“No.”
“Of course you can’t. They’re a clever people, the Jews. They know how to extract the maximum information with the minimum damage. You would think that it wouldn’t work on a planet as violent as this one. You would think that people would become inured to anything less than the immediate threat of death or mutilation. But pain has its own power.”
The larger of Yassin’s two bodyguards shifted, intruding on Arkady’s space and making him move his feet away before he could repress the gesture.
“I’m not trying to hide anything from you.” Arkady screwed up his courage. “Why don’t you just ask me a question I can answer instead of threatening me for no reason?”
Yassin muttered something in Arabic and one of the bodyguards kicked Arkady’s chair out from under him, plucked him off the floor, and tossed him against the wall as offhandedly as if he were handling a piece of luggage.
At the other end of the room, Yusuf coughed again. Yassin turned toward him and snapped out a sentence in quick, angry Arabic. The young man shrugged.
“I was just clearing my throat,” he answered in UN-standard Spanish. “I didn’t mean anything by it.” He glanced at his wristwatch. “I really couldn’t care less what you do to him as long as I get out of here in time to avoid the rush-hour traffic.”
“Someday,” Yassin said sourly, “your frivolity is going to get you into trouble that even your fancy friends can’t get you out of.”
“So you keep telling me.”
Yassin made an exasperated spitting noise and left, followed by the two bodyguards.
Yusuf stayed behind.
He and Arkady stared at each other.
Then, as if it were the most natural thing in the world to do, the young man crossed the room, righted Arkady’s chair, and sat down on it, resting his chin on the chair back. He treated Arkady to a smile so brilliantly friendly that it was impossible to believe it wasn’t at least a little sincere. “Are you all right?” he asked.
“I think so.”
“For what it’s worth, Yassin actually went to Princeton. He’s never seen the inside of a public restroom, let alone a prison cell. He was just fucking with you.”
“Oh.” Arkady paused in confusion. “Um…thanks for telling me, I guess.”
“My pleasure, pussycat.”
“And what about you?” Arkady asked. He was probably doing something incredibly stupid, but after all the boy seemed so harmless.
“Where did you go to school?”
“I went to a severely fancy private boys’ school that you’ve never heard of. Then I went to LSE. Ringside, of course. Then I went through the PalSec officers’ training course.”
“And what subjects did you study?”
Yusuf laughed. “Let’s just say I have an advanced degree in kicking up trouble. I’m a spook, Arkady, in case you hadn’t guessed yet. And not an amateur like Yassin and his clowns. I’m just the poor unlucky bastard who was too junior to get out of the scut work of baby-sitting them.”
“Baby-sitting them for whom?”
“Oh, now that would be kissing and telling, wouldn’t it?” He flashed his let’s-be-friends grin again. “I will tell you something else, though. I might actually be the only human you’ll ever meet who’s been to the Syndicates. I spent four months on Knowles Station studying…well, you can probably guess what by now.”
“Did you like it there?”
“Hated it. Just hated it. Pretty girls everywhere and none of them interested in adorable little me. Seriously, though. Other than the total absence of sex it was great. I made some good friends. It’s refreshing to be around people who honestly don’t care about class or money or any of the usual bullshit. And Gilead’s beautiful. Ever gone hiking in the Lodi Range?”
“I did most of my dissertation research there.”
“Paradise, right? No other word for it.”
“No,” Arkady breathed.
Yusuf leaned forward, fixing those disconcerting eyes on Arkady. “Tell me true, one pre-citizen to another. Do you still want to stay here now that you’ve gotten to know Earth a little? Or would you rather go home?”
Yusuf was speaking English, Arkady realized suddenly. Not Hebrew. Not UN-standard Spanish. Not the bastardized English of the Trusteeships, but the pure, slightly archaic English of the Syndicates. And he had no accent that Arkady could hear.
“Is this the real interrogation?” he asked.
“What’s real? What’s an interrogation? I’m just passing time while the rich old farts are out of the room.”
“So when do they start asking me the real questions?”
“They already did. Or did you perhaps miss the part where they stuck the needle into you?”
“You knew about that?”
“I heard a rumor. There’s a proper epidemic of rumors making the rounds in this operation. Kind of makes you wonder if there isn’t someone managing the spin from behind the scenes.”
“If there is, it’s not me.”
Yusuf laughed. “That makes two for tea and tea for two of us.”
“So…Yassin isn’t going to question me at all?”
“He might beat you up some more. But that’d be pleasure, not business. And I’m not authorized to monitor his entertainment. Sorry. Only so far a guy can go to help a total stranger. And though I might seem young, I have my pension to worry about. Retirement can really creep up on you fast in my line of work.”
Arkady swallowed.
“Sorry.” Yusuf really did sound genuinely contrite. “I shouldn’t joke about it. I have an awful sense of humor. But the fact is I actually do have to turn into a pumpkin pretty soon. Decisions above my pay grade, et cetera, ad nauseam, et al., El Al, and so forth.”
“So what do you want from me?”
“An answer that unfortunately I doubt you’re in a position to give me. Because some of us on this side of the Line actually kind of desperately need to know, Arkady, if you’re really who you say you are. Or are you being used, with or without your knowledge, for some…excuse me if this sounds pretentious…deeper purpose?”
“If it’s without my knowledge, then what’s the point of asking?”
“Well. Right. Obviously that would be the problem. By the way, have you met Didi Halevy yet?”
“No,” Arkady said—and realized that the denial was itself an admission.
“But you know the name. Who told you about him? Korchow?”
Arkady pressed his lips closed, suddenly understanding the old phrase about locking the barn door after the horse has run off.
“And what about the cripple? Have you met Gavi Shehadeh yet? We’re laying bets back in the office about when Didi will decide to trot him out. And you can tell Didi that, too, when he gets around to questioning you in person. It’s good for his ego to be reminded that we don’t automatically scarf down every piece of garbage he tosses our way.”
Yusuf sighed, settled his chin more comfortably on his arms, and fixed Arkady with a gaze that was uncomfortably intense despite its obvious good humor.
Arkady inspected the scuffed toes of the desert boots that Osnat had given him. They were too wide. His feet, accustomed to soft spacer’s shoes, were developing blisters in places he’d never known feet could get blisters. He wondered where Osnat had gotten the boots. Actually, on second thought, he didn’t want to know.
“I hope this doesn’t sound rude,” Yusuf said at last, “but you’re really making a hash of this. I mean, forgive me for pointing out the obvious…but though you keep talking about how you want to talk to Absalom, what have you really done about it?”
Arkady couldn’t answer that.
“It doesn’t make sense, Arkady. You’ve got us and the Israelis all buzzing around like bees who’ve had their nest stomped on. But at some point someone’s going to wake up and start asking whether even a man who spends his adult life playing with ants can be as incompetent as you seem to be. You have no idea who Absalom is, or even which side he’s on. You’ve made no discernible effort to talk to him. And yet you keep babbling on about Absalom, Absalom, Absalom. Frankly, Arkady, I’m disappointed. I thought Korchow was smarter than that.”