The off-worlders were having supper, which Nyx found somehow reassuring. As she and Rhys stepped into the room behind Kasbah, the call to prayer rolled out over Mushtallah. The keening cry sounded close, and Nyx figured it was pumped into the palace grounds through some kind of local radio.
Rhys found an ablution bowl near the door and began to wash in preparation for prayer. Nyx continued on into the airy little room. There were plush divans and tall succulents in striped pots. Some kind of gauzy curtain draped down from the ceiling in soft folds, which cut some of the filtered light from the open shaft above them.
The off-worlders were gathered around a faux wood table set near four glass doors that led out onto a balcony overlooking the spread of Mushtallah. Nyx could see the blue light of the second sun begin to push dusky evening across the city. Glow worm lamps had been unshuttered, and the minarets were lit up with red beacons, an old but useless tradition. The beacons just made the minarets better targets.
The aliens at the table were small, bony women. Two were black as pitch, and one was whiter than a Mhorian, which Nyx figured wasn’t healthy. The white one wore a visible silver X-shaped pendant, like a Ras Tiegan, and they all wore dark hijabs that covered their hair and wrapped around their necks like overgenerous turbans. They were covered from wrist to ankle in a variety of housecoats and loose trousers. Though she ate with her fingers, the white woman wore gloves. Nyx wondered if the white pigment was some sort of skin condition.
Rhys had pulled the prayer rug from his back and took up his kneeling position, facing north. As he professed his intention to offer salaat and began to go through the gestures of the niyat, she could still follow along with him, the words and movement so familiar to her body. She wished he would carry a sword instead of a rug. When bullets ran out, rugs weren’t much good for beating people off.
Kasbah introduced Nyx to the off-worlders.
“You don’t pray?” Nyx asked the women.
“We pray,” the more delicate of the black women said in heavily accented Nasheenian. “Just not so publicly, not in ordinary spaces, and not so frequently. We are people of the Good Book, but our book is… different from yours. I must admit, even among followers of your book… what is it you call it here, the Kitab? Even among followers of your Kitab on other worlds, your interpretation is… exceedingly unique. Yours is the first post-Haj world to—”
“I sometimes wonder what he has left to say to God,” Nyx interrupted, nodding toward Rhys.
“There is always something left to say to God,” the woman said. She gestured to the table. “Join us. I am Danika Chaba.”
The other two introduced themselves. The other black woman was Solome Hadar, and the white one was Keran Yarkona. The white one’s Nasheenian was so bad that Nyx could barely understand her.
“You’re the tenth mercenary to talk to us,” Danika said.
“I’m a bounty hunter,” Nyx said.
“Oh? Is there a difference?”
“Yeah,” Nyx said. She could hear Rhys reciting, not in Chenjan or Nasheenian but the ancient language of prayer:
“Were you all with Nikodem the last time she was in Nasheen?” Nyx asked. She was hungry, and they had a lot to go over.
Keran and Solome exchanged looks, but Danika did not blink as she replied, “I was. Solome stayed aship, as she had not yet been inoculated against your contagions. Keran had not yet graduated.”
“Graduated?”
“Off-world studies, diplomacy. She has done some work for us in-system.”
“In-system?”
Danika clucked her tongue. In Nasheen, that was a reproach, but Nyx suspected she meant it differently.
“We have two viable worlds in our star’s system, and a colonized moon. We have some experience in negotiating with others who are not as we are.”
“It was smart to send women to Nasheen, then.”
Danika gave a tight smile. “It was not all politics. We have sent skilled technicians before us, but most were unable to adapt to the peculiar contagions of your world, and perished. Nikodem and I are now the top technicians in our field.”
“And what field is that?” Nyx asked.
“Organic sciences.”
Rhys finished the prayer with his feet tucked under his thighs, his palms splayed on either knee.
“Peace and blessings of God be upon you,” he murmured, turning to look over his right shoulder, where one of God’s angels was supposed to be recording all your good deeds. He then looked over his left shoulder, to the angel making note of all his wrongs.
What wrongs had Rhys ever committed, Nyx wondered? Again, he murmured, “Peace and blessings of God be upon you.” He began to roll up his prayer rug.
She noted that he had added no personal prayers to the beginning or end of his salaat.
Angels and demons and a great man in the sky who took the time to listen to a whole world abase itself. There had been no angels at the front. Chenjans were the only demons, and sacrificing herself to God had proved nothing, saved no one.
What bugged her was that Rhys hadn’t figured that out yet.
She heard him get up and turned to watch him walk over. Kasbah brought another chair from the back of the room, and Rhys joined them at the now crowded table. The white woman, Keran, flinched away from him as he sat next to her. What did she have to be afraid of from another believer? Maybe they all had something against aliens. Nyx wondered how often these people had dealt with other worlds. If they had whole schools for “off-world diplomacy,” they must do it a lot. Nyx had a long moment of vertigo. How many worlds were out there?
“Competitive field on your world?” Nyx asked. “Organic sciences?”
“In our country, yes. But you did not come here to talk of science,” Danika said.
Nyx leaned back in the chair and thought:
“Can you think of anyone Nikodem met last time who would give her harbor?” Nyx asked. “Any place she’d want to go?”
A black woman in Nasheen might stick out even if she holed herself up in the Chenjan quarters with the refugees. Though her color would match, her foreign look and accent would give her away as something other than Chenjan, especially if she went out unveiled or looked too many men in the face. These women had no problem looking Rhys in the face—only Keran seemed to actively dislike him—but that may have been them bowing to Nasheenian custom. In any case, the other hunters this group had spoken to would have started in the Chenjan district. If so many had already given up the hunt, it was likely Nikodem wasn’t there.
“We have a more detailed itinerary on the globe the queen issued you,” Danika said. “We spent a good deal of time here in the palace meeting with bel dames and dignitaries.”
“Which bel dames did you meet?”
“Do you remember their names?” Danika asked Solome.
Solome’s voice was deep, sultry. Nyx was impressed to hear that voice come out of such a small woman.
“I believe we spent time with Dahab so Batir and Fatima Kosan. Who were the others? Inan so Khada, and someone called Blake, a half-breed from Ras Tieg.”
“Blake’s not a bel dame, she’s a bounty hunter like me,” Nyx said. “Half-breeds can’t be bel dames.” Ah, Blake. So the young upstart was still around. Nyx knew Inan too. They had gone through bel dame training together.
“There were magicians, also,” Danika said. “We met with a great deal of magicians over the course of our stay. The nature of our work demanded it. That list is in your file also.”
“I heard you saw a boxing match in Faleen,” Nyx said, casually. She suspected that little detail wasn’t on the
