THREE

Anton stood at the far end of the footbridge leading to the Lady Joon's pavilions. She had practically commanded him to call on her, and in fact he was eager to cultivate her as an information source. Shim had tried to talk him into a tunic and leggings in the Dassa style for his interview, and when this effort had failed, she'd looked worried about the impression he would make. She frowned now, as they crossed the covered bridge. Rain lashed down, sluicing in waterfalls off the thick roof matting.

They started across the bridge. Anton noticed Shim fidgeting as they walked. “What's the matter, rahi? You're fretting.”

“But-tons,” she said, using the human word. “Not expected.”

Shim could not get over the buttons on his jumpsuit; it was not the first time Anton was bemused by what the Dassa focused on.

“Anything else I should know, besides that I look bad?” He threw her a smile, but the irony fell flat as she hurried to say, “Oh, Anton, thankfully I haven't said so.”

Guards parted at the far end of the bridge, and Shim led the way along wood floors burnished to mirror-brightness. The odor of floral perfumes was stronger here than in the king's pavilions, and for a time the underlying smell of mildew gave way to a sweet, not unpleasant musk.

They paused at last in front of a wall of finely woven screens. Anton tried to guess which one would open.

He was wrong. The Lady Joon's chancellor, Gitam, slid open one of them and, smiling a greeting, waved him into the room, leaving Shim outside.

Joon's quarters were simple and fine, in the style of effortless beauty so typical of the Dassa. Lustrous black reeds formed lacquered screens framed in carmine wood, or what on Earth was mahogany. In the middle of the spacious room, a carved ladder led up to the ceiling, stopping at a closed door. A swag of woven cloth hung from the steps of the ladder. From behind this, the Lady Joon appeared.

“Captain Prados, thank you.”

“Please, Lady my name is Anton.”

“Oh, now I will have to practice saying my t's.” Her smile was playful.

She beckoned him behind the tapestry, where chairs and couches, all without backs, formed a seating area. The beat of rain came softer in these quarters, and he suspected there was another level above this one.

The guest sits first, Shim had told him. He did so, finding the nearest chair.

Joon wore silver cloth, finely woven and without ornament except for a belt. The clasp bore what looked like a tiny portrait. She settled herself on a facing chair, more relaxed than she had been in her father's company.

“That is a lovely painting on your belt, Lady” he said.

“Oh yes, it is a favorite. My grandmother painted it for me. A portrait of her grandmother.”

“In my world we have paintings, too.”

“Similar. But different,” Joon ventured.

It was a complicated thought. Anton wondered if Joon knew that the crew saw this world exactly in those terms.

“Your family is one of beautiful women,” Anton said.

Joon responded, “Oh yes. And powerful. We are of the king's line.” She regarded him with an unnerving glance. ‘Anton,” she began carefully, “I will not compliment you on how well you speak our language, since I have been rebuked by my father for doing so.”

After a pause to digest whether she had complimented him just now or not, Anton replied, “There was no offense taken, Lady. Not by me.”

“Thankfully.” Joon sat without any mannerisms or idle movements, a stillness that would have appeared stiff in someone less graceful. She might have been a predator ready to spring—or prey frozen in indecision.

Under the floor, pipes rattled with a pulse of water. Joon gazed at him, allowing the silence to lengthen.

“My people have returned from the—air craft, Lady” he said finally. There was no word for shuttle, or space ship, or even humans. “I have brought you a small token.” Fishing in his pocket, Anton produced the thing he and Shim had agreed upon. Colored pencils. Suitably useful, Shim had pronounced, since nothing Anton had could be caWedfine.

He crossed over to her and handed her the gift, wrapped in a swath of Dassa cloth, taking care not to touch her.

Joon took out the pencils, examining them closely.

He sat again. “For drawing, Lady. You will need to cut them a little to keep them sharp.”

“To make them bleed?”

“No …” He struggled to make sense of it, then had it: “No, they aren't paints. Not bright colors, but soft ones.”

“Like ink pens.” The Dassa had elaborate writing sets, with tubes supplying continuous ink. And every Dassa was literate, even the hoda, since they were schooled until adolescence. “I am thankful that you thought of drawing pens for me, amid all your troubles.”

“Which troubles, rahi?” He certainly had his share, but she might know if he faced others he knew nothing of.

“Oh yes, the trouble with your great ship, where you do not thrive, and in your blue lands across the sky where you do not thrive, and then coming among us, so similar yet different.” She paused, and he struggled not to show his surprise over her concise summary.

She went on. “The trouble with Sen, and with Bailey, and the small ship on the Sodesh which is resting on the lands of Huvai the reed merchant.”

Sen—that would be Zhen—whose trouble was that she was female. And Bailey … but what could Joon know of his issues with Bailey Shaw?

“Rahi, you have a longer list than I do.”

“It is a difficult list,” she agreed.

