Harvest of Stars (4 page)

Arabesques swirled multicolored on corridor walls and Arabic script above doorways. Many entrances stood open. Behind some were shelves bearing wares for sale, food, clothing, utensils, flowers, gewgaws. In front a man would sit cross-legged on a cushion, smoking or crying out enticements or seemingly lost in meditation. Occasional rooms had been converted to serve coffee or simple meals exotic to her. Odors enriched the air, cooking, smoke, perfume, scents wholly strange. Noise did too, voices, soft-shod feet, now and then a plangent flute and a thuttering little drum. Ordinary North American outfits were less in evidence than loose, flowing garments, whether robes or gowns or blouse and trousers, usually white. Those who wore them and filled these spaces with commotion were dark caucasoids, men bearded and often sporting headcloths, women veiled. Yes, she’d spied a few of them earlier. Here they were in their own domain.

Arabian Nights! She had seen the Near East on multiceiver news, documentaries, and dramas. Sand, dust, dried wells, salt rivers, desolation. Machines and nanotechnic arrays, hectare by hectare reclaiming the land. Ordered, carefully designed life advancing in their
wake, green fields, sparkling buildings, modern industries, new societies. Reservations for those few remnants who had hung on in starveling fashion after the ecology crumbled, ample provision, excellent medical care, rehabilitative education for their children. Oh, the World Federation had a right to be proud of what it was doing there. Why would anybody want to inhabit a fantasy, a past that never was?

Lee threaded his way through the crowd. At his heels, Kyra observed closer. No, she decided, whatever this might be, it wasn’t an act, it wasn’t a pseudo-culture to fill the void in people who had nothing real to belong to, like the Na-Dene or the Amazons or the Manors. She glimpsed a coppersmith in his shop, but he used a power tool and his neighbor was repairing an electrical appliance. The technology was as good as anything that Low Worlders could afford or handle. When a wide sleeve happened to pull back, she saw an informant like hers on the wrist beneath; obviously the owner needed to know more than the time; he wanted quick access to calculation, databanks, and communications. Another man’s insigne declared his employer to be Global Chemistry, which meant that he was concerned with building structures atom by atom. Two small boys in djellabahs passed, their heads shaven except for topknots, but the books under their arms were science texts.

And yet, Kyra thought, this was all just about as contrary to Avantism as she could imagine. Surely no one here seriously believed that Xuan had quantified the forces of history to the point where it could be managed, nor shared the ideal of a world thus brought ever closer to total rationality. Surely the government, from its Advisory Synod on down to the average local administrator, itched to break up every such old maverick community, scatter its elders and take over entirely the schooling of its children. In theory that was possible, of course: an internal matter over which the Federation had no authority. In practice, traffic and communications wove Earth too closely together; too little could be covered up; too many High Worlders of all nationalities were in constant touch
and shared too many opinions; they, or the general public itself, might well force other governments, at least those that were democratic, to apply pressures still more severe than Fireball had lately been doing—Her mind was adrift She hauled it back into real time.

Twice Lee paused to exchange brief greetings with a man. Kyra grew aware of disapproving glances. She must seem luridly immodest. She told herself this wasn’t a sealed-off enclave. They’d get a lot of outsiders, some on business, some curiosity seekers. Doubtless a certain part of their economy depended on it. Still, she felt vastly relieved when Lee stopped at a door and it retracted for them.

They entered a room of opulent carpeting, low furniture, gilt and silver tracery. The young man who admitted them signed the door to close. He bowed deeply as another, gray-bearded and strong-featured, attired in caftan and keffiyeh, came in through an arch at the rear. To that one Lee made respectful salutation, saying,
“Salaam aleyk
.” Kyra stood miserably self-conscious.

“Aleykom es-salaam,”
replied the older man. His gravity surrendered to a smile. “To what do I owe this pleasure?” he asked in English with slight accent. As he looked closer, the smile faded. “Do you have trouble, my friend?”

“Ana nuzîlak
,” Lee said awkwardly.

“A-a-ah. Come, then.” The man issued a sharp order. The servant hastened off. The host led the new arrivals onward. In a chamber behung with white perlux, suggestive of a pavilion, he gestured them to sit on the floor at a table of genuine wood. Joining them, he nodded at Kyra. “Remove your burden if you wish, señorita.”

