“No.”
“Oh.”
Another woman came in, this one very young, tall, and extravagantly beautiful, like an advertisement. The sleeves of her dress were of silver lace.
“Illy,” Boltiko said, “this is Paula.”
“Hello,” Paula said.
Illy stared at her, unfriendly. “Hello,” she said, after a moment. Her voice had the same musical quality as Tanuojin’s. She sank into a chair down the table from Paula.
“Where is he?” she asked Boltiko.
“He went somewhere with Dakkar, into the city.”
“What did he bring you?”
“A timepiece, the same as usual. Quaint.”
“He gave me skin-color. Gold, can you imagine?” Illy turned toward Paula. Her hair was gathered on the crown of her head in an aureole of perfect curls. She was the most beautiful woman Paula had ever seen, Styth or other. “Where did he meet you?”
“On Mars,” Paula said.
“Mars,” Illy said, astonished, and Boltiko said, “Mars,” as disapproving as her reaction to the news that Paula and Saba were not married. Illy said, “I thought you were Earthish.”
“I am. But we met on Mars.” She looked from one black face to the other. “At a very fancy sex park.”
Illy’s lips parted. Boltiko said, “I don’t know what manners are in the Earth, but in my house we don’t use words like that around the children.” She poured something liquid into the meal and set the covered pan on the back of the counter.
“I don’t understand,” Illy said. “What were you doing there? Were you alone?”
“Yes. I was talking to him. Politics.”
“Oh.” Boltiko wiped the already spotless table. “Was that how you got the baby? Talking?”
“That was where. How was the usual way.”
To her surprise, Boltiko laughed. The back door burst open. Saba came in, with his son Dakkar, and behind them Ketac. Paula glanced startled from Ketac to Boltiko; under all that fat, her face was shaped like his. Illy raised one hand delicately over her mouth, veiling herself before the young men. To Boltiko, Saba said, “I’ll eat in the Manhus. Hurry up, I’m starving.” He went out again, trailing his sons, without looking at the other women. Illy lowered her hand.
“I’ll show you the timepiece he gave me,” Boltiko said.
They went down a hall, past rooms full of children and children’s things, to a large dim room. The furniture was packed into it like hoardings under a ceiling painted with an abstract design. The chairs and hanging lamps were shielded in clear plastic bags. The three women made a winding course through the clutter to a corner cabinet. On the shelves were several little clocks. The sandglass Saba had bought on the Earth stood among them.
“Oh,” Illy said. “Isn’t that clever.”
“This cabinet is so pretty,” Boltiko said to Paula. “I had nothing to put here, so I asked Saba to bring me something when he goes on his trips.”
Paula reached for a watch with a clamshell case. She found the spring catch and opened it. Boltiko said, blankly, “Why—it has an inside.”
Paula showed her the open watch. In one half was a picture of a white baby, with wisps of fair hair and a stupid babyish smile, and in the other half a fancy scrolled initial T. Boltiko took it.
“Illy, look.”
The other woman glanced at the watch. “Ugh. What an ugly baby.”
Paula backed away from them. She realized Boltiko had no notion what Saba did on his trips. She went around the room looking at the heavy furniture, protected in its wrap of plastic.
On the far side of the room, Illy said, “She’s a slave! He didn’t marry her!”
Paula raised her head. The furniture hid her from the other women.
“No,” Boltiko said. “But he says we’re supposed to treat her like a wife.”
“She’s ugly. He’ll get tired of her. He’ll sell her.”
“Sssh, she’ll hear you.”
Paula was behind a chair. She leaned against it, staying out of their sight. Illy said, “She’s gone.”
“If you ask me,” Boltiko said, “he’s already tired of her—he just feels responsible for getting her that way.” Her skirts swished. She and Illy went to the door into the hall. “That’s all the more reason to be nice to her.”
“At least he didn’t marry her.”
They left, and Paula let them get down the hall before she followed. The baby rolled up in her body anchored her down. Her back hurt. Slowly she waddled back toward the kitchen.
Boltiko was putting covered dishes on a tray. Illy sat in one of the big chairs inspecting her beautiful hands. Paula lowered her eyes. For a moment she hated them both; she burned to say something to wither them. She climbed up into the chair beside Illy’s.
“Pedasen,” Boltiko called, out the back door.
A dark man came in from the yard. He wore a loose white quilted tunic. For an instant he and Paula stared at each other. He was of her race, with Tony’s coloring, and he had pale eyes like Tony’s. Boltiko tapped the tray.
“Take this to the Akellar. See I get all the dishes back this very watch.”
“Yes, mem.” His voice was satiny. He kept his eyes away from Paula and took the tray out. Paula watched him go.
“Pedasen will help you fix your house,” Boltiko said.
“He isn’t—” Paula wet her lips. “I don’t want him.”
Illy giggled. “He is an it.”
The nerves crawled in the backs of Paula’s hands. She sat rigid in the chair that did not fit her, that held her far away from the table. That was why Pedasen’s voice was so smooth: he had been gelded. The two women talked about things she did not understand, in words she did not know. She closed her eyes.
When she had been there long enough to have her walking strength back, she told Saba she wanted to go out, to look at the city. He refused. They were sitting on the swing couch in her front room, reading through the trade contract, and she let him go on two or three paragraphs before she said, “When can I go out?”
“The street is no place for a woman. If you want something, send a slave for it. On this bond, here—” he tapped the page, “I wanted you to make that forfeit if they break the law, remember?”
“That’s the next paragraph.”
He read the next paragraph. She watched his face. The baby was kicking her hard up under the ribs. The baby’s father sat back, holding out the page to her.
“You’ve spelled it out too much—I want it vague, so I can get rid of somebody I don’t like.”
Their eyes met. She said, “Do you think I’m going to stay locked up in here the whole ten years?”
“Boltiko and Illy never go out.” He put the contract on her lap. “Finish the contracts and I’ll talk to you about things like that.”
Paula grunted at him. She reached for the thirty close-printed pages of the contract. “I’m getting bored. Sril could go with me.”
“I just told you. I won’t discuss it until you finish the contract. And if you try to sneak out, I’ll use my belt on you.”
She threw the contract onto his lap, slid off the couch, and went down the hall to her bedroom. She heard him go out of the house through the front door.
When she went into labor, Boltiko called the midwives. Paula lay in her bed, wrapped in a heavy blanket. The women held her hands and stroked her hair back. There were three of them, all very old: one was slave, but the other two were Styth. The pain made her whimper and bite her lips. She clung to the slavewoman’s hands, afraid.
Saba came in. He had been away in the city. The woman moved back and he sat on the bed beside her and
