"Bismillah," I murmured: in the name of God. Then I drank that horrible water greedily until he put a hand on my arm and stopped me.

"Marid," I said, answering his question.

He took back the water bag. "I am Hassanein. Your beard is red. I've never seen a red beard before."

"Common," I said, able to speak a little better now that I'd had some water. "In Mauretania."

"Mauretania?" He shook his head.

"Used to be Algeria. In the Maghreb." Again he shook his head. I wondered how far I'd wandered, that I'd met an Arab who had never heard of the Maghreb, the name given to the western Muslim lands of North Africa.

"What race are you?" Hassanein asked.

I looked at him in surprise. "An Arab," I said.

"No," he said, "I am an Arab. You are something else." He was firm in his statement, although I could tell that it was made without malice. He was truly curious about me.

Calling myself an Arab was inaccurate, because I am half Berber, half French, or so my mother always told me. In my adopted city, anyone born in the Muslim world and who spoke the Arabic language was an Arab. Here in Has-sanein's tent that relaxed definition would not do. "I am Berber," I told him."I do not know Berbers. We are Bani Salim." "Badawi?" I asked.

"Bedu," he corrected me. It turned out that the word I'd always used for the Arabian nomads, Badawi or Bedouin, was an inelegant plural of a plural. The nomads themselves preferred Bedu, which derives from the word for desert.

"You treated me?" I said.

Hassanein nodded. He reached out his hand. In the flickering lamplight, I could see the dusting of sand on the hairs of his arm, like sugar on a lemon cake. He lightly touched my corymbic implants. "You are cursed," he said.

I didn't reply. Apparently he was a strict Muslim who felt that I was going to hell because I'd had my brain wired.

"You are doubly cursed," he said. Even here, my sec-ond implant was a topic of conversation. I wondered where my rack of moddies and daddies was. "Hungry," I said.

He nodded. "Tomorrow, you may eat, inshallah." If God wills. It was hard for me to imagine that Allah had brought me through whatever trials I'd endured, just to keep me from having breakfast in the morning. He picked up the lamp and held it close to my face. I With a grimy thumb he pulled down my eyelid and ex-amined my eye. He had me open my mouth, and he looked at my tongue and the back of my throat. He bent forward and put his ear on my chest, then had me cough. He poked and prodded me expertly. "School," I said, pointing at him. "University." He laughed and shook his head. He slowly bent my legs up and then tickled the soles of my feet. He pressed on my fingernails and watched to see how long it took for the color to return.

"Doctor?" I asked.

He shook his head again. Then he looked at me and came to some decision. He grabbed his keffiya and pulled it loose. I was astonished to see that he had his own moddy plug on the crown of his skull. Then he carefully wrapped the keffiya around his head again.

I looked at him questioningly. "Cursed," I said.

"Yes," he said. He wore a stoic expression. "I am the shaykh of the Bani Salim. It is my responsibility. I must wear the mark of the shaitan." '

"How many moddies?" I asked.

He didn't understand the word "moddies." I re-phrased the question, and found out that he'd had his skull amped so that he could use just two modules: the doctor moddy, and one that made him the equivalent of a learned religious leader. Those were all he owned. In the arid wilderness that was home to the Bani Salim, Has-sanein was the wise elder who had, in his own eyes, damned his soul for the sake of his tribe.

I realized that we were understanding each other thanks to grammar and vocabulary built into the doctor : moddy.

When he took it out, we'd have as much trouble communicating as we'd had before. I was getting too weary to keep up this conversation any further, though. Any more would have to wait until tomorrow.

He gave me a capsule to help me sleep through the night. I swallowed it with more of the water from the goatskin. "May you arise in the morning in well-being, O Shaykh," he said. j "God bless you, O Wise One," I murmured. He left * the lamp burning on the sand floor beside me, and stood up. He went out into the darkness, and I heard him drop the tent flap behind him. I still didn't know where I was, and I didn't know a damn thing about the Bani Salim, but for some reason I felt perfectly safe. I fell asleep quickly and woke up only once during the night, to see Noora sitting crosslegged against the black wall of the tent, asleep.

