The canal was filled with traffic, from covered barges half again as long as the waterbus to the narrow, high‑tailed passenger boats that Roscha had called gondas, to one‑and two‑person skids. Most of the people riding skids were young, standing barefoot on the platform, skimming in and out of the traffic trailing a plume of spray. One bright‑red craft cut close enough to the bus to send water spraying across the open passenger compartment, and Lioe joined in the general shout of anger. A woman at the head of the bus pitched a piece of fruit after the skid’s driver, hitting him neatly in the back of the head, and the other passengers applauded. The woman stood and bowed, like an actor, and Lioe saw the mask sitting on the bench beside her, a grinning devil‑face, the gold and black vivid against the faded grey of the seats.
At the next stop, a gaggle of children in school uniforms, black high‑collared smocks open over a variety of shirts and trousers, climbed aboard; they vanished one by one as the bus wound its way up the canal toward the Crooked River. At last the bus turned onto a much broader canal, this one paralleling the Old Dike, so that they moved between a narrow embankment, and the houses shouldering each other for place beyond it, and the immense bulk of the Dike itself. Even in the daylight, with the sunlight to soften it, it was an impressive sight, towering over the traffic, bicycles and three‑wheeled carts and denki‑bikes and the occasional heavy carrier, that moved along the embankment at its foot. The stone of its face had faded from its original near‑black, and the salt stains had all but vanished, replaced by the softer faded lavender and grey‑green of rock‑rust. Lioe leaned back, trying to see Warden Street at the top of the wall, but she could only hear it, the traffic moving in counterpoint to the noise of the street at its base.
The canal widened perceptibly, and the banks were crowded with low‑slung barges, their open decks piled high with crates and boxes. Shoppers, men and women alike in loose shirts and trousers, many of them barefoot on the sun‑warmed stones, moved along the banks with string sacks balanced on each shoulder, calling to each other and to the merchants on the barges. The barge tenders seemed to sell anything, Lioe saw with amazement. There was one stocked with food, set up like any land‑bound store with neat aisles and display cases; tied to its stern was a much smaller boat that seemed to be filled with rags. A couple of adolescents were pawing through the piles. As Lioe watched, one of them straightened with a crow of delight, and slung a salvaged cape around his thin shoulders, striking a dramatic attitude. Farther on, a closed barge sold custom masks, a white, unpainted face peering from each of the tiny portholes. It was an unsettling effect, and Lioe looked away quickly.
The bus stopped three times in the market basin–Warden Mecomber’s Market, the signs read, in Burning Bright’s old‑fashioned, legible script–and the passengers climbed out in droves, calling to the driver as they went. As the bus pulled away from the final stop, only Lioe and a trio of musicians, two towheaded young men who looked like siblings and a stocky, flat‑faced woman, remained. The musicians huddled together, talking in low voices, their cased instruments tucked between their feet. The woman, sketching phrasing and tempo in the air, had beautiful hands.
The bus moved more slowly now, and the tone of its engine deepened, as though it were fighting a new current. Lioe glanced over the side, curious, but the oily water slid past, apparently unchanged. Then she heard a new rushing noise–not so new, she realized; she had been hearing it since the market, but the babble of voices had kept her from realizing what it was. The bus slanted in toward the left‑hand bank, the embankment side, and the driver’s voice crackled in the speakers.
“Crooked Underpass, people. End of the line.”
Lioe followed the musicians up onto the bank, and stopped short, staring at the Dike. Directly ahead of her, the embankment ended in a woven iron railing; beyond that, water spurted from a hole in the Dike, a short, meter‑long fall to the river below–not a hole, she realized instantly, but a tunnel. The Crooked River had to pass through the Dike–she had known that, but it hadn’t quite sunk in to her consciousness–and this was the mouth of the tunnel that carried it. The tunnel probably has hydro generators in it, too, she thought, striving for some kind of perspective. Burning Brighters don’t seem to waste power. Beyond the railing, the water roared, and a segment of the spectrum danced in the spray. She stared for a moment longer, then made herself look away.
