The Terrorists of Irustan (31 page)

thirty-five

*   *   *

Pray, give alms, provide for your families. Leave all other concerns to the bountiful Maker, the all-seeing One.

—Fifth Homily,
The Book of the Second Prophet

Q
adir sent
his car for Zahra in the middle of the day. Diya waited with arms folded, face dour, as Zahra finished with a patient. When she was free, she removed her medicant’s coat and handed it to Lili. “What is it this time?” she asked impatiently. “Surely Qadir knows I have work to do.” Diya’s thick lips pursed as if he had tasted something bad. “I suppose he thinks your duty to your husband comes first.”

Zahra paused as she was buttoning her rill and looked directly into Diya’s pale eyes. Her lips curved, just a little. His eyes flickered and slid away from hers to the door. “The chief director’s waiting, Medicant. And Administrator Onani.”

Zahra gave some instructions to Ishi and to Asa. Ishi frowned. “I don’t understand,” she whispered, her head turned so Diya couldn’t hear. “What more can they want from you?”

“I don’t know yet, my Ishi,” Zahra murmured. “But I’m relying on you here. You can manage, can’t you?”

“Of course I can manage.” Ishi shot Diya a look of loathing. “But we do have a full schedule,” she said loudly.

Diya sniffed. Ishi tossed her head, making him frown at her. He looked particularly greasy, as if he had missed his shower today. Or maybe, Zahra thought, it’s just his nature to be filthy. She stalked out of the clinic, several steps ahead of him, forcing him to hurry to open the car door for her. She slid onto the seat without looking at him. They didn’t speak during the short drive to the port terminal.

The veneer of courtesy in Onani’s office was thin. Zahra saw immediately that Qadir was furious. Samir Hilel, looking wary, sat with Qadir. Qadir stood and held a chair for her.

“Chief Director,” Onani said, his voice dropped to a bass rumble that set Zahra’s nerves on edge. “Please tell the medicant what we’ve been discussing.” Qadir leaned close to Zahra. Perspiration gleamed on his scalp, and the muscles of his mouth were pinched white. He murmured, “The Port Force thinks there’s a connection between the four dead men. That they’ve been singled out—poisoned deliberately—because of things that they’ve done.” “Do they really believe that?” Zahra whispered. “Do you?”

Qadir’s eyelids flickered, but his voice was firm. “It’s preposterous. It couldn’t happen, not here, not on Irustan. They’re imagining some conspiracy, some Earther plot.”

Onani said, “May we know the medicant’s opinion?”

“Qadir,” Zahra said. “Tell Mr. Onani that of course I agree with my husband! What can I know of politics, or plots?”

Qadir smiled with bitter satisfaction, and repeated her words to Onani. He added, “You see, Administrator, how our society works. We protect our women from such unpleasantness.”

Zahra felt Diya’s gaze on her, and turned to find him staring, his face dark with hatred. She looked swiftly away. Surely, even through the silk of her rill, he would see the answering blaze in her eyes.

Onani was pressing Qadir. “Chief Director, something is happening here. Something is going on. These deaths can hardly be accidental! I don’t accept coincidence as an explanation.”

“Qadir,” Zahra whispered. He turned to put his ear close to her mouth. Beneath her drape his hand, strong and warm, sought hers and held it firmly. For the barest instant, the gesture made her hesitate. Then she breathed quickly and went on.

“Qadir, the pattern is inconsistent. Poor Gadil never hurt anyone. We knew him, we know his family. He never beat Kalen or Rabi, or abused his servants. Nor did Leman!”

Qadir nodded to her, but Samir Hilel leaned forward. “There are other kinds of abuse, Qadir,” he said in a low tone. “Remember that Gadil was going to cede his daughter to Binya Maris. My own wife was desperately worried about that, spoke to me about it. And why did Alekos, after Leman died, not go on to Delta Team as he was supposed to? And where is he now?”

Qadir was thoughtful for a moment. Zahra held her breath. Onani, a few meters away, was straining his ears, trying to hear their words. Diya, however, was only a step or two from Qadir’s chair. He heard everything quite clearly.

Qadir straightened, shaking his head. “Administrator Onani,” he said, “I think my wife is correct. There is no pattern. It’s true that the last two victims of this disease were not men Irustan might boast of. But the first two, both directors, were highly respected citizens, family friends of ours, free of any taint of scandal.”

