Thendara House (18 page)

“
Laran
. I know what the word means, of course - psychic power, which most Terrans consider superstition. And your people believe that the Hasturs have it?”

She hesitated just a moment too late before answering; she should have said quickly that yes, the common people superstitiously believed in the powers of the Comyn. But now it was Alessandro Li who backed away, courteously.

“I think we have done enough for one day, Jaelle. We would not want to be late for the Legate’s reception tonight.”

“Certainly not, since you’re the Guest of Honor,” she answered, and at his startled look cursed herself again; worse and worse; she remembered that she had not been told this, that Piedro had not known.

“How did you know that? Are you psychic yourself?” he asked. She said, “Oh, no, when there is an - an important guest such as yourself, it doesn’t take
laran
to guess that the Legate will honor him at a reception.” She stood up quickly. “I’m afraid my mind was wandering a bit.”

“I hope I have not tired you; I’m afraid I am a very demanding taskmaster,” he said in apology, “but we’ll break this up for today; you can go and make yourself beautiful for the reception. I am looking forward to knowing your husband better. I know his work in records, of course, he must be quite an exceptional man, to have attracted so competent a wife.”

She ordered herself not to blush at the compliment, resisting the impulse to tug at the immodestly short skirt. Years of Guild-House training should have made her immune to this kind of thing. She stood up, remembering the sharp teaching of the Guild Mothers,
your body language says more than your words, if you behave like a woman and a victim, you will be treated as one; try to stand and move like a man when you are working among men
. She said in her most businesslike manner “I am sure Piedro will be honored,” and strode away.

She should warn Piedro; this man was sharp, he could put together small hints in an uncanny way. He might lead Piedro to talk too much. How could she blame her husband, when she had done the same thing? But she had made the mistake of underestimating Li; Piedro at least would be forewarned.

How much does Piedro know? Goddess! I wish I could talk to Magda! she thought.

At one of the high windows overlooking the spaceport, she paused, casting an eye at the great, declining, bloodshot eye of the sun. Perhaps she had time to go through the streets of Thendara to the Guild House, talk with her oath-daughter… but no. There was this accursed reception to get through, and Piedro had warned her this morning that all the invited personnel were expected to be at their finest; he had suggested that she visit the personal-services department and have her hair done.

She shrugged and decided to do exactly that. She had been curious about it anyhow; it was a ritual which all of the women here at HQ seemed to undergo at frequent intervals, and she knew that Peter would be pleased if she went to considerable lengths to make herself beautiful for him. And in the last few days she had been working so hard in Aleki’s office that she had seen Peter only when he was asleep, or nearly so.

The personal-services area was on the cafeteria floor, painted in a rosy pink color which made Jaelle, raised under a red sun, feel comfortable and soothed. She had begun to think of this time among the Terrans as an adventure, something to relate with pride to the young Renunciate novices when she was old and housebound.

She punched her ID card into the first machine, and a sign flashed: TAKE A SEAT AND RELAX. YOU WILL BE ATTENDED SOON She read the afterimage of the words - sign reading was an exercise in reading swiftly. To Jaelle it was gone before she could focus her eyes. She took one of the gently contoured pink chairs, and waited, thinking over the last days. Time! Alessandro Li was fiendishly aware of time, even more than average Terrans, who were all clockbound to an incredible degree. She had heard gossip among the women in Communications; Bethany said that under normal circumstances, an official on his level would have done nothing, not even requisitioning an office to work in, until after the official reception; but he had begun work immediately, and had kept her with him most of these days. She felt wrung dry, as if he had actually pressed her and squeezed out all the juices of her knowledge; and this was only a beginning. There was so much tension in the awakening memories - for she had told him, and Kadarin, things she did not know that she knew or remembered - that even when she returned to their apartment she would lie awake, aching, her mind racing, too tired to sleep, hardly closing her eyes until it was time to get up. Time! Time! She lived at the mercy of a clock face, time to work, time to eat, time to make love, time, always time!

At home, she had been able to call an attendant whenever she needed something she could not do for herself; even in the Guild House, where none was servant to another, women did for each other these sisterly services. It was never hard to find some sister who would help you to lace your dress, curl your hair or cut it, lend cosmetics or clothing. Here everything was done by machines, it seemed. At length another sign flashed, YOU MAY GO IN NOW. and she took her courage in her hands and went into the pink room; and stopped cold in the doorway.

Racks that tilted every which way, chairs that tilted and turned to the tables, clamps to hold the head, straps to hold the victim in place… the darkness reeled around her for a moment and she had literally to hold to the door. For a moment she was a child again, back in the insane years before her real life had begun, a child who had secretly crept to the door of a hidden room to steal a glance, not knowing it was her father’s torture chamber…

Mother! Mother
! For a moment she wanted to run, shrieking, as she had done then, to hide her head in her mother’s lap -

Then, abruptly, it was just another room, a Terran room filled with machinery, that did with metal fingers what flesh and blood could have done better. She could even make out, now, robot machines for cutting hair, for curling it, for soothing cosmetics… perfumed sprays. The room smelled and looked calm and soothing, but Jaelle could not force herself to step inside; finally she managed to free her feet, which seemed, as they had seemed then, rooted to the ground. She fled down the corridor, through the cafeteria, out the heavy doors and across the hard paving, forgetting to use the underground tunnel, never seeing the Terran eyes that turned to watch her fleeing form, stare at her. She threw herself, gasping, on her bed and buried her face in the pillows, glad beyond belief that Piedro was not there to demand explanation of her curious behavior. Had she disgraced him again? She no longer knew or cared.

