Praxis, p.8
Praxis, page 8
That was the kind of life Ava had always led, waiting in some apartment somewhere for some man to turn up. Gredel wanted a different life for herself. She had no idea how to get it, but she was paying attention, and maybe someday shed learn.
Gredel still attended school. Every afternoon when she left her school, shed find Lamey in his car waiting for her, Lamey or one of his boys, who would take her to wherever Lamey waited.
Gredels attending school was something Lamey found amusing. Im going around with a schoolgirl, hed laugh, and sometimes reminded her to do her schoolwork when he had to leave with his boys on some errand or other. Not that he left her much time for schoolwork. Her grades had plunged to the point where she would probably get kicked out of school before she graduated.
Tonight, the eve of the Festival of Spring, Lamey had taken Gredel to a party at Pandas place. Panda was another of Lameys linkboys, and he worked on the distribution end. Hed pointed Stoney and his crew at a warehouse full of wine imported from Cavado, and pharmaceuticals awaiting shipment to a Fleet hospital on Spannans ring. The imported wine had proven difficult to sell, there not being much of a market in the Fabs for something so select; but the pharmaceuticals were moving fast through Pandas outlets, and everyone was in the mood to celebrate.
Come on, Earthgirl! Stoney urged. Youve got to meet her!
A warning hummed through Gredels nerves as she saw everyone at the party looking at her with eyes that glittered from more than whatever theyd been consuming earlier in the evening. There was an anticipation there Gredel didnt like. So she dropped Lameys arm and straightenedbecause she didnt want these people to see her afraidand walked to where Stoney waited.
Earthgirl! Stoney said. This is Caro! He was practically jumping up and down with excitement, and instead of looking where Stoney was pointing, Gredel just gave him a long, cool glance, because he was just so outrageous this way.
When she turned her head, her first thought was, Shes beautiful. And then the full impact of the other girls face struck her.
Ah. Ha, she said.
Caro looked at her with a ragged grin. She had long golden hair and green eyes, and skin smooth as butter cream, flawless&
Its your twin! Stoney almost shouted. Your secret twin sister!
Gredel gaped while everyone laughed, but Caro just looked at her and said, Are you really from Earth?
No, Gredel said. Im from here.
Help me build this pyramid.
Gredel shrugged. Why not? she said.
Caro wore a short dress and a battered jacket with black metal buckles, and boots that came up past her kneesexpensive stuff. She stood by the dining table carefully building a pyramid of crystal wineglasses. I saw this done once, she said. You pour the wine into the one glass on the top, and when it overflows it fills all the others. If you do it right you fill all the glasses and you dont spill a drop.
Caro spoke with a kind of drawl, like Peers or rich people did when they made speeches or announcements on video.
Were going to make a mess, Gredel predicted.
Thats all right, too, Caro shrugged.
When the pyramid was completed, Caro got Stoney to start opening bottles. It was the wine his crew had stolen from the warehouse in Maranic Port, and it was bright silver in color and filled the glasses like liquid mercury.
Caro tried to pour carefully, but as Gredel had predicted, she made a terrible mess, the precious wine bubbling across the tabletop and over onto the carpet. Caro seemed to find this funny. At length all the glasses were brimming full, and she put down the bottle and called everyone over to drink. They took glasses and cheered and sipped. Laughter and clinking glasses rang in the air. The glasses were so full that the carpet got another bath.
Caro took one glass for herself and pushed another into Gredels hand, then took a second glass for herself and led Gredel to the sofa. Gredel sipped cautiously at the winethere was something subtle and indefinable about the taste, something that made her think of the park in spring, the way the trees and flowers had a delicate freshness to them. Shed never tasted any wine like it before.
The taste was more seductive than she wanted anything with alcohol to be. She didnt take a second sip.
So, Caro said, are we related?
I dont think so, Gredel said.
Caro swallowed half the contents of a glass in one go. Your dad was never on Zanshaa? I can almost guarantee my dad was never here.
