Chapter Eleven
“Damn,” Qualhuan said, as he threw down his cards. “I was sure I had him that time.”
Prax raked the small pot of chips into his pile. The common room had almost emptied out a few hours after dinner, and only the five of them remained. Prax, Chio, and Qualhuan were on call, but Nakamura and Tinibu were off duty altogether.
Tinibu laughed. “You should know by now that Prax never bluffs, Qualhuan. Everyone else has sense enough to get out when he draws one card and keeps raising.”
“Yeah, but how did he know I was bluffing?” Qualhuan said. “I drew one card, too; I could just as easily have had four of a kind instead of a busted flush.”
“I don’t know,” Tinibu said simply. “How did you know he was bluffing, Prax?”
Prax merely smiled. After three months of playing several games a week, poker no longer held any secrets for him.
Qualhuan rumbled in his throat, a low ominous sound. “He won’t say. He never says anything unless he’s going to tell the truth.”
“We should all be so honest,” Nakamura said. “It’s your deal, Tinibu.”
The big Terran shuffled the cards, called for five card draw, and everyone anteed. Prax was pondering his hand when Qualhuan suddenly slammed his fists down on the tabletop. The table jumped and chips rolled everywhere.
“Nice work, Qualhuan,” Nakamura said sarcastically. “That’s my chip, Prax.”
Prax had bent down and picked up a chip that had rolled off the table. At Nakamura’s claim, he hesitated. It seemed unlikely to him. The chips that had borne the brunt of Qualhuan’s agitation had been in the pot. Besides, she wasn’t being entirely truthful. “Are you sure?”
“That’s it!” Qualhuan said. “He knows you’re lying!”
“What?” Nakamura said.
“You lied about the chip,” Qualhuan said excitedly. “A bunch of them rolled off, mostly from the pot. You just wanted to take advantage of the situation.”
Prax waited to see if Qualhuan had truly guessed his secret.
“Can’t blame a girl for trying,” Nakamura said.
“So what are you saying?” Tinibu went back to Qualhuan’s statement.
“That’s how Prax knows when we try to bluff him,” the Miloran said. “He’s from a sleeper world. He must be a telepath or an empath or something.”
Prax sat quietly with his hands on the table.
Tinibu stared at him. “Is that true, Prax?”
It wouldn’t be fair to lie to them. They were his friends. “I can’t tell what anyone is thinking,” Prax said. “I can’t tell what they’re feeling, either. I can only tell when they’re lying.”
Qualhuan closed his nostrils and gave a high-pitched Miloran whistle. “Wow! What a great talent for poker! If you could have made yourself bluff, you could have cleaned up.”
Tinibu hunched over his cards. “It could come in handy for a lot of things besides poker. Mistress Trahn is playing for a lot higher stakes than we’ve got on this table. Is that why she wants you at all those meetings, Prax?”
Prax hesitated. This was different territory. Telling them his secret was one thing; telling them Rishi’s was another.
“Lay off him, Tinibu,” Chio said. “He’s obviously not supposed to say. He’s probably not even supposed to tell us he has this ability.”
Tinibu nodded, blinking as if he had just awakened to the facts. “I can see that. It’s a much more useful situation if no one knows about it.”
Nakamura gave Prax a long, measuring glance. “So, Prax, how reliable is this talent of yours? Can you tell every time if someone is lying?”
Prax debated whether answering her question would be disobeying orders.
“Come on, Prax,” Qualhuan said. “We won’t say anything to anyone, will we?”
Everyone at the table agreed to keep it quiet. Prax could tell they meant what they said.
“All right,” he finally said. “I think it works every time. I’ve never been wrong that I know of, so long as the person is near me. It doesn’t work over the com or anything like that.”
“And it works with non-Terrans, too?” Qualhuan asked.
Tinibu cuffed him across the back of his head. “Of course it works with non-Terrans! He just won your money, didn’t he?”