It seemed only moments later - had she slept for a few minutes, an hour? - when the door chimed softly. A visitor at this hour? Or had Piedro forgotten his key-card again? Keys and locked doors, for her, belonged to matrix laboratories, dungeons - torture chambers!

Braced to welcome Peter, she was amazed to find Bethany Kane standing in her door.

“Jaelle, honey - are you all right? I saw you running across the court as if the devil was after you! Listen, is that bigwig from the Senate bothering you? He has no right to do that! I dropped in, but his secretary said you’d gone down to get your hair done - can I come in? People are sleeping on this corridor and I don’t want to wake them up.” She came in, as Jaelle gestured, then suddenly took in Jaelle’s disheveled appearance.

“What’s the matter? Not going to the reception? I was going down to have my hair done, too, I thought we could go together - “

Bethany went and stood before Jaelle’s dressing-table, running her fingers through her own hair. “I’m a mess, and Montray will expect everyone on the staff to look their best. Do you have some extra curlers? Or are you going down to the beauty shop - ?”

She was looking expectantly at Jaelle, and Jaelle said woodenly, “I did go down. But I - I decided not to go in.”

“Honey, was somebody down there nasty to you? If they were, you ought to put them on report. They’re there to wait on people, and if anybody made a single nasty remark - “

“Oh, no.” Jaelle smiled faintly. “I didn’t see any people down there at all - I thought it was all done by machines!”

Bethany chuckled. “Well, most of it is, but there
are
people there to make sure the machines do what they’re expected to do,” she said. “You’ve let your hair grow lately, haven’t you? What are you going to do with it tonight?”

Jaelle shrugged. “It’s not long enough to braid; what is there to do with it?”

Bethany surveyed her with consternation. “You’re not going like
that
, are you? Honey, Peter would
die
! Here, sit down, let me see what I can do. Why, you’ve never even used the cosmetic console in the dressing room, have you? Show me what dress you’re going to wear, and I’ll figure out something.”

Bethany managed, in the next twenty minutes, to show her several features of the bath and dressing table that she had not known existed. She was creamed, curled, elaborately made up, her hair elegantly fluffed into reddish-gold curls. For a little while it felt as if Bethany was indeed one of her Guild-sisters, and she was readying herself for Festival in the streets of Thendara at Midsummer. It was certainly easier than the strange, terrifying room full of machinery would have been, and at last she surveyed herself in the mirror with a certain pleasure; the new Jaelle who looked out at her would hardly have been recognized by the Guild-sisters. Bethany’s deft fingers had arranged her hair into a soft halo, deftly accented her high cheekbones and the green glint of her eyes, softened her freckles to a gilt blur, and done something to her eyes so that they looked deep-set and mysterious.

“You look marvelous,” Bethany said. “You’re going to be the hit of the reception! I didn’t realize you were a beauty, Jaelle!”

Somehow she felt disloyal to the Guild House. Dressing and preening herself like this, for a group of
Terranan
! Well, she rationalized, it was part of the job, to look her best - even Bethany had said so. Impulsively she hugged her.

“Thank you, Beth,” she said, and Bethany yipped, “Look at the time! I’ve got to get down and change my own dress, or I’ll be late! Anyhow, Peter will be coming in pretty soon - “

Bethany had hardly gone when he came in, breathless.

“Sweetheart, you look wonderful - you’ve done something to your hair, haven’t you? I came to pick up my dress outfit - I’ll have to dress over there. Do you know what they’ve had me doing, the last three days?”

“No, I don’t,” she said, “You’ve hardly seen me, you haven’t told me anything.”

“Don’t nag, love, I’m in a real hurry. They’ve had me crawling around in the dust of the old Records section, trying to clear space for a new model corticator programmer. The place is filled up with old file boxes and
books
, for God’s sake, I didn’t know we still had any, and look at the dust!” He held out filthy hands. “I haven’t seen the light of day this week! I should be getting hazard pay, all the germs in there - anyhow, Montray wants me in his office in ten minutes.” He flung the suit over his arm. “Where are my dress shoes?”

“In the closet, I suppose.” She was pleased that Peter had noticed the pains she had taken with her appearance, but he had so quickly taken it for granted.

“Well, for heaven’s sake,
get
them for me, will you? I’m late, and I’ve got to do something about this damned beard - ” he vanished into the bath, and Jaelle, fuming, went to pull out his shoes. She had performed many jobs in her life, but that of valet was new, and she didn’t see why she had to perform as his body-servant; if he needed that kind of personal servant, why didn’t he hire one for himself? Inside the bath Peter bellowed out a gutter curse and something metal crashed against the wall. He stormed out, raging.

“Jaelle! I hear so much about how great you are down in the office, keeping the desks stocked and doing all the little chores Mag used to do, and now I find you’ve let me run out of depilatory! Hellfire, girl, do you think I can go to the Legate’s reception looking like a spaceport tramp?” He rubbed his beard. “Now somehow I’ve got to make time to hit the barbershop! Here, give me those!” He grabbed the shoes she was holding. “Don’t be late to the reception, hear me?” And he was gone, without a word, without a kiss, without really looking at her at all.

Jaelle sank down, shaking, the ache inside her so enormous and empty that she could hardly breathe. Somehow, the slam of the door behind him had broken something in her, a self she had created here, the reflection of herself in Piedro’s eyes. As it broke, she felt her teeth clench, the soft beauty Bethany had painted on her face suddenly vanishing into the cold, tough-minded Amazon Kindra had trained.