The D’neeran Factor (83 page)

“They're probably true,” he said.

He got up and took her back to the mirrored room. It was dim and warm now, and she fell asleep quickly. She was not present two hours later when he settled the details of the trade with Waller.

The voices considered details.

“If it fails—”

“It won't fail.”

“If it does—”

“Then what would he do?”

“He has nowhere to go.”

“D'neera,” said the bass.

“D'neera?”

“D'neera's mad enough,” someone sighed.

“Not that mad!”

“If she is,” said the bass. “And she is.”

They were quiet.

The expert said, “You watched. You know her well.”

“I did. He touched her. You saw it.”

“Yes.”

“That was threat, was it not?”

“It was.”

“Was not. She was not afraid. More important: she was not angered.”

“How do you know?”

“She would not hide it if she were. When she lived here,”
said the bass, as if it talked of a long-ago time, “she met eager men excited by her beauty, or by the ease with which, it's said, D'neerans contract affairs, or by, perhaps, her belonging to me and the challenge that meant in the games of men. I've seen her touched against her will—more ambiguously than this. The look in her eyes freezes blood. What happened, she says— the beating, the rape, most especially the rape—well. I wouldn't like to be one of those men, if she meets them again. Wouldn't touch her myself, old friends that we are, without care. But
he
—what did you see in her face?”

“Surprise,” someone said. “Only that.”

“Only that. She did not dislike it.”

“I thought so,” the expert said.

“Thought what?”

“She's unstable. Old wounds reopened.”

“And so?” someone said.

“D'neera,” they breathed.

“D'neera might shelter him. At her request.”

“Not for long. There's no life for him there.”

“When it's done—”

“When it's done, then what?”

“Their cobweb plan is done. Hers, the aliens'. When it's done we'll do it—”

“Correctly,” said the bass, weary now. “By rule. A mission staffed with those she's trained. Not her.”

“No?”

“No. When we get her back, she can help us—if she will. But I do not think I will trust her. I think,” he said, “her loyalties are suspect. Does she know it herself?—perhaps not.”

The rendezvous was fixed for six days hence, even though they were near Earth at the start, at the heart of the network of common routes humanity had developed in the course of seven centuries. The intercom in Hanna's room, as Michael had promised, worked—after a fashion; when she used it to ask if anyone was there it did not answer, but soon afterward Theo appeared to make sure she was all right. She did not need to use it again. Theo came at regular intervals, solicitous of her health. But the solicitude was
mingled with resentment, as if Hanna alone were responsible for what was happening to Michael and his household.

When Theo was not there, and Hanna had done all the sleeping she could, there was nothing to do except listen to silence. In the silence she “heard” fragments of thought. From Theo:
I
can do without the money and all. But how can I do without him ?

From Lise:
He is so sad. He doesn't want me to see.

From Shen:
I
will kill for him if it helps. Or die for him. But I will not say so to anyone though they take my tongue again.

But Michael only thought:
Why in hell'd this happen? Bad timing. Pure dumb luck.

*   *   *

One day she asked Theo, “Why do you love Michael so much?”

He was reading what her blood had to say; he looked up and looked at her as if she were a nonperson with no right to ask such a thing.

Hanna said, “I'm trying to understand. Why won't you tell me? Is it something to be ashamed of?”

In fact he looked ashamed. He muttered, “Only for me.”

She waited. It was plain that he ached to tell someone. And she had asked.

At last he said, “You heard what they've been saying on the 'beams? About me?”

“No.”

“You didn't hear anything?”

“I can't make anything in here work. I haven't heard anything at all.”

“Oh.” He was still trying to make up his mind; he fidgeted. He looked at her slantwise and said, “I used to use a lot of dope, you know.”

“I didn't know,” she said, not quite truthfully, remembering what Stiva Waller had said.

“Well, I did.” His skin was very fair, almost transparent. The blood climbed behind it in a violent blush. “I got into some trouble trying to support it. They're saying, they say, Mike's mixed up in the traffic. Or was back then. He never was, though. You'd think as hard as they've tried to find out things about him they'd have gotten the truth about that.”

“How did you meet him, then?”

He stared at her for a while. Finally he said, “Like I told you, I got in some trouble. When they let me go, I couldn't—there wasn't anything for me to do. I'd been studying medicine on Co-op but I couldn't—well, I'd been thrown out. And deported to Valentine. They're not that particular on Valentine. And I was, as soon as I got there I started doping hard again. I didn't have much money and it ran out. I was in Port of Shoreground, that's where it's easiest to get the stuff, you understand? And Mike—”

He stopped, looking at her uncertainly. Something about her attention reassured him. He went on: “I was sitting on a curb in the port. In the rain for God's sake. Wondering if I was strong enough to pick up a few hours' day labor. If anybody'd hire me even for that. I'd slept on the street the night before, a lot of nights actually. Some people came by, they were eating something from one of the market stalls, one of them didn't like it and he threw it down in the street, some kind of meat roll. Half eaten. I hadn't had a meal in a couple of days. I couldn't wait till they were out of sight, I jumped on it. There was this dog heading for it, you see. They saw me and they started laughing. I was sitting there eating it and thinking about the ocean. I can't swim. I wouldn't have had to go out very far. Somebody sat down next to me, I looked over and it was Mike, he'd seen the whole thing. He said, ‘You want a job?' I went with him. At first I thought he wanted the obvious thing, and I would've gone along with it, I guess, but it wasn't that. Then I couldn't figure out what he did want. He never said. He never has said. It's been six years and he never said why he did it.”

