Mieu presented Numair, and then me. Commander, she said, not Doctor, as we had agreed the one might impress a military person more than the other.
I was not sure anything might impress her. Even as we shook hands, in the offworld fashion, her gaze met mine for half a second only and then continued sweeping over us, the station, the surroundings.
“I’ve been looking forward to this, Commander,” she said, refocusing on me.
“As have I, General.”
She shook hands with András as well; then centered on the Beast with an almost audible snap in attention.
He had hung back from us, hands behind his back, almost at a parade rest. With fascination I noted the knot at the hinge of his jaw, the arc of his nostrils, how his gaze fixed on her. I tucked my thumb and forefinger into my sash, as if casually at rest. And palmed the remote.
“Now, this is the last thing I would have expected to find on Ubastis,” Zhádāo said. “Not saluting?”
“Er,” said Mieu helpfully. “This is—”
“Ferrum O-389,” the Beast rasped. He jerked his chin in a nod. “In the Commander’s service.”
Zhádāo’s gaze slid blackly to me. I shrugged. “He’s my assistant. It’s a dangerous planet out there, General.”
“Omikron,” she said musingly. “I remember them.” Then: “Is it coming with us?”
“All things considered, General, I’ve judged it wise to cease conducting hunts alone. He’s more than qualified.”
Mother of God, I’m defending him!
Calm down, you’re only defending your judgment.
“I’m sure it’s more than qualified. Forgive my rudeness, O-389. It has been a very long time since I’ve seen something of your ilk—” she hesitated, as if catching herself “—among civilians.” Without waiting for a response, she waved her companion forward, reaching up to put a hand on his shoulder. “We surprise each other. This is Colin Bearce, a longtime contact of mine. That was a good idea your agent had, Dr. Loren, to request the presence of a journalist.”
Mohammad Tariq had come through again. Colin Bearce’s credentials were exactly what I wanted for this. His brand of news dissemination valued the visceral, not the intellectual. I allowed myself a wry mental smile. Oh, if only Senator DeBeers could be here too.
Affable, smiling, handsome, Colin shook hands with everyone, even the Beast—who stared at Colin’s outstretched hand for two seconds before taking it.
“I’ve seen you!” Mieu beamed. “You’re the journalist—you do those fascinating pieces on miner’s strikes and unsafe conditions aboard soyships and faulty cryobanks at Club Egg.” She threw us an impatient look. “Come on, you’ve seen him—that’s his wrap on the Monthly Masochist.” We admitted to varying degrees of familiarity, made the appropriate noises. This level of enthusiasm, for Mieu, was equivalent to someone else jumping up and down. “What a pleasure it is to meet you!”
To give Bearce credit, he did not return Mieu’s enthusiasm with the meter-wide molar-baring grin that I’d seen on a hundred hand-pressers. Instead he offered a true zygomatic smile, complete with crow’s feet. “I can’t believe how lucky I am. Everyone who’s heard about Ubastis secretly dreams of visiting her.”
“Or not so secretly,” I said.
The lens glittered my way, but I cut smoothly across the first syllable out of his mouth. “General, have you and Colin much baggage?”
“Someone should have it loaded by now,” Zhádāo said.
“Then I suggest we board. The rail leaves in about five minutes, and we can’t wait for the next one. We don’t want to miss prayer,” I could not resist adding.
“Of course,” Zhádāo said. “My apologies; I hadn’t realized that you were all . . .”
“We’re not,” Numair said. “I’m the only Muslim.”
“So it’s part of the uniform then.” She pursed her lips. “One way of fostering an esprit de corps.”
Mieu distracted her with a touch on her elbow. “If we hurry, we can get the same car we came up in; I have a sneaking suspicion it was the most comfortable one on the train.”
The general allowed herself to be herded away by Mieu, Numair on her other side making polite conversation. Ordinarily that would have been my job, but since I had chosen to strap the Beast to my hip, as it were, I fell back with András.
“This time I don’t envy you,” he said.
I grinned at him behind the Beast’s back. “You wanna come too? Won’t Jamalu miss you?” He pulled a face and lengthened his stride, putting distance between us.