“Is the shuttle on lands it should not be?”

Joon fingered the painted brooch, hesitating. Then she said, “Some do not approve of hoda with such privileges.” She added, ‘Although hoda cannot be male, thankfully.”

Anton said, “If humans are powerful, it implies the hoda are not well used. Is that right?” The rains faded into a light patter, and the room grew warmer.

“I do not say what is right, Anton. Only what is so.” And he thought her eyes took on a more sorrowful cast.

“When we came here,” he said, “we hoped to be free to come and go. To explore. But the king is cautious for our sakes.”

“Hmm. Cautious. That is an interesting criticism.”

“I mean no disrespect.”

“But you wish to come and go.”

“Yes. Since we are searching for something.” He hesitated, but she rescued him.

“To thrive.”

He nodded. To thrive, indeed. But the Olagong hid its secrets, and he thought the Dassa hid the Olagong. The Restoration was surveying the region from high altitudes, using a drone. It sent back real-time images of the delta lands.

They'd seen no archeological sites or evidence of buildings. The drone had lingered over the holdings of the Voi in the west, relaying views of a people even more primitive than the Dassa, living in tents and squalor. They used no radio— as did the Dassa—nor electricity. If the Quadi had left a prize on this world, Anton felt sure it was here, in the Olagong.

Pursuing this line, Anton said, “For instance, Lady I have heard of the lands called cloud country. This is a place I would see firsthand.”

“To search in it?” She seemed amused. “But Anton, there are only clouds and dirt paths. If there were Quadi secrets there, would not many generations of Dassa have found them?”

Nick said the region was a site of pilgrimage. Not sacred, in the Dassa's secular culture, but treasured, like the delta system. Like the variums. The custom was to go to cloud country for walking meditation. Nick thought this might be a vestigial practice with roots in a Quadi custom.

“Sometimes,” Anton said, “a new set of eyes sees new things.”

This brought a laugh. “Oh, Captain, I will have to remember such a saying.” She rose. “Let us explore, then.” She gestured to the ladder. “I will present my viewing room.”

A servant appeared at some signal he'd missed, and ascended the ladder first, fastening back a trapdoor in the ceiling. At Joon's gesture, he followed the hoda, climbing up with Joon behind him.

He stepped onto a covered roof deck, bright in the vanishing rains, with the clouds grown thin as a fishing net.

The air sparkled with a faint mist, and stabs of sunshine gilded the wet timbers and eaves of the surrounding pavilion, brightening them from muddy brown to rosy tan.

They were high above the Puldar River, higher than any of the other rooms and levels, except for the king's pavilion, across the inlet. He stepped to the unfenced edge and looked out over a land suddenly filled with a gloaming light. The river appeared through tatters in the mist, like an unrolled bolt of silver brocade.

Joon spoke from close behind him. “It is beautiful?”

Anton turned to her. “Yes.”

Her dark skin lent strength to the beauty of her face, and her half-circle earrings looked more like cutting blades than baubles. He knew that Joon was destined to be queen one day; then she would lead the army. She looked born to do so, as indeed she was.

She glanced past him, pointing at the river.

“There is your Bailey, of course.”

Looking to where Joon pointed, he saw someone paddling alone in a small skiff, the only person in sight with short white hair. Boats parted before her as she headed out into the center of the Puldar. It seemed that Bailey had done what she pleased for so many decades that she took orders as merely suggestions.

“She seeks what you came for,” Joon said. “Your lost pri. That the Quadi left behind.”

“Yes.”

“But what does this pri look like, Captain? We are confused about this.”

“We don't know.”

“Strange to search for something when you don't know what it resembles.”

He smiled at the notion, because, stated that way, it did sound strange. “We do it all the time, in my culture,” he said. They searched for the code. But there was, of course, the question of why, if the information was in coded form, the Quadi hadn't sent it to Earth with their original radio message. Anton thought that the reason was obvious. Who would believe such a thing, unless they had seen such code brought to life, in the hoda?

Joon looked back at the river as Bailey disappeared around a bend. “In my culture, the born to bear are not free to come and go like your Bailey.”

“But the Dassa seem to tolerate old humans better than young ones.”

“Some Dassa.”

“But not the uldia.”

“Do not think, Captain, that the uldia are separate from us. We are woven together, all of us, because of the rivers, the birth waters, and sarif Every Dassa man and woman has two ties, thankfully. One to one's mother, the other to one's uldia of the birth waters. This tie is a birth tie, never broken.”

A knowing came to Anton then. He had been thinking in terms of political factions and rivalries, but it was not so clear-cut. Kinship was the essence of it, and the uldia were, in a sense, kin to each babe they birthed. Nick had missed this; in carping about his restrictions, he'd ignored a thing any Dassa could have told him: Kinship was not just a matter of blood.

He thought, too, that Joon was warning him that Bailey was in danger. That they all were. That it was not just a group of traditionalists who feared outsiders.

