Caruthers set his face into a mask of anger. "Look at me, John," he said. "
Look
at me!" Caruthers held out one hand and pinched a fold of skin with the fingers of the other. "See that? What's that color? John, I'm
black
! How do you think
I
feel about it? Do you think those lily white bastards below the Sahara are selling off any of their precious
white volk
? Hmmm? Do you think
I'm
not going to see the faces of the people you sell to my last day? There is no good choice, none that works well enough. Not for something this serious."
"God," Hamilton sighed, "how did the world ever get to be like this?"
"I think they used to call it 'progress.'"
"Yeah . . . I guess the decay of a corpse is progress, too . . . from the point of view of the bacteria."
Graduation holiday was over. From a high window overlooking the courtyard Petra watched her brother's company of janissaries forming in the courtyard next to the great, golden-domed mosque. She wondered if she'd ever see him again. She doubted it. Even so, she thanked a God she was not at all sure even existed (and, to be fair, Petra had reasons for doubt, if anyone did) that she'd had at least this one last chance to be together.
Ling wasn't taking it particularly well. She'd grown genuinely fond of Hans in the few days together. Petra thought that "fond" might be something of an understatement, yet that was all Ling would admit to.
Her eyes say something else though,
Petra thought.
Who would ever have thought it; little Ling-ling in love? And
Brüder
Hans as much so?
Petra asked directly, "Are you in love with my brother? You
told
me, when I first came here, never to get attached to the clients."
Ling sighed. "I don't know what love is. I know this, though: Of the thousands of men who've had me only one ever treated me like a princess, rather than a piece of meat."
She didn't say, but thought,
And I might not be a real girl . . . but I have a real girl's feelings. The breeders couldn't breed that out of me. And when I look down there and see your brother marching away, I feel like a part of me is leaving, too.
Ling stood up and left. On the outside she seemed calm enough. What she was feeling inside Petra could only guess at.
Petra watched as the boys turned right and began filing away down the mountain path. She saw Hans turn around several times and look up at the windows. Whether he was seeking her or Ling, Petra didn't know. It was probably both, she decided.
When the last of the boys had disappeared, Petra turned away from her perch and began searching the castle for Ling.
She found Ling sitting alone on a wooden bench in what some of the staff called, "The Singer's Hall." The janissaries had banqueted there, each night of their stay.
Ling didn't notice her at first, or didn't seem to. That the Chinese slave was fully aware of Petra's presence became obvious once Petra was within a dozen feet.
Though Ling didn't turn her eyes from the painted wall upon which she had been gazing, she said, "There's a picture under there, you know."
Petra didn't know. As far as she could see the wall was blank.
"I can't see anything but white. What do you see?" Truthfully, Petra thought Ling was simply seeing things that weren't there. This would have been troublesome if their lives weren't already so miserably blighted.
"It's a man on a horse, an armed and armored man. He's dressed in silvered armor. His horse is roan and draped in red. Over the armor the man is wearing red as well. There's a castle in the background. Not this one, some other. The red clothed, armored man is fighting someone in brown."
"I can't see anything," Petra repeated.
Ling said nothing. A little voice in her head, however, said to her,
Shut up about it. Now.
"Hans promised me he'd write to us," Petra offered.
"They often say that," Ling answered. "And sometimes, for a little while, they do. It never lasts. After all, we're just houris, polluted and polluting. Not real people, just slaves. Not someone real people care about."
"Hans is a slave, too."
Ling sighed. "I know. That's why I'll allow myself a little hope that he really cares."
"Both of us do."
Ling's brown, almond eyes looked up into Petra's rounder, blue ones. "Did I ever mention how much you two look alike?"
"A couple of dozen times, yes. It's the other reason I hid all the time my brother's company was here. If they'd seen me they'd have known his shame."
Ling stood and yawned. Taking Petra by the hand she said, "Well . . . if I can't have the boy I want, I'll just have to take the girl. Come on; it's bedtime."
Hand in hand the two houris walked toward their quarters.
There was snow on the breeze. Hamilton and Caruthers walked under a covered walkway between one of the academic buildings and the nearest cafeteria.
"Man, I
hate
Afrikaans," Hamilton said to Caruthers, following a language lesson. He could have been implanted, or "chipped," and learned the language quickly and perfectly. No free man ever gladly submitted to being "chipped," though it had uses for the disabled.
"Cheer up," Caruthers answered. "You don't have to learn it perfectly; just well enough to pass as a Cape English type who learned it as a second language. You
do
, on the other hand, have to get the Cape English accent down perfectly."
Hamilton nodded. "Working on it."
"I know. You had best concentrate, though, because there's not a lot of time before you have to go to D-D-S,"—Demolition, Destruction and Sabotage—"refresher, then the Mission Course"—special courses of instruction designed for particularly high value operations—"then into LCA"—local cultural assimilation—"followed by insertion."
