She didn’t mind cleaning, even though Del had hired a sour-faced old Homelander to do the job for her. He insisted a lady of standing need not scrub or mop. But she cleaned anyway. She wanted his housekeeper to have less to do, and therefore leave sooner. Karra was afraid the woman might find something she should not, a pair of thickweave trousers in the back of a drawer, a small box with palmfilms at the bottom of a purse.
The vid rang.
When she answered, a plump Nevian woman’s face appeared.
“You missed our cooking lesson, Laren dear,” the woman told her.
Startled, Karra could only murmur, “I forgot. Sorry.” What other appointments had Laren made?
“Not a problem, my dear. I do have some time this afternoon. Will just after lunch work for you? Manwu will be busy all day, so he will not be underfoot.” She laughed.
“This afternoon,” Laren repeated. “Thirteen-thirty?”
“Perfect.”
Who was she? How would she get there? She stepped out the front door into the hall where Lieutenant Motz was pacing. He was a big man with very short blond hair.
“Mistress?”
“This may sound like a silly request, but do you know where Del’s friend Manwu lives? His wife has asked me to visit her this afternoon, and I forgot to pay attention when Del brought me there the other night.”
The flat-faced guard half-grinned at her, a kind of charming, disarming gesture. “Yes, Mistress. I will call someone else to guard the door and will escort you myself.”
“Oh, you needn’t bother.”
“No problem,” he said with a return of the half smile. “I would much prefer to fly you to the Ve Ka residence than to guard a door, I assure you. Besides, it is a Secured building, like this one, and you will need an escort to get you both into the building and past their guards.”
Doesn’t Laren go anywhere alone? Karra asked no one in particular.
But the beast answered. Guards everywhere. It chafes, doesn’t it? It pushed a forceful wave of irritation at her. Yes. It chafes. You do not handle chafing well, do you? Laren does, of course. But, alas, she is not available, and only you can release her. Is that her begging I hear?
Karra tried to shut out Laren’s sobbing, but the beast forced her to listen.
Soon, it told her, or you will lose control and be no weapon of precision at all, but a mass murderer on her way to her hanging. Your choice, Karra. How long do you wish to live?
Shaking, Karra finished the last of the cleaning, and dressed to meet Jem in the Garden.
The cleaning woman arrived just as Karra walked out the door. She nodded at Lieutenant Motz, telling him she would return in an hour or so.
Karra had the purse with her, the palmfilms on her hands. The only way to enter her apartment without a guard or A’nden himself present, was with an acceptable palmprint. Her life was full of guards too, and yes, it chafed.
But when she reached the Garden, Jem’s face was rigid with fury. She nearly took a half-step backwards when she saw him.
“You were a fool, Karra,” he told her as soon as she sat down. “Let there be no mistake who I’m talking to.”
Why was he so angry? “What do you mean?”
“Don’t play innocent with me. Getting drunk was stupid. It’s a Karra action, just another way to lose control and you know it. Laren would never do something so stupid.”
“How did you find out about that?”
“Through Friends. How could you be so careless?”
“Look, it’s past. Let’s forget it.” Please forget it.
“You look, little sister. Who taught you how to be careful, to take care of yourself?”
“You did.”
I did, the beast reminded her. Jem gave you the lessons, but I kept you from getting arrested. You owe me your very life.
“Yeah. If it hadn’t been for me you would have been picked up years ago. What was the first lesson I taught you?”
“Blend in. Don’t make a spectacle.”
“Do you remember everything that happened?”
“Sure,” she said, defensive. “Most of it.”
“Do you remember the bar scene, the man you put in the hospital?”
“He tried to pick me up!”
“That’s how you saw it. He was assigned to get you out of there. Do you remember that?”
He was a Friend? She stared at Jem stupidly.
“In this business you can’t afford to lose control. You’re a damned good actress when you decide to be. But you know something? You’re erratic. One minute you’re tough as plastisteel, the next violent enough to murder one of your own family.”
That was a fun evening, the beast said. Almost adequate, but you’re capable of so much more. Let me…
“Shut up,” she told the beast. “It all worked out,” she told Jem.
“Like the Frozen Waste. You were lucky. A’nden’s no fool. He’ll peg you for Karra if you’re not careful. Don’t you think he might have his own Friends? How do you know you’re not watched?”
“I’m not. He was angry that he didn’t know where I was. Del loves me. He wouldn’t put spies on my tail.”
“You want to keep it up and see?”
Jem was right, she knew. From now on she had to be very, very careful. Like plastisteel.
Ice, the beast offered. If you cooperate with me, then I’ll let Laren out for a while to play. I let you hear her whimpering. She’s finally at the point she’ll do anything I tell her to, just to get out of that box. She’s a much faster learner than you are.
But be warned. She will not survive there much longer. Every hour that passes seems like years to her. She is dying, Karra. What will you do with half your personality gone? Who will be able to love Del then? Ah, the intricacies of human life!
“It won’t happen again,” she promised. Maybe just a small thing, like the bar scene, she told the beast.
No. I choose. For the rest of your life, Karra, I choose. You are almost there, I think.