She turned away from the edge of the deck, and as he followed her she said, “Oleel is my uldia.”

“I didn't know.”

Joon seated herself on a divan. “Oleel remained hidden on the barge that day because of you, Captain.”

She was warning him. He thought of Bailey paddling blithely down the river, trying to make friends with people who might hide what they felt for the sake of courtesy.

Below the roof deck, the fog evaporated, and the angle of sunshine brought a blinding glare to the river. He and Joon turned away, to find seats under the awnings. Several hoda sat on the edge of the roof, legs dangling over, heedless of the heights, within earshot if Joon needed them. Their shaven heads made them look naked, compared with Joon's luxurious hair. And they were shorn of much else, of course, in the casual cruelty of the Dassa. He saw that the hoda chatted in sign language among themselves, and he let himself eavesdrop a moment, picking up phrases: gossip and mundane things. The Dassa didn't forbid the hoda their hand-signing. Some form of communication smoothed out the tasks of the day. So the taking of tongues was more an emblem of domination than a silencing effort. Indeed, the pervasive hoda silence said submission very well.

Joon, leaning back along the divan, stretched out a hand toward one of the servants, and the hoda hurried to her. The servant began to unfasten Joon's jacket. When it fell away, Joon's shoulders and arms were bare.

“I think, Captain,” Joon said, “that humans are not woven together in the way of the Dassa. You are more separate among yourselves.”

“I had not thought so,” Anton said. Until today.

“We can learn from each other.”

The servant removed Joon's woven reed sandals.

He wondered what it was she meant to teach him.

Ignoring the hoda's ministrations, Joon said, “My father is preoccupied in this season, Anton. He may need reminding that our guests came among us to search. I can remind him.”

The woman did pay attention. She had discerned what he wanted rather faster than her father.

As the hoda retreated to the sidelines, Joon adjusted her position, causing her skirt to move up, revealing her lower legs.

Joon was gradually dispensing with clothes. What the devil was he supposed to do? He managed to say, “If the king would hear you without offense, I would be grateful to you.”

Joon smiled. “I will risk offense.”

“Do not, rahi.”

“He will indulge me.” That seemed the end of the conversation. She seemed so relaxed, and still guileless, looking at him with almost casual interest, as though he were just beginning to bore her. “Will you indulge me, Anton?”

Joon was offering sarif—courteous sex. It was the Dassa way with each other. He hadn't considered until now that it would extend to him and his crew

Slowly, he stood up. He had no idea what to do. Part of his mind wondered what article of clothing was coming off next. Another part wondered what Vidori would make of all this. “Lady” he said. “I can't stay. I'm a guest in your father's palace.”

She didn't move, but kept regarding him with a calm expression. Then, in one graceful motion, she stood up, her feet quickly finding her slippers.

“I am sorry our meeting was not more cordial, Captain.”

“It was a very courteous meeting, Lady. I do thank you.”

“But Captain, it was not.” In a bemused tone of voice, she said: “You have no sarif in your home lands.”

“No. I fear not.”

“Hmm. How do you care for one another, then?”

“In the human way. Similar to you.”

“But different.” She smiled.

He muttered further thanks and somehow managed to excuse himself, descending the ladder with a hoda following him down to show him out.

As he emerged from Joon's quarters, Shim was waiting in the corridor. Her expression quickly decayed into dismay, seeing his face.

“The interview did not go well, Anton?”

He glanced at her as they returned across the bridge.

“I have no bloody idea.” He hoped that his behavior had not seemed terribly rude to Joon, but since sarif was, after all, only casual courtesy, he feared he had just insulted a princess.

Bailey's arms hurt from paddling, but she was pleased that she had the hang of it. She had even learned how to avoid dripping water on herself when she lifted the oar to the other side. The river had fallen a full meter in the last two days, since the rain had stopped, and it made the currents easier to navigate. Along this tributary of the Sodesh, she saw evidence of the land's returning, with hillocks of mud exposed, and bridges emerging between them. The islets, the ancestral farms, separated by streams, tributaries, and rivers. This is what the Dassa meant by braided lands. It was a hauntingly beautiful river world, one that almost brought her to song. Perhaps Puccini… But what was she thinking? Oh, it was a sly thing, that singing, always wanting to slip out. She pushed the song back. Pesky things.

Up ahead she saw the king's terraced pavilion, both lovely and forbidding. It looked taller than ever with more of the building piers showing. Squinting, she saw that someone in military uniform waited for her on the dock nearest the crew hut.

It was Anton, singled out by his black hair. She waved.

He didn't wave back. Oh damn, he was going to be in a mood.

She could justify her little excursion. She'd made friends at one of the compounds, one presided over by a Dassa woman named Samwan. Bailey was eager to convey what she'd learned, what Nick had failed to learn, since Anton had seen fit to keep the crew cooped up in the palace.

