The Terrorists of Irustan (34 page)

Ishi’s throat went dry as dust. “What?” she asked faintly. She felt blood rushing in her ears, and she put out her hand to the wall for support. “What did you say? About Nura Issim?”

“Oh, you didn’t know that, did you? You think you know everything!” Lili exclaimed. “Nura Issim went to the cells for disobedience, and Zahra will go to the cells for breaking the sacred law. And the honor of the IbSada household will be restored! What will become of you if the IbSada name is disgraced?”

Rage pushed away Ishi’s shock. She took a step forward and leaned very close, staring at the black panels of Lili’s veil, tempted to rip them from her. “And you, Lili,” she cried. “What will become of you now? Do you think I would ever have you in my house, in my clinic? You’d better think what man is going to want you in his household, and go there!”

She whirled, her hands clenched into fists, and marched down the hall to Zahra’s office, where she slammed the door with all her strength. She leaned against the door for a long time, waiting for her heart to stop pounding. Fury and fear struggled within her. Was it true? Could it be true, that Zahra . . .

Ishi pressed her hands over her eyes, and a picture of Diya came into her mind. Nasty Diya, with his thick lips and his pale eyes. Diya, every day at her table. Diya in her bed, his hands on her body. I
would have poisoned him myself!
she thought.

It was a frightening idea, and it surprised her. She lowered her hands and opened her eyes.

Zahra’s office was in turmoil. Samir had left everything upside down, out of place, books and discs on the floor. Not knowing what else to do, she began to tidy the office.

She replaced the books and discs on the shelves, set the reader back into its slot, and picked up the old manifest that Hilel had dropped on the desk. She was about to throw it away when she saw that there were several numbers written on the bottom, very small, in a precise, almost delicate handwriting.

Ishi knew what a wavephone number looked like. The number for the wavephone in the clinic was written on the handset, though in larger numbers than these, and a different pattern. She had watched Diya, and sometimes Asa, use the phone at Zahra’s request, to call for a car, to call Qadir with some message, to call patients’ homes. Ishi, of course, had never touched it. She knew the penalty for such an infraction.

But this number, these elegantly written figures, tantalized her. What number was this? It had to be the reason Zahra had kept the manifest. Ishi traced the number with her finger. Someone had been here, in the office, the someone she had glimpsed from the garden. And Ishi understood immediately, intuitively, whose number this was.

She went to the door and opened it noiselessly. There was no sound from the clinic. When she went down the hall and peeked into the dispensary, Lili was no longer at her desk. Just to be sure, Ishi also checked both surgeries, and made certain the street door was locked. Then she went to the desk and stood behind it, looking down at the wavephone.

The risk at this moment did not seem so great. Men were dead, another probably dying. Zahra and Asa were fugitives. If Ishi was caught using the phone, what a small ripple it would make on this vast sea of troubles! She picked up the handset, its plastic cool in her palm. It wasn’t so very different from holding a reader. Why, then, was she forbidden to use it?

She knew the answer with a despairing certainty, and she understood also why Zahra had done what she had done. If a woman cannot use a phone, or drive, handle money, or go out of her home without a male escort, she cannot escape. She is completely controlled. Men run her world. Only death can release her.

Ishi heard no sound from the phone, but she knew the r-waves were always there, ready and waiting. She held her forefinger over the keypad,

remembering how Diya and Asa had done it. She tapped in the number from the manifest. A soft buzz tickled her ear, and then she heard a neutral voice. “Yes?”

Ishi caught her breath. She had done it. In a small, frightened voice, she said, “Is this Jin-Li Chung?”

thirty-nine

The ExtraSolar Corporation operates under the full force and faith of the governments of Earth. Offworld Port Force officers are of necessity entrusted with powers of decision in all matters that come under their purview.

—
Offworld Port Force Terms of Employment

J
in-Li woke
that morning with a premonition of disaster. She had gone to the reservoir with Tomas, as promised, but there had been no joy in it. She told herself she was just tired. She dressed for the gym, tunic and shorts and sweatshirt, but then she didn’t go. She had no appetite for breakfast or lunch. Onani’s little wavephone lay on her table, a useless reminder of all that had happened. Sitting cross-legged on the apartment floor, she stared out at the pale hot sky, listening to the cooler’s hum, trying not to hear the voice of warning inside her head.