The Miloran ignored the blow as if it were inconsequential.
Nakamura wasn’t finished asking questions. “So if you were standing right there when someone told me something, you could tell me whether he really meant what he was saying, or whether he was just trying to pull the oldest trick in the book on me?”
Prax stared at her, confused by the question.
Chio grinned at him and explained. “Nakamura wants you to tell her whether Tinibu is telling her the truth when he says he loves her. She wants to know whether it’s worth it to stop sleeping with every guy who smiles at her.”
Tinibu’s skin was too dark to show a blush, but he looked as embarrassed as Prax had ever seen him. For a second, he seemed angry, but then he leaned over the table and spoke to Nakamura as if the rest of them weren’t there. “I love you, Ingrid. I haven’t had another woman since the day you asked me to fix your closet door. I don’t want any other women; I only want you.”
Tinibu reeked of sincerity.
When Nakamura looked at Prax, he nodded. “He’s telling the truth.”
Tinibu reached over and took her hand across the table. “Now, Ingrid, don’t you have something you want to tell me?”
Nakamura stared down at the table. “I can’t say the same thing, Jomo,” she said, raising her eyes to his. “Not the part about not being with anyone else, I mean.”
“I’m not talking about the past,” Tinibu said, “I don’t care about the past. I want to know about the future.”
“I love you,” Nakamura said. “And I don’t want anybody else but you.”
Tinibu stood up so fast the chair flew out from under him. He took Nakamura’s other hand and pulled her to him forcefully. Chio, sitting between them, barely got out of the way in time.
All of them watched entranced as Tinibu and Nakamura embraced and kissed passionately. Tinibu put his arm around her and they walked out of the room together.
“Ah, love!” Chio said. “It was really very touching. Tinibu didn’t even ask you to confirm her answer, Prax.”
“She was telling the truth,” Prax said.
“She means it now,” Chio said. “I hope for Tinibu’s sake that it lasts.”
“Well,” Qualhuan said, “I don’t know about the rest of you, but I won’t be playing poker with Prax anymore.” He reached out and gave Prax a friendly slap on the back that almost knocked him out of his chair. “Find a new game. Maybe chess or dominoes.” He grinned. “Or maybe arm wrestling for money.”
“Nah,” Chio said. “You break his arm and Mistress Trahn will be down on you like a tonne of lead. Go get your banjo, Prax. Play us one of those cheerful Elliniká melodies that make me want to slit my wrists and get it all over with.”
Prax fetched his bouzouki and played a few songs before they all gave up and went to bed.
The next morning, Prax went wasn’t on duty or on call, so after breakfast, he went for a long run. Afterwards, he sat outside to read and enjoy the warm weather. Subidar had a short year. Summer was already beginning.
Prax was almost sorry to go inside for lunch, but the meal was excellent as always. Rishi watched as he scooped up a handful of the tiny nut-like fruits that Thulan had served as a dessert and put them into his pocket.
She lifted one eyebrow. “Are you saving them for later?”
He shook his head. “There are little animals that live in the bushes. I want to see if they’ll eat these.”
Her smile grew reminiscent. “It is nice out now, isn’t it? I like to sit on the terrace in
weather like this. Hari’s going to join me there later. He says I work too much.”
“You do work a lot, lady.” Prax took a few more fruits. He bit into one. The taste was sweet and tart at the same time. “We all have a schedule with days off, but you seem to work all the time.”
She gave a tiny, brief shrug. “Working is better than sitting around doing nothing but thinking.”
Prax wondered if she was remembering her family. He changed the subject to tell her that his friends knew about his psy ability. Rishi didn’t seem worried. She laughed at his account of the poker game.
Prax left her after lunch and walked a way out into the grounds. There were many bushes that bordered the walkways between Rishi’s house and Hari’s, and Prax knew that small, burrowing animals had built their homes in the roots.
