“Who’s there?” he challenged.
“Joe? Is that you?”
“Ti? What the hell are you doing here in this mess?”
She made her way over to him. “Same as you, I guess. I tripped over something on the pier and the next thing I knew I was in the water. This seemed like the only way out.”
He laughed and soon she laughed with him. Finally he asked, “Irv?”
“Oh, he went in between the buildings. He’ll be fine. He knows where the camp is and he’s pretty street-wise, so I don’t think he’ll get in any real trouble.” She chuckled. “God! I must look a fright. As bad as you do! It’ll take me a week of washing to get this gook out of my hair!”
“Yeah, it’s almost a shame. Here we are alone together and free for the first time in a long time, and look at us! By the time we got anyplace decent the mud would dry us into statues.”
She thought about it. “Then maybe the trick is to make sure the mud doesn’t dry.”
“Huh? You mean—over there? In the mud?”
“Why not? Kinky, huh?”
He thought about it. “Well, why not? We can’t get any muddier.”
He was definitely wrong about that.
Still, it was a night to remember. Caked with the gooey stuff, they made their way to the edge of the flats, where the river made the full curve and began to pick up again, cleansed now. They were able to swim about and get as much off as they could, and it turned into one of those rare magical nights when it felt good to be alive.
Finally, they made their way back to the area just outside of town where they had been forced to camp, not then having the money to stay in town. The boy was sleeping there, and they stood there a moment and looked at him.
“You know, it’s kind of odd,” Joe commented. “You take the average person from Earth and stick them here, the kind who mows his lawn and works in an office nine-to-five and maybe goes to singles bars, and he’d be dead or enslaved in no time at all. But you take” a kid forced to live in a nasty neighborhood, surviving by his wits, facing danger all the time, like him, and he adapts pretty damned well. We could probably make a lot of folks happy if we could work it out so those kids in the street gangs got over here and some of our better people who just can’t hack it here went back there in their place.”
She shrugged. “He’s still just a boy.”
“Not here. Not anymore. But he’ll make it. He’ll do better here than he would back home, that’s for sure.”
“Of course he will,” she assured him. “He’s your son.”
Joe looked around at the quiet scene. “Yeah, he is. That’s what’s got me to wondering.”
“Huh?”
“He was on his own, in that town, with a fair piece of change, and since he’s the only one now who knows how much, we’ll never know if any of it was spent. I wonder how long he’s really been back here? I wonder how long he’s been asleep? I wonder how old and gray I’m gonna have to be to find out the answer to those questions? If ever,” he added.
CHAPTER 3
HARD ANSWERS, BIGGER QUESTIONS
If, by sorcery, any citizen, of whatever rank or station, shall find him, her, or itself in the body, form, or husk of another already bound to these Rules, the Rules governing the actual body, form, or husk inhabited by soul or spirit shall prevail and be binding.
Due to the long night, they had slept until past midday; even so, when Tiana awoke, she saw that Irving was still asleep. Clearly while his father’s suspicions were confirmed by this, and it was something she, too, worried about, she decided that it was best if it be kept a minor mystery from the big man. Joe still sprawled on the blanket, snoring away, so she gently awoke the boy, put a finger to her lips, and gave him a knowing wink.
He sat up fast, looked around, saw his father still asleep and relaxed. “Thanks,” he whispered to her.
“You’ve had your little fun, now go to work,” she whispered in reply. “You still have most of the money, I assume?”
“Yeah, sure. Right here. I didn’t use much. Uh—you think this is enough?”
She poured out the haul and looked it over. In among the masses of copper were a number of coins of silver and gold. “Oh, yes. More than enough, I think. Enough, too, to buy a decent breakfast.”
The boy started to pack up, working around the still sleeping Joe, and Tiana rummaged around in her pack and found what amounted to little more than a string bikini made of colored beads, then slipped it on so it hung on her hips. Then she started doing her normal routine of exercising, which included just about every bend and gyration even her body was capable of doing and repeating it over and over. It was unsettling to be talking to a woman who, seemingly without effort, balanced on the toes of one foot while raising the other leg almost straight even with her body against her head, over and over. It hurt just to look at it. The fact that she could also hold a normal conversation while doing this sort of thing was, well, unsettling.
The boy turned away and continued packing up the camp. “I still can’t get over how little most girls are dressed in this place. There’s more skin and tits here than a skin flick,” he remarked.
“It’s vanity, mostly, based on one of the Rules,” she told him. “It goes something like, ‘Weather permitting, all beautiful women will be scantily clad.’ The thing is, ‘beauty’ is nearly impossible to define, even for a bureaucrat. Some women whose looks are beyond question fall under that compulsion, but most do not. On the other hand, most women like to think that they are under that compulsion, and even those who don’t also tend to follow it, including many who shouldn’t.”
“Huh?”
“Otherwise, you’re sort of going around advertising that you think you’re plain or ugly,” she explained. “And, frankly, many women don’t really have the body for it. They need some well-placed clothing to look their best—but most won’t, anyway.”
“And that’s every place?”
“Oh, there are lots of places where the rule has no practical effect—cold climates, high places, places with lots of nasty insects or cutting vegetation. In those places, you undress for formal occasions! But in this broad region, which covers much of Husaquahr, it’s subtropical or downright tropical, and that’s the way things are.”
“Man! That’s still weird! It almost seems like you all are puttin’ up ads sayin’, ‘Come and get me.’ ”
“It’s not that bad, mostly because almost everybody does it. It’s normal, and whatever’s normal, no matter how different or strange, people get used to and take for granted in a hurry. It’s sort of like some ancient cultures in your own world, where a woman who was overdressed and usually veiled was a prostitute, since the clothing was used to hide her identity and maybe titillate the customers. Most original tropical cultures wore few clothes unless the missionaries or conquerors got to them. And, like them, there’s the sad fact of being in a world without science or machines governed by Rules that keep things as they are.”