Dr. Sullivan leaned forward, his ruddy face dark with anger. “Then how do you explain all this?” he snapped.

Zahra squeezed Qadir’s fingers and he turned to her. “Maybe there’s something wrong with the medicine,” she said softly. “With the inhalation therapy. The accelerated protease we use is fragile, has to be kept at the proper temperature at all times. Maybe it deteriorated on the space journey. Or on the shuttle.”

Qadir repeated that. Sullivan snorted impatiently and said, “Not bloody likely!” and Qadir bridled, sitting very straight and jutting his chin at the physician.

Onani held up his hand. “Please, Dr. Sullivan. It’s not necessary to offend the medicant after she has been gracious enough to come here.” He leaned back in his chair, black eyes glittering. He pressed his fingers together as he spoke. “I’m sure, Chief Director, that you don’t want any further occurrences like these.”

“Of course not.”

“I’ll ask Dr. Sullivan to inspect all the medications used in the inhalation therapy. I’ll ask you, if I may—?”

It was a question. Qadir inclined his head in assent.

“I’ll ask you, then, to pursue any course you find appropriate to try to discover what’s happened here. These are, after all, your people.”

Samir Hilel moved uncomfortably in his chair. Zahra looked sidelong at him, not turning her head. He looked extremely unhappy, but he kept a loyal silence.

Onani stood up. “Thank you for coming, Chief Director, Director Hilel. Please thank the medicant for me as well.”

Sullivan glowered from his seat. Zahra kept her head demurely low, her hand on Qadir’s arm as if for support. His expression, as he led her away, was triumphant.

In Qadir’s car, Zahra sat in the back with Diya. The two directors sat in front, conversing in low, intense voices. Zahra felt Diya’s eyes on her. She kept her face turned away, watching the utilitarian shapes of the Port Force buildings as they passed.

They dropped Samir at his office and went straight home. Qadir came into the house with Zahra and Diya. Zahra turned toward the clinic, but Qadir stopped her with a gentle hand.

“My dear,” he said. “Come to my rooms, will you? I want to talk to you.” She searched his face, but she found only a vague sadness there. “Of course,” she said, and followed him down the hall.

His room was neat, the bed made, the desk clear. He indicated the extra chair, and he sat behind his desk. She undid her rill and her verge, and he smiled at her.

“I was proud of you today,” he said with a slight huskiness to his voice. “Of course I know little about medicine, but I would say you are a match for their Sullivan in every way.”

Zahra felt her cheeks color, and she put her fingers to them, surprised. Qadir laughed softly.

“You’re blushing like Ishi,” he said. “It’s becoming. You look just like the bride I met for the first time, at our cession. So many years ago now.” “Qadir . . .” she began, confused. He held up his hand.

“I have something to tell you,” he said. She sat back, wondering.

“I’ve told Diya,” Qadir said, “that I will find him another bride. Someone else. I’ve told him you feel Ishi has too far to go with her studies, that you have too much work to do together for her to be ceded to him or to any other man. He’s not happy about it, but he’ll adjust.”

“Oh,” Zahra said faintly. “Qadir—thank you! Bless you!”

He made a small, deprecating gesture. “I don’t want you to think this was because of today, because of that damned session with Onani,” he said. Zahra felt a smile warm her face, and her whole body felt soft and joyous. “It was because it matters to you. And you—you matter to me, my Zahra. It occurred to me that if you don’t think Diya is right for Ishi, then perhaps he’s not. I have to admit, I was thinking of Diya more than of Ishi, and I promised you long ago I wouldn’t do that.”

Zahra stood up, slowly, and walked around the desk to Qadir. She bent over him, the layers of her rill and verge falling free to brush his cheek. For the first time in years, she kissed him willingly, purposefully, and when she straightened she was shocked to see tears in his eyes. “Why, Qadir,” she exclaimed softly. “What is it?”

He shook his head, squeezing his eyelids closed. When he opened them his eyes were clear, and he laughed shortly, embarrassed. “I’m sorry, my dear,” he said. “This was very difficult for me today. I hate being summoned to the Port Authority like . . . like a servant, like a . . .”

Like a woman, Zahra thought, but she refrained from saying it.

“And,” Qadir added, smiling now, catching her to him, “I do love you, my beautiful Zahra, very much.”

