The Terrorists of Irustan (28 page)

She saw him blink, and she drew away a little. “Asa, my dear Asa, if I could do anything to make this easier for you, I would. I will—I swear—you have only to ask!”

Asa’s eyes reddened and he looked away, embarrassed. “Thank you, Zahra,” he said huskily. He took a slow and deliberate breath. “I’m fine. I’ll be fine. I’ll go get the things.”

Zahra watched him limp away. It wasn’t until later, as they were making arrangements for the removal of the carefully wrapped corpse, that she realized he had called her by her first name.

thirty-one

*   *   *

If a thing needs doing, shall I wait for my brother to accomplish it? If a thing needs saying, shall I leave it unsaid? We are endowed by the One with conscience. We must heed the gift and be ruled by it, or how shall we approach Paradise?

—Twenty-ninth Homily,
The Book of the Second Prophet

Z
ahra and
Asa, both exhausted, arrived back at the clinic to find Qadir waiting in the dispensary. Qadir had not set foot in the clinic since first showing Zahra where it was, when they were newly married. His unprecedented appearance shook Zahra’s composure. She put out her hand to her husband, alarmed to see her fingers tremble.

“Qadir—how could you have heard so quickly? Asa can’t have made the call more than an hour ago.”

Qadir’s bare scalp glistened. He gripped Zahra’s hand. With the other, she stripped away her rill to meet his eyes. He said, “We’re wanted at the Port Force offices. Onani again.”

Lili sat at her desk, and Ishi stood beside her, the attitude of her body one of waiting and watching. Diya frowned behind Qadir. The room smelled of fear, Zahra thought. It was almost as nasty a smell as the one in B’Neeli’s bedroom.

She lifted her chin. She had expected all of this. What good would it do to be afraid now? “I should do the postmortem first,” she told Qadir.

He shook his head. “Sullivan’s going to do it. Onani’s office called.” He swallowed, and his eyes looked around at the spare furnishings of the dispensary, then back to Zahra. “Port Force is going to pull rank, I’m afraid. I don’t like it.”

“I need to shower,” Zahra said.

“They want us right away, Zahra,” Qadir urged. “They’re waiting.”

“Let them wait,” she answered. She took her hand from his and turned to stride through the surgery with her back straight, her head up. Qadir followed. She marched upstairs to her room, street shoes clicking on the floor, and Qadir hurried to keep up.

“Be quick, will you, Zahra?” he asked.

“No. What difference could it possibly make? Besides, I’ve spent the whole morning clearing up the awful mess B’Neeli left.”

Qadir sucked in his breath. “Oh, Prophet!” he whispered.

Zahra sighed and shook her head. “Qadir, why don’t you lie down? There, on my bed. Try to rest.”

Ishi knocked gently on the door and put her head in. “Zahra, what can I do to help you? Was it terrible?”

“It was bad enough, my Ishi,” Zahra said. “What you can do is to help Qadir relax. Talk to him. I need a shower.”

Ishi smiled at Qadir. “All right?” she said gently.

He sat heavily on the bed, his back against the bedpost. “Of course,” he said. “Thank you, Ishi. Yes, you sit there, on your cot, and talk to me. Zahra’s right. They can wait until she’s ready. It certainly won’t change anything now.” Zahra went into her bathroom and closed the door. She undressed facing the mirror. A stranger looked back at her, a too-thin woman with deeply shadowed eyes, hollow cheeks, lines graven round the lips. When had she begun to look like that?

She stood under a steaming shower for many minutes, washing her hair, scrubbing her hands and nails and feet, letting the water lave her face until the tension washed away. She had done a difficult job, she told herself, one no one else could do. She was exhausted. It was no more complicated, no more subtle than that. She was tired.

*   *   *

Zahra had thought there could be no surprises in Onani’s office. She already knew the administrator and Dr. Sullivan. Tomas Echevarria, Onani’s secretary, was got up as usual with bizarre additions to his Port Force uniform. Thick curtains were drawn. A lamp threw a circle of light around the desk, leaving the rest of the office in gloom.

Qadir and Diya flanked Zahra as before. The layers of her veil were silver-gray and her dress was of black silk with gray edging. Through silvery gauze, she surveyed the somber Port Force faces. Echevarria, Onani, Sullivan, and . . . Zahra stumbled, and had to lean on Qadir’s arm.

