Behind her the door opened. She sprang away from the window into the concealing dark. “Mendoz’,” Leno said. “You’re under arrest.”
“What for?”
A hand closed on her arm. “Don’t argue with us. We have to get out of here before the gate closes. Mehma—”
“I have her,” said the Saturn Akellar, on her other side.
“Wait,” Paula said.
Roughly Leno shook her arm. “Don’t argue with me.”
“I want my flute.” She wrenched her arm in his hold. He let her go, and she went back to her bed to find her flute.
The city gate was locked. She stood shivering with Mehma in the dark while Leno went off to find someone to open it. In the next street a building was burning, and cinders and glowing embers showered down around her. She wrapped her arms around herself.
“What am I under arrest for?” She could not see Mehma beside her. His mild voice came from over her head.
“I guess because Tanuojin wants you in Yekka.”
“Tanuojin,” she said. “I thought so.”
The building directly opposite them exploded into a roar of flame. The ground bucked under their feet. Leno rushed up through the dark red glow. “Come on. This is bad and getting worse.” He had a key and he struggled with the lock on the gate. The ground was pitching up and down. Paula lost her balance. Mehma caught her. They hurried into the terminal. Mehma left them in the lane between the launching tubes. She went after Leno to the last tube, where his sidecraft waited.
YEKKA
In Yekka the watch was high. Leno took her across the Koup Bridge to the Akopra House, standing in the fields of rellah vines, far from bilyobio trees and people. The city was bright and cold, the grass brilliant green like an Earthish spring. They went through the side door into the round building.
It was dark except for the lights above the stage in the middle. Tanuojin was drawing on the stage with chalk. Four dancers stood behind him. Paula went to the edge of the raised platform.
“Why am I under arrest?”
Tanuojin drew a circle on the floor. “Ketac was plotting to kill me. I think you had something to do with it.” He walked slowly around, his gaze on the stage floor, counting his steps, and sank down to make another series of marks.
“You know that isn’t true,” she said.
The dancers watched her covertly. In their black rehearsal clothes they were nearly invisible in the dark. The stage around him was scrawled with white markings. He said, “About you I never know anything for certain.” He waved to the dancers. “Try it like that.” He came down off the stage past her and went on into the back of the theater.
Leno had moved over to the door. She could hardly pick him out of the shadows. She followed Tanuojin up the aisle. He sat on the last bench, his hands between his knees, watching the stage. She sat on the end of the bench.
“Where is Ketac?”
“I haven’t caught him yet. I will.”
On the stage, one dancer lifted another, slow and smooth, their arms straight, their palms flat together. The man in the air curved bonelessly over onto the shoulders of the man who held him, who sank down in the same smooth slow dreamlike quiet onto one knee. She rubbed her eyes. She had slept on the way, in Leno’s ship, but she was still tired. Leno came down the aisle, his eyes on the dance. “They’re really good. It’s amazing, in a place like this.”
Tanuojin gave him an oblique glance. He raised his head, his voice pitched to reach the stage. “How does that feel?”
The stocky man who did all the lifting walked to the edge of the stage. “It would be easier if I started facing the other way. Then I could use my strong leg.”
“Try it,” Tanuojin said. He turned toward Leno. “Mehma went back to his ship?”
“Yes. I didn’t know whether you wanted him to go or not.”
“That suits me. Go back to Merkhiz. Let the thing burn out in Vribulo, there’s nothing we can do.”
Paula stood up. The dancers broke out of their pose and clapped each other on the shoulders, pleased. She went down to the aisle and out the door of the theater.
The path led between fields of water. Under the glassy surface of the fields, new pale rellah vines curled like worms. She had never seen the adults, strung up on stakes to be bled. She went on toward Tanuojin’s compound in the distance.
Ketac arrived unconscious, strapped into a sled. Paula unbuckled the straps and pulled the blanket back. The long rips in his stomach and chest were oozing with infection.
“Marus did that,” Tanuojin said. “He’s over-anxious.”
She laid her hand against Ketac’s cheek. His skin was harsh with fever. Tucking his arm back into the narrow sled, she covered him in the blanket. The sled lay on the floor next to her bed. Tanuojin was sitting across the little white room, in the big chair next to the desk.
“Shall I heal him?”
“No. He’ll die if he’s lucky.”
“Why are you bitter at me?” He thumbed down his mustaches. “The way Bokojin feels about you, I probably saved your life.”
She went to the window. At the far end of the yard, David and Junna were coming in the gate. She put her hand out to the warmth of the radiation, her eyes on the two young men, one short and burly, the other slim as a vine.
Tanuojin got stiffly out of the chair, stretching, and crossed the room to the sled. Looking down at Ketac, he said, “Don’t let him die. I have a use for him.” He went out to the hall and shut the door behind him.
Tanuojin spent most of his time at his Akopra. Paula considered searching his private rooms in the compound but he would have anticipated that. The rioters in Vribulo had set half the bubble on fire, and now word came from Leno that Illini had also gone dark. Bokojin’s brothers were fighting over the succession. The Uranian Patrol held most of the city. Paula stayed in Tanuojin’s library.
While she was going to her room again, after a watch reading novels, David met her in the hall. He turned to walk beside her.
“How is Ketac?”
“I don’t know, I haven’t seen him for eight hours,” she said.
He lagged behind her to let a man coming the other way pass by. “Tajin should have killed him.”
“Don’t encourage it. Do you like Tanuojin?” They crossed the main hall to her room. At the door she stopped and looked up at him.
“He’s taught me a lot,” David said. “Once I started listening.”
“What, for example?”
He shrugged. He was filling out through his chest and shoulders, and his upper arms packed his sleeves. He said, “I’m not going to work for him for the rest of my life, you know.”
His solemn look made her smile. “Oh, really?”
“Someday I’ll get my own ship. Junna and I. We’ve talked about it. Actually, we’ve been talking about going to Neptune. Maybe even beyond.”
She thought, He’s like me. She unlocked her door and went into the white room beyond.
The sled was empty. She looked around, startled, and saw Ketac sitting on the window sill. “Oh,” she said. “Do you feel better?”
He wore no shirt. The purpling half-healed wounds ran like a flag across his chest. David was behind her on the threshold, and he and his brother paid each other a long fierce look. She bent over the empty sled.
“Help me get this out of here.” She picked up one end of the sled.
David took the other end and they carried it out to the hall. He propped it up against the wall, out of the way, for a slave to take. He said, “Now he’s going to sleep with you, is that it?”