We were the only Rom in the synapse pit and we liked each other at once; and soon we were inseparable day and night. I suppose it was an attraction of opposites. I was big and even-tempered, he was little and volatile. I was Kalderash, he was Lowara. I tended to be hard-working and almost plodding in some ways, Polarca believed in cutting corners wherever he could. But we both knew how to laugh when what we really felt like doing was crying. His laugh was marvelous. If they could bottle Polarca's laugh it would outsell Hasgard Level Two anywhere. I loved him for his laugh alone. And for being Rom in this dreadful place where there were no others of our kind. Not just any sort of Rom, either. We were both of the true blood, which is not only a matter of genetics. You need to know a loyalty to something other than your own skin to be true Rom. Take Shandor. Shandor is a Rom by genetic heritage but I refuse to accept him as being of the true blood even though he is my son. Polarca, now-ah, Polarca is a Rom of the Rom!
It took me some time to realize that he was dying down there in the synapse pit of Mentiroso.
He tried to hide that from me. When the waves of terror rolled through him and made him quiver and sob he snapped back as fast as he could, grinning and winking and telling jokes. I didn't know what a price he was paying for those grins and winks. Mentiroso was wearing him down very fast. Just how fast was something he wanted to keep secret. True, he seemed weary and worn most of the time and seemed to be making an effort to hold his shoulders square, but we were none of us exactly sparkling under Mentiroso's constant psychoactive bombardment. All the same, though I had no way of knowing how bouncy and vigorous Polarca might have been before coming to this place, I could see that the man I had met in the synapse pit must be a badly frayed and weakened shadow of his true self. Over the weeks that followed he grew even weaker. He shook, he fell down in seizures, he had difficulties focusing his eyes or remembering the beginnings of his sentences by the time he came to the end. Plainly he wasn't going to be able to last much longer. I had already seen a couple of men die of exhaustion right in the pit.
Once I knew what was happening I began asking around, trying to find some way of helping him. He was too proud to tell me anything useful himself but there were others to ask. I didn't want to lose him. Without Polarca beside me jabbing away with his irreverence and his sarcasms I would go out of my mind in this place. But I learned what I had to do.
One day I got to the synapse pit a short while ahead of him and did a little improvised rewiring of his equipment. It wasn't hard. I jacked his electrodes into my headset and mine into his; and then I disabled the connector that ran from my transducer coil to the storage cell. And a couple of other minor things. The net effect of these rearrangements was that he would be cut out of the pumping circuit altogether and my output of neural energy would go to fulfill his six-hour daily quota. He would still have to cope with the round-the-clock torment of life on Mentiroso but at least he wouldn't be subjected to the strenuous demands of the Hasgard equipment as well.
Of course, that meant that my own quota would go unfulfilled. Sooner or later that would show up on the company records. So I began slipping back into the synapse pit during my free time to make up the shortfall. An extra three hours in the morning, maybe three more late at night. I could manage it. The chief problem was making excuses to Polarca for my disappearances in the off hours. Some days I was a little too tired to handle the full double shift, but I tried to make up the time somewhere else along the way. A few of the other workers figured out what I was doing and contributed some hours here and there to my account to help out. Even so I was gradually falling behind. But that was all right. Polarca was visibly gaining in strength.
"What the fuck are you up to?" he asked me finally, months later.
"Up to?"
"In the pit. Why don't I feel so tired any more? Why are you starting to look five thousand years old? Are you pulling my shifts, Yakoub?"
"What does that mean?" I said, all innocence.
"It means that someone is doing my work for me, and it has to be you. Don't pretend you aren't the one."
"I… well, that is…" I faltered. "Damn it, Polarca, I couldn't just sit there and let you burn out! I had to do something."
"Who asked you to? Who gave you the right to commit such a miserable lousy sin against my manhood?"
"Listen to him. A sin against his manhood."
"You think I'm a weakling?"
"I'm the weakling, Polarca."
He looked astounded. "What?"
