Master of None

by N Lee Wood

  He stopped, taking a deep breath, not even trying to hide his anger. “This is petty,” he said, “even for you.”

  The jovial mask slid off her features as she snarled, bitter triumph in her eyes. “Does it hurt yet, Nathan?” she asked softly. “You don’t know what hurt is.”

  He sighed and started walking again, taking long-legged strides that forced her to keep pace at an awkward trot. “Believe what you like, but I never meant to hurt you.”

  She laughed harshly, a bit out of breath. “It didn’t stop you, either. No, you just used me to get you to Vanar. Once we were on our way, you weren’t quite the ardent lover anymore, were you? Or at least not with me anyway....”

  He couldn’t remember much about Lyris’s shipmate, not even her name. Just a vague memory of a girlish laugh, dark hair, and strong legs around his waist, and a much sharper one of the horror on Lyris’s face, both hands clutching the sides of the hatchway to keep herself upright, staring and staring. How strange, that savage jealousy, knowing now what he did of Vanar morality.

  “How many times do I have to say I’m sorry?” he asked, unapologetic. “It was a party, I was drunk, she was drunk, you and I were arguing . . .” He shrugged. “It happens.” He cursed silently as his bare foot skidded on the wet stones, and slowed his pace. “It would have been a once-only mistake, if you’d have let it, Lyris.”

  “You know what I think is ironic?” she said, winded. “Do you remember what we argued about?”

  “Of course,” he said acidly. “You were right, I was wrong. Does it make you feel better to hear me say it? I was an idiot. I should have listened to you.”

  He glanced up from under the lip of the umbrella, gauging the gray sky as distant thunder rumbled. He regretted now not having taken the public transport across town. No taxi would stop for a lone man, not even in this weather. Ducking under an awning projecting over the street as the rain intensified, he looked down at the Vanar girl he’d once thought he loved, her wet hair plastered against her cheek. Her face had flushed from trying to keep up with him, and he had to resist the temptation to brush the curls back out of her still-lovely eyes.

  “I really am sorry, Lyris. And even though I’d let you down badly, you tried to warn me. You still gave me what I wanted,” he said quietly. “You held up your end of the deal, in spite of everything. Whatever else, I can’t fault your honor.”

  She stared at him with openmouthed incredulity, then, to his surprise, she laughed, the sound tense and hysterical. She bit back the hard giggles escaping past her clenched teeth. “That’s what I loved most about you, Nathan, the way you can sweet-talk your way into anything with that innocent nobler-than-thou attitude. If I were as virtuous as you think I am, you wouldn’t be here at all. If you could have just been able to keep from cheating on me, I’d have had your ignorant ass transferred to another Station before we Wormed through. I would never have let you get within a light-year of Vanar.”

  The fleeting temptation to touch her had gone. “All right, whatever,” Nathan said, and glanced up at the sky again, wishing the rain would ease up. It beat down steadily against the awning. A few more minutes of Lyris’s spite, and he’d say the hell with it. “Have it your own way. You knew what would happen to me, and you hated me enough to let me do it anyway. Enjoy your revenge.”

  She sounded sick, choking back the laughter. “Oh, no, Nate, darling. I didn’t do it for revenge. I did it for the money.”

  He stared blankly at the gray clouds, feeling his blood turn cold before he let himself look at her. She was grinning, a mask of hate and elation. “What?”

  “Are you really naive enough to believe if someone on Vanar hadn’t wanted you here, someone very powerful, you could ever have set one toe on this planet? And if that certain someone hadn’t been protecting you from the very first minute, how long do you think it would have taken before Eraelin Changriti got rid of you? Nathan, you were bought and paid for.”

  She danced several quick steps away from him, and he knew he wasn’t able to keep the fury off his face. Her own held a mixture of fear and excitement, watching him with all the eager caution of a wild animal handler.

  “What are you talking about?” His own voice sounded flat. “We’re a business people—surely you know that by now. Someone on Vanar wanted a native Hengeli-speaking male, so she put in an order and I was paid to fill it. I went a-hunting and you were bagged and tagged, Nathan. Want three guesses who?”

