Brother to Dragons

by Charles Sheffield

  By the time he was eighteen he had reached his full height, a skinny, alert six-footer who believed that he had seen everything and was touched by nothing.

  He had no friends. He felt no need for them. Since Laga’s death, he had never had friends. He would have sworn, quite honestly, that he needed nothing. Until one October morning, three months before his nineteenth birthday, when he woke with a throbbing pain in his jaw and a left cheek so swollen that his eye could not open.

  The Brazilian wife took one look at him and crowed with satisfaction. “Teeth! I knew with those teeth you would have problems one day. There is only one man in this whole town I would trust.” She gave him an old bill, with an address scribbled on it. “Say that I sent you.”

  It was pelting with rain, but the torment was too bad to bear. Job took a waterproof coat and hood and left at once, hurrying along through deserted streets. He found that the address was right in the middle of the red-light district.

  “Wisdom tooth,” said the dentist. He was a frowning forty-year-old Mexican with monstrous, black-haired forearms. “Impacted, and abscessed. You’re lucky you found me on a quiet day. No point in messing about. It has to go. I’m going to give you a shot, but this may still hurt.”

  It did. Ninety minutes later, Job was helped pale and groggy from the chair. He put on his coat and hat, went to the doorway, and stood there.

  “You all right?” The dentist held up the bloodied and fanged wisdom tooth for Job to admire it. “You’re still feeling the anesthetic. Want to sit down for a while?”

  Job shook his head. He didn’t want to sit down for a while. He wanted to lie down for a week. He went out into the sodden street.

  Although it was not yet midday a few of the hookers were already on the streets. They were overpainted and underdressed, making sure that no one could miss the message. He walked slowly through them, ignoring their come-ons. Once they took a good look at him they didn’t try very hard.

  He was a couple of blocks from the edge of the bordello district when dizziness and nausea caught him. He lurched away from the gutter and leaned his head against the side of a house. With his open hands flat on the wall he struggled to remain upright. As the world steadied, he closed his eyes.

  When he opened them he found that he was standing just a foot from a ground floor window. He could see in. And someone in there was gazing right out at him. Even in his dazed condition he realized that she was very different from the puta women he had just passed.

  She wore little makeup, delicately applied. Her figure seemed to be excellent, but it was concealed by clothes that were sedate, almost prim, with a gray skirt that ended below the knee and a high-collared blue blouse. The blouse material was fine and unfamiliar, and threw off every gleam of light. Her hair was styled as he had never seen hair, straight and dark and skirting a broad forehead to end at mid-cheek. Her skin was that of a thirty-year-old; but her gray eyes had the clarity of a young child’s.

  She was opening the window, sliding it up in its wooden frame. “Are you all right?”

  The voice held the same contradiction, deep as a woman’s, with a childlike intonation.

  “Not too good.” The words came out as a mumble. Job pointed to his jaw. “Tooth. Just out.”

  “You have to sit down.” The woman disappeared, and a moment later the door of the house opened. She came into the street, helped Job inside, and sat him on a little chair near the entrance where he could catch the breeze from the street. “You’re not Matt, are you, the one that Daniello said would come to see me?”

  He shook his head. “I am not Matt.” As the anesthetic began to wear off, the left side of his face was sending pulses of pain up to the top of his skull. But at her last words, his muddled brain began to work.

  It was English that she was speaking, standard English. But what was her accent? It was nothing he had heard before. Its strangeness was totally different from the Texokie twang he had learned from Alan Singh. The woman’s vowels were broad and open-mouthed, while her consonants were clipped and precise. He had already decided that she could not be one of the standard city hookers. Her voice confirmed it. But if she was not, then what was she? All the houses in this street were for the business. Someone’s wife, then, or a sister?

  She went to bring him a glass of cold water. He sipped it one-sided, keeping it away from the left side of his mouth. She was staring at him, her head on one side.

