The Terrorists of Irustan

by Louise Marley

  Night fell quickly over the busy square. Jin-Li pushed the dark glasses up, and strolled around the square, watching, listening, glad enough that no other Port Forcemen were about.

  “Fish, fried fish!” called a voice nearby. “Fresh from the boat, hot from the pan! Fried fish!”

  Jin-Li, suddenly hungry, hesitated near the little stall under its multicolored awning.

  “Earther!” the vendor cried, holding up a wooden basket lined with a cloth napkin. “Fresh fish?”

  The fish was cooked to a crusty gold, sprinkled with desert salt, the coarse salt dissolved from halite deposits in the bleak savanna beyond the city. The meal hall offered it in shallow bowls, but few longshoremen had a taste for it.

  The fish vendor smiled, teeth white in his brown face, and held the basket up to Jin-Li’s nose. Jin-Li’s nostrils flared, breathing in the scent of salt and olives that rose from it. “Reservoir fish?”

  “Of course, of course,” the fish seller said quickly. “Only reservoir fish! Fresh today, hot from the pan. You’re going to love it!” Fie grinned and waved the basket.

  Jin-Li laughed and accepted the offering. “You know if it’s not from the reservoir, I won’t!”

  “No, no, I promise.”

  “How much, then?”

  The man winked and said, in a thick Medah accent, “Five drakm, kir, very cheap. Or one Earth dollar!” He turned his hand over, palm cupped and waiting.

  Jin-Li produced some Irustani coins, held them out for the man to see. “No dollars, kir, only four drakm.”

  The vendor scooped up the coins with deft fingers. Merrily, he cried, “Just for you, then, Earther, four drakm, and a promise to buy my fish another time!”

  Jin-Li leaned against the side of the stall with the steaming basket, waiting for the fish to cool a bit before biting into the oily richness. The bits of desert salt crunched nicely, and the fish—trout perhaps, or bass, one of the fishes kept stocked in the reservoir by the ESC—was tender and sweet. A curtain separating the back of the stall from the market side flapped briefly, revealing a woman bent over a small stove, turning sizzling filets with a broad spatula. She wore her cap, but both rill and verge hung loose beside her plain, perspiring face. Jin-Li looked away quickly, so as not to compromise her.

  Jin-Li returned the basket to the vendor and received a perfunctory touch of the heart. Jin-Li’s answering gesture made the man raise his thick black eyebrows. “Thank you, kir,” he said with a nod. “Be sure to come again.”

  “I will. Thanks.” Jin-Li smiled and strolled away.

  The next brightly canopied kiosk sold loose fiber shirts woven in stripes of scarlet and violet and vivid yellow. Jin-Li had bought two already from the vendor on other visits, and they nodded in friendly fashion to each other. The next booth offered bits of glazed pottery. Beyond it a stall sold a tangy citrus cider that Jin-Li enjoyed, drinking it quickly to return the cup. The vendor whispered an offer of spirits which Jin-Li declined.

  At the very edge of the square, a small man with thick glasses sat on a stool keeping watch over a half-dozen leptokis cages. Jin-Li walked past the stall, eyeing them distastefully.

  The vendor’s glasses caught the light of the streetlamps as he noticed Jin-Li’s attention. He stood up quickly. “Earther!” he cried softly. “You’re not afraid, are you?”

  Jin-Li stepped closer. The little lizardlike beasts were not so much frightening as they were repellent. Their heads were flat, triangular, with the opaque, unintelligent eyes of reptiles. Their hide was a rippled blue-black that looked as if it would be slimy to touch. The vendor pushed one of the cages forward with his foot. “Go ahead, Earther,” he said. “Nothing for you to fear! You’ve never been in the mines, have you?”

  The cage was made of twisted wood, the spines woven together with no more than two fingers’ space between them. The leptokis put his gleaming snout against the side and snuffled. Jin-Li, fists thrust in pockets, stared at it.

  “Take it home, Earther!” the little man cried. The swarm of tiny moons had risen, and glowed in the vendor’s glasses, dull circles of white. The vendor leaned forward. Jin-Li saw that he was missing one hand. “A pet,” he whispered. “If you have the courage.”

