The Terrorists of Irustan (7 page)

Idora’s two daughters waved back, crying noisy protests of keeping all the sweets to themselves. When Idora turned back to the circle, Kalen was struggling for control. Camilla held her hand tightly, and soft-hearted, tiny Laila said over and over, “Surely not, Kalen. Surely Gadil wouldn’t do that! So soon!”

Kalen took a shuddering breath and looked down at her freckled hand in Camilla’s. When she looked up, her eyes had gone hard as blue pebbles beneath her damp red lashes. She said bitterly, “Samir wouldn’t do it, Laila. Your sons will have their childhood, for which you can give thanks to the Maker. But Gadil is in a great hurry to strut at Rabi’s cession!”

The friends stared at each other. Tears slipped down Laila’s cheeks, but Kalen was a block of stone, her face flushing and then blanching, pale as one of the cells waiting on the hill.

“It’s not just her age, either,” Kalen whispered bitterly.

“What, then?” Idora asked. “What is it?”

Kalen looked around the circle at her old friends, her cheeks burning. “He wants to cede her to Binya Maris.”

A muffled gasp from Laila was the only sound made by any of the circle. Zahra released Kalen’s hand. Tension made her shoulders flare with pain, and anger burned her throat.

Only Idora looked around, brows lifted high. “Who? Who’s Binya Maris?” Camilla reached for Kalen’s other hand. “I can’t believe you haven’t heard, Idora,” she whispered. “Binya Maris is Delta Team leader. We’ve all heard of him, because . . . because . . .” Gentle Camilla couldn’t bring herself to say it.

Zahra, angry as she was, was taken aback by the fury in Kalen’s face. Her thin lips twisted, and the tendons of her neck stood out. Zahra felt some alarm at her appearance, and took hold of her hand again quickly, trying to gauge her pulse as unobtrusively as possible.

“I’ll say it,” Kalen snapped. “Because two of his wives have died, that’s why. Because the men, Maker curse them, won’t talk about it, but all the women whisper of it.”

“Died how?” Camilla exclaimed. Again the girls at the side of the room were quiet, and Idora waved to them, trying to put a casual face on their discussion.

“We don’t know that, do we?” Kalen said in an ugly voice. “Because no one who knows will speak of it, and no one can find out without talking to their medicant—or their undertaker!”

“By the Prophet!” Camilla moaned. “How could—how could Gadil, even Gadil, put any young girl into such a situation, let alone his own—”

She broke off abruptly. Zahra looked around quickly and found Rabi, her face as pale as her mother’s, standing near them. Rabi looked at her mother’s tears, at Camilla holding Kalen’s hand, and at the white faces of the whole circle. She gasped, and said, “It’s about me, isn’t it? It’s about me!" She burst into hysterical tears.

The anahs, the other girls, and all of the circle except Zahra were immediately sobbing together. Refreshments and games ignored, they hugged each other and cried. Zahra stood stiffly, watching the scene in horror, her arms wrapped tightly about herself. In a few moments she became aware that Ishi, also dry-eyed, was standing as close to her as humanly possible, her shoulder under Zahra’s elbow, her head pressed against her forearm. Zahra put her arm around her and pulled her close, stroking her cheeks with her other hand.

Zahra looked from one to the other of her friends, their children. How easily the bright day had turned dark. Doma Day, circle day. They looked forward to it, planned for it. There was so little they had that was theirs alone. Useless, futile, familiar anger surged through Zahra’s body. She itched for action, something, anything. Her friend Kalen was drowning in pain, and not one of them, not one of their circle of five, had any power to save her.

seven

*   *   *

Brothers, bear your burdens with a willing heart; lighten the darkness of the mines with the hope of love and home awaiting you. This is your reward for dutiful service to the One.

—Second Homily,
The Book of the Second Prophet

Z
ahra had
been fourteen when the first of her circle of friends was ceded. Nura’s husband was a minor official in Road Maintenance, and every Doma Day Nura and Zahra went to the homes of other such men, to visit with their wives and daughters. There were fifteen or sixteen families of their acquaintance, and the women and girls crowded into dayrooms much smaller than Kalen’s, happy to be together, delighted to be free for the day. They filled their hostesses’ modest homes to the brim with laughter and talk and the playful shrieking of children.