“How’s Suzin. And Chalatta?” She had to get him on another subject. Fast.
“All right. Suzin’s job is a good one. It’s steady, no work-downs, occasional plustime, better than average pay. Dugaan is still looking for work. Carlon’s assistance stopped last moon cycle. Saril still has her job.”
“Good, but I still want Chalatta to have this.” She dropped a handful of wens in front of him. “Do you ever see her?”
“Only from a distance. It’s too dangerous to meet her openly. Security still watches the place. They maintain extra patrols in that part of the city, even following her to and from school. Do you have my disk?”
They exchanged disks.
“Oh, I wanted to tell you, the leaflets were good. That message was perfect. How did the Commissioner take it?”
“Like a declared war.” She laughed.
“It is war.” Jem did not even smile. “We want you to recruit helpers for the printing press from the Public Academy, if you know some possibilities there. One at a time, though. We want Friends to check them out. No second one until the first has passed a background. Understand?”
“Yeah.” She glanced at the digital. “Say, I have to go. I have a cooking lesson this afternoon.”
“A lady of leisure taking cooking lessons?” Jem grinned for the first time during their meeting. “As long as it keeps your lover happy.”
Jem was still smiling as his sister left. Although the Nevian luncheon suit covered practically every min of skin, it fit her exactly. There would always be prettier women than Karra, but few with so much style. Men often called her beautiful when what they really saw was her innate elegance. What Gradi had begun, Jem had finished. A diamond no longer in the rough—and a perfect, if chaotic, weapon.
Watching her now it was hard to imagine the frightened, white-faced child of ten years ago. The Homelander Front never intended that Jon Willo's children witness his execution, especially the younger children. No one would have been so
cruel. Jem had been the only one permitted near, and he needed to look away. But when he did, he saw little Karra, her eyes fixed on their father, walking toward him as if she could pass right through the rolls of razor wire. She had not heard Jem calling. By the time he reached her, she had collapsed beneath the crowd.
At first, seeing blood on her skirt, he thought a stray bullet had caught her, even though most of the rifle fire was supposed to be aimed above the people to confuse and scatter them.
But something more sinister had happened. Hatred, like a beast with fangs and claws, stared at him through her baby eyes. The memory still spooked him.
"Hello," Von greeted warmly as she opened her door for Laren. Von. The lieutenant had even supplied her with the name of her hostess. "Come in and sit down. How has your day been?"
"Oh, fine." She followed Von across the room. "Are you sure about this? I could destroy your kitchen."
"You could not possibly be that bad."
"Oh, no? After today you may barricade me from it."
Von laughed. "Before we start, though, let me get you a cup of tea."
The palmfilms, she thought suddenly. The minor heat from a teacup, as long as she kept her fingers outside the cup where they belonged, would not damage them. Neither would stirring, measuring, those sorts of things. And as long as she remembered to use oven mittens, or kept her hands away from steam, they would give her no problems. But she took a serious chance during those activities, because even a momentary exposure to extreme heat would blister and curl them like dead skin after sunburn.
Karra had purchased a second pair because they were so fragile, but that would not prevent Von from coming to the conclusion that she was not who she seemed should she witness the gloves curling away from her fingers.
When Von left to get he the tea, Karra almost removed the gloves. But she was too unwilling to take the cup in her bare hands.
"Thanks," she said when Von returned. She took it with care.
"Why not ask me about my day?" Von suggested.
"All right. How has your day been?"
"Great! I just got back from lunch with friends. You should join us sometime."
"I'm not sure I would fit in."
"Oh, nonsense. Not everyone is like the Ve Toohls and the Mu Aanames. Ah! I was not supposed to reveal that."
"How did you know?"
"Del told me. He called here looking for you. Why did you run off anyway? Did they say something?"
Nowhere to run, Karra, the beast mocked.
Karra clenched her jaw. "Quite a bit. But I thought I came here to cook."
"I am sorry, Laren. My mouth ran away from me again. But before we go into the kitchen, may I say something?"
It's your home, she thought, irritated.
"Del worries about you. One minute you take things like you’re from a noble House, then over something similar, you get angry. Is something wrong?"
"No." Karra kept her face expressionless.
"Whatever it is, you better get it straight with Del."
Karra frowned. First Jem, now Von.
"Laren, dear, that was no threat. Del just cares about you. I will dismiss the whole thing right now. But if you ever need someone to talk to, I will listen."
But Karra had no intention of sharing anything. Ever.
She did not remove the gloves that day.
“Toss them in the incinerator."
Karra peeked out of her room to see what Del so imperiously wanted thrown out. His housekeeper stood before him, holding a pair of thickweave trousers.
"They are not appropriate attire for my Lady. She is to take no more trips to the Outer Area."
Karra clamped her jaw in anger, furious with the violation of privacy. Those trousers had been stored in the back of a drawer. She closed the door, carefully, quietly, changed into a breezy spring dress, and spent time fussing with her hair.
By the time she opened her door, both Del and the housekeeper had gone. With her long hair tucked under a floppy straw hat, and carrying a roomy straw bag, she nodded to the guards at the door as she left, to make sure they saw her in "appropriate" clothing.
