The Terrorists of Irustan

by Louise Marley

  “I just wanted to tell you that your teacher—Nura Issim—saved my mother’s life. We were so grateful. We mourned her.”

  Zahra looked into the woman’s eyes, saw the suffering there, the residue of years spent living on the margins of society. She looked around at the others, unveiled women, all of them. Prostitutes. Mothers, sisters, daughters, without rights, without futures. For persisting in treating such women, Nura had been sent to the cells, betrayed by her own husband. Twenty-five years ago, that had been. How little Irustan had changed since!

  Zahra said, “Thank you.” She turned to Asa. “Asa, there’s a reason Pi Team isn’t searching for us. It worries me. Someone needs to go into the square, find out.”

  “I’ll go!” Ritsa said quickly. “I’m still veiled, I can say I’m on an errand for the IbSadas.”

  “You’re not going without an escort,” her mother said.

  “I’ll take Asa,” she said.

  “No,” Eva said flatly. “It’s not safe for him, or for you either. If the medicant insists, I’ll go.” She looked across the table at Zahra. “Although I’d rather just wait and see.”

  Zahra looked around at all of them, at their children dashing around the room. Missing Ishi, worrying about her, was an ache in her soul, a wound that could not heal. She sighed, her mind clouding again, receding into a fog that was both frustrating and comforting. “I don’t know, I just don’t know. But there’s something wrong with this.”

  Eva patted her arm. “We’re used to these things, Medicant,” she said, as if she were talking about nothing more serious than a household problem. “Just let us worry about it. You eat, and sleep again. You’ll feel more like yourself tomorrow.”

  Zahra wanted to protest, to take some sort of action. Nothing came to mind. She didn’t feel hungry, but she was very sleepy. Again, she submitted, and did as Eva and Ritsa and Asa wanted her to. She ate what they put before her. The children stared at her curiously until one of the women scolded them. Before long she went upstairs again. She fell into a hard, dreamless sleep, and didn’t wake until the next day.

  forty-one

  * * *

  Without punishment there is no justice. The Maker requires that a man be responsible for all those of his household, to correct their faults and guide their actions. He is accountable for their sins.

  —Twenty-first Homily, The Book of the Second Prophet

  Ishi rose the day after Zahra’s disappearance, showered and dressed, and went to the breakfast table. Only the insistence of her youthful body had brought her any sleep at all, and she couldn’t imagine that she would be able to eat, but she was determined to keep up appearances. She would greet Qadir, go through the motions of the morning meal, open the clinic. She had already decided Marcus could act as her escort. Diya, as far as she knew, was still in his bed. Qadir had not left his bedroom either, not since the evening before. It was up to her, Ishi, to try to keep the household together. And being busy might keep her from being afraid.

  Qadir was not in the dayroom. Cook brought Ishi’s breakfast, and Lili’s. Lili took her usual seat, but Ishi ignored her. Ishi forced a few morsels of food past her lips, then rose to go to the clinic. Lili rose, too.

  “No,” Ishi said sharply, her voice sounding years older to her own ears.

  Lili looked at her with faded eyes, and Ishi saw that she too was afraid. Well and good, Ishi thought. “I meant it, Lili,” she said. “You will never work in my clinic again.”

  Lili clasped her hands before her and thrust out her chin. “It’s not your clinic,” she quavered.

  “Until Zahra returns, it’s mine,” Ishi responded. She turned and walked briskly toward the kitchen. Lili trotted after. Ishi didn’t look back, but walked faster.

  In the kitchen, the household staff was seated at the table, their headsbent close, talking in low voices. At Ishi’s entrance, they fell instantly silent. Cook jumped to her feet, as did Marcus. The two maids stared, openmouthed. The newest maid, Ritsa, wasn’t there.

  “Ishi? What is it?” Cook asked.

  Ishi said, “I’ll need Marcus in the clinic.”

  “I don’t know anything about the clinic,” Marcus faltered.

  Ishi said, “That’s all right, Marcus, you don’t have to do anything. Just be there. As escort.”

  Cook said, “Go, Marcus. Ishi needs you.”

  Ishi turned to lead the way, Marcus following with hesitant steps. Lili took a step, too, and Ishi whirled to face her, stamping one foot. “No, Lili!” Lili gasped, and began to weep. Ishi was unmoved. “Cook, Lili will stay here with you. Put her to work if you like, but she’s not to come to the clinic, not for any reason!”