The crisis was over. Onani would not bother her again, and Zahra was safe. She wouldn’t be seeing her, not privately anyway, but at least the danger was past. It was finished. So Jin-Li told herself repeatedly as she sat on through the wasted morning and the long, still afternoon.

Hunger called her out of her black mood as the shadows began to stretch beyond her balcony. She stretched her stiff legs. Tomorrow she would return Onani’s wavephone. Tonight she would go to the meal hall, eat dinner, resume a normal routine. She went to the door, and it was already open when the phone buzzed.

She stopped, one foot over the sill.

It buzzed again, and her premonition solidified into fear. The door closed as she went back to pick up the phone. “Yes?”

“Is this Jin-Li Chung?” It was an Irustani accent, the voice light, almost childish. And unmistakably female.

Jin-Li almost broke the connection immediately. It was worth an Irustani woman’s life to use a wavephone. She had never heard that Pi Team monitored r-wave transmissions, but it was possible. They were relentless in their pursuit of lawbreakers.

Jin-Li hesitated, but the youth of the voice persuaded her. “This is Jin-Li,” “Can you help me?”

“What’s happened?”

“Pi Team is after Zahra!”

“Where is she?”

The young voice trembled. “I don’t know—and these men, they’re everywhere!”

Jin-Li said quickly, “Don’t say any more, it’s not safe. Put down the phone.” She paused. “I’ll do all I can.”

She had no idea what that might be. But she would try.

She grabbed keys and cap from their hook. At the last moment she remembered to toss the wavephone onto the floor of the closet. She wouldn’t want Onani to know where she was. Then she went leaping down the stairs, heart thudding, to the cart.

On Port Force grounds there was nothing to indicate anything amiss, but in the Akros, the small black cars of Pi Team squads were everywhere.

The news spread across the city with the falling dusk. Almost all traffic ceased. Even Irustani innocent of any crime were loath to be stopped and questioned by Pi Team. The lack of cars and cycles made the Port Force cart conspicuous. Jin-Li drove in a large circle, and left the cart in an alley a full kilometer away. Keeping to the shadows, she worked her way on foot toward the IbSada house. The gym shoes made only the softest of sounds on the empty streets. Streetlamps flickered on, and Jin-Li skirted their pools of light. Windows were alight in the houses, but the residents kept judiciously within doors, curtains drawn, doors undoubtedly locked.

Jin-Li reached the house at last and circled it, moving from the shelter of met-olives to the shadows of mock roses, clinging to the garden wall. It took a long time. Men came and went from the front door. The moons had waned to only two, a quarter and a half, and they gave very little light. While Jin-Li was making a second round, Pi Team departed, leaving guards at each entrance. Voices sounded often from their wavephones.

The guards wore the black shirt and trousers of Pi Team, and held long rifles across their chests. Jin-Li’s second circle ended at a door where the garden wall met the house. It looked like a delivery door, set close to the street. A man of a Pi Team squad leaned against the lintel, looking out into the dappled light of the streetlamps.

Opposite the guard, Jin-Li knelt in darkness on ground still warm with the day’s heat. There was no way to know where Zahra might be. Without doubt, the house would have been searched top to bottom. She devoutly hoped Zahra had somehow gotten away. She had no weapon but feet and fists, and the Pi Team rifles were projectile weapons of a kind illegal everywhere on Earth. Jin-Li waited, praying something would happen before daylight revealed her there, squatting beneath a mock rose. The thought of prayer brought a grim smile. Just being here, crouched in the dirt, was an act of faith, something she didn’t usually indulge in.

When something did happen, it wasn’t anything Jin-Li had expected. A long-skirted figure approached the Pi Team guard and began to speak. Jin-Li strained to hear the voices. There was a murmur that might have been, “Help you, kir?” and an answering laugh in bass tones. The two figures came together, and then vanished into the darkness beneath the garden wall.

