Trompe gave her the opening. “He didn’t like those colors you gave him. Why was that, do you suppose?”
“A mistake on my part,” she admitted ruefully. “He loves to paint, as you saw, and I thought the colors would be tempting. I was wrong. They don’t please him for some reason. They have the wrong texture or smell. He does quite nice renderings in feces, as you’ve seen. Or in gravy, or mud.”
“Organic media,” mused Trompe. “Probably with organic smells.”
“Perhaps he identifies by smell, categorizes by smell. I don’t know. Maybe he has another sense entirely.”
A superhuman sense, she didn’t say, though she thought it. A more-than-human sense. She caught herself and flushed. She’d mentioned these thoughts to a few family members, a few friends, all of whom thought she was pushing the limits of reality. And sometimes—yes, sometimes she knew she would trade eventual superhu-manity for a Leely who would learn to use the potty and keep his clothes on!
“No need to get upset, Lutha. I understand.” Trompe was smiling at her, squeezing her shoulder. “Fine. I was briefed. I was just digging for some kind of overall understanding, but we’ve obviously said enough.” He seated himself and adopted an expression that said he was getting down to business.
“It’s going to be hard for you,” he said.
She nodded, admitting as much.
Trompe tapped his front teeth with a thumbnail. “The Procurator wishes you to know you may have all the help you need, both in preparing to go and to keep your business alive while you’re gone. Meantime, I made some inquiries of my own. I thought Leelson might be, you know, simply avoiding the issue, but he’s truly gone. No one I spoke to had any idea where he was.”
“Limia could go,” said Lutha, referring to Leelson’s mother.
“Easier than you,” he agreed. “I wonder why she won’t?”
Both sat silently for a time.
“Let’s ask her,” he said. “Let’s go ask her!”
“Now?” she cried. “I can’t leave—”
He interrupted her with a finger to her lips. “I’ll call a crèche team to take care of Leely, and why not now? If Limia won’t go, I think we both should know why. We’ll run on over to Fastiga and find out.”
South of Alliance Prime the enclave of Fastiga lay beneath its own separate dome, the towers of the men jutting aggressively above the sprawling domiciles of the women. Nothing separated them but multilevel sculpture gardens and fantastically ritualized behaviors, both well observed.
In the domiciles the languorous hours between the evening meal and the erotic observances of deep night were set aside for the reception of visitors. Fires were lit in the halls of lineage, dusty bottles were opened and decanted into elegant crystal, children were sent to their own quarters to bedevil their adolescent minders, womenfolk put on their most seductive draperies, and everyone gossiped about everyone else. Fastiga women were much interested —some said obsessed—by lineage. All Fastigats claimed common ancestors; they were all one clan; only the precise degree of kinship was subject to analysis, but of such minor quibbles nightlong conversations could be built.
Trompe brought Lutha up from clangorous, crowded traffic levels belowground to the murmuring quiet of a house she had visited once before. And had not intended to visit again, she acknowledged to herself as he fetched her a glass of wine and ushered her to a sheltered corner of the hall of lineage. It was a secluded niche mostly hidden from the other visitors.
“Leelson brought me here once,” she said, aware of a sudden bellicosity, the flaring embers of old anger.
He nodded, as though he already knew. Well, Fastigats did know. They knew entirely too much.
“It may take me a while to get to Limia,” he murmured. “Custom demands I work my way around the room. Don’t move. I’ll be back.”
He left her. She settled into the chair, which was both comfortable and private. The wings on either side hid her from anyone who was not directly opposite, and there was more uninhabited room around her than in her whole apartment and three or four others like it. Behind her, she could hear two Fastiga women making conversation, unaware they were overheard.
“There’s Olloby Pime, with her Old-earth friend,” said one voice. “So hairy, Old-earthers. I had an earther lover once. Did I ever tell you, Britta? So relaxing. Such a treasure. Poor thing had no idea what I was feeling, and I can’t tell you how refreshing that was.”
Britta paused before responding. “I perceive your satisfaction, Ostil-ohn, but my own experience would lead me to believe such a liaison would be rather frustrating.”
Britta and Ostil-ohn, said Lutha to herself. Ostil-ohn, who had had a terrestrial but non-Fastigat lover.
Ostil-ohn, who was saying:
“Oh, my dear, no. For example, if I wasn’t in the mood for sex, instead of being coaxed and wooed and pestered for simply hours and having to heat up out of sheer inevitability, I could just pretend I was wild with desire to begin with.”
“He didn’t know the difference?”
“Not at all! He hadn’t the tiniest flicker of perception, so he got on with it, and I sighed and yelped a bit, and shortly it was over, while meantime I’d gone on thinking what I was thinking about before he started!”
“But, Ostil-ohn, this implies …what if you were in the mood and he wasn’t?”
“Ah, well, there are drawbacks to every relationship. It’s true one gets in the mood much less often than with Fastigats.”
Britta snorted.
“I wonder where Limia Famber is,” Ostil-ohn murmured next. “I haven’t seen her lately.”
Lutha leaned back, listening intently.
“One assumes she has not been taking part in public life since her son disappeared.”
“I shouldn’t think she was surprised! What did she expect? Leelson was destined to disappear. Takes after his father in that regard.”
“Ostil-ohn! You’re being cruel. Grebor Two didn’t disappear purposely. Any more than his father did!”
“Listen, when three generations of Fambers stick around only long enough to father one child, then take off and are never