I looked up at the Beast, who met my gaze placidly. “You going to behave?”
His voice dropped to a nearly sub-aural pitch. “We might ask her the same question, Commander. Neither one of us would pick her for a bunk buddy.”
“She’d top all the way, wouldn’t she?”
That horrible sound came from him again—the one I had to remind myself was laughter. His gloved hand came up, and I stepped back, the remote in my hand. In mid-gesture he checked and folded his arms across his chest. “For someone who’s supposed to be so smart, Doctor, it’s taking you a long time to figure out we’re not what you have to worry about.”
“I got some bruises say different—”
“Yeah, we got some from you that should make us run like a little kid every time we see you.” He inhaled deeply, and I could have sworn I heard a seam rip. “You promised us you would listen to us if we came with you.”
“I promised I would think about it.”
We glared at each other. My pulse hammered in my temples; adrenaline sluiced through me, leaving me with the high of fight-or-flight.
Colin Bearce’s voice insinuated itself between us. “. . . lack in the deliberate sexual provocation we’re used to, they make up for in color. I walk through their curiously grim spaceport and I can believe that, as far as clothing is concerned, drab is as big a sin as skin. Lapis, ochre, green—ahh, what the hell’s a good word for green?” Murmuring nonstop, the journalist somehow managed to move forward and spin in a slow circle. He paused in front of us, blinking.
Automatically I bared my teeth for the goddamn lens, meeting the technical requirements for a smile. “You may have to revise your opinion of our capacity for sin, as you call it, if you’re coming to the hafla tonight, in the general’s honor.”
The muscles surrounding his eyes twitched. Focusing the cam, I realized. “It bothers you that I’m tagging along, doesn’t it?”
He doesn’t know I asked for him. He’s baiting me. Doing his job, looking for good vid. “Do you plan to discredit us or celebrate us?” I began walking. The Beast swung into step beside me and yes, Bearce did follow, ranging ahead of us in a trot and then turning so that he could keep us within the lens. He must have perfected walking backward, I thought.
Of course he answered, “I have no desire to do either one, Commander, only to show Ubastis as it is.”
“Then you celebrate us.”
“I’m merely an impartial viewer.”
“Viewing objects who are anything but impartial.”
“By no means, I don’t mean to imply—”
“What I mean to say,” I said, smiling, walking, “is that you will have your own little Heisenberg’s Uncertainty Principle in action. One glance at that apparatus on your head, and you’ll have a city of citizens either on their best behavior—or inciting a riot.”
He laughed. “A riot!” As if I had suggested we cure a boil by slapping a dead pigeon on it—a concept comically disgusting and anachronistic. Two techs on their way to the fueling labs turned to look at him. I saw the frowns on their faces; he did not. He took a step forward, his handsome face alight. “Is a riot possible? Have things on Ubastis progressed—regressed to such a state that physical aggression has returned to the human condition, despite decades of genetic finessing to the contrary?”
We were almost to the rail. I saw the four waiting on us, and held down the lid on my temper’s canister. Spin i
t, Vasthi. “I think the future of Ubastis is the future of humanity. We put our energy into caretaking, not aggression and expansion.”
Darkness loomed on my left as the Beast—Ferrum O-389, I thought with an acid little jet of wonder—put his body between Bearce and me. I flat ran into him. “Why don’t you ask your general?” he asked Bearce. “She’s the one who’s paid out millions of credit into the UBI bank to come here and kill something.”
Damn it. I grabbed his elbow. He looked down at me, frowning, and I gazed disingenuously up at him. “She’s an honored guest, whom we’re going to teach about the treasure that is Ubastis.” Then, my sweetest smile to Bearce. “And if I can take one of the galaxy’s best journalists along for the ride, so much the better.”
New Albuquerque would take any excuse to hold a hafla: a marriage, a funeral, visiting dignitaries (rare), a birth (rarer still)—everyone turned out to the agora to eat, visit with friends, flirt, play music, and dance.
Ya Allah, how we danced.
Lamps threaded the airy promenade inside the massif, a galaxy reflected in the glass wall. All ink now against the night, it showed us our double selves, but blurred with movement, shadows, intoxication. Some of us danced in front of the transformed mirror, some of us frankly leaned against the cool surface, bringing fever down.
