Deserter (29 page)

“What she is and is not is no business of yours Sorir, so you just show us to a table in a quiet corner and let me speak to the boss.”

Sorir swatted Abu. “You are speaking to the boss, but I suspect you mean the man who thinks he runs my place.” But she led them past tables where silent men drank coffee and through an alcove where women chatted as they drank tea or coffee to finally stop in a shaded corner at the rear of the place where couples sat quietly or families ate noisily. She pointed Abu toward a table behind a bamboo divider. “That quiet enough for you?”

Abu settled Kris at the table, then went hunting for the man he wanted. Sorir gave Kris a quick smile, then followed Abu. The two of them ended up talking to a thin fellow standing in the door of what sounded like the kitchen. Their talk was mixed with glances Kris’s way. She tried to look demure or whatever a young woman should look like in this culture that couldn’t seem to decide what to do with its women—let them run things or just exist. Come to think of it, it didn’t sound all that different from Wardhaven . . . or the Navy at times.

A young woman brought a pot of hot water to Kris’s table and a bowl of green tea. “Would you prefer coffee?”

“I don’t know what Abu would prefer.”

“Oh, Abu is with you. I will bring coffee.” And a steaming small cup of the thick brown liquid quickly appeared.

A moment later Abu returned, accompanied by Sorir and the man who was introduced as Abdul. “You have stirred up the proverbial hornet’s nest,” Sorir told Kris.

Kris eyed Abu, but the cabby seemed content to let the women talk. “What do you think I have done?” Kris asked, not willing to give anything away, but not wanting to sound evasive.

“That I could not begin to guess, but this morning something tripped the alarms at a factory on the other side of town, and now all the security people at all the plants are running around like chickens with their heads cut off, looking for some kind of intruder and not wanting to be in the same kind of trouble that the plant people are in across town.”

“I suppose your uncle’s sister’s son works on security,” Kris said dryly.

“Actually, no one will hire any of us for security,” Abu said. “We talk funny, and we stop to pray too many times a day.”

“Then how do you know—?”

“We are not the only people who talk funny and keep to old ways,” Abdul said. “Do those things, and you become a minority. Is that not so everywhere? Some minorities suffer one way, others another way, but we are all different, and that marks us for trouble when things become strange for the large herd of sheep and the dogs that keep them going where they should go.” Kris greeted that with a puzzled look. She was no closer to understanding the situation than she had been when Abdul started.

“Several of our Jewish friends have sons working in security,” Sorir explained dryly.

“Jewish?” Kris said. She didn’t think there were any minorities on Wardhaven—at least she hadn’t before today. Still, she knew Dad had to be careful to invite his Jewish and Islamic supporters to different fund-raisers.

“The Temple Mount is far away from those of us who hold it sacred,” Abdul said. “And we live very close to those whose only gods are their belly. Here, we share what we may, Jew and Arab, and information is important anywhere.”

“And the information we have,” Sorir cut in, “says that security is more upset than a sheepdog herding cats. Oh you men, you take all day to say nothing. It would be most unwise for Abu to return to Khan’s dispenser of poor food.”

“I have to get back there,” Kris said.

“We understand such a return is of the highest import to you,” Abdul said. “We are arranging it even now. So, since you can do nothing for the moment, why not share a meal with us.”

The meal was a procession of dishes demonstrating many of the thousand ways to fix rice, cheese, barley, mutton, and goat. Sorir named each dish, explained what it was and how it was prepared, and laughed when Kris asked, only half in jest, if the meal would be followed by a test. One thing Kris did not have to worry about was showing delight; the food was fantastic. The portions were small, and each dish was shared with Abu and Sorir. Overeating herself into a nap was not a risk.

Sorir and Abu kept up a kind of running commentary on both the food and Turantic. It was a good planet to raise children on. Or at least it had been. The conversation skirted anything that could be taken for treason by an eavesdropper until the last dish was laid out, a multilayered crust drowning in honey.

“Why should you care about what happens to us on Turantic?” Sorir said through veiled eyelashes as she cut Kris a slice.

Kris took the offered morsel. As her fork cut a bite, it sliced through scores of layers. “Humanity is like this dish. You can’t cut one layer. If one is sliced, all are going to be cut.” Sorir eyed the dish and nodded. Kris went on.