  “No,” he said, a denial of her story, not the guess. She knew what he meant.

  “Oh, but it’s true, all right. I couldn’t just leave Vanar and let you go on thinking you brought this on yourself. You never had a chance.” The rain was letting up, but he didn’t notice. She spoke quickly, rushing her words as if afraid she wouldn’t have the time to get them all out. “I’m not coming back here, not ever. I’m jumping ship off to a nice little Barrier outworld where nobody gives a shit about Vanar, find myself some colonist goat farmer with a stiff dick and a small brain and live happily ever after. Consider this my farewell gift to you.”

  She skipped backward away from him, still grinning rigidly before she turned and nearly fled. He stood under the awning, stunned, before he started the walk back to the Estate through the rain. By the time he arrived, he was wet, muddy, and furious.

  He didn’t bother with the circuitous route through the men’s section. He remembered the direct way to the women’s house, his cold rage building with every step he took. A senior kharvah stood as he approached the doors between the houses, puzzled and alarmed. Nathan shoved him out of the way without a word, not hearing as he called out a warning.

  The massive doors made a satisfying thud as he threw them back to reveal the startled face of one of Yaenida’s granddaughters at the end of the corridor. His head forward on hunched shoulders like a bull lowering its horns, he marched toward the inner rooms. The woman shouted at him in anger, barring the passage. Her voice cut off in a gasp of shock as he firmly grabbed her shoulders and pushed her unceremoniously to one side.

  He paid no attention to the women scattering around him as he strode toward the main chamber where he knew Yaenida would be. He ignored the change in their voices, from alarm and astonishment to purposeful shouts. He was far too angry to concentrate on the Vanar as he flung open the carved doors and glared at the old woman.

  Yronae gestured urgently to the other women in the room as he stalked toward the old woman. He noted dimly that several wore sati of different High Families, and knew he had interrupted a business conference of some importance. It gave him a sense of grim satisfaction.

  Yaenida watched him approach, curious and unafraid. He stopped a few feet from where the old woman lay half submerged in a drift of pillows, her tiny figure engulfed in billowing silk. He didn’t notice the Dhikar pouring into the room from every archway.

  “Did you get a good bargain, Yaenida?” he said without preamble, all the hurt and anger boiling out of his voice. His fists quivered by his sides. “What’s the going rate these days on Hengeli men? How much did you pay for me, you cold-blooded goddamned bitch!”

  She stared up at him imperturbably, only her eyes alive in the skull-thin face. He caught the movement out of the corner of one eye, jerking around as the Dhikar grabbed him, their implants humming like angry bees. He dropped like a stone as agony exploded in his head . . .

  XVIII

  . . . AND WOKE A MOMENT AND SEVERAL HOURS LATER WITH THE abrupt jolt to consciousness from a dreamless coma. He sat slumped over in a small room, long shadows thrown up against the walls, and opened his eyes to stare at a medical taemora watching him impassively. The anger and pain had evaporated, the sudden emotional blankness making him queasy.

  The taemora rose, taking him by one arm. As he stood up, it seemed everything was happening at a strange rate of speed. He noticed a weight on his wrist, but it took several long seconds before he could organize his efforts into looking down.

  An inch-wide articula
ted steel band had been locked around his left wrist, adhering firmly to his skin. It was heavy, but not uncomfortably so, moving smoothly as he rotated his wrist to examine it. The taemora waited patiently, and when he let his hand drop, she led him out of the small room.

  He recognized where he was, in the men’s house. The sudden spatial shift disoriented him, and he swayed unsteadily before he regained his balance. The taemora held him upright, then led him to the boys’ lodgings.

  He noticed the silence as she ushered him inside, saw the way the children pulled back as she closed the door behind him, leaving them alone. Standing for a moment, mildly puzzled by the emptiness of his thoughts, he took a few experimental steps. His head turned far more slowly than he expected, and a boy recoiled with a wide-eyed stare of alarm.

