The Terrorists of Irustan (29 page)

thirty-two

*   *   *

Every challenge is but another step on the journey to Paradise.

—Ninth Homily,
The Book of the Second Prophet

T
he Port
Force physician made his visit late in the day, without warning. Lili was sweeping the dispensary floor. Zahra was in her office with her door closed. Sullivan had been driven to the clinic by one of Onani’s aides, and the two of them left their car at the corner and came in the street entrance. Sullivan ordered Lili to show him the medicator. Lili retreated from the dispensary without saying a word, leaving the two men standing alone and frustrated.

Zahra heard Sullivan’s voice and came out of her office, taking time to lock the door behind her. She waited in the surgery, veiled, silent, hands folded beneath her verge. Not until Asa arrived did she move to the medicator cabinet to open it for Sullivan. Lili returned to her desk, her veil shimmering, the picture of outraged propriety.

The chip that measured and recorded all dispensed medications had to be removed with a small tool. Sullivan had come prepared for the task. He bent to extract the chip, then fitted it into a reader he had brought with him. He didn’t carry a medical bag like Zahra’s, but a briefcase like Qadir’s.

“Ask the doctor if he’s finding anything unusual in B’Neeli’s treatment,” Zahra said to Asa.

Sullivan didn’t wait for Asa to repeat her words. “Nothing. Not a damn thing. Vitamins, enzymatic supplement, bit of altered plasma—man was probably atherosclerotic. Did you know that?”

“How could I have known?” Zahra asked. She spoke absently, almost casually. “He never came to see me.”

Sullivan growled some response, pocketed the chip, and fitted a new one into its place in the medicator.

“Asa,” Zahra said. “Please ask Dr. Sullivan to return the chip to me when he’s finished with it.”

Sullivan shot her a glance as Asa repeated her words.

“Those are my patients’ records,” Zahra added.

Sullivan stared at her. She stared back, through her veil. Sullivan’s ruddy face grew even redder, but he nodded. He picked up his case and followed Asa to the door.

When Sullivan and his driver were gone, Zahra said, “Thanks, Asa, you can go back to what you were doing. Lili, go and check on Ishi, will you? She’s been studying long enough. Why don’t the two of you take a walk in the garden? It’s cool enough now.”

Asa and Lili went into the house together. Zahra took a last look around the clinic, checking that lights were off, doors locked, before she went back to her little office.

Jin-Li was waiting. She was crouched low beside Zahra’s shelves, examining the slender row of paper books there. When Zahra came in, she rose effortlessly to her feet. “Any problems?” she asked.

Zahra pulled off her cap and veil and smoothed tendrils of hair back from her face. “No,” she said. “There was nothing for him to find. But I appreciate your warning just the same.” She threw the layers of silk across her desk and went to the tiny window, looking out, lifting her arms to stretch away the tightness in her shoulders. “I’m glad that’s over. Dr. Sullivan is not pleasant company.”

“No,” Jin-Li said. “He’s afraid, and that makes him angry.”

Zahra turned her head to the side, to see Jin-Li’s face. “Afraid? Why is he afraid?”

“Because he’ll be held responsible if there’s an epidemic. If any Port Force employees get the prion disease.”

Zahra looked through the glass once again. The light was beginning to fade from the garden. The old met-olive cast long, cool shadows across the hot ground. Against the far wall she saw Ishi and Lili walking together, Ishi ahead, Lili trailing behind. “I’m sorry about Sullivan,” she said. “But I can’t help him.”

Jin-Li came closer, standing just at the edge of the desk. “Why should you be sorry, Zahra? It’s not your fault.”

Zahra felt her breath catch shallowly in her throat. Jin-Li was so close she could sense the warmth of her body. If she turned, just now, Jin-Li would be within arm’s reach. Zahra put her forehead against the sill of the little window and closed her eyes. “Why did you come here today, Jin-Li?” she asked softly. “What were you concerned about?”

“About you,” was the simple answer.

Zahra turned around, slowly, keeping her back against the wall. Keeping her distance. “But why?” she asked again.

Jin-Li’s long eyes and narrow lips were still, her classic face smooth, revealing nothing. “I’m not sure I can answer,” she said. “But I know what it is to be alone. Struggling.”

Zahra was shocked by the strength of the urge she felt to touch this stranger, this strong, muscular woman who cared enough about what was happening to risk being seen coming to her, warning her, preparing her. She could put out her hand, just so, and caress the smooth brown cheek. She twisted her hands together behind her back to control the impulse. “Thank you,” she managed to say. It was inadequate.