Incredibly, the woman had twenty-three children. In the Dassa scheme of things, Samwan was generously supplied by the tithes of men's labor: the produce, game meat, and coin that all fathers owed to all children. Rather than raise up children, some women might choose an occupation— some, indeed, were soldiers—but in this case, they too, tithed to the household compounds. Meticulous records of tithes were kept by the judipon, the men who formed the social service network and accounting system of the Dassa's economy. They came into the compounds bearing allotments of food and supplies, and distributing treats to hordes of children. Less cheerful tasks were to adjudicate disputes between households and to distribute hoda servants as the need presented itself. The third power of the Dassa exer-sized subtle control in the kingdom, apportioning wealth.

Yet the judipon, for all their influence, took a vow of river hands: passing wealth through themselves, keeping little.

It was a fine system, one that Bailey could thank God had never been thought of on Earth. One could never trust people to distribute money fairly, after all, and where was the challenge of beating out the competition if there essentially was none?

Next to the pier, she squinted up at him. ‘Anton, tie this thing, will you?” She threw the rope for him to secure. Keep the man busy for a moment; men like that. The rope slapped onto the dock, then slipped into the water.

Bailey poled off from the pier leggings with her paddle, trying to keep from bumping against it. She pulled the rope back into the boat. “Let's try this again, shall we?”

Anton watched her struggle with the skiff on the choppy current. “I would have thought you knew how to do this by now, Bailey.”

“Usually there's someone helpful on the dock, though.” She cast the line out again, and this time Anton caught it, tying it to a cleat. He reached down to hand her up, giving her a chance to climb up the crossbars on the pier.

He glanced at her hat.

It was a gift. When at Samwan's compound she'd mentioned the need of a hat to keep off the sun, and the mistress's hoda were set to devising a head-covering-with-brim. The first designs were hopeless, but she quite liked this one.

Bailey threw him a smile. “Like it?”

His hand came around her elbow. “Yes, it's smashing.” He led her down the dock. “While you've been out trying on hats,” he said, “the king's been looking for you.”

“Whatever for?”

“Stick around and you'd know more.” She could see that he was enjoying this, keeping her in the dark. Then he turned serious. “It's dangerous for you to be out there, on the river, alone. I'd like your support, Bailey. I'd like everyone's support, so that we're all… paddling in the same direction.”

She pushed her hat more firmly on her head so as not to lose it in the breakneck pace Anton was setting. “Where are we paddling at the moment, Captain? It would entirely help if I had the sense we were in fact going somewhere.”

Anton kept his gaze straight ahead, maneuvering her to the left to ascend a long ramp. “To the plaza,” he said.

“Oh dear, dressed like this?” But where they were headed at the moment was not the question she'd intended to ask, as Anton very well knew.

He said, “Vidori is taking a walk to view his plaza, and we're invited.”

“Well, I saw it this morning, and I can tell you it's nothing but mud.”

“You've been gone all morning or you'd know that about one hundred hoda have been in the square since dawn shoveling mud and washing the flagstones.”

Bailey took advantage of his softening grip by pulling out of his reach and stopping in her tracks. “I've been productive this morning. I've been at Samwan's compound, and I've discovered some very interesting things that Nick, for all his training, has failed to notice.” She had his attention. Those black eyes, so startling in a fair-skinned boy.

“For one thing,” she went on, “the judipon. They have their fingers everywhere—knee-deep in family affairs, advising, cajoling, meeting in committees to decide disputes. They're inveterate busybodies, they know everyone's secrets, and yet the Dassa actually seem to like them. They're only males, by the way, as Nick guessed.” She shrugged. “He gets some things right, Anton, but of course he's limited by the situation.” The situation that Vidori kept them in the pavilion, and Anton complied. Of all the crew, only Bailey was welcomed abroad. Nick said it was out of respect for her age, and that she was beyond bearing years.

“So you don't need to worry about me. They're a peaceful people from what I've seen.” After all, the little incident with that fellow breaking into their sleeping hut hadn't been repeated, had it?

But Anton wouldn't let it go. “We're dealing with a brand-new culture, and you don't have the training, Bailey. I'm afraid you're not being cautious.”

She sighed. “Of course I'm not being cautious, you ninny. Cautious is what's wrong with this expedition. Cautious is why it took me eight years to convince the authorities to even let our ship launch. Cautious is what's keeping us cooped up in this house of cards. No, I'm not cautious. Nor should you be, Anton Prados. How does it look to the Dassa that an old woman's the only one with the guts to go paddling on the river?”

She backed up a half-step at the look on his face. Oh dear, she might have gone too far. She lifted her chin to brazen it out.

His voice came more gently than she expected. “We will go on the river. Soon.”

They stared at each other, neither one giving in. She hadn't quite seen this stubborn side of Anton before, back an eternity ago when she made her impulsive choice for captain. But it was her choice, for better or worse.

