thoughts were tending? She was, in some ways, quite as young as she looked, but David did not think she was a fool. 'And Hyacinth fell in love with some dark-eyed, perfumed young lordling, if that's what they call them. He managed to sneak out every night for two weeks before Yomi caught him at it and slapped a curfew on him.'
'And he obeyed it?'
'Only because she threatened to tell Soerensen.'
'Ah,' said David. 'I'm sorry I haven't had time to attend any of the performances. How is the experiment going?'
She turned her shoulders just enough so she could see both him and the sunset. Light spilled out over the bay, chopped by the waves into splinters. Jeds fell into shadow, and the distant hills marking the east grew quite black. Stars began to fill the darkening sky.
'Shakespeare plays well. We've done a condensed repertory schedule: A Midsummer Night's Dream; King Lear; The Tempest; Peer Gynt; Caucasian Chalk Circle; Oedipus Rex; Berenice. Ginny's translated some; others we've done in the original. I don't know. Maybe Owen is right. Maybe some human emotions and gestures are universal. They certainly communicate to these people, and they know nothing of Earth.'
At times like this, David was reminded that he was talking with a fellow professional. He wondered if Marco ever saw this side of Diana, or if he only saw that she was pretty, that she had a warm, attractive personality and the ability to listen. 'How do you memorize all those lines?' he demanded.
She rolled her eyes. 'I refuse to answer that question. Why doesn't Charles Soerensen ban debt-slavery in Jeds?'
'Debt-slavery?'
'Haven't you been in the city at all? Owen has already been approached by three brothel owners and two wealthy merchants to buy my debt from him, because they want to own me, you can imagine what for. It's been the same for Oriana and for Quinn and Anahita. And Hyacinth, of course. He holds the record: he's had four brothel owners, three merchants, and eight veiled gentlewomen bargaining through stewards try to buy him. Owen kept trying to tell them that we weren't slaves until Yomi finally told him just to tell them that we aren't for sale.'
'Oh, my,' said David, amused and horrified at the same time.
'Of course, we found it funny at first,' she went on, her expression darkening. 'But the native girls and boys aren't so lucky.' She hesitated, and David had a sudden premonition whose name was going to come next to her lips. 'Marco took me down into the town last week. It had never occurred to me that they might look them over and sell them off like furniture. Those poor girls looked so terrified, and one actually-' She choked on the next words, faltered, and lapsed into silence.
The waves beat on the rocks below. Faintly, from the audience room, David heard the sound of trumpets.
'How can he let it go on, when he could stop it?' Diana demanded suddenly.
'It is an interdicted planet.' The words sounded weak. 'Well,' he added apologetically, 'if he uses his real strength, it would rip apart the fabric of this society. What right do we have to interfere?'
'What right? It's wrong, what they do. It's wrong for those children.'
David sighed. 'Diana, someone is always going to be hurt. I know that Charles is well aware of the contradictions inherent in his situation.'
'You're a fool for going, Charles. Let the company go, and I'll go with them. Send Cara, if you must. But don't go yourself. It can't be perceived as anything but a threat. You forget, I've met him.'
Like conspirators, David and Diana both froze. David wondered if this was how an actor felt, who has forgotten to exit and so, inadvertently, is stuck out on stage for the next scene, in which he does not belong. Diana pressed herself closer against the wall, as if she could sink into the stone and thus hide herself. The voices, accompanied by footfalls, came closer.
'It is time for Tess to return,' said Charles, sounding cool. 'It has been four years, Marco. Four years, since she left Earth. I would have come sooner, but how was I to know it would take two years to finalize the Keinaba alliance? Damned chameleons. One needs the patience of Job to deal with them.'
Marco chuckled. 'Which you have. I'd much rather deal with barbarians. Quick to anger, quick to friendship. Not this years-long game playing the Chapallii love. Years? Hell. Decades-long, centuries, for all we know of them. Still, I say you're better off letting me talk to Tess first.'
The footfalls ceased. The curve of the wall, and the twilight, still hid them from the two men. Alone, David would just have gone to join the others, but Diana looked utterly embarrassed. And anyway, he was curious about the tenor of their conversation.
'No.'
'Charles-'
'No. In any case, the rendezvous is already arranged. We sail in two weeks. Baron Santer will act as regent until my return. I'll leave him the scepter of office, although I'll keep the signet ring and the prince's chain just in case he gets ambitions. Tess will meet us at Abala Port in about six weeks.'
'And?'
'And the Company can travel on into the interior with the jaran, if that's still their wish.'
'And you?'
'We'll see.'
'Yes, we'll see because you have every intention of turning straight round and coming back here with Tess, don't you? Merde, Charles, don't do anything rash.'
Charles laughed, short and sharp. 'When was the last time you've known me to do anything rash?'
'A damned long time ago, as you well know. Let me say it this way. You're getting used to things going your way. This may not be your choice to make.'
'Tess has a duty-'
'Yes, I know all about her duty, and I'm sure she does as well. In any case, it's not Tess I'm thinking of now. In the words of that ancient song, I think an irresistible force is about to meet an immovable object, and I'm sure as hell going to get out of the flash zone.'
'I'll think about it,' said Charles Soerensen. David was shocked to hear such coldness in his voice; this was Charles, who always listened, who could always be counted upon to be open-minded. Diana clutched a fistful of cloak in one hand. Footfalls sounded again, but moving away from them, and they were left in silence but for the sea surging below and the distant sound of carriages leaving the palace.
'Curiouser and curiouser,' said a woman's voice beside them.
David gasped, starting round. Diana sagged back against the wall.
'I beg your pardon. I didn't mean to startle you.' The woman smiled.
'Cara!'
'Oh, not you,' said Cara Hierakis dismissively. 'I meant Diana.'
'Dr. Hierakis,' said Diana in a small voice. She glanced guiltily toward the right and then back. 'Oh.
'
'Yes, we were all eavesdropping, weren't we?'
'Speak for yourself,' said David, affronted. 'We came here by accident.''
'Oh, not on purpose, I know,' said the doctor mildly. 'Or at least, not on your part, Diana.'
'Thank you,' said David, but he laughed.
'Is she really alive?' Diana asked. 'Terese Soerensen, that is? We heard rumors, but I didn't know if they were true.'
'Yes, she's alive.'
Whenever he heard Tess mentioned, just that simple fact set against the official announcements proclaimed by the Chapalii Protocol Office, David felt a warm glow start up inside him. Tess was alive, and he would be seeing her soon.
'But why did she come to Rhui?' Diana asked. 'Oh, I know I shouldn't ask, but…' She trailed off, and David turned to look at Cara Hierakis because it was a question he had never gotten a satisfactory answer to.
Cara laughed. The breeze off the bay stirred her black hair and she squinted out at the distant islands that rimmed the western horizon like glass beads shot through with the last red fires of the sun. The barest trace of crows-feet showed at her eyes. Her face looked not young, yet not old, that mature mask that most humans
