Heart of Gold

by Sharon Shinn

  Cerisa lent them all the use of her limousine so they could return home and pack enough clothes to last a week or so. “Though it will be a miracle if the Centrifuge is repaired by then” had been her dry comment. “But maybe Ariana will have buses in place by that time.”

  So for the next few days, they had what quickly began to seem like a camp out at Pakt’s house. The guldman lived in an eight-bedroom house with his wife, three sons, and daughter. Even with three guests in the house, there was enough space for everyone who wished to have his own room. Nonetheless, the house was a bit crowded, though no one in Pakt’s family seemed to mind, especially the boys. They were boisterous, friendly, and curious, and they appeared to welcome the upheaval the visitors brought to their household.

  “Do you work with our father? Is he the smartest man ever?”

  “What’s that you’re wearing? Is that a necklace? Men don’t wear necklaces in Geldricht.”

  “I’m ten years old, and I can beat up all the boys in my class.”

  “Why is your hair that color? Is it that color everywhere?”

  “Do you know how to save people’s lives like my dad does? I’m going to be a bilololigist just like him when I grow up. Bio—bilo—bililo—”

  “Biologist,” Nolan said absently. He was trying to make neat folded piles of his clothes so he could find what he wanted quickly in this unfamiliar environment. Hiram, who had already unpacked in his room, was lounging in a chair nearby and listening. Sochin had merely dumped his clothes in his room and gone out searching for Pakt.

  “Why is your skin that color? Is it that color everywhere?”

  They were brawnier and more energetic than the indigo boys Nolan encountered when he returned home to visit relatives, so it was hard for him to gauge their ages. The ten-year-old, for instance, he would have pegged as twelve or thirteen by his size alone, though his conversation did not indicate such an age. He gave up trying to guess about the others.

  “Yes, I’m blue everywhere,” he answered. “Just like you’re gold everywhere.”

  “Can I see?”

  “No, you can’t see, and that’s a rude question to ask,” Nolan answered tranquilly. Hiram, for some reason unmolested on the other side of the room, choked back a laugh.

  “My father says it’s important to ask questions or you’ll never know the answers.”

  “Well, and your father is right, but some questions are asked only with great delicacy of people you know well, and neither of those conditions has been met in this instance.”

  It was said with his best high-caste hauteur, and it made the boys shout with laughter. Nolan could not help smiling. “Now, maybe you’d like to show us where your father is just now. I think I’m done here.”

  So an eager, dancing procession led them down the stairs and to a big dining room whose buffet table was already laden with steaming dishes. Pakt’s wife, a middle-aged gulden woman, was arranging the plates of food as Hiram and Nolan entered, but she did not look up. A small, solemn girl stood by her side, apparently receiving instruction in a low murmur. Nolan could not catch any of this conversation. Perhaps it was in a gold-tongue.

  Sochin and Pakt were already seated and talking casually when the boys descended on them like a gold-dust whirlwind. Nolan was not surprised to see Pakt greet each of his sons with a rough but obvious affection, faking punches to their chests and ruffling the bright hair with his big hands. They had spoken of their father proudly; clearly, he was a figure of dominant importance in their lives. But that they adored him was equally evident. Nolan could think of a good many indigo boys who respected their parents but did not love them.

  The ten-year-old was clutching his father’s arm with one hand and gesticulating with the other and chattering unbelievably quickly in goldtongue. Pakt held up his free hand.

  “Ah—now—what have I told you? Speak in a language that your guest understands or you do dishonor to yourself.”

  The boy switched to indigo words. “Father, this one says his skin is blue everywhere! But he would not show me. Do you think he was lying?”

  Pakt looked, for the first time since Nolan had known him, actually embarrassed. But both Hiram and Nolan were laughing, and so the guldman allowed a smile to come to his face.

  “Just tell me the protocol here,” Nolan said with a grin. “I told him it was rude to ask, but I don’t mind giving him scientific evidence if you think that’s better.”