"To say nothing about the knife," Hamilton said, his distaste palpable. Yet there was no choice but to send him to plastic surgery to alter his features and change the color of his eyes. It was altogether too possible that the Quebecers had managed to send off a picture of him before their ring was broken.
Caruthers shrugged. "There are worse things. At least you get to keep your mind and your thoughts to yourself. Even though I think that's a mistake."
Early on, when the chips had first been developed, OSI had made it a requirement that all foreign service operatives had to be implanted. The Han had been the ones to figure out how to hack into those chips. OSI was still not recovered from that particular disaster. And while the chips were infinitely more secure now, the prejudice remained. It remained so strongly that OSI couldn't force its operatives to be chipped; they'd resign first and in droves.
"No one is going to chip me," Hamilton answered. "Even before I knew about that poor Chinese slave, I thought the idea was disgusting. Since then . . . " He let the thought trail off.
"Well, . . . as to the Chinese girl . . . the Ministry of State Security is now telling us she's become somewhat unstable."
"Oh, great. Now what?"
"Nothing important. We still think we can make use of her. And she has been able to confirm the presence of Meara, Sands and Johnston in the castle we had thought them in."
"Any word on their 'progress' to date."
"No, and we don't think we can make any good guesses. I mean, how much can you read into it when one of them beats a slave girl half to death? When he normally beats the slaves?"
"Not much, I suppose."
"No," Caruthers said. "Not much."
"I really don't understand why we just don't nuke the castle out of existence."
"Couple of reasons. One of them is a good one, the other is even better. The good one is that England is a hostage. The Caliphate doesn't have much in the way of delivery systems, but they can range the British Isles. There are seventy million of our allies, citizens and subjects there. If we nuke the castle, they probably die."
"Better seventy million than five billion or more."
"True," Caruthers agreed. "That's where the better reason comes in. We have to know
where
research is being conducted, where backups might be, where strains of VA5H might be stored."
"It used to be easier, I understand," Caruthers continued, "to keep track of goings on in the Caliphate. But then their cell phone system deteriorated to the point that they had to fall back on landlines, most of them underground. Those we can't track for beans."
Caruthers' face grew contemplative. "You know," he said, "it would be worth it to let them use our satellite system just so we could listen in on the bastards . . . not that they'd be stupid enough to take us up on the offer if we made it."
The range bench held an assortment of weapons, all of types typically found in the Caliphate. Some of those types were imported there from other places, typically South Africa and China; still others were locally manufactured. How OSI came upon them the instructor didn't offer and Hamilton didn't ask. Nor did it matter; if he were going to be armed—something almost expected for fully free men within the Caliphate—it would have to be with something that would excite no comment.
Arranged from left to right on the bench were seven pistols, four submachine guns, three shotguns, six assault rifles, and two versions of the basic janissary armor piercing rifle.
"We've got five days," the instructor said, "five days to teach you to shoot and maintain all of these."
"Why so many versions?" Hamilton asked.
"Because we've not a clue what you'll actually be able to get. We can't even guarantee you
will
be able to get one of these; there are other types to be found within the enemy's country."
"Now wait a minute," Hamilton objected. "I'm going in as a slave dealer. The slaves will surely object to being slaves. It's only reasonable I'd carry arms with me from South Africa."
The instructor hesitated for a moment before speaking. When he did speak it was to ask, "Didn't they tell you the typical ages of the cargo?"
"You son of a bitch! You didn't tell me I was going to be transporting
children
!"
"Calm down, John," Caruthers said. The controller looked even more bone weary than usual. "There was no need for you to know."
And I'm going to have a few words with one large-mouthed instructor for telling you prematurely.
"Kids?"
"That's the usual cargo, yes."
"Sweet Jesus. Kids?"
"They don't take up as much space. They don't eat much. They're cheap. They're docile. They're easily converted to Islam once they're sold. Besides, the guy who runs the brothel in the larger castle prefers kids. That gives you an in to our Chinese chippie."
Although when you find out the real destination of the kids you are going to puke.
"This is it," Hamilton said. "I'll do this mission because I said I would. But after this, I'm putting in my papers. My obligation will be over by the time this is and after that I am
out of here
."
There wasn't a building big enough, or expendable enough, to simulate actually blowing up the castle. Instead, demolitions refresher training concentrated more on the theoretical: dust initiators, expedient timing devices, local manufacture of high explosives, and such.
"What good does it do to know how to make triacetone- triperoxide, when there isn't going to be any in the castle?" Hamilton asked. "What is the logic of using low explosives—or even high explosives—when they might do no more than release the agent?"
"Mr. Caruthers insisted on a full refresher course, Mr. Hamilton," the explosives instructor, a Dr. Richter, said. "We follow orders. How you come up with the material, is up to you."
"It's box of rocks, stupid. And this shit"—Hamilton's finger pointed at a small cone of what looked to be a very damp white powder— "doesn't release any heat. It couldn't destroy the virus if I used two hundred tons of it."
"I need a nuke," Hamilton said. "Nothing else will work."