A moment later the service door opened. The hall light was off, and the three people who came out were barely visible in the dimness. One walked unevenly, aided by a cane, leaning on another, smaller figure. The third was tall and graceful.

Sounds came from the garden wall, moans, grunts, a lascivious breath. The Pi Team member was fully occupied. The fugitives hurried to take advantage of the guard’s distraction, but they could move no faster than their slowest companion.

Jin-Li tensed, ready to dash after the fugitives. They were almost to the corner. Now they had reached it. Jin-Li came up into a crouch.

The three couldn’t go around the corner to the right. That way led to the front door of the house. To the left their accomplice was distracting the guard. Their only route was across the street, which meant crossing the wide circle of light cast by the streetlamp. They weren’t fast enough.

“Hey!” The deep voice of the guard rang out. He appeared in the light of the streetlamp. With his right hand he held his unbuttoned trousers together. His left hand clutched the long rifle, and swung its blank muzzle at the three fleeing figures.

The three froze, trapped in the light. There was no time to think. Making a quick decision, Jin-Li jumped up and darted into the street, between the man and the fugitives.

There were soft frightened cries, from the prostitute, from one of the veiled figures, but Jin-Li didn’t hear them. Jin-Li saw only the Pi Team man, his right hand holding his trousers up, his ugly dark rifle. The gym shoes made it easy to dance toward him, muscles charged with adrenaline, mind focused. At that moment there was nothing in the world for Jin-Li Chung but the big man in the street and the weapon pointed at Zahra IbSada.

Jin-Li gave him no time to pull himself together. Moving lightly, much faster than the guard was able to, Jin-Li chambered a kick. It took only one, leveled from the hip, to send the rifle spinning and clattering onto the pavement. The Irustani’s heavy face contorted. “Hellfire!” he growled. “Who are you?”

His arms were much longer than Jin-Li’s. He was a head taller, and many kilos heavier. He swung his left fist and planted a glancing blow on the point of the shoulder that made Jin-Li’s eyes sting with pain. Bouncing away before he could do more damage, then in again, Jin-Li’s next kick caught only the fabric of his black shirt. His meaty fist hit Jin-Li’s cheekbone hard enough to blur vision and scrape the skin. A trickle of blood dripped and ran from the wound.

The Pi Team man was struggling to fasten his trousers with one hand, keeping the other fist raised as defense. He hadn’t yet taken Jin-Li seriously. He had only to touch the wavephone clipped on his shirt to raise the alarm. No doubt he didn’t want his squad to know he’d been dallying on the job. Jin-Li had to keep him busy, keep him from thinking too much.

Jin-Li moved in, fists raised. The guard threw out his free arm in a massive punch. Jin-Li sidestepped neatly and launched a sidekick at his midriff, connecting solidly with his right hand. He yelped and let go of his trousers, and they sagged around his thighs, showing underwear also in disarray, a thick, hairy belly jiggling. Startled, he grabbed for his pants with both hands.

Jin-Li was ready, body and brain singing with energy. As usual when fighting, time slowed. The guard’s every movement was clear, its purpose exposed. He reached out again with his huge left hand, and Jin-Li sidestepped and kicked, a roundhouse that brought the point of one gym shoe to the point of his chin with a resounding crack. His head snapped back and his eyes widened.

The Irustani suddenly appeared to grasp the reality of his situation. Forgetting his pants, he reached for the phone that would summon the rest of his squad. Seeing that, Jin-Li risked the reach of those massive arms. One leap into range, and Jin-Li delivered two swift punches, one to the thick nose, the other to the soft spot of the temple. Cartilage cracked with a crunching sound, and blood poured over the man’s mouth. He made no attempt to stop it. The blow to his temple had put him completely out.

Jin-Li was panting, dry-mouthed. Waiting, bouncing lightly, watching to see that the man didn’t get up again, didn’t reach for his phone.

He lay on his back in the street, his trousers around his knees, his mouth open. A little pool of blood gathered on the pavement behind his neck. Jin-Li wanted to take the phone, but was afraid that touching it might set off an alarm. Glancing left and right to see if anyone else was coming, Jin-Li backed away, around the corner.