  Ishi almost ran to the clinic. She would have liked to cry, too. Weep, and wail, and beg for news of Zahra. But what good would it do? If Pi Team couldn’t find her, if Qadir couldn’t find her, then Zahra wouldn’t be found until she wanted to be.

  Ishi opened the clinic and readied it, just as she and Zahra always did. Marcus stood uneasily in the dispensary, waiting. No one came. Word of Pi Team’s search had spread in the way such news travels, from housemaid to delivery man to vendor to cook. No one wanted to be anywhere near the IbSada clinic. There was nothing for Ishi to do. She sat at Zahra’s desk, trying to study, staring at the reader without comprehending anything.

  Midway through the morning Cook appeared, running through the inner door, down the hall to the office. She was shaking and breathless. “It’s Diya!” she gasped. “He’s awfully sick!”

  Ishi got to her feet very slowly. She knew what was wrong with Diya. She knew what she now faced would be hideous.

  She yearned to run to her bedroom and hide like a child. But she was a medicant now, or almost one, anyway. If it was to be her own clinic, she mustn’t shy away from whatever came her way. She took a deep breath and spoke firmly. “I need towels and cloths, and a disposal bag, Cook. Let me get some gloves and a mask. I’ll meet you at Diya’s door.”

  * * *

  It was even worse than Ishi had imagined. It was a day of ghastly deterioration for Diya, and horrible messes for Ishi to clean, from the floor, from Diya’s bed, from Diya himself. Diya was dying, and he knew it. He whimpered and pled for help as his body broke down, but Ishi had no idea what to do for him. She thought about having him carried to the medicator, if she could persuade anyone to help her, but she doubted it would do much good. Instead, she ran to the CA cabinet and found an injectable sedative, trying at least to calm him. It didn’t help very much, but it appeared to do no harm. He babbled and cried and prayed till she thought she would scream. By midafternoon, he could no longer speak, and that was almost worse.

  Throughout the long day she worked alone in the darkened, fouled room. She opened the window wide, for the air, but she had to leave the curtains drawn lest anyone on the outside be offended. Cook came hourly to ask if she needed anything, but otherwise the house was still. Qadir, Ishi supposed, was in his bedroom, but she heard nothing from him.

  Late in the evening, Diya stopped moving at all. His thick-lipped face seemed to shrink, the skin sallow and flat on the bones. Before midnight he took one rattling breath. Ishi watched, waiting for the next one. It never came. It was over.

  Ishi pulled off the gloves and put them, and all the towels and cloths she had used, in a bag for the wave box. She covered Diya with a clean blanket and left him lying on his bed. She scrubbed herself thoroughly and emerged, red-eyed and shaky, from the awful atmosphere of the room, to find Qadir waiting for her.

  His eyes were haggard, the skin around them purple with sleeplessness. He asked hoarsely, “Is it over?”

  “Yes,” Ishi said. “He’s dead.”

  “The prion disease?”

  “Yes.”

  “There can’t be any—any doubt about that?”

  Ishi took a step closer, to put her hand on Qadir’s arm, but he stepped back instinctively, fearful of her touch. She stopped. “I’ve scrubbed, Qadir, it’s all right. But I’ll
go to my room and take a shower now. No, there can’t be any doubt.”

  Qadir’s legs shook, almost buckled. Ishi leaped forward to support him, and he didn’t resist. “O Maker,” he rasped. “Then it’s true. Zahra did it, and I’m going to the cells.”

  Ishi was so shocked she almost fell herself. “Qadir—what do you mean? Why would they send you to the cells?”

  His weight on her shoulder was almost more than she could support. They staggered, and she tried to guide him to his room. She had not eaten all day, and she supposed he had not, either. He laughed weakly, bitterly.

  “Zahra is my charge, my responsibility. Samir Hilel has made the accusation, and Lili too, and the Port Force people. She’s . . .” The laugh became a giggle, high-pitched, almost hysterical. “She’s killed people! Men! Prophet, it can’t be true, but it is! My Zahra, my beautiful, intelligent Zahra, why would she do it? Why, Ishi?” And Qadir burst into tears, great sobs that ripped from his throat, torn from him against his will.