  “It’s not just a tooth, is it?” she said. “You have a swelling, but there’s something wrong with your chin, too.” And then, with no pause. “My name is Stella Michelson. I am visiting my cousin. What’s your name?”

  “I was born with my chin like this.” Job did not give his name. He never gave his name, not to anyone. But the sound of her voice produced a flash of memory. He had heard that tone during his last days at Cloak House. The woman spoke almost as the dimmies spoke, flat and factual. And she was not wary of a stranger, as any woman in this part of the city would be wary. He stared again at the calm eyes. “What do you mean, you are visiting?”

  “The Capitol, and the Mall Compound. This is my first time.”

  “But where do you come from? And why did you come here?”

  She seemed to find nothing odd in his questioning. In twenty minutes Job knew more about Stella Michelson than anyone in the whole world knew about him. She was from the far northeast, hundreds of miles away. This morning she had flown to the airport just across the river and was supposed to be picked up there and go to the Mall Compound. But there had been a hitch. The woman who was supposed to accompany her had not been on the airplane. Her luggage had been collected and taken to the Mall Compound, but her cousin had not met her. Instead, Daniello had found her wandering the airport and brought her here. He had promised to go to the Mall Compound later, and come back with her cousin.

  “Who is your cousin?” Job was beginning to have suspicions about Daniello.

  “Reginald. Reginald Brook.”

  “Does he live here?”

  “He lives for part of the year in the Mall Compound. And then at Recess he flies home.”

  Job stood up. Daniello, whoever he was, didn’t realize what he had got himself into. He had been prowling the airport and found a woman, confused and alone, without luggage. He had picked her up and brought her here.

  Job could write the rest of the story for himself. Stella Michelson was attractive. A valuable property. She would go through a breaking-in period, and then she would be added to Daniello’s stable and made to work the streets. Matt would be part of her sexual submission, helping Daniello. Either of them might be here any time.

  It was an old and familiar scene. Except that Daniello had jumped to a wrong conclusion, and it could be his downfall. Stella Michelson was not what she appeared to be, a runaway woman without possessions and friends. She had connections within the Mall Compound. The Compound was the center of the country’s wealth and power. Daniello was about to find himself in deep trouble.

  Along with anyone else who happened to be too close to Stella Michelson. “I have to go now, Stella. Thank you for the water.”

  “Not at all. It was very nice to meet you.” She smiled, and her conventional words became full of meaning. Her face was like an opening flower.

  The memory of that smile stayed with Job as he hurried home. He decided to go nowhere today. The rain had returned, business would be poor, and although his head had stopped spinning he could use a day of rest and sleep.

  Except that he could neither sleep nor rest. He lay on his narrow bed, stared at the ceiling, and saw images. Of the arrival of Matt, of the return of Daniello. The doors and windows of the house would be shuttered and locked. The two men would strip her naked. Then they would beat her. One or both would have sex with her. Stella Michelson’s “education” would begin.

  It was sad, but it was none of his business. He owed her nothing but a glass of water. It was not something for which Job should risk comfort or security.
/>
  That’s what he told himself as he put on his coat and hood, and hurried out into the hissing rain.

  The house was still unshuttered. He peered in through the window. She was there, alone. The street was empty. He went around and knocked on the door.

  “Stella.” He pushed his way in and was speaking before the door was fully open. “Get your coat. Daniello isn’t coming here. We have to leave and meet him.”

  Job had already decided that there would be no time for true explanations. In any case, she might not believe him. He would take her from the house to the edge of the Mall Compound, and tell her to stand there for a few minutes and wait for Daniello. Job would leave at once. The surveillance system would home in on her, as it did anyone on the Compound perimeter, and it would pass on her picture. By now her cousin would have alerted the Mall police, and they would be searching. She ought to be safe inside and back with her family in less than an hour.

  What the devil was she doing?

  “Stella!”

  She turned from the mirror. “If we’re going outside, I have to check my hair and do my makeup.”