When I woke again in the morning, I could see more clearly. I raised my head a little and stared out through the bright triangle. Now I could see a landscape of golden sand and, not far away, two hobbled camels. In the tent, Noora still watched over me. She had awakened before me, and when she saw me move my head, she came closer. She still self-consciously drew the edge of her head scarf across her face, which was a shame because she was very pretty.

"Thought we were friends," I said. I didn't have so much trouble talking this morning.

Her brows drew together and she shook her head. I wasn't having trouble talking, but I was still having trouble being understood. I tried again, speaking more slowly and using both hands to amplify my words.

"We ... are ... friends," she said. Each word was strangely accented, but I could decipher the dialect if she gave me a little time. "You . . . guest ... of ... Bani Salim."

Ah, the legendary hospitality of the Bedu! "Hassanein is your father?" I asked. She shook her head; I didn't know if she was denying the relationship or if she just hadn't understood my question. I repeated it more slowly. "Shaykh . . .

Hassanein , . . father's . . . brother," she said.

After that, we both got used to speaking simply and putting space between our words. It wasn't long before we weren't having any trouble following each other, even at normal conversational speed.

"Where are we?" I asked. I had to find where I was in relation to the city, and how far from the nearest outpost of civilization.

Noora's brow wrinkled again as she considered her geography. She poked a forefinger into the sand in front of her.

"Here is Bir Balagh. The Bani Salim have camped here two weeks." She poked another hole in the sand, about three inches from the first. "Here is Khaba well, three days south." She reached across the much greater distance between us and made another hole with her fin-ger. "Here is Mughshin. Mughshin is hauta."

"What's hauta?" I asked.

"A holy place, Shaykh Marid. The Bani Salim will meet other tribes there, and sell their camel herd."Fine, I thought, we were all headed for Mughshin. I'd never heard of Mughshin, and I imagined it was probably just a little patch of palm trees and a well, stuck in the middle of the awful desert. It most likely didn't have a suborbital shuttle field nearby. I knew I was lost some-where in the kingdoms and unmarked tribal turfs of Ara-bia. "How far from Riyadh?" I asked.

. "I don't know Riyadh," said Noora. Riyadh was the former capital of her country, when it had been united under the House of Saud. It was still a great city.

"Mecca?"

"Makkah," she corrected me. She thought for a few seconds, then pointed confidently across my body.

"That way," I said. "Good. How far?" Noora only shrugged. I hadn't learned very much.

"I'm sorry," she said. "The old shaykh asked the same questions. Maybe Uncle Hassanein knows more."

The old shaykh! I'd been so wrapped up in my own misery that I'd forgotten about Papa. "The old shaykh is alive?"

"Yes, thanks to you, and thanks to the wisdom of Un-cle Hassanein. When Hilal and bin Turki found the two of you on the dunes, they thought you were both dead. They came back to our camp, and if they hadn't told Uncle Hassanein about you later that evening, you surely would be dead."

I stared at her for a moment. "Hilal and bin Turki just left us out there?"

She shrugged. "They thought you were dead."

I shivered. "Glad it crossed their minds to mention us while they were sitting comfortably around the communal fire."

Noora didn't catch my bitterness. "Uncle Hassanein brought you back to camp. This is his tent. The old shaykh is in the tent of bin Musaid." Her eyes lowered when she mentioned his name.

"Then where are your uncle and bin Musaid sleep-ing?" I asked.

"They sleep with the others who have no tents. On the sand by the fire."

That naturally made me feel a little guilty, because I knew the desert got very cold at night. "How is the old shaykh?" I asked.

"He is getting stronger every day. He suffered greatly from exposure and thirst, but not as greatly as you. It was your sacrifice that kept him alive, Shaykh Marid."