  Ishi gritted her teeth and urged him to his room, through the door, onto his bed. She pulled a blanket over him, as she had done with Diya, but she stayed near Qadir, kneeling beside his bed, waiting for his control to return.

  When he was calm again, she asked him, “You didn’t mean it, did you, Qadir? They won’t hold you responsible. ...”

  He said in a voice still ragged, “I am responsible, my Ishi. Zahra is in my charge. And I’m the chief director of Irustan! For me, more than any man of Irustan, the laws must be obeyed. My example is the one all Irustani must follow.” He sat up. “I apologize for my behavior. This is a terrible shock.”

  She got slowly to her feet. “No need for that, Qadir. I know you love Zahra. As I do.”

  He stood up, too, on weak and trembling legs. His voice steadied. “I do love her. I still do. But I failed her. She’s brilliant, strong, fiercely protective. I failed her.”

  Ishi looked into Qadir’s face and shook her head. “It wasn’t you who failed her, Qadir,” she said. “It wasn’t you. It was Irustan.”

  forty-two

  * * *

  To be a member of Offworld Port Force is a privilege. The ExtraSolar Corporation invests each employee with the rights and honors thereto, and can revoke them at its discretion.

  —Offworld Port Force Terms of Employment

  The persistent buzz woke Jin-Li from an exhausted slumber. She swam slowly up from thick depths of sleep, disoriented, struggling to open heavy eyelids, to comprehend the source of the noise. By the time she fully recognized it, she had already scrambled awkwardly, half-awake, to her closet. The wavephone lay on the floor by her boots. She fell to her knees and scrabbled for it, turning over one of the boots, scraping her injured hand on the door. Still kneeling, she put the phone to her ear. Fresh blood trickled down her wrist.

  Onani’s voice was cold. “Find Zahra IbSada, Chung,” he said. “They’re going to execute her husband, the chief director. ExtraSolar doesn’t like it. I don’t like it.”

  Goosebumps sprang up on Jin-Li’s forearms. “Not sure I can do that,” she muttered into the phone.

  “You have to. You’re the only card I have to play.”

  Jin-Li rose slowly, the phone still at her ear. She walked to the balcony door and looked out into the hot, white sky of Irustan. It was late afternoon, a day and a half since she left Zahra in the Medah. After spending almost a whole night in the streets of the city, she had put in a full day at the landing field. Last night she had fallen into bed before dark.

  So, she thought, Qadir IbSada would be held to account. Perhaps, for the Irustani, that was preferable to admitting that a woman had rebelled, hadfought back, had used her own mind. What Zahra had done was revolutionary.

  “Look,” Onani said now. His voice dropped, deep and ominous. “Sorry about this, Jin-Li, but you’ll have to comply.”

  Jin-Li waited, listening to the living, silent r-waves.

  “If this execution is carried out,” Onani said, “I’ll have to use you to distract ExtraSolar. They’ll be too busy tracking your bribes and their mistakes, exercising the Terms of Employment, to pillory me over Irustan’s domestic adversities.”

  Another pause. Jin-Li put her head against the glass. To the south, three Port Force carts trundled toward the Medah. To the north, one skimpy cloud hovered above the ridge of the hills. She couldn’t see the white cells of Pi Team.

  “Jin-Li,” Onani growled. “Do you understand me?”

  Jin-Li’s jaw ached with tension. In a neutral voice, she said, “Oh, yes. I understand you.”

  * * *

  Jin-Li retraced the route she had driven two nights before. She passed the intersection where she had bullied Pi Team. When she was close to the market square, she turned the cart and drove a kilometer away, deep into the Medah. On a street of modest houses, she left the vehicle. Two men painting a fence stared openmouthed at the sight of an Irustani man climbing out of a cart marked with the circled star.

  Jin-Li tossed the keys of the cart into the driver’s seat, adjusted the dark glasses, pulled the flat cap low. With a touch of hand to heart to the two men, almost a wave, Jin-Li set off for the market square.

  The loose Irustani shirt and trousers were comfortable in the heat, the shoes lighter and cooler than Port Force boots. The square was lively with men’s voices and vendors’ calls. Cycles whined past pedestrians in the narrow streets.