  He took several more faltering steps down the long room before he stopped, unable to arrange his thoughts into any sensible cohesion.

  It’s this thing, he realized, and gazed down at the metal band on his wrist. When he looked back up, he distantly observed the boys shrinking away from him in fascinated wariness as Raemik stepped in front of him.

  It took him forever to focus on the boy’s pale blue eyes, then he apathetically let Raemik lead him by one hand to his own tiny alcove. He sat down on the narrow mat, stretching his legs out in front of him, and leaned against the pillows stacked against the wall. Raemik perched on the edge of the shelf beside him, chin resting on his knees, arms around his legs, watching Nathan with steady, unblinking eyes.

  Nathan raised the arm with the metal band clamped to it. “What’s this?” he asked, remotely aware of how thick his speech was. The boy glanced at the band.

  “It’s a lajjae,” he said calmly. Nathan stared up numbly at Raemik, his eyes dry as he blinked. “Criminals and madmen wear them,” the boy added after a long moment.

  Nathan let his hand fall back limply onto his lap. “Oh.” His own voice sounded dry and lifeless.

  He slept, waking several times from dreams so vague he couldn’t recall the slightest detail even moments after opening his eyes. He was gazing inattentively at the light moving across the carved screens when the boys began to stir, sleepy whispers and nervous laughter.

  He watched Raemik dress. “Get up, Nathan,” the boy said softly. It bothered him on some level he couldn’t quite touch that the idea of rising hadn’t occurred to him himself. He stood, starting to fold the sati between his fingers, and had it halfway around his waist when his thoughts drifted off as he forgot what he was doing. The folds slipped from his hand. Raemik caught the falling linen and quickly pleated and arranged it around the older man with an expert hand. The boy had to stand on his toes to pin it at Nathan’s shoulder, then simply handed the end of the sati to him.

  He lifted the end over his head out of sheer habit, letting the silk drape carelessly. It wasn’t so much that he felt drugged, but as if everything else around him were happening at a slightly faster speed than he could manage to keep up with. He knew he should be grateful that Raemik had taken charge, steering him toward the men’s garden, although the only thing he could feel was a lethargic sense of loss. The silence in the refectory was palpable, sahakharae and kharvah alike moving silently out of their way as Raemik led him toward the common table.

  He took the plate from the boy without question, eating methodically. Raemik had to prompt him back to the food occasionally as he stared into space, not caring. The boy looked up as a shadow fell across them, while Nathan barely swiveled his head to study a pair of stocky legs silhouetted in the sunlight through the thin sati.

  “He’s wanted,” Aelgar’s subdued voice said above him, and it took Nathan a few moments for the Vanar words to filter through.

  Nathan stood and followed the senior kharvah, then hesitated, looking back at the boy still sitting cross-legged on the grass. “Thank you, Raemik,” he said quietly with an effort, the words lifeless. The boy nodded solemnly.

  He paid little attention other than to concentrate on following the short kharvah into the women’s house, taking the same route he had barged through only the day before. As the door was slid open into Yaenida’s private council room, Aelgar stepped to one side, bowing deftly as he took his place by the wall.

  Yaenida sat elevated on a dais in the center of the room, a stick figure engulfed in her volcanic island of pillows. Her rippled reflection in the polished wood floor only increased the illusion of remote isolation. Several senior men sat on their heels to the left of the room, an equal number of women opposite. A private interpreter sat slightly behind to Yaenida’s right, her flatreader already humming faintly in the stillness. An impressive number of Dhikar stood guard, he noticed, his unforeseen breach of the pratha h’máy’s inner sanctum not likely to be repeated again.

  Yronae moved to stand impassively by Yaenida’s left shoulder. The sati draped over her head shadowed Yaenida’s face, but her eyes were distinct as she watched him approach. Both women wore full formal sati, their House and Family insignia displayed on their pins.

