The Collected Short Fiction of C J Cherryh

by C. J. Cherryh

  So the city grew.

  "Go up to the nineties tomorrow," the liner boss said, and the four other members of 48 East, tired from the day and bone-chilled from the mist and anxious to head for the Bottom and its dens, took Jino Brown's instructions and handed in their charts. "So where were you, bossman?" Sam Kenny asked. Sometimes Jino went out with them and sometimes not; and it was a cold, bone-freezing day out there.

  "Yeah," said Johnny. "The wind starts up, Jino, and where were you?"

  "Meeting," Jino said; fill-in for their retired boss, he took such jokes with a sour frown, not the good humor they tried with him. "You worry too much," Johnny said, and unbelted the harness about his hips, last in, still shivering and bouncing to warm his muscles. He started peeling out of the black rubber suit, hung up his gear beside the others in the narrow Access Room, with the big hatch to Outside firmly and safely sealed at the end; they had a shower there: Sarah and Poll had first use of it. They came out looking happier and Johnny peeled out of the last of his rig, grabbed a towel and headed in with Sam, howled for the temperature the women had left it, which on their chilled bodies felt scalding. Sam dialed it down, and they lathered and soused themselves and came out again, rubbing down.

  The women were dressed already, waiting. "Where's Jino gone now?" Sam asked. The women shrugged.

  "Got to be careful of him," Sarah said. "Think we hurt his feelings."

  "Ah," Johnny said, which was what that deserved. He grabbed his clothes and pulled them on; and Sam did, while the women waited. Then, "Going Down," Sarah sang, linking her arm in his, linking left arm to Sam's and laughing; he snagged Polly and they snaked their way out and down the hall, laughing for the deviltry of it, here in this carpeted, fine place of the tower, quiet, expensive apartments of the Residents. They used the service lift, their privilege. . . better, because it stopped very seldom, and not at all this time, shot them down and down while they leaned against the walls and grinned at each other in anticipation.

  "Worm," Sarah proposed, a favorite haunt.

  "Pillar," Poll said.

  "Go your way; we'll go ours."

  "Right," Sam said; and that was well enough: Sam and Sarah had business; and he and Poll did, and he was already thinking on it with a warm glow. . . on that and dinner, both of which seemed at the moment equally desirable. The lift slammed to its hard-braking halt on second and the door opened, let them out into the narrow maze, the windowless windings of stairs and passages, granite which seeped water squeezed out of the stones by the vast mass, above their heads.

  And music—music played here constantly, echoing madly through the deep stone halls. There was other music too, conduits, which came up from the rivers, and these sang softly when the hand touched them, with the force of the water surging in them up or down. There were power conduits, shielded and painted; mere were areas posted with yellow signs and DANGER and KEEP OUT, subterranean mysteries which were the business of the Deep Builders, and not for liners, and never for the soft-handed Residents of the high tower who came slumming here, thrill-seeking.

  "Going my way?" Sarah asked of Sam, and off they went, by the stairs to the next level down, to the ancient Worm; but Johnny hugged Poll against him and took the corridor that snaked its way with one of the waterpipes, toward the core of second level; the Pillar was liner even to its decor, which was old tackle and scrawled signatures. . . they walked in through an arch that distinguished itself only by louder music—one had to know where one was down at the Bottom, or have a guide, and pay; and no Residents got shown to the Pillar, or to the Worm, not on the guides' lives. He found his favored table; next the big support that gave the place its name, around which the tables wound, a curve which gave privacy, and, within the heartbeat throb of the music, calm and warmth after the shrieking winds.

  He and Poll ordered dinner from the boy who did the waiting; a tiny-"tiny," he said, measuring a span with his fingers—glass of brew, because they were going out on the lines again tomorrow, and they needed their heads unswollen.

  They had of course other pleasures in mind, because there was more to the Pillar than this smoky, music-pulsing den, and the food and drink; there were the rooms below, down the stairs beyond, for such rest as they had deserved.

