Walter Williams - The Praxis

She had to knock loudly, several times, before Caro came to the door. Caro was still in her short dress from the previous night, and tights, and bare feet. Her hair was disordered, and there was a smear of mascara on one cheek. Her slitted eyes opened wide as she saw Gredel at the door.

“Earthgirl,” she said. “Hi.”

“The doorman thought I was you. I came over to see if you were all right.”

Caro opened the door and flapped her arms, as if to say,I am as you see me. “Come in,” she said, and walked toward the kitchen.

The apartment was still a mess, and the air smelled stale. Caro went to the sink in the little kitchen and poured herself a glass of water.

“My mouth tastes like cheese,” she said. “The kind with the veins in it. I hate that kind of cheese.”

She drank her water while Gredel walked around the disorderly apartment. She felt strangely reluctant to touch anything, as if it was a fantasy that might dissolve if she put a finger on it.

“So,” she said finally. “You want to go and do something?”

Caro finished her water and put down her glass on a counter already covered with dirty glasses. “I need some coffee first,” she said. “Would you mind going to the café on the corner and getting some for me while I change?”

“What about the coffee maker?” Gredel asked.

Caro blinked at the machine as if she were seeing it for the first time. “I don’t know how to work it,” she said.

“I’ll show you.”

“I never learned how to do kitchen stuff,” Caro said as she made way for Gredel in the kitchen. “Till I came here, we always had servants. I had servantshere, but I called the last one a cow and threw her out.”

“What’s a cow?” Gredel asked.

“They’re ugly and fat and stupid. Like Berthe when I fired her.”

Gredel found coffee in a cupboard and began preparing the coffee maker. “Do youeat cows, or what?” she asked.

“Yeah, they give meat. And milk too.”

“We have vashes for that. And zieges. And swine and bison, but they only give meat.”

Gredel made coffee for them both. Caro’s coffee cups were paper thin and delicate, with a platinum ring around the inside and a design of three red crescents. Caro took her cup into the bathroom with her, and after a while Gredel heard the shower. She sipped her coffee as she wandered around the apartment—the rooms were nice, but notthat nice. Lamey had places just as good, though not in such an exclusive building as this. There was a view of the Iola River two streets away, but it wasn’t that nice a view; there were buildings in the way, and the window glass was dirty.

Then, because she couldn’t stand the mess any longer, Gredel began to pick up the scattered clothes and fold them. She finished that and was putting the dirty dishes in the washer when Caro appeared, dressed casually in soft wool pantaloons, a high-necked blouse, and a little vest with gold buttons and lots of pockets slashed one on top of the other. Caro looked around in surprise.

“You cleaned up!”

“A little.”

“You didn’t have to do that.”

“I didn’t have anything else to do.” Gredel came into the front room. She looked down at one of the piles of clothing, put her hand down on the soft pile of a sweater she had just folded and placed neatly on the back of a sofa. “You have some nice things,” she said.

“That’s from Yormak cattle. They have wonderful wool.” She eyed Gredel’s clothing. “What you’re wearing, that’s—that’s all right.”

“Lamey bought it for me.”

Caro laughed. “Might have known a man picked that.”

What’s wrong with it?Gredel wanted to ask. It was what everyone was wearing, only top quality. These weren’t clothes hijacked at Maranic Port, they were bought in astore.

Caro took Gredel’s arm. “Let’s get some breakfast,” she said, “and then I’ll take you shopping.”

The doorman stared comically as Caro and Gredel stepped out of the elevator. Caro introduced Gredel as her twin sister Margaux from Earth, and Gredel greeted the doorman in her Earth accent. The doorman bowed deeply as they swept out.

An hour later in the restaurant, Gredel was surprised when Caro asked her to pay for their meal. “My allowance comes first of the month,” she said. “And this month’s money supply isgone. This café won’t run a tab for me.”

“Weren’t we going shopping?”

Caro grinned. “Clothes I can buy on credit.”

They went to one of the arcades where exclusive shops sheltered under a long series of graceful arches of polymerous resin, the arches translucent but grown in different colors, so that the vaulted ceiling of each glowed with subtle tones that merged and flowed and blended. Caro introduced Gredel as her sister, and laughed when Gredel used her Earth accent. Gredel was called Lady Margaux and surrounded by swarms of clerks and floorwalkers, and she was both surprised and flattered by the attention. This is what it was like to be a Peer.

If she’d been merely Gredel, the staff would have been there all right, but following her around to make sure she didn’t steal.

The arcades didn’t serve just Terrans, so there were Torminel there, and Naxids, and some pleasure-loving Cree who wandered through the shops burbling in their musical voices. It was unusual for Gredel to see so many nonhumans in one place, since she rarely had any reason to leave the Terran parts of the Fabs. But the Peers, Gredel concluded, were almost a species of their own. They had more in common with each other than they had with other folk.

Caro bought an outfit for herself and two for Gredel, first a luxurious gown with a cape so long it dragged on the floor, and next a pajamalike lounging outfit. Gredel had no idea where she would ever wear such things. Caro nodded at the lounging suit. “Made of worm spit,” she said.

“Sorry?” Gredel said, startled.

“Worm spit. They call it ‘silk.’ ”

Gredel had heard of silk—she’d read about it in her researches on Earth history—and she touched the fabric with a new respect. “Do you think it came from Earth?” she asked.

“I doubt it.” Dismissively. “Earth’s a hole. My mother was there on government service, and she told me.”

Caro bought everything on credit. Gredel noticed that she signed onlySula, leaving out her first name and the honorificLady. She seemed to carry a tab at every store in the arcade. When Gredel thanked her for the presents, Caro said, “You can pay me back by buying dinner.”

“I don’t think I can afford that,” Gredel said doubtfully.

Caro laughed. “Guess we better learn to eat worm spit,” she said.

Gredel was intrigued by the way everyone lined up to give Caro credit. “They know I’m good for it,” Caro explained. “They know I’ll have the money eventually.”

“When?”

“When I’m twenty-three. That’s when the funds mature.” She laughed again. “But those people still won’t get paid. I’ll be off the planet by then, in the Fleet, and they can chase me through space if they like.”

Gredel was intrigued by this too. There tended to be serious consequences in the Fabs for people who didn’t pay their debts. Maybe this too was different for Peers.

“So is this money your parents left you?” Gredel asked.

Caro looked dubious. “I’m not sure. My parents were caught in some kind of scheme to swindle government suppliers out of a lot of money, and they lost everything—estates, money”—she tapped her neck significantly—“everything. I got sent to live with Jacob Biswas in Blue Lakes.” This was an exclusive area outside of Maranic Town. “The Biswas clan were clients of the Sulas, and Dad got Biswas the job of assistant port administrator here. I’m not sure if the money is something Dad got to him, or whether it came from my dad’s clients or friends, but it’s in a bank on Spannan’s ring, and the interest comes to me here every month.”