Leno said, “I’m the Prima now. Why is it neither of you will admit that? You’re both insane.” He strode off across the room. The three windows across the wall let in the city racket. “You don’t belong here, Mendoz’. And the presidency of the Middle Planets goes with the office of Prima.”
“I’ll have to look that up,” she said. She scratched her nose, staring at his back. It did not work to be subtle with him. “I could go back to the Earth, I suppose. Although without me you’d certainly lose four-fifths of the Empire.”
Leno turned. Rather than look at her he faced Tanuojin. The tall man shrugged. “Well, she is the only one of us who knows anything about the Middle Planets.”
Leno’s shoulders dropped an inch. Paula went to the door. With her hand on the latch, she looked over her shoulder at the new Prima. “You don’t have to feed me, I’ll eat by myself.”
“I’m the Prima!”
“Yes, Prima. Thank you.” She went out.
The Fleet Office was in Upper Vribulo. The broad street, patched with blue grass, was lined with drinking docks and sack-houses. She passed a swinging half-door that let out a boom of noise and a rush of odors: beer, Styth, and vomit. A man slept in the high grass in the next alley. The narrow front of the Fleet Office was indistinguishable from the docks and flops around it and she walked past it twice.
The dark, deep room inside smelled of copying ink. A handprinter was clacking behind the high barrier that cut off the back of the room from the front. A line of men in fleet uniforms slacked up against the wall beside a closed door.
“Hey, I love you, let’s go next door.”
An old man with jewels in his nose came up to the barrier. Paula’s head just cleared the top rail. She said, “I want to send a message to a ship in orbit.”
“Which ship?” He leaned on the barrier, looking down at her.
“Ybix.”
“Ybix hasn’t been answering our signals since the Prima died.” He spat past her; she smelled the rich odor of laksi. “Deep sleep to him.”
“He doesn’t have to answer,” Paula said. “Just say that his mother wants him to come home.”
The old man’s mouth curled thoughtfully. “His mother.”
“Just send that message.”
“Yes, Mendoz’.”
She walked back past the Akopra. A loudspeaker on the porch announced the theater was closed to mourn the Prima. The new Off-World Market was empty. Green paper banners, the Styth mourning color, hung from the gates of the houses. She climbed the steps to the rAkellaron House and went inside.
She went in through the slaves’ entrance to the top rung of the Chamber. Her coat made her uncomfortably warm and she opened it down the front. Half the rAkellaron stood and talked and scratched and spat and bragged on the ledges above the pit. A slave scampered past her with a tray of cups. She went down the enormous steps, her skirts and the heavy skirts of her coat bunched in her hands.
Tanuojin was in his place on the second tier, his arms out straight across the rail and his head down. No one spoke to him. His own aides stayed away from him. She stood beside him. Machou was up on the high ledge, talking to Bokojin. She sat down on the hard bench. Tanuojin did not move.
Leno came down the steps. Behind him was Dakkar, with three of his men in his track. Leno went to his place on the second tier, and Dakkar continued down the steps to the pit. He looked like Saba, a black-haired, slender Saba.
“This session is open,” Leno said. “Dakkar, you are in the pit.”
Dakkar walked across the sand. “I am Dakkar, Saba’s oldest son. I’m dominant in Matuko, and I mean to take my father’s place here. Does anybody challenge my right?”
The men on the ledges canted forward to watch him. Leno stood. His mustaches hung down heavy with braid to his chest. Paula looked around the Chamber, surprised. None of the other men were standing up.
“If nobody—”
“I challenge,” Ketac said, above her. He came down the steps past her.
She got up onto her feet, her fingers tight around the rail. Several of Ybix’s crew followed him. David was not among them. Dakkar crouched. When Ketac stepped into the pit, his brother attacked him.
The rAkellaron roared. All around the rings they leaped up, bellowing. Their hot reek made her stomach heave. Ketac fell and rolled, Dakkar hanging on his back. Even through the screams of the men watching she heard the brothers’ snarls. Her heart pounded in her throat. Tanuojin towered over her, banging his hands on the rail. The sand was splattered with blood. Dakkar jammed his knee into Ketac’s spine, his hands splayed over his brother’s face, bending him backward.
“Kill him!” someone howled. “Kill him!”
Ketac reached over his shoulders. His claws hooked in Dakkar’s shirt. Tanuojin shouted so loud she flinched. Ketac dragged his brother down into the sand. He reared up and brought his elbow like a club into Dakkar’s face.
Paula let go of the rail. Ketac leaped up, panting, his shirt crusted with sand. Dakkar doubled over, one arm across his broken face. The cheers of the rAkellaron faded, cooling. Ketac held his hands over his head.
“I am the Matuko Akellar. Does anybody challenge me?”
The whole Chamber was on its feet. They let out another buoyant cheer. She was sweating from their heat. Tanuojin sat down, and the other men began to settle. Paula shifted, her heavy coat on her shoulders. Tanuojin called, “How long did it run?”
“Fifty-two seconds,” Machou called, hoarse. “He’s no Saba.”
Dakkar’s friends were stooped over him. Ketac leaned on the pit rail. Dakkar put one foot under him and pulled himself up on his friends’ shoulders. They were both bleeding, she could not see the wounds, just the red slime on their faces. Ketac spoke to Dakkar, and the taller man nodded. He hung one arm around Ketac’s neck. The rAkellaron cheered again, pleased. Paula sat down. Ketac and Dakkar climbed the steps.
Leno stood again. Again, none of the other men stood up in respect for him. The Prima said, “If nobody else has any special business—”
Tanuojin said, “She has a question.”
Leno put his hands on his belt. His head thrust forward. “Mendoz’, what do you want now?”
Paula stood up. “I’m going to need money.”
Across the pit, Bokojin shouted, “What is she doing in here, anyway? Saba is dead. She has no place here. She had no place when he was alive.”
Paula looked down at the blood-splattered sand. Three or four men shouted back and forth at each other, and Leno made no effort to order them. She said to Tanuojin, “I thought ten dollars a watch.”
“I don’t see why we should pay you. Why don’t you tax the Middle Planets for it? If you’ll be doing their work.”
“Because they don’t need me,” she said. “And you do.”
Bokojin was leaning forward over the rail. “This makes me long for the old times when a man’s widows burned with him.”
A quarter of the round away, another voice rose, clear and mild. “It makes me long for the old times when the servants of the Empire were treated with respect.”
“Hear,” someone muttered, behind her.
“Are you challenging me, Saturn?” Bokojin roared. He and Melleno’s son Mehma traded jibes.
“Every one of you gets some revenues from the Middle Planets,” she said to Tanuojin. Down the ring, Leno was playing with his mustaches, his eyes on them. “You need me to keep the arrangements going. In fact, make it twelve dollars a watch.”