“I'm trying to befriend him, Bailey.”

Vidori. The old fox who was playing political games, no doubt.

“We depend on his support right now, and thank God we're getting it. But he has to pick his way cautiously among factions whose customs tell them people like us are despicable. When I have his confidence, I will leave this pavilion, with his blessing. Not without it. That is my plan. It's proceeding faster than you may imagine, something you can't know, since you're seldom here.”

Bailey drew herself tall. She wasn't accustomed to back talk from a twenty-four-year-old, captain or not. “Well, then.” She took off her hat and patted her hair. “In that case, we'd better not keep his majesty waiting.”

The plaza was still full of mud, but hoda continued their labor of shoveling and bearing out pallets of muck. The king sloshed through the mud undeterred, ruining a fine pair of brocaded boots. The sun had cooked up the mud into a stew of rotting fish and jungle muck, creating a smell strong enough to singe nose hairs.

Out in the open square Bailey's hat drew a stare from Shim. Skin cancer, Bailey wanted to say, not that she knew how to say it in Dassa. Wrinkles.

From tiers of porches around the plaza, Dassa gathered to watch the king's retinue, all two dozen of them, including guards, the noble viven, the chancellors, and Anton, Nick, and herself. Zhen wasn't invited, and would have hated wasting the time, anyway. She was preoccupied, setting up a huge amount of equipment in the crew huts.

King Vidori was striking in his black and gray silk tunic and leggings. He had been most cordial to Bailey, complimenting her on her head-covering-with-brim. He spoke slowly, out of consideration for the language difficulties. Then he strolled farther into the plaza, nodding to viven on the high porches and conversing with Shim. The retinue walked behind, stopping when he stopped, proceeding at his whim.

She had to admit that the man was a formidable presence. Such people needed careful handling, as Anton was attempting to provide, of course. But she'd met heads of state and singers who considered themselves divas, and she knew how to accord respect in public and then do exactly as she wished in private. It required a delicate mixture of manners and villainy, something every starship captain certainly needed to master.

The retinue had stopped.

Two new people were standing in the center of the plaza. One woman, dressed in palace finery, stood next to another woman with hair flowing down her back—the first time Bailey had seen a Dassa woman's hair unbound. The sun lit copper threads in her hair, causing her shoulders and back to shimmer. As Bailey watched them, she saw that the long-haired woman was very young, a teenager. A terrified one.

An old man—a member of the judipon by his simple attire—joined the two, carrying a wire basket.

Vidori's procession now fanned out on either side of him, so that the group of three were in clear view of Bailey.

“Any clue?” Bailey asked Anton.

He shook his head.

The judipon official lifted the basket high and pulled it down over the girl's head. For a moment he obscured Bailey's view of the girl. When he stepped away, an assemblage in front of the basket had been inserted deep into the girl's mouth.

Bailey hoped that she wasn't going to witness what it seemed clear that she was.

Anton strode up to Shim, pulling her sleeve, and Bailey followed him. “Don't interfere,” Bailey hissed at him.

Shim moved back from the king's side and spoke to Anton, saying something.

Bailey heard him say, “… do something.”

In front, the king had moved forward to place something in the hands of the noblewoman, her face as placid as fired pottery. The woman then helped the girl to kneel. Something in the way she did so led Bailey to believe that she wished to be gentle with her.

Shim whispered to Anton, “The king pays the mother for her loss.” She made a small smile. “It is a generous sum.”

Anton made to push past Shim to reach Vidori, but Bailey surprised herself with how fast she latched onto his arm. “Don't be stupid, Anton. This is their custom. Don't be stupid.”

Pulling away from her, he walked over to Vidori. He bent in toward the king, talking rapidly, and the king nodded, smiling. He wasn't listening, his attention focused on the basket. The girl was to be clipped, as they called it. Having reached adolescence, she had been revealed by her menses as born to bear. A hoda. A slave, from this time forward.

It was terrible, no doubt. But, after all, this was Dassa culture; you couldn't go barging in, imposing your own values. Anton was having words with the king, the young fool—and doing so publicly … It was so hot standing on the stone plaza. Sweat collected under her hatband, and her face seemed washed with a scrim of fire. The scene grew wobbly before her: young girl, wire basket, terror in the eyes. The judipon official raised his hand toward the device on the girl's head.

The girl's too young, Bailey thought, irrelevantly.

In the next moment, the old man slammed his fist down on a protruding flange—a little blade embedded in the cage. Bailey felt her own tongue convulse, her eyes flinching from the basket. For a moment the girl stood immobile as blood sluiced out of the wire mesh. Then she crumpled, pitching forward into the mud. The noblewoman watched her fall. It was the mother, Shim had said. Then the woman turned and left, payment in hand.

