“Even with Ymma to soften him up?” the other said.
“Ymma will only give him exercise. He’s new back from space, he’ll be in perfect condition. He’s strong as a motor anyway. This one is yours. I told Machou already.”
She was by them and no longer heard him. Higher, on the stairs above the landing, a voice called sharply, “Stop that slavewoman!” She broke into a run, going down the stairs two and three steps at a time. The sentries were dozing. She got through the door onto the open porch just ahead of them.
In the open they could not catch her. She reached the Barn out of breath. Saba was lying on his bed in the back room of his office, his arms behind his head. Paula shut the door.
“I’m glad you finally decided to come back,” he said.
“Who is in the patrol, very handsome, a fancy dresser—” She took off the slave’s clothes. “Much taller than you, but lighter-built?”
His head turned toward her. “Younger than me? Bokojin. The Illini Akellar. I can beat him.”
“That’s what he says.” Her satchel was under the bed, and she opened it and took out her robe. “Another one, stocky, older than you, who carries his head—” She thrust her head forward on her shoulders.
Saba watched her from the bed, his head pillowed on his arms. “That’s Leno. Illy’s brother, Merkhiz. I can’t beat him.”
Illy’s brother. He did not look like her at all. There was a blanket folded over the foot of the bed. Paula took it and sat down in the chair between the window and the chest of drawers. “Bokojin said you’d be in perfect shape.” She opened out the blanket.
“Maybe. The trouble with being strong is you never have to learn the tricks. Leno knows every trick there is. You can sleep with me. Don’t you trust me?”
“There isn’t enough room.”
“Maybe I could take Leno, if I didn’t have Ymma to scratch first. I can’t wait to get my hooks into him, that son of a bitch.”
“How is Tanuojin?”
“Not good.”
She pulled the edge of the blanket over her head. The chair was hard as a shelf, but she had no wish to sleep. She rested her head against the back of it. A siren wailed loud along the street below the window and slowly died away. Her legs hurt from climbing stairs. She missed David, whose routine ordered her life in Matuko. Ymma had broken Tanuojin’s body, maybe his mind, maybe all their ambitions: savaged in an alleyway.
“You were right,” Saba said. “We must be crowding close to Machou.”
“You can’t get out of fighting Ymma.”
“No.” He rolled onto his stomach. “Oh, I could, I guess. I could let him go by without revenging Tanuojin. Would you like me to do that?”
“Yes.”
The sound he made in his throat was like a muffled laugh. He turned the back of his head to her. “You’ll do anything.” His loose hair slid over his shoulders, wavy from being clubbed. His back flexed.
“I got in a fight with Leno, once,” he said. He was facing the wall. “In Colorado’s. Before I married Illy. He stretched me out in about fifteen seconds.”
“That was a while ago. He’s older than you are. What about Tanuojin? Can he help you?”
His head swiveled around again, directing his eyes toward her. “If I took him in there, in me?”
She nodded. Her hands and face were cold.
“I’ve thought of that. But he won’t be well. It’s too dangerous. It’s dangerous enough for him when he’s sound.”
“Could he help you?”
Saba propped himself up on one elbow and reached for the crystal lamp on the window sill. He switched it on. The light sprang into the room; she blinked, dazzled. He put the lamp on the floor midway between them.
“He knows half again as many tricks as Leno. But it could kill him. If he leaves his body it will start to bleed again.”
Paula held her legs out to put her feet into the warmth of the lamp. Leno was the Prima Cadet, second only to Machou. If Saba defeated him, Saba took his place. He had to win, whatever it cost him. She wiggled her toes in the glow of the lamp.
The broad porch of the House teemed with people. Paula went through the short entry, with its glittering wall of gold names, and down the hall on the first floor. The hall like a tunnel caught the voices of the men standing thick around the double doors at the far end. She followed a short white figure through the smaller slave door to the left.
She came into a large room full of slaves. Most of the floor was taken by a great open pit with a railing around it. She squeezed through the packed white shoulders to it. The pit was easily a hundred feet across, circular, its sloping walls ringed with three ledges. The rAkellaron sat there with their aides, scratching and drinking and talking, picking their noses, chewing laksi: the masters of the Empire. She leaned on the rail, her chin barely clearing it, stiff with excitement. She wondered if she were the first free Sun-worlder ever to see this.
Machou sat on the second ledge, a little to her right, deep in talk with the handsome man: Bokojin. Leno was across the pit from her on the first ledge. She could not find Ymma. While she looked around, the double doors banged wide, and Saba came into the Chamber.
The other men all craned their necks to see him, and many stood up. Ketac and Sril trailed him. He went straight down the steps of the pit, past her without noticing her, into the round sandy space at the bottom. Now he saw her; he gave her an intense look. Paula held on to the railing with both hands. The slaves around her were avoiding her. Somehow they always knew who she was. Now Ymma came into the Chamber.
Saba saw him. He went to the rail around the little arena. “Ymma, you know why I’m here!”
Machou waved his hand, and the sentries at the double doors swung them shut. The rAkellaron hushed. Ymma was chewing his tongue. He went along the uppermost ledge to a stretch of bare bench. Machou stood up, and all around the pit, every other man stood.
“This session is open. Matuko, you have some special business?”
“You know about it, Prima,” Saba called. “You know about it all.”
The Prima sat down. “Are you challenging me, Akellar?” Ht did not sound worried.
Saba went around the pit toward Ymma. His voice rose in a harsh whine. No one but Paula seemed to notice how much he sounded like Tanuojin. He called, “Come down here, Ymma—I want you, and you know why.”
Ymma was still on his feet, although everyone else had sat when Machou sat. In a low voice, the Lopka Akellar said, “I have my rights. He shamed me—”
“So you beat him up in the street?”
Here and there on the ledges someone murmured. Directly below her a man leaned toward another and whispered, “I take it Ymma paid his little debt to Tanuojin?” Ymma was sidling along the ledge to the nearest stairs. Paula sucked in a deep breath, her eyes on Saba.
He glanced over his shoulder at Leno and sideways at Bokojin. Backing across the sand, he gave Ymma the room to come into the arena, and turned so that when Ymma came in through the bottom rail Saba was facing all of them, Ymma, Leno, and Bokojin. Ymma stepped out onto the sand. Saba jumped on him.
The onlookers howled. The slaves around her rushed forward to see and nearly crushed her against the railing. All around the ledges the rAkellaron bounded to their feet. Saba hit Ymma so hard the other man landed on his back on the far side of the sand circle. Leno vaulted down across the bottom ledge to the sand. Ymma curled up, his arms around his head. Saba took two steps and fell to his knees on Ymma’s chest. He sprang around to meet Leno.
Leno feinted, and Saba shifted to meet him. They grappled. Paula could hardly breathe. The slaves were pushing her hard against the rail. The cheers and screams packed her ears. Leno tripped Saba down. They rolled over on the sand, their claws hooked in each other’s face. Ymma was trying to get up. On his knees, Leno straddled Saba’s chest, reared back, and slashed at him with his spread hand. Saba caught his wrist. They strained against each other a moment, motionless, their faces twisted with effort. Abruptly Saba gave way and Leno fell, off- balance. Saba pulled him forward and butted him.
The Merkhiz Akellar collapsed, dazed. Saba heaved himself off the sand and drove his elbow like a hammer