I get my looks from my ma, and shes never been anywhere, Gredel said. Then, surprised, Youre from Zanshaa?
Caro gave a little twitch of her lips, followed by a shrug.
Interpreting this as a yes, Gredel asked, What do your parents do?
They got executed, Caro said.
Gredel hesitated. Im sorry, she said. Caros parents were linked, obviously. No wonder she was hanging with this crowd.
Me too. Caro said it with a brave little laugh, but she gulped down the remains of the wine in her first glass, then took a sip from the second. She looked up at Gredel. You heard of them maybe? The Sula family?
Gredel tried to think of any of the linkages with that name, but couldnt. Sorry, no, she said.
Thats all right, Caro said. The Sulas were big on Zanshaa, but out here in the provinces they wouldnt mean much.
Caro Sula finished her second glass of wine, then got two more from the pyramid and drank them, then reached for Gredels. You going to drink that?
I dont drink much.
Why not?
Gredel hesitated. I dont like being drunk.
Caro shrugged. Thats fair. She emptied Gredels glass, then put it with the others on the side table. Its not being drunk that I like, she said, as if she were making up her mind right then. But I dont dislike it either. What I dont like, she said carefully, is standing still. Not moving. Not changing. I get bored fast, and I dont like quiet.
In that case youve come to the right place, Gredel said.
Her nose is more pointed, Gredel thought. And her chin is different. She doesnt look like me, not really.
I bet Id look good in that jacket, though.
So do you live around her someplace? Gredel asked.
Caro shook her head. Maranic Town.
I wish I lived in Maranic.
Caro looked at her in surprise. Why?
Because its¬ here.
Maranic is a hole. Its not something to wish for. If youre going to wish, wish for Zanshaa. Or Sandamar. Or Esley.
Have you been to those places? Gredel asked. She almost hoped the answer was no, because she knew shed never get anywhere like that, that shed get to Maranic Town if she was lucky.
I was there when I was little, Caro said.
I wish I lived in Byzantium, Gredel said.
Caro gave her a look again. Wheres that?
Earth. Terra.
Terras a hole, Caro said.
Id still like to go there.
Its probably better than Maranic Town, Caro decided.
Someone programmed some dance music, and Lamey came to dance with Gredel. A few years ago he hadnt been able to walk right, but now he was a good dancer, and Gredel enjoyed dancing with him, responding to his changing moods in the fast dances, molding her body to his when the beat slowed down.
Caro also danced with one boy or another, but Gredel saw that she couldnt dance at all, just bounced up and down while her partner maneuvered her around.
After a while Lamey went to talk business with Ibrahim, one of his boys who thought he knew someone in Maranic who could distribute the stolen wine, and Gredel found herself on the couch with Caro again.
Your nose is different, Caro said.
I know.
But youre prettier than I am.
This was the opposite of what Gredel had been thinking. People were always telling her she was beautiful, and she had to believe they saw her that way, but when she looked in the mirror, she saw nothing but a vast collection of flaws.
A girl shrieked in another room, and there was a crash of glass. Suddenly, Caros mood changed completely: she glared toward the other room as if she hated everyone there.
Time to change the music, she said. She dug in her pocket and pulled out a med injector. She looked at the display, dialed a number and put the injector to her throat, over the carotid. Little flashes of alarm pulsed through Gredel.
Whats in there? she asked.
What do you care? Caro snarled. Her eyes snapped green sparks. She pressed the trigger, and an instant later the fury faded and a drowsy smile came to her lips. Now thats better, she said. Pandas got the real goods, all right.
Tell me about Zanshaa, Gredel said.
Caro lazily shook her head. No. Nothing but bad memories there.
Then tell me about Esley.
Sure. What I can remember.
Caro talked about Esleys black granite peaks, with a white spindrift of snow continually blowing off them in the high perpetual wind, and the shaggy Yormak who lived there, tending their equally shaggy cattle. She described glaciers pouring in ageless slow motion down mountain valleys, high meadows covered with fragrant star flowers, chill lakes so clear that you could see all the way to the bottom.