“Gracias, sir, but—” Catching a glance from Lee, Kyra said hurriedly, “Gracias,” and slipped the pack off.

Lee spoke with full formality. “Sheikh Tahir, may I present Kyra Davis, a consorte of mine in Fireball Enterprises? Pilot Davis, por favor, meet Zeyd Abdullah Aziz Tahir, Sheikh of the Beny Muklib. He is among the leaders of … his nation.”

Tahir regarded the woman narrowly, yet somehow
courteously. “Bienvenida, Pilot Davis,” he said. “A space pilot, I presume?”

“Y-yes, sir,” she answered. “Uh, por favor, excuse how I’m dressed. There wasn’t time and I didn’t know—”

He nodded. “Of course. Robert Lee would not appear this suddenly were it not an emergency situation. Nor would you, I am sure.”

“I’m a, a total stranger … to your customs, sir.”

Tahir smiled again, crinkling his craggy face.
“Wellah
, but it shall be forgiven you. I hope you will find time to tell me something of your work and yourself. If you fare among God’s stars, you are fortunate.”

Lee shifted where he sat. “Neither of us is right now, I’m afraid,” he ventured. “In fact, we’re desperate.”

“You made that plain.” A tap sounded on the door. At Tahir’s bidding, it opened. A boy brought in a tray with coffee service and a bowl of date cakes. He set the refreshments on the table, bowed, and left. When the door had shut behind him, Tahir invited: “Partake.
Kheyr Ullah.”

Lee blinked. “Beg pardon?”

“You do not know? Since you said you had alighted at my tent, thus claiming my protection, I thought you understood what follows. Bueno, this is the Lord’s bounty. Eat, drink, be my guests.”

“You’re too kind.” Lee cleared his throat. “We’ll be honest with you. I’m not of your tribe or faith or anything. Not much more than an acquaintance, really, who’s picked up a few tag-ends of information about your people. I’ve no claim on you.”

“You have shown friendship and more than friendship. I rejoice if we can respond.”

“The Security Police are after us.”

Tahir threw back his head and laughed aloud.
“Bismillah!
Why, that makes it all the better!” Immediately he harshened. “Are they close behind?”

“No, I hope not. I think we have a few hours before they decide I’ve flown the coop. But then they’ll ransack the Theta.”

“That will take time and much manpower, as large and varied as it is. Will they have reason to guess you are here?”

“I, I don’t believe so. That is, they’ve kept somewhat of a watch on me, I being Fireball, but I’m nobody important and there are hundreds like me. Many of them are getting raided too. And it was ordered only a couple of days ago.”

Why was it? Kyra sought comfort in her tiny cup of coffee, hot, thick, and supersweet.

Tahir stroked his beard. “
Wah
. Then they will not search this quarter early, unless they know you have been in the habit of visiting us.”

“I visited plenty of other places, in this complex and elsewhere. I don’t remember ever mentioning to—my neighbors, my casual associates—that I went here for anything except a cafe with good food and entertainment.”

But Guthrie got wind of that, had an inquiry made, and found out that more was involved, Kyra thought. An old fox, all right. Through the fabric of the pack, the case nudged hard against her thigh.

“You were seen in the corridors today,” Tahir pointed out.

“Excuse me,” Kyra blurted. “I wonder if I wasn’t noticed harder than he was.”

The sheikh chuckled. “I am certain of that. It is helpful.”

“I met two men I know,” Lee admitted.

“Give me their names later. I will speak to them, and perhaps find them errands in distant parts. As for anyone else, you know we are not friends of the Avantists. If the Sepo ask questions among us, they will probably have to do it at random, and they will get very few frank answers.” Tahir took a cake and munched it as if this were a social call.

“You can’t keep us long,” Lee said.

“True. Word would leak out like … like electrons quantum-tunneling through any potential barrier I can raise. But
insh’llah
, I can shelter you until tomorrow, and
then help you proceed. You wish to leave soon in any case, do you not?”

“Crack, yes! We—that is—” Lee’s gaze dropped to his lap.

Tahir considered his guests. “What do you feel free to tell me? Bear in mind, what I do not know, I cannot reveal, should worst come to worst and I go under deep-quiz.”