Jin-Li had told her everything that had happened in Onani’s office this afternoon. What Onani said, what Sullivan said, what Jin-Li Chung said. Hearing it all from Jin-Li’s lips was a strange thing, like listening in on a conversation that was all about herself. It was clear the Port Force officials had missed the point. And if there were no more deaths, their interest would soon fade.

“So,” she said huskily, “they found no similarities between the men who have died?”

Jin-Li shook her head. “No.” Her eyelids dropped low.

Zahra felt a prickle across her shoulders. A chill smile curved her mouth. “Did you?” she said.

Jin-Li tilted her chin to look sidelong at Zahra. “1 see a possibility,” she said. “Could be wrong.”

“Tell me,” Zahra breathed. They stood an arm’s length apart, blue eyes fixed on brown ones. Zahra’s breath came quickly, a shallow rising of her breast, a slight dryness in the back of her throat.

Jin-Li said, “It seems to me that the four dead men had something important in common. Maybe a man can’t see it. Doesn’t want to see it.” “What?” Zahra could hardly contain her impatience. She wanted to hearJin-Li say it, recognize it, name the purpose for all of it. She knew that she was risking herself, but it didn’t seem important. The cause was what mattered, what made her sin worthwhile. If Jin-Li saw it, they could all see it. The word would spread. The message would be out.

*   *   *

Jin-Li watched Zahra’s blue eyes deepen to violet. The silk of her dress moved, catching the light. Her full lips parted, her breath suspended, as if she would speak the words herself.

“These men,” Jin-Li said carefully, “they seem to have odd circumstances attached to them—wives that died, a son that disappeared. One had a reputation for beating up prostitutes. And was reprimanded for something that happened at the Doma, something to do with a woman.”

Zahra’s eyes burned with a dark, azure flame. “Yes? What do you think it means, Jin-Li?”

Jin-Li answered, “I think it’s possible someone has figured out a way to punish certain men.”

“Punish?”

“Yes. For things they’ve done, or allowed to be done. Offenses against women, against children.”

“That’s an interesting thought.” Zahra turned to gaze into the gathering darkness. “No one else has suggested it.”

“No.”

“You didn’t tell this to Onani.”

“No.”

Zahra looked back, over her shoulder. The chiseled shape of her nose and chin, the delicate angle of her cheekbone, seemed designed to pierce Jin-Li’s soul. “Tell him,” Zahra said softly.

“Zahra . . .” Jin-Li’s voice, to her horror, caught and broke.

Zahra turned slowly, then deliberately, the lines of her face perfectly composed. “My friend,” she said. “You can do the women of Irustan a great service. Tell him.”

Jin-Li shook her head, miserable. “I can’t do that. They might think . . . you could be . . .”

Zahra took a step forward. Her hand, long-fingered and elegant, found Jin-Li’s, the smooth skin reproaching Jin-Li’s own rough, work-hardened fingers. “Do it for me,” Zahra murmured. Her eyes seared Jin-Li’s. “Please.”

The touch overwhelmed Jin-Li with loneliness. She gripped Zahra’s hand, too tightly, searched her face. Slowly, unable to resist, she brought Zahra’s hand to her lips, to her cheek.

Zahra’s smile was brilliant in the soft light of the lamp. “Don’t be afraid, Jin-Li,” she said. “I’m not.”

“I am afraid,” Jin-Li said. “Afraid of what will happen.”

“You mean, to me?”

“Yes.” Jin-Li sighed and released Zahra’s hand, but Zahra didn’t move away. “I’ve been alone so long,” Jin-Li said. “You’re the first real friend I’ve made in years.”

“But we need this,” Zahra said. “We need them to understand. Or it’s all for nothing.”

Jin-Li stared at Zahra IbSada, this beautiful, intelligent woman. She hadn’t actually admitted anything, but Jin-Li didn’t want her to. Jin-Li didn’t want to think about what Zahra might have done, might be capable of doing. It was easier, much, much easier, to go on not knowing, not knowing for sure.

“What do you want me to do?” Jin-Li asked hoarsely.

Zahra told her.

thirty-three

*   *   *

The One judges every word, every deed, and every thought. It is not enough to preach the way. Every man must follow it.

