Heart of Gold

by Sharon Shinn

  He smiled, that wide, feral grin that Jex had inherited. “I will not,” he said, speaking still in the indigo language. “I am not free at the moment, or I would invite you to join us for lunch.”

  “Thank you for the offer, but I am not free to join you anyway,” she said. “I do not expect you to have time for me while you are here.”

  “But soon,” he said. “You must visit when I am back in Geldricht.”

  She nodded again, once more unsure of what to say. He gave her a short bow of farewell—an act of high courtesy, though most people in the crowd would not know that—and turned back to his companions. The whole lot of them shuffled into the restaurant, speaking in low voices and now and then glancing back at Kit.

  She remained where she stood, held in place by the pressure of the crowd and the sense of hundreds of eyes trained upon her. She kept her head high and her gaze focused slightly above the crowd, but she knew people were staring at her, whispering and wondering. As soon as she could, she elbowed her way through the dissipating mob, trying not to make eye contact with anyone, blue or gold. She was almost on the street again, almost clear of the throng, when she caught one low-voiced exchange between two gulden men standing nearby.

  “Who did you say that was?” the first asked.

  And the second replied, “That’s Kit Candachi. Anton Solvano’s daughter and Jex Zanlan’s blueshi mistress.”

  CHAPTER FOUR

  The day had started well at the Biolab, but quickly turned nasty. In the morning, they had all gathered in Melina’s office again to see what they could glimpse of Chay Zanlan’s comings and goings. They felt free to do so since Cerisa would be gone for the day. The rumor was, though Nolan could scarcely credit it, that Ariana Bayless had invited Cerisa to join the select group that was socializing with the gulden king. True, Cerisa and Ariana were great friends (the same woman mysteriously split in two, Pakt often said darkly); and Cerisa was one of the most sought-after dinner guests in the city, since she had an impeccable lineage and an impressive career. But she was hardly famed for her small talk and sociability. Though perhaps, when one was entertaining a hostile ambassador, that was not the point.

  Nonetheless, she was gone, and they all felt a carnival mood of freedom lift their spirits. They sat at the window; they told jokes. Varella lofted wads of paper at Hiram, hitting him in the head. Colt bent over Melina, his white-blond hair drifting over her shaved head, and whispered something that made her laugh till she cried. Nolan stood near the back of the room, idly discussing rental property with Sochin, a blueskin who lived in his neighborhood and wanted to be rid of his roommate.

  And then suddenly there was a scream of fury, and Melina was pummeling Colt with both hands. He drew back his hand and hit her so hard she rammed into the windowpane. The room became an instant melee, bodies pushing between the combatants, Varella shrieking like a hysterical child, Melina thrashing in the arms of those who sought to hold her back. None of the blueskins wanted to attempt to restrain Colt, but after that one terrific blow, he made no move to touch Melina again. The guldmen surrounded him, edging him back toward the door, but even they didn’t lay a hand on him. His face was a study in sullen scorn. He looked as though he could burst into slow, uncontrollable flame at any moment.

  Pakt dashed into the room, took in the scene with one glance, and grabbed Colt by the arm with more nerve than the rest of them had mustered. “My office. Now,” snapped the senior guldman, and Colt wrenched his arm away. “Melina. You, too.”

  “I’ll kill him,” she panted.

  Nolan spoke to Pakt in a low voice. “I’d separate them for now.”

  Pakt frowned at him. Colt had melted from the room, and everyone else was concentrating on Melina. “What happened? What was said?” Pakt demanded.

  Nolan gestured his ignorance. “I didn’t hear it. But she was screaming and beating on him, and he walloped her so hard she might be hurt. I wouldn’t put them together anytime soon.”

  Pakt nodded, still frowning. “Does she need a doctor?”

  “I’ll find out.”

  Pakt left. Nolan pushed his way through the other technicians to Melina’s side. Varella was cradling the dark head against her shoulder, but Melina’s tears looked more like rage than pain.

  “Let me see her,” Nolan said, and Varella pulled back. Melina lifted her head and let Nolan examine her cheek and scalp. There was a huge welt across her face and a lump under the hairline, but no blood. Nothing irreparable. “Pakt wants to know if you need a doctor.”

