“I’m just seeing if it works,” she said.
“It works. Everything works.” He smiled at her, his hands together. “Aren’t you the wife of the Matuko Akellar?”
“No. I’m not. I’m Paula Mendoza.” She went down the aisle to get the rocket.
“That’s what I meant,” the Martian said, coming after her.
“Then say what you mean.”
The rocket was sticking nose-first into the floor. She pulled it out and straightened its needle-snout. The Martian hovered behind her as she crossed the shop to the counter.
“Mrs. Mendoza, I wonder if you’d consent to talk to—to listen to—That’s fifty-five dollars.”
She paid him. His soft fingertips tapped over the keys of the computer terminal. “If you’d listen—”
“I’m listening with both ears. You haven’t said anything yet.”
He pulled the lid down over the terminal keyboard. “We have a complaint. About the Akellar.”
“Tanuojin?”
“Yes. Maybe, if you’d hear us out, you could help us.”
She snorted, disbelieving. “Well, I’ll listen. What is it?”
“Come with me.”
He took her three doors away to a little Martian lunchroom, covered with an awning against an imaginary sun. The shopkeeper made her sit at a round table and rushed off.
He came back with a small platoon of other men—all the traders were men; they clustered around the table, all eyes fixed on her. She was drinking a hot mixture of milk and pala fruit. She moved the glass away.
“They are selling slaves in the native bazaar,” said the toyman.
“How long have you been here? Half the people in Styth are slaves. Complain about something I can change.”
“These people are Martians.”
“Oh.” She leaned forward, her elbows on the table. Sril had said they had taken over four hundred prisoners from Vesta, which was a Martian colony. “Oh. I see.”
“Naturally we abhor any kind of slavery.”
The white Martian faces made a circle around her. She said, “Yes, I’m sure. Now, it was almost nine years ago I wrote your contract, but it seems to me there was a clause in it about your staying out of the native market.”
“These people are suffering horribly!”
“Well, I’ll do what I can, which will certainly cost you a lot of money. Are you ready for that?”
The pale faces changed. The toyman, sitting opposite her, glanced at the men on his right and left. He leaned toward her. “This isn’t a money issue. This is a question of common human decency.”
“To Tanuojin it will be strictly a money issue.”
One of the other men muttered, “That black bastard.”
“How much?” the toyman said.
“I can’t say. Depending on the condition of the slaves. Yekka is a bad market for slaves, they’re a luxury here.” She took the rocket she had bought and went out of the lunchroom.
The local market was on the far side of the bubble. She went there in the next middle watch. The Martians from Vesta were caged on either side of the central lane of the market. There were thirteen old people and five children, all under two years. None of the Styths in the market was showing much interest except an old woman who was trying to coax the terrified children up to the bars to give them sweets. Paula went back toward the far end of the bubble.
A high fence surrounded the city powerhouse, near the tail of the city. Tanuojin’s man Marus was at the gate, and he let her in. The block-shaped windowless powerhouse hummed. When she went in through the door, the hum increased to a steady roar. From the outside the building was only one story, but she came in to a ledge around a pit eighty feet deep. The two engines in it were round and smooth, like silos, and gave off the even thunderous roar. Far below her, a man walked around the nearer barrel into sight, saw her, and went back. She found the ladder down into the pit.
Behind the engines, Tanuojin was standing over a little desk, and another man was sitting behind it writing on the treated surface with a stylus that had a long cord coming out of the butt end. The noise was so intense it was like hearing nothing. Paula looked up at the engines towering above them.
The men did not try to talk over the noise. They wrote messages to each other on a little workboard. Tanuojin scribbled something and gave it to the man at the desk, who nodded. He took a slotted computer key out of the top of the desk and gave it to Tanuojin, who put it into his sleeve. Paula followed him up the ladder and out of the powerhouse.
In the yard, he pulled two rubber plugs out of his ears. Paula’s head buzzed. He turned toward her, his mouth open, and she said, “What were you doing?”
“Turning down the radiation. Stay out of there, you’ll go deaf.”
They went out the gate. Marus came along after them, staying ten feet behind them, like a wife. Paula looked down the city. It seemed as bright as before; she supposed it would slowly fall dark.
“Then the pala harvest is over?”
“Yes. Did you go to the Martians?”
“They don’t like you down there.”
He bent and took her wrist. They walked on toward his compound; after ten or twelve strides he let go of her, throwing her wrist back at her.
“You meddle, piglet.”
“You have eighteen slaves you can’t sell. The Martians will buy them. What’s in the way?”
“You stay out of my business. If you want to work you can scrub floors.”
She veered off away from him. All thorns and no rose. Kasuk was coming toward them along the path at a lope. Tanuojin stopped, and the young man ran up to them.
“Pop, there’s a call for you from the Fleet Office. They’re holding.”
Tanuojin went off at a fast walk along the path. After he had gone a hundred feet he broke into a run, his son behind him. Paula looked over her shoulder at Marus.
“What do you think that’s about?”
Stoop-shouldered, the big man came up beside her in his slouching walk. “I don’t think, Mendoz’. I just do as I’m told.” They went down the path toward the compound.
The window of her room in the compound opened on the yard. She sat on the ledge playing her flute and watching the vast green city fade into its bright twilight. About midway through the watch the toyman from the White Market came in through the gate, crossed the yard to the main door, and there met Marus who took him into the house. She played a jig. After half an hour the toyman left again. His face was fretted. She was tempted to call to him, to find out how much Tanuojin wanted for his slaves, but there was a knock on her door.
“Mendoz’, the Akellar will see you.”
Tanuojin was in the hall, eating his high meal. His sons waited behind him to serve him. Paula stood on the far side of the table from him, waiting for him to decide to recognize her presence. He ate fast, hardly chewing or savoring anything, as if someone might steal the food out of his mouth. He had grown up an outsider in a flock of children. Kasuk took his empty plate away to the side. He drained his cup and Junna, the younger son, filled it again from a pitcher.
“We’re going to Vribulo in eight watches,” Tanuojin said. He sat back, his hands on his stomach.
“To Vribulo,” she said. “Why? Have you talked to Saba?”
“Not yet. He’ll call this watch. The fleet is awarding us each a flag. For taking Vesta.” Kasuk brought a pala fruit and a knife.
“What’s a flag?” she said.
“The highest award in the fleet. An automatic promotion, among other things. Like money.” He split the fruit in two. She made a face; she was tired of the sweet, damp, greenish meat. He picked the seed out with the tip of the knife. “We’re trading you, too.”
“You mean I’m going home?”
“That’s right.”
“You told me the Vesta mission was a failure.”