He left the walkway and found a small grassy spot only a few meters from the bushes where he piled the nut-like fruits into a pyramid. Then he moved to a nearby hillock and sat down to watch.
It took a while. Prax sat motionless for almost an hour before the first tiny, furred nose peeked out from the nearest bush. Another followed, and then two small gray-furred bodies, each no bigger than Prax’s fist, darted out to the pyramid. The two of them stood on their haunches and stuffed fruit into the pouches on their stomachs. They could hold only two or three pieces each, so they soon darted back to their bush.
Five more furred creatures showed up almost at once. Prax couldn’t tell if they included the first two or not. All of them had two wide white stripes down their backs, with a narrow black stripe down the middle, and no distinguishing marks to tell them apart. It took them three trips to deplete the pile of fruits and then they disappeared into the bushes. Satisfied, Prax stood up to go. He was startled to find that he himself was under observation.
A slender, black-haired woman stood on the walkway watching him. Tall and very attractive, she had dark, oval eyes and delicate features. Her red blouse and gray trousers looked expensive without having the custom-made look Prax had come to recognize in Rishi’s clothes. He had never seen her before, and he wondered who she was.
“Hello,” she said. “You must be Praxiteles. I’m Anika Patel.”
Prax recognized the name. She was the woman who shared Hari’s house. He nodded politely and moved closer. “I’m Praxiteles Mercouri.”
“Do you often feed the chipmunks?”
“Is that what they’re called? I like to watch them. They’re interesting.”
Her gaze seemed to assess him. “You’re very patient; you could probably get them to eat out of your hand.”
Prax shook his head. “I don’t want them to eat out of my hand. They’re wild creatures, and I don’t feel a need to change that.”
Anika studied him with overt curiosity. “But you fed them?”
“Yes, but only because it’s interesting to see what they do when they find a lot of food in one place. Creatures that live in groups share food when they find it. Creatures that live alone compete with each other for food.”
“And what do our chipmunks do?” Anika asked.
“They share. They must live in groups.”
“I believe you’re right.” She smiled. “Based on what little I know of them, anyway.”
Prax decided to take advantage of this new source of knowledge. “Why do they call them chipmunks? Does the name mean something?”
“I don’t think so.” She gave him a curious look, as if it was unusual of him to show such interest in wildlife. “There’s a kind of Terran animal called a chipmunk, and our Subidaran animals look rather like them. The first colonists here were from Terra, so that’s what they called them.”
Prax looked her over. He had had no luck at learning to distinguish colonists from native-born Terrans. “Are you from Terra?”
“No. I was born and raised on Subidar. Hari is from Terra, though. He’s the one who told me about Terran chipmunks.”
She seemed very friendly. Prax was moved to chattiness. “My people don’t remember Terra. We were out of touch for too long.”
“It must be very different for you here.” Her eyes gave him another of those appraising looks. “Don’t you ever get homesick?”
“Sometimes.”
“You must miss your family, surely?”
“Sometimes,” Prax repeated. “But it’s not as if I were a child. Many of the staff here don’t see their families, either.”
“That’s true. I suppose you could have left your family even if you had stayed on Celadon.”
Prax felt suddenly unprepared for this comment. He didn’t answer, and Anika let the silence hang in the air.
“My people live in clans,” Prax finally said. “A woman stays with her clan forever; a man stays only until he marries.”
She looked intrigued, in that way Prax had come to recognize as a sign that his culture was unusual enough to be of interest. “What happens when a man marries another man or a woman marries a woman? How do they decide where to live?”
Prax shook his head. “There are people who have that inclination, but we don’t call them married. Usually, they live together, taking turns living with each other’s clans. Sometimes they decide to leave the Elliniká and go to live in a city.”
“What if two men in the same clan, or two women, want to live together?”
Prax shook his head. “Then they must go to the city. They cannot stay with their clan if they’re together.”
“Interesting,” she said, as if Elliniká ways were a thing she was studying. “But you weren’t married?”