  “I need a gun,” she said in a wild voice.

  “I think you’re all right,” Nolan said, ignoring that comment. “What did he say to you? Pakt will ask.”

  “Gilder trash,” Melina said viciously under her breath. Even Varella looked shocked. “I wouldn’t repeat it if it would save my grandmother from hanging.”

  “Your grandmother’s dead,” Nolan said calmly. “You can say anything you like.”

  Varella smothered another gasp, and Melina actually gave a weak laugh. “But I am too much of a lady.”

  “What do you want me to tell Pakt?”

  “I’ll tell him myself,” she said haughtily, “when he gets that gilderman out of his office.”

  “Say it again,” Nolan said, “and I’ll hit you myself.”

  Now Varella was affronted. “How dare you,” she said coldly. “Even to joke about violence to an indigo woman.”

  But Melina was watching him with those wide, intelligent eyes. They understood each other absolutely; they always had. They came from a background so similar as to almost make them brother and sister. “No, he’s right,” she said slowly. “I am too much of a lady. Nothing excuses such language. I would not want to shame my mother.”

  “Or yourself,” Nolan added. “So tell the truth, when you tell Pakt your side of the story. Colt won’t lie, you know, even if he’s the one to blame. He never lies.”

  “Pakt will side with Colt no matter what he says,” Varella said.

  Nolan shook his head. Melina was still watching him. “What Pakt wants is harmony,” he said. “And he’ll do what it takes to keep Colt in line. But not if this was something Melina started.”

  “I didn’t—”

  “Well, one of you said something.”

  Melina lifted her chin. “He insulted me. And Julitta.”

  Ah, the cultural gulf again. Not much Pakt could do to solve that. “What did you say about Julitta?” Nolan wanted to know, but he guessed the answer before she spoke.

  Melina twirled the end of a new silver chain, showing off the pendant at the end. A stylized arrangement of color and pattern; it must be Julitta’s family heraldry. “I showed him my necklace. How was I supposed to know—”

  Nolan held up both hands for silence, for peace. “Tell it to Pakt,” he said. “But I think he’ll say you should have known.”

  “And does that mean,” Varella burst out, “that Melina should have to pretend? Conceal? Live a lie just to make Colt happy? A gulden boy? Who cares what he thinks, anyway?”

  Right; she was entirely right; and even if Colt loathed Melina’s arrangements, who had appointed him judge of her actions? And yet it seemed to Nolan that if peace between races was to be maintained, some circumspection might be called for on both sides. In this, his training warred with his ingrained desire to avoid strife. Why should an indigo woman have to make concessions to a gulden man? He was not the philosopher who could answer that.

  “Talk to Pakt,” he said again. “I’ll go tell him you don’t need a doctor.”

  So that little incident had set the tone for the rest of the day and, naturally, none of them could talk of anything else. And—naturally—conversation broke down entirely along racial lines, the gulden gathering together in Colt’s office, the blueskins in Melina’s or Varella’s labs. The albinos stayed in their own rooms, working wit
hout recourse to gossip. Normally, there was an easy camaraderie among all three races in the Biolab. They shared with each other a knowledge so esoteric that anyone else who understood it became an instant kinsman. This had made them comrades if not actual friends—though the relationships seldom extended beyond the confines of the building.

  And this unsettling disturbance was likely to make them strangers to each other for a day or two within the familiar walls.

  Nolan, Hiram, Sochin, and another blueskin named Felder all left for a late lunch together when the indigo women declined to join them. At a nearby restaurant, they sat at a table near the window and watched the city walk by.

  “I’ll tell you, though, something should be done about Colt,” Sochin said. He was the newest member of their group, a fine-featured, dark-skinned, high-caste thirty-year-old who had never spent an hour in the presence of a guldman until he walked into Biolab eight months ago. “A man like that shouldn’t even be allowed to speak to a woman like Melina.”

  “Well,” said Nolan, but Felder overrode him. Felder had been a city man a little longer than Nolan had, but he still bore the unmistakable stamp of in-country aristocracy.

