drunk.'
'That's funny. I got admitted on my first audition at nineteen to the Royal Shakespeare Academy in London.'
'That's young, isn't it?'
'Very young, these days, and I always felt guilty about it. Some people accused me of having connections, but I didn't. But then, I never wanted to do anything but theater, and lots of them had already spent time in the holos. Still.' Diana considered the party under the awning. A clot of actors had invaded, and since at least three of them- Hyacinth, Anahita, and Jean-Pierre-were already drunk, Tess did not stand out so painfully.
'Oh, I don't mean to say that she feels like a fraud, or feels guilty, but that she feels something, and that it's driving her to this. If you can-'
'Pull focus off of her, that's what you want, of course.'
'Yes, that sounds right. Then I'll ease her out and take her back to wherever it is she sleeps.'
Diana sighed. 'I wonder what her life is like, with the jaran.'
David snorted. 'Dirty, cold, and harsh. Don't get any wishful illusions here.'
'They don't seem so barbaric to me.'
'After what we've seen? The wounded? And Bakhtiian executing that man for rape?' David gazed out at the camp beyond, at the tents and the occasional fire, stretching out so far on either side that he could not see the end of it. He had good night vision and as he stared, he saw a single figure crouched in the gap between Soerensen's enclave and the jaran camp, watching them. He felt cold up and down his back and then shook his head, impatient. Of course they would watch Soerensen's camp. Why shouldn't they?
'It's all right.' Diana laid a hand on his elbow, a brief warmth, and removed it again. 'I'll go. Do your part, but you'll have to be quick. What I have in mind won't last long.'
She eased back into the throng and before David realized what she was about, she had started a loud argument with Anahita about somebody named Grusha. Anahita at any time was a formidable presence. Drunk, she was uninhibited, and David marveled as Diana applied just the right words to manipulate Anahita into dragging Charles into the argument.
David circled around and came up to Tess from behind. Cara still stood there, hovering like a protective mother. When she saw David she looked relieved. He put his hands on Tess's shoulders.
'Come on, Tess,' he said in a low voice. 'Time to go home.' Cara helped him lift her up and steer her out from under the awning and into the covering darkness between the two large tents. Tess stumbled on the level ground and swore in a foreign language.
'You're drunk,' said David.
'I know,' she said.
'Let me help you back to your-to wherever you sleep.'
She shook her head violently, tripped over her own feet, and would have fallen if David hadn't caught her. 'No. No. I don't want them to see me like this.' She went on, sounding angry, but she had lapsed into khush, and he couldn't understand her.
'Cara, your tent?'
Cara frowned. 'I have equipment out that's not in place yet. Put her in your tent, and you sleep in mine.'
'Cara, we are both adults. I think we can manage to sleep together without-'
'David. May I remind you that we are in a foreign land, whose customs we do not know?'
'Lady in Heaven. She's not one of them. If it was some young jaran woman… all right. All right. I'll tuck her primly in and retire to your tent. Or Charles's, if it comes to that. Or wherever it is Marco sleeps. I suppose you're right, although I can't imagine why they would care and how they would know.'' Then he recalled the distant sentry. 'Or, anyway, why they would care. She's a foreigner, too, after all.'
'David.'
'I'm going.' He led the unprotesting Tess to his tent, going on a brief side trip to their portable toilet, which they were using until he could devise something more permanent. For an instant, listening outside the tiny square tent, he thought he was going to have to give Tess instructions on how to use the thing, but she emerged at last, staggering and catching onto him for balance.
He tried to talk to her. She did not reply. He was not entirely sure she understood him. She seemed morose more than anything, but at least she was not crying. David hated crying drunks. He helped her inside his tent, sealed her up inside the sleeping pouch, and retreated.
By the time he got back to Charles's tent, the party had moved on. He could hear its remains over in the Company enclave. Hyacinth was singing an obscene song in his grating falsetto, with one of the women-Oriana, perhaps-providing the contralto descant.
Charles and Marco sat alone under the awning, in darkness. 'Well?' Charles asked when David appeared.
'I'm disgusted.' David chose not to sit down.
'Yes,' said Charles. 'I don't remember Tess getting drunk habitually when she was at the university, and she certainly wasn't particularly happy there.'
'Not with her,' snapped David. 'With you. You just sat by and let it happen.'
Charles arched an eyebrow. 'It is not my part to dictate Tess's behavior.'
Marco made a noise in his throat, a short, caustic laugh. 'Just her life.'
'Do I scent a mutiny?' Charles asked good-naturedly.
Marco sighed and leaned back in his chair, balancing it on the back two legs. 'No. You're right, of course. You can't afford to lose her.'
'What the hell are you two talking about?' David demanded. 'Why would you lose Tess?'
'Where is Tess?' Charles asked.
'In my tent, sleeping it off.'
Marco slammed down his chair. 'David, you'd better move her. Here, or into Cara's tent.'
'Cara wouldn't take her. I'd hate to wake her up.'
'No, it's fine,' said Charles. 'You can sleep here, David.'
'Charles.' Marco stood. 'I don't think this is a good idea, unless you deliberately want to set up your authority against his.'
'But I do, Marco. That's just the point. Within our encampment, we will act according to our laws. It is only once we step outside it that we acknowledge theirs. Once their laws penetrate our world, then we have lost Tess. Don't you see?'
'So you'll make a point of it now. And what about our poor David?'
'Yes,' broke in David, bewildered. 'What about poor David? What are you talking about? What do jaran laws have to do with losing Tess?' He paused. 'And furthermore, why are you even bothering to jockey power with Bakhtiian? He's nothing. He's not even important.'
Marco cast a measured glance at the jaran encampment. 'Try telling that to the people whose countries he's overrunning. Or to him, for that matter.'
'You know what I meant. I meant compared to the Chapalii Empire. To space. You haven't answered my question.'
Marco tucked his hands into his belt and whistled softly.
Charles pulled off his gloves and stood up. 'Tess is married to Bakhtiian, under jaran law. Now, I'm going to bed.' He went inside. The tent flap slithered down after him.
'Sit down,' said Marco congenially. 'You look awful.'
David sat down. He stared blankly at the night sky, at the stars. He could even trace a few constellations. Then he jumped to his feet. 'She's sleeping in my tent!'
Marco laid a hand on his arm and, firmly but inexorably, sat David back down again. 'Don't you see? Charles wants to make it clear that Tess is one of us, not one of them. Let her stay.'
'With me as the sacrificial victim? No thank you.'
'Goddess, David, do you think for a minute Charles has any intention of letting anyone in his party get hurt?
How is Bakhtiian to know it's your tent she's sleeping in, anyway? Or that she's sleeping here at all?'
'Why didn't you tell me!' David demanded.
