The second level was similar to Blaisse's part of the Palace, and as richly appointed. Followed by his silent, obedient alien slave, Blaisse pushed back curtains and peered around corners and scuffed his sandals in the deep carpet. He found neither dust nor disorder; this level was as well kept as what Subtwo had seen of the other. Subtwo waited for Blaisse to give Madame the ritualized compliments the pseudosibs had been taught were proper. Blaisse said nothing; Subtwo felt the need to fill the vacuum of drilled-in courtesy, but remained silent.
'It stinks down here,' Blaisse said. He made it sound as though they were breathing the rank odor of standing sewage.
'I regret that any uninhabited rooms gather a musty flavor, Lord. The situation will cure itself.'
He grunted and forged ahead through the velvet halls. Subtwo felt himself becoming more and more unnerved. Nothing in this place was composed of straight lines. The curtains fell in waving gathers. The rooms were round, or irregular, or, worst, almost square. The angles were slightly flawed, the lines slightly crooked, the floors slightly uneven. Subtwo's feet touched minor irregularities. He felt Subone walking closer to him. He discovered a fantasy in which they walked across a rug that had nothing under it and it fell away beneath them. He shook himself out of the dream. Real people, ordinary human beings, lived this way. They did not demand living space built to the tolerances of a precision instrument.
Blaisse's inconsequential chatter infringed on Subtwo's determination to deal with the real world. Blaisse bothered him on a level even he could not analyze. He did not seem to be the same person his shipowner had told the pseudosibs about. Subtwo wished to be contemptuous, but Blaisse he could not discount.
'As you see,' Blaisse said, 'you don't need all of Stone Palace.' Subtwo was not certain, for ordinary people were so changeable and contrary, but he thought Blaisse was amused. 'Yes,' Blaisse said, 'we must have a party. I'm looking forward to introducing you to the Families.'
They arrived at a foyer through which flowed a small stream bridged by delicate silver paths. Blaisse stopped. 'If you want to inspect the barracks before your people move in—'
'The—'barracks'?'
'Yes. Separate quarters. For your people.'
'Our people stay with us,' Subtwo said.
'What, here?'
'Of course. There is ample room.'
Blaisse frowned at them curiously, then shrugged. He slid his hand up Saita's back to her neck, and beneath her long hair. 'If that's what you want.' He glanced around, and suddenly seemed very bored by them and by his surroundings. 'If you want anything else, speak to my steward. Don't bother me about it.' He left them, without a word or glance of farewell.
' 'Madame'?'
'Yes, sir?' Her gray eyes flicked back and forth as she attempted to find from expression or word which of them had spoken.
'Is that your name?'
She caught Subtwo as the speaker, looked directly at him, then dropped her gaze and turned away. 'It will do.' She went down a corridor. Subtwo moved up on her right and Subone on her left to walk beside her. The programmed manners moved in. 'Always learn their names,' they had been taught. 'Remember their names and impress them.' That Madame was not someone they were required to impress did not occur to Subtwo. That she might not want to talk about herself was inconceivable.
'But it is not a name.'
'I will answer to anything you care to call me, sir,' she said. Subtwo noticed the tension in her. He was interested; this was the first indication of any feeling she had revealed.
'I'd rather call you by your name,' he said, pushing her for the interest of
it.
'I was eight when I was captured,' she said. 'I have not had a name since my freedom and my childhood were taken from me.'
As the mind so often works, in defiance of entropy, bits of information were shaken randomly by her words and came down in a pattern that evoked memories Subtwo would have preferred to avoid. He pulled himself back to the present. The dark woman looked away from his face when she saw that his attention had returned.
'A person should have a childhood,' Subone said. The slave woman started at his voice. Subtwo composed his own expression, as he realized it must show the same emotions as his pseudosib's: a faraway look with none of the pleasant nostalgia of usual reminiscence.
They walked in silence for a distance, until they reached another alice tube. 'This leads to the first level,' Madame said. 'One of the corridors there goes back into the Palace, the other goes upward to the blockhouse.'
'Our crew will be hungry and tired,' Subtwo said.
'I will have a meal prepared,' Madame said. 'The rooms are ready. Will you require special services?'
'That's up to them.'
'Do you require slave quarters?'
Subtwo almost snapped at her, but calmed himself. 'We have no slaves,' he said. 'Slavery is an inefficient use of energy, and a waste of human potential.'
She bowed to him, from the waist, a very slight inclination.
'Come in the morning. We'll want to acquire some building materials.'
'I will be available when you are ready, sir.'
Subtwo led the way up the alice tube.
Chapter 5
It was Dim, the scarlet time just after the brightest lights went out, just before dark. All the thirsty spectators had gone home long before. Mischa moved, and that was a mistake. She almost fainted again. On one side of her, the older man was a storm of guilt and remorse; on the other, the companion was a quiet pool of desperation.
Without thinking about it, Mischa worked her wrists against the thongs that bound her. Nothing intelligent and nothing human drove her, only the need to be free. The thongs began to rub her skin raw. When her wrists bled, the dry leather around them grew damp and started to stretch.
The companion looked over at her, slowly, painfully. 'Don't, girl,' he said. 'They'll let us down in the morning. If they catch you—' Mischa made an animal sound. Her hands came free and she slid down the stone and fell to her hands and knees. She felt completely empty, of emotion and of strength. The pain was a part of her; it ate into her, like a malignancy. Her back was crusted with blood. She got to her feet, stumbled forward, and almost fell off the edge of the plaza. Raw flesh scraped a corner and she crouched shivering until she could move again. Her throat burned, and her eyes. Blood began to ooze from newly opened welts.
She crawled and stumbled toward the alpha-helix. She neither saw nor felt the few people still out, who watched and avoided her. She knew only a feral and desperate need to escape. The alpha-ramp rose under her feet, and she climbed.
Someone touched her arm. She reacted violently, reflexively, pulling away, reaching for her lost knife, stumbling again, into sand. She froze with the pain of it. Her breath came out rough, almost silent.
'Mischa, it's all right, it's me.'
She heard the words, but they meant nothing. She pushed herself up, leaving blood in droplets in the sand. Her arm was touched again. She tried to push the hand away.
'Let me help you, dammit.'
Mischa did not ignore the voice, she simply did not understand what it was saying. A few more meters above and ahead was the radial tunnel leading to her niche. A thought wandered into her mind: she might not make it. One more step, another. The muscles of her calves hurt so badly they trembled.
The person following her touched her again. Startled, Mischa pushed out. After that the footsteps stayed