Bailey took off her hat, waving it in front of her face, but she was just stirring the hot air and it didn't help. She looked at the old man who had done the clipping. If you figure out a penance, she thought, let me know.

Meanwhile, the judipon was tending to the girl, removing the hood, inserting a pad to absorb the bleeding, wiping the mud from her face. It was almost tender, how he cleansed the face of this girl he had just mutilated. The girl moaned, and he made shushing sounds, as though consoling a child.

Anton was at Bailey's side again, still looking at the girl, who was stirring on the ground, a strange noise coming from her throat, like a moan she tried to conceal. “Such a peaceful people,” Anton muttered.

Nick had joined them. “God,” he said, “they cut off her tongue.”

“I couldn't stop him,” Anton said. “He wouldn't listen.”

Shim approached them. “The king will resume his walk,” she reported cheerfully.

“We are unable to accompany him,” Anton said.

At Shim's confused look, Bailey hastened to add, “The sun,” wiping her brow. ‘Anton will help me into the shade.”

Several hoda were now assisting the injured girl to stand. Her sandals made two tracks in the mud as they half dragged her from the plaza. Left behind was the judipon, who stood holding the wire basket as though he were on his way to market.

To Shim, Anton said, “By your pardon, we will return to our quarters.” He took Bailey's arm.

“Because of the heat,” Bailey said, trying, still, to teach Anton a bit of diplomacy.

“Because of the blood,” Anton said, and led her away, accompanied by Nick.

Oh, he was so young, not to understand that sometimes blood was the way of the world. Sometimes blood happened. And in those cases, you must make the best of it, because the world was not—would never be—a nice, safe place. It was because of these things that penance was so very necessary.

The king had turned to watch them leave.

Shim was left standing there to decide what to tell Vidori, whether it was the sun or the blood that drove them from the plaza.

“Lower your voices,” Anton said. They'd just got back from the plaza, and now contained their conversation until they pulled the screen door shut.

Nick paced in the confines of their largest room, while Zhen continued her work in the corner, painstaking analyses of everything she could get her hands on, using her limited liquid spectroscopy tools. Thus engaged, she was only marginally watching the uproar. Bailey sat on the floor cross-legged, tucking frayed reed ends into her hat.

“Did you see the mother?” Nick said.

Yes, Anton remembered her face, cool as porcelain. More, he remembered the girl's face, locked in the terrible bridle, her eyes darting like trapped birds. And he could do nothing for her; the king had hardly listened to his protest.

Nick went on, “The woman took Vidori's money, and never batted an eye.”

“What was she going to do in front of the king?” Anton asked. Sweat trickled down his face. He could open a wall to the river breeze, but there was no breeze, only the westering sun blasting directly against one wall of their hut.

“She might have asked for mercy,” Nick said.

Bailey looked up from the floor. ‘Adolescent hodas don't get mercy.”

“Did you see how she bled?” Nick shook his head as though he would fling the memory away. “And that— hood.” Nick stopped his pacing, looking at Anton. “Did Vidori invite us so we could watch the bloodletting?”

Anton shook his head. “I think he just happened to be there.” But now he was making excuses. He could see that Nick thought so, too. The king's standing there dispensing coins was almost more chilling than it would have been had Vidori done the deed himself. It was the custom to be cruel. Anton had seen such brutality before, in his own family. An image of his father came to mind. Now he struggled to reconcile two images of Vidori: the one who told folktales of plumed birds and wondered about Earth, and the one who could watch a young girl be mutilated.

Nick wiped his glossy forehead with his sleeve. “I thought maybe he wanted to intimidate us. Impress us with his power.”

Bailey didn't look up from her task. “He doesn't need to impress us. Who do you think is in charge of this world?”

Nick frowned. “There are more powers here than the king, as I've said from the beginning.”

Bailey sighed. “Yes, there's the judipon. Lovely folks, too.”

“So much for the theory that they're just social workers,” Anton said.

“They are social workers. It's just that they clip tongues, too.”

This was too much for Nick, who stopped pacing long enough to stare at her. “You act like it's part of a job description.”

Bailey narrowed her eyes at him. “It is. The judipon job description. I'm not condoning, just describing.” She yanked at a thread. “They used to euthanize hoda, long ago. Slavery's an improvement. They have this horror of a hoda passing for regular Dassa, so they want to make sure they're branded as such.”

Nick snapped: “We all know the history, Bailey But seeing it …”

Anton leaned against the support beam anchoring one of the hut corners. In the last violent hours of the sun, the room took the full brunt of heat. He thought night would help to soothe all their nerves, if it would ever come. Fetid odors rose from the hut stilts where jungle greens clung, rotting one moment, baking the next. It smelled like tropical Earth, felt like it. But this was the Olagong, as they had to keep reminding themselves.

Zhen looked up from her tronic screen. “Given how they do the clipping, I'm surprised more hoda don't die of infection.”

