Merkhiz SIF 4
Matuko SIF 6
(Saba)
Lopka SIF 13
Merkhiz and Matuko were cities of the Empire; saba meant “he knows.”
The rocket was descending. She folded the paper and put it in her pocket. Below, through the little window like a gun-slot in the wall, she saw the crumpled surface of the Great Asian Lake. Alm’ata was the Earth’s primary surface harbor; the long narrow dome, open at both ends, enclosed half the water. Her seat faced the back. She twisted around to watch the approach. The floor thumped under her feet. The secondary engines had come on. The jet skimmed over the surface of the lake. Scum rolled in patches on the water. Greenish threads of pollution trailed by the window. The flared round tunnel of the dome swept up around them. Abruptly the air was clear, the water sparkled and broke in white curls of foam. The rocket circled once and set down on the spiral runway.
Bunker was not at the terminal to meet her. She seethed all the way down the ramp. Outside, she put down her bag and put on her jacket. The air was icy cold. She walked across the city park, asking directions here and there. Little children in brilliant orange coats raced in a game under the bare trees. She came to the Lenin Hotel, an old-fashioned above-ground building in an orchard of fruit trees leafless in the winter cold.
When she let herself into the hotel room, Bunker was lying naked on his back on the couch under the vitamin lamp, a tape plug in his ear, wet balls of cotton on his eyes, and a pink napkin tented over his crotch. Paula shut the door. He did not move.
“This place looks like the University of Barsoom,” she said. The room was white, the boxy chairs and tables painted in black lacquer. The carpet was dark red. She put her bag down and went through to the kitchen. The carpet skidded slightly under her feet, treacherous.
“I hope you’re doing the cooking,” she said. “I can’t boil water.” She took a beer out of the cold drawer.
“Mendoza, what can you do?”
She swallowed the nasty remark in her throat. The kitchen smelled of must. She opened the window and let in the cold wind. Something mewled overhead, and a gull sailed by. Its wings were black-tipped. She went out to the white and black room again. The vitamin lamp glared on the wall.
“Did you call Jefferson?”
“Don’t unpack.” Bunker switched off the lamp. “The Council is balking, they may null the case.” He threw the tape jack across the room.
“Oh, shit.”
He put his shirt on. “Did Overwood have anything?”
She took the paper out of her shirt pocket and gave it to him. He went into the bedroom. A drawer slammed open. She sat on the couch, still warm from the lamp, and pulled off the paper tab on the can of beer.
He came back into the room, pulling his pants on, the paper in his hand. “What is this?”
Paula tucked her feet up under her on the couch and sipped the beer. One-handed, he fumbled the tongue of his belt through the buckle. He said, “What does
“I don’t know the word.”
He sat down beside her, taking a pencil off the end table. “So, SIF 4
Paula grunted. “You got more than I did.”
“Where did you find this? Overwood? How much did you pay him?”
“Two hundred dollars.”
“Mendoza. You’re improving. Let’s go talk to my Styth.”
They went up three flights of stairs to the roof of the hotel, to catch the air bus. Bunker said, “He’s a local celebrity, Kary is. It took me fifteen minutes to find him, every bum knows him.”
Paula walked to the edge of the roof. In the gray trees below her a child in a red coat dashed about, singing in a breathless voice. The cold made her face tingle. The air bus was coming. She went over to the square of paint on the roof and stood with Bunker waiting. The bus driver let down the ladder for them.
They flew back across the city toward the beach. Paula looked out the window. They passed over the Central Market. Piles of fruit covered the stalls, Hessian sacks of almonds and cashews. Tightly packed together in a pen, the white backs of goats looked like fish in a net.
“What’s this mean?” Beside her on the bench he was looking at the note again. “Say-ba.”
“Saba. Long a’s. It means ‘he knows.’”
“He. Who?”
“You’re the genius.”
The air bus was settling down to park before the terminal. They went down the back ramp to a stone pier. The lake stretched before her. She could hear the crash of the surf on the beach. The wind sliced across the open harbor.
Bunker led her along the pier to a line of shops. They went into a drugstore and he bought two quarts of red wine for fifty cents each.
Single-file they descended the steps of the pier to the beach. Her feet sank into the wet sand. Bunker walked into the shade under the pier. A man was lying in the dark between two stone uprights. He was black as soot, and stretched out across the sand he looked ten feet long.
“Kary,” Bunker said. “Remember me?”
The Styth sat up. “You again,” he said, in a deep alcoholic rasp. Bunker gave him a bottle of wine, and he tore off the paper cap and drank deeply.
Paula sank down on her heels beside an upright. Kary’s shaggy hair was frizzy with malnutrition. His mustaches hung thin as string down over his chest. Around his eyes and mouth, his skin was graying. He was old, past mere grandfather old, ninety, perhaps over one hundred. She said, “Where are you from, Kary?”
He glanced at her around the bottle. “What’s this?” He looked her over, leisurely. “Skinny little cow, isn’t she?” he said to Bunker.
“Where are you from?” This time she said it in Styth.
Kary had the bottle midway to his mouth. He put it down again. “You speak Styth?”
She looked at his hands. “Yes.” His right thumb was missing at the first joint. The rest of his fingers ended in blunted nubs. “What happened to your claws?”
He held up the stub of his thumb. “This one was bitten off in a fight in Vribulo when I was a—” She missed the word. Sadly he folded his fingers into his palms. “The others just don’t grow any more.”
“You’re from Vribulo? How did you get here?”
He blinked at her. His eyes were round as carbuncles. To Bunker he said, “Your cow speaks Styth.”
Bunker shook his head. “I don’t know the language.”
Kary emptied the bottle of wine. His head wobbled. Paula said, “How did you get here?”
“I got in a fight. Real bad fight. I killed somebody who had a lot of. relatives. One the Prima’s lyo.” He tried the collapsed bottle again and dropped it to the sand. “Just enough to get me thirsty.”
Bunker took the other bottle out of his jacket. Kary’s two hands reached for it. “Ah, you’re a kindly little people,” he said, in the Common Speech.
Paula laughed. She could not judge his height. Probably he was a couple of inches over seven feet, tall even for a Styth. He smelled of stale clothes. Carefully he set the bottle in the sand and wiped his mouth. “You speak Styth,” he said to her. His gaze moved over her, and he turned toward Bunker. “Don’t you feed her?”
Bunker said, “I like them skinny. It keeps them eager.”
Paula looked around her. The stone pillars that held up the pier stood solid in the dark. Kary lay down on the sand, one hand protectively on his bottle.
“I’m going to sleep now.”