  “Is that what it’s about, bravery?”

  The little man straightened and shrugged. “For some it is,” he said. “For others, just the novelty of having such a creature to look at. But for a few”—he made a show of looking about him—“for a few of the veiled ones, a leptokis in the bedroom frightens away—mm, shall we say, unwanted visitors?”

  “Doesn’t look as if you have a lot of business, kir.”

  The man chuckled. “Not a lot,” he said equably. “But when someone wants one of my little beauties, they pay well for it.”

  “A leptokis must make a strange pet.”

  The man sat down on his stool again, and pulled the cage back with his foot. “What would be your idea of a pet? I’ve heard some Earthers keep beasts just like fithi in their homes!”

  “I’ve heard the same,” Jin-Li said, stepping back. The dark little stall was as repellent as the creatures it sold.

  “Ah, so you are afraid,” the man said with satisfaction. “Everyone’s afraid of my wares.”

  “Because of the disease?”

  The man nodded. “Yes! Because of the disease. But no one speaks of it! That’s why the veiled ones buy my little treasures . . . and excuse me, Earther, but I may have a customer.”

  Jin-Li took two more steps back, into the crowd, and watched a woman, completely swathed in veil and flowing dress, step up to the stall with her escort behind her. She gestured to the escort with a hand covered by her drape, and Jin-Li saw the reluctance with which the man came forward. The transaction took some moments. When it was complete, the woman had to carry the cage herself, fingertips showing as she lifted the cage by its handle. The little man in the dark stall cocked his head at Jin-Li as if to say, You >see?

  Jin-Li felt suddenly weary and isolated. The complexities of the Irustani were as fascinating as ever, but did nothing to dispel the loneliness that had been Jin-Li’s burden for so long. Jin-Li turned to ford the crowds across the square and wind through the narrow streets to the cart. There were few other vehicles about on the road back, and the drive went quickly.

  Lights blazed in almost every apartment of the Port Force quarters. No shuttle was due the next day. The Port Forcemen and women were enjoying a long, free evening. Music, flickering holos, and bursts of laughter peppered the hot air as Jin-Li parked the cart. The string of tiny moons, all seven in full phase, hung overhead, pale as sandrite against the black sky. The four flights of stairs seemed longer and steeper than usual.

  The apartment was cool, dark, and quiet. Jin-Li didn’t touch the lights, but opened the sliding door to feel the warmth of the evening, to stand on the balcony and look out and up into the twinkling alien stars. Convivial sounds drifted up from other balconies, and Jin-Li leaned over the railing, looking down at the lighted squares of windows. What would it be like to come home to company, another face—not just a friend, a coworker, but someone closer, someone you could really know?

  Jin-Li turned away from the cheerful commotion. The apartment seemed empty, blank. In the miniature bathroom, each fixture gleamed, impersonally clean, barely used. Jin-Li flipped on the light and the shower, and stripped as the warm water worked its way up from the heater below.

  Discarding the standard shirt and shorts, socks and shoes, Jin-Li stared into the mirror in only briefs and band.

  With a sudden rip of fastenings, the band was stripped off. Jin-Li’s breasts—small, rather pointed, lighter than the tanned skin of arms and legs—were free, as they could be only here, in this cramped space, where there were no visitors, no witnesses, comm camera blocked. She stepped out of the briefs, too, surveying her narrow hips and neat triangle of pubic hair. Her thighs were ridged with muscle, bisected with a dark line where the shorts of the uniform covered her legs.
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br />   Other longshoremen sometimes swam in the reservoir, but not Jin-Li Chung. She hid herself—had to hide herself—because she had signed on this way. The slums of Hong Kong were deadly for women alone. Jin-Li had chosen this defense then, and had become accustomed to it. She’d spent her meager savings bribing the phys-ex in Hong Kong to put the gender mark in the wrong box.

  And today, the solitude of years seemed unbearable. Something about today—about the exchange with Zahra IbSada . . .

