a woman, and Josif did not understand women. Maybe she was right, and it would be better this way.
Besides, Josif, what makes you think Ansset would ever have you? He didn't have two emperors, you know.
She was right. She was right and he knew it and he went to the duffel and unpacked it and put the clothing away. He never will, Josif said. I was a fool. I'm just tired. And he undressed and got into the bed.
They made love in silence, and several times Kyaren seemed surprised by the force of his passion tonight. She did not realize that in spite of his best efforts he kept seeing the curls clinging to Ansset's neck, the soft cheek that he had not touched except in his mind but that was all the softer because of that. He tried to take Ansset's face out of his mind. And failed.
Kyaren sighed contentedly afterward, and kissed him. She thinks it's all better now, Josif thought bitterly. She thinks she's kept me. She would have kept me better if she had let me go now.
And when her breathing became heavy and regular, he leaned up on his arm and looked at her face, which she always turned away from him in sleep. He stroked her cheek softly; her mouth moved, almost like the sucking instinct of a baby.
I warned you, he said softly, so softly that perhaps the words did not even find voice. I warned you.
And he gave up and lay back and tried to steep, sour at heart because he had tried to control his life just once and could not do it after all.
Kyaren was not asleep, however, or she had been wakened by his touch. Josif, she said. I'm going to have your baby.
No, he said softly.
Please, she said. And because he was tired and not disposed to deny her anything, and because he knew that soon enough he would deny her everything, he let himself cool, and they made love again. And sometime in the next week she conceived, and when Josif saw how happy it made her and how concerned for her it made him, he began to think that maybe he had been wrong, that maybe Ansset would mean nothing to him.
For the child's sake, and because he wanted to bind himself to Kyaren even tighter, Josif insisted and they married. Now I will never let go of you in my heart, Josif thought. I will love you forever, he thought.
I am lying, he thought, and this time he was right.
JOSIF Chapter 9
The tour was Ansset's idea. Riktors had just returned from his tour of the prefects, and the results had been splendid. Well, why not me? Ansset asked, and the more he talked about it, the better his advisers liked it. There are always differences from region to region on a planet, Ansset said, and most planets develop dialects, some even languages. But Earth has nations. If it makes sense for the emperor to have contact with every prefect, it makes sense for the manager of Earth to have contact with every nation.
To Kyaren he also explained, The statistics and figures you and the others play with all the time, they mean nothing to me. I can't think that way. You tell me what you've concluded and I don't understand why. But when I meet them, when I hear them speak, when I hear the songs of the people and their leaders, I'll be able to understand better.
Better?
Than I do now. And in some ways, better than you understand them, for all that the computers even keep track of the number of old fleskets returned to the pots for scrap.
And so they took the tour, and Ansset brought all his top advisers with him, and allowed them to bring their spouses, those who had contracts. And that was why Josif came along, though he was not an adviser to the manager. And that was why Ansset's term as manager of Earth ended early, along with Kyaren's happiness and Josif's life.
The tour began in the Americas, with visits to Uruguay, Paraguay, Brazil, Titicaca, Panama, Mexico, Westamerica, Eastamerica, and Quebec. In Mexico Josif and Kyaren stayed three extra days, revisiting the places and redoing the things seen and done when they first loved each other. They had their son with them, of course, little Efrim- Josif chose the name because an earlier Josif, thousands of years before, had given his favorite son that name. History, Kyaren had