She rode the elevator up the face of the Dike–it was a closed car, and she wasn’t entirely sure if she was glad or sorry–and passed through the elevator station and into a blaze of noise and color. She blinked, startled, checked instinctively, and nearly ran into someone. Warden Street was mobbed, people jostling shoulder to shoulder along the walkways and spilling out into the street, so that the trolley sounded its two‑toned whistle almost continually, and still barely moved more than a few meters at a time. A group of musicians–not the trio from the bus–were playing on a wooden platform that looked temporary, the stinging sound of steel strings ringing over the crowd, but the singer’s words were lost in the general uproar. Lioe blinked again, realized that she was becoming a traffic hazard, and made herself start walking.
The crowds here were better dressed than they had been on the streets below. Here most of the people, men and women, wore either the full‑skirted, nipwaisted coats or loose, unshaped wraps of some silky fabric that seemed to float in the air around them, trailing strange perfumes. Quite a few wore strands of bells, silver or gold or enameled in many colors, slung from shoulder to hip, and Lioe found herself eyeing them curiously, wondering if the style would suit her. The shop windows were enticing, holograms revolving in the thick display glass, showing off clothes more improbable even than the Republic’s highest fashion, the prices flickering discreetly just below the items. A few of the older buildings had real windows, with real goods in the boxes behind them. Lioe slowed her step to stare, not caring if that betrayed her as a foreigner–the neat hat would do that anyway, marked her as a pilot and a Republican on any human‑settled world–and realized that the prices in these windows were sandwiched in the glass itself, faint opalescent numbers visible only from a certain angle. She couldn’t begin to guess how much such a display would cost, but she suspected the shops made more than enough to cover their expenses. Still, one of them was bound to have what she needed.
She found what she was looking for at last, in a smaller store toward the center of the Dike, a place crammed with racks of the full‑skirted coats and the silky wraps, and a pile of skirts made of reembroidered lace, each pattern in the lace itself redefined by an overlay of colored shapes cut from sequensa shells. She fingered that fabric cautiously, admiring its elaborate beauty, but knew better than to buy. She wouldn’t know how to wear a skirt, how to make herself look good in it, but even so, she sighed for the lost possibility. She bought a coat instead, this one straight‑bodied, a rich gold‑on‑gold brocade embroidered at the neck and shoulders with gold beads and leaf‑shaped paillettes of gold‑dyed sequensas. It looked good, she had to admit as she looked at herself in the shop mirror, the counterwoman hovering in the background, good enough to make her reckless. She bought a shirt as well, a loose tunic of the floating silk dyed a darker mustard color, and a thin scarf bordered with more sequensas and gold embroidery. It took everything that was left of the voucher from Shadows to pay for it all, but she shrugged away the thought that she was doing it to impress Ransome. This was easy money, easy come and easy go, to be spent on indulgences like this. And if I want to impress somebody with it, well, I’ll just call Roscha. I might do that anyway. She passed the last of the vouchers over the countertop, watched the woman feed them one by one into the bank machine. I think I’ll do just that–and if I need money, there’s always Republican C‑and‑I. Kichi Desjourdy’s station chief here, and she always paid well for information. There’s bound to be enough stuff going on here that would interest her. She watched the counterwoman wrap the clothes into a tidy bundle, accepted it with thanks. Cer
tainly there should be enough happening at this party of Ransome’s. She tucked the bundle under her arm, and stepped out of the shop to catch the trolley back toward Governor’s Point and her hostel in the Ghetto beyond.
Evening, Day 31
High Spring: The Hsai
Ambassador’s House, in the
Ghetto, Landing Isle Above
Old City North
It was evening in Chauvelin’s garden, and Damian Chrestil stood with his back to the terrace wall, looking inward toward the house. It was almost as large as a midsize palazze, the sort that cousins of Five Points families built in the districts below the Five Points cliffs. The white stone glowed in the twilight, very bright against the purpling haze of the sky; the open windows were filled with golden light, spilling a distant music into the cooling air. In the gap between the southern wing and the main house, he could just see a blue‑black expanse of ocean, reflecting a rising moon in a scattering of light like foam. He looked away from that, made uneasy by the sight of open water–the sea should be viewed from the security of the barrier hills, or from an open deck, not glimpsed like this across a garden–and found the lesser moon, just rising, riding low beneath a bank of cloud. The larger moon was well up, and all but invisible, just a faint glow of pewter light behind the thickening clouds. The street brokers were saying it was thirty‑to‑one that the storm that was building to the south would hit the city, but no one was taking odds on strength.
