“Come on, sweetheart,” said Bernadette, and she pulled him down the street with little ceremony. “You’ve had a long day.”
“We still have to eat,” said Johnny, joining loyally in the effort to get Jack off this unfortunate line of talk.
“Just a minute,” said Will. He looked distracted. “I’ll be right back,” he said, and reentered the bar.
Timothy Lee was still on the floor. Parry Winzek stood near him uncertainly. Will knelt down, lifted Timothy Lee’s head, and took out his knife.
“Hey!” said Parry.
Somebody else called, “He couldn’t say you won—he was dropped too soon. You can’t kill him now.”
But no one moved to stop him. Will put the point of the knife at the spot he’d hit, made a cut, and twisted. Timothy Lee’s breath entered successfully in a long whistling gulp. Will wiped the knife on his pants and put it away.
He stood up. “He can breathe through the hole for a while,” he announced. “But he’ll need a doctor or a witch.” He looked around the bar at Parry Winzek, at the spectators; none of them moved. There were only some blinks at the picture of a City Guard talking openly about witches.
He shrugged and left the bar. It was up to them.
They were still waiting outside. Bemie gave him her purse to hold just as if it were any other evening, and Jack was silent and chastened. She said, “Let’s go someplace closer to home.”
And so, emotionally buttressed by his sister and his friend, Will let himself be taken to the Cafe Bordo.
The Guard had only put the finishing touches on training already begun. There was a time many years ago when Will would have jumped on Timothy Lee without thinking, in a raw effort to bang his head against the wall. Will would probably have lost the fight and possibly his life, but each successful blow would have brought a deep, red pleasure. Now he won the fight but felt absolutely nothing.
The heritage, he thought, of being trained to fight by Hartley Quince.
A short time later, with Johnny and Bemie’s unconditional support and the support of the hard liquor made available by the owner of the Cafe Bordo, Will let Timothy Lee and all related problems float away.
No heartsingers sang at the Cafe Bordo; no musicians played. There was only the background sound of dishes and cutlery and people talking, softly, in the distance. An occasional child cried, but Will didn’t mind that; he missed it when he was on court level, where the children were all tucked away in nurseries.
“Besides,” said Johnny, “you’re here for three days. We can go to another bar tomorrow, and you can smack somebody else.”
“Thanks—that really cheers me up.”
Jack looked puzzled. Irony, Will had found, was not in general use in the upper decks of Opal. He’d grown up with Sangaree ways—saying just the opposite of what was meant, in a certain tone of voice—everybody understood.
Then one day in training he’d taken a tumble from trying a new hold, and said as he got up, “Well, that was a good idea.” And his partner had looked as confused as Jack, here, and said, “I don’t think it was a good idea at all.”
He’d had to watch himself after that. Though he had to admit that once or twice he’d said that sort of thing to Adrian, and Adrian had had no difficulty understanding. Maybe the Diamond was different.
And Sangaree was different. He didn’t have to watch himself here. He looked around at the tattered hangings on the wall of the cafe and leaned back in his chair.
Will felt a sigh of contentment leave him, a sigh that encompassed Johnny and Bernadette and the Cafe Bordo and all things worn with handling; and he said to his sister, “God, it’s good to be here. Are you guys really going to live on F when you get married? Maybe you can talk Jack into moving here—there are some fairly ritzy places on Tanamonde Street.”
And then Willie Stockton felt an ache in his chest, because his sister, who’d shared every thought with him until he left for training, said, “Are you kidding? Once I get out of here, I’m never even coming back for my mail.”
She turned casually back to her fiance, who was having trouble choosing from the menu, and through the distance Will heard her laugh because he was pointing at the Chicken Savoy.
Chapter 17
Keylinn:
The truth was, I felt quite satisfied with myself when my transport docked in Baret Station. Volunteering to supervise the transfer of minor cargo was a minor stroke of brilliance; there were no contenders for the job because nobody wanted to work third shift. The metabolism of most of Transport’s personnel had adjusted to the Diamond’s use of dimmers between 2000 and 0400, “spring time,” and they wanted to be home in bed. That was why Baret Station, like the sensible place it was, kept its brights on round the clock—everybody was equally uncomfortable.
Baret wasn’t new to me; I’d been on the Station proper once before, with a forged passport from back home. That was six years ago. Cyr Vesant, cognizant of the station penalties for forged passports, tended to keep me in the docking area on our regular trade runs. This time I was free to wander—as soon as the cargo was arranged for, and as soon as I could make sure my maildrop was still functional.
I located the cafeteria, a down-at-the-heels sort of place that probably hadn’t had a washing in the six years I’d been gone. Nor a change in clientele, either—it was still marked by pockets of druggies and bronzers, some of them johns just passing through and some with tattoos that placed them in the lower rungs of station life. Ninety percent of them must live on the borderline of airspace cancellation.
“Is Milo Veridia here?” I asked the counterman, fully expecting to be told he was dead or at best off-shift. But the man