  “I hope Melina plans to talk to Cerisa about this,” Felder said warmly. “Because you can’t count on Pakt to do it, and she ought to know.”

  “A blow like that! He should be arrested,” Sochin said.

  “At least fired,” Hiram agreed.

  “She hit him first,” Nolan reminded them. Three pairs of unfriendly eyes swung his way. “Well, she did.”

  “Because he said something unpardonable,” Felder said in a starchy voice.

  “Did you hear him?” Nolan asked mildly. “What did he say?”

  “If she considered it unpardonable, that’s good enough for me,” Sochin said. The other two agreed.

  “I like Melina as much as anybody does, but she’s not above teasing somebody when she knows he can’t take it,” Nolan said stubbornly. “I’ve seen her bait Colt before. So have you.”

  Sochin spread his hands in a gesture that indicated an inarguable case. “Her prerogative,” he said. “She’s an indigo woman. Her word is law.”

  “Well,” Nolan said again, but again Felder interrupted with some passion.

  “At no time, under no circumstances, is violence against a blueskin woman tolerable! And perpetrated by a guldman—ten years ago that would mean instant death! Forget having him fired! He deserves to die!”

  Nolan looked at him seriously. “You can’t mean that.”

  “I do mean it! If he had hit my mother or my sister, I would have killed him myself.”

  “I think Melina can take care of herself,” Nolan said.

  “Well, she’d better tell Cerisa. Or I’ll do it,” Felder said.

  “And my guess is that Pakt would like to handle this without Cerisa’s interference,” Nolan added.

  “Pakt!” Sochin snorted. Nolan gave him a level look.

  “You have a problem with Pakt, too?” Nolan asked gently.

  Sochin looked away. Even Felder shrugged. “Pakt’s all right for a guldman,” Felder answered. “But he’s a guldman. He doesn’t see things the way we do. And you know he’ll take Colt’s side.”

  “I think Pakt is pretty fair,” Nolan said.

  Hiram spoke up unexpectedly. He was the most quiet and submissive of the lot, and the others could sometimes forget he was even present. “I like Pakt,” Hiram said. “And he likes Melina. I don’t think he’ll let Colt off so easy.”

  “Well, if I don’t like the way he handles this, I’m going to Cerisa,” Felder said.

  Things seemed to calm down a little after that, bravado spent and honor satisfied. Talk turned inevitably to work matters, a new drug Hiram was working on, a slippery virus that Felder had been examining. Nolan let his mind wander, idly watching the passersby, blue, gold, white, in endless variety and profusion. His eyes were on the pageantry before him, but his mind was on Melina, when Felder suddenly exclaimed, “Look at that! Revolting.”

  “What?” Hiram asked, and Felder pointed. Nolan’s eyes automatically sharpened on the view outside the window. Felder was slamming his palm against the table in disgust.

  “How can he do it? Look at him, he’s got to be mid-caste, looks respectable enough—”

  “Well, she looks clean, anyway,” Sochin said with a smothered laugh.

  “Clean is not the issue. Self-respect is the issue. A—a basic human decency, a basic understanding of what is allowable and what is not—”

  What he was ranting about was a mixed race couple standing hand in hand a few yards from their window. The man, as Felder had noted, appeared to be a perfectly ordinary middle-aged blueskin; the woman was a gulden girl some years his junior. She wore the flashy clothes and elaborately coiffed hair that branded her a prostitute, but the expression on her face looked warmer and more tragic than the profession usually demanded.

  “She looks like a nice person,” Hiram offered when there was a break in the tirade. “Maybe he’s just lonely.”

  “A man doesn’t get that lonely. Not a blueskin man,” Felder said.

  Sochin was laughing. “Oh, come on now. You’ve never seen one of those gilt girls walking by, her face all made up and one of those tight, tight skirts on, and wondered just what it might be like? You’re lying if you say you haven’t.”

  “I haven’t,” Felder said stiffly.

  “I have,” Hiram said.