“No,” Prax said abruptly, wishing she would change the subject. She might be merely friendly, but her interest in life on Celadon seemed strong for someone who had never been there.
“So you lived with your clan. But you left to come here with Rishi?”
Prax frowned. She wasn’t so blunt, but this woman was even more inquisitive than Thulan. “We owed her a debt. We had to pay it.”
“And that debt came before any obligation to your clan?”
“Yes,” Prax said, trying not to sound terse.
“How long do you have to stay to pay back the debt?”
“Until Mistress Trahn says it’s paid.”
“What if she never says that it is?”
Prax shrugged. “Then I would never go back.”
“That doesn’t seem fair. Do you feel that it’s fair?”
“It’s not a question of fairness,” Prax said impatiently. She seemed to converse only in questions, and he had grown tired of being interrogated. “It was a debt.”
“I see.”
“I have to go now,” Prax said, hoping he didn’t sound rude. He felt rather like he was being studied by this woman, just as he had studied the chipmunks.
Anika stood watching him as he walked back through the trees and down the hill to the house. Prax saw her when he looked back over his shoulder. Only when he went in the security entrance did he feel free of her scrutiny.
RISHI leaned against her lounge chair and reveled in the warmth of the sun. Winter had seemed to take forever, and even spring had failed to provide its usual lift to her spirits. The terrace had a good view of the back of the estate. Over by the hill, she could see a small group of knee-high goatlings grazing.
“Hello, girl.”
Rishi looked up. Hari had approached from her house, not his, so he had probably been working.
“Hello, Hari.” She smiled from sheer delight. “Isn’t it a beautiful day!”
He glanced around at the landscape, and then sat down in the chair next to hers. “It’s nice. No trouble, no problems. That’s a good day.”
She laughed as she passed him a glass of juice. “It sounds boring as hell.”
He took a sip. “Boring is okay with me.” He leaned back. “It’s good to see you doing nothing for
a change.”
She gave him an appraising glance. “I’m glad you think so. I want to do some shopping this afternoon.”
He shrugged. “No problem. We’ve got folks on call.” He looked up at the sky for a moment, and sighed regretfully.
What’s wrong?” Rishi asked.
“Prax.”
Rishi’s smile evaporated. “Is he hurt or in trouble?”
Hari shook his head. “It’s time to send him back, Rishi. He’s done his bit. You can tell him the Elliniká debt is paid in full and send him home.”
Rishi kept her expression neutral. “He seems happy enough. You said so yourself the other day. You said the other staff have accepted him. He plays cards with them and goes out drinking.”
Hari’s frown was almost a scowl. “You listen to me, girl! This isn’t fair. I’ve told you this before. You’re stealing his life away. You keep him around to talk to you and amuse you like he was some kind of exotic pet. He’s a person, Rishi, and he’s entitled to a life of his own.”
Rishi turned one shoulder toward him. “What makes you think he doesn’t have a life? Just because he lives and works here doesn’t mean he doesn’t have a life. A lot of the staff live here.”
“But they have a choice about it. Prax doesn’t.”
“I gave him a choice!” Rishi said, anger making her voice passionate. “I gave him a choice that first day. I asked him, and he said he wanted to stay with me.”
“He said he wanted to serve you,” Hari corrected. “But you won’t let him serve you in the only way you really want. Get it over with, girl! Take him to bed! Then you can finally let go of him and let him be free again.”
“You’re disgusting, Hari.”
“Maybe I am,” Hari said. “But I’m not the one who’s refusing to face up to what I’m doing.”
Rishi stared at the line of trees on the horizon. Hari was supposed to protect her, and there he, was turning on her in a way no one else could. “Praxiteles has been very useful. I was able to come out of the Andersen deal with an iron-clad contract for the next ten years because I knew she was trying to trick me. I knew it was safe to trust Dribachh for the same reason. There were other times, too, where it really helped to have him tell me whether the other party was telling the truth or lying.”
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