The Terrorists of Irustan (24 page)

The Beta Gamma aide looked pained. “But we hear things.”

“Tell me,” Jin-Li said softly, leaning one hip against the outside of the cart. “Tell me what they’re saying.”

*   *   *

On the way back to the city, Jin-Li unclipped the tiny wavephone to call Onani. He answered immediately. “Yes.”

“It’s only rumor,” Jin-Li said.

“Go ahead.” Onani spoke without inflection.

“They’re saying he got sick two days after Doma Day. That he always went to the market square on the evening of Doma Day, but two buddies who went with him couldn’t find him when they wanted to go home. He was fond of prostitutes. His friends assumed he was still with one and went home without him.”

“And?”

“His man went after him the next morning when he still hadn’t shown up in barracks. Found him on the street, passed out, nab’t all over him. He was fond of that, too, it seems. The rest you know.”

“All right. Good. Call me again.”

“Wait!”

“What?”

Jin-Li hesitated, framing the question. “There’s more . . . more I think you already know. That you didn’t tell me.”

It was Onani’s turn to hesitate. There was no sound, no vibration, to demonstrate they were not in the same room. Jin-Li drove and listened to the living silence of the hyperwaves.

“If I had thought,” Onani said slowly, “that you needed to know, I would have told you.”

“So no one grieves for this one,” Jin-Li said flatly.

“Apparently not.” Onani’s tone was dry, almost humorous.

He was gone, then. There was not so much as a click, but the live silence gave way to the dead silence of inert metal and plastic. Jin-Li clipped the instrument back inside the pocket, thinking about what the Delta Team men had said. Apparently it was something of an open secret that Binya Maris had beaten two wives to death, and done injury to an unspecified number of whores. There were few to regret his death, except perhaps Onani. And that was mere inconvenience.

Jin-Li trailed a hand outside the cart door, the palm cupped to catch the breeze. Two directors and a team leader—what was the link between them?

twenty-seven

*   *   *

It is hard to win your way to Paradise, and easy to slide into Hell. Guard your thoughts and your deeds, and guard those of your wife and children. This is the charge of the One.

—Twenty-second Homily,
The Book of the Second Prophet

I
n the
dayroom of Qadir’s house, the circle pulled their chairs close and leaned together, veils fluttering in pastel layers like the petals of mock roses. The anahs chattered among themselves and nibbled at Cook’s delicacies. The older girls huddled to one side, whispering. Kalen’s brother had escorted her and Rabi to the house. Laila and Idora’s children were engaged with a card game, squealing when they won a hand. Camilla was there, too, but no mention was made of Alekos.

Kalen barely bothered with greetings. She was exuberant, her freckled cheeks flaming. “Well done, Zahra!” she exclaimed. “No more girls will die at that one’s hand!”

“Shh, Kalen,” Laila said. “Let’s not talk about it anymore.” She gave a nervous glance over her shoulder.

“Not talk about it!” Kalen said. “Of course we need to talk about it!” She twitched in her seat as if she couldn’t sit still. She made a triumphant fist of her freckled hand, and thrust it into the center of their circle. “We have the means, at last, to avenge ourselves and our children!”

Zahra put her open hand over Kalen’s fist. “Kalen—all of you—let’s go into the garden, walk a bit.”

“Oh, Zahra, it’s too hot to go outside!” Idora protested, fanning herself with her hand.

“Just for a little while,” Zahra insisted. “To talk privately.”

Idora groaned, but the others rose and she followed as they strolled out

of the dayroom, buttoning their verges, leaving their rills free. Zahra felt Ishi’s gaze on her, but she didn’t look back. Since the night, that night, she had kept a distance between herself and Ishi. She couldn’t shed the feeling that her deed would show, would reveal itself on her face, in her eyes.

Zahra felt no guilt. She felt something, though, something immense. It weighed on her, filled the air around her like a too-heavy scent. She decided it could only be called awe. She was filled with awe at the power she had wielded, power bestowed on her by her knowledge, by the strength of her will. Zahra understood Kalens excitement. The utter boldness of what she had done, what they had all caused to happen, was intoxicating.

The high walls of the garden glittered, capturing the heat, scorching the stones of the walk and the succulents that drooped over its edges. The women found shade under the wide branches of the old met-olive, sitting side by side on two sandrite benches.

“I’ll tell you this,” Idora whispered, eyes wide and glistening. “I could never have done it! Never!”

“It’s easy,” Kalen said loudly.

“Shh! Kalen,” Laila said.

“No ones listening!” Kalen exclaimed. “It’s just us. And it was easy, Idora. I didn’t even have to watch.”

Idora shuddered, and Laila put a small hand on her arm.

“I didn’t watch, but I knew what was happening anyway,” Camilla said. “And that was awful. Ghastly.” She leaned back, her arms folded. “But,” she added softly, “it was effective.”