Zahra and Qadir spent the afternoon together, something they had not done since the early days of their marriage. When Zahra emerged at last from Qadir’s rooms, she found Diya waiting at the end of the corridor. She smiled as she passed him. Qadir had saved Diya’s life, but neither her husband nor his secretary would ever know it.

thirty-six

*   *   *

I, the undersigned, do hereby affirm and assert that I understand the foregoing rules, regulations, and requirements of Port Force employment. I do further affirm and assert that I understand that the penalty for violation of the foregoing is immediate retransfer to Earth, with the loss of all rights and privileges afforded to Offworld Port Force employees.

—
Offworld Port Force Terms of Employment

J
in-Li sat
alone in the meal hall with a light supper of fruit and soy cheese. Jin-Li toyed with a fork, not eating.

“Hey, Johnnie!” Tomas approached with a laden tray.

“Hi, Tomas.” Tomas’s smile was tentative. Jin-Li summoned an answering smile and gestured to an empty seat. “Please.”

Tomas’s smile widened. “Thanks, Johnnie. Got some news for you.” He put his tray down next to Jin-Li’s. He glanced around dramatically. “They were in Onani’s office today, again!”

“Who?”

“The Irustani! Pretty important group—the chief director, Samir Hilel, and that medicant.” Jin-Li’s sudden and total attention made Tomas giggle. “Thought you’d be interested!”

“What happened? What did they say?”

Tomas shrugged elaborately, earrings dancing. “Sullivan was hot, Onani was cool.”

“Tomas.” Jin-Li gripped Tomas’s fleshy forearm. “Tell me.”

Tomas dropped his provocative manner. “Onani talked about what the dead men had in common, the women, the children. Chief director said it was nonsense. Said he didn’t see the pattern.”

“And the medicant?” Jin-Li’s voice was barely audible.

“What about her?”

“What did she say?”

Tomas spread his hands. “What could she say? She agrees with her husband, of course. She’s a woman, she knows nothing.” He wriggled with delight. “Sullivan was absolutely scarlet!”

“Why? Why was Sullivan angry?”

“Because Onani put him in his place,” Tomas said. “And because he told IbSada he’d leave it to him, Irustani business. Hilel wasn’t too happy about that, but IbSada was. Gratified. Power back in his own hands.” He giggled again.

Relief made Jin-Li giddy. It was going to be all right. Despite Zahra’s challenge. They couldn’t get the message! If only Zahra would leave well enough alone now . . .

Jin-Li wrapped the soy cheese in a napkin and stood up. “I have to go, Tomas. Something I have to do.”

Tomas pouted. “What, Johnnie? You’re off the hook now, you know? We could have some fun! Where are you headed?”

“Just an errand,” Jin-Li said. And then, smiling, “Tell you what, Tomas. Meet me later. Take a boat to the reservoir.”

Tomas’s round cheeks flushed with pleasure. “Great, Johnnie. I’ll meet you in the common room. About two hours?”

Jin-Li nodded, and hurried out of the meal hall.

The streets of the Akros were quiet. The white sun dropped swiftly behind the hills, and a hot, still evening enclosed the city. Most Irustani households were settling in for the night as Jin-Li parked the cart behind Zahra’s clinic.

In less than twenty minutes, the door to the dispensary opened enough to spill a wedge of light across the sidewalk. Jin-Li smiled in the dusk, feeling happier than she had in many weeks. She ran lightly up to the door and slipped inside.

Once Jin-Li was in the dispensary, Zahra turned off the light and locked the door. She led the way to her office, and then locked that door as well. She turned on the desk lamp, and drew off her cap and veil before turning to face Jin-Li.

“I heard about the meeting,” Jin-Li said in a rush. “I did as you asked. Exactly as you said.”

“I know,” Zahra said. She looked tired, but somehow younger than she had the last time they had met. Her full lips curved upward, and the blue of her eyes was less intense, less layered than it had been. She gave a small laugh and rubbed her fingers over her eyes. “This has been an incredible day,” she said. She sank back against the edge of the desk and sat on it with a rustle of her long skirts. Jin-Li stayed where she was, standing very close, looking down at Zahra’s tousled long hair, her slender hands as they tried to straighten it. Jin-Li reached to help her undo the clasp, and Zahra shook her hair free. She lifted it up, letting the air cool her neck.

“This morning, I saw no future for myself,” she said in a throaty voice. “And now—it’s as if it’s been given back to me!”

“Has it?” Jin-Li asked. She thought she could watch Zahra like this forever, her cheeks flushed, her eyes bright, long hair tumbling over her shoulders.