Zahra, Asa, and a thin, veiled girl huddled beneath a met-olive in the next street. Without speaking, hoping not to draw attention from the surrounding houses, Jin-Li ran to them and signaled for them to follow. No one came after them, not yet. But it wouldn’t be long before someone wondered why the guard at the service door had not checked in.

Their progress through the empty streets to Jin-Li’s cart was agonizingly slow. No one spoke. The sound of Asa’s breathing was harsh in the quiet. The girl with him was working as hard as he was, suffering at his side through every painful step. Zahra made no complaint, but Jin-Li saw that her sandals were thin, indoor affairs, and before long the rough spots in the pavement had torn them to shreds. When half the distance had been covered, she began to limp.

Jin-Li began to worry that dawn would find them still on the streets. Where had the three of them been headed? They must have expected a long walk. The night air had begun to cool. A sparse dew fell, and Jin-Li shivered.

The black cars flashed past at intervals, their motors warning of their approach. Twice the fugitives stumbled into the darkness of an alley to escape their headlights. Once they had to flatten themselves against the wall of a house, the rough sandrite catching at their clothes. Asa’s cane fell to the pavement, but Jin-Li snatched it up before it struck. When they had to cross a street, they waited, listening, watching, and then made as quick a dash as was possible. Asa swung his cane in a wide arc, dragging his foot roughly behind. Zahra, though fully veiled, was now almost barefoot, but she hardly slowed her pace.

At the point where the Akros melded into the Medah, they came at last to the ruined building where Jin-Li had left the cart. In the Medah, big houses gave way to smaller ones, very close together. The streets were rougher and poorly lit. No lights shone in the windows nearby.

Warily, looking in every direction, they approached the cart. Jin-Li soundlessly unlocked the door and held it open. The veiled girl suddenly drew back.

“1 can’t ride in that!” she cried softly. “It’s forbidden!”

Asa managed a whispery, exhausted chuckle. “Ritsa,” he murmured. “Everything we’ve done today is forbidden.”

“But this—it’s Port Force!”

He pulled her close to him. “Come on, now,” he said in her ear. Jin-Li could barely hear his voice. “We’re almost there.”

Zahra moved around Ritsa and Asa and stepped into the unfamiliar vehicle as if she had always done it. She took the seat next to the driver’s. Asa and Ritsa followed to settle themselves on the floor in back.

Jin-Li had a hand on the door to close it when a woman appeared out of the darkness, a woman wearing a verge and drape but no rill. She ran to the cart on silent feet. Jin-Li froze, muscles tensing, and looked past her, into the shadows. Apparently the woman was alone.

“Mumma!” came a hushed cry from inside the cart.

The half-veiled woman looked at Jin-Li. Her eyes were hard in a way Jin-Li recognized. Jin-Li stepped aside, and the woman scrambled into the cart with neither thanks nor apology. Inside, on their knees, she and the veiled girl embraced.

Jin-Li hurried to the driver’s seat, got in and started the motor. With headlamps dark, the cart pulled away from the empty shop building. “Where?” Jin-Li asked.

Asa said, “Head for the market square.”

Jin-Li turned toward the square, the cart jouncing on the uneven pavement. They drove for several minutes without incident. Then, ahead, they saw a Pi Team car in their path.

Ritsa saw it too, and cried out. Asa hushed her. Jin-Li drove on, accelerating, directly at the small black vehicle. “All of you, get down. Zahra, you too, right on the floor. Asa, on the bottom shelf there’s a sheet of plastic, that gray quilted stuff. Pull it over yourselves and lie flat.”

Jin-Li shrugged quickly out of the Port Force sweatshirt, and when Zahra was huddled on the floor, threw it across her. With a quick jab of a fist, Jin-Li broke the interior light of the cart, heedless of the broken glass. Spots of blood flew across the windscreen. “Nobody move.”

The cart reached the corner with a soft squeal of brakes. The black car was waiting, blocking the intersection.

Jin-Li let the cart come within inches of the Pi Team vehicle, then leaped out, slamming the door and shouting, “Hey! Get your damned car out of my way!”