“I imagine,” said Méarana dryly, “that it is hotter in there than it is out here.”
The taxi driver had just settled into her seat and, hearing this remark, barked a short laugh. “One gold quarter-piece,” she said. “For the both of you together.”
Méarana opened the scrip belted to her waist, but Dame Teffna laid a hand on her wrist. “Do pa’don me, dear.” Then to the driver, “Twenty minims in Venishànghai ducats, or three-tenths of a Gladiola Bill.”
The driver made a face. “I lose on the arbitrage, ladies. Not enough foreign currency to make it worthwhile. Half a ducat. I won’t take Bills.”
“Half a ducat! My dear, that is terribly steep. Perhaps thirty minims five.”
The driver considered that. “You could walk,” she suggested.
Teffna sighed. “Oh, very well. Forty. And done.”
“Forty each,” said the driver.
The Angletaran laughed. “Done.”
The taxi jerked away from the curb and headed east on Josang. “So, you went in to see the foreign bike, did you?” the driver said conversationally. “He pretty as he looks on the news-bank? No wonder everyone wants to ‘visit’ with him. They say Wildmen have bigger sperm ejectors than most bikes. That true?”
“I wouldn’t know,” said Méarana. “I went there to interview him.”
“Interview,” said the driver. “That what they call it on your world? Where you from, if you don’t mind my asking.”
“Dangchao,” said the harper.
“Angletar,” said the borked woman.
“Never heard of them. How do you handle bikes there?”
“I’m sorry,” said Méarana. “Do you mean ‘men’?”
“Is that the Gaelactic word? I guess so.”
“On Angletar, we keep them in club houses,” said Dame Teffna.
“Ours are free-range,” Méarana explained simply.
Dame Teffna turned to her. “Oh, you can’t let them run loose, dear. You must understand the distinct duties of the two sexes. Men talk about God and politics, and kill each other now and then—usually because of the talk. Women keep everyone fed and laugh at the men. That’s why we wear these borkes—so they can’t see us laughing.”
Boldly Go did not depend on tourism. Consequently, no swarm of functionaries greeted them at the hotel, and there was an interval when Méarana and Teffna stood alone in the hotel’s drop-off area. Méarana turned to the other woman and spoke through clenched teeth.
“Donovan, have you lost what little of your mind you have left?”
The Angletaran managed somehow to convey an attitude of social offense without a single part of her body showing. It was all in the posture and in the tone of voice. “What on Earth are you talking about?”
“What ‘on Earth’? Who talks like that? Why else hide under that, that body-tent? It’s an obvious way to conceal yourself.”
“A little too obvious, wouldn’t you say?” the dame murmured. “Do you believe them so obtuse that they would not ‘check under the hood’?” And so saying, the dame lifted the face-veil of her borke.
And the face was undeniably female: the cheeks were fuller and more rounded; the forehead vertical and lacking in brow bossing. The eyebrows were arched and sat above the brow ridge rather than on it. And though the mouth was wider and the chin more square than was the female norm, the diversity of humankind throughout the Spiral Arm more than covered such variations. Almost, Méarana apologized.
Except that the face was also undeniably Donovan’s. If Donovan had a sister, she would look like this. Or, more accurately, if he had a crazy old aunt in the attic. Teffna waited with an expression very much like the Fudir’s smirk for the harper to comment.
Méarana closed her eyes and took in a long, slow breath. “I saved myself five ‘bucks,’ anyway. What if they ‘look in the trunk’?”
“What do you usually find stashed away in the boot,” said the dame, lowering her face-veil once more. “Rusted old tools.”
Dame Teffna had scoured her hotel room for intrusive devices upon checking in and did so again. “No reason to suppose the authorities have any interest in ‘Teffna,’” she said, “so the odds are against the room being bugged, but I’d rather learn that precautions were unneeded than to learn that they were.”
It was a single room, tastefully done, but in that perfunctory manner that catered only to unmindful businesss travelers. There was a bed, a desk with an interface and holostage. A comfortable desk chair and a more comfortable reading chair with a gooseneck screen. A copy of the local holy book. Méarana waited until the cleansing ritual was completed before blurting out, “How did you manage it?”
Teffna sat on the edge of the bed. “You left a trail, dear. I checked with ticketing and…”
“No. I mean…this.” She waved a hand at her face. “If I hadn’t already known Donovan, I’d never have seen the resemblance.”
“Oh. He and the Fudir handed over control. What else could they have done?”
“But…Who are you?”
“They call me the Silky Voice. You can call me Donna, if you like. It’s a title women use on Angletar and would cover nicely if you slip up.”
“So, how did you…” She waved her hand again.
“Oh…” She touched her forehead in the center. “I live straight back, in an apartment the size of an almond—the hypothalamus. I have control of the glandular system, and that regulates basic drives and emotions, promotes growth and sexual identity, controls body temperature, assists in the repair of broken tissue, and helps generate energy. I’m the nurse.”
“‘Promotes sexual identity’” Méarana suggested.
Donna spread her arms in a familiar gesture. “Those who chopped up Donovan’s brain thought there might be call for an agent’s seductive side. Honey, they got me.”
“You do sound more seductive than Donovan,” Méarana allowed.
“The fourth Tyrant of Valency sounded more seductive than Donovan. I don’t mean sexual seduction. For various reasons, I couldn’t pull that off. I mean the sort of thing that your mother was so good at. Persuading people, getting them to go along with her plans.”
“I would have said your features were ‘strong’ or ‘handsome.’”
“My dear, you tell a woman that when you have no finer adjectives on hand. There’s an enzyme that converts testosterone to estradiol. Certain fatty tissues swell or shrink, but the bones don’t change. So a bit of water retention obscures the brow ridge and moves the eyebrows north. The laryngeal prominence softens because the angle of the cartilage shifts. The testicles, ah…I believe ‘recede’ is the proper term; but they’re still there. Look, do you really want to know all this? It took several days of stretching and swelling and contraction; and it hurt, a lot.”
“And here you are. I take it you read the story of the Treasure Fleet.”
“‘…And so the Fleet departed,’” Teffna recited, “‘stuffed with all the wonders of the Commonwealth, her berths filled with the sleeping settlers, carrying the hopes of all true sons of Terra. They set their course on the Rigel Run and far-off California. But though the loyal folk of the Commonwealth waited and waited, nothing was ever heard from them again; and in the end the Commonwealth submitted.’ But the Commonwealth was long dead when that was written down on Friesing’s World. Why do you think it is any more than a fable?”