Starlady & Fast-Friend

told her, with his ghost-blade in his good hand. She’d been backed up against her bedroom door, looking terrified but oddly ecstatic. That night she and Hal had slept together, the only time since Janey Small and Golden Boy had arrived.

Most times Hal slept alone. That first night, he’d tried to sleep with Janey, but she’d pulled away and glared at him. “I did it for you all day, and you’ve got the money,” she said. “I’m not going to do it with you too.”

And he’d let her go and shrugged. “Starlady, you’re a strange one,” he said. Then he went to his room by himself. Janey sat by Golden Boy on the couch, looking at his eyes and brushing back his silver hair. Finally they’d gone to sleep together in the free-fall chamber, arms wrapped around each other as they nestled in the sleep-web. Golden Boy simply held her and slept. He knew what was required of him.

It was that way every night. Hairy Hal tried once more, after he’d saved her from the corridor club. Back in the compartment, he’d sat by her on the couch and kept his arm around her until she stopped her trembling. Then he got up and went to his bedroom. He paused at the door, favoring her with a smile and one of his cock-the-head questioning looks. “Janey?”

“No,” she said. He shrugged, and gave up trying.

After all, he wanted Janey, and Janey was long gone. She was Starlady and she had her Golden Boy.

* * *

Then one day, when Janey came back from the Silver Plaza, Golden Boy was gone. She looked around the compartment frantically; he’d never left before. But there was no one home but Mayliss and a paunchy off-worlder, afloat in the free-fall room. Mayliss glared at her as she stood in the doorframe, but the man just chuckled and said, “Well, well, c’mon in.”

When he’d left finally, Mayliss put on a sheath and came storming and spewing out at her. “I’ll chill you down good, Starlady, and if Hal don’t like it I’ll cut off his crottled arm. What’s the big spin?”

“Golden Boy is gone.”

“So? Hal’s out selling him, little girl. Grow up.”

Janey blinked. “What?”

Mayliss snorted in disgust, and put her hands on her hips. “I spun you straight. Why’d you think Hairy Hal let Golden Boy sit round here all day and powder his ass with dreamdust like he was an insider or something? Cause Hal clicks right, is that what you figured? So, wrong. Hal was waiting for a big sell. He spun it all out to me. With all those fun boys coming through here every day, sooner or later word’s probly going to get down inside, that’s where Hal wanted it, see? Lots of insiders like little boys, and he knew they’d pay big for a little golden boy with pointy ears and big eyes and silver hair. Only Hal couldn’t zactly parade round the Ivory Halls giving out handbills, right?”

“He won’t do it,” Janey said stubbornly. “Golden Boy won’t do it!”

Mayliss laughed. “You warm me, Starlady, you’re such a stupid. Listen good, cause I’m going to spin you right. Golden Boy will do zactly what Hal says. You think you learned a lot, but you don’t know nothing. Stead of a clear skull, you got a head full of hair and stars. I think you hum to Golden Boy, you know, and that’s so warm it’s boiling.”

“I love him,” Janey said, with storms flashing across her face. “He’s kind and gentle and he’s never done anyone any harm, and he’s a hell of a lot better than anyone else on Thisrock.”

But Mayliss only laughed again “You’ll learn, Starlady. Hal don’t click, but at least he clicks better’n Golden Boy. Listen, I used to hum to Hal once. I had to learn.”

“What? That he uses people? Well, I learned that fast enough,” Janey said. She turned and went to the couch and sat down.

Mayliss followed her. “No, Starlady, you got it spun up all wobbly and tangled. I thought Hairy Hal was a big hero. He was faster with his no-knife than anybody, and he looked good, and he spun big about how he was going to click. Yes, and little Mayliss believed it all. Cept one night, after Hal’d been doing too good, there was this knock on the door, right? Crawney. Back then, Hal had me and two other girls and a couple boys and some exotics plus he had some ’sticks working for him, and he was spinning about a slice of joy-smoke. Well, Crawney came to chill him down. The Marquis wanted joy-smoke, you see, and the Marquis didn’t like Hal having exotics.