Of course, I was only at that mountain resort for a few weeks, Caro added. The rest of the planet might be burning desert for all I know.
Lamey came back for more dancing, and when Gredel returned to the sofa, Caro was unconscious, the med injector in her hand. She seemed to be breathing all right though, lying asleep with a smile on her face. After a while Panda came over and tried to grope her, but Gredel slapped his hands away.
Whats your problem? he asked.
Dont mess with my sister when shes passed out, Gredel told him. He laughed, not exactly in a nice way, but he withdrew.
Caro was still asleep when the party ended. Gredel made Lamey help her carry Caro to his car, and then got him to drive to Maranic Town to her apartment. What if she doesnt wake up long enough to tell us where it is? Lamey complained.
Whatever she took will wear off sooner or later.
What if its next week? But he drove off anyway, heading for Maranic, while Gredel sat with Caro in the backseat and tried to rouse Caro. She woke long enough to murmur that she lived in the Volta Apartments. Lamey got lost on the way there, and wandered into a Torminel neighborhood. The nocturnal Torminel were in the middle of their active cycle, and Lamey got angry at the way they stared at him with their huge eyes as he wandered their streets.
Lamey was furious by the time he found the apartment building. He opened the passenger door and practically dragged Caro out of the car onto the sidewalk. Gredel scrambled out of the car and tried to get one of Caros arms over her shoulders so she could help her get to her feet.
A doorman came scrambling out of the building. Has something happened to Lady Sula? he demanded.
Lamey looked at him in surprise. The doorman stared at Gredel, then at Caro, astonished by the resemblance. But Gredel looked at Caro. Lady Sula? she thought.
Her twin was a Peer.
Ah, she thought. Ha.
The cold touch of the med injector.
Pressed to the throat.
Followed by the hiss&
Cadet Sula thrashed awake from the nightmare memory, only gradually prying its frozen talons from her mind. A light flashed on her instrument panel, accompanied by a soft tone.
Incoming transmission. Right.
Display, she said.
It was the lantern-jawed staff lieutenant, Martinez. Cadet Sula, he said, I was wondering if youre lonely.
Surprise brought a savage laugh to Sulas throat. Lonely? How could you think that?
Im sending you some entertainment, Martinez said. Its all from my personal collection. I dont know what sort of thing you like, so Im sending a wide spectrum of stuff. If youll tell me what sort of thing youd prefer, Ill try to get it to you.
He smiled Enjoy. Then he hesitated, and added. Im receiving requests from reporters who want to interview you in regard to the Blitsharts rescue. The lord commanders given his permission, so its up to you. Youve become sort of famous here. And then he brightened again. Let me know if you need anything. Aside from a hot bath, that is.
The transmission ended. Sula looked at the comm display and saw the steadily winking light that indicated her communications buffer was being filled with compressed audiovisual files.
Entertainment?
Anything was better than lying here alone, with nothing but memories for company.
She watched Spate in the knockabout comedy Extrovert, enjoying his excellent timing, the sheer physicality of his movements. She absorbed Loralee Pang and the Lai-own Far-fraq in the melodramas Dr. An-ku Investigates and Dr. An-ku and the Mystery Skull. She watched Aimee Marchant in the sophisticated comedy Fleet Exercises, with its totally unreal life aboard a battleship, and Cannonball Li in the frantic, classic Crazy Vacation, which she decided was overrated. She avoided the dramas Righteousness and Life of Evilgrim explorations of despair and violence were nothing she wanted to watch right now, despite the happy endings mandated by the censors.
Send more Spate, she sent in a private message to Martinez. And tell the reporters to go eat rocks.
Martinez proved to be quite a connoisseur of low comedy. In addition to more Spate vehicles, he sent the Deuces in High-Low Boys and Mary Cheung in Whos on the Slab?
It was while watching Spate do his famous mushroom dance in Spitballs! that Sula felt the tide of sorrow begin to flow out of her, propelled by a wind of laughter. She laughed till cramp lay like a fist in her belly, till tears spilled from her eyes. She felt the sadness retreat and flow away until she could dam it up again, until it was safe behind its iron wall.