Kyra shuddered. Tahir noticed. “That will scarcely happen, señorita,” he assured her. “Likelier would I die first, resisting arrest, in such wise that not enough brain is left for them to probe. But let us be cautious.”

She ran tongue over parched lips. “You have a, a right to know—something,” she stammered. “We, Lee and I, we aren’t simply escaping to save ourselves. If we could explain—” If Guthrie would speak—

Lee raised a hand. “We can’t go into detail,” he said fast. “That would be really dangerous. But, bueno, you know how friction’s grown between Fireball and the government, till it suddenly claimed to have found evidence that agents of ours were behind the supposed accident that had scrambled the database in the Midwestern Security Center. You may remember how the company offered to cooperate in an investigation, and you certainly know how, regardless, the government occupied our North American headquarters to—probe this and related matters in depth, it announced. The Sepo have been burrowing and snooping since then. Bueno, I can tell you, it’ll be in the news, now they’re going to take over everything of ours in this country.”

Tahir shaped a soundless whistle.
“Hayâtak!
Will you not then shut down all your operations dealing with the Union? A catastrophe for it, surely. Its economy is in a poor enough state already.”

Lee sighed. “I don’t understand their logic either. They’re doing it, however. I’d better not say how I learned, but never mind, the whole Solar System will soon hear. Davis and I have, uh, extremely important information to convey. Uh, we can’t trust any communication lines any longer, you realize. We’ve got to go in person.”

Tahir’s glance drifted across the table and downward. Kyra thought uneasily that he wasn’t admiring her legs. He looked back at Lee. “I am glad to pay some of the debt I have owed you,” he said, “and by your trust you honor my people and me. Gracias. We will try to be worthy of it.”

A memory flitted through Kyra, someone historical whom she’d once read about. Yes, Saladin.

“You’ve done Señor—Sheikh Tahir a favor, consorte?” she asked. Too late she recalled Lee’s warning, that she should play passive.

Their host took no umbrage. He must be used to dealing with outsiders. “Indeed he did,” he told her. “Two years ago, a nephew of mine fell into trouble. He is a proud young man, fire is in him. All of us know that Avantism will bring our way of life to oblivion if it goes on. Most of us bide our time, believing that God will not let this happen. Hamid studied biotic engineering. The blasphemies he was required to study also, Xuanist doctrine, and that he met even in the scientific programs, at last enraged him beyond endurance. He began to speak out openly, in public, until he was arrested. When Robert Lee heard, he got Hamid released, and then enrolled in a company school safely off in Ecuador.”

“Aw, it wasn’t much,” the other man mumbled. “Fairly minor charge, first offense, and he was still classed as ‘developmentally disadvantaged,’ which meant he might not have known any better. All I had to do was speak to my coordinator, who influenced the right person in the government. Fireball and the Synod were at odds, yes, had been for a long time, but no open break had come yet, and plenty of people on both sides were anxious to avoid one. Of course, with the charges dropped, Hamid would’ve been marked ever after, and probably soon come to real grief. But he’s bright, and the company likes to acquire new blood when it can, you know. Actually, I got some boost out of the affair myself.”

Alarm prickled in Kyra. “But that shows you have connections here!” she exclaimed.

“No, no. I told you I went through Fernando Pardo, my superior. He passed it on to somebody else, who ‘took an
interest in the case’ and did the negotiating. No records were kept where they could be traced. Fireball’s been heedful of such things in North America since before I went to work for it.”

Guthrie taught it how, Kyra thought.

“I hope your nephew is happy now,” she said to Tahir.

Did pain flit across his countenance? “Yes,” he answered slowly. “We hear from him. Of course, he is becoming … a full dweller in the High World … the secular world. But that was … inevitable. And he is free. They will never take him and remake his mind.”

Best shift the subject. “You must have been well acquainted here already, to learn about the matter,” Kyra remarked to Lee.

“Only a bit,” he said. “Sheikh Tahir and I happened to fall into talk in a coffeeshop one evening. We repeated that a few times, he invited me to dinner in his home, I showed him through local company workplaces. Don’t worry, that was on multiceiver, not in person. Nobody there knows about the relationship. But it was just mutual curiosity and, uh, friendliness, nothing more. I was surprised when he told me about his nephew.”

“I was full of rage and grief,” Tahir said. “Sr. Lee struck me as a compassionate man. He might have influence. What could I lose? God provides.”