Children tumbled through the crowd like meteorites, causing collisions, tears, laughter. And kisses; every time I caught Bibi hurtling among the bodies with her age-mates, I swung her up and kissed her. Against my lips her cheek was as soft as dawn in that spangled night.
With electricity and food at such a premium, we compromised on our methods of entertainment. This night could not compare to Moira’s party those weeks ago; they were not even in the same superorder. No seitan steaks, no trembling aspics chilled for a table of forty. For food we brought no more than what we would have prepared for ourselves, our families. Somewhere on the tables by the stairways my own contribution of curry tofu with spinach shouldered among the humble chickpea tagine, soy flatbread, tomato tarragon salad we all ate every day. We had held Moira’s party for others, for others to observe, to prove that we could be like those offplanet. But in so doing, did we only prove ourselves more isolated? Tonight, as we reveled for ourselves, we forgot that there were in fact other worlds.
People talked, in clots and huddles, around the food, knotted around the benches along the agora. Arranged on the stairs, a group of musicians had unlimbered their instruments and were tuning up. No pre-recorded music tonight, no electric bass or keyboards or microphones. Five young men and women had scavenged various sizes of plastic containers, turned them over, and tried them out for tone. A woman ran scales on her oud; a man tightened the keys on his violin. Several others drifted over, laughing and singing snatches of song, testing each other.
A chain of girls wound through one end of the hall; I saw Bibi at the end of it. Even as I turned to go to her, I saw Bozana swoop to pick her up. I could not hear Bibi’s scream of glee, but I saw the open mouth, the tiny teeth. Bozana bounced her up and down; Bibi secured herself with a fistful of Bozana’s hair. Seeing my child with the beautiful young woman, I felt a cut of jealousy. In the event something happened to me on a hunt, Bozana might replace me as a mother figure in Bibi’s eyes—but who better? I summoned what intellectual balm of reassurance I could, and crossed the agora to them.
“Say goodnight to your mama,” Bozana said.
Bibi reached for me, like a lemur switching from one tree to another. She wound her arms around my neck and tried to do the same with her legs around my ribcage. “Ma-ma-ma,” she said.
“Whuff!” Beer slopped over my hand as I shifted balance. “You’re getting to be such a big girl!”
“Me know,” she said, with all the complacency of a ruler accepting due tribute, and reached for my drink.
“You can have that when you’re older,” I said. “Bozana will give you something better for you when you get home.”
Her mouth elongated, her lower lip threatening to turn down. “Want to stay.”
I pushed my face into her neck and blew a reverberant raspberry. She shrieked and grabbed my head. “Be good for Bozana, and I’ll come along in a little while, okay?”
Despite cajoling, Bibi still erupted in tears. Bozana and I looked at each other and shrugged, and it was only when Bozana announced that she would beat Bibi in a race to the stairs that my child perked up. Mother forgotten, Bibi staggered through the revelers with all speed, while Bozana trotted behind her, bugling her imminent victory.
In a little while, I promised myself. In truth, I felt reluctant to spend my last night at home with Bibi; I feared that in the morning I would not be able to make that wrench.
Eat a little. Talk to people—make their memories of Vashti pleasant ones.
I refilled my beer and sought community in music with my fellow citizens. It worked, for a pleasant while. The musicians found their stride; there was no soloist singer, but thirty, fifty people made up for that. We sang “Khelli Ya Khelli,” “On the Spaceport Steps,” “Drunken Poacher.” Most of us could barely hear the oud and the violin above the percussion and the handclaps, but by that time we had soaked up so much alcohol and cannabis that no one cared; in fact if anyone had suggested they not play, we would have protested.
In twos and threes, the women, then the men, came out to dance. At one side the more decorous had lined up holding hands, gender facing gender; the bolder ones danced in interlaced duos or trios to the enthrallment of their audience. Women danced for women, men danced for men; I saw a man and woman dancing together to the quite obvious interest and arousal of the couple watching them.