“What happens to you will happen to my people on Wardhaven, And it may be in store for a lot of other planets as well. We can’t let you face this alone. I serve in Wardhaven’s Navy. A woman I serve with was beat up last night. It was done because she serves Wardhaven. Now, reporters talk of some Wardhaven people attacking Turantic people or something else entirely different.”

“It is very confusing,” Sorir said. “I do not like it.”

“And very worrisome,” Abu added.

“And if I can’t find out what’s going on here, I can’t begin to figure out what will happen to my people. And if things fall apart, I’ll be stuck on a ship in a fight that I may not want . . . and may not even be necessary.”

“And I may be on a ship shooting at you,” Abu said. “Sorir, she is risking much. Should we not risk a little to help her?”

“It is my brother and his sons,” Sorir said, rising from her uneaten desert, “who I am asking to risk much. I had to know it was worth it. Come, Kris of the courageous knife, the security cameras at the Khan showed a cabby and a woman dressed as a maid this morning. They cannot see that again. Am I correct that you, yourself, must go there?”

As Kris rose, she balanced her own risk against trying to teach someone how to handle Nelly, then threw in her own feelings about letting the strangely behaving Nelly out of her sight. “Yes, I have equipment others could not operate.”

YOU CALLING ME EQUIPMENT?

I’M GOING TO CALL YOU THIN-SKINNED IF YOU DON’T STOP BUTTING INTO MY CONVERSATIONS.

“But it would be better if you were not seen again by the same security cameras. Come with me.”

Kris followed the woman through the kitchen to a storeroom. Sorir pulled pants and a shirt from behind a shelf of canned goods. “Put these on. A girl started something at the Khan. A boy will not be noticed.” As soon as the door closed, Kris undid the waitress uniform and became a rather tall person in ratty pants and a torn cotton shirt. As she finished, Sorir looked in. “The shoes must go, and you must wash that makeup off your face,” she said, tossing Kris a damp towel. Kris scrubbed as she stepped out of her shoes. Sorir dropped a pair of well-worn loafers on the floor, and Kris stepped into them.

“The right one hurts. It’s got something in it.”

“Good, you will walk favoring it. And hunch your shoulders over. That should keep the usual pattern recognition programs from identifying you too quickly. But that face of yours.”

“The makeup’s off,” Kris said.

“But the nose isn’t. It’s big enough for you to be one of us, but software will match you in three scans. Hmm. We need to change that and your hair. You may have noticed, we tend more to raven black like mine, and you need not say how much white now streaks my youthful pride.”

Kris didn’t. Sorir left, and Kris took a few steps, trying to find a gait that hurt less. The woman returned with a wig. “Put this on, then put these pads in your mouth.”

The wig fit over the bun her own hair was in, giving her the shoulder-length, messed-up hair some kids liked. The pads tasted of plastic and puffed out her cheeks. “Can I talk through them?” she muttered, and proved that she could . . . barely.

“Better yet, don’t talk at all. You are a good Moslem boy. You hear. You obey. You do not talk. And keep your eyes down. You may be working for my brother, but it is not what you want. Sulk. Surely you know how to do that.”

Sulking was never, ever permitted in her father’s house, but that was more than Sorir wanted to know about being a Longknife. Kris muttered, “I can do it with the best of them.”

Sorir presented her with a ball cap for a local Turantic team. THEY ALWAYS LOSE, Nelly pointed out. Kris stripped the pom-pom off the beret. It came easily, dangling its lead-ins. Kris put it on top of her head, and it stuck. Once she got the lead-ins reattached to Nelly’s wire, she slowly settled the ball cap on her head. HOW’S THAT WORKING?

I DO NOT KNOW. THERE IS LITTLE ACTIVITY TO MONITOR IN HERE, BUT I CAN TELL THEY NEED A NEW MICROWAVE OVEN. IT IS WASTING HALF OF ITS ELECTRICITY.

I’LL TELL THEM THAT IF I GET A CHANCE, Kris said and let Sorir lead her back into the kitchen. A short, rounded man in dark pants and shirt was talking with Abdul as two thin young men carried in the frozen carcasses of goats and sheep.

“Nabil, my brother, I have a favor to ask of you.”

The man fixed his sister with dark eyes, and Abdul checked the two frozen carcasses off a notepad in his hand and sent the young men back to the truck.

