Yet why did it feel as though my honor had been soiled?

And to the people of Kawabe. honor is everything.

I could feel the resentment of the people of I the city, as tangible and heavy as the I heat, as I resumed my foot patrol through the dusty, sun-baked streets. It felt as though the eyes of all the people were on Okabi and me as we made our way past market stalls and through crowds that seemed to turn quiet once the two ot us appeared. A Civilian Guidance Corpsman's uniform is designed to call attention to its wearer The red and white stripes on forearms and shins, the red and white cap with its leather hood, even the stunner ostentatiously displayed at the left hip all are designed to make the police highly visible, a deterrence to crime and a comfort to law-abiding citizens.

We are known, in fact, as friendly persuaders,' but Okabi's expression beneath the brim of his cap was anything but friendly now. His dark eyes glinted like obsidian chips, and his normally impassive mouth was twisted into an unreadable expression.

I knew my face must bear the same message.

‘Vance.’ Okabi said. ‘That one is acting suspicious.’ He jerked his thumb toward the marketplace, and l saw the look of stark terror spread across one farmer's face as he caught Okabi's gesture and assumed we were talking about him. I had already noted the furtiveness of his behavior, the way he kept looking to left and right and over his shoulder as he threaded his way down the street. He was a typical agroworker. the black muck of the irrigation ditches still clinging to his trousers and boots. He carried the produce he had to sell at the marketplace in a pair of baskets slung from either end of a pole balanced across his shoulders.

The look on his face as he saw Okabi pointing him out was enough to raise my suspicions. Until that day. I would have set after the man at once, ordered him to halt, and searched his person and his bundles. But I saw before me the face of the street peddler, Holmes.

'Let him go,' I said.

Okabi s dark eyes hardened. 'The man is up to something. We should stop him... search him...’

'Let him go!’ My shout was loud enough to drown the subdued hum of conversation around us, to turn heads in our direction. The farmer hurried off into the crowd, thanking whatever gods he knew that he'd been allowed to pass. What had he been up to? I didn't know, nor did I care.

'We are bound of our honor to serve the Prefect,’ Okabi said carefully. He was staring hard at me.

‘Honor?’ I said.

The word bore a great weight for the people of Kawabe. as it did for many of the peoples of the Draconis Combine. A man was raised from birth to know the paths of honor and the webwork of responsibilities that bound him to his parents, his family, his city, his lords, and his way of life. To break any of those bonds was to sever or stain those bonds of honor, and. for most Kawabeans, death was preferable.

‘Honor.’ Okabi replied. ‘Hassan is our lord, and we are bound by our honor to serve him.' The dark eyes narrowed beneath the visor of his cap. ‘We are bound by oath to serve him. and to fulfill our duties.'

I nodded to the people in the street around us, shopkeepers and vendors, beggars and hawklings, merchants and moneylenders. 'These are our people. Okabi. I was born and raised in a town not twenty klicks from here. You were raised here, in Marakani. Don't we have an honor-bond with them as well?’

'That man could have been smuggling food from the country. Or been dealing in black market Company chits Or be carrying weapons.'

‘l don't care’ I searched for the man but couldn't see him any longer. He'd been swallowed by the crowd. Bitterness crowded my thoughts. 'Whatever he was up to, I hope he gets away with it'

‘You are thinking of the man we arrested earlier. Holmes.’

‘What of it? What did he do to deserve having Lord Hassan descend on him that way? How much was Holmes' street business hurling the Company? If he was lucky — very lucky—Holmes's might have made ten thousand a year...and most of that would have gone to pay his back debts to the Company.’

'And tomorrow his fresh skin will be displayed on the drying racks outside of headquarters. I know. But ours is the way of bushido.'

The expression on Okabi's face as he said it told all. Bushido—the Way of the Warrior—was the ancient warrior's code brought to Kawabe centuries before from old Earth itself. It bound us to our master, Prefect Hassan, in our willingness to kill and in our willingness to die. I knew Okabi was as hurt by Holmes's arrest as I was... but he would die by his own hand before he would betray his master. I was subject to the same code. I had grown up on Kawabe, and the people and their ways were my own.

But there was agony in serving this foreigner who exploited my people, as there was agony in considering his betrayal.

My place of duty the following day was in the Judgement Hall as part of Lord Hassan's personal guard. The Prefect occupied his divan on the raised dais at the end of the hall. A servant stood beside him, a bowl of kiwi grapes in her hands, from which he helped himself from time to time. Around his fat neck was a silken band, and one of the luck charm pendants Holmes had been selling dangled at his breast.

‘First on the day's agenda,’ he said. 'On the matter of the street hawkling, Holmes. He still owes a considerable debt to the Company, which, unfortunately, he is no longer able to pay. His account shall be settled today, through his surviving family.'

The family was there, in the hall before him. Holmes's wife was an older woman, once beautiful, but careworn and ragged now in the widow's white garb of mourning. His son was tall and lean and heavily muscled, with defiance and dread mingled in his eyes. Holmes's daughter, a slender girl in her early teens, was radiantly beautiful. Where her father had been short and dark, she was tall, with long auburn hair and eyes haunting in their fear.

‘You!' Hassan barked from his divan. His hand indicated the mother. ‘Old woman. You can do housework, I suppose? Clean? Cook?'

‘Y-yes, Lord...’ Her voice was rough and tortured, her eyes on the luck charm around Hassan's throat.

Then you shall be found work as a domestic. I know an official in the Company who can use your services at his estate. Two years, indentured service. You.' He scowled at the boy. The Company will be able to use you. The Ginoyama mines for you, I'd say. Three years' indenture.’ His eyes fell on the daughter, and the expression on his face made it clear that he'd been saving the best for last. ‘For you, my dear, I think we can find something very, very special.'

He beckoned, but the girl was unable to move. She was shaking, her arms folded in front of her.

‘Come forward!' he demanded. 'Guard! Bring her to me!’

One of the other Guidance Corpsmen in the room took her by one arm and walked her up to Hassan. Hassan watched them approach, his eyes sparkling with unconcealed anticipation. ‘I'd like to have a better look at you, my dear. Undress. Display for us your charms...'

'I protest!’

The shout from across the hall caught everyone by surprise. Hassan half rose from his divan, glowering at the interruption.

Okabi stood in the hall, the light from skylight above gleaming along the curve of the wakizashi,the short sword, in his hand. Okabi was off duty this day, and for that reason alone would not have been permitted to enter the Judgement Hall with a weapon, but the formal wakizashiwas counted on Kawabe more as personal ornament than weapon, an emblem of honorable citizenship for anyone of the warrior class. The blade held aloft, he approached Hassan's divan, stopped, and kneeled ten paces before the Prefect's dais. Weapons around the room swiveled to cover him, ready to cut him down, but his posture and his expression froze every man in the place.