In the shadows, Jin-Li Chung leaned against the far wall of Onani’s big office. Neatly folded cap drooping from a pocket, a small reader in one hand, Jin-Li’s eyes met Zahra’s from the semi-darkness. They sparkled into hers for an instant before the long lids drooped, disguising all expression.

Zahra felt her breath come quickly. She should have thought of this, she supposed. She should even, perhaps, have worried about it. Instead, as she settled herself on a chair just behind Qadir’s, she found that Jin-Li’s presence added a note of excitement, a thrill of complicity, to this confrontation. Jin-Li was a bridge between the Irustani and the Earthers. What might pass over that bridge Zahra could not yet know. She allowed herself an ironic smile behind her veil, and folded her hands together in her lap.

“We think there’s been another case of the prion disease,” Onani blurted, without formality.

Qadir tilted his head toward Zahra. She murmured, “How do they know? There’s been no time for an autopsy.”

The Port Force physician answered before Qadir could repeat Zahra’s words. Qadir stiffened, offended, but it was already too late to stop Sullivan’s outburst.

“Postmortem’s in progress now, but prelims from the lab are virtually incontestable. No time to lose. Need to know how the disease is being contracted, how spread. Whether these men had contact with each other, in which case we’re dealing with a contagious disease rather than an acquired one. Or did they have contact with a leptokis outside the mines?”

Onani shot Sullivan a narrow-eyed glance and held up one finger to stop the barrage of words. He turned to Qadir. “Chief Director, you must excuse Dr. Sullivan. We’re quite alarmed by this fourth death. We’re hoping the medicant can provide us with information about this latest victim, this Belen B’Neeli, a”—Onani glanced at the reader on his desk—“a clerk from City Administration. He was reportedly on your wife’s clinic list. Could you ask the medicant about him?”

Qadir pointedly turned his back on the Earthers as he spoke to Zahra. “Is there anything you can tell Administrator Onani and Dr. Sullivan about your patient, Belen B’Neeli?”

Zahra leaned close to Qadir and said in a tone so soft that no one but Diya should be able to hear her, “Belen B’Neeli was on my clinic list, along with his family. If they have specific questions, I’ll try to answer them.”

Qadir turned back to Onani. “The medicant confirms that B’Neeli was on her list,” he said succinctly. “She asks what you would like to know.”

Sullivan, pink-faced, opened his mouth, but Onani forestalled him.

“Thank you, Chief Director,” he said. His voice was too controlled, pitched a little below normal conversational tone. Zahra didn’t like it. Without turning her head she looked sidelong at Jin-Li. Jin-Li’s dark, heavy-lidded gaze was fixed on Onani.

“Could you ask the medicant,” Onani went on, “whether B’Neeli took all of his inhalation treatments?”

Through Qadir, Zahra responded to this and other questions. Belen B’Neeli had left the mines ten years before. He was a widower with an eight-year-old daughter. No one asked what had happened to B’Neeli’s wife, and Qadir, Zahra noted dispassionately, had no memory of it. B’Neeli had, like many miners, been irregular in his inhalation therapy, and had not visited the medicant once for his own needs since leaving Kappa Team. Except, of course, two days before, when he brought his daughter in for her inoculations. At that time, the medicant and her apprentice had treated the whole family—B’Neeli, his daughter Sofi, and B’Neeli’s mother, for possible blood disease, unrelated to prion exposure. No, the medicant didn’t know what the medicator had administered. She had let the machine do its work. She had visited the B’Neeli home this morning because Belen B’Neeli had been taken suddenly and violently ill. She had gone there as soon as the call had come in, with her escort, Asa IbSada. They found B’Neeli already expired, cleaned and disinfected the room in which he had died, and sent the body out for the postmortem.

“And I gather, Qadir,” Zahra murmured dryly, “that from there Dr. Sullivan has taken responsibility, and that I’m to consider the matter out of my hands.”

Qadir turned to repeat these words, almost exactly, to Onani. Onani said, “Yes, Chief Director. Dr. Sullivan wanted to see the results for himself, meaning no slight to your wife.”

“And now.” Onani got to his feet. “Now we will see if we can put any of the information we have together. See if we can get to the bottom of this—this outbreak.”

*   *   *

Jin-Li stood with arms folded, watching the scene between Onani, Sullivan, and the Irustani. The chief director—Zahra’s husband—was obviously an intelligent and proud man, on the verge of outrage at Sullivan’s behavior. It angered Jin-Li too, on Zahra’s behalf, but it also inspired reluctant respect for Onani’s ability to defuse the situation.