  “I think it’s better that he be sent to his room till he can learn to mind his manners with guests,” Pakt said with a certain heat. “Nolan, I apologize on behalf of my son.”

  “He told us his father encouraged an inquisitive mind.”

  “Not in those words, I assume.”

  “No, but I wasn’t offended. Don’t send him away on my account.”

  Indeed, the young offender looked pathetically crushed, his eyes fixed pleadingly on his father’s face, both hands now attached to Pakt’s arm. “Let me stay,” he begged. “I won’t say another word.”

  Pakt glanced over at Nolan. “Ask the gentleman whom you have dishonored with your careless talk,” he suggested. “If he allows you to stay at the table, you may.”

  Nolan resisted the impulse to say, “Sure, eat with us,” since Pakt was obviously trying to make a point. He waited till the hangdog young boy took a few reluctant steps closer and bowed his bright head in a gesture of supplication.

  “I did not mean to dishonor you with my stupid questions,” the boy said in a serious voice. “May I still remain at the table for this meal? I will not trouble you again.”

  Nolan tried to keep his voice serious. “I’m not used to impertinence from children,” he said. “But I’m willing to overlook it this time if you’ll behave in the future.”

  Now the head tipped up and the green gaze met his somewhat fiercely. Where did they get such colors for their hair and eyes? “I said I would,” he replied somewhat reproachfully.

  “Wendt,” Pakt said in a warning voice.

  “And I will,” Wendt ended, docile again.

  “Then by all means, stay and eat with us,” Nolan said.

  That settled, everyone was happy again, and the boys and the adults arranged themselves around the table. Nolan noticed for the first time that there were only seven places set, and the men of both races occupied them all. The other two times Pakt had had coworkers to his home, they had had glorious masculine bacchanals, and it hadn’t occurred to Nolan to wonder why Pakt’s wife wasn’t present. But he had expected her to preside over the routine meals that would take place while guests were in the house. Well, perhaps the woman (whose name he could not ever remember hearing) had fed the little girl earlier, and taken her own meal at the same time. Hard to know. He would follow Pakt’s lead.

  But it was even stranger than he had expected. Once the men were seated, Pakt’s wife began to serve them—silently, almost invisibly—laying portions of meat and rice on their plates and sidling off to serve the next male. “Thank you,” Nolan said when she served him, but she did not respond, and no one else at the table, not even Pakt, said a word to her. The boys acted as if she was not in the room, as if their food had appeared magically upon their plates, prepared by unseen hands, and no courtesies were due to the cook. Nolan could not believe it. Even in the Higher Hundred households, the servants were thanked or at least acknowledged. He would have expected a man as decent as Pakt to behave at least as well toward his wife, no matter what gulden custom might dictate.

  But Pakt was cutting his meat and quizzing Wendt on a school problem. Hiram’s glance intersected with Nolan’s, and the other blue-skin shrugged. Sochin, like the gulden boys, appeared not to notice that anything other than a disembodied spirit had hovered near his head. He was laughing at Wendt’s and Pakt’s conversation, and eating his food with gusto.

  And, indeed, the meal was delicious, thoug
h wholly unfamiliar to Nolan. These were not spices normally found in an indigo kitchen; he wasn’t even sure the meat was something he could identify. And he was accustomed, on a blueskin table, to find a wide array of garnishes—plates of vegetables, fruit, bread, cheese—to supplement the main courses. But this appeared to be it. There was plenty of it, of course, and Nolan would not have complained even if there hadn’t been enough, but still, it was unusual.

  Or at least different.

  After the meal, the boys ran from the table, yelling and laughing and seeming to be a dozen boys instead of three. Pakt and the indigo men rose and left at a more leisurely pace, though Nolan glanced behind him once. Would Pakt’s wife now clear off the table and wash the dishes? Were there servants in the house that he simply had not noticed? Weren’t there more important things she could be doing? He didn’t believe Leesa had ever even handled a plate once it had been dirtied by food, let alone been responsible for cleaning it. He was certain his mother had not. He himself rarely ate in his own apartment because he so much hated the scrubbing that came afterward—but at least he knew how to do it.

