Deserter (31 page)

ARE THE SOURCES CLOSING ON US?

I CANNOT TELL.

Schooling every muscle in her body to walk no differently than the other youths on the street, Kris passed a greengrocer, then a clothing store, followed by a silversmith, tanner, and a dry goods store, all small, all probably owned by the people standing at each door, encouraging walkers to stop in or talking to the next store owner. Kris was about to cross the street when another black-and-white rolled by, moving fast. Kris crossed the street, then leaned against a fruit stand, trying to spot where the cops were collecting.

No cop convention was obvious. Somewhere a siren lit up, then quickly went silent. No flashing lights in sight. Kris sauntered up the cross street. In a nondescript shamble, she did a series of block-long zigs and zags, using most of the few windows to check behind her.

If someone was following, they were too good for her. A few more cops rolled by; none showed interest in her. After five minutes of weaving and no nano report from Nelly, but, MORE COPS ARE HEADED THIS WAY, Kris ducked into the back door of Fatima’s Kitchen.

16

“Kind of you to drop by,” Sorir growled. “Nabil’s been stopped. They have nothing on him, but they will if they find the young man they are looking for. That boy must disappear. Here, put this on,” she said, handing Kris a bundle that shook out into a head-to-toe garment she’d seen on some women in the street. “Off with the shoes,” Sorir ordered. “You must be barefoot.”

Kris reeled; Nabil and his boys had done nothing. What would the Sergeant in gray do to them? Numb, she stepped out of the shoes and took off the cap. As she slipped into the robe, she automatically checked Nelly’s antenna.
If I gave myself up . . . Nabil would not be better off. Keep marching, soldier.

“Walk like you’re pregnant and follow me,” Sorir said.

“How do you walk like that?”

“You’ve seen other women—” but Kris cut her off.

“Not among the people I know.”

Sorir grabbed a five-gallon can of tomato paste. “Here, put this in your pants.” Kris did; it must have weighed thirty pounds. It threw her off balance and made her awkward.

“This is pregnant?”

“Close enough. Follow me.” Sorir ducked out the back and led Kris rapidly down the alley to a small door that opened on a narrow stairway. Up the stairs was a large, unlit room. Windows high in the roof’s eaves let in light to show dust motes and piles of dark cloth and large bales of brightly colored thread. In the shadows four women, well hidden by their robes, worked at their weaving, slowly adding lines of thread to three partially done rugs hanging from the walls. Three toddlers kept them company while two smaller babies lay in baskets. The place smelled of dust and cloth, women and babies. One tiny woman turned from her work. The veil of her robe hid her face, but Kris flinched from the feel of sharp eyes that missed nothing.

“So this is the one,” a voice firm if old snapped from within the robe. “You ask much, wife of my youngest son.”

Sorir bowed. “I ask only what he needs. He and all of us.”

“You are sure of that?” the elder woman said, reaching for Kris and finding her elbow after only one miss. “Then we will do as Allah may will. You will work with Tina. She is the slowest of us; maybe you can help her. She is pregnant and can show you how you are supposed to walk. You march like a soldier.”

“I will try not to,” Kris said, following the older woman.

Sorir turned to go but stopped after only a step. “You are not barefoot, young woman.”

“I kicked off the loafers,” Kris said.

“But you wear stockings. No modest woman would wear such a thing.”

Kris looked down at herself from inside the robe. Shirt and pants only overlay the armored bodysuit. It was supposed to protect her. Here, it would give her away as sure as a clown suit. Made of Super Spider Silk, no scissors could cut out the feet. “Just a moment,” Kris said as she undid the shirt and pants. They vanished under a pile of rags. The girdle she could put back on. The bodysuit took a while. Nelly was ticking off the eighth or ninth police cruiser to halt in the area as Kris handed over the suit.

The old woman took it, held it up to get a good look at it, sniffed, and said, “What do we do with this?”

“Give it to Tina and tell her to wrap it around her belly,” Sorir suggested.

“No. I will not do that to my youngest granddaughter,” the old woman said. “You, stranger, you wrap it around yourself. Let no one say we knew what was being done here.”

“Let it be upon me,” Kris said, taking it back. She pulled the armored girdle back on—
at least I won’t get gut shot
—and wrapped the bodysuit around herself, knotting it at her back. It held the can of tomato paste very well.

Sorir stood back, took a good, long look at Kris, and said, “That will have to do. But, woman, you are too tall.”

“That’s what my mother says,” Kris said. “Thank you for all that you have risked. I hope Nabil is safe.”