  Jin-Li put a hand over the mirror, covering her reflection. She stepped into the shower, hoping the hot steamy water would wash away her black mood. She’d made her decision a long time ago, and there was no going back. But she hadn’t known, leaving Earth for Irustan, how much she would have in common with those who wore the veil.

  seventeen

  * * *

  There is only one right way for an Irustani. Teach it to your children and your wives. Suffer no exceptions.

  —Eighth Homily, The Book of the Second Prophet

  Ishi’s first exams went very well—so well that Qadir, as proud as if he himself had been her teacher, invited all the families of their circle to a celebration. It was to be a wonderful dinner, held in the evening room with one long table set exactly in the center, where the men would sit with their veiled wives beside them. The children would sit at a smaller table to one side, with the anahs. Houseboys and drivers would eat in the kitchen with Cook, Asa, Marcus, and the maids.

  The IbSada household buzzed with activity on the day of the party. Lili, Cook, and the maids hurried to and fro, arranging furniture, flowers, polishing the tiled floor to a high gloss, critiquing each other’s work. No one could walk through the halls without nearly colliding with some hurrying servant. Ishi and Zahra, feeling superfluous, escaped to the clinic.

  Lili saw them. “Medicant? Will you need me? There’s so much to do! The chief director wants kavuri for the first course, and Cook is busy with the pastry.”

  Zahra shook her head. “That’s fine. I think there are only two patients this morning. I can send Ishi if we need you.”

  In the dispensary, Ishi pulled the discs on the two patients and readied the surgery. Zahra went to her cramped office to review their files. They were wives of midlevel officials in the directorate. One had a minor infection the medicator would treat, and the other was coming for a prenatal check. Nothing exciting, Zahra thought, but better than having to bend over Cook’s great sink trying to peel the soft, slippery shells from the tiny kavuri without stabbing a finger on the needle points of their claws. Bless Lili’s devotion to Qadir.

  “Zahra?” Ishi appeared in the doorway.

  “Yes, Ishi, come on in.” Zahra swiveled the reader away from her and leaned back in her chair. The tiny curtained window in the wall behind her shone filtered light on Ishi’s face, illuminating the bones and the silken skin only a thirteen-year-old could have. Ishi’s clear, golden-brown eyes shone with intelligence. Zahra smiled at her apprentice.

  “I heard something this morning,” Ishi began.

  “What was it? Here, sit down.”

  Ishi took the small chair and leaned her elbows on the desk, looking up at Zahra. “There are some men going to the cells.”

  Zahra’s breath caught in her throat. The old, remembered hurt, twenty-three years old now, twisted within her. But for Ishi’s sake, she must not show it. She linked her fingers tightly together. “No one told me that. Is it today?” Ishi nodded, her smooth brow creasing beneath her cap. A strand of straight silky hair escaped and she tucked it back under her veil. “I heard it from one of the maids. She and her mother were picking out material—she’s being ceded next month—and they heard it from the seamstress.”

  “It’s upsetting to think about, isn’t it?” Zahra said quietly. “But it’s been the same since Irustan was settled. Our people did worse on Earth—”

  “I know.” Ishi put one hand under her chin, and traced the whorls and lines of the whitewood of the desk with the other.

  “What was the crime, Ishi, did you hear?”

  “There are two—they were caught together. Like the Second Prophet says, in abomination. Someone reported them to Pi Team.”

  “I’m sorry you had to hear that, Ishi.”

  “Why would they do it? Why would they do the abomination, Zahra? Surely they knew, they knew what could happen to them!”

  Zahra sighed. “It’s the nature of men—and women—to need each other in different ways. The Book calls it sin, but these are young men, with strong feelings—and years before they can marry. In the early days there weren’t enough women for all miners to have a wife. Our laws date from those times.” “But who does it hurt? Why does it matter?”

  Zahra could only shake her head. “I don’t know, Ishi. I don’t know. But the men in the mines have a hard life. I’m so sorry for them—I wish there was another way.”“What happens to them?” Ishi asked abruptly. “In the cells, I mean? What happens to the men they put in there?”

