Mi'Ra was still annoyed that a human had managed to deflect her attack so easily today. Of course, she could have killed him, which gave her some satisfaction. The young Narn gazed up at the top of the wall, wondering if anybody could be hiding up there. She knew from experience that footing was treacherous atop the crumbling structures. No one in his right mind scampered around up there. The ground was littered with chunks that had fallen from the ornamental walks.
The smell of burning rubber, the only available fuel for some downtrodden souls, assaulted her nostrils, and she felt like turning back. But her mother and brother were waiting for a full report on the memorial service. Even though G'Kar's death brought them no immediate relief, at least it had exorcised one ghost. They no longer anguished over the fact that G'Kar enjoyed a soft life built from the hide of their father's corpse.
Mi'Ra stopped again to listen, and she thought she heard someone moving on the other side of the wall. She darted through the archway, slashing her knife, but her would-be attacker was only a dust devil, unable to find its way around the wall. It whipped and whirled in frustration.
She moved swiftly away from the light, not wanting to draw attention to herself. There was still enough daylight left that this trip home shouldn't be tortuous. She could see some young Narns at the bottom of the hill, burning the tread from a mining vehicle and cooking rodents over the flames. But they were often there and had never tried to pursue her. Still, she kept a safe distance and was poised to run if they even stood up too quickly. Mi'Ra had no delusions about the dangers of the border zone. Some people down here were mentally unhinged, not fit for Narn society or any other society; some had become addicted to drugs the Centauri had introduced. Many were just unlucky, like herself, and it was cruel to mix the misfits with the misfortunates.
Narns prided themselves on having few prisons, as if this was some indication that Narns accepted their rigid caste system. But Mi'Ra had decided that Narn culture was nothing more than a series of prisons, expanding ever outward. Even G'Kar had not managed to escape from it.
She heard a sound, and she broke out of her careless reverie to see two dark figures rise out of the shadows. As they had already seen her, she decided to let them see everything. She stepped back near the archway and let them see the light glinting off her knife, then she slowly made her way across the alley to the first row of dreary houses. Mi'Ra wanted to let them know that she intended to steer clear of them and hoped they would do likewise. The two shadowy figures watched her go, although they grunted something to each other and laughed.
When Mi'Ra was well beyond them, she sheathed her knife and dashed through an opening in the houses without alerting anyone. She jogged down the middle of the street, knowing the ground was fairly level and not too badly littered. A few residents poked their heads out of their doorways to watch her pass. Even though most of them knew who she was, no one greeted her. People in the border zone were faceless and wanted to stay that way.
Mi'Ra could see the lighted clay pot swinging on her mother's porch. At least T'Kog had done something he was supposed to do. As she approached the dreary house, she could hear the people who lived upstairs fighting; one of them was a dust addict, and the other was a pickpocket who worked the tunnels. Mi'Ra hated to have to rent out the upper floor, but that was the only steady income they had. Besides, this hovel and its hideous surroundings had never seemed like their real home. It was just the cell to which the Du'Rog family had mistakenly been condemned until the magical return of the good life. That's how Ka'Het and T'Kog looked at it, thought Mi'Ra angrily. The only V'Tar that burned in them was the minimum it took to survive, plus the useless hope that their father's name would someday be cleared.
She tried to tell them that they had been put in the border zone to be forgotten, to die. The only glory awaiting them was to achieve die Shon'Kar—to fulfill then-father's dying wish to know that G'Kar was dead. At least that goal had been attained, even if it was another's hand that held the glory. That was honest cause for celebration, so Mi'Ra tried to put on a cheerful face as she walked up the crumbling steps. But she still felt empty. The fire of revenge had gone out, and she had nothing to replace it with.
The neighbors' fighting was a common sound, but the next sound she heard was highly unusual. It was her mother laughing! That couldn't be possible, thought Mi'Ra, it had to be another woman laughing; but what woman would be in the border zone, laughing? Even through the cheap tin door, it sounded like her mother. The hand on the hilt of her knife, she inserted a keycard and pushed the door open.
It was her mother, the downtrodden martyr to G'Kar's ambition, and she was roaring with laughter—for the first time in years! T'Kog, her strapping but spineless brother, was doubled over in laughter, gripping his sides.
Mi'Ra scowled. "I know G'Kar's death was a major event, but I don't understand this much levity."
"Oh, you will!" gasped T'Kog. He waved a finger at Ka'Het, who was so dejected earlier that morning that she couldn't get out of bed. "Tell her, Mother!"
The older woman usually looked gaunt and beaten, but today she heaved with joyous gasps. "We are rich, my dear! We are back in the good life again! As you said we never would be."
"Father has been absolved?" asked Mi'Ra, beaming at the thought.
That thought sobered Ka'Het. "Ah, no," she admitted. "This has no official effect on his case, but maybe that will change, too. We have the next best thing, which is money! Transferred directly into our old account. The banker sent an armored courier to tell us!"
"How much money?"
"Four hundred thousand Old Bloodstone!" gushed T'Kog.
"Keep your voice down," Mi'Ra hissed. "And who provided this windfall?"
T'Kog stopped laughing for a moment. "What does it matter? It's the same blackguards who stole it in the first place."
"Who was it?" Mi'Ra demanded of her mother.
The older woman looked away and straightened her ragged housedress. "It was G'Kar's widow, Da'Kal. I wondered when she would come through. She used to be one of my best friends, you know."
"Mother," said the young Narn woman, trying to remain calm, "that's only money. That was probably one year's housekeeping money in the old times. Nothing changes—we'll still be outcasts with no station in life, and Father will still be considered a traitor."
"But we'll get out of here!"Ka'Het snarled. "With that much money, we can get some kind of life back. What do you think it will buy?"
Mi'Ra was thinking. It would not buy her silence, she knew that. It would buy the services of several mercenaries, and it might buy more creature comforts, but it wouldn't buy them respect. And how long would it really last? If she knew her mother, not very long.
"What do you plan to do with the money?" she asked matter-of-factly.
"Buy a home on the Islands, or some resort where the circles are allowed to mix. I think we'd be accepted in a place like that, even with our past."
Our past, Mi'Ra thought bitterly. They hadn't done anything wrong, yet her mother was still suffering guilt! "A house on the Islands," she observed dryly. "There goes most of the money."
T'Kog jumped to his feet and stared at his older sister. "You never want anything good to happen, because you're too obsessed with revenge. Whether you like it or not, two good things have happened, and I say we should rejoice! I'm with Mother. Let's get back to civilization."