"I need you too much to let you die. You're the only thing that keeps me sane in this filthy place. And you were going to die sure as anything if I didn't do something to help you."
"But you had no right-"
"No right? No right?"
"You didn't even ask my fucking permission. You just went ahead and took charge of my life." He was shouting. A vein was standing out on the side of his head. "You think I'm a child? You think I need some sort of a protector? You think I can't take care of myself? Where did you come off doing that to me?" And a lot more of the same, getting louder and louder as his righteous indignation turned into spitting anger.
I can shout pretty well myself. Louder than he can. And I was even angrier than he was, now. I shouted him down. "Damn you, Polarca, don't give me any more shit about your manhood, okay? Just sit there with both your hands on your goddamned manhood and let this fucking machinery suck all the life out of you. And when you've died a manly death I'll start going crazy because there'll be no one else here I can talk to. But that's all right. You'll have died a manly death, and that's what's important. I'm sorry I got in the way of your manly death. Okay? Okay, Polarca? I'm sorry. Here. Go be a man. Be a hero." I showed him what I had done with his equipment. Then I put it back the right way and plugged myself in and turned my back on him. I was so pissed off that I hardly even felt the usual Mentiroso horrors, though they were rippling along through my mind at the standard pace all the time.
After maybe half an hour Polarca tapped me on the shoulder.
"Yakoub?"
"Don't bother me. I'm working."
"I just wanted to thank you," he said in a very small voice.
I had never heard Polarca sounding humble before. I never have since, for that matter.
There was no question of my continuing to pull his shifts for him after that, of course. If I had done it much longer it would have killed me, anyway. But I had seen him through a tough time, however much of an insult to his manhood it may have been. And he was Rom enough to admit that once in a while you have to forget about your precious balls and your indignation and your manly pride and simply accept help, if you really need the help. Polarca is tough and resilient but a stint on Mentiroso could destroy anybody. It had been destroying him and he knew it. I got him through. Two or three times later on, during the years when we were on Mentiroso together, I had to get him through again. He was furious with me each time, and I don't think he's ever really forgiven me; but he let me do it. When his indenture was up mine still had almost three months to go, because of the various shortfalls I had accumulated, and he volunteered to stay the extra time and contribute three hours a day to my account to get me off Mentiroso sooner. And I let him. I had to, to survive. It has been like that between us ever since.
4.
EVEN DURING THAT ENDLESS TIME WHEN ALL THAT I was doing was sitting there in my cell, idly rubbing my bare feet against the golden floor, I had a sense of doing great battle.
I could feel myself waging war. A conscious, merciless war against the shameless seed of my loins that had tried to usurp my place. By my mere existence here as his prisoner I was destroying him. I knew that beyond any doubt. Now and again I would send my soul out roving, upward through this building in which I was kept, and I would touch the tormented soul of Shandor, writhing and sizzling somewhere above me. He didn't know what to do with me and it was killing him. He couldn't set me free. He didn't dare murder me. And he couldn't keep me locked away here indefini
tely, not without having the wrath of the worlds come down on his head.
I sent my soul out farther, deep into the night. The darkness was on fire. I saw the stars of mankind. I saw the many worlds we had seized for our own. And there… there… in the forehead of the sky…
I saw Romany Star there, high overhead, pulsing and blazing. How it pulled me! I felt titanic forces focusing on me and playing through me. Drawing me upward.
All these stars… all these worlds!
And yet for us there is only one world. One road.
5.
SYLUISE CAME VISITING. NOT HER GHOST. SYLUISE herself, the first real flesh-and-blood human being that I had seen since the beginning of my imprisonment. Unless you want to count Shandor as a human being. I suppose you have to.
There was no ghost-aura around her, but all the same she didn't seem real to me. Syluise seldom does. But even less so than usual, this time. I thought that this must be some doppelganger of her paying a call on me. Or something worse, some trick of Shandor's, a cunning projection of some kind, a clever new process.
