“I’m hungry,” she said.
“I’ve got orders,” he said. He was sitting behind the desk in the front office, one leg crooked over the arm of the chair. “One thing I never do is disobey orders.”
Bakan came in, bear-sized. “Any word yet?”
“No,” Sril said. “They have to wait until Machou finishes his own business—it won’t be until the mid-third of the watch. She’s hungry.”
“Take her to Colorado’s,” Bakan said.
Paula started back through the filing room; she would go out the window of the bedroom. Sril reached ahead of her and shut the door before she could leave the main office. He said, “The Man told me not to let her out.”
“Did he tell you to let me starve? You can come with me, I won’t run away.”
Sril’s hand stayed on the latch of the door. To Bakan, he said, “Bokojin offered him fifty thousand dollars for her. You can see what he’s afraid of.”
The hulking man crossed the room to the other side of the desk. “Here, Mendoz’. If you’re hungry, try this.”
“Who is Bokojin?” she said. She took a flat orange strip from his hand. It did not look like food. She bit into the end. The stuff was of the texture of strip protein and as hard to chew. The bitter taste screwed her face up. She spat it out.
“Ugh!”
The two men were laughing; Bakan slapped his thigh with amusement. He chewed a mouthful of the stuff like a cud. “Mendoz’, you aren’t as tough as you think you are.” He turned his head and fired a gob of spit into the wastebin in the corner.
She worked her lips to get rid of the horrid taste. Her tongue was numb. Sril’s face danced with amusement, but he left the chair and went into the next room and came back with a cup of water for her. Gratefully she drank it.
Sril sat down again, his hands behind his head. “Bokojin is Saba’s cadet. Vice captain of the Uranian Patrol. Machou’s favorite. He’s a comet, he’s been in the rAkellaron about the same time as Tanuojin, but he whipped up the rank—”
Bakan spat again. “Until he came to Saba.”
“What is that stuff?” she asked.
“Laksi.”
“Did he fight Saba?”
Sril said, “The Man let him know what he was going to do to him for Tanuojin’s sake.” His gaze went to Bakan, sitting on the corner of the desk. “Do you think The Creep can take Ymma?”
“That lady,” Bakan said. “My opinion, since you asked. The Creep is under-ranked. He’d be eighth or ninth if he’d fight more.”
Paula wandered around the room. The two men talked about fighting. She could not sit still; she was trying to imagine what was happening up in the House—what a pit fight was like. She wondered if she were right about Machou. Being Prima was its own defense. If Tanuojin would fight more, he would be hurt more, and they would all see that he was not just a blood-stauncher. What was he? His touch had healed her wounds in seconds.
“I’m still hungry.”
“Go get her something to eat,” Sril said to Bakan.
“Why should I go?”
“Because I’m on duty. Go on, just go to Colorado’s.”
A shout sounded in the arcade. Paula wheeled around. The door burst open, and Ketac rushed into the room, his face shining.
“Tanuojin just beat Ymma down in seventy-three seconds.”
Sril whooped, throwing his hands up over his head. Bakan spat. “I knew it. It’s just surprising it took him so long.”
“What about Saba?” Paula said.
Ketac turned on his heel in the center of the room. “It was The Creep’s fight from the beginning. Machou never even stood up.” He looked at Bakan. “The Creep worked on him a little. Once he saw that Machou wasn’t stepping in, he tore Ymma’s face off.” Ketac clapped his hands together. “I’ve never seen anybody fight like that. Smart like that.”
Paula went to the door. The arcade was filling up with men. Their voices rose, jubilant. She reached for the door, but it sprang out of her hands. Tanuojin shouldered in past her. His shirt was splattered with blood and his hair hung down over his shoulders. His face was scored with half-healed scratches. He was hot and he stank and his rare smile showed. Paula moved away from him. Marus and Kany and others of his men flooded in the door behind him. He shouted, “I wish I could afford it, I’d buy for the whole city of Vribulo.” His hands were covered with blood. The other men slapped him on the back. Saba came in behind him and draped one arm around him. Paula lowered her eyes.
MATUKO
Before she had her coat off, Boltiko and Illy burst in the door. “What did you think of Vribulo? Where did you go?” They closed around her. Illy took her coat and Boltiko hustled her into the kitchen of her house.
“Did you go to the Akopra? Where did you stay?”
“In the Barn.” She sat on the curved bench at her kitchen table. There were cushions on it, to lift her up to a Styth level. “We went to the Akopra and saw The Dragon.” Boltiko put a steaming cup before her on the table. Illy sat beside her.
“Dragon. Was it good? But you wouldn’t know.”
“Tanuojin said it was terrible.”
“Tanuojin,” Boltiko said. “Was he there?”
“Where is David?”
“Where did you go to eat?” Illy said. “Did he buy you anything?”
Boltiko said, “The baby is asleep. He was so sick before, I walked him up and down all last watch, but he’s better now.”
Paula sipped the sweet tea. Boltiko worried over every cranky cry. “We ate at Colorado’s. What was wrong with him—his stomach again?”
“Colorado’s,” Illy said, blank. “What’s that?”
“A dock,” Boltiko said. “You should have made him take you somewhere nice, Paula.”
The tea was gone. Paula sat back, her hands on her warm belly. “I liked it. All the women were painted up; I felt like a mouse. I guess they’re whores, aren’t they? Saba had some trouble with the Prima—Tanuojin was in a fight in the pit.”
“I hope Saba didn’t get involved?”
“What was wrong with David?”
Boltiko sat down in a chair across the table from Paula. “His tum-tum. Poor baby.”
“Little glutton.”
“Who fought Tanuojin?” Illy said. “Did he win?”
“Oh, yes. It was Ymma, the Lopka Akellar.” Paula watched Boltiko sip from a cup, dainty as a nun. “You don’t like Tanuojin?”
“That man will ruin Saba,” the prima wife said.
“I don’t know him,” Illy said. “My brother hates him.” Her brother was the Merkhiz Akellar, the Prima Cadet, whose cadet was Saba.
“Do you like him?” Boltiko asked Paula.
“No.”
“I knew him—before Saba’s father died, sleep deep, when we lived in Vribulo, Tanuojin practically lived with us. After Melleno fired him.” Boltiko took her cup across the kitchen to fill from the jug on the counter. “He’s low-born, he’s ambitious, and he is evil. I can feel it.”
“How do you know he’s low-born? If nobody knows who his parents were.”
“With those nigger-eyes,” Illy said, “he’s slave-bred. Tiko, me too.”
Boltiko brought the hot jug and filled each of their cups. “He is no slave. He’s deviant. He should have been destroyed at birth. That’s the law.” She sank into her chair. “Instead, some soft-hearted woman protected him. She suffered. Everybody who ever helped him has suffered. Melleno gave him work and a respectable position and he seduced his daughter. Yekaka took him in and he betrayed him to Melleno.”
“Seduced his daughter,” Paula said. “Whose daughter?”
Illy gulped her tea. “Melleno’s. When he was the Prima, and Tanuojin worked for him. Here. I’ll show you how to tell your future.” She turned her empty cup over on the table.