The Terrorists of Irustan (25 page)

twenty-eight

*   *   *

Upon return to the home world, there will be a mandatory retraining period to prepare Offworld Port Force employees for reentry to the sociocomplex of Earth, with the understanding that economic, cultural, and political situations may have changed substantially during the intervening decades of the employee’s absence. Any surviving relatives or friends of the employee will be advised by Port Force of the employee’s return.

—
Offworld Port Force Terms of Employment

J
in-Li’s door
opened at her command and she shouldered through it, hands full of cart keys, cleaned uniforms, gym shoes. She pressed the light pad and then stopped in uneasy surprise.

The sliding glass door was open, and Tomas Echevarria stood on the little balcony, looking out over the port. He turned when he heard the door, and nodded, unsmiling. “Johnnie. Sorry to come in when you weren’t home.” Jin-Li took time putting down the keys, hanging up the uniforms, putting the shoes away. “How did you get in?”

Tomas moved his head in an apologetic gesture. “All the doors know my voice,” he said. “I don’t look the type, do I?” He gestured to his jingling ankle bracelets, his necklaces. The air in the apartment was musky with his cologne.

“Really, I’m sorry, Johnnie.” Tomas stepped away from the glass door and dropped into a chair. His heavy thighs spilled over it, and he shifted uncomfortably. “Your privacy ...”

“It’s okay,” Jin-Li said, walking to the cupboard where a few plastic bottles stood in rows. “Something to drink?”

“Beer?” Tomas asked hopefully.

“Sorry. Water, tea. All I have.”

“Tea, then. Thanks.”

Jin-Li poured tea into a glass for Tomas, and sat across from him at the tiny table, watching as he drank.

A moment later Tomas took three discs out of his shirt pocket. “Mr. Onani sent these to you.” He laid them down.

Jin-Li didn’t touch them. “What are they?”

“Records. On the three men who died of the leptokis disease. Mr. Onani said they might help you.”

Jin-Li dropped long eyelids. “Okay.”

“Look, Johnnie, I had to come in. Onani doesn’t want it obvious that you’re doing something—unusual.”

“I told you, Tomas. It’s okay.”

“Remember about the wavephone,” Tomas said cautiously.

Jin-Li nodded. Tomas stood up. “Johnnie—what does he have on you? Onani, I mean. What is it? I’ve seen him do this before. He
always
...” Tomas rolled his eyes, for a moment looking like his usual self. “I mean, he
always
gets what he wants! But if I can help you somehow . . .”

Jin-Li stood to move a little away. Tomas’s heavy body took more than its share of the available space, and the scent of musk was stifling. “Thanks. I don’t need help.”

Tomas’s mouth worked as if he were chewing over some other remark, some question. Then, with a heavy shrug, he gave it up. He faced the door and said, “Open.” It swung open, and Tomas gave Jin-Li an unhappy look of apology.

When he was gone, Jin-Li went to the balcony and leaned on the railing. Several waning moons ghosted above the city. The night air was warm, always warm, even now when the planet was beginning its tilt away from the star. Jin-Li lifted her face to feel the faint breeze that swept down from the north, imagining she could smell the salt of the sea. She loved the stars of Irustan, the strange constellations that never let her forget her long, long journey. Not that she had seen the constellations of Earth very often, or very well. Not until the shuttle from Hong Kong lifted above the yellow clouds and escaped the relentless lights of the megacities had she seen her own stars clearly. Irustan’s were glorious in their brilliance, and their abundance.

Jin-Li’s apartment faced west, over the port, but she felt the pressure of the city, the Akros, the Medah, at her back. Onani was right. Something was happening there. How had she become responsible for finding out what it was? She slammed her fist against the railing. Damn Onani. Damn Port Force.

“Johnnie?” came from next door. “What’s on? Everything okay over there?”“Yes,” Jin-Li said, biting off the words, turning away from the audience of stars. “Everything’s fine. Just fine.”

It didn’t take long to assimilate the information on the discs. Binya Maris had been a team leader, and the disc detailed his promotions, his record, one heroic episode in the mines when he saved a man from being crushed to death by a collapsing stope. The two directors’ records were comparable. Education, service in the mines, promotions, work records. Addresses, office and home, wavephone numbers. Their teachers, their supervisors, their employees. Numbers and names and dates.

Jin-Li found it hard to concentrate. The questions raised by Onani tumbled through her mind like water foaming over the reservoir spillway. Instinct threatened to overcome logic; and Jin-Li avoided the conclusions of instinct by rereading the dry facts in front of her.