Real or unreal, though, the power of her beauty went to work on me right away. As always. The old attraction. Her fragrance, her eyes, her skin, her lips, her everything. Making me weak in the knees, dry in the throat. That Gaje flawlessness of hers, that golden shimmer.
(It was never easy for me to understand the appeal Syluise had for me. Of course she's very beautiful, but in a Gaje way, and I have never cared much for Gaje women. That's Shandor's specialty. I like mine dark and juicy, in the true Rom fashion. Oh, yes, there was Mona Elena, long ago, my one fling in that direction, that queen of odalisques, that superb professional. But she was in the nature of an experiment. How could I properly appreciate the virtues of Rom women if I hadn't ever dallied with one of the other kind? And Mona Elena looked a little Rom. More than a little. Certainly much more than Syluise. Dark, voluptuous, with shining eyes, and even the necklace of ancient gold coins on her breast-a necklace which, by the way, I still have, because of the rapidity with which Mona Elena left my quarters on our last night together. That time when the bodyguard of the emperor came looking for her, the lusty Fourteenth.)
I stared at Syluise and remembered all the times she had gone to work on me in the past. I remembered what it felt like: the lump in my throat, the throbbing between my legs, the sweating, the yearning. One wink from her now and it would all start again.
But then I noticed something strange, which was that I was still more or less in control of myself. This time I didn't think she'd be able to turn me into a quivering puppy with one sizzling glance. No. It wasn't fully taking, her almost hypnotic command of me. Within the core of my excitement I could detect a treacherous little node of something very much like indifference to her. Which confirmed my notion that she wasn't real, that all I was looking at was some kind of electronic phantasm.
"Well?" I said. Coolly. Brusquely. Staring at her as if she was a fish in an aquarium, something peculiar and unexpected hanging suspended in a tank before my eyes, bobbing slowly up and down, to and fro. "What are you and what do you want?"
She began to frown. It was like the dimming of a sun. She must have sensed that something was wrong.
"You don't sound glad to see me," she said accusingly.
"Am I seeing you?"
"What kind of question is that? Are you seeing me! Don't you know? And asking me what I am. What I am? What is that supposed to mean?"
"Well, who are you, then."
"Yakoub! I'm Syluise."
"You are?"
"Don't you recognize me any more? Are you all right, Yakoub? What has he done to you?"
"You're actually Syluise? You came all the way here?"
"To Galgala, yes. Is that such a big deal, getting from Xamur to Galgala?"
"And he let you in?"
"Of course he let me in. What are you trying to say?"
"I don't believe it's really you. That you're really standing right in front of me in this cell right this minute."
She was all in gold. Her Galgala costume, a shining golden robe, very sheer, maddening hints of pinkness glowing through. A band of gold through her golden hair. Her eyelids were painted with gold. So were her lips. She looked magnificent. Like the funeral statue of some slender Egyptian queen.
"What do you think I am, then?" she asked. Her voice was unusually gentle. There is always an edge on Syluise's voice, a soft edge but an edge all the same, the kind of edge there would be on a dagger made of the purest gold. "You think I'm a ghost? A doppelganger? Here. Here, touch me." She took my hand and put it on her bare arm. You can't touch ghosts. Your hand goes right through them. Mine didn't now. How fine her skin was. There are silks and satins that are rougher. Smooth and fine, yes, but I thought it would burn my fingers. Ah, here it comes now. She's starting to work on me and I am lost. Can I fight her off? Damn her, I didn't want her manipulating me again! But she was giving it the all-out try. She brought my hand up to her bosom. Her breasts were swaying like bells beneath her robe. When I touched her nipples they hardened. I began to tremble like a schoolboy. I thought of how it had been between Syluise and me on Xamur not long before in those nights of laughter and joy. But even so, something still seemed different. I would be lying if I said that the feel of her flesh had not excited me, but somehow I was able to withstand that excitement. For the time being, at least. "Is that what doppelgangers feel like?" she asked.
"The best ones do."
