Hartley yawned and examined his nails. “I suppose he likes the aesthetics. Marble on marble.”
“Even so—good heavens, people could get killed. He could get killed!”
“I heard it from a man who claimed to have been there. That’s all I can answer for.”
“They say the Mercatis were all a little crazy,” said Will.
Hartley looked at him sharply at that, but he seemed not to have meant anything by it.
“Not ‘were,’ are,” said Io softly. “Adrian won’t be the last.”
It was her turn to receive a sharp glance, but she was looking down at her stomach speculatively; then she became aware of the vulgarity of such a gesture, and raised her head again.
“I’m sure you’ll do your duty,” said Will, with a mix of directness and discretion that was as trained as his reflexes. “Shouldn’t we be leaving? The lights are going out.”
They were standing at the top of a steep path leading down to the docks. The radiance overhead had diminished, and in the distance the immense expanse of greenery that surrounded Zoo Island was darkening. “We don’t want to be in Helium Park at night,” he added.
“No,” agreed Hartley. As they descended the path, he said, “Did you knew that the Royal Hunt takes place in the park? A barbaric custom.”
Will was helping Io negotiate around the pebbles. His attention was not on Hartley when he spoke. “At least it’s a custom that only hurts the Protector; unlike some of our own barbaric customs.”
Hartley looked thoughtful. They reached the dock in silence; by the time they stepped in the water-taxi, colored lanterns had been lit, and the water rippled with them.
Iolanthe was seen safely home, and her quarters left in the care of Barington Strife, of the Opal City Guard. The Diamond was on night-time; in the dim corridor outside the women’s wing, Hartley Quince pulled Will aside. He spoke in Sangaree.
“Did you hear her?” he said happily. “ ‘I … Adrian said … when I was sick …’ When they talk like that, it’s always the pure product.”
“She didn’t seem pleased at the idea of talking to you, Hart.”
He was unoffended. “Of course not. She has the ability to string sentences together under normal conditions.” He glanced at Will sidelong. “I’ll let it pass this time, but don’t do it again.”
“Do what?” asked Will, with a studious blankness.
“You knew I wanted Amo to see her. What was that Hierophant Bell shit? Now I have to get him off the Diamond tonight and arrange for a new priest. Don’t pull anything like that again.”
“Yes, sir.”
“All right, Hart.”
“All right, Hart.”
They walked on. After a minute, his good humor restored, Hartley said, in Sangaree, “He’s an old guy sleeping in his underwear, Willie, and now I’ve got to roust him out of bed. You could have more consideration.”
If I didn’t know you, Hart, I’d almost think you cared. Will bit back the words.
Twenty hours later, Willie Stockton sat back in his seat on the train, leave notice in his pocket, with a contented smile. Home. Outside the windows he saw the Opal neighborhoods changing, the streets and tunnels of the upper decks with their ladies in closed chairs and men in capes and uniforms of rank metamorphosing gradually into the tumbledown stores and makeshift residences of Sangaree.
Hart had spent the last few days arguing with him over the leave. But he’d pointed out it was his sister’s wedding, unassailable grounds. And when it came to it, Hart didn’t mind doing favors for people, because he could always remind them of it later.
Three days off. It was too bad regulations required he wear the uniform—sometimes it started fights in Sangaree, and he didn’t want to upset Bernadette so near her wedding. He straightened out his long legs so they extended into the aisle, feeling a welcome stretch in confined muscles. It was a long ride from court territory and for the last two stops he’d been the only person left in the car.
The squatters’ compartments outside showed they were nearing die Brissard Street stop. The warehouses just beyond were either cannibalized into skeletal hulks or transformed into strange new places with different purposes, sheets of steel welded over what used to be open doors for trucks, laundry hanging off old pieces of equipment. There could be few gaps greater than the one between the spectacle he’d witnessed just twenty hours ago at Helium Park, with its comforts and cleanliness and extravagant display, and the environment presently passing his train windows. It was a difference to warm the heart of professional provocateurs, like those operating in the name of the Republic on Baret Two. But Will never dwelt on such comparisons; things were as they were, and he dealt with the universe on that basis. Instead he soaked in the comfortable pleasure of coming home, of the anticipation of a place where his welcome was fully assured, where everything was familiar and ordered by rules he knew by heart.
He stepped off the train at Brissard Street, carrying a package wrapped in brown paper under one arm. The street stank as it always had. Will passed the almshouse at the comer, then the games hall under the abandoned recycling station, where a curl of blue drugsmoke came through the bars (creating smoke in an unsupervised area, said part of Will’s brain, punishable by confiscation of goods for first offense, death for second—though there was absolutely no chance of confusing the automatics into thinking there was a fire here, because the automatics had been ripped out years ago), then the clothing exchange, where a handful of old men and women pawed through secondhand goods, and then on the comer
