Strings Read Free Page A

hellishly important. His eyes were anxious now that she might resent the testing. She grabbed her brother’s beard in both hands and pulled his face down to kiss.
    Hard and long.
    “Allah and Krishna and Holy Etceteras!” he said afterward. “A sister is not supposed to kiss her brother like that!” But his eyes were gentled by relief that she was not mad at him. She tried to do it again, and he took hold of her wrists. “Wanton!” he said. “Pervert!”
    “Why not? You enjoy it, don’t you?”
    “Certainly not! I keep wondering what the cabinet would say if they saw us. Besides, I have to keep my eyes open in case I forget who you are.”
    “An old family tradition,” she said. Nauc tonight! Cainsville tomorrow, she supposed. What did she have to wear?
    “Don’t ever talk about that! You find a good strong pioneer type.”
    “Tall, dark, and handsome?” It only hurts when I laugh.
    “Well, pick one of the above.”
    “Tall, then…Oh, Kas!” Her voice broke in remorse. “Oh Kas, come with me?”
    He shook his head in silence. “Your kismet, Alya.”
    “Just come to help me choose. Not—” She felt a twist of nausea. “Not all the way. Just come and hold my hand.”
    He pulled a face. “And have to come away afterward?”
    He was suffering much more than he had admitted, then. Alya squeezed him once more.
    She was the last. Brothers, sisters, cousins—ten of them had gone, and now the buddhi was calling her, too. And then there would be only Kas, and Thalia. He was much more than a figure-head sultan, in spite of what the constitution said, but he would be the last of their generation.
    Thalia was a cousin and had the buddhi , also. What of their children? Alya wondered. Kani was ten. Who would next feel a satori ? Kas himself? Or would it start in on the youngsters? She shivered.
    “I’ll make my choice—and then come back here.”
    He smiled sadly. “That might not work. Others might accept it, but what of our own people? They won’t go if you don’t.”
    She shivered again, fear of the future looming very big. “How many?”
    “As many as possible. You know that.”
    Cold, cold terror froze her bones. Thousands of lives! What if she chose wrong? What if they had all chosen wrong, all the others before her? Where could she find the courage to gamble so many human creatures?
    “The buddhi ,” she whispered.
    Again he smiled his sad smile. “You were certainly born with it.”
    That was another family joke: “You were certainly born with it; you will certainly die with it; and you would certainly die sooner without it.”
    “I hate it!” she shouted. “The family curse.”
    “The family blessing,” Kas insisted.
    High above the royal residence a very faint breeze nudged the limp flag, the bloodred flag of Banzarak bearing the national emblem, a cobra entwined with a silken string.

3
    Nauc, April 6—7
    HOW DID A caterpillar feel when it opened up in the butterfly business?
    Small, Cedric thought.
    Lonely.
    The hotel room was cramped and dingy, stinking worse than the streets outside. Fungus flourished around the shower pad. The wallpaper looked like beans fried in blood. The single chair was hard and unsteady, and the bed would be too short for him.
    For the third time he checked his credit. He had a clear choice: he could either call home to Madge at Meadowdale, or he could eat breakfast in the morning. That was not a hard decision. He pulled his chair closer to the com, but then he got distracted again by the action. God in Heaven! Were they going to…Yes, they were. Again! He squirmed with embarrassment. But he watched. Holo shows at Meadowdale had never been like this. And the quality of the image was so good! He could have sworn that he was looking through a window into the next room where a couple was—was doing certain things he had never seen done before. Doing, in fact, some things he had not known were possible. Great Heavens! At Meadowdale the images had been fuzzier,