Nura was usually tired on those occasions. Her clinic list was a long one, farmers and laborers in addition to middle-class families from the Medah. She would lean her head back against her chair and watch the parties, sometimes even dozing. Zahra frequently left the chattering group of her friends to go to Nura, to be sure she had anything she might want, or if she slept, to slip a cushion beneath her neck or her feet.

Zahra and Kalen met when they were little girls, when Zahra was first apprenticed. They grew tall together, the two of them long-limbed and thin, towering awkwardly over their smaller companions. They would huddle together, bright red curls springing free of Kalen’s cap, heavy dark hair spilling out beneath Zahra’s drape. They spent countless Doma Days planning great adventures, vaguely hoping for the freedom to pursue them.

Zahra was brash in her confidence about the future. Was she not ceded to Nura, who loved her? No one, she declared, would tell her what to do with her life except Nura!

Kalen had no grounds on which to make such a claim, but she would exclaim fiercely, “1 will not marry! 1 will not!” and pound her fist on the tiled floor. At some level, they both knew the decision would not be hers, but with youthful optimism, they postponed understanding it.

Their round-faced friend Idora looked forward to her marriage with enthusiasm. She spoke endlessly about who would sew her wedding veil, how she would behave at her cession, and how large a house her husband would have, with how many servants. She promised that at her house they would eat the best fish and olives and citrus fruits, and trays and trays of sweet cakes.

Tiny Laila spoke of nothing but babies. Her toys were all dolls of various sizes and shapes. When the married women brought infants to their gatherings, Laila spent all the day holding them, cuddling them, sometimes sitting still for hours as one slept against her narrow chest, its round head warm and perspiring on the silk of her veil.

Those happy times were the stitches that sewed the long years of childhood together. The space between Doma Days seemed endless, the day itself short and vivid. From the time she was eight, when she put on the veil and went to live with Nura and her elderly husband Isak Issim, Zahra’s life was a blend of study, clinic experience, and close conversation or frantic play with Kalen, Idora, Laila, and shy Camilla. She imagined sometimes that her girlhood would go on forever, especially because, at fourteen, she had not yet begun her menses. She thought of herself as a child still, devoted to Nura, with Nura and Nura’s anah returning her affection. The days of her own career as a medicant seemed as far away as Irustan’s star.

Isak Issim was no more than a shadow in the background, a dry presence at dinner that meant she must wear her cap and drape, an occasional voice calling Nura away from their work together. Zahra could not remember him ever coming to the clinic, nor to Nura’s bedroom. Zahra gave him no thought for all the years of her apprenticeship. Not until the end, when she learned just how much power he had.

It was quiet Camilla who was first ceded in marriage. Her husband was Leman Bezay, newly promoted to be director of City Power. He was forty-six. Camilla, like Zahra, was fourteen. Camilla’s mother swelled with pride at the exalted match of her daughter with a director. Camilla herself, in Nura’s office for her cession exam, was weak with fear.Zahra had often assisted Nura in the examination of a young girl about to be married, but Camilla was the first she had known well. The others had been distant from her, strange, incomprehensibly marked by their fate. When Camilla came, Zahra could hardly meet her eyes. There was something awesome, something final about what was happening. There was an element of humiliation, an odd shame that Camilla should have so little control over what was to happen to her.

Zahra received Camilla and her mother and an aged uncle in the dispensary. She ushered her friend into the surgery, gaze averted. Both girls unbuttoned their rills when they were alone in the surgery, but there was none of their usual easy chatter. In silence, Zahra helped Camilla to sit on the exam bed. She picked up her portable and it prompted her with questions. She stood close to Camilla, but she stared at the screen.

“Age?” she asked. Her voice cracked and she flushed beneath her veil.

“Fourteen,” Camilla whispered in return. Zahra knew that already, of course, but she could hardly think. It was so soon, too soon for her friend to be crossing this line that separated the girl from the woman! Zahra’s heart beat fast and her mouth was dry. She knew of nothing to do but follow the form, adhere to procedure. It was a ritual in itself, this questioning.