The Irustani took their leave—were dismissed, actually, but Onani managed to make it seem as if it were their choice—without Jin-Li’s presence being acknowledged. When the door closed behind them, Onani swiveled his chair and looked at Jin-Li.

“Well, Johnnie? What can you add to all of this?”

Sullivan barked, “Who’s this?”

Jin-Li pushed away from the wall and came into the light, portable in hand. “Jin-Li Chung, Dr. Sullivan. Mr. Onani requested my help.” The portable reader clicked neatly into Onani’s larger one. The screen sprang to life, and Jin-Li tapped instructions into the keypad.

“It’s not much. I did a comparison on the four men, their histories, their status. See if you find any commonality.”

A few statistics appeared on the reader and scrolled slowly past. All four men had worked in the mines, Leman Bezay the longest. Gadil IhMullah had been promoted early into the offices of Water Supply, and had attained the directorship in due course. Binya Maris, at the time of his death, was Delta Mining Team leader. The newest victim, B’Neeli, was also the youngest, having left the mines ten years before at the age of forty. He had been a widower with a small daughter. Maris had been twice widowed, with no children. Leman Bezay had a son, Alekos. Gadil IhMullah had left a wife and daughter.

“There are some coincidences,” Sullivan growled. He ran the program back and scrolled it forward again. “Two of four were directors. Two of four were widowers. Hard, because they’re all so damned old, except for this new one.”

Onani leaned back in his chair and regarded Jin-Li with his black gaze. “Johnnie?” he said. “Surely you’ve found something not on this screen?”

“A bit. Rumor, mostly, the gossip I’ve already told you. Binya Maris was something of a hero on his team, but had a reputation for hard living in his time off.”

“Meaning?” Sullivan asked.

Jin-Li shrugged. “Drink. Whores. Knocking women around. Cited in a nasty incident at the Doma not long ago.”

Onani steepled his fingers, then pressed his palms together. Jin-Li waited through a long silence. Sullivan fidgeted, crossing his legs, tapping his fingers on the desk. “Anything else?” Onani finally asked. “What about the directors?”

“Bezay’s son was troubled. He was supposed to go to Delta Team, but apparently he didn’t.”

“How did you find that out?” Onani asked.

Jin-Li dropped the long eyelids. “I nosed around in the Medah. Couldn’t even tell you who told me.”

Sullivan put in, “What about this medicant? This Zahra IbSada? We’ll have to check the records on her medicator, see what it administered to that family.”

Onani made a gesture. “That’s your job, Sullivan.”

“And isn’t it strange that two of these were on her clinic list?” Sullivan glared at Jin-Li.

Jin-Li said, “I don’t know. Is it strange? How many medicants are there?” Sullivan shrugged, making an exasperated sound. “Who knows? Too many, if you ask me! Half-trained women playing doctor. Amazed there aren’t more epidemics on this dried-up ball of rock.”

Onani tapped keys on the reader. “We don’t know yet that we have an epidemic. Hmm. Seventy-eight,” he said. “Seventy-eight medicants. Strange odds.” He rocked slightly in his big chair, forward and back. “Strange,” he repeated.

Jin-Li could put forward no argument to that.

Onani said, “We still know almost nothing about IhMullah, do we? About his family?”

Jin-Li shrugged. “Nothing could be harder, Mr. Onani, than trying to find out anything about an Irustani’s wife or children. Nothing in port records at all. An Irustani male pops into existence when he goes into the mines. An Irustani female never exists, so far as offworlders are concerned.”

The silence resumed and stretched. Sullivan got up to pace the office. Onani stared into the shadows. Jin-Li, hands in pockets, leaned against the wall again. After a very long time, Onani flicked off the reader and stood up.

“All right, Johnnie. I guess that’s it for now.” He buzzed for Tomas. “Tomas, show Chung out, would you? And send us the autopsy report as soon as it arrives.”

Jin-Li disconnected the little portable from Onani’s desk reader and slipped it into a pocket before following Tomas out the back door of the office. In the narrow stairwell, Tomas wiped sweat from his forehead and then clapped Jin-Li’s shoulder with nervous energy.

“So, what do you think, Johnnie?” He giggled, but Jin-Li understood that

it came from nerves. Tomas’s breath was sour. “Think we’re all going to get this disease?”

Jin-Li gave Tomas a sidelong glance. “No, Tomas, I don’t think so. Not you, not any of us.”

“You sound pretty sure.”

“Never been more sure of anything.”