On her third perusal it struck her. The numbers and accounts began at age eight, when the men’s formal schooling started. And there was not a single woman’s name anywhere. No wives, daughters, mothers, sisters, anahs. None.

Jin-Li’s instinct flared. This was the connection. It had to be. It was the signal her intuition had tried to serve up, and she had almost succeeded in avoiding it. She turned off the reader and went back to stare up at the stars and the moons until her eyes were dazzled. Then she went back into the apartment, unclipped the wavephone, and dropped it on the closet floor.

*   *   *

Zahra hadn’t needed to tell Camilla about B’Neeli. She wondered why she had. It made her feel justified, somehow, as if she had confessed in advance and been absolved by the circle. Well, not the circle—just Camilla. Kalen’s hysteria, Idora’s tears, Laila’s nerves—these distracted Zahra from her purpose.

She held Belen B’Neeli’s disc in her hand, turning it over and over in her fingers, and thought about her purpose. Was it, as she had once said, to change Irustan for the better, for the women and the children who would come after her? Or was it—she had to face the possibility—was it only that she could?

No. If she did this, it would be because it needed doing.

The disc slipped into the reader under the decisive flick of her fingers, and the medical details of B’Neeli’s life, his deceased wife’s and his young daughter’s, flashed on the screen.

It was late when Zahra stood to massage her stiff back. She turned out the lights, guessing it must be nearly midnight. Everyone in the house would be asleep. Zahra took the disc out and put it away, not wanting Ishi to notice and remember it.

Zahra went to the dispensary to turn out the lights and lock the door. She was startled to notice a Port Force cart parked at the corner. She lifted the curtain just a bit to see better.

Instantly, the door of the cart opened, and someone got out. Zahra pulled back instinctively, reaching for her verge. Then she leaned forward once again, the cool glass close to her cheek. It was Jin-Li Chung. Had Jin-Li been waiting all this time, watching, hoping someone might be here?

Jin-Li moved quickly and quietly up the walk, and Zahra opened the door. When the longshoreman was inside, she shut the door and turned the lock. “My office,” she murmured, and Jin-Li turned in that direction. In the darkness, Zahra followed.

Not until the door to her office was locked did Zahra turn on a tiny lamp above her desk. It cast a dim halo over her reader and the empty whitewood surface. Zahra went to her usual chair, and Jin-Li Chung sat in the other chair, leaning forward.

“Medicant,” Jin-Li began.

“Zahra,” she reminded.

Jin-Li’s narrow lips curved in a brief smile. “Zahra,” the Earther said, placing both hands, palms up, on the desk. “I have a problem.”

Zahra looked at Jin-Li over her verge for a long moment, seeing that the Port Forceman’s long, dark eyes were reddened, cheeks shadowed with fatigue. “What’s wrong, Jin-Li?” she asked quietly. She unbuttoned her verge and let it fall.

Jin-Li leaned back heavily. “I’ve been keeping a secret.”

“I rather thought so,” Zahra said mildly. “Are you going to share it with me now?”

Jin-Li nodded. “I thought you might be able to help me.”

Zahra pulled her cap off her head. Her long hair tumbled free, and Jin-Li watched it fall with an odd expression. “Why don’t you tell me what’s happened,” Zahra said, “and then we’ll see if I can help or not.”

Jin-Li took off the flat Port Force cap and tossed it on the desk next to Zahra’s cap and veil. “I don’t want you to think I deliberately deceived you, Medicant. Zahra. It was never my intention.” Zahra waited in silence, and Jin-Li gave a deprecating chuckle. “But perhaps I didn’t deceive you.”

Zahra smiled. “Perhaps not.”

Jin-Li looked into the shadows beyond the hazy circle of light. Zahra saw the way the light gleamed along the longshoreman’s cheekbones and jaw, how the short brush of hair was almost invisible in the darkness. A strong face, even a beautiful one. Quietly, as if speaking to no one at all, Jin-Li began to speak.

“On Earth—in China, where I grew up—things were very difficult for my family. My father was gone before I knew him, and my mother raised the three of us alone. In certain parts of Hong Kong any woman is in danger. My sister was raped in the streets, and died of AIDS. My brother died early, too, and there was no one but me and my mother. My mother worked so hard, too hard, but things never got better. I decided early that to be female meant to be weak, to be vulnerable.