—Third Homily,
The Book of the Second Prophet

I
shi, hurrying
Lili along on their turn through the garden, saw Zahra framed in the little window of her office, her hair gleaming in the light from the desk lamp. She turned away from the window just as Ishi passed the old met-olive. There was someone with her.

“Wait, Ishi, too fast,” Lili complained. Ishi slowed her steps.

“Sorry, Lili,” she said with a little catch in her breath. She turned to the anah. “Come back this way, I’ll walk slower. Let’s see if there’s anything left on the veriko tree.”

“No, no, the fruit’s been gone for days,” Lili grumbled, but she obliged anyway, turning her back on the lit window.

Zahra was not alone. Who had access to her office, unescorted? Anxiety made Ishi’s pulse race. For months now, nothing had been right. It wasn’t just that both Qadir and Zahra were preoccupied by the most recent recurrence of the prion disease. It was Zahra herself. Zahra was changing. Had changed. Ishi dragged on around the garden, nodding at Lili’s remarks, answering her, trying not to look back over her shoulder at the window, trying to keep Lili from seeing. Her worry made her feel old, older than Lili, as old even as Qadir.

Dinner that night was quiet, ordinary on the surface, though later than usual. Zahra answered every remark directed at her. She ate her meal, spoke to Qadir, gave instructions to Marcus, even smiled at Ishi. But she seemed as far away as the moons.

“Well, Ishi. Your friend Rabi will be ceded next month,” Qadir said. “Is she excited?”

Ishi returned Qadir’s smile. She was very fond of him, truly. He was unfailingly polite, and utterly strict in the observance of his responsibility toward her. In some distant way, Ishi knew that Qadir could treat her in any way he wished; but for the eight years she had lived under his roof, he had never been anything but courteous and kind in a fatherly way. Rabi’s cession now, at sixteen, made Ishi vaguely aware that her own girlhood could end at any time. Yet no one had mentioned her future beyond discussions of her studies, her exams, her work with Zahra. For that, Ishi never forgot to thank the Maker.

“She’s excited,” Ishi said. “But she’s scared, too.”

“I think all brides are nervous, don’t you?” Qadir said. “Wouldn’t you say so, Zahra?”

Zahra laid down her fork and took a sip of water. “It’s a big change for a young girl,” she said.

Lili, on Ishi’s right, leaned forward. “It’s right and proper for a girl to be anxious,” she said primly. “The Maker designed it so. She must put all her trust in her husband.”

Qadir winked at Ishi, and she grinned at him. Zahra stared at the candle glow flickering through the water glass in her hand.

“Zahra,” Qadir said. “Tell me. Were you nervous before our cession? Did you think I’d be an ogre, and beat you if you didn’t obey me?”

Zahra tore her eyes from the candle flames, and looked into Qadir’s face. Ishi saw how slowly Zahra focused on Qadir’s features. “No, Qadir,” Zahra said vaguely. “I never thought you would be an ogre. I never thought about it at all.”

Qadir stared at her. Ishi was certain he was waiting for something else, anything else. It was the perfect moment for Zahra to assure Qadir—with absolute truth—that he had been the best of husbands. Instead, Zahra seemed to retreat again into her trance. She put her glass down and picked up her fork. After a moment Qadir resumed his own dinner. It seemed to Ishi he had to force himself to finish his meal. He made no more conversation. The buzzer from the clinic came as a relief.

“I’ll go,” Ishi said quickly.

“No,” Zahra started to say, but Qadir interrupted her.

“Good idea, Ishi,” he said. “Asa can go with you. Let Zahra know if you need help.” At Zahra’s protest, Qadir held up his hand. “Ishi needs experience,” he said, in the voice that meant there would be no discussion.

Ishi got up quickly to go in search of Asa. As she passed, she put out her hand, just a touch, to brush Zahra’s arm. “I’ll call if I need you,” she murmured, and hurried away.

*   *   *

Ishi and Asa opened the door of the clinic to a young woman of nineteen, belly swollen with pregnancy. Her husband was with her, a slight man of perhaps forty-five, his forehead wrinkled with worry. Asa stayed in the dispensary with him while Ishi led the girl into the large surgery.

“This is silly, really, Medicant,” the girl said with a little laugh as Ishi closed the surgery door. Her name was Mina, and she was tall and plain, with bright blue eyes.

“Oh, I’m not the medicant,” Ishi said hastily, but pleased at the assumption. “I’m her apprentice.”