“Nabil will live as Allah wills. Just you make sure that all this is not a waste,” Sorir said over her shoulder, leaving.

Kris turned to meet Tina. The woman sat in front of a rug. She looked up at Kris through the veil of her robe that showed nothing of her face. “Come, stand beside me. I can pass the threads up to you, and you run them through the top of the loom. Then pass them back to me. You will save me from having to stand up so often. I and the baby will bless you for that.”

“When is the baby due?” Kris said. There wasn’t much she knew about pregnancy, but that question always seemed to pop up.

“Only another month to go. This is my first,” the woman said. Not even the robes could hide the pride in that statement.

POLICE ARE GOING SHOP TO SHOP, LOOKING FOR YOU, Nelly said. THE COPS DOING THE SEARCH ARE NOT BEING TOLD, BUT THE OFFICERS IN CHARGE STRONGLY SUSPECT THAT THEY ARE LOOKING FOR PRINCESS LONGKNIFE.

OH JOY. SO MUCH FOR MY COVER. HOW’S THE DATA ANALYSIS?

COMING ALONG. Nelly sounded evasive.

YOU OUGHT TO HAVE AN INITIAL CALL BY NOW.

I DO NOT WANT TO MAKE ONE CALL, THEN HAVE TO CHANGE IT.

NELLY, ARE YOU AFRAID OF MAKING A MISTAKE?

IF I TELL YOU WHAT I THINK WE FOUND, YOU WILL WANT TO SEND IT TO SEVERAL PEOPLE. THAT WILL EXPOSE US TO EVEN GREATER RISKS THAN WE ARE PRESENTLY RUNNING. I WANT TO BE SURE.

AND YOU ARE NOT QUITE SURE YET THAT WHAT YOU’VE GOT IS . . .

LARGE NAVAL-SIZE LASERS. THREE PRODUCTION LINES OF EIGHT-INCHERS. AND SEPARATE PRODUCTION LINES FOR FOURTEEN-, SIXTEEN-, AND EIGHTEEN-INCHERS.

EIGHTEEN-INCHERS!

YOU DO NOT THINK
THE PRIDE OF TURANTIC
COULD CARRY A PRESIDENT-CLASS WEAPONS SUITE? Kris thought about the liner that had brought them here. Peeled of its luxury, it was a very large hull. With several feet of ice for protection and a dozen eighteen-inchers, could it stand up to the battlewagons Kris had dodged during the action at the Paris system? No question.

RATE OF PRODUCTION ON THOSE BIG MOTHERS, NELLY?

I AM WORKING ON THAT. AND REMEMBER, LASERS ARE ONLY AS GOOD AS THE POWER PLANTS BEHIND THEM. WE HAVE NOT FOUND THEIR SOURCE.

NELLY, THERE’S AN OLD SAYING: WHERE THERE’S SMOKE, THERE’S FIRE. YOU DON’T MAKE LASERS IF YOU DON’T HAVE THE POWER TO SHOOT THEM. WE’VE FOUND THE SMOKING GUN. THE DOCKS ON HIGH TURANTIC ARE CONVERTING SIXTY OR SEVENTY MERCHANT SHIPS INTO A FLEET THAT WILL MAKE IT THE NINTH LARGEST IN HUMAN SPACE.

AND YOU CAN HARDLY WAIT TO TELL SOMEONE ABOUT IT.

NO, NELLY, WE WILL WAIT. FINISH YOUR ANALYSIS. THEN START CONVERTING OUR NANOS INTO SOMETHING THAT COULD FLY A FEW MILES FROM HERE AND CALL SOME FOLKS WHO NEED TO KNOW THIS.

REMOTE CALL HOME. THAT MIGHT GET THEM OFF OUR TAIL. SPEAKING OF WHICH, FOUR COPS JUST CAME INTO THE SHOP BENEATH US.

“They come,” the old woman said before Kris could get out a word of warning. The women concentrated on their work. Kris passed the thread back and forth between herself and the young woman, working wordlessly. She tried stooping; the weight of the tomato paste can was heavy on her back. She handed the thread down, then put her right hand to her back and tried to ease the pain. The woman did her part, then reached up with the thread.

“That is what you do when you carry a child.” Kris could almost hear the smile with the voice.

There was noise on the stairs, voices shouting, wood creaking under heavy steps. The two oldest toddlers, maybe two or three years old, rushed to the door. The third clung to her mother’s clothes, whimpering. A man in a long white robe reaching to his shoes, a black vest, and a small brimless hat backed into the door. “These women are my wife, her mother, and family. They are harem. No unrelated man may look on them.”

