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See the names on the doors? There s mine. Grinder s generous. When one of his
women gets pregnant, he moves her in here. And the apartment is hers for the
rest of her life. Some of the others have gotten married and brought their
husbands here. He doesn t mind. You ll meet most of them at dinner. It s like
in a palace, you see. Everyone comes to dinner when Grinder says he wants it
formal.
When they reached the back of the garden, Amalia opened a door and gestured
Lylunda through.
She stepped into a smaller garden with graceful, dark-leaved minikuna trees,
their long withes blowing like hair in the evening breeze. By each tree there
was a small grassy mount with a flat stone on top. Each stone held a small
urn. Amalia walked to one, stood looking at it. My daughter, she said. She
killed herself when she was seven. I don t know why. She was al-ways a sad
child.
Lylunda shivered at the flatness of the woman s voice, a gray
hopelessness she d never felt, no matter how tight things got. I m
sorry, she said.
No matter. It s been five years now. Life keeps on in spite of everything. I
come here so I can tuck her away for the night. Not really, of course, I know
that, but.... Her voice trailed off. We d better get
back now. She s the only child here, you know. The rest were mothers. Once you
give Grinder a child, you be-long to him even after you re dead.
There was no change at all in her voice, the same soft sad murmur, but Lylunda
knew she was being warned to walk very carefully or she d find herself trapped
the way all these women were. As she moved through the door, she set her hand
on Amalia s shoul-der and gave it a gentle squeeze to let the woman know she d
gotten the message.
4
The days that followed slid past with little to divide one from the next, even
the Harrowing of the Izar.
She missed most of the Harrowing, having moved into the Overnighter, a room
opening off the kephalos
terminal chamber, no bigger than a closet with a basin and a toi-let and a
narrow, lumpy cot that made sleeping an en-durance sport. Except for meals she
spent her time with Bug and did her best to avoid
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Grinder and his men, though he insisted she dine at his house at least twice a
week.
After three weeks, the Aptzers retired to the Temple, satisfied with the havoc
they d wreaked on the guilty. The Izar came to life slowly, warily, like a
wounded animal checking itself for more hurts. Lylunda moved back to her room
on Saltoki Street.
She was getting restless. No one had come after her, not that she d noticed.
And Grinder would probably have mentioned it if someone on Star Street
started making snuffling noises pointed in her direction. Maybe the Kliu
hadn t got onto her world of origin. She didn t talk about it much in the
Pits, only in a blue mood when she was high on pelar. Jingko iKan knew where
to find her but he was no chatterer. It d take more than a dollop of Kliu gold
or a threat or three to pry his mouth open. Maybe she d broken her back trail
effectively when she came here.
You be coming to dinner tonight?
Don t think so, Bug, everything I own is starting to smell, so I ve got to do
a wash and my hair s so gungy, if I leave it much longer it s going to rot and
fall off.
Don t you like us?
It s not that. Truly, Bug. I just need some time to catch up on all the stuff
I couldn t do because of the Harrowing. She made a face, looked around the
long narrow room, and sighed. Button things up for me, hm? I ve got to get
some air. She laughed at the face he made, gently tapped his cheek as she
turned to leave.
There s another problem, she thought as she climbed up the stairs to the
double doors that locked the vault away from the main part of the warehouse.
She tapped the code into the keyplate and waited for the door to slide open.
I think he s getting the notion of pimping for his father. Away to keep me
here. Ba da, can t even trust Bug.
She glanced up at the landing m front of Grinder s office. He was leaning on
the stair rail, watching her. With the weight of his regard heavy on her
shoulders she left the warehouse and walked briskly along the street, stepping
over the drunks and ignoring the beg-gars. At least half of them were watchmen
anyway, with Panicbuttons in their pockets to warn of security raids or
challengers to Grinder s rule or even the chance stray from straighter regions
of the Izar.
Grinder s notions ba da, they scare me. So far I ve managed not to see what
he s getting at, and Jaink be blessed, he hasn t pushed me on it. But with Bug
start-ing up . . . I think its about time I went somewhere else. Or I ll end
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