  He finished his good meal, and Poll did, and they sat there sipping their brew and eyeing one another with the anticipation of long acquaintance, but the brew was good too, and what they had been waiting for all day, with the world swinging under their feet and exertion sucking the juices out of them. They were that, old friends, and it could wait on the drink, slow love, and slow quiet sleep in the Bottom, with all the comforting weight of the City on their backs, where the world was solid and warm.

  "Tallfeather."

  He looked about, in the music and the smoke. No one used his last name, not among the highliners; but it was not a voice he knew. . . a thin man in Builders' blue coveralls and without a Builders' drawling accent either.

  "Tallfeather, I'd like to talk with you. Privately."

  He frowned, looked at Poll, who looked worried, tilted his head to one side. "Rude man, that."

  "Mr. Tallfeather."

  No one said Mister in the Bottom. That intrigued him. "Poll, you mind? This man doesn't get much of my time."

  "I'll leave," Poll said. There was a shadow in Poll's eyes, the least hint of fear, he would have said, but there was no cause of it that he could reckon.

  "No matter," the man said, hooking his arm to pull him up. "We've a place to go."

  "No." He rose to his feet all right, and planted them, glared up at the man's face. Shook his arm free. "You're begging trouble. What's your name? Let me see your card."

  The man reached for his pocket and took one out. Manley, it said, Joseph, and identified him as an East Face Builder, and that was a lie, with that accent. Company number 687. Private employ.

  So money was behind this, that could get false cards. He looked for Poll's opinion, but she had slipped away, and he was alone with this man. He sat down at the table again, pointed to the other chair. "I'd be crazy to walk out of here with you. You sit down there and talk sense or I do some talking to security, and I don't think you'd like that, would you?"

  Manley sat down, held out his hand for the card. Johnny gave it to him. "So who are you?" Johnny prodded.

  There was no one, at the moment, near them. The huge pillar cut them off from sight and sound of others, and the serving boy was gone into the kitchen or round the bend.

  "You're of the 48 East," Manley said, "and this project you're on. . . you know what kind of money that throws around. You want to stay on the lines all your life, Tallfeather, or do you think about old age?"

  "I don't mind the lines," he said. "That's what I do."

  "It's worth your while to come with me. Not far. No tricks. I have a friend of yours will confirm what I say. You'll trust him."

  "What friend?"

  "Jino Brown."

  That disturbed him. Jino. Jino involved with something that had to sneak about like this. Jino had money troubles. Gambled. This was something else again. "Got a witness of my own, remember? My teammate's going to know who you are, just in case you have ideas."

  "Oh, she does know me, Mr. Tallfeather." That shook his confidence further, because he had known Poll all his life, and Poll was honest. And scared.

  "All right. Suppose we take that walk."

  "Good," Manley said, and got to his feet. Johnny rose and walked with him to the door, caught the young waiter before he went out it. "Tommy, lad, I'm going with Mr. Manley here." He took the order sheet from the boy's pocket and wrote the name down and the company number, probably false. "And you comp my bill and put your tip on it, and you remember who I left with, all right?"

  "Right," the boy said. Builder by birth, Tommy Pratt, but small and unhealthy and sadly pale. "You in some kind of trouble, Johnny?"

  "Just remember the name and drop it in the liners' ears if I don't come back before morning; otherw
ise forget it."

  "Yes, sir."

  Manley was not pleased. Johnny smiled a taut, hard smile and walked with him then, out the winding ways where the man wanted to lead him. In fact it was curiosity and nerves that brought him with Manley, an ugly kind of curiosity. He was no Resident to go rubber-kneed at the sight of the lines, but this had something to do with those he was going out there with, and where their minds were, and this he wanted to know.

  There was another dive a good distance beyond, down a series of windings and up and down stairs, on the very margin of the territory he knew in the Bottom; and being that close to lost made him nervous too.

