In Milika she'd noted evidence of gaps between social classes, and as she walked up to Nardin's group it became quickly apparent that city dwellers worked under a similar set of rules. A lower-class man, wearing the clothing Jin was, would never have tried to barge right up to someone of Nardin's status, a fact that registered clearly in the startled expressions of those around Nardin as she passed between them. She was within arm's reach of the other, in fact, before two of the entourage broke their astonishment enough to step into her path.
"Where do you think you're going?" one of them snarled at her.
"To speak to Master Radig Nardin," she said calmly. "I have a message for him."
Nardin turned to glare at her. "Since when do-?"
The words froze on his lips as recognition flashed onto his face, followed immediately by a whole series of startled emotions. "You-what-?"
"I bring a message for your father, Master Nardin," she said into his confusion, touching fingertips to her forehead. "May I approach?"
Nardin glanced at his companions, seemed to pull himself together. "You may. Let her pass," he ordered.
She sensed the shock pass through the others as she slipped between them-apparently they hadn't yet realized that she was in fact a woman. Dimly, she wondered if transvestism was a crime on Qasama, then dismissed the thought.
"I bring a message for your father from Kruin Sammon of Milika," she told him.
"Will you take me to him?"
Nardin's face had become an unreadable mask. "I remember you," he said. "You were in the village Milika in the company of Kruin Sammon's eldest son. Who are you that he trusts you with messages?"
"My name is Asya Elghani, Master Nardin."
"And your relation to the Sammon family?"
"That of a business professional," Jin said, choosing her words carefully. She had no idea if the service she was about to describe even existed on Qasama; but with the widespread Qasaman use of drugs, there was no reason why it shouldn't.
"I'm a messenger, sent as I said to your father, Obolo Nardin."
Nardin cocked an eyebrow, his gaze flicking pointedly over her clothing. "And what is so special about you that you should be trusted with messages of any importance? Aside from the fact that few people would think you so trustworthy?"
Jin ignored the snickers from the others. "What makes me special," she told
Nardin, "is that I carry an oral message... the contents of which I don't know."
Nardin's eyes narrowed. "Explain."
Jin let a look of barely controlled impatience drift across her face. "The message was given me while I was in a special drug-induced trance," she said.
"Only in your father's presence will I be able to return to that trance and deliver the message."
He gazed at her for a long moment, and she mentally crossed her fingers. "How important is this message?" he asked. "Is the timing of its delivery crucial?"
"I have no way of knowing either," Jin told him.
One of the other men stepped close to Nardin. "With your permission, Master
Nardin," he murmured, "may I suggest that the timing of this supposed message is extremely suspicious?"
Nardin's eyes stayed on Jin. "Perhaps," he muttered back. "However, if this is a ruse, it does little but buy him some time." Slowly, he nodded, "Very well, then. I'll take you to my father."
Jin bowed. "I'm at your disposal, Master Nardin," she said.
He turned and headed to the rear of the line of buses. Jin followed, sensing a second man join them. A car was parked behind the buses; the other man slid into the driver's seat as Nardin and Jin took the back, and almost before she had her door closed the vehicle swung out into the street and headed east.
Carefully, Jin took a breath, exhaled it with equal care. Once again, it seemed, the pervasive Qasaman disdain of women had worked in her favor. Nardin might have swallowed the same "private message" routine coming from another man, but he almost certainly wouldn't have let a male stranger into his car without some extra protection along. But as a woman, Jin was automatically no threat to him.
Settling back against the seat cushions, she watched the cityscape go past her window and tried to figure out just how best to turn that blind spot to her advantage.
Chapter 35
It was a fifty-kilometer drive from Azras to Mangus, along a road that was clearly newer and in better shape than the highway Jin had jogged alongside earlier that morning. Neither Nardin nor the driver spoke to her throughout the trip, which gave her little to do but study the scenery outside and-more surreptitiously-the two of them.
Neither examination was all that impressive. Nardin rode impassively, eyes flicking to her occasionally but generally staying on the road ahead. The driver, too, seemed stiff and distant, even toward Nardin. Their few exchanges were short and perfunctory, and she could sense none of the easy camaraderie that she'd seen between Daulo and his own driver. A strict master/servant relationship, she decided eventually, without a scrap of friendship or even mutual respect to it. In retrospect, given her first impression of Nardin four days previously, it wasn't all that unexpected.
The landscape outside wasn't quite as unfriendly, but it more than made up for that in sheer dullness, consisting mainly of flat tree-dotted plains. Further to the east, she knew, the dense forest that surrounded Milika began again, extending across Qasama to the villages at the opposite end of the Fertile
Crescent. But here, at least, the forest had failed to take.
Which meant that there would be far fewer deadly predators between them and
Azras, should she and Daulo need to get out of Mangus in a hurry. Fewer beasts, and considerably less cover. All things considered, she would have preferred to take her chances with the predators.
Mangus was visible long before they reached it... and the satellite photos hadn't nearly done the place justice. From what she could see of the high black wall surrounding it, the compound appeared to be shaped roughly like a diamond, in sharp contrast to the circular shape of Milika and the villages her father had visited on Qasama. The diamond's long ends seemed to point southeast and northwest-along the direction of the planet's magnetic field, she decided, remembering the similarly angled streets in Azras and the other cities. Qasama's migrating bololin herds took their direction from magnetic field lines, and builders either had to deflect the huge beasts around human habitations or else give them as free a passage as possible.
Impressive as the wall was, though, it paled in comparison to the shimmering dome-shaped canopy arching over it.
The Cobra Worlds' satellites hadn't been able to make much of the canopy. It was metal or metal coated; it wasn't solid, but a tightly woven double mesh of some sort whose varying interference patterns actually blocked the probes more effectively than a solid structure would have; and it was almost entirely opaque to every electromagnetic wavelength the satellites were able to work with.
Now, seeing it at ground level, Jin found she couldn't add much more to that list. It was anchored, she could see, by tall black pylons set into the ground outside the wall, which were in turn held in place by pairs of guy cables. How the canopy was being held up in the center was still a mystery, especially since its slight but visible rippling in the wind showed it to be more akin to fabric than to rigid metal. She was peering toward it, trying to see through the slight gap between its lower edge and the upper part of the wall, when a movement past the wall to her left caught her eye. Keying her optical enhancers to telescopic, she focused on it.
It was a bus. Identical to the ones that had been waiting to bring Daulo and his fellow workers to Mangus... except that this one was heading northward on a different road. As was the bus that followed it. And the next. And the next.