He added after a moment, “He took the dog along, too.”

“‘There was only the hunger,'” Hanna murmured.

“Huh?”

“Something someone said. Nothing…” She looked at him thoughtfully. “You never thought of leaving him later?”

“There wasn't any reason. At first it was just because I had it good. Later he picked up Shen on Nestor and—” He blushed again. “I didn't trust her, actually. I thought she'd cut his throat some time if I wasn't around. After that I just sort of never thought about leaving.”

“Why did he take Shen on, anyway?”

“Don't ask me. Never made any sense, far as I could see.”

“Did you ever ask him?”

“Sure. Never got an answer, though. But we're not the only ones, me and Shen. Mostly they take him for what they can get and move on. Steal him blind sometimes. He's thrown a couple out. It never stops him, though. Once I told him he was crazy and he reminded me what he'd done for me. It's the only time he ever brought it up, he just wanted to shut me up. So I quit asking questions. You're a telepath, maybe you can figure it out. I can't.”

Hanna was not done with surprises. Perhaps as a result of her attention to Theo, Shen came to her some hours later. “Want a drink?” said Shen, slouched in Hanna's door.

“Why not?” Hanna said.

“C'mon, then.”

That was how Hanna got to Shen's room, which looked like military quarters. Worse; it was entirely bare, as if, when Michael refitted the
Golden Girl,
Shen had said: “Strip a spot for me.”

Shen produced brandy and told Hanna, in blunt language, what Michael had saved Lise from. This appeared to be the reason for the invitation, and after that there was not much to talk about. Hanna asked certain questions, but with the greatest caution. She did not want Shen to feel cornered. Shen would be dangerous that way. Hanna knew it; she was impressed.

All the same, with care, she got some information about Shen herself, though most of it was only a terser version of Stiva Waller's accusations. When Hanna spoke of Shen's fall from the Nestorian hierarchy, she thought she had gone too far. She was alarmed at the look in Shen's eyes. Shen was hard as primal rock, she had the balance that comes from knowing how to fight, and she was healthier than Hanna, who still was disgustingly weak.

The shotglass in Shen's hand was full of brandy. She drained it without taking her eyes off Hanna; then she refilled it and handed it over. It seemed Hanna was safe after all. She drank, refraining from making a face. She had an anthropologist's approach to dreadful tastes.

“So they didn't treat you so good,” she said after that—and reflected that the brandy, her third, was having an effect; she was beginning to talk like Shen.

“Not good,” Shen said.

“Cut out your tongue.”

“Yeah.” Shen's eyes glittered.

“And then?”

“Can't talk, can't do much.”

“Robbery with violence.” Hanna added hastily, “That's what the Polity said.”

“True. Bastards,” Shen said obscurely.

“So how'd you get here?”

There were indefinable ripples in the sullen face. “Picked the wrong one,” Shen said. “Picked Mike.”

“Wrong how?”

“Bastard looked easy. Big, yeah. But rich. Soft. Careless,” Shen said with disapproval.

“And?”

“Wasn't easy. Ended up, he hauled me off over his shoulder. Had a nice place. I stayed. Went back to Valentine with him. That's all.”

“All,” Hanna repeated rather helplessly. “Why'd he take you away?”

“Dunno.”

“You don't know? After all this time?”

“Never asked,” Shen said.

She drank more brandy, filled the tiny glass, and gave it to Hanna. Who drank, afraid to refuse.

*   *   *

Michael had locked himself in his room. He saw the others occasionally, fleetingly. He knew that Hanna was free.
Of course she is. They would like her. I could love her.

He was studying charts. One wall of his room could be turned into a bank of video screens, and he filled it with representations of Outside. There was a lot of it. In seven hundred years the human species had barely stuck a toe in this sea. There was the Polity, there were the other scattered worlds that would support terrestrial life, there was a lot of rock and gas, and then there was—everything else. Which was everything there was.

The charts in which he was interested had two things in common. They showed areas that were largely obscured by interstellar dust, and, because of the dust, they were guesses. He was going to pick one.

About the middle of the last night he dragged himself out of the dust and relieved Shen in Control. There was solitude enough there after Shen left; only Lise had been
waiting for him to appear, and now went to sleep curled in a seat nearby.

Between Jumps he made a handfall of calls. All of them went through without interruption, but somewhere, surely, they were monitored. There was no overt evidence of a trap. Stiva Waller's promises were being fulfilled. Michael was a rich man again, and Kareem Mar-Kize was free. Kareem talked with enthusiasm of Michael's coming home. But he said, “Why do they have to link up with you in space? Why not here?”