  The customs of the gulden were very strange.

  Nolan followed Pakt and the others to a small, comfortable room gaily decorated with a marvelous assortment of colors and fabrics. A few of the pillows and wall hangings had deliberate, intricate patterns woven into them, and Nolan wondered if those were clan designations, or merely exuberant displays of color. He didn’t ask. He was feeling very much like an outsider here, welcomed or not, and he did not want to pose questions that would make him sound as ignorant as Wendt.

  “Anybody for choisin?” Pakt asked, pulling out a game board and pieces. It was an elaborate game of strategy and aggression that the guldmen had brought with them from Gold Mountain. About ten years ago, it had become the rage among the indigo and the albinos as well, with the result that every year there were all-race tournaments played throughout the city. Ariana Bayless was said to be a master at the game, and Cerisa and Pakt sometimes played on their lunch hours. Nolan had heard that they were evenly matched, which made him think Pakt must be at the near-genuis level. He could not imagine Cerisa being anything less than ferociously good at any activity that involved competition.

  “Sure, I’ll play,” said Sochin. Hiram murmured an assent.

  “I doubt I’m quite up to your standard,” Nolan said to Pakt with a smile.

  “We’ll play teams,” Pakt suggested. “Pair up the best and the worst.”

  Sochin was laughing. “Then I’ll take Hiram and you take Nolan.”

  “Just what I was about to suggest,” the guldman said.

  They teamed up and took their positions, Hiram and Nolan laying the counters on the board while Sochin and Pakt dealt themselves their opening hands. Actually, Nolan had never understood the appeal of choisin; he was not, in general, a territorial man. He owned a few material things, and he would never inherit any property. If a thief broke into his apartment this night and stole everything in sight, Nolan would lose nothing that had much importance to him. The only thing of value he owned was Leesa’s medallion, and that had more sentimental than monetary worth. For the most part, what he cherished was the knowledge in his head, the education he had been given, the ability he had of analyzing certain kinds of complex data and applying them to practical, real-life situations. That kind of mind-set did not qualify him—even on a game board—to invade cities, annex land, and wage war with hostile nations.

  “My opening, I believe,” Sochin said, and the game was under way.

  Playing pairs, in this instance, anyway, did nothing more than give Pakt the opportunity to move Nolan’s pieces as well as his own. Hiram turned out to be a better choisin player than Nolan would have expected, though not nearly as good as Sochin, and Pakt was clearly superior to them all. However, luck was part of the game, and Sochin knew how to turn an unexpected card to his advantage. He was also ruthless; he was not afraid to forfeit whole armies of choifer soldiers (who littered the game board, as far as Nolan could tell, specifically to be sacrificed in this manner) in order to gain a slight advantage. Neither team had a decided edge by the time they agreed to call it quits for the night. They left the board in position so they could resume play the following night.

  “If the Centrifuge is closed for long, we could have our own tournament,” Sochin said.

  “I think Pakt would win,” Hiram said.

  “But the fun is in the playing, not the winning,” Pakt said, smiling.

  “I’m not sure Cerisa would agree with you,” Nolan said.

  “No, she is rather serious about her choisin,” Pakt admitted. “It is one of the keenest delights of my life to beat her at this game. A rare pleasure, but exquisite nonetheless.”

  Sochin and Hiram left the room together, talking amiably, while Nolan remained behind to help Pakt put away the slaughtered choifer troops. “What if someone comes in and knocks over the board while we’re gone tomorrow?” Nolan asked, although he didn’t really care.

  “It won’t happen. No one comes into this room but me and my invited guests,” Pakt replied. “It is my hoechter.”

  “Your what?”

