by Carol
After all, he wanted Janey, and Janey was long gone. She was Starlady, and she had her Golden Boy.
Then one day, when Janey came back from the Silver Plaza, Golden Boy was gone. She looked around the compartment frantically; he’d never left before. But there was no one home but Mayliss and a paunchy off-worlder, afloat in the free-fall room. Mayliss glared at her as she stood in the doorframe, but the man just chuckled and said, “Well, well, c’mon in.
When he’d left finally, Mayliss put on a sheath and came storming and spewing out at her. “I’ll chill you down good, starlady, and if Hal don’t like it I’ll cut off his crottled arm. What’s the big spin?”
“Golden Boy is gone.”
“So? Hal’s out selling him, little girl. Grow up.”
Janey blinked. “What?”
Mayliss snorted in disgust, and put her hands on her hips. “I spun you straight. Why’d you think Hairy Hal let Golden Boy sit round here all day and powder his ass with dreamdust like he was an insider or something? Cause Hal clicks right, is that what you figured? So, wrong. Hal was waiting for a big sell. He spun it all out to me. With all those fun boys coming through here every day, sooner or later word’s probly going to get down inside, that’s where Hal wanted it, see? Lots of insiders like little boys, and he knew they’d pay big for a little golden boy with pointy ears and big ears and silver hair. Only Hal couldn’t zactly parade round the Ivory Halls giving out handbills, right?”
“He won’t do it,” Janey said stubbornly. “Golden Boy won’t do it!”
Mayliss laughed. “You warm me, starlady, you’re such a stupid. Listen good, cause I’m going to spin you right. Golden Boy will do zactly what Hal says. You think you learned a lot, but you don’t know nothing. Stead of a clear skull,, you got a head full of hair and stars. I think you hum to Golden Boy, you know, and that’s so warm it’s boiling.”
“I love him,” Janey said, with storms flashing across her face. “He’s kind and gentle and he’s never done anyone any harm, and he’s a hell of a lot better than anyone else on Thisrock.”
But Mayliss only laughed again. “You’ll learn, starlady. Hal don’t click, but at least he clicks better’n Golden Boy. Listen, I used to hum to Hal once. I had to learn.”
“What? That he uses people? Well, I learned that fast enough,” Janey said. She turned and went to the couch and sat down.
Mayliss followed her. “No, starlady, you got it spun up all wobbly and tangled. I thought Hairy Hal was a big hero. He was faster with his no-knife than anybody, and he looked good, and he spun big about how he was going to click. Yes, and little Mayliss believed it all. Cept one night, after Hal’d been doing too good, there was this knock on the door, right? Crawney. Back then, Hal had me and two other girls and a couple boys and some exotics, plus he had some ’sticks working for him, and he was spinning about a slice of joy-smoke. Well, Crawney came to chill him down. The Marquis wanted joy-smoke, you see, and the Marquis didn’t like Hal having exotics.
‘Well, Hairy Hal just laughed at Crawney, and I hummed to that. It was a long time ago, right, and the Marquis wasn’t so big and Hal wasn’t so small, and Lametta was even still round. Hal had plans.
“Cept Crawney didn’t like being laughed at. A couple cycles later, the blackskulls grabbed Hal and me and took us down by the docks. Crawney was there, and Stumblecat, and the Marquis. They made me watch, while the blackskulls broke his arm all up, again and again until he was screaming. Right? Then the Marquis just smiled and said, ‘Hey, Hal’s arm is broken, he needs a splint,’ and they splinted it with a stingstick, and just stood there and watched him on the floor.
“Afterward, all the nerves were crottled or something, and Hal wasn’t nothing with his no-knife. Everybody left him; his ’sticks, his girls, everybody. The Marquis took his exotics. Hairy Hal had nothing cept me. Little stupid Mayliss, she still hummed to him, and I stayed. I helped him use his other hand, and I thought once he was good again, he’d take his noknife and go after the Marquis, right?