I didn't remember any sacrifice. I didn't remember anything about what we'd been through. Noora must have seen my confusion, because she reached out and almost touched my implants. "These," she said. "You abused them and now you suffer, but it saved the life of the old shaykh. He wants very much to speak with you. Uncle Hassanein told him that tomorrow you may have visitors." I was relieved to hear that Friedlander Bey was in better shape than I was.

I hoped that he might be able to fill in some of the gaps in my recollection. "How long have I been here?"

She did some mental figuring, then replied, "Twelve days. The Bani Salim planned to remain in Bir Balagh only three days, but Uncle Hassanein decided to stay until you and the old shaykh were fit to travel. Some of the tribe are angry about that, especially bin Musaid."

"You mentioned him before. Who is this bin Musaid?"

Noora lowered her eyes and spoke in a low voice. "He desires to marry me," she said.

"Uh huh. And how do you feel about him?"

She looked into my face. I could see anger in her eyes, although I couldn't tell if it was directed at me or her suitor.

She stood up and walked out of the tent without saying another word.

I wished she hadn't done that. I'd meant to ask her for something to eat, and to pass the word to her uncle that I'd like another jolt of Sonneine. Instead, I just tried to find a comfortable position to lie in, and I thought about what Noora had told me. Papa and I had almost died in this wilderness, but I didn't yet know whom to blame that on. I wouldn't be surprised if it was all connected to Lieutenant Hajjar, and through him to Reda Abu Adil. The last thing I remem-bered was sitting on that suborbital shuttle, waiting for it to take off. Everything that came after-the flight itself, the arrival at the destination, and whatever events had led me into the middle of the desert-was still missing from my memory. I hoped it would all come back as I got stronger, or that Papa had a clearer idea of what had happened.

I decided to focus my rage on Abu Adil. I knew that although I felt peaceful enough now, I was still in deadly peril.

For one thing, even if the Bani Salim permitted us to accompany them to Mughshin-wherever the hell that was-it would be very difficult to arrange our travel back to the city. We couldn't just show up again without risking arrest.

We'd have to avoid Papa's mansion, and it would be very dangerous for me to set foot in the Budayeen.

All that was in the future, however. We had more immediate things to worry about. I had no real assurance that the Bani Salim would remain friendly. I guessed that Bedu hospitality required them to nurse Papa and me back to health. After that, all bets were off. When we were able to fend for ourselves again, the tribe might even capture us and turn us over to our enemies. There might be reward money in it for them. It would be a mistake to let our guard down too far. I knew one thing for certain: if Hajjar and Abu Adil were responsible for what happened to us after we left the shuttle, they would pay dearly for it. I would swear an oath to that effect. My grim thoughts were interrupted by Hassanein, who gave me a cheerful greeting. "Here, O Shaykh," he said, "you may eat." He gave me a round, flat piece of unleavened bread and a bowl of some ghastly white fluid. I looked up at him. "Camel's milk," he said. I'd been afraid he was going to say that.

"Bismillah," I murmured. I broke a piece of bread and ate it, then sipped from the bowl. The camel's milk wasn't bad, actually. It was certainly much easier to get down than the water in the goatskin bag.

Shaykh Hassanein squatted on his heels beside me. "Some of the Bani Salim are restless," he said, "and they saythat if we wait here too long, we won't get as much money for our camels in Mughshin. Also, we must find somewhere else to graze the animals. You must be ready to travel in two days." "Sure, be ready when you are." Ha ha, I thought. I was just putting up a noble front.

He nodded. ."Eat some more bread. Later, Noora will bring you some dates and tea. Tonight, if you wish, you may have a little roasted goat."

I was so hungry that I'd have gnawed an uncooked carcass. There was sand in the bread and grit in the milk, but I didn't care.

"Have you used this time to ponder the meaning of what has happened to you?" asked Hassanein.

"Yes, indeed, O Wise One," I said. "My mind is empty of the details, but I've thought long and hard about why I came so near to death. I've looked ahead, too. There will come a harvesting."

