not been wearing vacuum suits.
They fixed a cable to the safety clamps and went out into the storm.
Subtwo found himself leading. His sense of direction was perfect, so he had no fear of losing the blockhouse. He supposed he deserved to break the path, to form with his own body a lee, a minor respite from the wind for Subone, since Subtwo had taken the pleasure of landing the ship for himself.
Even expecting the blockhouse, Subtwo was startled by its abrupt appearance, as though it had popped up out of the ground. The sand caused the illusion: one volume of its airborne granules was sufficient to block all sight; one step, one increment less of sand-filled space, and the wall of the blockhouse showed the curtain to be a colloidal suspension of sand in air.
Subtwo banged on the door with his gloved fist. Nothing happened, and he banged again. The people within must have felt the ship land, they must still have sufficient curiosity to wonder who could perform such a feat.
The door crept open past him. He moved forward and stood in the doorway, half-blocking the blowing sand. The interior of the blockhouse was almost dark, its instruments shut down, but several people stood within, all dressed differently, as though they had been interrupted at leisure activities, except for one young guard in uniform, with a cast on her wrist. Subtwo found the uniform amusing. He did not understand trying to turn any such rabble as he had collected—as the Lord's shipowners must have collected—into even a quasi-military organization. He could not control his own followers completely, so he did not dictate to them at all.
'Gods,' someone said, 'don't just stand there.'
Subtwo entered, with Subone beside him, in a leisurely manner. The storm-walk had not tired, only challenged him. The Lord's people stared. The guard gripped the handle of her laser lance, but did not draw it. The door squealed shut, forcing itself against sand. Subtwo realized from the reactions of those around him that the longer he stood hidden from them in suit and facemask, the more disturbed they would become, perhaps to his advantage. He gazed about the room until he was sure nothing had escaped his notice. The equipment was obsolete and worn.
He opened his faceplate. Subone mimicked his actions; they were mirror images. Subtwo took off his helmet and shook his head; his long black twisted hair fell out straight and free around his shoulders. He began slowly, silently, to remove his suit. Tiny avalanches of black sand fell to the floor around him. Beneath the suit he wore a simple coverall of a sturdy material, cool gray in hue. Subone wore the same, though the color of his was warm gray: tinged with red instead of blue. Around them Subtwo saw the usual reactions to their supposed similarities, though to Subtwo he and his pseudosib were very different, as different as the colors of their clothes: at opposite ends of a spectrum.
'Where is Blaisse?' Subtwo asked.
A ubiquitous tension filled the room, as though everyone there had expected the pseudosibs to remain silent moving statues for the rest of time. No one spoke until the attention finally focused on the uniformed young woman. She looked from side to side, and finally answered stiffly. 'The Lord is in his Palace.'
'Take us to him.'
Someone snickered. Subtwo gazed in the direction of the laugh, drawing his eyebrows together. Subone still followed his lead and his actions. The snicker faded into a cough. Subtwo did not understand why anyone would laugh at such a simple request. It occurred to him, of course, that he might be violating some protocol. This did not disturb him, as soon all of them would be following his protocol.
'This way,' the guard said abruptly.
She led them from the functional blockhouse into the Palace proper, down a long ramp, into tunnels covered wastefully in rich fabric and precious gems. Subtwo saw no use in upholstering hallways. The young woman moved ahead of them, walking fast and straight and steady, yet increasing her pace gradually, after looking back once and starting at the pseudosibs' proximity.
The passages continued on and on, until Subtwo felt their irregularities affecting him. His balance began to falter. He liked level floors and right angles; this was a place of bumps and projections and random curves. At first he sensed the same reaction from his pseudosib, and was comforted that he was not, at least, alone, but as they progressed Subone's discomfort decreased as his interest rose. Subtwo was upset and wished again that the lock between them would complete its dissolution. He felt increasingly these days that he was being forced to vibrate on a frequency not his own.
The young guard stopped and held aside a curtain. 'In here.'
Shoulder to shoulder and in step with Subone, Subtwo passed her without hesitation, though a trap might await. He felt the chance was low enough to take.
The immense room beyond was paneled with embroidery that followed rock curves ten meters upward to join a translucent dome that seemed to admit cold winter sunlight. A throne—a throne! Subtwo almost laughed aloud—stood on a golden platform at the opposite end of the hemispherical chamber, but it was empty.
'Where is he?'
The guard looked from Subone to Subtwo and back again, as though trying to determine which had spoken: not an unusual reaction. 'He's coming,' she said; Subtwo detected an uncertain bravado and was pleased that his arrival had caused consternation and confusion.
'I—' Subone said, and corrected himself. 'We don't wait.'
Subtwo turned with him; they crossed the throne room, still in step. They both had had trouble learning the first-person plural pronouns: such a strange usage, like verbal sexual intercourse. They climbed the steps to the throne and passed through the curtains beyond it. The young guard hesitated, then sprinted after them. 'Just a minute—' She caught Subone's elbow. Using the whole force of his powerful shoulders, he swung back his arm and caught her across the ribs, tossing her against a tapestried wall. They continued; behind them, she cursed.
They had been told the layout of Stone Palace: Blaisse's suite connected directly to the throne room. Of course they met no stationed guards, coming as they did from this direction, in the winter. The young woman caught up with them as they entered Blaisse's bedroom.
Blaisse appeared to be asleep, but an alien humanoid sat up in his bed beside him and stared at the pseudosibs, terror in her face. Subtwo identified her species, her world, the customs of her people: parents raised themselves from abject poverty by selling their children into slavery. It was not a Sphere world. Subtwo realized he was probably looking at a slave, the first true, classical slave he had ever seen despite his travels. With difficulty, he controlled a wave of annoyance, directed toward the sleeping man.
'You'll have to wait in the anteroom.'
Subtwo turned to the uniformed young woman. 'But we never wait,' he
said, quite reasonably.
'You will now.' She touched the cross-holstered laser pistol with her left hand. 'No more games.'
'What are you going to do?' asked Subone. 'Shoot me and hit him with your cast?'
The jibe angered but did not fluster her: in her hand, the lance was steady. 'In the anteroom.'
Subtwo's wide peripheral vision showed Subone glancing at him, though he himself did not have to turn. He did not see any necessity for a confrontation with an underling. He shrugged—a gesture he had consciously learned and practiced—and followed the direction of her pistol. In the next chamber, a sitting room built on a comparatively modest scale, he waited, disturbed by the absence of doors, of privacy. That told him much about the people who lived here: the rulers did not impinge frequently on each other's living space, and the servants were not important enough for their opinions to matter. These facts conflicted grossly with Subtwo's roseate image of the way reality should be, an image that dulled and contorted as by successive approximation Subtwo altered it to conform to the way things were.
Subone began to wander about the room, opening drawers and cabinets.
'What are you finding?'
'Nothing,' Subone said. 'Alcoholic beverages. Dirty old books.'
'Books—printed books?'
'Very amusing.'
'What's the meaning of this?' The Lord held himself poised in the doorway, only partly dressed, wearing leather pants.
Subtwo did not react to the theatrical entrance. 'We understood that your hospitality is granted to shipowners of a certain type.'
'And you are shipowners? Of that, type?'
