“Prying,” they say. “I regard her very well. I imagine she doesn’t tell you good things about me, though. Says I’m quite a character, no?”
“No, actually. She says she loves you dearly and that you’re one of the best people in her life.”
Taheen Sahl’s expression tightens, as though in pain. Then they snort and the insouciance snaps back in place. “Hmph. How are you finding cohabitation with her?”
Ovuha wonders if she’s stepped into a romantic spat, though at the dinner she never got the sense—quite—that they are lovers. “She’s the most conscientious, attentive caseworker I could hope for, and she seems to enjoy my cooking.”
They snort again. “A safe answer. Well, as long as you don’t trouble her. Atam, there you are. I’ll leave her to your tutelage.”
The other model brings the fabric swatches, holding them against Ovuha. In their employer’s absence, Atam continues to stare at Ovuha, even more openly than before. Xie is her physical opposite, short and voluptuous, xer hair a cotton-candy gradient and xer skin a deep, gleaming bronze. “Is it true that you’re from the colonies?”
Ovuha smiles, noncommittal. “If I say no you wouldn’t believe it. This leaves me with limited options.”
A pause. “I don’t mean anything by it. You speak better Putonghua than most of us. What would you like to know about working for Taheen? They’re a good boss. Far more flexible than most. You and I are pretty lucky, considering the industry.”
The industry, as if Ovuha might have experience with or an opinion of it, though she appreciates the inclusion, the effort to commiserate. “What do we do generally?”
“Well, they’re an independent designer, not a fashion house—they don’t even take on house contracts, they can afford not to. So they don’t make seasonal collections and take us to trade shows. They maintain a small stable: you, me, three other models plus a couple more who rotate. Taheen does private viewings, exclusive gallery appearances. Small clientele, but a lot of spending power. We’re paid by the hour, get commissions for certain things.”
Atam goes on, keeping to the practical details, concise and informative—xer interest in her is not adversarial, then. When xie offers to send her choreography mnemonics to practice at home, they both discover that her portable is too limited for that, offering no virtualization capabilities. “No matter, it’s better to learn in person anyway.” Xie admires her height, the breadth of her shoulders, and gently pushes at her spine until it meets Taheen’s standards. Despite the differences between their physiques Atam is a good teacher, and halfway through Ovuha laughs—she cannot help it; this is a delightfully absurd lesson, an absurd present held up against her history and purposes.
“Did I say something funny?”
“No.” Ovuha composes herself. “I remembered an off-color joke.”
They finish for the day; Atam asks her which station she’s bound for, and it happens—so xie claims—that their destinations are on the same line. At the turnstile Ovuha half-expects the interface to publicly delineate her, draw a clear and hard boundary between her and Atam, but it does not. Likely it is unnecessary for public interfaces to shame potentiates, because for most non-citizens their status is obvious. The huddled shoulders, the accent, the hollowed gazes. She knows how to go unmarked, behave as one who belongs. Still there are moments of lapse; she stares at the back of her hand, then at a glimpse of her eyes in the window. How strange it is to walk with her limbs so light, her face so exposed.
On the far end of the carriage is a group of new arrivals, newer even than she, from Umrut—a territory under the Sparrow, but which must have since passed to the Comet. When she left the Comet was expanding fast, voracious, successful. Where once there were a dozen warlords, a dozen dominions, the Comet has reduced the tally to five. It catalyzed Ovuha’s decision to seek Anatta, a decision which may prove a fool’s or the ultimate victor’s.
The Umrut are speaking in low voices, in a regional patois that is difficult for algorithms to unscramble: their bid for privacy. They are telling one another of someone they call Bhanu who can give them secure employment, contacts, ensure that the very minute their probation ends they will be crowned citizens. All they must give in return is a portion of their earnings for the next few years. Or run certain errands. Bhanu. A name Ovuha has heard before in the Jasmine, though she’s never paid attention until now.
“You’re thinking about something really deeply,” Atam says.
Ovuha glances at xer. “Yes, that’s rather rude of me. I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to ignore you. You were saying?”
“Care for a coffee? I’d like to get to know you better.”
She startles and, caught off-guard, loses sight of the Umrut group; they stream out with the disembarking passengers in an orderly line. Efficient, quickly gone. “Haven’t we only just met?”
Atam’s mouth quirks. “Isn’t a coworker you just met the perfect person to invite for light dining?”
Ovuha weighs her response. “It seems vulgar to decline.”
Atam brings her to an indoor topiary where filament trees trill and light up when brushed by wings or beaks. The birds themselves are organic, genuine animals, though bred in labs and so more vivid than nature would otherwise produce them. Claret starlings, emerald doves, topaz-and-copper pigeons.
Xie walks her through varieties of coffee, tea blends, milk; they show her the extensive menu of tisanes, syrups liquid or solid, spices and powders and fresh petals. Once she has made a decision, Atam orders a set of strainers, cups, and implements Ovuha might have mistaken for either medical or torture devices. Xie produces a lightly sweet brew, blending a quartet of teas, a drop of condensed milk and a froth of steamed coconut cream.
Despite her doubts, it proves more interesting—and more pleasant—than she anticipated. Ovuha takes a long draw. “It’s a lovely result,” she says. “I’ve never had anything quite like it.”
“Yes, unique, isn’t it? I usually add palm sugar to mine, but you struck me as someone who preferred things unsweetened.” Atam gestures with a stirrer, a long metal thing that makes Ovuha think of a tool which could dip into subcutaneous fat and excavate tender morsels. “Though I think you don’t enjoy the birds. Too tame for you—no?”
“Too tame,” she says, and is not surprised when the portable twitches against her wrist like a restless snake. All this performative solicitousness, this careful gallantry. “You’re my client.”
Atam blushes, putting down the stirrer. “I was hoping to draw it out, to make this more like courtship. You don’t have to.” Xer gaze falls. “I just didn’t expect they’d send me someone so handsome.”
“Of brutal beauty and a masterly disposition?”
Xie makes a choked noise. “I can’t believe they told you that.”
She lifts xer chin with her fingertips, tilting xer face toward her. “Take me to your home.” Aware, as she says this, that this may be an elaborate ruse—to entrap her, to frame her, to get her out of the way so that her contact may dodge their obligations to the old Thorn. But this is a lead, and she will pursue.
Atam lives in an apartment slightly smaller than Suzhen’s, part of a similar building: an edifice that looks like it has been hewn from black ice on the outside and whose floors spread like spilled silk. Xer home is decorated in jungle motifs, drapes of orchids and red-gold ferns, every piece of furniture upholstered in resplendent pelts: leopard, panther, ocelot, lion. A lynx peers out from behind a plush table. Ovuha expects it to be replicant, but it is merely particulate, Atam not having the time to take care of even a replicant, she judges.