“It may be unpleasant,” the Queen had told her. “Spies have to do unpleasant and undignified things.”
“I am sure they are no more unpleasant or undignified than dying with one’s guts blown out by some terrorist bomb in Green Hurrah,” Lurilile had answered, and the Queen had had to agree.
Sweet, strong Lurilile. The Queen thought of her often, wishing her well.
“Has she found out anything about the bribes.”
“She has attached herself to one of the Thykerite members of Authority, and through his contacts has found everything but evidence we can submit to Authority.”
The Queen snorted. “However those bastards are being paid, someone is being exceedingly clever about it.” She sighed. “What else isn’t new about Voorstod.”
“Uri, why ask if you already know?”
She nodded, curtly. “Sometimes I have to hear you say it, Ornice. Sometimes I have to hear myself say it, just to realize it is not a pervasive nightmare I have come to believe in.”
“It is not dream,” he bowed. “Further, as I mentioned to you, this morning I have been advised of Voorstod’s newest demand.” He ticked off first and middle fingers once more, holding the remaining ones in reserve.
“What more?” she asked. “What more could there be?”
“The three southern counties, those in which people of Voorstod have intermarried with people of Ahabar, those in which the people have watered down or changed their religion, and become, so say the northerners, a bastard race—those counties, says Voorstod, are to be ravaged and sewn with salt.” Third finger. “After every man, woman, and child within them has been slaughtered.” Little finger. “They give notice that Ahabar is to withdraw the army and is not to interfere while Voorstod takes care of this internal matter for itself.” Thumb, and all five points were made. The hand could rest.
The Queen paled. “You can’t have understood them. The difference in dialects …”
He bowed, one nostril distended to tell her he had understood them all too well. “They speak System as well as we do. They may be intransigent, but they are not stupid. Either they see a threat in the southern counties and want it stopped or this is a feint, to draw our attention while they do something wicked somewhere else. The Gharm escape through the southern counties, Uri. The people of Wander and Skelp and Green Hurrah have become reasonable and peaceful. They have lost the fanaticism of their forefathers. They are, therefore, apostates and heretics, anathema to the prophets of Voorstod. Killing a man of the southern counties is now counted a meritorious act in Voorstod. Killing a child is more meritorious yet, for it chops that many more years of heresy away. Killing a child in the womb, or a woman of childbearing age, or a virgin girl …”
“Don’t say any more,” she cried. “Oh, who would be Queen in a world like this!”
“They don’t get away with it,” he soothed. “Commander Karth keeps the peace.”
You believe the peace is what he keeps!” she cried. “My harried soldiery have prevented the slaughter of some innocents in Green Hurrah. That is true. I went there and presented the medals myself. Karth’s battalions lately stopped a murderous battle in Skelp. Our intelligence network intervened in the planned assassination of the Squire of Wander. All true, and yet we are powerless to prevent the killing which goes on, hour by hour, day by day. You know it. I know it. Commander Karth knows it and says so. Why do we lie to ourselves!”
She turned away from him to look out the window into her gardens, tears threatening to fall. “The killing goes on, old friend. The Voorstod Question is the curse of Ahabar and the woe of her Queen. Voorstod has crawled into a tomb of darkness and pulled the heavy stones down upon it. Oh, yes, Voorstod is far into the habit of death!”
• Since Emun Theckles had seen the temple of Bondru Dharm falling apart, the old man had become distracted and depressed, uncommunicative, and obsessed by old times. He stared at walls and did not answer his brother Mard’s attempts at conversation. After a few days of putting up with grunts and silences, Mard decided Emun needed to be jostled. Mard did the jostling by inviting Sam Girat to breakfast, a meal which the aged brothers often took on their porch so they could watch what went on in Settlement One. As an elder settler, Mard could get away with insisting Sam wander by at an appropriate time and sort of drop in. Sam was also instructed to ask Emun about his former life.
“Maybe he’d rather not talk about it,” Sam had suggested to Mard.
“Talking about it’s the only way he’s going to get himself back on track,” said Mard. “You be there, Sam.”
So Sam dropped in for breakfast, and after a few general words about the weather asked, “What was it like, up there?”
Mard set a sharp elbow into Emun’s ribs to wake him up.
“Up where?” asked Emun, coming to himself with an effort.
Mard jabbed him again. “You know what he’s asking about, Emun. Up there.” Mard pointed generally upward, though Phansure was in quite another direction, with all its moons. “Answer the Topman.”
“On Enforcement?”
“Of course on Enforcement, where else have you been!”
“It was … it was gloomy.”
Mard shook his head in exasperation. “How d’ya mean, gloomy? Sam wants to know!” He raised his eyebrows at Sam, who said, yes, indeed, he did want to know.
Emun, who was accustomed to obeying those in authority, turned his full attention to the question and thought about it. When he had thought for a time about what he had meant, in fact, when he said it was