“Well, wrong. That’s where my spin went wobbly on me, and I learned. Hairy Hal was scared, and he still is. He’s never dared to get big again cause the Marquis gives him big chills. Every once in a while one of the blackskulls’ll come by to have me, and they never pay, and Hal never does anything. They’ll do it to you, too, watch. You’ll learn, starlady. You’re a stupid if you hum to anyone, or buy anybody’s spin, or do anything for anyone but your
Janey waited until the outburst had passed. Then, very quietly, she said, “If you gave up on Hal, then why are you still here?”
Before Mayliss could answer the door opened, and Hairy Hal and Golden Boy were back. Hal was smiling broadly. He reached under his cape, pulled out a packet, and tossed it on the table. Mayliss looked at it, grinned, and whistled.
“Golden Boy clicked good down in the Ivory Halls,” Hal said. Then, startled, he stopped and looked at Janey. She’d gone to Golden Boy and wrapped her arms around him and now she was fighting not to cry.
So things began to click.
Down inside, in the Ivory Halls and the Velvet Corridors, in the great cool compartments around the Central Square, the word was loose. And the customers came; sleek blond men in woven robes, matrons in dragon dresses, adventurous girls in soft plastic. Others sent for Golden Boy, and Hairy Hal took him to them, walking the streets inside as if he were bom to them. He handled things quiet and smooth, and he sold Golden Boy only for big money. No starslum fun-boys got their hands on him; Hal had his wide-eyed gold mine reserved for men of taste.
And Golden Boy went, and did what was required of him. He never spoke, but he seemed to understand, sometimes even without Hal telling him. It was almost like he knew what he was doing.
Sometimes the insiders would buy him for a night, and Janey would float in her sleep-web alone.
On one of those nights, Hal returned from inside by himself, carrying a heavy book under his good arm. He was sitting at the table, poring over the pages, when Janey and a customer returned from the Silver Plaza. He ignored them and kept poring.
When the man had gone, Janey came out and looked at him sullenly. “What’s that?” she asked.
Hal glanced up, smiled. "Hey, starlady. Come an’ look. Hal got it for Golden Boy tonight, from an insider. It’s old, you know, pre-Collapse. Straight spin!”
Janey walked around behind him to peer over his shoulder. The pages were big, glossy, full of closely packed text and bright holostrations of strange creatures in colorful costumes.
“There’s something here, look here, about a race that might be Golden Boy’s. Where, ah there, see. Bashii, you ever hear of them? Look at that picture, starlady, the same, only the hair is the wrong color. Still. They were a Hrangan slave-race before the war or the Collapse. So, probly Golden Boy is a little Bashii. Unless ...” He riffled some more pages. “Here, this part about genetic alteration experiments an’ cloning an’ that stuff. The Earth Imperials were trying to clone their best pilots an’ such, duplicate them. An’ you had alters, like Stumblecat cept he’s a defect. See starlady, it has this bit about esthetic alters on Old Earth, pretty boys, being worked up. So. Maybe he’s one of those. From Old Earth, what a spin! Thisrock hasn’t heard from that far in, well, long time. It chills you, right Janey?”
His enthusiasm was a flood; Janey felt herself smiling at him. “I don’t think he’s from Old Earth,” she said. “If he were, he could talk to us. He’s probably a Bashii. But I really don’t care what he is. He’s just Golden Boy.”
“Just! Janey, you’re positively warm. Listen, he’s clicking for us, starlady. They hum to him down there, they hum high an’ hot, an’ probly they’re going to want him down there more, right? But he won’t do it right less Hal wants it, an Janey, of course. In a while, starlady, we can buy down inside, all of us, cause Golden Boy is Golden Boy. An’ cause Hairy Hal is quiet, right?”
“Not quiet enough, Hal,” the voice said from the doorway. Stumblecat stood there, smiling
, his hand on his stingstick. “Not quite quiet enough.”
He sauntered in with the clumsy ease that was uniquely his. Crawney followed, pushing Mayliss ahead of him. She stumbled up against the table, reeled, then pulled away towards the bedrooms.
“They want to see you,” she said, looking apprehensively at Crawney and Stumblecat. “They found me on the Concourse and took my keyplate.”
Hairy Hal closed his book and stood. “Spin it,” he said. His face was a guarded blank.