But the effervescent mood bubbled away too quickly. Zahra laughed again, but ironically. “Listen to me,” she said. “As if 1 could make it all go away. Make it not have happened!”

Jin-Li couldn’t bear the change. She wanted to see Zahra smile, see her eyes sparkle. “Please,” she said. “Start at the beginning. The whole story.” Zahra went behind her desk and sat down. She gathered her hair in one hand, and fastened it again with the clasp. “You may be sorry you asked, Jin-Li. You may wish you had never met me.”

“I would never wish that.” Jin-Li pulled up the other chair and sat in it, leaning on the desk, waiting for Zahra to begin.

*   *   *

Zahra had known Jin-Li was coming. She could feel her presence, sense it, like knowing when the infrequent rains that fell over Irustan were imminent. She had given the excuse of some chore to do in the clinic, and hurried in through the surgery to look out the dispensary window. Jin-Li’s cart, parked in shadows, was almost invisible, but Zahra knew where to look.

Now, in her office, she hesitated. If she told this woman—this friend—if she bared her soul to Jin-Li, what would that mean? Guilt had come to color every aspect of her life. Did she want to burden Jin-Li with it? Would it lighten her own load?

Zahra looked down at the grain of the whitewood of her desk, the whorls and spirals, the small nicks and dents caused by years of use. When she looked back to Jin-Li’s smooth face, her heart jumped in her breast. Would Jin-Li judge, or absolve her?

“All my life,” she began quietly, “has been about healing people. Trying to care for them. My teacher, Nura, had a single-minded dedication to her patients. I wanted to be like Nura.” She paused for breath. When she went on,her words tumbled over each other, piled up one upon the next. She told it quickly, poured it out in a flood.

“All medicants have their share of patients they can’t help. We see sad things, hard things. But when Ishi came to me, when I learned what it was to love a child, to love her more than my own life, I lost my ability to separate myself, distance myself, from the tragedies. I treated a woman, a young mother, who was being beaten half to death by her husband. I couldn’t do anything to help her—oh, heal her injuries, file complaints with the directorate—but I had to send her back, keep sending her back. Eventually, he killed her. It was more than I could live with.

“I’m not making excuses. But this is what happened. I never planned it. It seemed to just—just get started. And it was so easy. Too easy. For years I had been angry, struggling against things 1 couldn’t change. After all of this began, I wasn’t feeling angry anymore. That seemed good, until I realized I wasn’t feeling anything. No emotions at all, except for Ishi.”

Jin-Li reached across the desk and took Zahra’s hand. “I know what it is to be angry. I watched my young sister die. I saw my mother’s face when my brother was killed.”

“But you didn’t do—what I’ve done.” Zahra felt an irrational bubble of laughter in her throat. “It’s hard to say it, even now. It’s hard to speak it aloud.” “No need, then,” Jin-Li said. Fler hand was hard and dry, the palm calloused with work. “I think I know.”

“You don’t know all of it, Jin-Li.”

And Zahra told her everything, from the very beginning, leaving out only the names of the circle. She told Kalen’s story, and Maya B’Neeli’s, and Camilla’s. She didn’t hold back the details of Binya Maris’s death, or B’Neeli’s. She finished in a dry tone, “The shocking thing, Jin-Li, is that I could do it again. If I needed to.” She met Jin-Li’s gaze, her own eyes burning and dry. “If I wanted to.”

She saw no judgment in Jin-Li’s face, no revulsion. The long, dark eyes were calm and clear.

“Jin-Li,” she said. “Don’t you care what I’ve done?”

Jin-Li’s expression didn’t change. “I care about you.”

Zahra felt a wave of sadness, no more welcome than the absence of feeling she had felt for so long. Gently, she drew her hand from Jin-Li’s. “Better not,” she said. “But I thank you for it. From my heart.” She put her hand on the desk.

“Zahra,” Jin-Li said. “Today—what happened today? You said you were given back your future.”

“Oh.” Zahra had forgotten. Diya! Diya would not have Ishi after all! Ishi was safe, and that made joy flicker in her breast. And she herself might, after all, be safe. “Yes, something happened today. My apprentice—my Ishi— Qadir has decided she can stay with me a while longer, finish her studies.” “Is that so important?”