A strong hand shoved the man back. Three men in the gray uniforms of SureFire Security swaggered in. One child raced to the man shouting “Pa-pa, Pa-pa.” The man scooped him up and tried to shush him. The other child scampered for the other woman, screaming. The third toddler joined in with lusty lungs. The baskets with babies began tentatively to add to the racket. The old woman confronted the grays, hands waving under her robe like a child playing ghost under a sheet. Her voice came high and loud and fast in a flowing language Kris did not follow.

WELL, I CAN, said Nelly, AND SHE’S CALLING THOSE COPS THINGS THAT WOULD MAKE A CAMEL BLUSH BUT NOT USING ONE WORD OF PROFANITY.

“Would you shut her up,” the man with the chevrons of a Corporal demanded of the white-gowned man.

He started talking, only adding more noise. As the uproar crescendoed to new levels, the two gray-suited men behind the Corporal flinched away.

“Ig, pat down that hen,” the Corporal ordered, putting himself between the local man and the woman he wanted searched.

“You cannot do that,” the man shouted.

The Corporal made to push the fellow back, but the child in his arms snapped at his hand. He yanked it out of range of the toddler’s teeth.

The local man shouted something to his mother-in-law, then continued arguing with the Corporal. “I know my rights. You infidels cannot touch our women with your lustful hands. You must call for a woman! You must. I will sue you! My son’s brother-in-law is a member of the bar. I will sue!”

The old woman, meanwhile, was slapping at Ig’s hands as he halfheartedly tried to follow orders.

The Corporal finally brought everything to a halt by screaming, “All right. Stop the search. I’ll call for a woman.”

The men in gray retreated to the doorway. The local man and his mother-in-law were joined by his wife as the three of them soothed the toddlers. The other woman calmed the babies. Tina and Kris worked their rug.

Five minutes later, a large, heavyset woman in security gray and sporting Sergeant stripes pushed her way through the men. “You got a problem, Corporal?”

“Yes, ma’am. These women insist on being searched by a woman.”

“Don’t
ma’am
me, Corporal. I work for a living. I look like Princess Longknife to you?”

“It was your beauty that dazzled him,” came from behind the Corporal.

The Sarge elbowed the Corporal aside none to gently and reached for the tiny grandmother. She pulled up the robe a few inches, revealing small and withered feet. “We’re looking for a guy, close to six feet tall. This old biddy look big, Corporal?”

“No, Sarge.”

“Fine. You checked the man?”

“Already did, downstairs. He owns the place, and he’s too fat and short to be our guy,” he said with a nasty smile.

The local man glowered at him through heavy black eyebrows.

The Sergeant reached for the next woman. “Now this one just might be our kid all hunched over.” She yanked the robe up to show a toddler nursing contentedly at the woman’s breast.

The Corporal tried to peel the local man off the Sergeant. The tiny grandmother got a good wack at the Corporal’s knee, leaving the security man hopping on one foot and the other two guards still trying to free the Sergeant. The kids naturally helped the situation by screaming like they’d never been fed.

When things finally resolved themselves, the local man and his mother-in-law were under guard on one side of the room with two kids clinging to them. His wife was back to making soothing noises to the child under her robe, and the Sergeant gave the other mother, now changing a child’s smelly diaper, a search that didn’t extend past a pat on the back.

“You two,” she said pointing at Tina and Kris and waving them away from the rest. “Over there, now.”

Kris gave Tina a hand up. The woman stood, massaged her back with a groan, and then waddled, one hand beneath her stomach, the other on her back, to where the Sergeant pointed. Kris did her best to imitate the expectant mother. It did go easier on her back if she supported the can with a hand under it. It was impossible to tell in the dim light, but it sure looked like the Sergeant blanched. “Put your backs to that wall,” she ordered.

Tina did, and if anything, got her belly farther out. Kris slouched against the wall, getting as short as she could.

“Lift up your skirts. Let me see your feet.”

Tina did, using the hand beneath her belly. Again, Kris did likewise.

Visibly unhappy that nothing was solved by that, the Sarge reached for Tina. The pregnant woman seemed to half fall, half stumble into the big security woman, then screamed and fell sideways onto several bales of thread. Her robe came up, showing bare legs to everyone . . . and to Kris that she was not wearing anything under the robe.

“The baby, he comes!” was drowned out as every grown-up started shouting, every child screamed, and the guards, not sure what to do, backed toward the door. Kris let out a scream and went to her knees between Tina’s, waving wildly and pointing.

The Sergeant bolted for the door. “Nobody here but a bunch of crazy bitches that don’t know enough not to be barefoot and pregnant.”