It’s true that these dances passed down, carried on, outright stolen, were originally not intended for seduction. It was the music which seduced, whispered to viscera, rolled right up through tissue and respiration and betrayed the human body into becoming another instrument. Hands beckoned to me; the cascade of tourmaline light—from a hundred pairs of beautiful dark eyes, in the skeins of unbound hair like rain, in bangles and collars and tiniest chips of mirrors—tumbled like the ceaselessly changing countenance of waters.
I remembered other nights. I remembered when I played the mermaid for my own wayfarer, the look in Lasse’s eyes when he watched me; I remembered the reciprocity of lust, possession, obsession. Of how the object became the subject, the scientist became the experiment.
My mouth watered. I found another beer and sought my ostensible charge.
At one of the quieter tables sat General Zhádāo, Numair, and, to my astonishment, Moira. She wore her hair up, out of sight, her head and all her limbs covered, and looked to be engaged in sober and earnest discussion with the general. I caught Numair’s gaze. His gaze cut across the seething room; his lips twitched in the same direction. Reluctant as I was to tear my attention away from Moira, I knew better than to ignore a suggestion of the governor’s.
A little way from the musicians, with András, with Z. Ismail, with a cup of beer in his hand, sat the Beast.
For a moment I froze. My heartbeat accelerated; the air felt cool on my skin—from sudden sweat. Plates on the tables, too flimsy to make any impact. The flatware dull. The drinking vessels, thin plastic, would hold no edge if broken. Of dedicated weapons I saw none, expected none. It would have been the height of bad manners to appear at this kind of gathering wearing sidearms, but I had to spend a long moment fighting my instincts. How could everyone else be so calm?
None of us were in uniform now. András and Z. Ismail were in casual, genderless clothes, I in a gold embroidered coat. Because I knew I was on stage for General Zhádāo, I had dressed with a little more care than usual.
Still in the bruise-blue salwar kamiz, and as alert as Mumtaz on the hunt, the Beast watched. His eyes tracked the dancers.
How they must have looked to him, I could only imagine. His previous comments led me to believe that he might want only the men. A mouth-watering lot they were, too, tall, graceful,
precise—beautiful as the new moon of Ramadan went the old saying. But then one of the women, with skin like dark ivory, the soft shadow of her breasts visible past her kamiz’s unbuttoned neck, swirled past him. I saw his nostrils flare, his head turn to keep her in sight. The woman threw him a glance over her shoulder, as simple and clear a solicitation as if she had shouted.
I sauntered to the little group of three, hoping my voice would be steadier than my heart. “Quite a night,” I said. So far, so good. András looked a little more glum than usual, and Z. Ismail offered me the level of warmth one gives an acquaintance with whom one has previously shared a harrowing experience.
The Beast gave me no pleasantries. “That snoop virus is looking for you,” he said.
“Snoop virus?” I said.
“The reporter. They’d come to Mustaine sometimes. Sometimes we let them go.” He gave me a fuck-you grin, hard, cold-eyed.
I gave him the same. “He’ll see enough of all of us in the weeks to come.”
“Shouldn’t you be up there with your client?” András asked. “I’d think that Zhádāo and Moira would be the two last people you’d want sitting next to each other.”
“As long as Moira’s not taking notes on barrack sizes, I don’t care,” I said. “Tonight I spend with my friends.”
Z. Ismail lifted her plastic glass. “With friends,” she said. “With Citizens. Salud.”
“Na zdravi,” said András.
“Skål,” I said. We drank, and I sat next to the Beast, but with a good half-meter between us.
He looked around, surveying the agora. “She’s talking about soy,” he said.
I snorted. “Don’t tell me you could hear them.”
His shrugged. “Not in all this.” He gestured. “But she’s not hiding her mouth.”
Z. Ismail made a noise of pleased incredulity. “You can read lips from that distance? You’d be useful at all the parties.” She nudged him. “Go on, what’re those two handsome ones over there saying? The one in the red, and the shorter one next to him.”
“He’s offering him . . . a dose of V-Blue if he can’t get it up again tonight.” The corners of his eyes crinkled. Beneath Z. Ismail’s laughter, he muttered, “That was never a drug we needed at Mustaine.”
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