“You know it all already, Hal,” Stumblecat said. Such a soft voice he had, such a civilized purr. “You’ve known it all along. We told you long ago that we bear you no grudge. You can pimp all you like, girls, boys, anything. But exotics, well, you know. The Marquis has a sentimental attachment to exotics. He collects them, you might say.”
“You been spinning us wobbly,” Crawney put in, grinning at Hal and showing off all his teeth. “But you can straighten out. Just give us your exotic.” “Golden Boy, I believe he’s called,” said Stumblecat.
“Yes,” Hal said. “Only Golden Boy isn’t an exotic. Would Hal spin you wobbly, eh? He’s just human, an alter, look at the book.” He tapped it, offering.
“I’m not interested in any books, Hal,” Stumblecat said. “An alter is exotic enough for the Marquis. And even if you were right, well, the sad fact is we’d still want him. That much inside business is too tempting.”
“You want to get your other arm crottled?” Crawney said. “Wrong? Then you better hum to us, Hal.”
Hal did not move. But Mayliss did. She came around the table, grabbed him, shoved him towards them. “Hair she shrieked. “Hey, this is your chance!
Only two of them, and Crawney never carries nothing, and Stumblecat is a clumsy stupid with his stick. Take them!” She pushed him again from behind.
And he hesitated, then whirled and slapped her hard. “You want to spin me cold, redhead,” he said. “There might be more outside.”
Mayliss pulled back, said nothing. Stumblecat and Crawney just watched and smiled. Janey frowned. “Hal,” she said. “You cant give Golden Boy to the Marquis. You can’t do that. Hal, she’s right.”
But Hal ignored her. “Golden Boy’s gone now,” he said, turning back to the two men. “He’ll be back, straight spin! You can have him.”
“We’ll wait,” Crawney said.
“Yes,” said Stumblecat. “And Hal, you haven’t treated us very hospitably, you know.”
Hal’s lip trembled. “I—no, Hal will set you right. Drinks?”
“Later,” said Stumblecat. ‘That wasn’t what I had in mind.” He walked over to Janey, reached out and stroked her hair. She shivered.
Hal looked at her. “Janey?” he said. “My starlady? Will you . . . ?” But she was already gone, with Stumblecat, to the bedroom.
Crawney, not to be left out, took Mayliss.
They watched pink shadows run as the globe pulsed.
Two of them.
Alone together.
The insider had brought Golden Boy back at last, and the blackskulls who’d been outside had taken him. Mayliss had left too, packing all her things in silence. Now there was Hairy Hal and Starlady.
She sat there, calm, cold, and watched him and the shadows. This time Hal was crying.
“I can’t, Janey,” he said, over and over, in a broken voice. “I cant. He chills me, starlady, and I’ve seen him ‘with his stick. The no-knife, yes, it’s a better weapon, quicker, cleaner. But him, the Marquis, he’s too good. Probly Hairy Hal could’ve taken him, he thought he could’ve, one on one, no-knife against stingstick. No chance, though. An’ now, Hal’s all crottled. Marquis’ll never face him alone anyhow.”
"You’re Hairy Hal,” Janey said evenly. "If he could take Marquis once, you can take him now. You can’t leave Golden Boy with him. You can’t. I love Golden Boy.”
Hal looked up, wincing. "Hey, starlady,” he said. "I’m spinning you straight. You want Hal cold?”
"If you won’t do anything,” she said. "Yes.”
He shrugged. "I hum to you, Janey,” he said suddenly, staring at her with something that was almost fear.
"Wonderful. But you’ll never see me again.” She stood up. "Give me your no-knife, Hal. If you won’t try, I will.”
"They’ll kill you starlady, or worse. Root down an’ listen. You won’t even find the Marquis.”
"Yes I will. And he’ll face me one on one, too. You told me how, Hal. The Marquis is loud, remember? Well, me too. I’ll stand in the middle of the Silver Plaza and shout for him until he comes. He can hardly have his blackskulls gang up on me then. If he did, who’d ever get chilled again? Will you give me the no-knife?”
"No,” he said, stubborn. “You’re wobbly.”
"All right,” she replied, leaving.
