The Terrorists of Irustan

by Louise Marley

Zahra was pulling on her veil, buttoning the verge. From behind the silk panel, she said softly, “We can’t do anything about it, Ishi, not here.”

  “But on Earth?” Ishi demanded.

  Zahra shook her head. “It doesn’t happen on Earth, my Ishi. The little bit of rhodium Earth had is long gone, and it was different, anyway. This is a problem unique to Irustan.”

  Lili was already buttoning her verge. “If you two don’t hurry up!” she complained. “We only get to visit once in fifteen days, and 1 don’t want to be late!”

  “Come on, Ishi,” Zahra said. “I’ll look at it with you tonight. Poor Lili! And Asa’s waiting, too.”

  Ishi climbed off the cot and went to stand before the anah. Lili brushed her straight brown hair smooth and tied it back with a bit of ribbon before she drew the veil over Ishi’s head.

  “My goodness, I think you’ve grown another inch!” she grumbled. She tugged at the drape, trying to get it to reach Ishi’s waist.

  “I’ll be ten and a half next week,” Ishi said proudly. “I’ve been an apprentice almost three whole years.”

  “Well, you need new clothes,” Lili said.

  Asa tapped on the door. Ishi and Zahra followed Lili and Asa down the corridor to the front stairs. Ishi skipped ahead, doing pirouettes on the cool tiles, reaching with her palms to pat the sculptures set in niches in the plastered walls.

  “Be careful, now!” Lili warned, but Ishi went on dancing until they reached the top of the curving staircase. There they heard Qadir’s voice rising from the foyer below. Ishi abruptly ceased her dance, and stood very still, waiting for Zahra. In silence, side by side, they walked down the stairs.

  Qadir looked up and saw them, the three women shrouded in pastel silks, Asa in tunic and trousers, leaning on his cane.

  “Ah, good,” Qadir said. “We’re off to the Doma now. I’ll see you at dinner. You’re going to Kalen’s?”

  Asa answered for them. “Yes, Director.”

  “Good, good,” Qadir said absently. Diya was holding the double doors open. In the wide drive, two cars waited in the glare of the star, one gleaming a metallic bronze, the other larger, a dull unglazed black. Diya bent to the window of one, the larger one, to give instructions to its driver. The hired drivers hated speaking with Asa. There had been some awkward moments, Asa trying to give directions, the driver ignoring him, Zahra helpless and furious behind her veil.

  The heat hit them like an openhanded blow as they left the coolness of the foyer and crossed to the hired car. The driver stood with the doors open and ready, nodding respectfully and silently to Zahra. They stepped out of the furnace of the morning into the cooled and roomy passenger compartment. They took places facing one another, Lili fanning herself with her hand as if even the brief walk through the heat had tired her. Asa leaned in to put his cane against the seat, and then maneuvered his body into the car with a lurch of the muscle of his good leg. The driver turned his head away from the sight.

  Qadir stood watching until the women and Asa were safely enclosed, and then he took the driver’s seat of his own car. His vehicle was low and streamlined, sparkling in the brilliant light. It was one of only very few private cars on Irustan, and it was fast and agile. Its door shut with a deep-throated click of plastic and metal alloy that no hired car could emulate.

  Zahra watched with her arms folded as it spun away. She envied Qadir only this, only this one great thing. If he wanted, Qadir could set out in the morning in his fast car and go to the mines. He could tour the outside of the city on any day he liked, see the glittering blue reservoir dotted with the fishing boats of the Port Forcemen on holiday, or stop at the met-olive groves and stroll in their dappled shadows. He could drop in at the marketplace on impulse, and haggle with a merchant over silk or oil or fish. At will, and without a reason, he could drive to the port, meet the arriving shuttle, or watch the rhodium being loaded into its gaping belly. It was not that he did such things, but that he could do such things, that he possessed such glorious freedom—she envied him that.

  In Zahra’s wildest imaginings, she could not dream of a way to have such liberty. She could go out, but never alone. She could go about the city with her husband, if he wanted to take her. She could attend a patient, with Asa or Diya as escort. She could go out on Doma Day to visit with her circle offriends, or to the market, if Qadir allowed it, and if an escort was available. She could attend funerals and cessions, with the permission and the escort of her husband. A rich life, she supposed. But not a free one.

