She tried once more to clench her fist, stretching out her fingers, contracting the muscles, digging with her nails like talons, into nothing.
Her fingertip touched a minuscule irregularity in the matrix that bound her. She stopped trying to make a fist and concentrated on that one square millimeter of skin in contact with some kind of reality. She probed the imperfection, wishing she could grasp and tear it. Her nail slipped beneath it and she pulled: an insignificant motion requiring infinite energy. But the bit of material yielded; the flaw grew. She worried it, abraded it, unable to rip it. She felt she should be warm and sweaty, but the matrix around her adjusted to her body temperature and absorbed her perspiration without allowing her even that sensation.
She felt the spark of someone's approach. In anger and frustration, she struggled with the single tiny opening. Her hand broke through into a textureless foam or gel.
Bright light cut off her struggles.
Mischa blinked into the spotlight, dazzled, dizzy. Beyond the glare stood two great dark figures who reached down and dragged her from the close restraints. The artificial skin pulled away from her like a glove, and the gel sucked it back.
The two shadows were very strong. They lifted her easily. Even their harsh touch and the painful brilliance of the light were welcome, after so long. She braced herself against the high side of the horizontal cabinet that had imprisoned her. Her eyes adjusted slowly.
She recognized the two people who had come to get her. Their Family dispensed a form of justice, ordered what existed of Center's law, and guarded the property of those who could afford their services.
The administrator glanced inside the cabinet. One side of the suit shriveled as the gel expanded against it, but the other swelled as gel protruded into the tear Mischa had made. The administrator probed and found the hole.
'Industrious little brat,' she said. She had a beautiful voice, and eyes like
blue diamonds. 'Who checked this out?'
'I don't know,' said the young, blue-eyed man, who looked enough like her to be her twin, but who was probably no more closely related than first cousin.
'You should,' she said. 'Call some practice sessions.' There was a sneer in her tone, uglier because her voice was still so lovely. She looked down from her great height as Mischa straightened slowly. 'Don't you like the way we treat dangerous criminals?' She gestured toward the door.
Mischa came forward slowly, watching her. She watched Mischa as carefully.
'We don't need to tie you, do we?' The young man's voice was falsely hearty. Mischa shook her head. The administrator said nothing, but the corner of her mouth twitched up: she knew a lie.
They walked for a long time down a straight and unbranched corridor, entered an elevator and rose some distance, stopped, and went into another hallway. Mischa had never been in a Family dome before, but there was nothing to see except closed doors every few meters. Mischa walked slowly past them, hunched against the fear and hate all around her.
They entered a high vaulted room that was the proper size and shape to be at the center of the dome. The gray plastic building material, though nearly indestructible, seemed aged, slightly worn, and uncared for. The judge nodded sleepily at his bench, and a few people slumped on the seats arrayed around him.
The administrator prodded Mischa in the back. They moved toward the Family's eldest member. His mane of white hair was yellow-tinged and limp, and the diamond hardness of his eyes was flawed. He shook his head slowly, Mischa thought for a moment at her. But the tremor was a manifestation of his age; he did not even seem to notice it.
'Sir.'
His head jerked up, his eyes focused. 'Bondsperson?'
Mischa said nothing, and no one else responded. She had not expected help, nor hoped for it.
'The Lady Clarissa sent her for punishment. Stealing in the Palace.'
'I wasn't stealing.'
The administrator shoved her.
The old man waited. No one intruded on the silence of his forgetfulness. Finally he looked up and around and seemed to remember his duties. 'First offense?'
Mischa did not answer. The young man slapped her, grabbed the collar of her shirt, and pulled back and down. The fastenings caught against her throat; the shirt ripped open down the front and hung around her waist. The young man glanced at the scars on her back: an old knife wound, and clumsy beatings, but none of the narrow parallel marks of an official flogging. 'First offense,' he said.
'Standard.' the old man said. 'And five for insolence.' He leaned across his desk and peered down. 'Do you understand, child?'
'Yeah.'
The administrator hit her. Mischa stumbled with the blow, rammed into the desk with her shoulder but rebounded, turning, and kicked out. The administrator was not as vulnerable as a man would have been, but Mischa was almost halfway across the big room before she heard the lizard swish of a leather whip. As she leaped from one bench to the next, the lash curled around her neck, pulling her backwards. She fell, banging her head, and lay stunned, empty, removed from reality. They dragged her, groggy and unresisting, back to the judge, leaving the whip wrapped around her throat.
The old man shook his head, slowly, sadly. 'You need taming, child.'
'Standard first isn't enough for her,' the administrator said. 'She's been a thief for a long time to go for Stone Palace. She's just been lucky.'
'And five for attempted escape.' The old man's voice trailed off, and he took another breath. 'This is her first.'
'We'll just have her back. She'll think she's got away with something.'
'Punishments are standard.'
The administrator muttered under her breath, but the old man did not notice. He seemed to notice her jealousy even less; he could not see what was obvious to Mischa, that the administrator wanted to sit in his place before her diamond eyes dulled, before her voice grew feeble, before her long, smooth muscles became weak and inelastic. She jerked the coiled whip and pulled Mischa half off her feet.
They took Mischa onto the plaza that fronted their dome. It was early: the ceiling lights were still brightening. Mischa wondered what day it was, if she had been in the deprivation cell overnight or longer. It seemed longer. Another of their Family was releasing the two people from the previous day's punishment. Friends waited for one, and helped him away, but the other was still unconscious, and alone. She was shoved off the plaza and left.
Six truncated transplanted stalagmites projected three meters from the deck. Their broken tips held metal rings; the attached thongs were stiff with blood and sweat. The administrator and her assistant lifted Mischa up and tied her. The cool stone pillar angled out a few degrees, partially supporting her. Her feet did not reach the ground.
They hung two other people up beside her. On her left was a man, an adult. On her right, a paid companion, not much older than she, did not resist as they took away his beaded vest and tied his hands. His face was marked with the tracks of tears. A long red scratch cut from the side of his chest down his ribs to his stomach, and under his low kilt. He would probably have to find another job, after this, or work at a much lower grade.
Someone stood at the front of the platform and began to read charges.
People gathered on the lower level to watch. Mischa rested her head against the stone and tried to shut out her perception of their hungry expectant feelings. They were anticipating this morning, reliving other mornings. Most were merchants with self-righteous auras; a few were Family people. The sound of a scuffle interrupted the concentration.
The charge-paper crackled when it was folded.
The older man was first. Mischa had not heard his crime and did not care what it was. His pain and his screams battered at all the defenses she could build. He possessed no anger, only fear, regret, remorse. Mischa neither understood nor shared his emotions; this punishment could not make her feel guilt. It would be guilt at her own survival. If those who punished her did not know that, she did.
The administrator's feelings came through. She enjoyed the power she held in the braided leather. The reactions of the spectators were approval and hate and vicarious pain and sexual excitement. The mixture had a
