the bouncer helped Tigershark to a seat at the bar. She watched
intently, silent as the crowd dispersed. Soon they were almost alone
in the Searoom. ‘You’re a latent,’ she said at last. ‘Bianca proved it.’
‘W hat happened?’
‘I don’t know,’ She looked him frankly in the eye. ‘You know it
wasn’t the music?’
He nodded, knowing better than she could.
Glass Reptile Breakout
91
‘It was like . . . black magic. Not something of the Searoom:
something invasive. Rival sorcery.’ Rival sorcery. ‘I’m not speaking
scientifically,’ she added. She laughed quickly, then choked it. ‘In a
tribal society, I’d expect them to say an evil sorcerer had been here,
someone powerful and evil.’
‘Why?’
‘I don’t know why.’
‘Something horrible was in the room,’ Bianca said. ‘It wasn’t in
the band.’
He remembered the darkness, the shadow, focused on Tiger-
shark, palpable to Bianca and himself.
Gabby put her arm around the girl’s shoulders, just above the
grafted fin where it anchored in her upper spine. An ambulance
siren pulsed. ‘But where did it come from?’ Gabby said. He was
glad to see her tremble with emotion.
The last of the crowd had gone. A business-suited young man
with black wavy hair w'as speaking to Tigershark—probably the
hotel manager — as the ambulance crew arrived with a stretcher.
One of the bouncers had found a bucket and mop. He scrubbed
dispiritedly at the cage’s ugly floor, wiped its walls with a fat square
sponge. Alderson turned to Bianca.
‘Let us take you home.’
The girl smiled at him, her hand now in Gabby’s,
Baker staggered along the seedy street. He recoiled from the glaring lights of a tram like a frightened beast. He rushed along the footpath, brushed a threadbare drunk. A gang of barechested
sharks jeered at him. He had no idea of where he was going, or who
he was. All he knew was the darkness. He ran towards it.
After the B eow ulf expedition
©
NORMAN TALBOT
I like to watch them shake. From the back I mean.
‘Worth it, huh?’
That move, it’s as unique as voiceprint, earprint, fingerprint,
retinaprint, any of those. The voice, incidentally, is Old-American,
maybe black.
‘H ard to get used to.’
Only problem’s what to call it, to get the Force to systematise it.
Urinal-drying-off-shake-print is just that little bit too long. The other
one’s voice is Old-American too.
‘T hat’s the point, anyway.’
Take these two, for example. Both full of tension, the black neck
more than the white one. Both sort of childish. They both shake neat.
‘Yes, you’re right. Exactly the point. Though I’d hoped there’d be
certain, shall we say, spiritual benefits, self-knowledge — you know—
instead of just the selfish stuff?
“Watch your mouth, punch! You’re only saying what you think you
oughta think.’
They’re turning, abstracted, like big uneasy kids.
‘Probably, Slatecoat. What now, though? Look at what’s happened
to the others.’ Vera, the O.C., says all males sulk. This one’s sulking.
They both finish turning away from the urinal at the same moment.
Spacers, and big punches at that. The black one would be really well-
hung, the other pretty good. They’re nice and slow stowing things
away; that ought to be a sign of confidence. So why so tight, punches?
92
After the B eow ulf expedition
93
‘What now is talk. Talk and check the hatches. And just for the four
of us. The others are strictly their own ships.’
Well of course I’m watching. It’s my job. Both myjobs. Well, and
there’s professional pride involved: I got my lift to Detective from identifying a villain’s elbow in a hologram from the lunarshaft disaster. In the other job, though, seeing is life-and-death— and so are hearing,
feeling, smelling, tasting . . .
So, the anomalies. Knottiness about the black’s neck and shoulders.
He’s been an officer; Grand-Circuit or even Far-Out, I’d say. Unusual
way of carrying himself. The cork is altogether looser, but wary to the
bones; defiant even. He’s been a spacer quite awhile too. His fingers
have been used to suitseals.
What’s so weird, then? It’s the way they’d looked at each other when
they were taking their leaks. There are a thousand ways one punch
looks at another when they’re taking a leak, believe me — from guilty
to possessive, from cringing to contemptuous. Nobody can quite read
them all, even me. These had both used a variant on the downspy
glance, common enough down here —but they had looked just the
same at each other! Now that isn’t common at all, in fact it’s damn-
near impossible, stat-speaking.
Can I put a word on it? Not quite: very observant, familiar too, a
shade apprehensive. There aren’t many who look as interested as that,
no matter what they’re here for. But nobody can look at somebody just
the way the somebody looks at him . . . I wonder which one is
Slatecoat. Better name for a black punch than a cork.
Most people don’t
