"I was just wondering that myself. I don't think I missed anything about what happened here yesterday. It certainly doesn't deserve this kind of response."
The man's face went through amazing contortions.
"Are you all right?"
"Excuse me, sir. It was my son that was taken. That was what started it all." "Oh. I'm sorry. Have you had any news?"
"None, sir. Though a man I knew in the army told me about a couple of missing children turning up again. I've been checking around this morning and I've heard about several others that turned up, too, so I'm hopeful." "You have my prayers," bel-Sidek said. He wished he could get away. But there was no walking off.
"Thank you, sir. Did you hear about the murder, sir?" Bel-Sidek groaned inwardly. "No. I didn't."
"Over in the Hahr. A very rich man. There're rumors that he was the head of the Living in the Hahr." Bel-Sidek became alert and interested. He tried to feign mild curiosity. "What happened?"
"Thieves, the way I heard it. His house was stripped clean. He'd been strangled." Bel-Sidek thought he covered well. The end of the Dartar column was past.
"Interesting. Excuse me. I have to check on my father. He's been alone forseveral hours." He pushed across the street.
Sagdet strangled and his house cleaned out by thieves? That sounded remarkablylike the doom that had befallen half a dozen prominent men in recent years, among them three civil governors and his own wife's second husband. It hadn'toccurred to him to see a pattern before. He'd believed that the passing of thegovernors had been engineered in Government House, with Cado's connivance, though the Living had not refused to take the blame. The instances notinvolving governors, though, definitely bore the smell of punitivedeathstrokes by the Living.
Bel-Sidek was in a contemplative mood when he entered the house.
"That you, Khadifa?"
"Yes sir."
"I had begun to fear I was going to have to live off my own fat."
The old man's chiding was more teasing than carping. Still, bel-Sidek was vexed. He was feeling touchy.
"I was delayed."
"So I see. What is that uproar out there?"
Bel-Sidek listened. The street noise was a little louder than usual, but notenough for him to have noticed. "That's one half of the Shu asking the otherhalf what the hell the Dartars are up to." He stared down at the frail figurein the bed. The bed was the old man's only concession to the privilege ofrank. "Joab and better than a hundred men are out there. Looks like they'regoing to invade the labyrinth. They brought the necessary weapons and tools."
The General's husk of a face wrinkled in perplexity. "Why would they do that?"
What sort of viper's nest seethed behind those cataracted eyes? "I don't havethe foggiest idea. Because Fa'tad told him to. You're the expert on the mindof Fa'tad al-Akla."
"Do I detect a note of something sour, Khadifa? Do you have a grievance?"
"Last night you told us the khadifa of the Hahr would be with us for a generalpolicy meeting tonight."
"So I did. You object?"
"Not at all. But this morning a man on the street-that slimy Naszif creatureof Hadribel's-told me that Sagdet was murdered during the night. By thieves, perhaps. His house had been stripped of everything of value. But the timingstrikes me as remarkable and the nature of the death as unusually similar toseveral that have been claimed as executions by the movement."
The old man did not respond for a long time. Bel-Sidek waited him out, halfhis mind listening for a change in the street noise. There would be no gettingout if Joab was up to some elaborate ploy meant to net them. If he was alertthere would be time to silence the General and maybe himself while they werebreaking down the door and rushing the bedroom.
Morbid thoughts. These days, always the morbid thoughts, always the flexingthe muscles in anticipation of the worst.
"There is an operation already begun, Khadifa, that could mean the triumph ofthe movement. Right now it is young and vulnerable, like a newly hatchedchick. It must be nurtured. Exposure, even inadvertent exposure, through theprivateering of some of our brethren, could bring on the destruction of theentire movement."
A blatant grab for his sense of the dramatic. Bel-Sidek allowed himself adeprecatory snort.
"We have been drifting underground for months, to give Fa'tad and Cado theidea we're fraying around the edges and starting to fall apart. Except in theHahr, where Ortbal Sagdet decided to go ripping off on adventures of his own."
Essentially true, bel-Sidek admitted to himself.
"This is a crucial time, Khadifa. Every minute of the next six months will becritical. Ortbal Sagdet was never much of an asset, and lately had become adeadly liability. He was trying to spread the infection."
He spread it to Salom Edgit, of course. "But to have him killed ..."
"Could make of him an asset in death. You analyze the situation, Khadifa.
Armed only with the knowledge you possess as khadifa of the harbor. You'revery good at analyses. When you arrive at a superior solution, please informme."
"You said he would be here tonight."
"I said the khadifa of the Hahr would be here. I said nothing about OrtbalSagdet. See what's happening out there. Then fix breakfast."
The old man closed his eyes. Bel-Sidek knew he had been dismissed.
Before he reached the street door bel-Sidek understood that there had been no options with Ortbal. Not if they wanted Sagdet's organization intact and tameand doing what it was supposed to do.
Sagdet's death, with its signature, ought to have a salutarily instructionaleffect throughout the organization.
Necessary or not politically, bel-Sidek did not like them slaying their own.
The Dartars appeared to be doing exactly what it looked like they were doing: invading the maze. He reported that.
The old man said, "Fa'tad is tugging on Cado's mustache again. He knows theyhave a new civil governor coming and Cado is all tied up getting ready forthat. So the Eagle gives him something big and completely meaningless to drivehim crazy while he can't do anything. And maybe on the side, he's up tosomething sneaky. I'd vex Cado some myself if I dared."
"I see." Bel-Sidek went to make breakfast. The old man was probably right.
Fa'tad spent a lot of energy aggravating Cado. But it had no meaning beyondthe fact that they had an unhappy marriage. They still slept in the same bed.
When breakfast was done and cleaned up he took another look into the street.
The Dartars were dragging prisoners out now. Amazing.
He reported the development and suggested that it might be wise for him tostay home.
The old man told him to get his butt out of the house and down to thewaterfront.
Zouki was awake but pretending otherwise. It was morning now. He was all criedout but was still so scared he was numb. All he could think of was his mother.
Some of the other kids were talking. He wanted to yell at them to shut up. Buthe just lay there, being as small as he could, somehow hoping no one wouldnotice him.
The others fell silent. He could not help opening his eyes to see what washappening.
The biggest man he'd ever seen was fumbling with the lock on the cage door.
Behind him were two women with a shelved cart about six feet long. The shelveswere burdened with deep, covered dishes. He smelled it then. Food. Hot food.
It smelled good. He was hungry.
He sat up without considering what he was doing. He looked around. Hissurroundings surprised him. They were not nearly as awful as he had imaginedlast night. By the light of day he 'saw that the cage was huge. The children, while spread out, were all near the entrance. The cage was at least a hundredfeet across and fifty feet high. There were all kinds of trees and bushes andstuff in it. And birds in the trees, up high, almost to where the sunlightcame in through giant windows.