  He glanced at the closed door. “Do it when we get there. We have to hurry.”

  She nodded, and walked calmly across the room to put on her coat and hat. “I wish we had an umbrella. It’s raining terribly hard out there. Maybe there is one in the cupboard.” She opened a closet between the door and window and began to rummage around inside.

  For God’s sake! Job stepped to her side. He was reaching down to take her arm when the outside door opened.

  The man who came in was bareheaded. His dark hair was slicked down over his forehead and dripping with rain. He was a couple of inches shorter than Job, but a lot more heavily built. In one hand he carried a coil of rope, in the other a two-foot length of thick rubber hose. He hardly had the door open before the rope was on the floor and the hose was lifting.

  “Who the hell are you?” The voice was a wolf’s growl.

  “Daniello!”

  Job did not need her cry of greeting. The man was blocking the doorway. If there was another way out, Job did not know it. And he would be allowed no time to seek. The man was moving forward, ready to hit first and then ask questions.

  Job had not wanted violence. But he could not have survived eight years in the city without being prepared for it. He reached inside his coat to his belt. As Daniello brought his arm down, Job felt for the narrow-bladed knife and threw up his other arm protectively. The blow took him on his raised left elbow, and the pain was astonishing. His arm fell numb to his side. He nearly dropped the knife from his other hand. One more hit like that, and Daniello would be able to do what he liked with him. As the bludgeon was raised again Job thrust forward and up, under the other man’s ribs.

  He had never stabbed anyone before, and he was surprised at the force that it needed to push through fat and muscle. The knife blade stopped after it had penetrated just a few inches.

  But it was enough. The hose came down on the side of Job’s head with no force to the blow. The man was grunting, doubling over, reaching for his midriff with both hands.

  Job pulled the knife out and stepped clear. It was not a killing stroke. He had seen men with worse wounds rise and clear the street. In a couple of minutes, when the first shock was over, Daniello might come at him again. Job had to be out in the next few seconds; or he had to finish the job and kill the man.

  As he hesitated, Stella began to scream. She was retreating from Job, staring at the knife. He stuck it back in his belt. He had to shut her up, or the whole street would be alerted.

  “He’s not badly hurt” (But he looks like he is, grovelling on the floor grabbing at his guts.) “Stella, shut up. We have to get out of here now. I’ll explain later.”

  She stopped screaming at once. Not probably because she believed him, but maybe because she was scared. Well, for the moment that would have to do. He could use her fear. He took her arm. “We’re leaving. Daniello will be all right. But don’t say one word when we are out on the street. Understand?”

  She nodded, staring wide-eyed at the bloody knife at his belt. Her expression was more curiosity than fear.

  “That’s good. Button your coat.” He hurried her outside. At the door he took a last look. “Is there anything else of yours in there?”

  She shook her head. Job was certain that there was no evidence that he had ever been in the house. He looked both ways along the wet street. There were only two men in sight, both far-off and walking away from them. Job pulled his hat low over his face and reached across to do the same for Stella. She shied away from his hand for a moment, then stood still and allowed him to adjust her hat brim.

  “Come on.” He took her arm again.

  “Where are you taking me?” She had been told not to speak on the street, but there was no way to keep her silent.

  “Where you will be safe.” He headed for home.

  Job Salk at nineteen was bigger, smarter, more learned and more experienced than Job at fourteen. But he was making mistakes that the fourteen-year-old would never have made.

  First of all, the younger Job would never have gone back to the house to find Stella Michelson. And if by some chance he had found himself there, and been forced to rescue her, he would not have taken her with him to his own den. Never, never, never. He would have pointed her towards the Mall Compound, hurried home, and hidden for at least three days. And if somehow Stella had found her way into his home, he would have got rid of her at once and abandoned his hiding place without looking back.