  “My—sanctum, I suppose would be the best word. Every man who is a head of a household has one. It is a place where no one else can enter. A place no one else would dare intrude.”

  “Oh, like Cerisa’s office,” Nolan said with a grin.

  Pakt smiled back. “Even more so. But that’s the right idea.”

  “Well, you keep it pretty clean. If I had a—a hoker—”

  “Hoechter.”

  “It would be a mess.”

  “Don’t you clean your own apartment?”

  “I have a service,” Nolan answered. “Why—do you do all your own cleaning here?”

  “Not me. My wife.”

  Ah, the silent woman in the kitchen who acted so much like a servant in fact was treated like one. Nolan thought he kept his expression neutral, but Pakt was regarding him with a gently ironic smile.

  “I can see it troubles you, the way this household is run,” he said softly. “But you are judging by your own standards, and not mine. And not my wife’s.”

  “I didn’t mean—that is, you are mistaken—I don’t—” Nolan tripped over the words, unable to frame a coherent disclaimer.

  Pakt waved him to silence. “Mine is a world where everything runs most smoothly if everyone’s position is—not only defined, but honored. Running a household efficiently, raising healthy children, and seeing to the needs of the people under her care are considered great and grave tasks. A woman who performs them well feels a justifiable pride and has an envied place in her community.”

  “I’m sure that’s true,” Nolan said in a low voice.

  “But you see the life as circumscribed. Valueless.”

  “Not valueless,” Nolan said hastily. “Restricted, yes. There are so many other things a woman can do in this world—”

  “More important things? Than bearing and raising children? I know the indigo think so, but how can that be? The female body has been designed with a capability the male body cannot possibly duplicate. You’re a scientist, Nolan. Why would nature create a being with specific, unique abilities and then expect that being to function as if those abilities were not a part of its makeup? Why would nature create wings for a bird if the bird was not meant to fly? Or silk for the spider if it were not meant to spin a web? We are all, to some extent, defined by our biology. Why would we try to reverse or deny it?”

  “Yes—true—only women can actually bear children, but that is not all their bodies can do,” Nolan said, floundering a little. He could not believe he was having this debate, at close to midnight, in the house of a guldman who was his host. He had never attempted to think it through; he had never expected to have to defend what seemed to him such basic tenets. “You may as well say t
hat since humans have mouths and digestive tracts, all they were designed to do is eat. We’re all complex organisms, designed to perform a multitude of tasks. We shouldn’t be defined by one aspect of our bodies or one function of our brains.”

  “Very well, then, culture reinforces biology,” Pakt said. “And an organism must learn how to function within its society. A wild dog and a tame dog are both created with the same physical makeup and basic instincts, but the behavior of the two will differ radically depending on what is expected of them by the other animals in their pack or the humans who have adopted them.”

  “But that’s my point,” Nolan said. “You say a gulden woman is happy in a life where all she does is care for others, and that may be so. But not because she was created that way. Because she was conditioned that way. And if she had the chance to make a choice based on free will and not the dictates of her society, would she make that choice? Would she be happy with such a limited life?”

  “But who among us ever makes a choice based wholly on free will?” Pakt demanded. “Did you? Are you going to stand there and tell me that, abandoned in some cave from the day you were born and raised all on your own, with no input from other human creatures who could teach you their system of values, that you would be the same person I see before me today? Prejudices intact, all knowledge gained through personal observations? I doubt it! You may think you have come to many of your conclusions and deeply held beliefs all on your own—and perhaps you have—but my guess is that the very pattern of your thoughts has been outlined by the information you learned from your mother and your grandmother and all their ancestors before them. Heritage is just as hard to escape as biology—though you can throw off the effects of either one with varying degrees of success. But both of them go deeper than I think you realize.”

  Nolan put out a hand as if to ask for silence, and Pakt obligingly paused. But he could not think of another way to phrase his argument, and he could not be sure Pakt was not entirely right. “I have a headache,” he said at last, and the guldman laughed.