  He wished his mind functioned at a better speed as he spotted the thin square mat set in front of Yaenida, exactly three paces distant from her, the Family crest woven into its center. The level of ceremony was as high as he’d ever seen. Taking deliberate steps, he crossed the wide hardwood floor to the mat. He skimmed back the hem of his sati with methodical care as he knelt on the mat and bowed, hands together in a formal greeting, then sat back on his heels, palms against his thighs. Both Yaenida and her daughter inclined their heads in a minimal nod. A small box had been set squarely in front of the mat, but he knew better than to open it without instructions.

  “Nathan Crewe Nga’esha,” Yaenida said in Vanar, dimly surprising him by the use of his full Vanar name, “we would ask you a few questions concerning your behavior of yesterday.”

  “Of course, jah’nari l’amae Yaenida Nga’esha,” he answered in the same language. He thought he saw a small fleeting smile on her face as he used her motherline, establishing their Family connection. Belatedly, he noted two of the women were wearing Changriti burgundy. Shit. Several women he didn’t recognize wore other colors, although they might have been part of the group he had interrupted the day before. All of the men, however, wore formal Nga’esha blue.

  “I’m in big trouble, aren’t I?” he asked her in Hengeli.

  “Oh yes,” she assured him in the same tongue. The interpreter next to her sat with a tranced look as she whispered almost inaudibly, translating their words simultaneously for the recorder as well as the tiny beads in the Vanar women’s ears.

  “Getting to be a bad habit.” This time she wasn’t able to suppress the amused surprise, and he wondered distantly where the words had come from. “Is this a trial?”

  “In a way.”

  He held up the wrist bound with the steel band. “This isn’t necessary.”

  Her eyes flickered down at it, then back to his face. “If you are allowed to leave here, it will be removed.”

  If you are allowed to leave here alive, he knew she meant. He noted the medical taemora in the background. Strangely, he knew he should be afraid and was not. He nodded casually, and let his hand drop to rest again on his thigh.

  She indicated the box, and he reached to open it, finding an ear-bead nestled like a pearl inside. “You may speak in Hengeli, if you feel you are unable to explain yourself competently in Vanar,” she continued. “That is only just.”

  Just? He wanted to say he would be surprised if there were actually any such synonymous word in Vanar. Instead, he picked up the earbead. “Thank you, jah’nari l’amae.” He worked the tiny bead into his right ear. “May this naeqili inquire as to the nature of the charges against me?”

  She sat back deeper into the pillows, wincing slightly in pain. “There are no charges, Nathan,” she said, dropping her formal tone. They could have been alone in her library. “This is a private Family matter. Where did you hear your presence on Vanar was by a pre-arranged contract?”
<
br />   “Then it’s true, isn’t it?” The lack of anger in him felt as sharp-edged as a hole left behind after its removal.

  Yronae looked annoyed as she spoke, the interpreter’s light, passionless voice translating the Hengeli intimately in his ear. “You are not to ask questions—” she said before Yaenida’s raised hand impatiently cut her off.

  “Yes, it’s true. Where did you hear it?”

  “Lyris Arjusana, subcaptain on the Comptess Dovian.”

  “Why would she tell you this?”

  “She hates me,” he heard himself say dispassionately. “She’s jumping ship, not planning to return to Vanar after this next flight, and she wanted to get in a few last kicks before she left.”

  He noted the rustle of surprise ripple through the room. As Yaenida eyed him silently, Yronae hastily strode from the room, returning a few minutes later. She faced her mother, lips pressed thin with disgust. “The Dovian left last night for St. Kiranne,” she said. “Crew of four. It’s carrying Cooperative Family cargo. Do we stop her?” The interpreter didn’t translate this into Hengeli for him, but Yronae’s Vanar was clipped enough in anger for him to follow.

  “No,” Yaenida said, her voice bored. “She’s not stealing anything. Let her go.” Nathan felt rather than heard the disapproval in the room. “Why does she hate you, Nathan?”

  “It’s a personal matter.”

  Yronae glanced at her mother in irritation, but said nothing. Yaenida smiled, the barest hint on her lips. “Your gallantry is commendable, but misplaced,” she said, surprisingly gentle. “When I ask you a question, it isn’t a request. You do understand?”