Motz winked back at her, causing her to smile.
She could always buy thickweave.
A woman in a breezy spring dress and floppy straw hat entered a Second Level restaurant and ordered tea and a salad. It was a busy place with far too many customers and too few waitresses. No one noticed her leave her table for a few moments to use the restaurant’s facility.
The woman who left wore her waist-length hair draped over the shoulders of a nondescript tan shirt and faded thickweave pants. Although she wore no hat, she did carry a roomy straw bag.
A salesman walking toward an airway closest to the Public Academy noticed one young woman obviously recently from the Area. He saw her nervously trying to hide a sheathed knife under her shirt. The salesman snorted in disgust.
"When will these Outer Area people realize no weapons are permitted in the Inner City?" he later complained to his wife. He continued for some time on the subject of the utter lack of respect Area residents had for Inner City rules, noticing only the knife, not the length of her hair or the bag she carried.
Karra shook her blonde-streaked hair away from her face. She relished the warmth of the sun against her face and the breeze on her cheeks.
A couple of Manroy's friends passed her, returning her attention to her mission. A few steps behind them, the young man strolled aimlessly, more interested in an attractive young girl to his left. She, however, shook her head as he called to her.
"Not now," she shrilled above the clamor of the many out-of-school voices. "I have to get to my job."
"Tomorrow, then," Manroy suggested.
"Got plans," she said, offering no encouragement.
Manroy, with a helpless shake of his head, watched her leave. His friends had not waited for him.
Karra slipped out of the alley, lengthening her stride to catch up with him before he reached them.
"Manny," she said, nearly at his ear. "Do you remember me?"
Startled, he spun around to face the owner of the unexpectedly sultry voice. The next instant he shoved her roughly into a space between a couple of buildings. "Karra. Is that really you?"
"It's me." She laughed playfully.
"Y'look so different."
"You approve?" She turned around in the small space.
"Much better," he breathed. One hand began to stroke the long, shiny hair, following the curve of her body from shoulder to hip. "You're so real, out of uniform and all!"
She liked hearing the young man say it, the compliment she would never get from Del.
"We all thought you were dead until those papers got around last handspan. Did you know you're about the hottest piece of wanted property around here?"
"I figured as much."
One hand near her breast began playing with the closest button. "What're you doing here, anyway?"
"Seeing you. Do you need to be someplace soon?"
He shook his head while his hand finished with the button and started on the next. "No one is home until after eighteen hundred." Encouraged that she had not yet pulled away, he added, "And I don't have a regular job. You free too?"
"Free?” She laughed. “Not hardly.”
"I heard you were barebackin'. But, then, I also heard you were dead until those papers came out. 'We begin again,'" he quoted. "What kind of a message is that?"
"Guess."
"Maybe it means more of those papers are coming out, with more interesting messages."
"Maybe. Maybe it also means there are a few of us who have some things to say that don't come from official government bulletins. What do you think?"
"I think I'd like to find out how much you charge for barebackin'," he told her straight out, going for the third button.
"More than you can afford, Manny."
"Yeah?" He put his hand down and stepped back, studying her. "You probably erren't barebacki
n' these days anyway."
"No."
"The Homelander Front a good guess?"
"Yeah. I could use some help printing more literature."
"Yeah," he said, disappointment obvious.
"You can buy a paygirl anywhere. But if you're interested…"
"Yeah. Literature. Why me?"
"I watched you. You weren't afraid to say what you thought. This would be a chance to do more than just disagree in class."
His hazel eyes stared past hers into the dark space between the buildings. "So all you want to know is, do I want to print illegal papers, which could earn me lockaway if I was caught."
"Well put. That is the danger, of course. Are you still interested?"
He did not answer immediately. Another aspect of his personality that pleased her, he refused to leap into a situation emotions-first.
He backed up another step, she watched the sun gleam on his oiled hair, cut to just below his ears like most boys his age. Personally, she preferred dry, clean hair, Inner City style. She did like the way his shirt pulled over his chest and his belt fit flat against his stomach. Del, to her satisfaction, had the body of a much younger man, and wished he would allow her a closer examination. But she hoped Manny had appreciated the feel. It was all he was going to get.
"I want to dig under their gray hide with my knife too," he said at length. "But I doubt I'd get away with it. Truthfully, Karra, I'm worried about getting involved in this Homelander Front thing."
"Printing leaflets. That's all," she said as she buttoned her shirt.
"Sure." He raised one eyebrow at her. "I got one question. Did you kill the Chief Administrator?"
"No." Her smile vanished. "But whoever did, planned it so that I would be blamed. You remember that story I wrote?”
“Who could forget?”
“Well, the Administrator of Education wanted to change the way I looked at the world and offered me, all expenses paid, entrance into one of the writing academies. All I needed to do was turn over those in the Homelander Front, even though at the time I didn’t know any of them. I couldn’t have complied, even if I had wanted to. When I refused, he told me to leave and never come back. So I did. By the time I got home, the place was crawling with Security, and I was wanted for murder.”
Her Darkest Beauty: An Alien Invasion Series - The Second Generation Page 25
