Orbit 2

Alyx said nothing. Ya floated by with her metal breasts gleaming in the lamplight; behind her, Peng the jeweler.

“I’ll get seven hundred ounces of gold for it!”

“Ah?” said Alyx.

“You’ve spoiled it,” snapped the girl. Together they watched the guests, red and green, silk on silk like oil on water, the high-crowned hats and earrings glistening, the bracelets sparkling like a school of underwater fish. Up came the dowager accompanied by a landlord of the richest and largest sort, a gentleman bridegroom who had buried three previous wives and would now have the privilege of burying the Lady Edarra — though to hear him tell it, the first had died of overeating, the second of drinking and the third of a complexion-cleanser she had brewed herself. Nothing questionable in that. He smiled and took Edarra’s upper arm between his thumb and finger. He said, “Well, little girl.” She stared at him. “Don’t be defiant,” he said. “You’re going to be rich.” The dowager bridled. “I mean — even richer,” he said with a smile. The mother and the bridegroom talked business for a few minutes, neither watching the girl; then they turned abruptly and disappeared into the mixing, moving company, some of whom were leaning over the rail screaming at those in the garden below, and some of whom were slipping and sitting down involuntarily in thirty-five pounds of cherries that had just been accidentally overturned onto the floor.

“So that’s why you want to run away,” said Alyx. The Lady Edarra was staring straight ahead of her, big tears rolling silently down her cheeks. “Mind your business,” she said.

“Mind yours,” said Alyx softly, “and do not insult me, for I get rather hard then.” She laughed and fingered the necklace, which was big and gaudy and made of stones the size of a thumb. “What would you do,” she said, “if I told you yes?”

“You’re impossible!” said Edarra, looking up and sobbing.

“Praised be Yp that I exist then,” said Alyx, “for I do ask you if your offer is open. Now that I see your necklace more plainly, I incline towards accepting it— whoever you hired was cheating you, by the way; you can get twice again as much — though that gentleman we saw just now has something to do with my decision.” She paused. “Well?”

Edarra said nothing, her mouth open.

“Well, speak!”

“No,” said Edarra.

“Mind you,” said Alyx wryly, “you still have to find someone to travel with, and I wouldn’t trust the man you hired — probably hired — for five minutes in a room with twenty other people. Make your choice. I’ll go with you as long and as far as you want, anywhere you want.”

“Well,” said Edarra, “yes.”

“Good,” said Alyx. “I’ll take two-thirds.”

“No!” cried Edarra, scandalized.

“Two-thirds,” said Alyx, shaking her head. “It has to be worth my while. Both the gentleman you hired to steal your necklace — and your mother — and your hus-band-to-be — and heaven alone knows who else — will be after us before the evening is out. Maybe. At any rate, I want to be safe when I come back.”

“Will the money—?” said Edarra.

“Money does all things,” said Alyx. “And I have long wanted to return to this city, this paradise, this — swamp! — with that which makes power! Come,” and she leapt onto the roof-rail and from there into the garden, landing feet first in the loam and ruining a bed of strawberries. Edarra dropped beside her, all of a heap and panting.

“Kill one, kill all, kill devil!” said Alyx gleefully. Edarra grabbed her arm. Taking the lady by the crook of her elbow, Alyx began to run, while behind them the fashionable merriment of Ourdh (the guests were pouring wine down each other’s backs) grew fainter and fainter and finally died away.

They sold the necklace at the waterfront shack that smelt of tar and sewage (Edarra grew ill and had to wait outside), and with the money Alyx bought two short swords, a dagger, a blanket, and a round cheese. She walked along the harbor carving pieces out of the cheese with the dagger and eating them off the point. Opposite a fishing boat, a square-sailed, slovenly tramp, she stopped and pointed with cheese and dagger both.

“That’s ours,” said she. (For the harbor streets were very quiet.)

“Oh, nor

“Yes,” said Alyx, “that mess,” and from the slimy timbers of the quay she leapt onto the deck. “It’s empty,” she said.

“No,” said Edarra, “I won’t go,” and from the landward side of the city thunder rumbled and a few drops of rain fell in the darkness, warm, like the wind.

“It’s going to rain,” said Alyx. “Get aboard.”

“No,” said the girl. Alyx’s face appeared in the bow of the boat, a white spot scarcely distinguishable from the sky; she stood in the bow as the boat rocked to and fro in the wash of the tide. A light across the street, that shone in the window of a waterfront cafe, went out.

“Oh!” gasped Edarra, terrified, “give me my money!” A leather bag fell in the dust at her feet. “I’m going back,” she said, “I’m never going to set foot in that thing. It’s disgusting. It’s not ladylike.”

“No,” said Alyx.

“It’s dirty!” cried Edarra. Without a word, Alyx disappeared into the darkness. Above, where the clouds bred from the marshes roofed the sky, the obscurity deepened and the sound of rain drumming on the roofs of the town advanced steadily, three streets away, then two. . a sharp gust of wind blew bits of paper and the indefinable trash of the seaside upwards in an unseen spiral. Out over the sea Edarra could hear the universal sound of rain on water, like the shaking of dried peas in a sheet of paper but softer and more blurred, as acres of the surface of the sea dimpled with innumerable little pockmarks. .

“I thought you’d come,” said Alyx. “Shall we begin?”

Ourdh stretches several miles southward down the coast of the sea, finally dwindling to a string of little towns; at one of these they stopped and provided for themselves, laying in a store of food and a first-aid kit of dragon’s teeth and ginger root, for one never knows what may happen in a sea voyage. They also bought resin; Edarra was forced to caulk the ship under fear of being called soft and lazy, and she did it, although she did not speak. She did not speak at all. She boiled the fish over a fire laid in the brass firebox and fanned the smoke and choked, but she never said a word. She did what she was told in silence. Every day bitterer, she kicked the stove and scrubbed the floor, tearing her fingernails, wearing out her skirt; she swore to herself, but without a word, so that when one night she kicked Alyx with her foot, it was an occasion.

“Where are we going?” said Edarra in the dark, with violent impatience. She had been brooding over the question for several weeks and her voice carried a remarkable quality of concentration; she prodded Alyx with her big toe and repeated, “I said, where are we going?”

“Morning,” said Alyx. She was asleep, for it was the middle of the night; they took watches above. “In the morning,” she said. Part of it was sleep and part was demoralization; although reserved, she was friendly and Edarra was ruining her nerves.

“Oh!” exclaimed the lady between clenched teeth, and Alyx shifted in her sleep. “When will we buy some decent food?” demanded the lady vehemently. “When? When?”

Alyx sat bolt upright. “Go to sleep!” she shouted, under the hallucinatory impression that it was she who was awake and working. She dreamed of nothing but work now. In the dark Edarra stamped up and down. “Oh, wake up!” she cried, “for goodness’ sakes!”