“Not really. We went on some runs together, is all.”
“No?”
“No.”
Nicolet walked around him, still clearly smoldering. Nobody else spoke. Nicolet said, “It’d be nice for those riffs to have an insider here. Maybe they’d like to wait and get us all in one big sweep. Maybe one night when we’re all here, you’re planning to creep away and get a job and a uniform yourself….”
“I’m not! It’s not true!”
Fox started to rise with fear and indignation. Nicolet put out one shabbily booted foot and pushed him down again, not roughly. “Your highness,” he said.
“It’s not true, your highness,” said Fox immediately. Fox was well aware that Nicolet could order him to be held down and have his skin pulled off in strips. The natural pain and poverty of the ghosts’ lives had made them reach some for punishments. He’d often heard Nicolet hoping aloud that Spider could be brought in alive.
“I haven’t seen him, I barely knew him, I never liked him,” wailed Fox.
Nicolet looked disgusted. “Oh, get up.” He sat down on his box and pulled his ragged quilted jacket tighter around his shoulders. By the will of the Providence that damned them, there were far fewer heating outlets on the ghost roads. It was going to be another cold and shivery night.
Fox quietly crept to the edge of the circle. Cold and hungry he might be, but he would rather be Fox than Spider.
Chapter 24
A noticeboard on Mercati Boulevard, at F deck:
$8,000 $8,000 $8,000
EIGHT THOUSAND DOLLARS!
For information leading to the arrest of
NICOLET FOULARD
the Notorious Ghost
Murderer and Thief
Report to your nearest Citycop Station.
The Starhall Theater presents
BECKET
A historical drama of Old Earth
taken from the personal library
of the Protector
May 12 through 24
The Hall of the Kennorite Brotherhood
of Strict Constructionists presents,
for the edification of the faithful,
a display of the recent burning of Opal
heretics. A talk will be given by Opal
guest Hierophant Tennyson under the
sponsorship of The League for Religious
Tolerance on the Diamond.
Kennorism is not a heresy but the true
path of light as originally laid down by
Adrian Sawyer. Don’t be misled.
(Thanks to our brothers on Opal for
permission to show these. Free still-
pictures will be distributed afterward.
Tea and cake will be served.)
INTERESTED IN JOINING THE LUCRATIVE IMPORT-
EXPORT BUSINESS?
Send a note with short background descrip., interests
to linkbox #4523988-00094.
Keylinn:
I stopped short several footsteps from the noticeboard. Then I went back and checked that last linkbox number again.
It was one of the numbers Spider had given me for getting in touch with him during an emergency.
Well. I continued on my way, pondering whether Spider might simply be constitutionally unable to stay out of trouble. Could that sort of thing be genetic? And for a person of natural sloth, Spider could be remarkably energetic when money was involved.
I reached the Starhall Theater and showed the admittance card Howard Talmadge had given me. Rehearsal sounds were coming from the stage, so I entered by the front door and slouched down in one of the seats till they were finished. Spider didn’t seem to be anywhere around, but possibly he was backstage.
I let my mind wander, from Spider to Tal to the time remaining in my contract, when suddenly my attention was caught by die action on stage. This was interesting. A mistake? I sat up straight, listening. I paid close attention for another quarter-hour, until they broke, and until I eventually became aware that someone had sat down in the seat next to me.
“I thought I saw you come in,” said Howard Talmadge.
“Hello, Howard.”
“What do you think of the play?”
“Interesting,” I told him with sincerity. “But I thought your historicals were mostly Shakespeare and Ayscough and Gleisner.”
“Usually they are. Jason—our manager—thought we should have a change, and that if we picked something from Adrian’s personal library it’d add a bit of cachet to the proceedings.”
“It was his idea?”
“Pretty much. Anyway, Jason likes any excuse for funny clothes—he says it brings in the paying customers.”
I said, “Is Spider hiding somewhere backstage? He said he would meet me here.”
“He told me the same thing, and I’ve not seen him. I thought maybe he’d sent you in his place. He didn’t give you anything for me, did he?”
“I’m afraid not.”
“Ah,” said Howard, disappointed but obviously wishing to be polite. “Well, Spider can be less than punctual at times.”
I debated saying anything, then asked, “You don’t think he might be in some kind of trouble, do you? I have the impression he has enemies.”
For a moment Howard looked genuinely alarmed, then he laughed. “Spider was born slippery. Trouble can’t hold him. And I wouldn’t worry about his being late—not until he’s more than three days late. Until then, this is all perfectly normal … for our Spider. Give him my regards when you see him.”
I stood up, and Howard walked me to the door. “You’ll be coming to the performance, I hope,” he said.
“I wouldn’t miss it. You know, it’s odd, because I have absolutely no ambitions in the area myself—but I find that good dialogue, well-spoken by fine actors, is one of the chief pleasures of life.”
“The other pleasures of your life must be wretched indeed,” said Howard with sympathy, as he held open the door for me to pass.
Perhaps it was Howard’s parting remark rankling in my shirt pocket, but I decided to take Ennis up on his invitation to the Traveler’s Bar. The Traveler’s was an Outsider tech place, just off the working area of the Transport deck, and within the radius of Ennis’s very limited pass. Tal had refused to even consider giving him a free-range.
Which led to some guilt on my part. Transport Deck and Outsider Territory were a sort of prison to Ennis, and I knew from personal experience that spatial limits could be a continual torment for people like us. I really ought to spend more time with him … but I was so busy, dammit.
I sent a link-message