The distant rumble of an orbiter, lifting from Newfields, caught his attention, drew his eyes west just in time to see the spark of light dwindle into a pinpoint no brighter than a star, and vanish in the twilight. The sky behind it was streaked with cloud and layered with the orange and reds of the sunset, the distant housetops outlined against it as though against a sheet of flame. The sound of the takeoff hung in the air, undercutting the drifting music. It was nothing special, and he looked away, back toward the crowd of people filling the terrace. One of them–a woman, tall, face thin and sculpturally beautiful, the lines of her bones drawn hard and pure under skin like old honey–had heard the orbiter too, was still staring upward as though she could pick out the light of its passage from among the scudding clouds. There was some expression behind that still face, knowledge, perhaps, that was no longer hunger, and Damian caught his breath in spite of himself, watching her watch the orbiter’s flight. Then there was a movement in the crowd beside her, and she turned away, her face breaking into movement, the stone‑hard beauty shattering into a sort of vivid ugliness. Ransome smiled crookedly at her–they were of a height–and drew her away with him toward the house. As she turned, Damian saw the hat slung over her shoulder, dangling from a spangled scarf that from this distance looked as though it had been woven from the sunset sky. A short grey plume flowed like a cloud from the hat’s crown. So that’s the pilot, he thought. She’ll certainly bear watching.
“I see you’ve spotted her. That’s Lioe.”
Damian looked down and down again, smiled in spite of himself at Cella’s delicate face turned up to him. She was a tiny woman, barely tall enough to reach his shoulder; even her eight‑centimeter heels did not bring her chin above his armpit. She was beautifully dressed, as always, this time in a sleeveless bodice the color of bitter chocolate that hugged breasts and hips and gave way to a swirling skirt embroidered at the hem with a band of pale copper apples. The almost‑sheer fabric emphasized perfect calves and elegant ankles. Her breasts swelled distractingly above the jerkin’s square neckline.
“Have you found out anything more?” Damian asked.
Cella smiled. She had painted her lips and cheeks and nails to match the new‑copper apples on her skirt, a cool metallic pink barely paler than her skin. “Not much. She’s from Callixte–born there, apparently, not just works from there. She’s a notable by anyone’s reckoning, and the people on the intersystems nets like her a lot. If she’s political, she’s a Republican, but that’s a big if. Between piloting and the Game, I can’t see that she’s had much time for politics. She did know Kichi Desjourdy when Desjourdy was on Falconsreach, but I can’t trace anything more than just knowing each other. Desjourdy’s a Gamer, after all, and a class‑four arbiter.”
Damian nodded thoughtfully. Kichi Desjourdy was the new Customs‑and‑Intelligence representative to Burning Bright, a clever woman, and therefore dangerous. And that made any connection between her and this Lioe a dangerous one. “Do you think this–this whole thing, meeting with Ransome and all–could be some kind of setup?”
Cella shook her head. “Not with his consent, anyway. I’m quite certain they met at the club–that that was their first meeting, and that it wasn’t staged in any way.” She paused then, and her smile took on a new edge. “I did find out one thing interesting, though. She spent last night with one of yours, Damiano. A john‑boat girl called Roscha.”
“Did she, now?” Damian said, softly. Trust Roscha to be more trouble. “Why didn’t I hear about it?”
“No one knew you were interested,” Cella said. “I didn’t know you were interested, until last night.”
“They’re sleeping together?”
“I would say so.” Cella shrugged. “I would.”
“Charming.” Damian stared out into the crowd, did not find the pilot, turned slowly so that he faced back toward the cliff and the Old City spread out beyond the lower terrace. Most of the lights were on now, the sky faded to a thick and dusty purple, and the pattern of the lights in the lower garden echoed the play of light from the city below, disrupted only by the figures moving along the silvered stones of the pathways. Neither Ransome nor Lioe was anywhere to be seen.
