Part 12 (1/2)

Heat slapped at them, bouncing off the streets and slideways. ”This is a market district,” said Rhani. The street was bordered on both sides by painted booths and shops sporting striped awnings. A musician played a flute; two naked acrobats balanced on their hands.

”What happens to the luggage we brought with us?” Dana asked. He glanced around. There were people all about them.

”The porters deliver it. Binkie -- ” Rhani turned. ”You and Amri go on ahead.”

”Yes, Rhani-ka,” said Binkie. The pallid secretary and the excited girl pushed into the crowd.

Zed said, ”Rhani, I have one quick errand to run. Shall I meet you at the house?”

”Yes.” They embraced. Zed looked hard at Dana before he strode off.

_Remember_, said the look. Dana's nerves s.h.i.+vered like a plucked wire. He was not likely to forget. Three nights before they were due to leave for Abanat, Zed had come to his room. He had informed Dana that he was to be Rhani's bodyguard.

”_In Abanat, Rhani's going to need a bodyguard. Someone with quick reflexes and a fighter's skills, to escort her down the Boulevard, or to the park, or shopping_.”

_”Yes, Zed-ka.”_ ”Binkie will tell you everything we know about her attackers. There isn't much. They call themselves the Free Folk of Chabad.”

_”Yes, Zed-ka.”_ ”_On the Net, you told me you've had training in the fighting arts. And every Hyper I know has been in a few brawls. You'll manage_.” He had stepped to the bedside. ”_You'll more than manage_.”

He had reinforced this command brutally and clearly with his hands.

Rhani thrust her arm through his: he jumped. ”Come on.”

”Where are we going?” He had to shout to be heard. All about them were laughing, calling people wearing red and orange and yellow and white, and just as many more wearing nothing. They all had black eyes. Rhani dragged him to a booth. She lifted something to her face. Now she had blackened eyes.

”Everyone wears sunshades in Abanat.” She took a pair. ”You'll need some too.”

Wondering if it would not be simpler just to buy contacts, Dana picked up a pair of the primitive shades. They were bright yellow, huge and hideous.

Tossing them back, he picked out a plain design that wrapped around his ears and covered his eyes. He stared at himself in a mirror. He, too, had grotesquely blackened eyes. ”Ugh,” he said. ”_Where_ are we going?”

Rhani said, ”I want to visit a friend of mine.”

The woman at the booth would not take Rhani's credit disc. ”A gift, Domna. Only come back, and bring your friends.” Rhani thanked her. The proprietor giggled with delight.

As they walked away, Rhani said, ”That happens all the time.”

”People know you?”

”Yes. I don't know why. I come to Abanat twice a year. Yet they all know my face in the markets.” A group of musicians sauntered by. Dana grimaced at the clash of sounds. ”Hungry?” She beckoned to a vendor and bought some food; meat wrapped in greens stuck on a wooden skewer. She offered Dana a bite. It was strange and tasty; spicy, and cold.

”That's good. What is it?”

”I don't know what the meat is. The sh.e.l.l is seaweed.”

”Do all these people live here?” Dana asked.

”No.” Rhani explained. She did not seem to mind his questions. ”Most of these -- ” she gestured into the street -- ”are tourists. Some are residents; they live in Abanat two or three years till the taxes drive them out. Some, a few, are Chabadese citizens.”

”What do they do?”

”Cater to the tourists, work in the markets, make things, entertain. Many of them are ex-slaves.” They arrived at another shop-strewn square. Rhani marched toward a shop. It glittered with a display of miniature birds, horses, trees, fish, animals of all kinds, colorful and lovely, all of gla.s.s. Rhani went inside. Dana followed her. He took off his sunshades. The store was carpeted, cool, silent.

A tall, slim woman with gray hair came around the counter. She and Rhani kissed. ”Welcome back to Abanat, Rhani-ka.” Her skin was Cara's shade, milk- chocolate brown. ”You look well.”

”I am well. How are you? How is the shop?” Rhani turned in a circle.

”It's bigger than the other. Who's managing it for you?”

”I do the ordering and keep the accounts for both. Erlin does the day-to- day managing when I'm not here.” While the two women talked, Dana drifted around the shop, looking at the miniatures. A calligraphed sign proclaimed them to be all handblown out of the finest Chabadese sand. He found one of a dragoncat and stooped to admire it.

A voice said, ”May I a.s.sist?”

Dana straightened up. On the other side of the gla.s.s counter, a young man with a red tattoo on his arm stood smiling. ”No, thank you,” Dana said.

The young man continued to smile, mechanical as a floodlamp. ”Our prices are quite compet.i.tive with the other market shops,” he said. ”All our miniatures are handblown -- ”

More loudly than he'd intended, Dana said, ”I don't want anything!”

The woman speaking with Rhani looked up. ”It's all right, Jaime, he isn't a client.” Jaime smiled and nodded. His pupils were wide and fixed. He blinked, and blinked, and smiled, as the gatekeeper at the landingport had smiled.

Dana swallowed, feeling cold and a little sick. Rhani was buying something, he could not see what. She embraced the woman again, and beckoned for him to precede her from the shop. Outside, a woman was reading a newsheet. He could just make out the headline: ”FOUR FAMILIES GATHER IN ABANAT,” it said. He had to swallow again before he could speak. ”Who is that woman?” he asked.

”That's Tuli. She was cook at the estate. When her contract expired, she took her money and bought a shop. This is actually her second store. She's doing well.”

None of this was what Dana wanted to know. ”Who's Jaime?”

”Jaime?” Rhani frowned, brow wrinkling. ”Oh, you mean the slave. I think she bought him last year at the Auction.”

Dana said carefully, ”Is he r.e.t.a.r.ded?”

Rhani was surprised. ”No, of course not. By definition, only a person of full intelligence can commit a criminal act. The Net wouldn't even consider taking him. Ah -- ”she rubbed her chin -- ”you don't know. He was on dorazine, Dana. How odd. You're a drug smuggler, and yet you've never met anyone on dorazine.”

Dana said, ”I know what it does. It's a euphoric/tranquilizer.”

”That's only a name,” Rhani said. ”It doesn't tell you what it feels like to be addicted.”

”Do _you_ know?”

She looked thoughtful. ”I've tried it.” She glanced at him. ”I've never told anybody that. It makes you feel wonderful. Whatever you're told to do seems absolutely fascinating, the most interesting task in the world. You don't ever feel tired. Oh, and it helps you forget the past. I suppose, if you take it regularly, you even forget that you're a slave. It makes you smile a lot.”

”You don't use it on your own slaves.”

”We use it on the slaves at Sovka. Never on house slaves.”

That's me, Dana thought. She was watching him, and he realized belatedly that she was carrying a boxed, wrapped package, and that he was supposed to be carrying it for her. That's what slaves are for, he thought, to carry bags, and open doors, and push b.u.t.tons. It did not matter how mind-deadening the work got; after all, that was what dorazine was for. He held his hand out for the package.

He could not meet her eyes. He tried to imagine living five years, ten years, in a soft, euphoric, drugged haze. He gazed at the shops; the goods in them seemed garish, the people buying them seemed equally garish, tasteless, _ugly_, tourists and slaves alike smiling the same wide, meaningless smiles.... Disgust cloaked guilt; irony burned a bitter taste on his tongue. For the first time, he felt justice in the turn of the wheel that had made him a slave.

He collected himself. He had stopped in the middle of the street, forcing people to eddy around him, keeping Rhani waiting. ”I'm sorry,” he managed to say. Rhani did not comment, and he wondered how much his face had given away.