“Oh, I see,” the girl said, smiling. “Well, when you put me on the medicator, you’ll see there’s nothing wrong, but Yosef insisted. He worries so!” She blushed and smiled. “It’s our first, you see. We’ve only been married a year. I shouldn’t have told him I was having any pains.”

Ishi patched the large syrinx onto the girl’s wrist, and watched the monitor as the medicator sampled and tested and measured. “You’re right, Mina,” she said. “Everything looks perfect. I can call the medicant if you want to see her, but if you look at this”—Ishi pointed to the readout—“see? It just tells you how far along you are. And those little contractions are normal. They didn’t really hurt, did they?”

Mina blushed again. “No. It’s just that Yosef fusses over me, and I rather like it. We shouldn’t have bothered you.”

“Oh, it’s no bother!” Ishi said quickly. “I need the practice. I won’t be a medicant for two years yet.”

The older girl looked at Ishi more closely above the panel of her verge. “Oh. You’re younger than I thought.”

“As long as you’re here,” Ishi said, “let’s do a check, and then I’ll tell Medicant IbSada so she can put it in your record.”

Mina smiled again, and her blue eyes danced. “Oh, that will be good. Yosef will think we’re doing something important and scary, and tomorrow he’ll bring me a present from the Medah! He’s always bringing me things— flowers, fruits—he spoils me.”

Ishi laughed. “Lucky you,” she said. She gave the medicator instructions and then stood beside the exam bed, her hand on Mina’s wrist in conscious imitation of Zahra. Covertly, she watched the older girl. Mina’s cheeks were rounded and pink with health and the bloom of pregnancy. She was obviously perfectly content, even delighted, with her marriage, her coming baby, her life. Which is it, Ishi wondered, the baby, or the husband, who makes her so happy? Or could it be both?

Ishi’s own mother was timid and unforthcoming. She never spoke of her feelings about Ishi’s father. She had suffered when Ishi was ceded to Qadir, but those feelings, too, went unspoken.

When Mina and Yosef were safely on their way home, Ishi climbed the stairs feeling quite satisfied with herself and her work. Just like a real medicant. Just like Zahra.

Zahra was not in the bedroom. Still with Qadir, Ishi supposed. She hoped that was a good sign. Perhaps Qadir would make Zahra happy again. Perhaps tomorrow Zahra would be cheerful and energetic, moving with her quick steps through the clinic, ordering Ishi and Lili and Asa about in the old impatient way.

Ishi trailed her fingers over the photograph of Nura, her bony intelligent features barely visible through gauzy layers of veil. “I wish I’d known you,” she whispered. “I hope you’re watching over Zahra. And me, too.”

*   *   *

Jin-Li wanted time, time to think. A shuttle was due the next morning, and Onani would be calling, maybe interfere with her work again. She needed to think this through now, tonight.

She turned the cart toward the Medah, to the market square. She would visit the fish vendor, perhaps the leptokis seller, stroll in anonymity through the bustle. She would consider other options, invent something, some alternative to the thing Zahra had asked of her.

The fish vendor smiled, touching his heart, opening his fingers. “Kir, it’s been a while! Fish for you?”

Jin-Li nodded, and the man spoke through the curtain to his wife in back of the stall. The fish came, as always, hot and tender, salty and fragrant. But Jin-Li couldn’t eat it. After several small nibbles, it went back in its basket.

“Something wrong, kir?” the vendor asked, looking vexed. “Is the fish bad?”

“No, it’s fine,” Jin-Li said, dropping four drakm on the counter with a little shrug. “I’m sorry. I guess I wasn’t as hungry as I thought.”

“No charge, then,” the man said. He pushed the drakm back toward

Jin-Li with greasy fingers and took the basket in his hand. He gave it a little toss, making the golden fillets jump in their napkin, then thrust it back through the curtains into his wife’s hands. “Come again when you’re hungry, Earther.”

Jin-Li smiled at him. “Hard to make a profit that way, my friend.”

The vendor laughed. “It won’t go to waste! My wife hasn’t had her meal yet.”

Jin-Li’s smile froze. The fish seller’s face was untroubled as he turned to another customer, but there was no mistaking his words. His wife would be eating Jin-Li’s order, Jin-Li’s leftovers. The woman was laboring on her knees behind the curtain, her face wet with steam from the stove. And she was expected to eat fish rejected by a customer.