“Menses at what age?”

Camillas eyes flashed up to hers, then away. “Twelve,” she said.

Zahra caught her breath. Twelve. This could have happened even sooner.

“And your genetic history?" Zahra was following the form to the letter, and they both knew it. It made everything easier, somehow. At this moment, Zahra was distanced from Camilla by the formality, the routine performance of her duty. She knew perfectly well Camilla had a clean genetic background. The whole file on her family was right there in the computer. They were all on Nura’s list, and Nura had even helped Camilla into the world—such a short, very short, time ago.

“No problems that I know of,” Camilla answered.

Their eyes met briefly then, Camilla’s gray ones wide and anxious. They were lovely eyes. They darkened and lightened with her moods. Only her friends knew the flashes of vivacity that sometimes made them sparkle with light like that of the little sprinkle of Irustan’s moons. Her skin was clear and white, her brown hair as fine as a baby’s. She wasn’t pretty, but better than pretty, they had always assured her, Zahra and Kalen and Idora and Laila. Her waist was small, her early-budding breasts rounded. Her fingers were long and fine. Zahra remembered saying to her once that she was one of those girls who would one day be a beautiful woman, graceful and soft, her narrow face filling out to match the arching nose that Camilla the adolescent deplored.

“Oh, Camilla,” Zahra murmured, her fingers poised unmoving above the glowing screen of the portable. “I will miss you so.”

Camilla’s eyes filled with tears and she hung her head. “I’m so scared, Zahra,” she said. “What—I don’t know how . . .” She shook her head, words failing.

Zahra gripped her friend’s hand. “Nura will tell you,” she murmured quickly. “I’ve heard her do it before. She’ll tell you what to do! Just ask her.”

Nura came in then, her wrinkled face stern but her hands gentle as she clasped Camilla’s shoulders. “Now, don’t cry,” she said. Zahra knew Nura, knew the compassion in the controlled monotone of her voice. She hoped Camilla could hear it.

Nura plumped the pillow and Camilla lay back with her head on it. Her eyes closed, and only one small tear escaped her. Zahra ran the scanner over her, watching the monitor with Nura. Camilla was perfectly healthy, every reading on the monitor within normal limits. The smallest syrinx of the medicator applied to her forefinger gave them a blood test which confirmed that there were no chromosomal shifts. Another tested her hormone levels, to assure that she was in fact menarchic.

Zahra held up her portable to Nura. “What about this one?”

For answer, Nura pointed to one of the frames on the monitor. “There,” she said softly. “That tells you the hymen is intact.” Zahra tapped in the answer.

Nura turned back to the girl on the bed. “Your babies should be perfectly healthy, Camilla,” she said evenly.

Zahra bit her lip. She couldn’t help wishing that there might actually be something wrong, something that would forestall this cataclysm of change. But of course there wasn’t. There was nothing she could input to the official form that would cause Leman Bezay to reject Camilla as his bride.

The last time the girls had all been together, Zahra and Kalen had played a riotous game of team touch against Camilla and Idora and Laila. Like rowdy children, they had raced up and down staircases, in and out of closets, hid in bathtubs and under beds. But next Doma Day, if Camilla’s husband allowed her to come, she would sit with the married women, sit still all day talking and sipping coffee. Zahra knew that none of them would feel like playing touch on that day, or maybe ever again.

Nura lifted Camilla to a sitting position and drew up a chair beside theexamining bed. Her expression didn’t change, but she placed her wrinkled hand on the girl’s smooth white one. “Now, Camilla, is there anything you want to know?”

Camillas eyes dropped to her lap, and she shook her head.

“Are you sure?” Nura pressed her. “This is the time. I’m your medicant, as well as . . There was a little pause, and Nura allowed the timbre of her voice to change, ever so slightly. “As well as your friend, little sister,” she said. “Have you and your mother talked?”

Camilla nodded, her lips trembling against each other.

“Perhaps, just the same,” Nura began, “I should describe to you what it might be like. ...”

Camilla interrupted her. “No, no! I already know—1 don’t want to talk about it!” She threw up her hands, looking as if she were about to cover her ears, but then she put her arms about herself instead, very tightly. Again she shook her head.

