She chewed her lip. “Can’t you get it replaced?”
He laughed. “Probly, starlady, on Rhiannon. Probly Prometheans could, too. But Hal’s here, and Thisrock forgot a lot during the Collapse. No. Not even if Hal was an insider, an’ Hal is no insider. Hairy Hal is a starslum pimp.”
Janey’s eyes widened. “I don’t care,” she said. “You’re better than those others. You helped us.”
Behind him Mayliss laughed. Hal ignored her. “Hey now, starlady,” he said smiling, “Listen and learn, an’ learn quick. Starslummers don’t help anyone, less they get a slice. Hal is no hero, he didn’t even try to stop that rip an’ rape, right? But Hal is offering you good, and straight, so listen to him spin. Starlady and Golden Boy can stay here till day-cycle. When the lights come on, they got to pick. One, go out and take their chances, and good luck. Two—” he cocked his head questioningly—“they stay and work for Hal.”
He lifted his right arm then, struggling and trembling, without using his left. It hit the table with a thump. Mayliss was laughing again. “Hairy Hal was good with a no-knife,” he said, patting his arm with his good hand. “Still, this. Pick.”
Well, I told you he wasn’t a hero.
Janey’s face went baffled at first, as she listened to Hal’s words. Then, despite herself, she began to cry. Mayliss kept on laughing, but Hal’s smile faded then. He shrugged, and shook his head, and went to bed.
The tears stopped in time and Janey sat alone, watching pink shadows race across the room. After a long time, her gaze wandered to Golden Boy asleep on the couch, and she went to him and curled up on the floor so her face was close to his. She stroked his silvery hair, and smiled at him, and thought.
But, of course, she had no choice. When day-cycle came Janey told Hal what she must.
He gave her a smile. He did not get one back.
“You’ll work the Silver Plaza,” he told her, as he stood across the table and buckled a plastic belt. “Starlady’s fresh, an’ young, an’ she smells of stars, an’ that’s all good for trade. Mayliss’ll take the Concourse. Hal will take you round today, an’ spin out all the rules. Listen.”
She looked at the couch. “What about the boy?”
“
Mayliss watched his door shut with a sullen expression, then turned on Janey. “Why don’t you run, ship girl?” she said. “Run back to your ship. You don’t click here, and Hairy Hal don’t click so good himself. Scope him smart before you root, he isn’t all that much. You and Golden Boy will get shoved up an air duct if you believe his wobbly spin.”
Hal emerged from the bedroom, dressed in a black swoopshirt and his cape. “Seal it, redhead,” he told Mayliss. Then, to Janey: “First lesson, listen flow.” He reached across his body, beneath his cape, and his hand came out holding a finger-sized rod of black metal.
“No-knife,” he said. He did something with his thumb, and suddenly there was a humming, and a foot-long blue haze that stuck out from his fist. “They make them, well, not here. They come on ships. The force-blade’ll cut anything, cept durloy, an’ it’s clean an’ quick. Hal was good once, now not so good, but still he’s better than most. This is your protection, starlady. This is why you don’t get hit no more. Today Hal’s parading you round the Plaza, an’ the word gets out. Tomorrow no one touches you.”
“Cept Marquis,” Mayliss said. Her tone was cutting. “Cept Marquis and Crawney and Stumblecat, and any other blackskull who wants you. They get you free, starlady, and they do anything they want with you, and Hal don’t do a thing. Right, Hairy Hal? Spin that at her.”
Hairy Hal made a palming motion, the ghost blade blinked out and the black rod vanished beneath his cape. “Dress, starlady,” he told Janey. “Take something from Mayliss, anything you like, an’ cut it to size.”
“Hey now,” Mayliss started, but Hal raised his voice and bulled right over her.
“You pick, you get, starlady,” he said. “Keep your hair, so they know you work for Hal. But tie something red round your head, so they know you work.”
Afterwards, they left Mayliss and Golden Boy alone, and went out into the corridor down to the Concourse, out towards the Plaza. Janey Small wore a red headband and a gossamer yellow dinger and a cool, pale face. She did not talk. Hal did all the talking, Hal in black and green, who smiled and kept his arm around her.