  But Jino was there, at the table nearest the door, stood up to meet him, but did not take him back to the table; walked him with his hand on his shoulder, back into one of the rooms most of these places had, where the pounding music and the maze gave privacy for anything.

  "What is this?" Johnny asked, trusting no one now; but Jino urged him toward a chair at the round table that occupied this place, that was likely for gambling—Jino would know such places. Manley had sat down there as if he owned the place, and stared at both of them as they sat down. "I'll tell you what it is," Manley said. "There's a flaw on the East Face 90th, you understand?"

  "There's not a flaw."

  "Big one," said Manley. "Going to deviate the whole project a degree over."

  "Going to miss some important property," Jino said, "whatever the computers projected. We're the ones go out there; the computers don't. We say."

  He looked at Jino, getting the whole drift of it and not at all liking it.

  "Mr. Tallfeather," Manley said. "Property rides on this. Big money. And it gets spread around. There is, you see, a company that needs some help; that's going to be hurt bad by things the way they're going; and maybe some other companies have an in with the comp operators, eh? Maybe this just balances the books. You understand that?"

  "What company? That ATELCORP thing that made the fuss?"

  "You don't need to know names, Mr. Tallfeather. Just play along with the rest of your team. They'll all be in on it. All. And all it takes is your cooperative—silence."

  "Sure, and maybe you're telling that to all of them, that I went with it."

  Manley frowned deeply. "You're the last holdout, Tallfeather, you and your sister. You two are the sticking point, the ones we knew would have been hard to convince. But it's a team play. You respect that. You don't want to cut your three partners out of that company's gratitude. Think of your old age, Tallfeather. Think how it is when you stop being young, when you still have to go out there. And this company's gratitude—can go a long way."

  "Money," Jino said. "Enough to set us up. Influence. We're set, you understand that, Johnny? It's not crooked; just what he said, balancing the influence the others have on the computer input. So both sides are bought. This goes high, Johnny; the Council, the companies they run. . . this is a power grab."

  "Mr. Brown," Manley cautioned.

  "Johnny's reasonable. It's a matter of explaining."

  "I think I see it," Johnny said in a flat voice.

  "Trust the company," Manley said. "Someone's talking to your sister too."

  Panic settled over him. He settled back in his chair. He went out on the lines with these people. Had to. It was all he had. "Sarah will go with it if I do. Who's financing this? What company? If we're in it, I figure we should know."

  "Never mind that."

  "Just shut up and take it," Jino said. "And agree with the charts. I do that part of it. You just keep your mouth shut and take your cut."

  "All right," he said. "All right. No problem from me." He pushed back from the table. "I'd better get back, you mind? I left some instructions if I didn't get back quick."

  Jino frowned and motioned him gone. He gathered himself up, walked out, through the main room and down the corridors, with an increasingly leaden feeling at his gut.

  Tommy's face lit with relief to see him; he clapped the boy on the shoulder. "Poll?" he asked, and Tommy blinked and looked about. "I think she left," Tommy said.

  He checked. She was not in the room they had rented. Not upstairs. He frowned and left, hunting Sarah, down in the Worm.

  She was gone too. So was Sam Kenny.

  He sat down, ordered a drink to occupy a table by the door of the Worm, a den as dark and loud and smoky as the Pillar, but smaller and older; and he asked a few questions, but not too many, not enough to raise brows either among the liners there or with the management. The drink gradually disappeared. He sat with a sick feeling at his stomach and ordered another.

  Finally she came in. He restrained himself from jumping up, sat cool and silent while Sarah spotted him and walked over with a distressed look that told where she had been. She pulled up another chair and sat down.

  "I know," he said. "They got to you and Sam?"

  "What do we do, Johnny?"

  "What did you tell them we'd do?"

  "I told them we'd think about it."

  "I told them we'd go with it," he said. "What do you think we are, Sarah?"

  Her shoulders fell and she sat and looked morose. His drink came and he pushed it over to her, ordered one for himself. "I don't think," she said when they were alone, "I don't think they trust us, Johnny, whatever they promise."

