"Shei, did you go back to the party after you put me to bed?"
"Aye, for a little while, to report to the President."
"What happened?"
"He commanded me to return to you, and here I am."
"You don't know what the others did after that?"
"Nay; how could I?"
"Was this—getting me drunk and then spending the night here with me—planned in advance?"
"Why, be ye displeased, my lord?" Her antennae drooped, betokening grief.
"Just answer my question, please."
"Well—ah—the President instructed me to make sure your goblet was kept ever full, and to care for you anon an the drink should overcome you. That I have striven to do."
"I don't blame you," said Reith, thinking hard. "I just wonder ..."
After a silence, she said: "My lord, be ye not fain to make love? I'm said to be good at it."
"No. Put on your beads and go your way. I have other things on my mind."
"But—"
"I said go!" Reith spoke in such a grim tone that Shei grabbed her negligible costume and fled.
Reith got up, wincing at the pain in his head, and closed the door behind her. When he opened it again, he was shaved, dressed, and showing no sign of his excess the night before save a pair of bloodshot eyes.
Peering about, he oriented himself in the palace. His room, along with several others, opened on a hall. The hall was decorated with enormous candelabra, converted to burning natural gas, the common illuminant in Ghulindé. A suit of antique armor stood in a comer. At the far end, a pair of brass-and-scarlet-clad guards stood with bared swords before a double door. This, he surmised, led to the President's private quarters.
Reith gently turned the knob of the next door. In that room Marot, in his ragged underwear, lay atop the bed snoring.
The next room, if he remembered rightly, was Alicia's. This proved empty, and the bed had not been slept in. But a couple of Alicia's toilet articles lay on the washstand.
Reith came out, closed the door, and turned towards the double door at the end of the hall, where stood the impassive guards. The knowledge that he had dreaded and tried to push to the back of his mind struck him like a blow in the solar plexus.
For a long minute he stood bemused. While he hesitated, one of the double doors opened and Alicia came out, walking briskly towards her room. She was reaching for the doorknob when she noticed Reith and halted with a sharp little intake of breath.
"Good morning, Doctor Dyckman," said Reith, keeping his voice under firm control.
"Oh!" she said, her blue eyes becoming large and round. "You—you know, then?"
"What do I know?"
"That I—you know—the President—oh, Fergus! I didn't mean to hurt you, but I had to do this, even though I hated it ..."
"Do you mean he took you by force?"
"N-no, nothing like that. But he made me an offer I couldn't refuse."
"What was that? Gold? Jewels? The First Ladyship?"
"No, no! It was a great social good. I'll explain after breakfast. Now we're supposed to join Vizman as soon as we can get Aristide up—"
"Present my apologies to the President; I'm going back to the ship."
"But Fergus, you can't! That would be—"
"I'd better go, or I'm likely to kill the guy as soon as I see him. Good-bye!"
Reith reentered his room, closing the door sharply. He gathered up his toilet articles and marched out. Alicia had disappeared, but voices came from Marot's room. Although tempted to eavesdrop, Reith resolutely turned away and walked out of the presidential palace, stopping at the cloakroom to recover his sword from the sleepy attendant.
Loading of the Kubitar was almost complete when two litters appeared at the base of the pier. The bearers set down their chairs. Marot and Alicia got out, paid off their chairmen, and walked out to the ship. As they boarded, Reith gave them a glance of cold indifference and showed inordinate interest in the operation of a man-powered crane at the end of the pier.
After the ship had been towed out of the inner harbor, the striped sails filled with a steady south wind. Standing at the rail, Reith heard a small voice: "Fergus, I've got talk to you."
"Go ahead, Doctor Dyckman."
"Very well, Mr. Reith. I didn't do what I did on a whim, or because I've suddenly fallen in love with Vizman. Anyway, he's turning into just another dictator. He used to be full of ideals, but I suppose power has corrupted him, as they say."
"That has a sadly familiar sound to a Terran. But go on."
"Neither was it for fun. Krishnan males don't give me pleasure, since they're all through almost before you realize they've started. Other Earthwomen have told me the same thing."
"If you didn't screw Vizman for those reasons, then why?"
"I told you about my giving him Terran views on slavery. He'd prepared an emancipation proclamation and had been waiting to issue it at a suitable time. Well, he offered, if I'd sleep with him, to put it out today, regardless of the political risk. He still wants to marry me; but when I said that was out of the question, he'd settle for one night.
"We figured you'd sleep late after all the kvad Shei poured into you, and I'd be back in my room before you woke up. Then Shei was to stay with you. Did you have fun with her?"
"No. As soon as I was conscious, I sent her packing. I wanted to be true to you, if you know what fidelity means.
Besides, I sensed that something was fishy, and I wanted to get to the bottom of it."
She sighed. "Always austere and rational, that's you. If you'd taken your pleasure of her, then even if you'd found out about Vizman and me, you couldn't have made such a fuss about it. Well, my little plot backfired. Was it so wicked for me to lend my poor, shopworn body to free all those miserable slaves, sweating their lives away in the mines in the Zogha Mountains?"
"Not wicked, exactly. Contraproductive, perhaps."
"How do you mean?"
"You wanted two incompatible things."
"But it's not as if I were your wife, or even your fiancée. You never asked for a commitment. Your position was like the lover of one of Madame Kyumi's girls in the Hamda'. Some have sweethearts to whom they're sincerely devoted; but they don't let that interfere with business; and the lovers accept the necessity. So I had a perfect right—"
"Of course you did. My feelings don't count."
"I didn't know you had any."
"My fault, I suppose, for trying to do the reasonable thing. Thanks, anyway."
"What?" she exclaimed.
"I said, thanks. You've given me the answer to a question I've been asking myself."
She sniffed. "So that's it! See if I care! In fact," she spat, "if you'd asked me, I'd have turned you down and laughed at the look on your face! You never loved me as a person; all you wanted was free cunt. Why don't you go buy yourself a tailed female slave? She'd give you all you really need from any woman!"
Reith assumed a grim smile. "Okay, then, we understand each other. Well, Doctor Dyckman, as you say, you're a free, independent woman. If you want to return to Novo, I'll try to get you there as a simple matter of duty. If you go off on your own, that's okay, too."
His voice rose as his self-control began to slip. "Meanwhile, since you're so fond of extraterrestrial copulation, why don't you go fuck Captain Gendu and his crew, one after another? You might get a book out of it, or at least an article—"
Alicia stamped her foot and screamed: "Oh, stop it! Stop it! Shut up! Aren't things bad enough? You don't have to aggravate them by being bitter!"
Reith started to roar: "And why shouldn't—" He bit back the rest of the sentence and forced himself to assume a blank expression. In a level tone he said: "Me, bitter? My dear ex-amorex, whatever gave you that idea? And what do you mean, 'things are bad'? Far as I can see, they're just fine. Now I'm going to take a nap before lunch. So long!"