“Who knows?” Bakan said. “Whatever happened up on the steps last watch, it was strange. People don’t like strange things.”
Something struck the outside of the door. She twitched. Sril said, “Sit down, Mendoz’. There’s nothing to do, even for you.”
She walked around the room. The racket of the crowd, growing louder, sawed on her nerves. Ketac came in through the inside door and shut it behind him.
“Has there been any word from the House?”
Bakan shook his head. The bone rattled on the top of the desk, and Sril yelped; he had won. Paula sat down in the chair by the window.
The mob swelled larger through the watch, packing the street and crowding through the arches of the arcade. Fights broke out here and there. At one bell, Leno came down from the House, his bullet head set forward on his shoulders. The man who had shot Saba had confessed: he was an agent of the Sunlight League. Leno went away, but the mob stayed. Their noise kept Paula awake. She sat at the front desk while Ketac slept in the chair before the window and Sril and Bakan walked aimlessly around the office.
“Why don’t you sleep?” Sril said to her, deep in the low watch.
“I can’t.” Her elbows propped on the desk, she pressed her fingers flat to her cheeks. Outside the mob was chanting something she did not want to hear. “That damned Machou.”
He glanced at Ketac, sprawled across the chair. Bakan was in the next room. Sril sat on the edge of the desk. “You think Machou is driving this?”
“You don’t see him down here stopping it, do you?”
“Because of what Tanuojin did?”
She raised her head. The chant pierced her hearing: “Kill, kill, kill,” growing louder. Sril bent down, his voice at a murmur.
“He brought Saba back again.”
“Don’t talk about what you don’t understand.” What she did not understand. Whenever she thought about what had happened on the porch a strange exultation swelled her, that drove out fear. The mob voice thundered. She went to the door. Sril reached it first and opened it; Ketac, rubbing his eyes, went after him into the arcade.
The mob surged along the street. Clubs waved in their fists. In an archway Sril was surrounded. Bakan rushed past her out the door, saw, and plunged back into the office. Seizing the first chair he came to, he lifted it over his head in both hands and ran down to the edge of the crowd. A steady banging reached her ears. They were breaking down Tanuojin’s door. Bakan held the chair before him with the legs out horizontal and forced his way into the crowd. They yielded, their hands up. A man in the forefront lost his footing and fell and Bakan walked over him. In the arch Sril had his back to the pillar, fighting off people armed with sticks. Bakan reached him. Together they cleared the arch. Other men ran by Paula’s doorway to help them. She saw Ketac down near Tanuojin’s door.
At a dead run, Leno passed her with a dozen of his men streaming along behind him. They formed a line and thrust the mob back into the street. Stones and filth pelted the cordon of men.
Leno roared, “Drive those fuckers back!” Half the line broke rank and rushed into the crowd, scattering the mob ahead of them. Paula yanked the door shut.
In the relative quiet she heard a new sound, a low whimper from another room, and went through the office to the back bedroom. Saba had wakened. He was crying with pain. She sank down on one knee beside the bed, afraid to touch him.
“Saba.”
“My head.” He turned his head from side to side. “My head is killing me.”
The mob yell rose again to a hysterical pitch. The noise made him sob, his head rolling back and forth. She brought him a cup of water but he could not drink. The door in the next room banged open. Tanuojin came into the room. The black sash hung crumpled across his chest. He sat on the edge of the bed and put his hands on his lyo.
Paula went back to the doorway. Tanuojin helped Saba sit and fed him the water from the cup. He said something too softly for her to hear, and Saba nodded. She went into the computer room. On the walls the analog decks blinked in panels of red and green. Ketac and Sril packed the next doorway, watching.
“How is he?”
Tanuojin came out of the bedroom. “He’s good. He’s better than I thought.” He put his back to them, facing Paula. “There’s too much going on here. I can’t take it, I’m spinning my wheels, I have to get away. Can you take care of him?”
“I’ll take him back to Matuko,” she said.
“Keep him quiet. Don’t let him do anything at all.” His head turned slightly toward the men in the doorway. The strange joy swelled in her again, so close to him. She put her hand on his chest.
“Go back to Yekka. I’ll call you when we’re in Matuko.”
“Don’t bother. I’ll keep track of you.” He turned and walked out of the room.
“I could fly my own ship.”
Paula kept hold of the grip in the wall of the compartment. The bus bounced and swayed along in its course toward Matuko. Saba walked in two steps the length of the compartment. “Why can’t I fly my own ship?”
Sril coughed into his rolled hand. “The Creep said—”
“What is he, my mother?”
Sril and Bakan, sitting opposite each other, passed weighted looks across the compartment. Saba dropped down on the bench next to Bakan. To Paula, he said, “When are you going to ask me about Illy?”
She glanced at Sril. “Will you bring me a drink of water?”
“Yes, Mendoz’.” He and Bakan filed out the door. The bus lurched and the door shut with a crash.
“I divorced her,” Saba said. “I sent her back to Merkhiz. First I whipped her backside so bad she probably stood the whole way.”
“Did you enjoy it?”
“Enjoy it. How could you do that to me? I’d never catch her in bed with Tanuojin.”
She tightened her fingers around the grip. Her stomach heaved with the motion of the bus. “How is David?”
“He’s fine. Boltiko has care of him.” He put one foot against the side of the bench to brace himself. “That doesn’t bother you? About Illy.”
“I’m glad she’s gone. I was going to end it anyway.”
“How long were you lovers?”
Her throat was sweet with nausea. She stiffened against his curiosity. “I’m going to be sick.” She staggered onto her feet. He called Sril to take her down to the slave toilet in the back of the bus.
MATUKO
Without Pedasen she had to do all the work in her house by herself. She hated the other slaves, who hated her, and would not let them inside her door. If something broke, Sril or Bakan fixed it for her, but usually the floor was crunchy with grit and cobwebs hung from the ceiling.
She was going around the front room wiping the dust off the flat surfaces when David came in. His upper lip was split and swollen; he had been fighting again. Her chest tightened with short temper and she threw the rag down.
“You know, I’m beginning to forget what you really look like.”
He climbed onto the swing couch. His narrow slanted eyes were stony. “Maybe I just won’t come back ever again, maybe you’d like that better.”
“I’d like you to broaden your interests.”
“It’s your fault.”
“My fault.”
“Because you’re a dirty nigger.”
She started down to her heels. Her son leaned toward her, his head stuck forward. “You aren’t my mother. You’re just a dirty old slave. My real mother was a Styth, like everybody else’s mother.”
Her face flushed with heat. Her hands were trembling and she chafed them together hard. “Your mother is me, whether you appreciate it or not, and if it weren’t for me, you wouldn’t be here living this easy life with the leisure to beat people up.” His hostile eyes shifted. Now he was staring over her shoulder. She said, “If it hadn’t been for your dirty nigger mother, your clean Styth father would have sold us both for slaves long ago.”