  He thought about that, and it frightened him, agreeing with his own thought. "We go along with it. It's all we can do. Report it. . . we don't know what it would stir up, or how high; or what enemies we'd have."

  She nodded.

  They took rooms in the Worm. He took a bottle with him, and Sarah did, and he at least slept. Sam never did come back, to his knowledge.

  And came late morning, he and Sarah walked together to the service lift, got on it with two other liners not of their team who were making the ride up to tenth; they exchanged no words. The other liners got off, and they said nothing to each other, the whole long ride to the ninetieth.

  Down the carpeted hall to the access hall: they were first to arrive. They stripped and put on the suits, waited around with hoods back and gloves off. Sam showed up, and Poll, avoiding their eyes. There was poison in the air. There had never been that, quarrels yes, but not this. Jino showed, clipboard in hand, and the silence continued. "Blast you," Jino said. "Look up, look alive. Get your minds on it. Who's been talking?"

  Johnny shook his head. Jino looked from one to the other of them. "What's wrong?" Johnny asked. "Jino, maybe we and you better get this all straight. Or maybe we don't go out there today."

  "Questions, that's all." Jino took his suit and harness off the hook and started stripping like the rest of them. "Had the man back, you understand me? Stopped me, asking. . . asking whether any of the team might have had second thoughts. Any of you been talking?"

  Heads shook, one by one.

  "Right then." Jino climbed into the suit, zipped up, and the rest of them starting getting hoods up and masks hung in place. "It's all right," Jino said. He belted the harness about his chest and up through his legs, took the clipboard and hung it from his belt. "It's started, anyway. I've got the figures. All we have to do is keep developing this data; and it's all figured; they gave it to me the way we have to turn it in. Is that hard?"

  They shook their heads again. There was a bitter taste in Johnny's mouth. He shrugged into his own harness, pulled it up, hooked it, checked the precious line, coiled in its case, to be sure it rolled and that the brake held as it should.

  "So get moving," Jino said. "Go, get out there."

  They moved. Sam opened the access door, a round hatch; and wind howled in, nothing to what it would do if the back door were open. Poll swore and bounced slightly, nervousness; it was always this way, going out. Sam went first, hooked his first line to the access eye, eased out of sight, bowed in the wind, facing outward for a moment and then turning to face the building. Sarah moved up next, as soon as that eye was free.

  His turn. He hooked on, looked out into the blasting wind, at the
view Residents never saw unshielded. He pulled his tinted mask down, and the sunglare resolved itself into the far dizzying horizon. He stepped to the ledge, jerked to be sure the brake was holding on his line before he trusted his weight to it. This was the part the groundlings could never take, that first trusting move in which he swung out with all the dizzy curve of the city-mountain at his feet, windows and ledges. . . shielded ledges below, as the curve increased, and finally mere glass tiles, thick and solid, the windows of the Bottom, which were skylights, thick because there was always the chance of getting something dropped through one. . . winter ice, which built up and crashed like spears weighing hundreds of pounds; or the falling body of a liner, which had happened; or something a liner dropped, which was enough to send a man to the Bottom for a month: even a bolt dropped from these heights became a deadly missile.

  Ninety floors down.

  The insulated suits protected from the cold, barely. The masks did, or the windchill would have frozen their eyes and membranes and robbed them of breath; every inch of their bodies was covered. He clipped his line to another bolt and let the last retract, dropping and traversing in a wide arc that made all the stones blur past, caught the most convenient ledge with a practiced reach that disdained the novice's straightline drop and laborious climb back; he had his line of ascent above him now, the number ten; Sarah had the eleventh; Sam the twelvth; Poll, coming after him, number nine; Jino number eight, near the access. Climb and map and watch for cracks, real ones, which was their proper job; and swear to a lie. He tried not to think of that. They still had a job to do, the routine that kept the building in repair; and out here at least, the air was clean and minds had one steady job to occupy all their attention—one small move after another, eyes straight ahead and wits about them.