilted his head and squinted up at Jin-Li with glistening brown eyes. “It’s not who died, but why,” he said importantly, as he settled the glasses back on his nose. “He was pretty old, for an Irustani, but . . .” Tomas leaned forward, lowered his voice. “We’re not going to talk about this,” he whispered. “But since it’s you, Johnnie . . . chap got the leptokis disease.”

Jin-Li’s eyes widened. “Are you sure?”

Tomas snapped his fingers and hissed, “Went like that!”

“Uh-oh.”

Tomas looked back at his boss’ office. “Yuck!” he said with a delicate shudder. “Those filthy little beasts are everywhere. Just the thought!” “Tomas—you’ve never been in the mines, have you?”

“Thing is, I have. Once. Went with the general.”

“Wore a mask?”

Tomas nodded. “Yes, absolutely. Positively.”

“Well, then, no problem. These miners who breathe the dust—they’re the ones. They get the modified prion gene.”

Tomas sighed. “So they tell me,” he said, “but I’m scared anyway. This old guy—this IhMullah—he hadn’t been in the mines in twenty years! And he got it.”

Jin-Li frowned. “Odd. So what’s the general doing?”

Tomas rolled his eyes and flapped one limp hand. “All the staff are worked up—going to bring the dead guy’s doctor up here!”

“Medicant.”

“Yes, that’s what I meant, medicant. Big deal, anyway, because her husband has to come, since they can’t talk to her directly. And get this”—he lowered his voice to a dramatic level—“the medicant’s husband is the chief director!”

Jin-Li stared at Tomas. “You’re sure?”

“Definitely! I know everything, remember?”

“Medicant IbSada—I’ve—” Jin-Li stopped in midsentence. Better not to reveal too much. Rules had been bent, if not broken outright. “I make deliveries. You know, medicines.”

“Oh, really?” Tomas was not distracted by this. “Well, look, Johnnie— you’d better not be here when the general comes out. And don’t talk about all this, or I’ll be in trouble!”