The effect was as if the Canopy had been cobwebbed by monstrous insects, invisible spiders larger than houses.
‘Who lives there?’ I knew it wasn’t a completely stupid question, since I had already seen lights burning in the branches; evidence that, no matter how distorted the geometries of those sick dead husks of buildings, they had been claimed for human habitation.
‘No one you wanna know, mister.’ Juan chewed on his statement before adding, ‘Or no one who wanna know you. That no insult, either.’
‘None taken, but please answer my question.’
Juan was a long time responding, during which time our rickshaw continued to navigate the roots of the giant structures, wheels jumping over water-filled cracks in the road. The rain hadn’t stopped of course, but when I pushed my head beyond the awning, what I felt was warm and soft; hardly a hardship at all. I wondered if it ever ended, or whether the pattern of condensation on the dome was diurnal; if it were all happening according to some schedule. I had the impression, though, that very little that happened in Chasm City was under anyone’s direct control.
‘Them rich people,’ the kid said. ‘Real rich — not small-time rich like Madame Dominika.’ He knuckled his bony head. ‘Don’t need Dominika, either.’
‘You mean there are enclaves in the Canopy where the plague never reached?’
‘No, plague reach everywhere. But in Canopy, them clean it out, after building stop changing. Some rich, they stay in orbit. Some never leave CC, or come down after shit hit fan. Some get deported.’
‘Why would anyone come here after the plague, if they didn’t have to? Even if parts of the Canopy are safe from residual traces of the Melding Plague, I can’t see why anyone would choose to live there rather than stay in the remaining habitats of the Rust Belt.’
‘Them get deported no have big choice,’ said the kid.
‘No; I can understand that. But why would anyone else come here?’
‘Because them think thing got to get better, and them wanna be here when it happen. Plenty way to make money, when thing get better — but only few people gonna get serious rich. Plenty way to make money now, too — less p’lice here than upside.’
‘You’re saying there are no rules here, are there? Nothing that can’t be bought? I’d imagine that must have been tempting, after the strictures of Demarchy.’
‘Mister, you talk funny.’
My next question was obvious. ‘How do I get there? To the Canopy, I mean?’
‘You not already there, you don’t.’
‘You’re saying I’m not rich enough, is that it?’
‘Rich not enough,’ the kid said. ‘Need connection. Gotta be tight with Canopy, or you ain’t nobody.’
‘Assuming I was, how would I get there? Are there routes through the buildings, old access shafts not sealed by the plague?’ I figured this was the kind of street knowledge the kid would know backwards.
‘You no wanna take inside route, mister. Plenty dangerous. Special when hunt coming down.’
‘Hunt?’
‘This place no good at night, mister.’
I looked around at the gloom. ‘How would you ever be able to tell? No; don’t answer that. Just tell me how I’d get up there.’ I waited for an answer, and when it showed no sign of arriving I decided to recast my question. ‘Do Canopy people ever come down to the Mulch?’
‘Sometime. Special during hunt.’
Progress, I thought, even though it was like pulling a tooth. ‘And how do they get here? I’ve seen what look like flying vehicles, what we used to call volantors, but I can’t imagine anyone could fly through the Canopy without hitting some of those webs.’
‘We call them volantor too. Only rich got ’em — difficult to fix, keep flying. No good in some part of city, either. Most Canopy kid, they come down in cable-car now.’
‘Cable-car?’
For a moment a look of helpfulness crossed his face, and I realised he was desperately trying to please me. It was just that my enquiries were so far outside of his usual parameters that it was causing him physical pain.
‘Those web, those cable? Hang between building?’
‘Can you show me a cable-car? I’d like to see one.’
‘It not safe, mister.’
‘Well, nor am I.’
I sugared the question with another bill, then settled back into the seat as we sped on through the soft interior rain, through the Mulch.
Eventually Juan slowed and turned round to me. ‘There. Cable-car. Them often come down here. Want we go closer?’
At first I wasn’t sure what he meant. Parked diagonally across the shattered roadbed was one of the sleek private vehicles I’d seen in and around the concourse. One door was folded open from the side, like the wing of a gull, with two greatcoated individuals standing in the rain next to it, faces lost under wide-brimmed hats.
I looked at them, wondering what I was going to do next.
‘Hey mister, I already ask you, you want we go closer?’
One of the two people by the cable-car lit a cigarette and for a moment I saw the fire chase the shadows from his face — it was aristocratic, with a nobility I had not seen since arriving on the planet. His eyes were concealed behind complex goggles which emphasised the exaggerated sharpness of his cheekbones. His friend was a woman, her slender gloved hand holding a pair of toylike binoculars to her eyes. Pivoting on her knifelike heels, she scanned the street, until her gaze swept over me. I watched her flinch as it happened, though she tried to control it.
‘They nervous,’ Juan breathed. ‘Mostly, Mulch and Canopy keep far apart.’
‘Any particular reason?’
‘Yeah, one good one.’ Now he was whispering so quietly I could barely hear him above the relentless hiss of the rain. ‘Mulch get too close, Mulch vanish.’
‘Vanish?’
He drew his finger across his throat, but discreetly. ‘Canopy like games, mister. They bored. Immortal people, they all bored. So they play games. Trouble is, not everyone get asked they wanna take part.’
‘Like the hunt you mentioned?’
He nodded. ‘But no talk it now.’
‘All right. Stop here then, Juan, if you’d be so good.’
The rickshaw lost what little forward momentum it had had, the primate showing agitation in every ridge of his back muscles. I observed the reactions on the faces of the two Canopy dwellers — trying to look cool, and almost achieving it.
I stepped out of the rickshaw, my feet squelching as they made acquaintance with the sodden roadbed. ‘Mister,’ said Juan. ‘You be careful now. I ain’t earned a fare home yet.’
‘Don’t go anywhere,’ I said, then thought better of it. ‘Listen, if this makes you nervous, leave and return in five minutes.’
This obviously struck him as excellent advice. The woman with the binoculars returned them to her exuberantly patterned greatcoat, while the goggled man reached up and made what was obviously a delicate readjustment of his optics. I walked calmly in their direction, paying more attention to their vehicle. It was a glossy black lozenge, resting on three retractable wheels. Through a tinted forward window I glimpsed upholstered seats facing complicated manual controls. What appeared to be three rotor blades were furled on the roof. But as I examined the mounting more closely, I saw that this wasn’t any kind of helicopter. The blades were not attached to the body of the vehicle by a rotating axle, but vanished into three circular holes in a domelike hump which rose seamlessly from the hull itself. And, now that I looked closer, I saw that the blades were not really blades at all, but telescopic arms, each tipped with a scythelike hook.
That was all the time I had for sightseeing.
