“That’s what I’d do.”
“Will you broker for me? I’d take it as a favor, Am.”
“All right.” She glanced sideways, consulting internal systems. “It’ll be three hundred—and I don’t suppose you have it with you?”
Tatian shook his head. “I can wire it.”
“All right—” She broke off as a door opened in the technician’s shed, mobile face drawing into a sudden frown. Tatian glanced over his shoulder, curious, to see a tall mem in a sleeveless overall and a worn-looking worksuit standing in the doorway.
“I thought we were taking break together, Am,” ρe said. The accent was Haran, unmistakably, and the jealous note was equally clear.
Tatian scowled, and Am said hastily, “This is business, Mous. I’ll be over in a minute.”
“Æ?” the Haran said, with patent disbelief, and Am’s frown deepened.
“Don’t give me this shit, Mous. I’ll be in in a minute, okay?”
“Oh, yes,” the Haran said bitterly, and closed the door with a thump.
“Going native,” Tatian quoted, with equal bitterness, and Am glared at him.
“Don’t you start.”
“I thought you were straight, straight as in liking men,” Tatian said.
“I am straight,” Am said, but the words lacked conviction. “Mous, he…”
“ρe is a mem,” Tatian said. “I don’t care what ρe calls ρimself, ρe’s a mem, and that makes you at the very least differently straight from when you were sleeping with me.”
“And what the hell business is it of yours?” Am demanded. “You and I were pillow-friends, and that’s all. If I want something different, that’s my affair.”
“You gave me a hard time about going native,” Tatian said. “Just because I have to deal with the indigenes based on what they tell me they are. But I’m not the one who’s changed my tastes and not bothered to tell anyone.”
Am glared at him for a moment. “All right, I’m di, I guess. Are you happy now? It’s not exactly what I expected either.”
’’I—” Tatian stopped, shaking his head. Adults don’t change their minds, he wanted to say, not about something as important as this. And if they do, they tell people, and then they apologize. And most of all, they don’t harass me for doing exactly what you’re already thinking about doing. I don’t do trade, never have, it’s not fair— He took a deep breath. “All right. I suppose it’s none of my business. But I’ve never played trade, and you know it.”
“I know,” Am agreed, looking away, and there was a little silence. “I’m sorry,” she said, after a moment, and looked back with a smile that was more of a grimace. “I shouldn’t’ve said that. It’s this fucking planet. Mixes everything up.”
And that, Tatian knew, was as close to an apology as he was going to get. “I’ll wire you the money,” he said, and immediately wondered if he should have said more.
Am nodded, her eyes already drifting to the door. “I’ll tell Cesar to hold the box for me.”
“Thanks,” Tatian said, and she gestured vaguely.
“No problem. I’ll see you around.”
There was no alternative but to take the monorail back to Bonemarche. He stood on the high, bare platform, wishing that the knot of indigenes in janitorial coveralls hadn’t taken up all the narrow band of shade, wishing that he had a parasol like the old woman in traditional dress who waiting in solitary splendor at the far end of the platform. The sun was veiled by high, thin clouds, but the heat was fierce in the damp air; toward Bonemarche, the horizon was purple with the promise of the afternoon storms. As the notice board began to flash, signaling the approaching train, he thought he saw Eshe Isabon hurrying up the ramp to the platform, but he wasn’t in the mood for company. He stepped back, putting a pillar between them, and was glad when %e didn’t seem to notice his presence.
Not for the first time since he’d come to Hara, he found himself wondering why he’d accepted this assignment. He could have stayed on Joshua, stayed with Mali Kaysa—sane, sensible, man-straight Kaysa, complicated in ways he understood. He closed his eyes, shutting out the white sky, the dark horizon, remembering instead the lights of Helensport and the cool nights when they’d walked home together from one of the clubs or a show or even just from working late. He could almost feel her hand cool in his, hear her laughter and the cheerful voice of the demi couple, a woman and a fem, who shared the narrow garden between their rented houses. They had thrown good parties, that pair, and he remembered an image from one with special clarity: Kaysa with her mahogany hair straight as rain, for once freed from its braid to flow almost to her waist, standing in the blued light of the door lantern. She had been watching a man and a woman, friends of hers from the translators’ office where she worked, going through the first almost ritual questions, each trying to signal sexual interest without going too far, just in case the other wasn’t interested.
“You could’ve told him she was man-straight,” Tatian had said, and put his arm around her waist.
“I’m not a matchmaker,” Kaysa had answered, and leaned companionably against him. “Besides, this is more fun.”
That memory had an ironic feeling to it now, on Hara, where there weren’t any rules, or at least not ones that he could accept as normal, or even reasonable. That party had been one of the last ordinary nights before he’d been offered the Haran assignment—which paid too well, offered too much chance of promotion, to refuse—and he clung to the memory. The people had been sane, reasonable, ordinary, had known who and what they were: it was something to hold to on Hara.
He found a seat in the corner of the poorly cooled car away from the fading sunlight and settled in for the ride back to Bonemarche, listening with half an ear to the chatter of the half-dozen or so indigenes who shared the car. Outside the window, the thick grasses rose and fell in the rising breeze, the half-open seedheads of the flaxen tossing like foam. The sky over Bonemarche was dark with clouds, and he saw the first bolts of lightning streak from cloud to sea. The monorail track was the highest thing on the upper plain, always vulnerable, and he was relieved when the train negotiated the curves of the descent without incident and passed between the first buildings, following the Portroad into the city. By the time the train pulled into the station at Harborlook, the first drops of rain were falling, leaving damp patches ten centimeters wide in the dust of the platform.
He shared a ride back to the Estrange with a pair of technicians from WestSiCo, who spent most of the ride mumbling arcane shipping formulae. They reached Drapdevel Court just as the rain was ending. The court was mostly dry, for once, just a few puddles starting to steam as the clouds broke, and he pushed open the office door without bothering to take off his shoes. To his surprise, Derebought was sitting at the lobby console, the privacyscreen unfolded along the desktop edge.
“I’m glad you’re back, Tatian, these—people—have been waiting to see you.”
Tatian looked sideways into the little waiting area, wondering what else would go wrong today, and sighed deeply, recognizing the IDCA agents sitting on the padded bench. “What do you want?”
Stevins Jhirad grinned, and unfolded þimself from the bench. Þe was tall for a mem—wasn’t much like the stereotype of a mem at all, Tatian thought, not for the first time. Þe was too tall, too thin, most of all too quick of tongue and hand, more like a herm than a mem.