Zahra hardly knew how to explain. It was the most important thing in her life. And yet, one day Ishi would leave, would have to leave, would have her own clinic, her own life. What control would she have over her life? Would she have a husband like Qadir, intelligent, disciplined, kind? Or would it be someone like B’Neeli? Qadir had not seen Diya’s nature—how could she trust him to understand another man’s?

“We women of Irustan have no authority over ourselves. Our religion asserts the existence of a woman’s soul on the one hand, but on the other it denies the existence of her mind, her abilities. We hold on to our children as long as we can, but it’s not for us, the women, to say what becomes of them.” “Slavery,” Jin-Li Chung said. Her mouth was hard.

“They call it protection.” Zahra stood up abruptly. “I’ve got to get back.” Jin-Li stood more slowly, reluctant to leave. “You have my number. Though I suppose you can’t use it.”

Zahra gazed across the desk at the Earther woman. How beautiful Jin-Li seemed, how strong and capable—and free.

“What is it?” Jin-Li asked.

Zahra smiled a little. “It’s only that I wish I could go with you. Climb in your cart, just drive away.”

“All right with me,” Jin-Li said gruffly.

Zahra heard how bitter, how hopeless, her own voice was. “Oh, no,” she said. “There would be no place for me to go.”

She turned off the lamp. The little moons shining through the small window cast a dim glow over the room. Zahra came around the desk and found Jin-Li in her path, and they stood facing one another for a long moment. When they came together their embrace was abrupt, a hard, hungry joining that forced the breath from Zahra’s lungs. Her breasts were pressed into Jin-Li’s chest, and she felt the tight binding that helped Jin-Li hide her own. She wondered what Jin-Li’s body was like beneath the binding, beneath her androgynous clothes.

Zahra pulled back suddenly, shocked and confused. “Oh, no!” she cried softly.

Jin-Li stepped back instantly, right to the wall. “I’m sorry,” she whispered. “I’m so sorry. My fault.”

Zahra followed her, took one of her hands in both of hers. “No, not your fault. Both of us, together. But I—I can’t—this isn’t possible for me.”

“I know that,” Jin-Li said. Her long eyelids hooded her eyes, her expression grew remote. “I always knew that,” Jin-Li added, but Zahra heard the tiny catch in her voice.

They stood there, miserable, together and yet alone. Zahra searched for words.

“My dear friend,” she said finally. “My life is not my own. My decisions are not my own. If I were free to drive away with you, I might decide to do it. I might make that choice. But I’ll never know.”

“Forget it,” Jin-Li said roughly, in the voice of Longshoreman Chung, Offworld Port Force. “Please forget it.”

Zahra caressed the rough hand she held in hers. “I’ll never forget it, Jin-Li,” she said softly. “Nor forget you.”

She knew it sounded perilously like a farewell, but she couldn’t help it. She had a second chance, whatever burden of guilt she bore. Qadir had given her a second chance, and she meant to use it. She had offered up everything for her cause, and yet somehow she had failed. The cup had passed from her. Everything now rested in the hands of the One.

A sound came to them from the surgery, a door opening and closing. From the dispensary came Ishi’s voice, worried, seeking. “Zahra? Zahra, where are you?”

Zahra caught her breath. “Wait here!” she commanded swiftly, and left the office.

“Ishi? I thought you were studying! What’s wrong?”

Ishi met her in the hallway, and looked at her curiously. “What were you doing?” Ishi asked. “All the lights are off.”

“Oh, I just turned them off,” Zahra said. “Just this moment. Come, let’s go to bed, shall we? I’ve done enough tonight.” She led the way into the surgery and opened the inner door.

“Zahra,” Ishi said, “your veil!”

Zahra put her hand to her head. “Oh, yes. Go on ahead, Ishi, I’ll get it. I forgot.”

Ishi went through the door into the house, but she looked back over her shoulder as if afraid Zahra wouldn’t follow.

Zahra smiled at her. “I’ll be up in just a moment.”

When the door closed, Zahra hurried back to her office. The cap and veil lay where she had dropped them, but Jin-Li Chung was gone. Zahra picked up the veil slowly, looking around the little office for any sign of Jin-Li’s visit, finding none. Absurdly, her chest ached, just where their bodies had touched. Her step was heavy as she went into the dispensary to lock the outer door. She caught the brief flash of lights from Jin-Li’s cart as it pulled into the street and away. Its little motor was as quiet as a nightbird. Zahra lifted her hand, though she knew Jin-Li would never see it.