Nura sighed, one small ragged breath. Zahra stared at her. For Nura, these few signs were practically an emotional outburst. But the medicant only said, “Well. We’re all done, then, Camilla.” She held the girl’s arm as she climbed down from the exam bed. Rills were refastened, and then, all of them properly veiled, Nura led the way back to the dispensary where Camilla’s mother and her escort waited.

“Everything is in order,” Nura said to Camilla's mother. She took the portable from Zahra’s hand and inserted it into the desk unit. “Camilla’s report has been submitted to the registry. If Director Bezay has questions, he can ask them there.” Nura’s escort repeated these words to the uncle, who nodded stiffly.

Camilla’s mother embraced her daughter. “Oh, my dear, I’m so proud of you! That’s wonderful. Thank you, Medicant, thank you, Zahra. It’s wonderful, just marvelous.” She bustled out, drawing Camilla behind her. The uncle followed them out and ushered them into the hired car.

Zahra went to the door. She stood just beyond the shaft of hot light glaring against the tiles, and watched the car bear her friend away. She would not see Camilla again until she saw her through the white silk of her wedding veil. Hot tears burned her eyes. She wanted to call her back, call Camilla back to her, back to their childhood. It was so relentless, this change, so disregarding of their youth, their innocence, their helplessness.

She felt the tears spill from her eyes, and she stamped her foot. What’s the point of tears? she demanded of herself. They’re useless, childish. And I will not be helpless!

She set her jaw, and she made a silent vow. No more, she promised herself as she blinked the betraying tears away. I will shed no more tears.

That night, studying as always, Zahra began her secret search, her pursuit of a remedy. She was determined that if the day came that she must be ceded to some man, she, like Camilla, would also pass her exam without difficulty. But she, unlike her friend, would prepare for her marriage with all the knowledge and intelligence at her disposal. Nothing must be detectable, nothing the monitor could read. She would find the way. She had time alone in the surgery often enough. She would do it herself. Over her own body, at least, she would have some control.

*   *   *

Zahra remembered that night with great clarity, despite the intervening twenty years. She had been a young girl making a momentous decision, implementing it in secret. She had never regretted it.

Now, seated in the car beside Qadir as Diya drove them through the city, she mused in the privacy of her heavy veil. It was black today, as was her dress, carefully chosen by Lili to protect Zahra from the invasive glances of a thousand men. Never mind, thought Zahra, that any number of those men were on her patient list, having their exams and medicator treatments in her own surgery She could care for their bodies, but they mustn’t be allowed to look on her face. Qadir’s honor might be slighted, and they could be diverted from their sacred duty!

From time to time Qadir took advantage of the fact that his wife was a medicant to emphasize to the miners their need for frequent inhalation therapy. This afternoon they were to visit the eastern arm of the mines, where Omikron Team waited to be addressed by the chief director.

“It’s been a long time since any cases of leptokis disease have appeared,” Qadir had said the evening before. “These men are young, they think they’re invincible—they get careless.”

“And they fear the medicant’s surgery,” Zahra murmured.

Qadir smiled at her and patted her hand. “That’s why your help is so invaluable, my dear,” he told her. “It’s generous of you. No other director has this advantage. I could hardly take another man’s wife with me to speak to the teams, could I?”

Zahra did not say so, but she looked forward to these rare expeditions. The mines stretched in every direction away from the city like the outflung arms of a many-limbed beast. She treasured the opportunity to travel beyond the city, to see the great rolling reaches of the desert, inhabited only by puffers and fithi and a few scrawny, far-flying birds. Even the mines intrigued her. As Qadir helped her from the car she peered through her veil at the adit, neatly shored with curving walls of cement, that led straight into the rocky hill. She couldn’t see the crosscut tunnels, the raises that connected the deepest of them, the stopes where the raw rhodium was broken and mined, but she knew they were there. Fluorescent lights flickered vainly in the afternoon glare, but deep in the mines they were essential. A huge fan system labored above the adit, pumping in fresh air, pumping dangerous gases out. In the early years, the ESC had believed the fan ventilation would be enough.