“Well, Hairy Hal just laughed at Crawney, and I hummed to that. It was a long time ago, right, and the Marquis wasn’t so big and Hal wasn’t so small, and Lametta was even still round. Hal had plans.

“Cept Crawney didn’t like being laughed at. A couple cycles later, the blackskulls grabbed Hal and me and took us down by the docks. Crawney was there, and Stumblecat, and the Marquis. They made me watch, while the blackskulls broke his arm all up, again and again until he was screaming. Right? Then the Marquis just smiled and said, ‘Hey, Hal’s arm is broken, he needs a splint,’ and they splinted it with a stingstick, and just stood there and watched him on the floor.

“Afterward, all the nerves were crottled or something, and Hal wasn’t nothing with his no-knife. Everybody left him; his ’sticks, his girls, everybody. The Marquis took his exotics. Hairy Hal had nothing cept me. Little stupid Mayliss, she still hummed to him, and I stayed. I helped him use his other hand, and I thought once he was good again, he’d take his no-knife and go after the Marquis, right?

“Well, wrong. That’s where my spin went wobbly on me, and I learned. Hairy Hal was scared and he still is. He’s never dared to get big again cause the Marquis gives him big chills. Every once in a while one of the blackskulls’ll come by to have me, and they never pay, and Hal never does anything. They’ll do it to you, too, watch. You’ll learn, Starlady. You’re a stupid if you hum to anyone, or buy anybody’s spin, or do anything for anyone but you!”

Janey waited until the outburst had passed. Then, very quietly, she said, “If you gave up on Hal, then why are you still here?”

Before Mayliss could answer the door opened, and Hairy Hal and Golden Boy were back. Hal was smiling broadly. He reached under his cape, pulled out a packet, and tossed it on the table. Mayliss looked at it, grinned, and whistled.

“Golden Boy clicked good down in the Ivory Halls,” Hal said. Then, startled, he stopped and looked at Janey. She’d gone to Golden Boy and wrapped her arms around him and now she was fighting not to cry.

* * *

So things began to click.

Down inside, in the Ivory Halls and the Velvet Corridors, in the great cool compartments around the Central Square, the word was loose. And the customers came; sleek blond men in woven robes, matrons in dragon dresses, adventurous girls in soft plastic. Others sent for Golden Boy, and Hairy Hal took him to them, walking the streets inside as if he were born to them. He handled things quiet and smooth, and he sold Golden Boy only for big money. No starslum funboys got their hands on him; Hal had his wide-eyed gold mine reserved for men of taste.

And Golden Boy went, and did what was required of him. He never spoke, but he seemed to understand, sometimes even without Hal telling him. It was almost like he knew what he was doing.

Sometimes the insiders would buy him for a night, and Janey would float in her sleep-web alone.

On one of those nights, Hal returned from inside by himself, carrying a heavy book under his good arm. He was sitting at the table, poring over the pages, when Janey and a customer returned from the Silver Plaza. He ignored them and kept poring.

When the man had gone, Janey came out and looked at him sullenly. “What’s that?” she asked.

Hal glanced up, smiled. “Hey, Starlady. Come an’ look. Hal got it for Golden Boy tonight from an insider. It’s old, you know, pre-Collapse. Straight spin!”

Janey walked around behind him to peer over his shoulder. The pages were big, glossy, full of closely packed text and bright holostrations of strange creatures in colorful costumes.

“There’s something here, look here, about a race that might be Golden Boy’s. Look at that picture, Starlady, the same, only the hair is the wrong color. Still. They were a Hrangan slave-race before the war or the Collapse. So, probly Golden Boy is a little Bashii. Unless….” He riffled some more pages. “Here, this part about genetic alteration experiments an’ cloning an’ that stuff. The Earth Imperials were trying to clone their best pilots an’ such, duplicate them. An’ you had alters, like Stumblecat cept he’s a defect. See starlady, it has this bit about