Zahra looked from one to the other of her old friends. Her gaze drifted past their veiled faces, out over the mock roses that lined the garden wall, past the veriko tree, which had just yielded the last of its fruit. The trees of Irustan had all been altered by the ExtraSolar Corporation, 280 years before, their cells manipulated, changed, so their roots could flourish in the alien soil. Just so, Zahra thought, had her own nature been altered. She was no more the woman she had been, but someone new. Changed. As alien to the old Zahra as these trees would be to the old Irustan.

“I have another target,” Kalen announced into the silence.

Idora gasped, and Laila exclaimed, “Oh, no!”

Camilla lifted her eyebrows, stared at Kalen’s flushed face. “Who is it?” she asked.

Idora cried, “No, Kalen, no! No more of this!”

Camilla held up her hand, as deliberate, as calm as always. “Let’s at least hear about it,” she said mildly.

Zahra smiled behind her veil. She was not the only one who had changed. Kalen burned with angry fire, but Camilla was cool. Disciplined. Dangerous, thought Zahra, and almost laughed aloud.

Kalen’s feverish eyes darted from one face to the other. “There’s a man, a neighbor. Right next door. We can hear his wife and his children screaming at night after he comes home. Then he comes to drink coffee with my father as if nothing happened. I can put it in his coffee, serve him myself . . .” Idora and Laila stared at her, speechless. Camilla turned amused eyes on Zahra.

“No,” Zahra said. “Women and children are always being beaten, all over the Medah. It’s awful, but it’s not enough.”

“Then I want to do what you did!” Kalen exclaimed. Her eyes burned, and her thin fingers curved into hungry claws. “I want to go to the Medah—anyone who uses prostitutes deserves it, anyway! We can scare them—think how frightened they all are!”

“O Prophet,” Idora moaned.

“It’s just talk,” Laila said. “They don’t mean it.”

Kalen laughed. “Not mean it? Of course we mean it!”

“No!” Idora cried. “No, I don’t want to hear it. It’s over, it’s done.” She leaped to her feet and stood before them, tears soaking her verge, her plump hands wringing each other, tangling in her drape. “I know you had to do it, Kalen, Camilla! For your children! I understood that—I could even understand what Zahra did, that awful man—but these are sins against the Maker! We could all burn forever!”

Kalen jumped up, too, and stood before Idora, her hands on her hips. “Burn?” she sneered. “You think these foolish men are right, and Paradise waits if we follow the Second Prophet? You know what they think Paradise holds!” Her voice sharpened like the edge of a good knife. “More of the same—for them! Nab’t, servants, virgins for the taking . . . their Paradise is just another Irustan, if you ask me!”

Laila sobbed. “This is tearing us apart! We’ve always been such good friends, always stood by each other. What if someone finds out? Kalen, Camilla, Zahra—you could go to the cells! Roast there, like—like—oh, don’t, don’t, Kalen!”

Kalen gave another shrill laugh, and Laila wept harder.

“Stop it,” Camilla ordered Kalen. Kalen snorted, but she fell silent. Idora sat beside Laila, putting her arm around her shoulders, and the two of them leaned together.

“Sit down, Kalen,” Zahra said. “Now listen, all of you.”

Idora dabbed at her eyes with her verge, and Laila pressed her fingers to her mouth. Camilla waited, eyes on Zahra. Kalen perched on the edge of the stone bench, her hands pressed between her knees as if there were no other way she could restrain them.

“Idora’s right,” Zahra said. Kalen drew breath to protest, but Zahra shook her head. “No, Kalen, it’s true. Just because we’ve done—what we’ve done—doesn’t mean it should go on. We did what was necessary. It’s over.” “But you have more,” Kalen said tightly.

“It doesn’t matter,” Camilla said. She patted Laila’s shoulder. “Never mind, Laila, Idora. It’s over, it’s all over, as Zahra says. Let’s go back to the way we were, all right? Let’s promise each other to go back to the way we were.” Idora and Laila were nodding. Kalen smoldered, twisting her hands together, her shoulders jumping. Camilla’s eyes met Zahra’s with surprising steadiness. There was a fierceness, a steely resolve, in those gray eyes. And a message. Later, they said. More later.

*   *   *

Ishi looked up as the women left the dayroom, and Rabi’s chatter in her ear faded to a distant buzz. Whatever was happening with Zahra, and Camilla, and Kalen? She had watched Zahra grow more and more distant over the past weeks. It had seemed, somehow, to start with Rabi, with Rabi escaping her cession. Just when Ishi had been so happy for her friend, Zahra had seemed to become . . . what was it? Not sad. No. She had grown serious. Serious all the time. Their work together had gone on. Zahra had not been angry with her at all, rather the opposite. She seemed to take every opportunity to stroke Ishis cheek, hold her hand, embrace her. But something was missing.

“Ishi? Ishi, are you listening?” Rabi tugged at her sleeve. She was full of excitement over the possibility of her cession in marriage to someone her uncle had chosen, someone purported to be kind, educated, and not too old. Ishi roused herself.

“Oh, sorry,” she said. “I’m sorry, Rabi. Listen, there’s something I have to do. Excuse me a minute.”