"I never felt any that were this good." She ran her hands lovingly along her own forearms and laughed. Golden laughter. How she loved herself. "Oh, Yakoub, how much longer are you going to let yourself stay in this place?"
"You'll have to ask Shandor."
"I did. He says you can go any time you want."
"He told you that?"
"You just have to agree to stop being an obstacle to him."
"The only way I could stop being an obstacle to him would be to take a one-way ride into the nearest sun."
"No, Yakoub." She was standing very close to me. Too close. "You don't understand. You think of Shandor as some kind of beast. How can you feel that way about your own son? Don't you have any love for him?"
"What does love have to do with this? He's my blood, my flesh. But he's still a beast. A dangerous one." Her scent was beginning to drive me crazy. She wasn't wearing perfume, that I knew. That scent was Syluise herself. I knew now why she was here and I hoped I could continue to resist. "Did Shandor send you in here to work on me?" I asked.
"I came on my own, Yakoub. To help you get yourself free."
"By giving Shandor what he wants. My formal blessing."
"Is that so much?"
"Getting out that way isn't freedom. It's slavery, Syluise. I've already been a slave four times in my life, you know? I was born into it and then
I was sold into it twice and the last time I sold myself into it. I'm not going to be a slave again. Particularly not to my own son."
"He's the king, Yakoub."
"Bullshit. I'm the king."
"You keep saying that. But here you sit in custody."
"What's happening outside? Do people know where I am?"
"They're starting to find out, yes."
"And?"
"There's a lot of trouble."
"Good," I said. "That's what I want."
"How can you want that? People are suffering. Your own people. Commerce is breaking down. The starships aren't going to the right places. If they're flying at all. Nobody is sure who is king, and there isn't really any emperor either. The whole system may be falling apart."
"That's fine with me."
"I can't believe I heard you say that."
"Why are you mixed up in this, Syluise?"
Letting my question pass, she moved closer to me. Prelude to some-thing-or-other. Gave me the full treatment, heaving breasts, flaring nostrils, sultry glares from under half-closed eyelids. She was wriggling. Thighs rubbing together. Hot breath on my
cheeks. Her insatiable lips an inch from mine. The works. Her irresistible weapons, her heavy artillery. It was almost comical. Had she ever seemed comical to me before? Had I really found her so irresistible before? Something definitely must be changing in me. Maybe her working on Shandor's behalf had shattered the spell. She had betrayed me. I had never been able to defend myself against her until now but that went beyond the limits, her blatant maneuvering on Shandor's behalf. Silently I offered the Rom prayer for the dead. We were finished, this golden viper and I. Truly.
"Do you know how much I've missed you, Yakoub?"
"Tell me."
"Let Shandor be king. You've had a hundred years of it."
"Not quite that much."
"Whatever it is, you've had enough. More than enough. Let him have his turn. Do you want to be king forever? What for?"
"Not forever. Just long enough to finish the work I still need to do."
"Let Shandor finish it. You and I, we'll go away somewhere. Someplace beautiful. Fulero. Estrilidis. Tranganuthuka. Wouldn't you like to spend a year or two on Fulero with me?"
"How much is he paying you?"
"Yakoub!"
"I have a better idea. Instead of us going off to Fulero, you live here with me. Right here in this cell, the two of us. You won't love the food but otherwise it isn't so bad. We'll wait Shandor out. Sooner or later he'll crack, or someone will overthrow him, and we'll come forth. In triumph. I'll put the worlds to rights again. We'll spend half our time on Galgala and the other half on Xamur. You could call yourself the queen, if you liked."
"What?"
"I know, we don't have queens. But we can make an exception just once. You'd like that, wouldn't you?"
"You aren't serious. You'd make me a queen?"
"Why not?"
I was just playing with her. As she had been playing with me.
"No," she said. "There'd be a tremendous uproar. You can't foist a queen off on the Rom after all this time. And I don't want to be queen. Or you to be king any more. What do you need it for? So much nasty work. Such stupid ugly nonsense. Come away with me and let's just enjoy ourselves and leave all of that to someone else."