She knew it was a mistake before her feet hit the floor. She lunged across the narrow cabin, slapped blindly at the sensor node, and got her head into the fresher just in time to heave up a bitter yellow liquid, which was all she had in her stomach.
After wiping her face with a damp towelette, she stumbled back to the cot and sat with her eyes closed, trying to think around the knives that ground into her temples.
She hadn’t expected her father to use a stunner on her. She’d thought vaguely about confinement; maybe he’d send her off to one of his arranxes in the back country.
And it wasn’t just a stun. I’ve been out too long. Dear, dear Daddy. I wonder what he used on me?
She tried to convince herself that her father had meant it when he said that he wanted to take care of her, keep her safe, but she had a sick feeling that he was just flushing a problem down the drain. That she was a scandal he couldn’t afford when the Ezkop Garap was hunting sinners to fine and chastise and even the Duk would have to face symbolic whip cuts for the edification of the lesser Behilarr.
He was right about one thing, though. Him being who he was, it wouldn’t have been safe for her to go back to the warren. Grinder’d play with me a while, then dump me in the Jotun to poison the fish. I shouldn’t have gone back to Hutsarte. Home? What was I thinking of? I could wait to get away the first time, and I’m never going near the place again…
Her eyes burned, wet oozed from under her eyelids. She tried to swallow, but a lump closed up her throat. “I won’t,” she said aloud. She didn’t care who heard her. “I won’t…” The word ended on a sob and she was crying as she had not cried when her mother’s body trundled into the crematorium.
Before, there was the chance that her father would be proud of her and claim her. Not much of a chance, but not impossible.
Before, there was home as a refuge she could always return to if things go too complicated in the larger world she lived in now.
And before, there was always the dream of making it so big she could go home in a sun-class yacht, dressed in diamonds, with a train of servants so long the line would wrap round the outside of the Izar Wall. And the High would court her, even the Duk and the Dukana. And she would snub them and hand out largess to folk like Halfman Ike and Melia the Standup Whore.
A silly child’s dreams, but she’d never quite let go of them. She tasted the salt of her tears as they slid past her smile into her mouth-and with that, the crying fit was over.
She coughed to clear her throat, wiped her eyes. “I stink,” she said to the ambient air.
“Then drop those rags you’re wearing into the disposal and take a bath. If you’ll check the stowage, you’ll find we’ve put more suitable clothing in there for you.”
The voice came from the announcer grill, an inconspicuous circle of roughness above the door, a woman’s voice, speaking interlingue with an odd swing to the words Lylunda couldn’t place.
“And when you’re ready,” the voice continued, “come to the Bridge. The door’s not locked. You’re free to move about as you want.”
2
The ship was larger than hers and newer. I forgot about my ship, she thought. Looks like 1 will be going back after all. She smiled at a sudden picture in her mind, swooping low over the Dukeri House and the High City and giving the bons there the scare of their stinking lives. Grow up, woman, she told herself, but she was still grinning as she stepped onto the Bridge.
A man sat in the pilot’s seat, not a woman. Age hung like an aura about him and looked out of eyes like winter ice, though his ananiles were still holding, so there was little gray in the thick braid that came over his shoulder and was long enough to brush at his belt. The lines in his face were shallow and fine, as if someone had pasted a spider’s web across it. Two young women sat in the other chairs, his daughters or granddaughters if appearance meant anything.
“So,” she said. “I been sold to Contract?”
When he spoke his voice was rough, but not unpleasant, and there was that same swing to his interlingue that she’d heard in the woman’s voice. “We would not consider such a thing, Lylunda Elang. It is a simpler task we have and a pleasurable pile of gelders from the doing. You will be tucked away safely in a calm and quiet place, and when I say tucked away it means that however cleverly you scheme, there you will be until the patron comes to take you home again. And fetch you home he will, he sends to you his sworn word on this.” He put stress on the last words, but his eyes slipped away from hers.
“Kak!”
“Ah yes, you will be knowing him better than we. Our ship is yours to wander as you will, but lest you harbor wishful thoughts of taking it from us, you should know we are Jilitera. All things on board shut down after a time unless we whisper to them in the Secret Tongue which is more than words. Consider what it means to drift in darkness for eternity.”
“I have heard that,” she said. “Tell me the name of my prison.”
“Bol Mutiar. Only the Jilitera trade there these days because it is death to outsiders who do not understand its ways. We will tell you how to go and we will put our Blessing on you. Unless you are irredeemably moronic, you will have a pleasant life ahead of you.”
You will eat some tung akar every, day, she read and sighed as she looked at the knobby, dark yellow tuber with its beard of fine white rootlets. “You look about as appetizing as a dog turd. Maybe if I think it’s like taking vitamin supplements…”
You will bless and treat with courtesy the children of tung akar “Sounds reasonable. Bless? Hope they give me the local version of that. I’ve run into a few occasions when my idea of a friendly greeting nearly got me handed my head.”
The blessing is Smarada Diam. Love and Peace. It works best if you evoke some shadow of these things within yourself. This is for formal occasions, when meeting and greeting folk you have not met before. A simple Diam is sufficient with those you have met more than once. Do not concern yourself overmuch with pronunciation; exactitude is not required.
Lylunda settled back in her chair and watched the figures moving through assorted greeting scenarios. She didn’t understand the words yet, hadn’t gone under the crown to get the Pandai poured into her head, but it seemed a simple and mellifluous langue, one that rolled easily off the tongue. She examined the figures of the locals with considerably more interest than she took in the greetings.
They were a smooth brown people, built low to the ground, broad in shoulder and hip. “Eee! I’ll fit right in.” She wriggled in the chair, sighed. “Except for the hair. If that sample isn’t skewed, it’s mostly light brown with a redhead in the mix now and again.”
The figures marched off and a new maxim slid onto the screen. Never take a plant or another living thing for your food or for any other purpose without asking its permission and thanking it afterward. Like the greeting, this is a part of necessary courtesy. Ignoring these strictures will not get you slapped, it will get you dead.
Lylunda made a face at the images that followed, bloated, rot-blackened corpses. This was the third time they’d run the lesson flake for her and those corpses appeared after every four maxims, along with the stats now scrolling down half the screen, telling her who the dead had been and how they’d gotten that way. It was meant to impress on the viewer how seriously she should take those maxims, but even a litany of the horribly dead could get boring if you heard it too often.
When the lesson reached its end this time, the screen went black and Beradea’s voice broke into the silence. “Come to the comroom, Lylunda ’njai. It’s time you learned the Pandai langue.”
4
The Jilitera locked Lylunda in her cabin before they left the insplit and left her there until the ship was in a stable orbit.