  Or the women, Zahra thought, but she left that unsaid. “You know enough already to know that it’s a terrible way to die.”

  Ishi nodded slowly. “Thirst, burned skin, I thought of those. But those wouldn’t kill a person so quickly, would they?”

  Ishi needed straight answers, unpleasant though they were. Taking a deep breath, Zahra gave them to her. “They die from the heat,” she said. “The cells amplify it, since they’re open to the sky. The brain’s regulating mechanism fails and the body heats to a temperature far above fever level, 105, 106 degrees. The water in the body’s cells burns away—dehydration.” “In a day?”

  “It can happen. Usually two. Sometimes they put the criminal into a cell in the evening, so he has to sit there through the dark hours—contemplating his sin, presumably—and suffer the heat gradually when the star rises in the morning.” Zahra leaned back, lifting her hair under her veil to feel cool air on her neck. “It’s neither kind nor merciful, Ishi. It’s intended to frighten people into obeying the laws.”

  Ishi shivered. Zahra leaned forward again and reached for her hand. “But it’s not for us to worry about, little sister,” she said. “When it’s over, there’s nothing any medicant can do. It’s worse with thieves. Someone has to bandage the arm, stop the bleeding, and that is never pleasant.”

  Ishi returned the pressure of her hand and sat silently for a moment, thinking. Then, with a little shake of her head, she rose and went back to the dispensary. Zahra watched her go. She had taken it well. Death was always close around them, now more than ever. She wished she could hold it away, for Ishi’s sake.

  * * *

  Kalen and Rabi were invited to the party in Ishi’s honor, and they came escorted by Kalen’s father’s houseboy. None of the circle had seen them in months. With the men present, of course, greetings had to be restrained, but Kalen and Zahra embraced, and squeezed each other’s hands beneath their drapes.

  This was a family party, and all the children were included. Laila’s and Samir’s three boys were there, lively youngsters who kept their anah busy chasing after them. Rabi and Ishi sat close together, whispering, with Lili nearby. Alekos, Camilla’s frail son, was now sixteen, and considered an adult. He sat at the center table in utter silence as the men around him conversed.

  Dinner was a slow, elegant affair. Every woman and girl, whether guest or servant, was fully veiled. The women spoke only in occasional murmurs to their husbands, or in Kalen’s case, to no one, since she had no one at the table to speak for her.

  Places were set with cider glasses, larger ones for the men, slender, small ones for the women. The kavuri were served steamed on little nests of olive leaves. The second course was an array of citrus, each small plate arranged with Cook’s usual flair. No two were alike, and each display of sliced and sweetened lemons and oranges and the native veriko, the hard spicy yellow fruit, was a tiny, short-lived work of art. The men—Samir Hilel, Leman Bezay, and Aidar Abdel—spoke to Qadir formally throughout. When t
heir wives had something to say, they repeated it to their host.

  “Chief Director, my wife compliments your Cook.”

  “Chief Director, my wife is most impressed by your table.”

  “Chief Director, my wife thanks you and your staff for the delights of this wonderful meal.”

  While the third course, a filet of reservoir salmon, was being sliced and served by Marcus, the men spoke of the mines, of the directorate, of the Port Force, and the women sat silently, heads bowed under their silken shrouds, hands idle. Qadir was smiling and genial, enjoying the moment. The children were demure at their table, speaking to their anahs in subdued voices.

  In order to eat the meal, each woman had to lift her verge just enough to allow the spoon or fork beneath it. At the side table, the girls were doing the same. From time to time an anah would click her tongue or hiss in exasperation, dab spots from verges and drapes, whisper instructions.

  Alekos, pale and thin, sat at his father’s right hand, the place of honor. His mother Camilla sat on Leman’s left. Leman Bezay was seamed and gray, nearing seventy years old. His hands trembled slightly and his voice had started to rise as if adolescence had returned to him. “You know, Director,” he said proudly, “that Alekos here will join Delta Team in a few weeks.”

  “Yes,” Qadir answered. He looked directly at Alekos. “You must be excited,” Qadir prompted.