  Le coeur a ses raisons que la raison ne connaît point. The heart has its reasons…At thirteen, Job had read Pascal as he learned French and wandered randomly through its literature, but he had not known what those reasons were. At nineteen he knew, but at nineteen he could not deny.

  Job had gone back for Stella. He had rescued her. He had taken her home. And now he explained what he had done.

  She listened gravely, sitting on the bed and drying her dark hair as he talked of the area where he had found her, about the meaning of her pickup at the airport, of what Daniello did for a living, and what Daniello and Matt had had in mind for her.

  He explained slowly and carefully, as to a child. After ten minutes she hung the towel on the line, turned, and said, “You think I’m an idiot, don’t you? I’m not. I may not be smart, but I’m not an idiot.”

  While Job stared, she went on, “I believe what you are telling me, even though I shouldn’t, because you’re nice and I want to believe you.”

  Job believed her, for the same bad reason.

  “You are right about some things,” she went on. “I was silly to believe Daniello, when he said he would go and bring my cousin for me. But where I live, there is no danger. I have never been in any danger, ever.” She sat on the narrow bed again. “Are you going to feed me now? I have had nothing since the flight down this morning.”

  Was there ever such a place, where it could be safe to trust a complete stranger? Job could not imagine it. He went to his food cupboard and examined what he had stored away there. It was more than good enough for him, but not for her.

  “Wait a minute.” He went out, and returned with a long loaf of bread, a bouillabaisse that was his Brazilian landlord’s masterpiece, and two bottles of wine. It had cost him more than he usually spent on food in a month.

  Stella accepted it all casually, pulled a face at the wine, and drank it anyway. They had a long, leisurely meal, talking mainly about her home and her life-style. Airplanes, ocean cruises, a house with a hundred rooms. Dogs and horses—but as pets, and not to eat. Parties and waterskiing and powerboats and luxury cars. To Job it all had the unreality of elf-land; yet somehow he believed her. When they had finished eating she watched as Job cleared up, washed and dried the dishes, and put things away.

  “Do you often do this yourself?” she said. She had made no offer to help.

  He stared at her. She wasn’t joking. “I do. Who does your w
ork for you? When it’s not me, I mean.”

  “People.” She missed the irony, and waved her hand vaguely. “You know. There’s always people around for that sort of thing.”

  In Job’s mind the gulf between them widened still further. He put the last dish in the drawer and went across to feel the hanging coats. They were dry. “Come on.”

  “Come on where?”

  “Home. Where you ought to have been hours ago. It’s getting dark. Your cousin will be worried sick.”

  She put on her coat and hat while he stood and waited, and went with Job through the corridor and as far as the outside door. As he opened it, cold rain came blowing in. It was pelting down harder than ever. She grimaced and pulled back. “I’m not going out in that. Why don’t we just call my cousin?”

  “I don’t have a phone.” Calls from any telephone could be traced. He had decided long ago that he would never own one. But he was sure that he could get her to the Mall Compound in such a roundabout way that she would never find her way back here.

  “Then my cousin can wait a while longer. This won’t let up tonight.” She closed the door and went back along the corridor toward Job’s room. “I’ll go in the morning.”

  He followed her, indecisive. She had to go, that was clear. But how was he supposed to make her? She sounded firm, while he was finding it harder and harder to summon the energy to do anything. He had drunk only one glass of wine, to keep Stella company, but it had followed a bad night, a painful tooth extraction, and plenty of stress and physical violence. His left cheek still ached, and so did his bruised elbow. All he really wanted to do was flop down somewhere and postpone worry about Stella’s problems until tomorrow. And it was not as though she was in any danger. She was as safe with him as she could be anywhere in the city.

  It did not occur to Job, then or ever, that there was another and simpler reason: he did not want her to leave.

  He took off his coat without speaking and placed it again on its hook. For his trading expeditions into the countryside he took with him a roll mattress. Now he pulled it out from under his bed and spread it on the floor. It was frayed at the edges, with bits of dried grass still stuck to it.