Jin-Li backed quickly away from the little kiosk. The four drakm, glimmering with drops of oil, still lay on the counter. At the very least, the woman’s dinner would be paid for, whether she knew it or not.

It was an ordinary evening in the square. Miners mingled with clerks and farmers and tradesmen. A few women trailed their escorts through the light crowd. The men called out to each other, ignoring the mute veiled figures. A family passed Jin-Li—a man in boots, a small woman in layers of beige silk, a boy of perhaps ten. As they walked by, Jin-Li heard the man snap at his wife, “Hurry, can’t you? I don’t want to be here all night!” The boy took huge strides to be able to walk by his father’s side. He looked back at his mother.

“You’re so slow! Why are you so slow, Mumma?” His tone perfectly replicated his father’s sarcasm. The woman had to trot to keep up, her shoes catching on her long skirts.

On an impulse, Jin-Li walked in the shadows behind the stalls. Women, many with a child in their arms or balanced on one hip, were just visible in the curtained cubicles, cooking food, wrapping parcels, sewing. They called to each other, laughing or complaining, asking questions, telling stories. They fell instantly silent if they caught sight of Jin-Li.

Jin-Li wound through the marketplace to a coffee stand. The vendor placed a cup of strong black brew on the counter, with honey and cinnamon for flavoring. The steam from the brewing scented the air around the kiosk with sharp musk.

“Delicious, kir,” Jin-Li said. “Do you make it yourself?”

The man shook his head. “My wife,” he said with some pride. “Her father’s a coffee grower. She really knows coffee.”

“It’s an art,” Jin-Li remarked.

The vendor nodded. “That it is.”

“You were fortunate in your wife, then,” Jin-Li ventured.

The vendor laughed and winked. “Smart I was, Earther,” he said. “I was in search of a trade after the mines, and the coffee grower had a daughter!” The man’s face softened. “A real jewel of Irustan, my wife. Praise be to the Maker.”

Jin-Li smiled, touched hand to heart, and walked slowly on, searching. Wild schemes and foolish ideas whirled together. They were all fantastic ploys, desperate plots to save Zahra and yet satisfy her need. Surely it wouldn’t be necessary to make it so easy for Onani! Zahra—when it was spoken, out in the open, who wouldn’t suspect her? They would never stop until they knew it all. Jin-Li really knew very little; but if Onani pursued the truth with Zahra, it would all come out, every detail, how she had . . . no, Jin-Li didn’t want to think of how. The why was clear enough.

Jin-Li gave up. No inspiration had come, no great redeeming idea had burst into being. Jin-Li turned toward the cart, and home.

At the end of the row of kiosks was a large, canopied stall lined with bolts of silk and fiber cloth. Jin-Li almost tripped over a little boy scrambling underfoot in chase of a multicolored ball that had bounced off a roll of cloth into the crowd. It ricocheted off someone’s legs, and the boy dove after it.

In the stall, behind the shelter of the counter and the canopy, a tiny veiled figure jumped up and down, arms waving. Jin-Li smiled to see how the child signed to the boy to throw her the ball, throw it her way. She jumped, her veiled head just showing over the counter, and then she jumped again, her arms flailing to get her brother’s attention. The boy, six or seven years old, stood near the counter on the outside, holding the ball above his head, laughing. “Come and get it,” he taunted the girl. “Come out and get it!”

The girl could take it no more. She tried to reach over the counter, to grab at the ball. The boy danced backward, holding it just out of her reach.

Jin-Li no longer smiled. The girl pounded on the counter with her small fist, a mute and tragic figure of utter and complete frustration. A moment later she burst into noisy tears, and at that, her father, the cloth vendor, seized her by the shoulders and bundled her into the back of the stall. Her wails soared above her mother’s murmurs of comfort.

The vendor saw Jin-Li and shrugged, spreading his hands. “Sorry, kir,” he said with a rueful chuckle. “She’s only just put on the veil this week. It’s hard for her.”

“Yes,” Jin-Li said quietly. “Very hard. I can see that.”

*   *   *

“Come with me, Zahra,” Qadir said. He drew her from the evening room, along the corridor to his bedroom.

There were neither wine nor glasses laid ready, nor was Qadir’s dressing gown spread out on the bed. His desk light was on, and papers stacked there. He had been working before dinner.

Zahra took off her veil and dropped it on his dresser. He sat at his desk, and indicated with his hand that she should sit across from him. He put his elbows on the desk and leaned forward, looking into her face.