“I could introduce you,” Cella said. “I’ve met her.”
Damian glanced down at her, surprised less by the offer than by its timing, and she nodded to the window above them. A woman stood silhouetted in the golden light, a newly familiar, broad‑shouldered shape with a hat slung across her back. She was looking in at the party, standing quite still, and Damian hesitated, tempted. It would be interesting to speak to her directly, get some feel for what she was like–He shook his head, not without regret. It was much safer to keep his distance, just in case she did turn out to have some connection with C‑and‑I. “No, not right now, I think. But keep an eye on her, Cella. I want to know exactly what she’s doing.”
“All right,” Cella said, and sounded faintly surprised.
Damian looked away from her curiosity, back toward the lower terrace, and his eyes were caught again by the grey‑and‑silver stones that covered the paths. The more distant paths seemed to glow in the last of the light, and the nearer ones, closer to the cool standard‑lamps, caught the blue‑toned light and held it, odd shadows playing over their surfaces. He frowned, curious now, and walked away, down the steps to the graveled paths of the lower terrace. Cella followed a few steps behind, but he ignored her, stooped to examine the stones. A dozen, a hundred tiny faces looked back at him, all smiling slightly, as if they were amused by his surprise. He caught his breath, controlled his instinctive revulsion– how could anyone stand to walk here, if they saw those looking back at them?–and said, “Ransome’s work, I take it?” His voice sounded strange to him, strained and taut, but Cella didn’t seem to notice.
“I would say so.”
“They are,” Damian said, with precision, “very strange men, he and Chauvelin.” He paused, and shook his head. “I suppose I had better pay my respects to the ambassador.” He did not wait for her response, but started back across the terraces toward the ambassador’s house.
Chauvelin greeted his guests in the main hall. The long room was lit as though by a thousand candles, light like melted butter, like curry, pouring from the edges of the ceiling across the polished bronzewood floor, gilding everything it touched. It turned the ice statue on the buffet–a sleek needle‑ship poised on the points of its sailfields–to topaz, set deeper red‑gold lights dancing in its heart like the glow of invisible reactors. Chauvelin smiled, seein
g it, and made a mental note to thank his staff. They had done well in other things, too: the heavy bunches of red‑streaked flowers that flamed against the ochre walls, the food, the junior staff–jericho‑human, chaoi‑monand hsai alike–circulating among the guests to diffuse tension and keep the conversation and the wine flowing with equal ease. Je‑Sou’tsian had the unenviable task of keeping an eye on ji‑Imbaoa, but she seemed to be handling it without undue strain. She had chosen to wear her full honors, and the clusters of ribbon flowed from her shoulders almost to the floor. Perhaps it was not the most tactful of gestures, Chauvelin conceded– ji‑Imbaoa has fewer hereditary honors than she–but he couldn’t bring himself to reprove her. In any case, ji‑Imbaoa seemed unaccountably sober, and in control of himself. There should be no trouble until later, if at all.
Satisfied that everything was at least temporarily secure in that quarter, Chauvelin looked away, searching the crowd for Ransome. He owed him thanks, as well as money, for the stones that paved the garden paths, and he was more than a little surprised that the imagist hadn’t already collected. He found him at last, standing by the arched hallway that led in from the garden, and lifted a hand to beckon him over. Ransome raised a hand in answer, but glanced back over his shoulder, toward the tall woman who followed at his heels. Chauvelin lifted an eyebrow–he had thought that he knew most of Ransome’s friends and proteges–but made no comment as the two made their way across the crowded room. The woman was striking, not at all in Ransome’s usual line–his taste in women, such as it was, ran to flamboyant Amazons like LaChacalle–and she wore her clothes, Burning Brighter clothes, by the familiar cut and fabric, with the bravado born of unfamiliarity. Then he saw the way Ransome was watching her–she was even with him now, moving shoulder to shoulder with him through the room–and felt the touch of an unfamiliar pain. That intensity of gaze should be for him, not this stranger, and he resented the shift in Ransome’s attention. He put that thought aside, frowning slightly at himself, as Ransome approached.
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