Her eyes were hard, and she quickly took a sip of her wine.
"They brought in new women from the planets to re-populate the place, but there were enough survivors to provide a link with the past. There actually were improvements. The thumbcredit system was introduced. The craftwork was encouraged; the brewing, baking, and distilling; the food production. Our upstart need for an identity was channeled into forsaken basket weaving. There was another side, though. Any keeping of permanent records was immediately stamped out. It was after this that the coven system evolved. As far as we know, the Therem think it's just some witch cult revival, straight out of the planetary memory. They like us to get ourselves locked into that kind of primitive shit."
"Did you ought to be telling me this? I might get drunk or something and blurt it all out."
"Who are you going to tell? Your topman? The top-men know about us. Besides, any woman only knows in detail what her coven or group knows. The thing is the sum of its parts, and they'd have to kill all of us this time. If we ain't a nuisance, the odds are that they'll leave us alone."
She took another sip of wine.
"I can't talk anymore."
Her breakneck emotional cycle seemed to have once again completed itself. She shivered and wrapped a blanket around her body. Hark sat up. He wanted to comfort her, but the way she was holding herself warned him off. As far as it was possible in the intimacy of the bed, she appeared to be shutting him out. He lay down again, suddenly feeling uncomfortable. He waited a full fifteen minutes until he guessed she'd softened enough for him to talk to her.
"Do you think we'll ever get out of this?" he asked her.
"You mean you and me? We don't have a chance."
"I meant the human race as a whole. Do you think we'll ever get free of the Therem?"
"There's always the prophecy."
"The prophecy?"
"You never heard about it?"
Hark shook his head. "No, never."
Conchela glanced at him scornfully. "You troopers really know nothing. It was back before the massacre. The Venerable Madame of the time was Mystic Heda. She had a habit of falling into trances and talking in tongues. Her pronouncements became more and more outrageous, and people began to wonder how long it would be before the Therem did something about her. Finally she went into a trance in front of a huge crowd and announced that sometime in the future, a leader would come who'd free us from the Therem and take us to our own planet."
"Do you believe that?"
"I'd like to, but it's hard. Some of Heda's lesser prophecies did come true, so I try. It's the only hope we've got."
"What happened to Mystic Heda?"
"She was executed."
Conchela stood up and started searching through the clothes that were scattered on the floor.
"It's time we got out of here," she told him.
"What?" Getting out of there was the very last thing that Hark had in mind.
"Did you think that we'd stay shacked up in here, cozy and romantic, until you were called back to the ship?"
"It seemed like an idea." "Forget it." "What did I do?"
"You didn't do anything. It's just that we can't beat the system. The Therem don't like romance. They think it makes you guys hard to handle. They like you to spend your liberty drunk and stupid." "But who would know?"
"Thumbprints, you idiot. If you keep thumbing my sensor, the big brain is going to notice and we're going to get a visit from the shore patrol. Besides, I'm programmed to get bored with you in double time. It's only the fact that we knew each other back on the planet that's been keeping it in check."
Hark was stunned. It had all seemed so easy. Conchela grinned at him.
"Don't look so desolate. I'll come with you and help you find your messmates. They'll take care of you."
The moment they stepped out into the corridor, they were caught up in an eddying spiral of drunks and women. The recstar never closed. It seemed to be in a permanent condition of roaring night. If anything, the noise seemed louder than when he had gone with Conchela to her cubicle. The booths were humming, and the fighting men were rapidly turning into animals. The light seemed more red than he remembered, bloodshot with anger and alcohol. They had to edge around two men who were head to head, blindly slugging and pounding each other. They also had to skirt a drop pilot who was throwing up on his tunic and stand aside when a shore patrol crunched by. It was the first time that Hark had been able to take a close look at these guardians of order in their lumbering servo suits. They appeared almost indestructible, yellow plate steel with heavy-duty rivets and paint that was flaking to the undercoat. There was nothing comical in the way they rolled and swayed, reproducing the movements of their human operators. The servos were worn and dangerously capable. The giant claws on the ends of their arms could circle a man's waist. They were quite merciless. Despite their crisp white uniforms and hard faces, the human operators seemed almost fragile in comparison to the massive machines that encased them.
"You don't want to mess with those bastards."
"I already learned that."
A troupe of dancers in huge, grotesque masks were coming toward them. The group was a large one, thirteen in all. They were moving slowly, beating on small hand drums, alternately crouching and then stretching up, grasping for the ceiling. They were followed by a large crowd of drunken men, shuffling and stumbling in their wake. Some were aping the crouching and reaching movements of the dancers. Hark and Conchela stood and watched them pass. There was something ponderous and primitive about the ragged procession-almost sinister. Hark realized what was disturbing him. The march reminded him of the way they'd conducted rites for the dead back on the planet. Conchela must have felt it, too. When the parade had passed, she let out a long breath but quickly covered herself by being brisk and matter of fact.
"You said your messmates had taken over a booth with a serpent banner?" "It was under a vent shaft."
She pointed over to the right. "I think the place we're looking for is just over there."
They cut through a small side corridor and made a left turn. When they came out into the main corridor again, Hark thought that he recognized some of the booths. Then he spotted the air shaft and the serpent banner.
"There it is."
The "phallic serpent" looked a little the worse for wear. A number of chairs and tables had been smashed, and pieces were scattered around the floor. Helot and a woman with short-cropped hair were passed out in the middle of the debris. Kemlo sat at a table with a drink in front of him, but he seemed no more aware of the world around him than those on the floor were. Conchela took hold of Hark's arm.
"I'm going to leave you now. I've got to get back to work."
"Will I see you again?"
Conchela shook her head. "I don't think so. It's better this way. You'll find other women to take care of you through the rest of your liberty."
"Maybe I'll come here again."
"I doubt it. Even if you did, I'd be an old woman by then."
"The time distortion?"
"We can never go back."
"I haven't seen any old women. What happens to them?"
"You don't want to know."
She kissed him quickly on the cheek.
"Good-bye, Harkaan."
She started to walk away.
"Conchela… wait."
She didn't stop. Hark's first impulse was to go after her, but he stopped himself. She turned a corner and was gone.
Vana had been replaced as booth hostess by a dark-haired woman with slanted eyes and an ample figure. She stood in the back of the booth, watching Hark.