Thank you, Martinez, she thought. Thank you for saving me&from me.
* * *
FOUR
« ^ »
There had been a party at the Ngeni Palace the night before, and the decorations were still coming down. Golden shay blossoms taller than a man were being lowered from the upper regions of the barrel-vaulted hall, ribbons of gold and white unwound from the columns that supported the long balconies, and a gang of servants under the direction of a Daimong in livery was scrubbing the dark red marble floor. Mingled scents of perfume and decay wafted from the hundreds of faded flowers dumped into a hopper near the front door.
Judging by its remnants, the party had been quite large, thronging the halls and corridors. Were Martinez the sort to pay attention to the society reports, he could probably have read rapturous descriptions that morning of the decorations, costumes, and guests that had filled the palace the previous night.
Perhaps he would examine the society reports, at least as far as studying the guest list. It would be interesting to speculate who had rated an invitation and who hadnt, and why.
Martinez, for example, hadnt received an invitation, despite being one of Lord Ngenis clients. Ngeni and his clan represented the Martinez clans interests here in the capital.
But Lord Ngeni was absent. The Ngeni clan head had taken up the governorship of Paycah, leaving clan affairs in the hands of his son, Lord Pierre Ngeni. It had been Pierres party that filled the palace the previous night.
Martinez followed the palace majordomo through the courtyardfilled with orderly rows of greenery and larger-than-life statues of Ngeni ancestorsto Lord Pierres office. There were several individuals in the waiting room, not all of them human, not all of them respectable-looking. Martinez was not made to wait.
At least he rated some consideration.
Pierre Ngeni was a broad-shouldered, round-headed young man with a resonant baritone voice and the jaws of a mastiff. Like his father, he wore the dark red uniform that marked him as a convocatea member of the Convocation, the body that provided the empires top administrators, and which was permitted to petition the Shaa. (When a petition was accepted by the Shaa, it changed its status to that of law.) The Convocation would have charge of the empire when the last of the Great Masters finally ended its life.
Lord Pierres uniform was well-tailored, but not the extreme epitome of style. At least he was not a glit. Quite the contrary, he was a serious man, dry, who always gave the impression of being busy. His desk was covered with orderly stacks of papers, and two secretaries sat in the room to take notes or dictation, as he required.
My lord, Pierre said, rising from behind his desk.
Lord Convocate. Martinez briefly braced himself military-style, tilting his chin high, a salute to the other mans senior status.
Please sit down.
Martinez sat in a straight-backed chair clearly designed to discourage people from taking up too much of the lord convocates time. Lord Pierres chair was a more comfortable one, and its cushions sighed as it took his weight. Pierre tilted his chair back at a generous angle and evaluated Martinez with his mild brown eyes.
Ive seen you in the news, he said. That rescue you helped engineerthats been well spoken of.
Thank you, Lord Pierre.
A pity you couldnt bring back Blitsharts alive, or at least the dog. Zanshaa, or at least the Terran parts of it, were displaying extravagant mourning for the dog Orange, more than they seemed to show for his owner.
Martinez gave a shrug. Im afraid that wasnt up to us, he said.
I suppose it wasnt. There was a moments pause, then Pierre, businesslike, inclined himself and his chair forward. How may I help you this morning?
I was hoping you might be able to arrange another appointment for me.
Lord Pierre seemed taken aback. As I recall, he said slowly, my father went to some effort to recommend you to Lord Commander Enderby.
And Im very grateful to him, my lord.
Pierres look turned accusatory. But it hasnt worked out? Enderby has taken some dislike to you?
Not that I know of, Martinez hedged. The problem is that Lord Commander Enderby has decided to follow the last Shaa into eternity.
Lord Pierres eyes flickered in surprise. Ah. I see. He stroked his heavy jaw. Most inconvenient, after all weve done. And you have no indication whether his deathbed petition will recommend you for promotion?