“Maybe they do die,” Nick muttered. “Don't assume they value the same things we do. For God's sake, sexual encounters are as common as hellos. Mothers sleep with their sons, and the sons with their sisters. You can throw kinship charts out the window. When you come right down to it, what do we really know about these people?” He turned to face the bright western wall, staring at it like a blind man. “Not bloody much.”

Zhen's voice came like the buzz of a gnat. “Who's supposed to be investigating that side of things?”

Nick turned slowly to face her, his jaw muscle quivering. “That judipon clipped the wrong tongue.”

Zhen made a face and continued fiddling with slides. It left Nick's comment hanging heavy in the air, all the more ugly for going unanswered.

“Ease up, Nick,” Anton said.

But Nick wasn't finished. “Permission to speak openly, Captain?”

Getting a nod, he said, “This place is twisting with factions. Let's try pulling on a different strand. We've seen what the male power structure is; let's delve into the other side of things, the uldia. Let me do it. Don't tie my hands.”

Anton saw the sense of it, and the sense against it.

Nick continued, “Don't ask Vidori. Just do it. Face the music later, if he's unhappy. Act ignorant.” He added, “Sir.”

“It's not just a matter of the uldia,” Anton said. “It's the whole issue of free access and exploration. We might win one interview, but lose the larger prize.”

“But the prize is sinking away,” Nick said. He gestured to the river outside the wall, his eyes lit by the setting sun. “Draining from us like the damn brown river out there. If we had the time to bring Vidori around, fine, but there isn't time. Let me act, Captain. Let me for God's sake do something.”

“I'm not sure it'll be you who interviews the uldia, Lieutenant.” He realized it was time to remind Nick that this wasn't a foregone conclusion. “There's plenty of investigation that can be done within the palace. The king hasn't set any limits on you here.”

Nick swallowed, and the effort made it look like he had a gecko stuck in his throat. ‘Are you saying I'm not doing my job, Captain?”

“Everyone's doing their job,” Anton said. “I'm just not assigning new ones.”

“Keeping them for yourself, right?” The room grew silent as the two men faced each other.

Anton said, “My prerogative.” He held Nick's gaze. “Captain's prerogative.”

It had to be said. Nick was either a subordinate, or he was not. And that thought chilled him, because they were a long way from a higher authority. Nick had been a friend, and a good officer. He hoped he still was, at least the latter.

Finally Nick whispered, “Yes, sir.”

Bailey stood, unbending herself in two stiff motions. “Well, if we're done with the pissing contest, I suggest dinner.” Anton marveled at her resilience, that she could be hungry. The westering sun brought a fetid odor to the hut, spiked now and then by strong floral nectars from plants along the river.

Bailey caught Nick's eye. “So do we have to speak with hand sign at dinner tonight?” Nick knew the patois better than any of them so far.

“How else are we going to practice?” he asked.

She put on a bright smile. “Flash cards?”

But Nick was not going to be jollied along. “We have to learn the hoda language. They're an information source. They're human beings, for God's sake.”

The radio hissed. An incoming call. Zhen moved to tune the frequency.

The radio hail came. Sergeant Webb reporting. Come in, Camp Shaw.

Zhen responded, “Got you, Sergeant. Stand by.” She looked at Anton.

Anton spoke into the headset. “Captain Prados here, Sergeant.”

The sergeant's voice sputtered into the hut: We've got a bit of trouble, Captain. It's Commander Strahan. He's relieved himself from duty. There was a pause. Anton guessed why, but waited, bracing for the news. He's sick, Captain.

Sick. The word struck like a gong. It always did. “Go on, Sergeant. What's it look like?”

It's a mutated strain, the medics are saying, sir. Two crew are down. It hits fast. Maybe there'll just be these two. But the thing is… As he paused, everyone in the hut was immobile, listening. The thing is, it's already immune to the antiviral the med team designed this morning. It's like it was waiting for the vaccine; like it already knew.

“Sergeant, what do the medics say?”

That's what they said. I'm telling you what they said. They ‘re calling it a directed recombination. That means that instead of a random mutation, the virus chose the genetic segments that would get it past the vaccine we introduced. Sorry, sir. It's got us spooked, is all.

“How is Lieutenant Strahan? How bad is it?”

He's weak, sir. Like I said, it's fast. We've got him isolated, but that doesn't mean much up here. We're considering that it's an airborne virus. If it is, we're all exposed already. I'm acting on his behalf. With your permission.

“Permission granted, Sergeant.” He looked around the room at Bailey, Zhen, and Nick, each absorbing the news.

As bad as the news was, it raised a further issue: that the four of them on ground mission might be reservoirs for the disease, exposing the Dassa. Anton closed his eyes, seeing visions of an epidemic among a population with no prior exposure.

“What are the first symptoms, Sergeant?”