  The hired car drove deliberately and cautiously down the avenue to the house of Gadil IhMullah, director of Water Supply. The car swept ponderously up the drive to join a short line of other, similar cars. The driver jumped out to hold the door for Zahra, inclining his head to her once again. Ishi fairly leaped out of the car and trotted up the walk to the front door where several other small veiled figures bobbed impatiently, touching each other, squeaking with the effort of keeping silent until they were indoors. Zahra and Lili waited for Asa to retrieve his cane and follow them. Again Lili sighed with the heat as they walked between the car and the door. Zahra didn’t mind it. She suppressed a mad impulse to toss off her veil and feel the brilliance of the star directly on her face.

  But, like the other visitors, she walked sedately into Director IhMullah’s house, ushered in by a man of his household who then immediately hurried away to the Doma for prayers. Once he was gone, the only men left in the house were Asa and a houseboy. They went to the kitchen to while away the time, while the women, with their daughters and sons too young for the Doma, hastened to the dayroom, chattering gaily.

  The room was beautiful, with a pale tiled floor and white walls. Several large pieces of lacquered pottery adorned one end of Kalen’s dayroom, forming a backdrop for the circle of chairs already set for her friends. A small piece, a shining bowl with the elongated petals of mock roses floating in it, rested on a little inlaid table in the center of the circle.

  In the doorway, Zahra unbuttoned her rill and stood for a moment to savor the scene. The women gathered here had been her closest friends since her girlhood, and their daughters, pastel veils floating, fluttered together like patapats through the met-olive groves.

  “Zahra, come in, come in!” Idora called. She was plump, cheerful, and talkative. Safe from the eyes of any men, Idora had already unbuttoned both rill and verge, and they dangled beside her round cheeks. “And Ishi, sweetheart, it’s so good to see you. You’ve gained some weight, it looks wonderful on you!” Idora embraced Ishi and kissed her cheek, then hugged Zahra.

  Zahra unfastened her own verge to smile down at her old friend. Already seated, Camilla called her name and waved. Ishi dashed off with the other girls to the far side of the room, where bowls of olives and plates of small sandwiches and sweet cakes were arranged on a narrow whitewood table. Games and toys were laid out near a pile of floor cushions. The children squealed and laughed together, and the women breathed sighs of release. The anahs gathered at the other side of the room, whispering together. Soon all the friends—Zahra, Idora, Camilla, and petite Laila—were seated in their customary circle. Zahra lifted an eyebrow to Kalen, who had not spoken. Kalen, strands of unruly red hair curling as always out of her cap, only shook her head as she served coffee, and Zahra forebore to ask.

  Idora was less tactful. “What’s wrong, Kalen? You’ve got your funeral face on.”

  Kalen frowned, her pale eyebrows making a reddish furrow across her brow. “I can’t talk about it, Idora—not now.” She glanced significantly over her shoulder at the cluster of girls.

  Camilla was always quiet, neat, not a strand of brown hair showing. Her gray eyes were mild and intelligent. She touched Kalen’s hand as Kalen served her coffee, and her eyes darkened.

  Both Kalen and Camilla had married much older men, far older than Idora’s Aidar, or Laila’s Samir. Gadil IhMullah, in fact, was now sixty-seven years old. When Kalen, a thin, frightened girl of sixteen, had been ceded, Gadil ha
d been forty-nine. Kalen’s father had been director of Water Supply. Gadil now held that post.

  Camilla’s husband, dour Leman, had been forty-six at their marriage. She clucked her tongue, and whispered, “They’re so old now. Sometimes they’re more demanding than the children. They’ve forgotten what it is to be young.”

  Kalen put the coffeepot on the side table and came to sit beside Zahra in the circle. She was pale, and blue shadows dragged beneath her eyes.

  Zahra looked at her with concern. “Haven’t you slept well?” she asked. She held Kalen’s wrist in her hand, and then laid her fingers against her friend’s forehead.

  The gentle touch made Kalen’s eyes fill, and her pale, freckled cheeks flushed an angry red. “1 haven’t slept at all,” she grated. “But really, I can’t talk about it now. Rabi ...” She looked over her shoulder at her daughter laughing with the other girls. The women’s eyes followed hers.

  Laila pressed her small hands to her face. “Not Rabi!” she moaned. “She’s not more than eleven, is she?”

