It was like her so-called beauty, she thought. Her alleged beauty was what most people reacted to, but it wasn’t herself. She managed to have an inner existence, thoughts and hopes entirely her own, apart from the shell that was her appearance. But it was the shell that people saw, it was the shell that most people spoke to, hated, envied, or desired. The Gredel who interacted with Caro was another kind of shell, a kind of machine she’d built for the purpose, built without intending to. It wasn’t any less genuine for being a machine, but it wasn’t herself.
Herself hated Caro. She knew that now.
If Caro detected any of Gredel’s inner turmoil, she gave no sign. In any case, she was rarely in a condition to be observant. Her alcohol consumption had increased as she shifted from wine to hard liquor. When she wanted to get drunk, she wanted it to happeninstantly, the way she wanted everything, and hard liquor got her there quicker. The ups and downs increased as well, and the spikes and valleys that were her behavior. She was banned from one of her expensive restaurants for talking loudly, and singing, and throwing a plate at the waiter who asked her to be less noisy. She was thrown out of a club for attacking a woman in the ladies’ room. Gredel never found out what the fight was about, but for days afterward Caro proudly sported the black eye she’d got from the bouncer’s fist.
For the most part, Gredel managed to avoid Caro’s anger. She learned the warning signs, and she’d also learned how to manipulate Caro’s moods. She could change Caro’s music, or at least shift the focus of Caro’s growing anger from herself to someone else.
Despite her feelings, she was now in Caro’s company more than ever. Lamey was in hiding. She first found out about it when he sent Panda to pick her up at Caro’s apartment instead of coming herself. Panda drove her to the Fabs, but not to a human neighborhood: instead he took her into a building inhabited by Lai-owns. A family of the giant birds stared at her as she waited in the lobby for the elevator. There was an acrid, ammonia smell in the air.
Lamey was in a small apartment on the top floor, with a pair of his guards and a Lai-own. The avian shifted from one foot to the other as Gredel entered. Lamey seemed nervous. He didn’t say anything to her, just gave a quick jerk of his chin to indicate they should go into the back room.
The room was thick with the heat of summer. The ammonia smell was very strong. Lamey steered Gredel to the bed. She sat, but Lamey was unable to be stilclass="underline" he paced back and forth in the narrow range permitted by the small room. His smooth, elegant walk had developed hitches and stutters, uncertainties that marred his normal grace.
“I’m sorry about this,” he said. “But something’s happened.”
“Is the Patrol looking for you?”
“I don’t know.” His mouth gave a little twitch. “Bourdelle was arrested yesterday. It was the Legion of Diligence who arrested him, not the Patrol, so that means they’ve got him for something serious, something he could be executed for. We’ve got word that he’s bargaining with the prefect’s office.” His mouth twitched again. Linkboys did not bargain with the prefect, they were expected to go to their punishment with their mouths shut.
“We don’t know what he’s going to offer them,” Lamey went on. “But he’s just a link up from me, and he could be selling me or any of the boys.” He paused in his pacing and rubbed his chin. Sweat shone on his forehead. “I’m going to make sure it’s not me,” he said.
“I understand,” Gredel said.
Lamey looked at her. His blue eyes were feverish. “From now on, you can’t call me. I can’t call you. We can’t be seen in public together. If I want you, I’ll send someone for you at Caro’s.”
Gredel looked up at him. “But—” she began, then, “When?”
“When…I…want…you,”he said insistently. “I don’t know when. You’ll just have to be there when I need you.”
“Yes,” Gredel said. Her mind whirled. “I’ll be there.”
He sat next to her on the bed and took her by the shoulders. “I missed you, Earthgirl,” he said. “I really need you now.”
She kissed him. His skin felt feverish. She could taste the fear on him. Lamey’s unsteady fingers began to fumble with the buttons of her blouse.You’re going to die soon, she thought.
Unless, of course, she paid the penalty instead, the way Ava had paid for the sins of her man.
She had to start looking out for herself, she thought, before it was too late.
When Gredel left Lamey, he gave her two hundred zeniths in cash. “I can’t buy you things right now, Earthgirl,” he explained. “But buy yourself something nice for me, all right?”
She remembered Antony’s claim that she whored for money. It was no longer an accusation she could deny.
One of Lamey’s boys drove Gredel from the rendezvous to her mother’s building. She took the stairs instead of the elevator because it gave her time to think. By the time she got to her mother’s door, she had the beginnings of an idea.
But first she had to tell her mother about Lamey, and why she had to move in with Caro. “Of course, honey,” Ava said. She took Gredel’s hands and pressed them. “Of course you’ve got to go.”
Loyalty to her man was what Ava knew, Gredel thought. She had been arrested and sentenced to years in the country for a man she’d hardly ever seen again. She’d spent her life sitting alone and waiting for one man or another to show up. She was beautiful, but in the bright summer light, Gredel could see the first cracks in her mother’s facade, the faint lines at the corners of her eyes and mouth that the years would only broaden. When the beauty faded, the men would fade too.
Ava had cast her lot with beauty and with men, neither of which were reliable in the long term. And Gredel knew if she remained with Lamey, or with some other linkboy, she would be following Ava’s path.
The next morning she took a pair of bags to Caro’s place and let herself in. Caro was asleep, so far gone in torpor that she didn’t wake when Gredel padded into the bedroom and took her wallet with its identification. Gredel slipped out again and went to a bank, where she opened an account in the name of Caroline, Lady Sula, and deposited three-quarters of what Lamey had given her.
When asked for a thumbprint, she gave her own.
NINE
“My lord?” said Cadet Seisho. “I’m looking at a transmission, and Recruit Levoisier says something about the captain that I’m not sure about…”
Martinez glanced at his sleeve display, which showed the cadet’s smooth-cheeked face. “Does she say that she’s going to kill the captain, maim him, assault him, or disobey the captain’s orders?”
Seisho blinked. “No, my lord. It’s…more personal than that.”
Morepersonal? Martinez wondered. Then he decided it was better not to know. “If it’s not assault, death, disobedience, or sabotage, it’s not treason,” he said. “Pass it.”
Seisho nodded. “Very good, my lord.”
“Anything else?”
“No, my lord.”
“Then good-bye.”
The sleeve returned to its normal mourning pallor. Martinez turned back to his own work—or rather, Koslowski’s. The senior lieutenant was off with the team practicing, and Martinez was standing Koslowski’s watch as well as his own.
Pulling together with the team involved more than just standing watches. Martinez had been put on a hellish number of boards and other collateral duty assignments. He was the Library and Entertainment Officer, the Military Constable Officer, and the Cryptography Security Officer—at least cryptography was more in his line of specialty. He was on the Wardroom Advisory Board and the Enlisted Mess Advisory Board. He audited the accounts for the officers’ and general mess, which called for accounting skills he didn’t possess. He was on the Hull Board and the Weapons Safety Board, as well as the Cadet Examination Board, the Enlisted Examining Board, and the Cryptography Board.