‘Don’t come any closer,’ the woman said. She backed up her words, spoken in flawless Canasian, by flourishing a tiny weapon, little larger than a brooch.
‘He’s unarmed,’ the man said, loud enough for me to hear, intentionally, it seemed.
‘I don’t mean you any harm.’ I spread my arms — slowly. ‘These are Mendicant clothes. I’ve just arrived on the planet. I wanted to know about reaching the Canopy.’
‘The Canopy?’ the man said, as if this was vastly amusing.
‘That’s what they all want,’ the woman said. The weapon had not budged, and her grip on it was so steady that I wondered if it contained tiny gyroscopes, or some kind of biofeedback device which acted on the muscles in her wrist. ‘Why should we talk to you?’
‘Because I’m harmless — unarmed, as your partner observed — and curious, and it might amuse you.’
‘You’ve no idea what amuses us.’
‘No, I probably don’t, but, as I said — I’m curious. I’m a man of means—’ the remark sounded ridiculous as soon I had spoken it, but I soldiered on ‘—and I’ve had the misfortune to arrive in the Mulch with no contacts in the Canopy.’
‘You speak Canasian reasonably well,’ the man observed, lowering his hand from his goggles. ‘Most Mulch can barely manage an insult in anything other than their native tongue.’ He threw away what remained of his cigarette.
‘But with an accent,’ the woman said. ‘I don’t place it — it’s offworld, but nothing I’m familiar with.’
‘I’m from Sky’s Edge. You may have met people from other parts of the planet who speak differently. It’s been settled long enough for linguistic drift.’
‘So had Yellowstone,’ said the man, feigning no real interest in this line of debate. ‘But most of us still live in Chasm City. Here, the only linguistic drift is vertical.’ He laughed, as if the remark were more than just a statement of fact.
I wiped rain from my eyes, warm and viscous. ‘The driver said the only way to reach the Canopy was by cable-car.’
‘An accurate statement, but that doesn’t mean we can help you.’ The man removed his hat, revealing long blond hair tied back.
His companion added, ‘We have no reason to trust you. A Mulch could have stolen Mendicant clothes and learned a few words of Canasian. No sane person would arrive here without already establishing ties with Canopy.’
I took a calculated risk. ‘I’ve got some Dream Fuel. Does that interest you?’
‘Oh yes, and how in hell’s name did a Mulch get hold of Dream Fuel?’
‘It’s a long story.’ But I reached into Vadim’s coat and removed the cache of Dream Fuel vials. ‘You’ll have to take my word that is the genuine article, of course.’
‘I’m not in the habit of taking anyone’s word on anything,’ the man said. ‘Pass me one of those vials.’
Another calculated risk. The man might run off with the one, but that would still leave me with the others.
‘I’ll throw you one. How does that sound?’
The man took a few steps towards me. ‘Do it, then.’
I tossed him the vial. He caught it deftly and then vanished into the vehicle. The woman remained outside, still covering me with the little gun. A few moments passed, then the man emerged from the vehicle again, not bothering to don his hat. He held up the vial. ‘This… seems to be the genuine article.’
‘What did you do?’
‘Shone a light through it, of course.’ He looked at me as if I was stupid. ‘Dream Fuel has a unique absorption spectrum.’
‘Good. Now that you know it’s real, throw the vial back to me and we’ll negotiate terms.’
The man made a throwing gesture, but pulled at the last moment, holding the vial in front of him tauntingly. ‘No… let’s not be hasty, shall we? You have more of these, you say? Dream Fuel’s in short supply these days. At least the good stuff. You must have stumbled on quite a haul.’ He paused. ‘I’ve done you a favour, which we’ll think of as fair payment for this vial. I’ve asked that another cable-car meet you here shortly. You’d better not have been lying about your means.’ He removed his goggles, revealing iron-grey eyes of extraordinary cruelty.
‘I’m grateful,’ I said. ‘But what would it matter if I had been lying?’
‘That’s an odd question.’ The woman made her weapon vanish, like a well-rehearsed conjuring trick. Perhaps it had sprung back into a sleeve-holster.
‘I told you, I’m curious.’
‘There is no law here,’ she said. ‘A kind of law, in the Canopy — but only that which suits us; that which conveniences us, like the playground law of children. But we’re not in the Canopy now. Down here, anything goes. And we have very little patience with those who deceive us.’
‘That’s all right,’ I said. ‘I’m not a patient man myself.’
They both climbed into their vehicle, momentarily leaving the doors splayed open. ‘Perhaps we’ll see you in the Canopy,’ the man said, and then smiled at me. It was not the kind of smile one relished. It was the kind of smile I had seen on snakes in the vivaria at the Reptile House.
The doors clammed down and their vehicle came to life with a subliminal hum.
The three telescopic arms on the roof of the cable-car swung outwards and upwards, and then continued extending outwards at blinding speed, doubling, tripling, quadrupling their length. They were reaching skywards. I looked up, shielding my eyes against the perpetual embalming rain. The rickshaw driver had pointed out that the cables spanning the gnarled structures of the Canopy occasionally draped down to the level of the Mulch, like hanging vines, but I hadn’t paid enough attention to his remark. Now I saw the significance of it as one of the car’s arms snagged the lowest line with its hooked claw. The other two arms extended even further, out to perhaps ten times their original length, until they found their own draping lines and made purchase.
And then — smoothly, as if it were lifting on thrusters — the cable-car pulled itself aloft, accelerating all the time. The nearest arm released its grip on the cable, contracted and jerked, stabbing upwards with the speed of a chameleon’s tongue, until it had locked around another cable. And while that happened, the car rose further still, and then another arm switched cables, and another, until the car was hundreds of metres above me and dwindling. Still the motion was eerily smooth, even though the vehicle always seemed to be on the point of missing its purchase altogether and plummeting back towards the Mulch.
‘Hey, mister. You still here.’
At some point during the vehicle’s ascent, the rickshaw had returned. I had expected the driver to do what seemed sensible and return to the concourse, more or less in profit. But Juan had kept his word, and would probably have been insulted if I registered any surprise.
‘Did you honestly think I wouldn’t be?’
‘When Canopy come down, you never know. Hey, why you stand in rain?’
‘Because I’m not returning with you.’ He had barely had time to register disapointment — although the expression which had begun to form on his face suggested that I’d cast grave aspersions on his entire lineage — when I offered him a generous cancellation fee. ‘It’s more than you’d have earned carrying me.’
He looked at the two seven-Ferris bills, glumly. ‘Mister, you no wanna stay here. This nowhere; not good part of Mulch.’
‘I don’t doubt it,’ I said, coming to terms with the idea that even somewhere as misbegotten and miserable as the Mulch had its good and bad neighbourhoods. Then I said, ‘The Canopy people said they’d send down a cable-car for me. It’s possible they were lying, of course, but I imagine I’ll find out sooner or later. And if they weren’t, I’m just going to have to find my way up the inside of one of these buildings.’
‘This not good, mister. Canopy, they never do favour.’
I decided not to mention the Dream Fuel. ‘They were probably not willing to rule out the possibility I was who I claimed. What if I was as powerful as I said I was? They wouldn’t want to make an enemy of me.’
Juan shrugged, as if my point was a faint theoretical possibility, but no more than that. ‘Mister, I go now. No hurry stay here, you not coming.’
‘That’s all right,’ I said. ‘I understand. And I’m sorry I asked you to wait.’
That was the end of our relationship, Juan shaking his head but accepting that there was no way to persuade me otherwise. And then he went, the rickshaw clattering away into the distance, leaving me alone in the