  Kalen spoke through gritted teeth. “She’ll be twelve in two weeks,” she hissed. “Twelve! A baby still!”

  “Her menses?” Zahra asked softly.Kalen nodded. Zahra put out her hand to Kalen’s and found that it was knotted in a fist under the silk of her drape.

  Camilla said, “It’s terrible to see them growing up. I miss my Alekos so much! He’s thirteen—but still a little boy, just the same. He’s so small! But Leman insists on him going to the Doma. And there’s nothing I can do about it.” Tears welled in her eyes, too. “He still calls for me at night, can’t stand the dark. Leman makes him sleep in his own room just the same, and screams at me if I go to him.” She dabbed at her tears with the hem of her drape.

  The girls, playing at the side of the room, grew quiet, sensing the change of mood. They cast uneasy glances at the circle where the women sat. Rabi was tall and thin, like her mother, her hair the bright red of youth. Idora waved to the children, calling with forced gaiety, “Anything good to eat over there, rascals? Save some for me!”

  Idora’s two daughters waved back, crying noisy protests of keeping all the sweets to themselves. When Idora turned back to the circle, Kalen was struggling for control. Camilla held her hand tightly, and soft-hearted, tiny Laila said over and over, “Surely not, Kalen. Surely Gadil wouldn’t do that! So soon!”

  Kalen took a shuddering breath and looked down at her freckled hand in Camilla’s. When she looked up, her eyes had gone hard as blue pebbles beneath her damp red lashes. She said bitterly, “Samir wouldn’t do it, Laila. Your sons will have their childhood, for which you can give thanks to the Maker. But Gadil is in a great hurry to strut at Rabi’s cession!”

  The friends stared at each other. Tears slipped down Laila’s cheeks, but Kalen was a block of stone, her face flushing and then blanching, pale as one of the cells waiting on the hill.

  “It’s not just her age, either,” Kalen whispered bitterly.

  “What, then?” Idora asked. “What is it?”

  Kalen looked around the circle at her old friends, her cheeks burning. “He wants to cede her to Binya Maris.”

  A muffled gasp from Laila was the only sound made by any of the circle. Zahra released Kalen’s hand. Tension made her shoulders flare with pain, and anger burned her throat.

  Only Idora looked around, brows lifted high. “Who? Who’s Binya Maris?” Camilla reached for Kalen’s other hand. “I can’t believe you haven’t heard, Idora,” she whispered. “Binya Maris is Delta Team leader. We’ve all heard of him, because . . . because . . .” Gentle Camilla couldn’t bring herself to say it.

  Zahra, angry as she was, was taken aback by the fury in Kalen’s face. Her thin lips twisted, and the tendons of her neck stood out. Zahra felt some alarm at her appearance, and took hold of her hand again quickly, trying to gauge her pulse as unobtrusively as possible.

  “I’ll say it,” Kalen snapped. “Because two of his wives have died, that’s why. Because the men, Maker curse them, won’t talk about it, but all the women whisper of it.”

  “Died how?” Camilla exclaimed. Again the girls at the side of the room were quiet, and Idora waved to them, trying to put a casual face on their discussion.

  “We don’t know that, do we?” Kalen said in an ugly voice. “Because no one who knows will speak of it, and no one can find out without talking to their medicant—or their undertaker!”

  “By the Prophet!” Camilla moaned. “How could—how could Gadil, even Gadil, put any young girl into such a situation, let alone his own—”

  She broke off abruptly. Zahra looked around quickly and found Rabi, her face as pale as her mother’s, standing near them. Rabi looked at her mother’s tears, at Camilla holding Kalen’s hand, and at the white faces of the whole circle. She gasped, and said, “It’s about me, isn’t it? It’s about me!" She burst into hysterical tears.

  The anahs, the other girls, and all of the circle except Zahra were immediately sobbing together. Refreshments and games ignored, they hugged each other and cried. Zahra stood stiffly, watching the scene in horror, her arms wrapped tightly about herself. In a few moments she became aware that Ishi, also dry-eyed, was standing as close to her as humanly possible, her shoulder under Zahra’s elbow, her head pressed against her forearm. Zahra put her arm around her and pulled her close, stroking her cheeks with her other hand.

