“Have a cookie,” Jefferson said.
“Where is David?” She looked around the room for him.
“Leave him alone,” Saba said. “Ever since that thing with the dog you’ve been all over him.” He fished an ice-ball out of his glass and ate it.
“You’ve got fourteen others.”
The third Council member, the man from Luna, took the last of Jefferson’s biscuits. “Does he play chess?” He nodded over his shoulder toward Tanuojin. Elaborately unimpressed, he looked up, up at Saba. “What’s an Akellar?”
Jefferson turned to Paula. “What dog?”
Paula sipped her whiskey, her eyes on Tanuojin. “Nothing.” Thin as a withy, the tall Styth leaned against the wall, thumbing his mustaches flat. The Venusian’s hearty voice boomed.
“Actually, strangely enough, the best schools in the system are on the Earth.”
“Why is that strange?” Tanuojin said. Jefferson raised her head, her pale eyes sharp.
“The anarchists have no respect for education,” the hearty man said.
“Maybe that’s why their schools are so good,” Tanuojin said.
The Venusian fished cigarettes out of the pocket of his tunic. His hands busy, he said, “Is that some kind of joke?”
Tanuojin was facing him, but his white eyes glanced toward Jefferson. He slid his hands under his belt. “The anarchists have respect for nothing. They’ll do anything they have to do to keep the rest of you dancing in their act.”
Saba said, in Styth, “Why don’t you shut up?”
Tanuojin straightened away from the wall. “You know why we’re here—she’s trading on—”
“Just shut up when you’re in her place drinking with her and eating with her.”
“I’m not—”
“I am.”
Tanuojin slouched against the wall, sulky, his head to one side. Next to Paula, Sybil Jefferson looked from Styth to Styth, keen as a fox. Paula realized she understood them: she spoke Styth. The Venusian’s match clicked into a little burst of flame.
“It’s a riddle,” Saba said to the Venusian. “Unfortunately riddles don’t translate very well from one language to another. What is that?”
“Cigarettes,” the Venusian said. He held out the package. “Have one?”
Saba went over to the couch and the Venusian showed him how to smoke. He maneuvered the cigarette in his claws, fascinating the Lunar woman, who was slightly drunk. Paula looked for David.
Beside her, Jefferson said, “They couldn’t have done better if they’d been coached.”
Tanuojin was over at the bar, his back to the room. Paula said, “That won’t work too often, Sybil.”
“Just once,” Jefferson said.
“Where’s Mitchell Wylie?”
“He left the Planet. Apparently for security reasons.” Jefferson moved around to put her back to Tanuojin, ten feet away. “What happened?” Tanuojin was watching them. Paula kept herself from a shrug, a movement of the hand, anything that might signal him.
“The obvious. Parine tried to ambush us. Dick tripped, for once.”
“What else?”
Paula raised her eyes again, over the fat woman’s shoulder. Saba caught her glance and held his glass out. She stooped to catch David as he passed her.
“Here. Take this to Papa.” She gave him the glass in her hand.
“What else happened?” Jefferson said, when Paula straightened.
“I just told you, Sybil.”
“Why, suddenly, is Richard oracularly vague on the subject of Tanuojin?”
Relieved, Paula smiled at her. That settled her suspicions. “Ask him,” she said, and went off to make herself two more drinks.
In the morning, on the way to the entry port to leave for home, she bought an hourly. The Council had reconsidered the question of Venus 14 and withdrawn the order to send a peacekeeping force in to settle the chronic civil war in the giant dome. Paula folded the hourly and put it in her jacket pocket. At the entry port, eighteen or twenty people were marching up and down with ribbon banners, calling the Styths names. A vitriolic anti-Styth pamphlet she took from one of them had been printed by the Sunlight League, and wore their emblem in the upper right-hand corner of the cover: a radiant star.
VRIBULO
The air of the Empire’s heart-city smelled like grease. The darkness made Paula uneasy and she stayed close by Saba in the street. She kept having the feeling that someone was following them. Her ears hurt from listening behind them through the roar of the city. They went along the crowded street toward the mid-city gate, where they were to meet Tanuojin.
He was standing just outside the door, Marus and two others of his watch behind him. As usual he and Saba met with an embrace. Paula turned to look up and down the street. People in Vribulo walked faster than in other places. The free locks of the Vribulit clubbed hair swayed like tails behind them. All she saw in one direction was a mass of hurrying backs and in the other a mass of hurrying faces. Tanuojin sent his men to the Barn, and he and Saba and Paula started across the city to the Akopra.
“Isn’t your Akopra House finished yet?” Paula asked him.
“Yes.”
She was walking between them, breaking into a jog now and then to keep up. “Then why go to this Akopra, if they’re so bad?”
“They may have somebody I can use.”
She tucked her hands into the muff. It had been Illy’s but Illy had given it to her as a homecoming present. They turned into a lane between high buildings, and behind them a man shouted something. She glanced over her shoulder. A knot of men was coming after them. She grabbed Saba’s arm. He and Tanuojin stopped. Another pack of Styths was blocking the narrow way ahead of them. One of these walked forward. His shirt was spangled with bits of metal. His face looked as if it had been cut to pieces and sewn back together again.
Saba shoved her. “Get out of the way. Run.”
She backed away from them. The man with the scarred face stopped; she knew it was Ymma, and his ruined face was Tanuojin’s work.
Saba said, low, “Keep moving.” He lunged at Ymma.
The two packs of men rushed together, like two hands clapping. Paula ran to the fence along the alley, looking for a way through them. Their reek made her heart pound. She could not see Saba or Tanuojin in the fighting. Sliding along the wall, she headed for the street. An arm hooked around her neck. She was hoisted off her feet, the crooked arm strangling her. She wrenched around and slid out of the grasp but someone else caught her.
“Hold her—”
She squirmed uselessly in a pinion grip. A hand yanked her head up by the hair. Someone snarled in her ear. “Watch. This is what happens to people who defy us.” She bit her lip to keep from crying out. Ymma’s men clogged the alleyway. Five feet from her they had Saba down on his knees, with his belt around his chest pinning his arms down. He was rigid, coiled; if they had let him go he would have shot up like a spring. Tanuojin lay on the ground. Ymma and two of his men were kicking him. She whined, and the hand in her hair twisted so hard tears ran down her cheeks. She heard bone crackle; she saw Tanuojin’s eyes close. They went on trampling him long after he began to bleed. At last Ymma stood back, signaling to the other men to stop.
Saba said nothing. He raised his head and gave Ymma an instant’s glance and turned his gaze back to
