Useful to know.
There was a closing of doors upstairs. She heard footfalls, soft, wandering here and there. She punched time: the morning was well along.
The reflection in the dead screen showed her Jim standing in the doorway, and she pushed with her foot, turned the chair nearly full about.
“You certainly had your sleep this morning,” she said cheerfully.
“No, sera.”
She let go her breath, let pass the sera. “What, then? You weren’t meddling with the tapes, were you?”
“I didn’t remember them well. I tried them again.”
“For enjoyment. I thought you would enjoy them. Maybe learn something.”
“I’m trying to learn them, sera.”
She shook her head. “Don’t try beyond convenience. I only meant to give you something to fill your time.”
“What will you want for lunch, sera?”
“Raen I don’t care. Make something. I’ve a little more to do here. I’ll be through in half an hour. We should have staff here. You shouldn’t have to serve as cook.”
“I helped in galley sometimes,” he said.
She, did not answer that Jim strayed out again. Warrior met him: she saw the encounter reflected when she had turned about again, and almost turned back to intervene. But to her gratification she saw Jim touch Warrior of his own accord and suffer no distress of it. Warrior sang softly, hive-song, that was strange in the human rooms; it trailed after Jim as he went kitchenward.
“Sugar-water,” she heard from the kitchen, a deep harmony of majat tones, and afterward a contented humming.
The car functioned, with no problems. Raen watched the short street flow past the tinted windows and settled back with a deep breath. Merry drove, seeming happy with the opportunity. Max and Warrior, minutely instructed regarding each other as well as intruders, were guarding the house and grounds; but Jim she would not leave behind, to the mercy of chance and Max’s skill at defense. Jim sat in the back seat of the Eln-Kests’ fine vehicle, watching the scenery she saw when she looked back, with a look of complete absorption.
Doing very well with this much strangeness about him, she reckoned of him. Doing very well, considering. She smiled at him slightly, then gave her attention forward, for the car dipped suddenly for the downramp to the subway and Merry needed an address.
“D-branch circle 5,” she said, the while Merry took them smoothly onto the track for Center.
The program went in. The car gathered speed, entering the central track.
Something wrong whipped past the window on Max’s side. Raen twisted in the seat, saw an impression of stilt-limbed walkers along the transparent-walled footpath that ran beside the tracks.
Tunnels. Natural to majat, easy as the wildland interstices. But there were beta walkers too, and no sign of panic.
“Merry. So majat have free access here? Do they just come and go as they please?”
“Yes,” he said.
She thought of calling the house and warning Max; but Max and Warrior had already been stringently warned. There was no good adding a piece of information that Max would already know. The danger was always there, had been. She settled forward again, arms folded, scanning the broad tube, the lights of which flicked past them faster and faster.
“Majat make free of all Newhope, then, and betas just bear with it, do they?”
“Yes, sera.”
“They work directly for betas?” She found amazement, even resentment, that majat would do so.
“Some places they do. Factories, mostly.”
“So no one-at the Port found a Warrior’s presence unusual. Everyone’s gotten used to it. How long, Merry, how long has this been going on?”
The azi kept his eyes on the tracks ahead, his squarish face taut, as if the subject was an intensely uncomfortable one. “Half a year… There was panic at first. No more. Hives don’t bother people. Humans walk one side, majat the other, down the walkways. There are heat-signs.”
Redsss, redsss, Warrior had tried to tell her. Go here, go there. Redss pushhh.
“What hive, Merry? One more than others?”
“I don’t know, sera. I never understood there was a difference to be seen, until you showed me. I’ll watch.” His brow was creased with worry. Not so slow-wilted, this azi. “Humans don’t like them in the city, but they come anyway.”
Raen bit at her lip, braced as the car went through a manoeuvre, scanned other majat on the walkway. They whipped into the great hub of Central and changed tracks at a leisurely pace. There were human walkers here, swathed in cloaks and anonymous in the sunsuits which Istra’s bright outdoors made advisable; and by twos, there were armoured police… ITAK security: everything here was ITAK.
They whipped out again on another tangent. D, the signs read.
More majat walkers.
Majat, casually coming and going in a daily contact with betas…with minds-who-died. Once majat had fled such contact, unable to bear it, even for the contacts which gave them azi, insisting to work only through Kontrin. Death had once worried majat—azi-deaths, no, as majat deaths were nothing—but betas they had always perceived as individual intelligences, and they had fled beta presence in horror, unable to manage the concepts which disrupted all majat understanding.
Now they walked familiarly with minds-who-died, unaffrighted.
And that sent a shiver over her skin, a suspicion of understanding.
D-track carried them along at increasing velocity; they took the through-track until the lights blurred past in a stream.
And suddenly they whisked over to slow-track, braking, gliding for the D circle 5 ramp. Merry took over manual as they disengaged, delivered them up into a shaded circle free of traffic and pedestrians, a vast area ringed by a pillared overhang of many stories—which must outwardly seem one of those enormous domes. The summit was a tinted shield which admitted light enough to glare down into the centre of the well of pillars.
They drove deep beneath the overhand, and to the main entry, where transparent doors and white walls lent a cold austerity to the offices. LABOUR REGISTRY, the neat letters proclaimed, 50-D, ITAK.
It was the beginning of understandings, at least. Raen contemplated it with apprehensions, reckoned whether she wanted to leave the azi both in the car or not, and decided against.
“Merry, I don’t think well be bothered here. It’s going to be hot; I’m sorry, but stay in the car and keep the doors locked and the windows sealed. Don’t create trouble, but if it happens, shoot if you have to: I want this car here when I come out. You call Max every ten minutes and make sure things are all right at the house, but no conversation, understand?”
“Yes.”
She climbed out and beckoned to Jim, who joined her on the walk and lagged a decorous half-pace behind as she started for the doors. She dropped a step and he caught up, walked with her into the foyer.
The offices were unnaturally still, desks vacant, halls empty. The air-conditioning was excessive, and the air held a strange taint, a combination of office-smells and antiseptic.
“Is this place going to bother you?” she asked of Jim, worried for that, but she reckoned hazards even of leaving him here at the door.
He shook his head very faintly. She looked about, saw a light on in an office down the corridor from the reception area. She walked that way, slowly, her footsteps and Jim’s loud in the deserted building.
A man occupied the office—had heard their coming evidently and risen. It was modern, but untidy; the desk was stacked high with work. DIRECTOR, the sign by the door declared.