  Zahra looked from one to the other of her friends, their children. How easily the bright day had turned dark. Doma Day, circle day. They looked forward to it, planned for it. There was so little they had that was theirs alone. Useless, futile, familiar anger surged through Zahra’s body. She itched for action, something, anything. Her friend Kalen was drowning in pain, and not one of them, not one of their circle of five, had any power to save her.

  seven

  * * *

  Brothers, bear your burdens with a willing heart; lighten the darkness of the mines with the hope of love and home awaiting you. This is your reward for dutiful service to the One.

  —Second Homily, The Book of the Second Prophet

  Zahra had been fourteen when the first of her circle of friends was ceded. Nura’s husband was a minor official in Road Maintenance, and every Doma Day Nura and Zahra went to the homes of other such men, to visit with their wives and daughters. There were fifteen or sixteen families of their acquaintance, and the women and girls crowded into dayrooms much smaller than Kalen’s, happy to be together, delighted to be free for the day. They filled their hostesses’ modest homes to the brim with laughter and talk and the playful shrieking of children.

  Nura was usually tired on those occasions. Her clinic list was a long one, farmers and laborers in addition to middle-class families from the Medah. She would lean her head back against her chair and watch the parties, sometimes even dozing. Zahra frequently left the chattering group of her friends to go to Nura, to be sure she had anything she might want, or if she slept, to slip a cushion beneath her neck or her feet.

  Zahra and Kalen met when they were little girls, when Zahra was first apprenticed. They grew tall together, the two of them long-limbed and thin, towering awkwardly over their smaller companions. They would huddle together, bright red curls springing free of Kalen’s cap, heavy dark hair spilling out beneath Zahra’s drape. They spent countless Doma Days planning great adventures, vaguely hoping for the freedom to pursue them.

  Zahra was brash in her confidence about the future. Was she not ceded to Nura, who loved her? No one, she declared, would tell her what to do with her life except Nura!

  Kalen had no grounds on which to make such a claim, but she would exclaim fiercely, “1 will not marry! 1 will not!” and pound her fist on the tiled floor. At some level, they both knew the decision would not be hers, but with youthful optimism, they postponed understanding it.

  Their round-faced friend Idora looked forward to her marriage with enthusiasm. She spoke endlessly about who would sew her wedding veil, how she would behave at her cession,
and how large a house her husband would have, with how many servants. She promised that at her house they would eat the best fish and olives and citrus fruits, and trays and trays of sweet cakes.

  Tiny Laila spoke of nothing but babies. Her toys were all dolls of various sizes and shapes. When the married women brought infants to their gatherings, Laila spent all the day holding them, cuddling them, sometimes sitting still for hours as one slept against her narrow chest, its round head warm and perspiring on the silk of her veil.

  Those happy times were the stitches that sewed the long years of childhood together. The space between Doma Days seemed endless, the day itself short and vivid. From the time she was eight, when she put on the veil and went to live with Nura and her elderly husband Isak Issim, Zahra’s life was a blend of study, clinic experience, and close conversation or frantic play with Kalen, Idora, Laila, and shy Camilla. She imagined sometimes that her girlhood would go on forever, especially because, at fourteen, she had not yet begun her menses. She thought of herself as a child still, devoted to Nura, with Nura and Nura’s anah returning her affection. The days of her own career as a medicant seemed as far away as Irustan’s star.

  Isak Issim was no more than a shadow in the background, a dry presence at dinner that meant she must wear her cap and drape, an occasional voice calling Nura away from their work together. Zahra could not remember him ever coming to the clinic, nor to Nura’s bedroom. Zahra gave him no thought for all the years of her apprenticeship. Not until the end, when she learned just how much power he had.

  It was quiet Camilla who was first ceded in marriage. Her husband was Leman Bezay, newly promoted to be director of City Power. He was forty-six. Camilla, like Zahra, was fourteen. Camilla’s mother swelled with pride at the exalted match of her daughter with a director. Camilla herself, in Nura’s office for her cession exam, was weak with fear.Zahra had often assisted Nura in the examination of a young girl about to be married, but Camilla was the first she had known well. The others had been distant from her, strange, incomprehensibly marked by their fate. When Camilla came, Zahra could hardly meet her eyes. There was something awesome, something final about what was happening. There was an element of humiliation, an odd shame that Camilla should have so little control over what was to happen to her.