The leader of the Bani Salim nodded. I wondered if he knew what I was thinking. I wondered if he would recognize the name of Reda Abu Adil. "That is well," he said in a carefully neutral voice. He stood up to leave.

"O Wise One," I said, "will you give me something for the pain?"

His eyes narrowed as he looked down at me. "Are you truly still in such pain?"

"Yes. I'm stronger now, all praise be to Allah, but my body still suffers from the abuse."

He muttered something under his breath, but he opened his leather bag and prepared another injection. "This will be the last," he told me. Then he jabbed me in the hip.

It occurred to me that he probably didn't have a vast store of medical supplies. Hassanein had to tend to all the accidents and illnesses that struck the Bani Salim, and I had probably already consumed much of his pain-reliev-ing medication. I wished I hadn't selfishly taken this last shot. I sighed as I waited for the Sonneine to take effect.

Hassanein left the tent, and Noora entered again. "Anyone ever told you you're very beautiful, my sister?" I said. I wouldn't have been so bold if the opiate hadn't chosen that instant to bloom in my brain.

I could see that I'd made Noora very uncomfortable. She covered her face with her head scarf and took her position against the wall of the tent. She did not speak to me.

"Forgive me, Noora," I said, my words slurring to-gether.

She looked away from me, and I cursed my stupidity. Then, just before I drifted off into warm, wonderful sleep, she whispered, "Am I truly so beautiful?" I grinned at her crookedly, and then my mind spun away out of this world.

3.

When my memory began to come back, I recalled that I'd been sitting next to Hajjar on the suborbital ship, and facing us had been Friedlander Bey and Hajjar's goon. The crooked cop had derived a lot of enjoyment from looking at me, shaking his head, and making little snotty chuckling noises. I found myself won-dering how hard I'd have to twist his scrawny neck before his head would pop off.

Papa had maintained his air of calm. He simply wasn't going to give Hajjar the satisfaction of troubling him. Af-ter a while, I just tried to pretend that Hajjar and the goon didn't exist. I passed the time imagining them suf-fering all sorts of tragic accidents.

About forty minutes into the flight, when the shuttle had boosted to the top of its parabola and was coasting down toward its destination, a tall man with a thin face and a huge black mustache jerked aside the curtains to the rear cabin. This was the qadi, I imagined, the civil judge who had reached a decision in whatever case Papa and I were involved in. It did my mood no good to see that the qadi was dressed in the gray uniform and leather boots of an officer in Reda Abu AdiFs Jaish. He glanced down at a sheaf of papers in his hand. "Friedlander Bey?" he asked.

"Marid Audran?"

"Him and him," said Lieutenant Hajjar, jerking his thumb at us in turn.

The qadi nodded. He was still standing beside us in the aisle. "This is a most serious charge," he said. "It would have gone better for you if you'd pleaded guilty and begged for mercy."

"Listen, pal," I said, "I haven't even heard the charge yet! I don't even know what we're supposed to have done!

How could we have pleaded guilty? We weren't given a chance to enter a plea at all!"

"Say, your honor?" said Hajjar. "I took the liberty of entering their pleas for them. In the interest of saving the city time and money."

"Most irregular," muttered the qadi, shuffling through his papers. "But as you entered both pleas of innocent, I see no further problem."

I slammed my fist on my seat's armrest. "But you just said it would have gone better for us if-"

"Peace, my nephew," said Papa in his imperturbable voice. He turned to the qadi. "Please, your honor, what is the charge against us?"

"Oh, murder," said the distracted judge. "Murder in the first degree. Now, as I have all the-"

"Murder!" I cried. I heard Hajjar laugh, and I turned and gave him a deadly look. He raised his hands to protect himself. The goon reached across and slapped my face, hard. I turned toward him, raging, but he just waved the barrel of his needle gun under my nose. I subsided a little.

"Whom were we supposed to have killed?" asked Papa.