“You have not made your delivery to the Khan’s yet?”

“It is next, sister.”

“I ask you to take this extra helper, my nephew, with you to that place.”

“Why?”

“It would be better for Father if you did not know. Let anything that comes of this fall on my head.”

The man studied Kris, eyed his sister, then studied Kris again. He shook his head. “These are bad times when a younger sister will not tell her older brother what she wants him to do.”

“And when have we known better?” his sister chided him.

“Not since you were born. I swear, a djinn stole my little sister at birth and gave Mother a lump of camel dung to raise.”

Sorir swatted her brother. “And who even now dreams of finding the fabled hiding place of many thieves.”

“I may have to, after whatever you are getting me into,” he said, waving at Kris. “Come, sister’s nephew, we have work that another back will make lighter.” Kris followed; the sky still threatened rain but held back as if the weather, along with everything else, was balanced on the sharp edge of uncertainty.

“You need not bring the boy back here. Just drop him off, and we will find him,” Sorir called after them.

“Harrump,” Nabil said, calling his boys from the back of the truck where they were slamming doors. They scrambled for the front, shouting, “I get the door.” A look told Kris the seating was tight; no wonder they didn’t want to be mashed in the middle.

“He has the door,” Nabil said gruffly, pointing at Kris. “And none of your backtalk. We have more deliveries to make, and traffic goes to hell in an hour, so let’s make this quick.”

The boys crowded into the middle, the farthest over trying to stay out of his father’s way as he put the truck in gear. Kris closed the door on her side and tried to be very small, for once grateful for her narrow hips and nonexistent breasts. She hunched over so that she didn’t tower over the others.

“What’s your name?” one youth asked.

“Why you working with us?” said the other.

“He is my sister’s nephew. She asked me to give him a try. He stutters, so he doesn’t talk much. Leave him alone.”

The boys accepted that. Kris was glad for the cover but had to wonder who thought it up, Sorir or Nabil, or was everyone, like Abu, a quick study at story spinning. Then again, when you were few among a mass of strangers, camouflage must be as critical to them as to a chameleon. The streets had seemed tight for the cab; they looked impassible for an elephant like the truck. Yet Nabil maneuvered cleanly, resorting to shouts and raised fists no more than twice a block. He was answered with the same, but all in good nature. It took twenty minutes to make his way to The Great Khan’s Caravansary. Only as he drove into the parking lot did he glance at Kris and say, “Where?”

Kris had already spotted the sign. She pointed and risked a “Th-th-there.”

A car had Abu’s spot. The truck parked right behind it. “Let’s make this fast, boys. We’ve got two more to go,” Nabil said as he dropped out his door. Kris was already opening hers, but not fast enough for the young men. There was good-natured pushing and shoving. And as Kris dropped onto the pavement, the oldest boy pushed the youngest into her. She didn’t have much for breasts, and an armored bodysuit was holding them in, but what softness Kris had, the kid got a handful of.

“You, you’re . . .” Now it was his turn to stutter.

Kris had seen a DI stop a squad of officer trainees dead in their tracks with just a stare. She’d grown up with Harvey, an ex-Sergeant, who could be as nice as a fairy godfather one moment but freeze fire with a glance the next. Kris put all the glares she’d ever gotten into one face and gave it to the poor kid.

He froze, face beet-red.

“What’s keeping you boys?” came from the back of the truck as the doors swung wide.

“Coming,” the oldest one shouted, grabbing his brother.

“But, but . . .” the other sputtered.

“Talk to Papa later. Not now, can’t you see?”

Kris followed the boys. NELLY, TALK TO ME. ARE THE NANOS HERE? DO THEY HAVE COMPANY?

YES, AND BOY, DO WE HAVE COMPANY. KRIS, I AM READING EIGHT RADIOS TURNED TO THE SECURITY FREQUENCY WITHIN JUST A HUNDRED METERS OF US. THREE CAR MOBILES. FIVE PERSONAL REMOTES. THERE ARE AT LEAST NINE MOBILE NANO GUARDS BUZZING THIS PLACE.

AND THE BEACON?

I TURNED IT OFF. BY MY COUNT, NINETY-TWO PERCENT OF OUR RECON UNITS ARE HERE. IN A WHILE I WILL RISK TURNING IT ON TO HELP THOSE CLOSE BUT NOT HERE YET.