now. On Spannan, in the Fabs. I have to…
What about tomorrow? a part of her cringed. She and Caro had made plans to go to a new boutique in the morning. Were they going or not?
The absurdity of the question struck home and sudden rage possessed her, rage at her own imbecility. She should have known better than to press Caro on the question, not when she was in this mood.
She went to her mother's apartment and put the packages away. Ava wasn't home. Anger and despair battled in her mind. She called Lamey and let him send someone to pick her up, then let him divert her for the rest of the evening.
In the morning, she went to the Volta at the time she had planned with Caro. There was a traffic jam in the lobby-a family was moving into the building, and their belongings were piled onto several motorized carts, each with the Volta's gilt blazon, that jammed the lobby waiting for elevators. Gredel greeted the doorman in her Peer voice, and he called her “Lady Sula” and put her alone into the next elevator.
She hesitated at the door to Caro's apartment. She knew she was groveling, and knew as well that she didn't deserve to grovel.
But this was her only hope. What choice did she have?
She knocked, and when there wasn't an answer she knocked again. She heard a shuffling step inside and then Caro opened the door and blinked at her groggily through disordered strands of hair. She was dressed as Gredel had last seen her, bare feet, naked under her dressing gown.
“Why didn't you just come in?” Caro said. She left the door open and withdrew into the apartment. Gredel followed, her heart pulsing sickly in her chest.
There were several bottles lying on tables, and Gredel recognized the juniper reek that oozed from Caro's pores. “I feel awful,” Caro said. “I had too much last night.”
Doesn't she remember? Gredel wondered. Or is she just pretending?
Caro reached for the gin bottle and the neck of the bottle clattered against a tumbler as she poured herself two fingers’ worth. “Let me get myself together,” Caro said, and drank.
A thought struck Gredel with the force of revelation.
She's just a drunk, she thought. Just another damn drunk.
Caro put the tumbler down, wiped her mouth, gave a hoarse laugh. “Now we can have some fun,” she said.
“Yes,” Gredel said. “Let's go.”
She had begun to think it might never be fun again.
Perhaps it was then that Gredel began to hate Caro, or perhaps the incident only released hatred and resentment that had simmered, denied, for some time. But now Gredel could scarcely spend an hour with Caro without finding new fuel for anger. Caro's carelessness made Gredel clench her teeth, and her laughter grated on Gredel's nerves. The empty days that Caro shared with Gredel, the pointless drifting from boutique to restaurant to club, now made Gredel want to shriek. Gredel deeply resented tidying up after Caro even as she did it. Caro's surging moods, the sudden shifts from laughter to fury to sullen withdrawal, brought Gredel's own temper near the breaking point. Even Caro's affection and her impulsive generosity began to seem trying. Why is she making all this fuss over me? Gredel thought. What's she after?
But Gredel managed to keep her thoughts to herself, and, at times, she caught herself enjoying Caro's company, caught herself in a moment of pure enjoyment or unfeigned laughter. And then she wondered how this could be genuine as well as the other, the delight and the hatred coexisting in her skull.
It was like her so-called beauty, she thought. Her alleged beauty was what most people reacted to; but it wasn't her self. She managed to have an inner existence, thoughts and hopes entirely her own, apart from the shell that was her appearance. But it was the shell that people saw, it was the shell that most people spoke to, hated, envied, or desired. The Gredel that interacted with Caro was another kind of shell, a kind of machine she'd built for the purpose, built without intending to. It wasn't any less genuine for being a machine, but it wasn't her self.
Her self hated Caro. She knew that now.
If Caro detected any of Gredel's inner turmoil, she gave no sign. In any case, she was rarely in a condition to be very observant. Her alcohol consumption had increased as she shifted from wine to hard liquor. When she wanted to get drunk, she wanted the drunk instantly, the way she wanted everything, and hard liquor got her there quicker. The ups and downs increased as well, and the spikes and valleys that were her behavior. She was banned from one of her expensive restaurants for talking loudly, and singing, and hurling a plate at the waiter who asked her to be more quiet. She was thrown out of a club for attacking a woman in the ladies’ room. Gredel never found out what the fight was about, but for days afterward Caro proudly sported the black eye she'd got from the bouncer's fist.
For the most part, Gredel managed to avoid Caro's anger. She learned the warning signs, and she'd also learned how to manipulate Caro's moods. She could change Caro's music, or at least shift the focus of Caro's growing anger from herself to someone else.
Despite her feelings, she was now in Caro's company more than ever. Lamey was in hiding. She had first found out about it when he sent Panda to pick her up at Caro's apartment instead of coming himself. Panda drove her to the Fabs, but not to a human neighborhood: instead he took her into a building inhabited by Lyones. A family of the giant flightless birds stared at her as she waited in the lobby for the elevator. There was an acrid, ammonia smell in the air.
Lamey was in a small apartment on the top floor, with a pair of his guards and a Lyone. The avian shifted from one foot to the other as Gredel entered. Lamey seemed nervous. He didn't say anything to Gredel, just gave a quick jerk of his chin to indicate that they should go into the back room.
The room was thick with the heat of summer. The ammonia smell was very strong. Lamey steered Gredel to the bed. She sat, but Lamey was unable to be still: he paced back and forth in the narrow range permitted by the small room. His smooth, elegant walk had developed hitches and stutters, uncertainties that marred his normal grace.
“I'm sorry about this,” he said. “But something's happened.”
“Is the Patrol looking for you?”
“I don't know.” His mouth gave a little twitch. “Bourdelle was arrested yesterday. It was the Legion of Diligence who arrested him, not the Patrol, so that means they've got him for something serious, something he could be executed for. We've got word that he's bargaining with the prefect's office.” His mouth twitched again. Linkboys did not bargain with the prefect, they were expected to go to their punishment with their mouths shut.
“We don't know what he's going to offer them,” Lamey went on. “But he's just a link up from me, and he could be selling me or any of the boys.” He paused in his pacing, rubbed his chin. Sweat shone on his forehead. “I'm going to make sure it's not me,” he said.
“I understand,” Gredel said.
Lamey looked at her. His blue eyes were feverish. “From now on, you can't call me. I can't call you. We can't be seen in public together. If I want you, I'll send someone for you at Caro's.”
Gredel looked up at him. “But-” she began, then, “When?”
'When I want you,' he said insistently. “I don't know when. You'll just have to be there when I need you.”
“Yes,” Gredel said. Her mind whirled. “I'll be there.”
He sat next to her on the bed and took her by the shoulders. “I missed you, Earthgirl,” he said. “I really need you now.”
She kissed him. His skin felt feverish. She could taste the fear on him. Lamey's unsteady fingers began to fumble with the buttons of her blouse. You're going to die soon, she thought.
Unless, of course, it was Gredel who paid the penalty instead, the way Ava had paid for the sins of her man.
Gredel had to start looking out for herself, before it was too late.
When Gredel left Lamey, he gave her two hundred zeniths in cash. “I can't buy you things right now, Earthgirl,” he explained. “But buy yourself something nice for me, all right?
Gredel remembered Antony's claim that she whored for money. It was no longer an accusation she could