“What is it? Where are you going? I’ll help you!” Rabi was on her feet, but Ishi waved her back with one hand.

“No, no, I’ll only be a few moments. Wait for me. Get some of those cinnamon cakes of Cook’s, I love those.”

Ishi slipped out of the dayroom, glad to avoid Lili’s watchful eye. No one was in the hall. Cook and the maids were occupied in the kitchen with their own meal. Ishi hurried down toward the back of the house, past the kitchen and the pantry to the garden door. Zahra and the circle could only have gone to the garden, or to Zahra’s bedroom. Ishi guessed at the garden.

As she came around the corner of the pantry, into the alcove that led outside, she halted abruptly and took a hasty step back. Diya stood looking out into the garden through the little window in the door. He was rapt, watching, not aware of Ishi’s presence. She backed away, past the pantry, on silent feet. What was he looking at? What was happening out there?

Ishi moved back all the way into the hall, and then walked forward again, toward the kitchen. This time she made noise. “Cook!” she called loudly. “Cook! Are there any more cinnamon cakes? They’ve eaten them all!”

Diya met her in the kitchen doorway as if that was where he was going all along.

“Diya!” Ishi exclaimed. “What are you doing here?”

He looked down his nose at her, and preceded her into the kitchen without answering.

She asked again. “But Diya, why aren’t you at the Doma?”

Over his shoulder he snapped, “It’s the car. The cell’s almost drained, so I came for a new one. Satisfied?”

Diya passed through the kitchen, briefly nodding to Cook, and on out the far door to the big storage room. Ishi stopped at the long table where Cook and the maids were seated.

“They ate all those cakes, Ishi? Really?” Cook asked. She stood and went to the counter. “Well, I have a few . . . and there’s some on the table, I’ll give you those.”

The younger maid, the new one—Ritsa—pouted with disappointment. Ishi said quickly, “No, no, never mind, Cook. Those girls get plenty of sweets. You keep them.”

Before Cook could stop her, she hurried out, turning left past the pantry, into the alcove. She looked out into the garden. Zahra and Kalen were standing, Idora and Laila huddled on the stone bench under the old met-olive tree. Camilla sat at the other end of the bench, her arms folded. It appeared Laila was crying, and Kalen, with her hands on her hips, looked angry. They looked, in fact, as if they had all been arguing.Ishi went slowly back down the hall to the dayroom, wondering. The circle never argued. They loved each other, they were like sisters. Closer than sisters. Maybe, if something was wrong between them, that was what was bothering Zahra? But why would greasy old Diya be interested in what went on between them?

*   *   *

Camilla and Zahra, verges unfastened, still sat amid the clutter of the dayroom while the maids picked up the empty plates and glasses, straightened floor cushions, wiped up crumbs. Ishi had gone upstairs to study, and Lili had gone with Mari to the evening room to set the table for Qadir’s dinner.

Camilla raised her brows at Zahra. “What you did was a difficult thing,” she said.

Zahra sighed, weary, glad the trying day was coming to an end. “No. No, it was hard. All of it. But at least I didn’t have to do the postmortem on Maris. Sullivan did it.”

“Did you really mean what you said? That it’s over?” Camilla’s tone was mild, nothing to attract the attention of the maids, but her eyes were sharp.

Zahra gave her a hard look. “Do you think it should be?”

Camilla spread her hands, palms up. “Perhaps. But I have a feeling—you still have it, don’t you?”

Zahra gave a dry chuckle. “Yes. A good bit, actually.”

“So ...” Camilla dropped her voice even lower. “You’re still thinking about it?”

Zahra smoothed the silk over her lap. “The thing is, Camilla, that three have—shall we say, paid the price for their sins—but no one has noticed.”

“What do you mean, noticed?”

“I mean that everyone seems to think the deaths are random. The link between them is there for anyone to see—but no one has made the connection.”

“Maybe no one’s looking.”

Zahra took a deep breath. The colors in the room seemed very bright, red and blue and purple cushions, the dark vermilion of the mock rose blooms. Everything appeared more distinct, more defined than usual, as if her vision had sharpened. “I have an idea,” she said quietly. “To get their attention.”

She told Camilla about Maya B’Neeli’s night visits, the young mother’s fear, her helplessness. Hot spurts of anger surprised her with their freshness. She had felt cold for so long. Maya’s daughter must be seven years old by now, almost eight. It would be time for her primary inoculations. Zahra, as their medicant, could order B’Neeli to bring her to the clinic.

Camilla considered. “Do you think it will make a difference?” She might have been discussing a dinner menu. “It hardly seems worth it to take the risk unless it makes our point.”

Zahra said, “I want the men of Irustan to be afraid. To know that these men abused their trust, and suffered for it.”

Camilla smiled. “I don’t know if they’ll ever believe it.”

When Qadir arrived, Camilla and Zahra rose to greet him. The uncle’s man arrived soon after, and Camilla and Zahra embraced as they said good-bye. Diya stared at both of them, his thick lips pursed, but Zahra ignored him. She was used to his disapproval. His opinions were of no consequence to her.