Headache, fever. Strahan's temperature is one-oh-five. The thing is, our people are having trouble pinning down the virus. The rate of mutation is so high. They're talking about a nasty pool of genetic concoctions. Any one form might dominate at any particular time.

Zhen was nodding. Out of all of them listening to the transmission, she was the one to whom some of this made sense.

There was static for a few moments. Then Webb said, People are afraid, Captain. We thought we had this licked. We don't.

“I'm sorry I'm not there to help you,” Anton murmured.

We don't want you here. We're infected, for God's sake … Sorry sir. Tempers are a little frayed tonight.

“Keep me posted, then, Sergeant.” Keep them loyal, he wanted to say. Anton hoped Webb had it in him. He was a good man, middle-aged, a lifer in the service. He was also a long associate of Captain Darrow, and would have gone to the wall for him. But loyalties, Anton knew, didn't mutate as fast as microbes.

He put Zhen on the comm. She talked directly to the medical staff, and by her expression, learning more did not improve her mood.

Anton turned to his groundside crew They all looked sober. The Restoration was now under the command of a sergeant. The virus was back, or one of its cousins. More virulent than before, more canny than before. Anton didn't want to think that the virus ravaging the ship wasn't done with them yet. But maybe it wouldn't be satisfied until it was the only living thing left on board. He stared at the floor. He and Phillip Strahan had played cards, been rac-quetball partners on board, been friends. They were all friends—all forty of them who set out on the mission, all thirty who remained. As Anton looked at the faces of the ground team, he felt a terrible helplessness. As captain, his job was to protect them. Not doingmyjob, he thought.

When Zhen joined them again, they considered their situation among the Dassa. Zhen looked bleak. “We could be exposing the Dassa,” she said bluntly.

Bailey snapped, “We've been over this before. We're all showing negative for antibodies.”

“The tests are meaningless,” Zhen said, “if the virus is hiding in a reservoir in the body or if it takes several weeks—which it could—for antibodies to develop.”

Bailey sniffed. “We waited a decent interval to come down. We've done what we can. We're not even sure the Dassa are vulnerable to human diseases.”

Anton saw the look on her face, the one that said, It's already been decided. “Zhen,” Anton said, “we'll begin testing on a daily schedule.”

Nick jumped in, asking, “What's this business about the virus being smart?”

“Nothing ludicrous, Venning.” Zhen smirked. “Did you think viruses had little meetings to decide how to be nasty?” When he didn't rise to the bait, she went on, “We've seen this kind of thing before, back home. It's like the virus has its basic genetic material, kind of like a computer's data cube. Sometimes, a virus emerges that can scan the cube, turning off and on various genetic programs and databases. Or they can snatch information off of plasmids and transposons drifting by that carry bits of genetic data and programming. They turn stuff on and try it, and then try something else. It's faster than random mutations from reproduction.” She shook her head at Nick, at the expression of bafflement on his face. “If this stuff was simple, would Earth be dying? Think about it, Venning.”

He turned away. They had all grown silent.

Bailey stood in the center of the room. “I suggest we go easy on each other.” She eyed Zhen and Nick. “A 11 of us. We need to hold together, and bickering doesn't help. Carry on, Captain,” she added. “I'm with you, of course.”

It was a good speech, and Anton thanked her as the group dispersed, each member looking for time alone with his or her thoughts.

Anton judged that the sun was about to give up for the day and he raised the blind, then ducked out for fresher air.

Nick stood behind him. “Captain, I'm sorry.”

Anton turned to face him. “Forget it, Nick. I think we're going to need each other, more than ever. Can we put the past behind us?”

There was a lot of past involved. He wondered, if he was in Nick's place, how hard it would be to watch Nick take command and make judgments he would not make.

Nick nodded, making eye contact fleetingly but making it. “Yes, sir.”

It was the right thing to say. Anton didn't ask for enthusiasm, though it would have been nice. He just needed the Yes, sir. That was how the military operated. Friendship had to fill in the spaces. Or not.

Left alone, Anton stared out at the burnished red of the river, dyed by the sunset. A thought that had been nagging at him now came into focus. If Webb hadn't initiated contact this evening, Anton would have. Because there was a task left uncompleted.

Back in communication with the ship, Anton asked Webb to bring in another satellite for inspection. There were four satellites, and so far the crew had taken apart just one. Duplicate satellites could have been used to assure that over thousands of years the broadcasting function would remain despite meteorite damage or system failure. Quite possibly all the units were the same, but Anton wanted to be sure.

Webb resisted the order. Crew were taxed too far as it was, he said, and there was no time or resources for extras. Eventually, under a direct order, he agreed, but Anton had not helped his relationship with the man.

It was time, though, to call in favors, to play his strongest cards. If the science team was under stress now, what would things be like if the contagion spread? He didn't want to think it, but it was conceivable that the ship and its crew might not have much time left.

Worst case, they had no time left at all.