“I studied martial arts. Judo, ken-do, shito-ryu. I’ve wanted to travel offworld since I can remember, but without university it was out of the question. Except for Port Force.

“When I applied to Port Force I read everything I could about all the colony planets, and chose Irustan as the most unusual. It fascinated me—the culture, the religion, the society—so organized, so structured. I wanted to be an archivist, but again—it was a question of education. I had very little money, only what I made teaching in the dojo. I spent it, all of it, on a bribe.”

“A what?”

“A bribe. A payment, to get someone to do something illegal for you.”

“Ah.” Zahra was entranced by this glimpse into an aspect of Earth she knew nothing about. Where were the beautiful houses, the open universities, the abundant wealth that all the discs showed?

“I bribed the med-ex who approved me for longshoreman duty. Bribed her to make one small error on my record.”

“Gender?” Zahra asked.

Jin-Li nodded. “Male, not female. I knew on Irustan women in Port Force were restricted to port grounds, while the men moved freely. I lived as a man in Hong Kong, for my own protection—and I thought I could do it here.”

There was a long pause, and Zahra waited. She knew it must be very late, but she felt no weariness now. She was engrossed by Jin-Li’s tale. She almost forgot that Jin-Li must be in some sort of trouble, that she had come seeking help.

Jin-Li folded her arms now and gave Zahra a rueful smile. “You’re not angry, then?”

“No. Of course I’m not angry. Go on.”

“It seems that Mr. Onani knows my secret. He hasn’t said so, but he’s pressuring me to find out things for him. Implying that he knows.” Jin-Li gave a bitter laugh. “My bribe to the med-ex wasn’t big enough, probably. She knew how to make more money off me than that.”

“And what is it Mr. Onani wants?”

Jin-Li leaned forward and spoke in clipped Port Force fashion. “Wants to know why three Irustani contracted the leptokis disease. Not convinced it’s the mines, or the water tunnels. Onani sent me out to Delta Team, and to the Medah, to find some connection.”

Barely aloud, Zahra asked, “What did you find?”

“It’s what I didn’t find,” Jin-Li said. “I have their directorate records, all their statistics. But no woman’s name on any disc, no wife, mother, or sister. Has to mean something.”

Zahra had to look away. The Port Forceman—woman—had been so frank, had told her so much. Zahra wasn’t free to respond in kind. Putting aside her own safety, there were Kalen and Camilla to consider, and Laila and Idora by association. But she was moved by Jin-Li’s need. And one cool part of her mind whispered that here was an opportunity. Perhaps they could help each other—although Jin-Li wouldn’t know how she was helping Zahra.

“I need to produce something, anything, for Onani,” Jin-Li concluded. Her expression was bitter. “He can send me back to Earth, back to Hong Kong. I would lose all Port Force benefits, all income, all privileges. And when I got home, there would be no one who remembered me.”

Zahra waited just a moment, making certain Jin-Li had finished. Then she said, “I did know your secret, Jin-Li, or guessed at it. I knew you were different from other offworlders, other Earthers I’ve met. Certainly you’re different from your general administrator, and from your Dr. Sullivan.”

Zahra felt no sleepiness at all, as if it were the morning rather than midnight of a long, long day. But her eyes had grown gritty and dry, and she rubbed them with her fingers. She was thinking hard, making a decision. “I’m tiring you,” Jin-Li said hastily.

Zahra leaned her chin on her hand and looked directly into Jin-Li’s eyes. She smiled and said, “It’s not often anyone worries about tiring me.”

“I’m sorry to burden you, just the same.”

Zahra laughed. She put her hands flat on the desk and pushed herself up. “So far, my new friend, you haven’t burdened me at all. A secret or two is nothing new for a medicant to carry about.” Zahra reached up to one of the shelves lining the room. From a box she took a sleeved disc.

“I can give you a little information, Jin-Li,” she said carefully. “It won’t give you any answers. I think you already know that only one of the men who contracted the prion disease was on my clinic list, although I did two autopsies. But perhaps it will be enough to satisfy Mr. Onani. Perhaps you can convince him you’ve tried. He doesn’t seem to be an evil man—only one used to wielding his power.”

Zahra turned the little disc over and over in her fingers. “Women on Irustan are not citizens,” she said. Even she could hear the edge in her voice. “Women are in a class by themselves. They are considered a constant temptation to an Irustani to stray from the path to Paradise. They’re not allowed to run businesses, handle money, or make any decisions about their own lives. You’ll find no information in any system except the medicant’s clinic, because—officially—women don’t exist.”