The Concourse, already, was jammed. Hal pulled Janey to a food stall, nodded to the man behind the counter, and they both ate crusty brown breadsticks and cubes of cheese. Janey put her elbows up on the counter. Hal put his arm around her, rubbed her shoulder, and pointed at people with his eyes.
That one’s a thief, he told her, and that one pushes dreams, and the other with the wide eyes and the drools, well, he’s that buys them. And there’s another pimp, but his girls are old and baggy, and there’s Bad Tanks who owns a stall out near the plaza. Don’t ever eat there, though, cause he laces his sticks with dust to bring in more new dreamers. French is a joy-smoke merchant, he’s quick but you can trust him, but Gallis don’t sell nothing but a spin.
They started down the Concourse together, past the grimy plastic walls and the countless shops, past fat, half-naked women with shaved red skulls who glared at them resentfully, past swaggering youths with stingsticks who gave Hal a wide berth. All the time Janey Small walked in silence while Hal kept on his lessons.
The place with the blue curtains is Augusty’s, he told her, he rents you bodyguards that you can trust. But never, never get a guard from Lorreg, worse than Crawney, only half the brains. That fat man with the green stars on his head? He’s a pimp, a straight one if someone gets to me, you go to him. Dark Edward pimps too, yes, but don’t go near him, he used to be much bigger than he is. Over there you’ve got yourself religion, if you’re the kind who likes to mumble in the dark. The guy in the silver swoopsuit, he don’t have long to live, he talks too loud and he’s going to get a stingstick up his ass.
They reached the Silver Plaza: a huge open place at the end of the Concourse, a ceiling far above that spilled down silver lights, tiers of balconies and shops, welling music all around them, a troupe of dancers whirling in the street. Hal pushed his way toward them; Janey followed. He watched, smiling. One of the women, a blur in scarlet veils, spun up against him, stopped, and grinned. He reached under his cape and pressed something into her palm. She grinned again, and danced away.
“What did you give her?” Janey asked, curious despite herself, after they’d elbowed free.
“A coin,” Hal said, shrugging. “The dancing clicks for Hal, starlady. Probly that’s another lesson for you. You won’t get hit cause you’re with Hal, right? But you don’t hit no one, see? Hal spins straight, the ship men give steers to pimps who serve up girls without the stingsticks.”
Suddenly his arm tightened on her shoulder. “An’ there,” he said, pointing with his chin “There’s two more lessons for starlady, walking right together.”
She looked in the direction he’d indicated. A man and a woman were making their way across the Plaza slowly. The man was broad-shouldered and blond, dressed in a dark floor-length cloak with heavy gold embroidering. The woman was brown-skinned, with kinky black hair and a pale green uniform.
Janey was still looking when she heard the voice from behind her. “The man is one of the leading citizens of Thisrock,” the voice said, in a mellow, purring tone. “We call his kind insiders. The woman is an officer from a Promethean starship, of course; I expect that you knew that, dear. And your lesson, I’d guess, was to be that both insiders and Prometheans are to be treated with deference. They are powerful people.”
They turned. The speaker was wearing a Promethean uniform, too; but unlike the woman’s his was thin and patched. He had nothing else in common with the starship officer, or with anyone else in the crowd. Instead of being hairless, his face and hands were both completely covered by a soft gray fur. His ears were pointed, his nose was black, his eyes feline. He was, in fact, a man-cat.
“Hello, Hal,” he said, in the oddly gentle voice that mocked the stingstick swinging from his belt. Then he smiled at Janey. “Right now you’re full of questions,” he said. “I know them all. First, I don’t talk like the others because I’m not from Thisrock, and I have an education. I don’t look like the others because I was genetically altered. A game they play with the lowborn on Prometheus, you know. My alterations were not satisfactory, though, so I wound up here. Some of them work, however. I heard Hal’s last comment from quite a distance. Now, yes, that should cover it.” He smiled. His teeth were very sharp.
Hal did not smile back. “Janey Small,” he said, pointing. “Stumblecat.”
Stumblecat nodded. Janey stood frozen.
“You’re clearly a star-born,” Stumblecat said in his cultured tones. “How ever did you wind up with Hal?”
