It stopped by their table and stood silently. 'What do you have
tonight?' she asked.
It said, 'Ceviche made just hours ago, quite good everyone
says, from tuna out of marine habitatyou can also have it
grilled. For meat eaters, spit-barbecued goat. Otherwise, sushi
plates, salads, sukiyakis.'
'Ceviche for everyone?' Lizzie asked.
Diana said, 'That's fine,' and the Gonzales nodded.
Lizzie said, 'And bring us a couple of big salads, sushi for
everyone, and a stack of plates. Local beer all right?' The
other two nodded.
'Yes, Ms. Jordan,' the sam said. 'And lots of bread as
usual?'
'Right,' she said. 'Thank you.'
Strings of lights marked off the area where they sat. Above
a white-trellised gate, letters in more red faux neon said
VIRTUAL CAF. Perhaps twenty tables were scattered around, as
were two-meter high, white crockery vases with wildflowers
spraying out of them. About half the tables had people seated at
them, and the sam waiters moved silently among the tables, some
carrying immense silver trays of food. Other sams stood at low
benches in the center of the tables, where they chopped vegetables
at speed or sliced great red slabs of tuna, while others stood at
woks, where they worked the vegetables and hot oil with sets of
spidery extensors. One sam from time-to-time extended a probe and
stuck it into the dark carcass of a goat turning on a spit.
The waiter rolled up with a massive tray balanced on thin
extensors: on the tray were plates of French bread and a bowl of
butter, dark bottles of Angels Beeron the silver labels, an
androgynous figure in white, arms folded, feathery wings unfurled
high over its head.
Lizzie raised her glass and said, 'Welcome to Halo.' The
three clinked their glasses together, reaching across the table
with the usual sorts of awkward gestures.
#
After dinner, the three of them found empty chairs out in the
square's open spaces and sat looking into the close-hanging sky.
Lizzie looked at them both, as if measuring them, and said,
'What I was asking about earlier either of you folks got a
hidden agenda? If so, you tell me about it now, we'll see what
can be done, but if you spring any unpleasant surprises later on,
we'll hang you out to dry.'
'I know what you mean,' Diana said. 'But I don't think you
have to worry about us. Gonzales is connected, but I think he's
harmless; and I'm out of the loop entirelyhere on strictly
personal business.'
Lizzie nodded at Gonzales and said, 'You're the corporate
handler, right?' She was looking hard at Gonzales but seemed
amused.
'Yes,' he said.
'You plan to fuck anything up?' Lizzie asked.
'How should I know?' Gonzales said. Lizzie laughed. He
said, 'You people have your problems, I have mine. I don't see
how we come into conflict, but unless you're willing to tell me
all your little secrets, I can only guess.'
Lizzie said, 'I will tell you one home truth: the Interface
Collective look to one another and to Aleph; then to SenTrax Halo,
then to Halo and that's about it. What happens on Earth, we
don't much care about. Particularly those of us who have been
here a long time. Like me.'
Gonzales nodded and said, 'That's what I figured. And it
looks like you've got a little tug of war for control of Aleph
with Showalter and Horn.'
'We do,' Lizzie said. 'Insofar as anyone controls Aleph.'
'How long have you been here?' Diana asked.
'Since they buttoned it up and you could breathe,' Lizzie
said. 'From the beginning.' She pointed across the square and
said, 'There's going to be some music. Let's have a look.'
Under a splash of light from a pole on the edge of the
square, a young woman sat at a drummer's kit. She wore a splash-
dyed jumper, crimson and sky blue; her hair stood in a six-inch
high spike. She placed a percussion box on a metal stand, opened
its control panel, and gave its kickpads a few preliminary taps.
Two men stood next to the percussionist. One, nondescript in
cotton jeans and t-shirt, had the usual stick hanging from a black
straplong fretboard, synthesizer electronics tucked into a round
bulge at the back end. The other stood six and a half feet tall
and was so thin he seemed to sway; his skin was almost ebony, and
his close-shaved head looked almost perfectly rectangular. He
wore a long-sleeved black shirt buttoned to the neck, black pants.
A golden horn sat dwarfed in his enormous hand.
The percussionist hit her keys, a slow shuffle beat played,
and a fill machine laid a phrase across the beat: 'Bam! Ratta
tatta bam! Bam bam! Ratta bam!' The stick player joined the
drummer with his own lo-beat fillswalking bass, sparse piano
chords, slow and syncopated. The horn player stood with his eyes
closed, apparently thinking. After several choruses, he started
to play.
He began with hard-edged saxophone lines, switched to trumpet
then back to saxophone, played both in unison, looped both and
blew electric guitar in front of the horn patterns. Scatting
voices laced through the patternsGonzales couldn't tell who was
making them. The drummer's hands worked her keyboards, her feet
the various kickpads below her; the song's tempo had speeded up,
and its rhythms had gone polyphonic, African.
The woman stood and danced, her body now her instrument, feet
and hands and torso wired for percussion, and she whirled among
the crowd, her movements picking up intensity and tempo. The
song's harmonies went dissonant, North African and Asiatic at
