The Caryatids

George drew a breath-she could hear him puffing in the busy cores of her new eardrums. "Sonja, please. When you were out there in the field-crusading to save civilization, or whatever-I cared about that, I helped you! You remember how may times I helped you go save your favorite Chinese civilization? But now they're trying to kill you right there in their own spaceport! What kind of 'civilization' is that to save?"

"This is China. Their system works differently."

"Look, I manage global logistics, so I learn something new every day," George boasted. "I can traffic in people like you! I'll export you from China. I'll export you right here to Vienna! When Inke heard that you were hurt again, she cried!"

Finally, Sonja was touched. Inke Zweig. Good old Inke. She had once spent a family Christmas together with Inke, when George, thankfully, wasn't around.

First, Inke took her to Mass, insisting that she kneel and pray. Then Inke took her home, and Inke got very drunk on dainty, reeking, German herbal liqueurs. Then Inke, sobbingly, told Sonja all about her life. Inke vomited up her soul right at her kitchen table.

It was a boozy, sisterly, holiday heart-to-heart, all about Inke's house, and her kitchen, and her kids, and her favorite cabbage and sausage recipes, and the will of God, and her husband, and Inke's grinding, life-blighting fear of her hostile and terrible world.

Inke was intelligent-she was perceptive enough to know that the world was in lethal danger-but Inke was too timid to do anything useful.

So, Inke had married, instead. Inke had forfeited every aspect of human agency to the man in her life. Inke had hidden herself in her thick fog of housework and piety, where she could cook, pray, and have babies.

And this strategy even made sense for the woman, this self-abnegation was Inke's version of a heroic act. Inke Zweig was a sweet and tender and vulnerable creature. Inke loved her kids dearly. Inke's kids were even great kids, because they didn't know one single useful thing about reality. They thought their mom and dad were terrific and all-knowing and proud and prosperous.

Her kids even loved their aunt Sonja, for no particular reason that Sonja understood. They gave their aunt Sonja fancy Christmas presents from prestigious Viennese stores.

"Sonja, you are family: Inke always says that. Inke would love to look after you," George promised. "You wouldn't have to see me at all! I'm on the road most days. You could have your own private wing of the mansion! Or-if my global business keeps booming-you can have your own apartment building!"

"Vienna is pretty," she told him. "I think you made a good choice, working there."

"Sonja, you won't survive. To get killed-like our others were killed?-that was tragic. But to want to be killed, like you so obviously want to be killed? That is sheer foolishness!"

"Djordje, suppose that I go to Europe, and I lose my temper there, and I kill you ?"

"Oh, you would never do that!" George lied. "Any more than I would ever kill you. "

Sonja thought about his proposal for all of fifteen seconds. No, his sad, meager, bourgeois little notions wouldn't do.

"George," she told him sweetly, "I want you to help me leave Jiuquan."

"Great, great! Excellent news! Now you're talking sense! You name the date!"

"I want you to find some Provincial Reconstruction Team-Acquis, Dispensation, whoever-located in central Asia. Well outside the borders of China, out in the desert, where the wild people are. Get them to put in a formal request for my aid and expertise. It's always much easier for me to travel outside China when the state has the formal documents."

"All right, fine, one small moment here," said George, "let me use my correlation engine! With this amazing new business tool, I can change your life from right here in my chair! My new network engine is Californian! In ten years the whole Earth will have a new economy!"

Sonja's keen ears heard George busily tapping at keys. "'Scythia'?" George said, almost at once. "Would 'Scythia' do for you? Scythia is a poststate disaster region in the middle of Asia. You could go anywhere in Asia and claim you were going to 'Scythia.'"

"I know about Scythia. I also need special travel gear, George. Some private-militia, hunter-killer, Scorpion-tag-team, covert-penetration gear." Sonja paused. "That's not for me. It's a wedding gift."

This demand made George unhappy. "You know that I stopped facilitating that market. Those years were the bad old years. Those years are behind both of us now."

"I'm sure you didn't forget how to globally traffic in arms."

"Sonja, don't say that sort of thing about me. That hurts my feelings. I am paying to do this for you, and I will not pay to see you get killed in a desert. I want you to not get killed, that is my program. Forget rushing into the wild desert with many big guns. That is not practical."