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obvious signs of age on her body, she thought she knew how older people must
feel; that desire not to change, not to deteriorate. Was it simply that she
wanted to remain attractive? She gazed into her own eyes.
Mostly, she thought, I want to remain attractive to myself. If no man ever saw
me again, I'd still want to look good to me. I'd trade five, ten years of life
to look like this until the end.
She shook her head at herself, a small frown on her face.
'So die young, narcissist,' she whispered to herself.
At least the Huhsz might ensure she never grew old.
She turned to dress.
The body is a code, she thought, reaching for her slip. And froze, thinking of
where she had heard that phrase, and of what she was supposed to discover from
Bencil Dornay this evening, and how.
In the curving corridor, by one window looking out into a gulf of darkness
strung and beaded with the necklace lights of distant roads and the clustered
jewels of towns and villages, opposite the wide staircase that led to the
house reception floor, its lit depths already bustling with talk and music and
laughter, she found Cenuij Mu sitting on a couch, dressed in a formal black
robe and reading what looked like a letter.
He looked up when she approached. He inspected her, then nodded. 'Very
elegant,' he told her. He looked down at the letter, folded it and put it away
in the black robe.
She checked her reflection in the windows, severe in court-formal black. Her
dress was floor-length and long-
sleeved, decorated with plain platinum jewellery worn around her high-collared
neck and on her gloved hands. A
black net held her hair, constellated with diamonds. 'Court-prophylactic,' she
said, turning to check her profile.
'Prissy, constipated style,' she told him. She shook her head at her
reflection. 'Damn shame I look so drop-dead stunning in it.'
She expected a reply to that, but Cenuij didn't seem to be listening. He was
staring into the middle distance.
She sat beside him on the couch, the dress and collar forcing her to sit very
erect, her head up. 'Was that a letter from Breyguhn?' she asked him.
He nodded, still staring away round the curve of corridor. 'Yes. Just
delivered.'
'How is she?'
Cenuij shook his head, then shrugged. 'She mentioned you,' he said.
'Ali,' Sharrow said. 'Did she mention anything about this message I'm supposed
to get from Dornay?'
Cenuij shrugged again. He looked tired. 'Nothing directly,' he said.
'Can't help wondering what form it's going to take,' Sharrow admitted. The
music and chattering from the floor below swelled briefly, then ebbed again
before Cenuij replied.
'If it's the sort of thing I think she's talking about,' he said, 'it could be
expressed in a variety of ways. He might not simply say whatever it is he
knows; it might be encoded as a drawing, some body-pose from a sign-dance, a
whistled tune. It could even vary according to the circumstances he's in when
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the programming takes over.'
'I'd no idea this was one of your areas of expertise, Cenuij.'
'Merely a smattering,' he said, seeming to collect himself. 'Breyguhn knows
more.'
'We'll get her out,' Sharrow told him.
He looked annoyed. 'Why do you two hate each other so much?' he asked.
She stared at him for a moment, then shrugged. 'Partly your standard sibling
rivalry,' she told him. 'And the rest is
. . .' She shook her head. 'Too long a story. Brey'll tell you in her own
time, I expect.' Sharrow held one of Cenuij's hands.
'Soon, Cenny; she'll tell you soon. This nonsense with Dornay should put us on
the track of the book; we'll find it.
She'll be out soon.'
Cenuij looked down, and his hand moved, as though about to take the letter out
again. 'That's all I want,' he whispered.
She put her arm round him.
'And you, Sharrow?' he said, twisting away from her to look her in the eye.
'What do you want? What do you really want? Do you know?'
She gazed levelly at him. 'To live, I suppose,' she said, with what she hoped
sounded like sarcasm.
'No good; too common. What else?'
She wanted to look away from his intense, narrow gaze, but forced herself to
meet it. 'You really want to know?'
she asked.
`Of course! I asked you, didn't I?'
She shrugged. She pursed her lips and looked deliberately away, out into the
darkness beyond the windows. 'Not to be alone,' she said, looking at him and
lifting her chin just a little, as if in defiance. 'And not to let people
down.'
He gave a harsh laugh and got up from the couch. He stood above her,
straightening his robe. 'Such a humorist, our little Sharrow,' he said. Then
he smiled broadly and put his arm out towards her. 'Shall we?'
She smiled without warmth, took his arm and they descended to the party.
There were perhaps a hundred guests. The band was entirely acoustic and by
that measure extremely up-to-date;
Bencil Dornay's own kitchen staff had prepared the tables of delicacies
themselves. Dornay took her round his guests, introducing them. They were
business colleagues, senior staff in his trading firm, a few local dignitaries
and worthies, rich friends from nearby houses and some local artists. Sharrow
entertained the idea that Bencil Dornay's guests just happened to be uniformly
polite, but guessed that they had been told not to ask any embarrassing
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