  Jin-Li walked through the square, winding between the rows of stalls, and out again to the other side. It took time to find the torn blue awning marking the spot where Asa and Zahra had left the cart and disappeared. Three boys dashed by, shrieking. Veiled heads showed occasionally behind dingy curtains. The inner city buildings had a sameness, a dingy monotony. They gave no clue as to which might be sheltering Zahra IbSada.

  It was too early for the unveiled ones to be about. Jin-Li chose one of the slender lampposts and leaned against it to wait for the covering darkness that would bring them out.

  Another small boy burst from one of the narrow doors and leaped down the single step directly into the street. He ran to Jin-Li and stopped, holding up a grubby hand. “Kir!” he piped. “Buy my fithi? Only one drakm!”

  The child did indeed have a tiny, half-dead snake in his hand. It wriggled feebly, twining around the chubby fingers.

  Careful of the Irustani accent, Jin-Li said, “Sorry. I have no place to keep

  it.”

  The boy stuffed the little creature into his pocket and cocked his head to look up at Jin-Li. “I have a leptokis! You want that? Only one drakm!” Jin-Li said doubtfully, “You don’t really have a leptokis, do you?”

  “I do!” the boy claimed. His round cheeks creased with a delighted smile. “Are you afraid?”

  “Yes,” Jin-Li said. “I am. Aren’t you?”

  “No,” the urchin answered, with a shrug. “It’s a dead one, anyway.” “Ah."

  Jin-Li straightened and started to walk away, but the boy danced alongside, craning his neck to look up. “Want some coffee, kir?” he cried. “My mumma makes it. Only one drakm!”

  Jin-Li stopped, hands on hips, and said slowly, “No, no coffee, thank you. But there is something you can do for me.”

  Jin-Li dug into one deep pocket and pulled out three drakm, holding them out for the boy to see. The child hopped up and down, grinning with delight. “I’m looking for someone,” Jin-Li said. It was the wrong thing to say.

  The boy froze. His voice dropped, his tone harsh, too old for his childish features. “Not now,” he said. “Only at night.”

  “No, no.” Jin-Li hastened to correct him. “You misunderstand me. It’s a man, a friend of mine. He walks with a cane. A bad limp.”

  The boy’s face brightened. “He’s around here somewhere? I can find him, I’ll bet I can find him!”

  Jin-Li jingled the drakm temptingly in one outstretched palm. “All right, young man. These are yours if you do.”

  * * *

  No one passing in the st
reet seemed to find Jin-Li’s presence unusual. One or two men nodded greetings, more just walked by without acknowledgment. There were no women. A boy walked past, loaded with parcels, and disappeared into one of the plain doors. Feminine voices answered his arrival, and he came out again a few minutes later without the packages.

  At midafternoon, when it began to look as if the boy had given up on the three drakm, he reappeared. His energy was considerably diminished, but his grin was triumphant. He stood before Jin-Li, hand straight out, palm up. “Pay me!” he cried.

  Jin-Li said, “How do I know you’ve really found my friend?”

  “As soon as you pay me, I’ll take you right to him!” the boy said. Jin-Li, laughing, dropped the drakm into his dirty hand.

  The boy led Jin-Li to a building as anonymous as all the others. It was three stories tall, long enough to fill half of one block. Its undecorated windows were grimy with age, some broken, held together with strips of moldering tape. Jin-Li doubted much light would filter through those panes.

  The boy rapped on the door. It opened narrowly, showing a wedge of darkness, and the child chattered to someone inside.

  The door closed, and footsteps moved away from it. After a short delay it opened again, and Asa himself stood in the doorway, peering cautiously out. “It is you, isn’t it, kir?”

  “It is I,” Jin-Li said, pulling off the dark glasses.

  “We hadn’t expected to see you again,” Asa said. He glanced up and down the street. “You’d better come in.” He stepped back and held the door just wide enough for Jin-Li to enter.

  Jin-Li saw a long, dim room with a splintered floor. Several doors were set into the walls, and a long table waited at one end. Asa’s cane clicked across the bare boards. Jin-Li remembered the boy and turned back, but the guide had already vanished with the treasured drakm. Jin-Li walked after Asa.

  A little group of women was gathered at the table. Behind them a kettle steamed on a battered stove, and a girl of perhaps eighteen stood over a cracked sink. All the women wore caps, with veils unfastened and tossed back over their shoulders.