  Sochin nodded. “Of course you have. My first day in the city, I saw one of those girls, and I thought, ‘Whoa, now! That’s a package you can’t buy in-country, and I wouldn’t mind taking it out and trying it on for size.’ ”

  “I trust you never did,” Felder said.

  Sochin shrugged. “Not yet, but why shouldn’t I? What would it hurt? It’s not like messing with some low-caste indigo girl who thinks you’re going to marry her because you’ve felt her up behind her mother’s barn. The gilt girls know how the land lies. They don’t want your precious bloodline, anyway. All they want’s your money. That’s a bargain that makes sense.”

  “Do you suppose it’s any different,” Hiram asked, “with a gulden woman? Do you think they’re—well—the same?”

  Sochin was laughing again. “All women are the same. All men are the same. Makes it easy to tell apart the sexes.”

  There was more in this vein, but Nolan tried to tune it out. He didn’t know which he found more offensive, Felder’s self-righteous prejudice or Sochin’s sly leering. Whenever he saw one of those so-called gilt girls working the richer districts of town, he was washed with a fierce and unexpected sadness. Those pale faces seemed overburdened, not enhanced, by the careful cosmetics; the bright, cheap clothes reminded him of the items a child would dress her dolls in. He always tried to avoid making eye contact with such women, but now and then he had been caught unawares, approached, and made an offer. Twice he had given the girls money and hurried away before they could question or thank him. He had been sure neither Leesa nor his mother would approve.

  “What about you, Nolan? You fantasize about the gulden whores? Or are you like Felder here, you think they should be whipped off the streets and locked up for good?”

  Nolan rose to his feet and tossed a few bills on the table to cover his portion of the meal. “I think it’s too bad when an unfortunate gulden girl has to make money from pleasing a prick like you,” he replied coolly. “I’ve got things to do. I’ll see you later.”

  So that left a fairly silent party behind him; and, once back at the Biolab, he discovered that silence had descended upon the offices as well. All the others were working in a solitary state in their own labs, and no one looked up as he passed door after door.

  He was checking on Melina, but she was nowhere to be found. He hesitated, then sought out Pakt, who was alone in his own office, studying something un
der a microscope.

  “Pakt,” Nolan said quietly, and the big guldman looked up. He was wearing a neutral expression, and Nolan kept his voice formal. “I was wondering if Melina was all right, but I can’t find her. Do you know where she is?”

  “I sent her home for the day. And Colt. For today and tomorrow, in fact. As far as I can tell, they were equally at fault, but I can’t tolerate such behavior from either of them. From any of you.”

  Nolan nodded. “I understand. Some of the others—” he paused, feeling disloyal, and plunged on. “Some of them are pretty upset.”

  Pakt nodded and ran a hand through his copper hair. “That’s true on both sides of the color line,” he said gravely. “That’s why I sent each of them home. I cannot allow this to recur or get out of hand. And I’m not going to play favorites.”

  “Are you going to tell Cerisa?”

  “I’ll have to. If she finds out from someone besides me, it will create distrust between us, and I can’t do my job without Cerisa’s trust. But she won’t want to know the details as long as everything’s under control.”

  “Melina might go to Cerisa, you know. If she’s mad enough.”

  “She might. I don’t think she will. And Colt certainly won’t.”

  Nolan knew he should leave, but Pakt’s voice had grown friendlier the longer they spoke, and he had questions only Pakt could answer. “Why does he care, anyway?” he burst out, stepping a little deeper into the room. “Colt? Why does he care who Melina takes for a lover? Nobody pays any attention to all of his women, though he seems to have hundreds of them.”

  “Hardly hundreds,” Pakt said, sounding a little amused. “But Colt certainly does like to play the field.”

  “So? How can he set himself up to judge somebody else?”

  Pakt sighed a little and settled himself back in his chair. He motioned Nolan forward with one hand, so Nolan took the seat opposite Pakt’s lab table. “Colt’s completely a product of his upbringing. As is Melina, as are you, as are we all. His upbringing tells him there is something repugnant and even dishonorable about one woman taking another as a lover. It would not happen in his own society, not at all, not ever. He can’t accept it. He can’t even overlook it.”