was no smell. Maybe poppies had no odor.
“I’d be more impressed if you were making it up.”
In the next room, Ketac’s voice sounded, loud. “Bring me something to eat. A real spread. For her, too. And some liquor. And—” He strode into the room, saw Tanuojin, and stopped, coming up to respect, his head back. Paula slid off the bed and went to her bags for her robe.
“Are you eating here?” she said over her shoulder.
Tanuojin nodded at Ketac. The poppy was gone. “Yes. Call Alvers Newrose here. And Dr. Savenia.”
Ketac relaxed, his feet apart. “When?” There was a blowgun in his belt.
“Whenever they’re ready.”
She pulled the white fur robe down over her head. “See if they have any decent whiskey.”
Ketac went to the door and talked through it to his aides in the sitting room. She tied a belt around her waist and groped around the sides of her bag for her comb.
“I want to go to the Earth,” she said.
Tanuojin lay back on his elbows. “There’s nothing left of it. It’s a desert. Red sand.”
“Maybe you could make up some trees for me.”
“I have too much to do.”
“Ketac can take me.” She sat down on the foot of the bed. Her hair crackled from being washed. Ketac went past her to the bathroom, giving no sign he heard. He would do whatever Tanuojin said. Through the half-open door she saw him turning on the shower.
“Do they still have the women?” He threw his clothes out onto the bedroom floor.
“Probably. It’s the same old Nineveh.” She glanced at Tanuojin behind her on the bed. “Down to and including Cam Savenia.”
“Paula—”
“Your deputy in the Middle Planets.”
He kicked her. In the shower, Ketac let out a yell. He had found the cosmetic bar. She rolled onto her feet and went to the bathroom door and stood watching him lather himself. He was too large for the shower; he had to stoop to put his shoulders under the spray. The white soap washed down his body.
“Newrose is coming.” Tanuojin went to the other door. She turned. Ketac got out of the shower, and the roar of the air blower started. Tanuojin was standing in the doorway to the next room, his head bent to clear the lintel. Paula looked quickly through her bag for her shoes. She heard Newrose’s knock and went barefoot behind Tanuojin into the sitting room.
Junna let Newrose into the room. The Martian’s egg-shaped head was smooth and pink, his face babyishly bland. He knelt down before Tanuojin and put his right cheek against the floor beside the Styth’s boot.
Paula murmured. She went back into the bedroom.
“Well?” Ketac said. He stood at the closet, half into his leggings.
“He did it.” She bounced down onto the bed. “I’m getting old. Betrayed like a gull by Alvers Newrose.”
He was bent over to lace his boot. “Do you mind if I take one of the whores?”
“Do what you want.”
He got out a red shirt, stitched with gold in his kite-shaped emblem. In the next room, there was another knock. Cam Savenia was making her entrance. Paula stayed to watch Ketac dress. She knew Cam would perform the
“How do I call the slaves?”
There was a console built into the night table at the head of the bed. She took the receiver off the cradle. Beside it was a row of buttons. One was marked PERSONAL SERVICES. She said, “Are you having a party?” When she pressed the button it flashed red.
“Marus and Tibur and I.”
A clerk answered into her ear. She said, “Hold on, please,” and put her hand over the receiver. “Not here,” she said to Ketac.
“Upstairs.” He reached for the receiver. She got up. For a moment, unused to the gravity, she nearly fell over. Carefully, she went into the next room.
They had swung the couch over perpendicular to the fireplace, and Tanuojin sat in the corner, his head propped up on his fist. Junna stood on the hearth, and Marus, his hands behind him, leaned against the drapery- covered windows behind him. Two junior officers were bringing a white service cart in the door. Paula veered around them to the fireplace.
Newrose stood before Tanuojin, talking about Mars. Cam Savenia waited behind him. Paula glanced at her and their eyes caught. Simultaneously they looked away. The two Styth lieutenants turned up the lid of the service cart to uncover bottles and glasses.
Newrose said, “Will you be staying on Mars the whole mission, Akellar?”
Tanuojin stretched out his legs, long as rope. “The Mendoz’ wants to go to the Earth.”
Savenia glanced at her. “The Earth isn’t much of a tourist hell these days.”
Paula took the empty glass from Ketac. On her way to the couch she gave it to the aide by the serving cart. “I like to go in circles.” She sat down on the soft-cushioned couch at the far end from Tanuojin.
The aide brought her glass. Junna came along the back of the couch to give it to her. Newrose backed away two steps from Tanuojin, bowed, and went behind Savenia to Paula’s end of the couch. His hands disappeared behind his back.
“We just heard today that you’ve lost your son as well. You have my deepest condolences.”
Tanuojin said, “Don’t do that.” He was talking to Savenia. She stopped in the act of fitting a cigarette into her holder. Her gaze swung toward Paula. She put the cigarette back in the case and the black holder back into her pocket. Tanuojin looked at Newrose.
“You saw the demograph?”
“Yes, Akellar.” Newrose wet his lips. “I hope we can change your mind…convince you to change your mind.”
Tanuojin drank water. “Go on. Give me your speech.”
Newrose gave Paula a quick beseeching look and faced him again. “The people of the Middle Planets are used to a high—perhaps an unnaturally high material standard. What you propose is nothing less than a conversion of the whole society to slave labor.” Newrose tilted forward slightly from the waist, intense. His voice was low. “Akellar, we’ve avoided serious trouble here because the Prima was wise enough to preserve the continuity of our traditions and institutions. If you attempt this, there will be resistance, perhaps violence. The work of the last several years will be lost.” His gaze went to Paula again, pleading.
Tanuojin stretched his arm along the back of the couch toward her. His eyes never left Newrose. His voice was deeper than usual: pontifical. “I don’t have a choice. Junna—”
His son circled around the couch, a spherical star map in his hands, and put it on the floor at Tanuojin’s feet. Tanuojin turned it around in its bracket until Lalande was on the top.
“This is Lalande. There are twenty-six Planets here, iron, calcium, plutonium, uranium, gold, argon, salts— everything we are starved for now.”
“Also life,” Paula said. “With a prior claim to its worlds.”
“You believe that because you want to.”
Newrose’s cheeks shone. He stooped beside the dark blue globe. Tanuojin gave his empty glass to Junna. “The Martians build the best hulls. We design the best drives. Sometime in the next year—Uranian year—we’ll break the light barrier. After that we can go to Lalande.”
Newrose straightened up, his eyes on the Styth. “That’s impossible. The speed of light is the absolute speed limit.”
“There are no absolutes,” Tanuojin said. “There are no limits.”
“But—”
“We have to do this. It’s the purpose of life, to grow. The only way is for everybody in the system to work together. If there’s resistance, I can deal with that.”
Newrose said, “Yes, sir.”
“You can go.”
“Yes, sir.” Newrose backed up three steps. His egg-face was white. He left the room. As he went out, two
