seen: so many people, all at once, each individual a different shade, a different hue, some whole, some shattered, some weak, some strong—
'Subtwo,' Mischa said, 'Subone's coming back. I could see him.'
'Returning? No, he was wounded. He is resting, or he is dead.'
'He's coming.' She knew that if she reached for him she could touch him again, coming closer, amused by his victory over his pseudosib, and always ready to slip back into a rage that would drag Subtwo into his battles.
'You say that to reassure me,' Subtwo said. 'So I will keep our bargain, whether he is dead or not.'
Feeling light and dizzy, as though she had fasted for several days, Mischa let Jan help her up. 'Believe what you want.' She had no energy left with which to argue. Near her, his instant's flash of comprehension gone, Crab hardly remembered what they had done. He had thought only to help Mischa, and that he had achieved; but had they helped Gemmi? She was cut off from all experience but what she saw from others. She could no longer be hurt, but she could be crippled, maimed, killed. She can't be hurt. Mischa repeated that to herself, trying to convince herself that nothing more need be done. If the child were disfigured by beatings before their uncle realized Mischa would never return, if Gemmi were scarred and made ugly, she would not know it, any more than she knew now that she was beautiful. If she died, what guilt could there be? Mischa had willed her death a thousand times.
Mischa could have abandoned Gemmi when Gemmi could command her, but now it was impossible. The fine philosophical distinctions evaded her. Perhaps only the situation had changed; perhaps Mischa herself was different. She only knew for certain that she could not leave Gemmi where she was. She started down the tunnel.
'Mischa—where are you going?'
She turned back. She had not exactly forgotten that the other people were there; they simply had no connection with what she had to do now. Jan looked completely mystified, but she could not stop to explain. 'I can't leave her,' she said. 'I can't just let her die.' She turned and ran, away from Center, away from Stone Palace, away from the ship.
Her uncle's niche seemed much farther away than it actually was. Mischa was panting, her throat fatigue- raw, when she finally stopped before the new curtains and pulled them aside.
'Ah,' her uncle said, putting down a delicate goblet. 'Very good. Very fast. You'll have to do as well from now on.' Gemmi lay on her pallet, smiling and cooing.
'There isn't any from now on,' Mischa said.
He raised his eyebrow and glanced at Gemmi, who began to cry. But Mischa only sensed a dim distasteful aura, directly from her uncle. She ignored it, and nodded to the paid companion lounging in the back of the cave. 'You can go back to Center now.'
The companion pushed back a lock of heavy golden hair, stretched, moved to take advantage of highlights on smooth pale skin. 'Are you paying?'
'I was. No more.'
The companion shrugged, stood up, and moved languidly toward Mischa's uncle.
'Wait a minute!'
'Go on,' Mischa said.
The companion kissed her uncle on the lips and left the cave.
'What do you think—'
'You can't do anything to me anymore.' She went to Gemmi, who reached toward her, still sobbing. Suddenly their uncle sucked in his breath, a long, shuddering gasp of terror.
Mischa glanced around. 'It's only Crab. Your nephew.'
'Gods.'
Crab sidled up to Mischa, leery of new people but interested in Gemmi. He took her hands and the child quieted, wide-eyed. Mischa picked up the long chain that fastened Gemmi to the wall.
'Where's the key?'
'The key.' He said the words with little inflection, still staring at Crab. 'The key?' Recovering himself, he smiled, he laughed. 'There is no key. When did you need a key? I poured acid on the lock.'
Mischa bent over the heavy shackle. The acid had achieved its purpose, filling the lock with crusted metal salt, perhaps weakening the mechanism, but making it impervious to picks. 'You think you're so smart,' Mischa said. She had never been able to speak that way to him without the knowledge of certain punishment. The new knowledge, that he could not punish her
anymore, gave Mischa no pleasure at all. She felt only pity.
She drew Subtwo's laser lance from beneath her jacket. She would have preferred to free Gemmi completely, but that would have to wait. The beam bit into the metal and stone, flinging out bits of molten material. With Crab hiding behind her, Mischa threw a blanket over Gemmi, shielded her own eyes, and fired again. The chain rattled, falling loose.
'Now what?' His voice was contemptuous. 'What will you do with her? You still need me to take care of her —'
'I don't need you for anything. You needed me and Chris, but you couldn't admit it, so you had to try to make us both your slaves. And that's why he's dead.' Partly, she thought. Because you pushed us too hard, and I pushed him harder. She looked down at Gemmi, who was as beautiful as Chris had been, but as empty as he was toward the last. The child was unhappy, reflecting the anger and hatred all around her. Mischa soothed her own thoughts and tried to make even ordinary things beautiful in her mind. With the hot end of the chain tied into the blanket, Mischa half-lifted and half-carried her sister toward the doorway. Gemmi was a large and healthy child, bigger than Mischa, unable to stand, awkward to move. Crab tried to help.
Their uncle tried to struggle up, but his legs failed him. 'You can't just leave me!'
Mischa ignored the cry.
His voice rose in panic. 'How do you expect me to live?'
Mischa glanced back, pitying him, until the pity dissolved in bitterness. 'Beg,' she said.
Jan followed Mischa away from Center. He was too tired to run. When Mischa turned a corner and went out of sight, he could still see Crab, but soon even Crab outdistanced him and he was alone in the corridor again, following blindly, hoping the tunnel would not branch.
He did not react when a hand grasped his shoulder. He was too tired even for surprise. He simply stopped, and after a moment turned, to see, with relief, that Simon had come after him. They continued together. Anything could happen now, with Val and the others guarding Subtwo and his raiders. The underground people were terribly vulnerable to public outcry, even in this sparsely populated section of the city's outskirts. If a mob were raised against them, they would be trapped between it on one side and Subone's group on the other; and Subtwo would be bound to his bargain with Mischa only by his word. Jan knew he should have stayed with the others, but he did not want to leave Mischa to a confrontation all alone.
The dimming lights at the far limit of Jan's vision sparkled in his fatigue, and he had an odd feeling of observing but not comprehending. Simon was a blur at his side. Jan stared down at the stone floor, watching his feet move one step, another.
Simon grasped his arm again; Jan stopped obediently and glanced around, blankly, until Simon shook him and pointed.
A hundred meters ahead, Crab stopped his headlong gallop toward them, lumbered a few steps back the way he had come, stopped again, and waited, moving a few steps this way, a few steps that.
He led them down the tunnel, and into a branch that Jan thought he himself would have passed, a narrower, dimmer place with a musty, fetid smell. A few minutes later they met Mischa, carrying and dragging a young girl with her. The child was half-naked and her movements were uncoordinated, reflexive, aimless. Seeing Jan and Simon, Mischa stopped. The stress of fatigue and frustration was plain.
'She never learned to walk,' Mischa said. 'She never could.'
Simon bent down and picked up the dragging end of the melted chain.
'I can get that off,' Mischa said. 'I just need a little time.'
'We haven't much time,' Jan said.
'We will free her.' Simon threw down the chain and picked Gemmi up easily. 'She is one of us.'
The Circle was very quiet, as though hibernating until its patrons came back from their quest. The few people who saw the raiders and their captors, and recognized what they saw, stopped, and backed into shadows, and crept quickly away. Gradually, the path before Mischa and the others became more and more deserted, as an