Night-cycle in the Plaza, and the silver-shining overheads were out. The wall-lights provided a different illumination, winking through their color-phases, alternately dyeing the faces of the revellers blue or red or green or violet. The dancers were out in force, music was everywhere, and the air was thick with the sweet gaiety of joy-smoke.
On the polished stairway that curved up towards the second tier of shops, Starlady took her stand and began to spin.
“Hey,” she called to the throngs below her, to the people pushing by, “hey, stop and listen to me spin. You won't soon have the chance. The Marquis is going to kill me.”
Below the off-worlders paused, curious, admiring. Whispers were exchanged. Prometheans shook their heads and grinned. And the swaggers in their swoop-suits, the redheads out to sell, the drooling dreamers and the men who doled out dreams, the pimps, the bodyguards, the dancers and the thieves—well, they knew what was going on. A show was coming. They stopped to watch.
And Starlady spun, Starlady with the shiny dark hair, in a suit of milky nightwhite that took the colors of the lights, Starlady with a black rod in her hand.
“Marquis took my lover,” she shouted to the gathering crowd. “He chilled down Hal and stole the Golden Boy, but he hasn't chilled down me.” And now the no-knife in her hand was alive, its ghost blade flickering strangely in the violet light. And Starlady was sheathed in purple, her face stained grim and somber.
“I'll kill him if he comes,” she said, as they drew away around her, leaving her alone on the stairs. “Me, Starlady, and I've never used a no-knife in my life.” The Plaza was growing quiet; tension spread outward like ripples in a pool. Here the talking stopped, there the dancers ceased to whirl, over in the comer a joy-man killed his smoke machine. “But he won't come, not Marquis, and I'll tell you why. He's chilled.”
And now the light clicked over, and Starlady was a vision in green, the ghost blade a writhing bluish shadow. “You've seen him kill, starslummers,” she . said, with a shake of emerald dark hair. “And you've heard the wobbly spins, right? Marquis, who hums to pain. Marquis, Thisrock's top 'stick.” She threw back her head and laughed. Over on the far side of the Plaza, they were muting their music and drifting her way. “Well, think now, have you ever seen him fight? Without his blackskulls? Without Crawney—” she pointed, and a man with a shiny striped skull straightened and glared and rushed towards the nearest corridor—“and Stumblecat—” she whirled the other way and picked him out lounging against a food stall, and Stumblecat smiled and lifted his sting-stick and waved—“to hold the arms of his victim?”
The light clicked again, and she was bright blue and glowing, and the no-knife was suddenly invisible. Now the Plaza was dead, still, captive to the Starlady. “No,” she shouted, “you haven’t, no one has. Straight spin! Remember what you see tonight, watch when the blackskulls come and take me, watch how they hold my arms when Marquis kills me, and remember how he was too chilled to come alone!”
A murmur went through the throng, and eyes lifted. And Starlady turned and smiled. Two blackskulls were coming down the stairs behind her, their faces hard chalk blue. “See?” she told the crowd. “I spun you straight!”
/> Only then someone bounded out of the audience below, a yellow-faced youth with sparkling circles on his head and a glittery gold-flake swoopsuit. He took the stairs three at a time, past her, and a stingstick was in his fist. He waved it at the blackskulls. “No, no,” he shouted, grinning. “No grabs, soursticks. Im humming to a show.”
The blackskulls drew their own sticks and prepared to take him. But then another swagger joined him, all aglow in dazzlesilk. And then a third, and a fourth with a wicked white nervelash. And others came running down behind them, sticks drawn.
Out in the plains of the Plaza, a dozen other blackskulls found themselves surrounded. The mob wanted Marquis.
And Starlady, shining crimson, stood and waited, and when she moved the red reflections flashed in her hair like liquid fire. Till another voice challenged hers.
“You spin a wobbly spin, starlady," Hairy Hal said from the foot of the stairs. They'd gone for him, of course. By now the news had rippled far beyond the Silver Plaza. “Probly little Janey Small of Rhiannon hasn't seen the Marquis kill, but Hairy Hal has. He's good, redhead, an' Hal is going to watch while he teaches you how to scream."
Heads turned, people murmured. Hairy Hal, well, wasn't he her lover? No, the answers came, she never hummed to him, so maybe his hum's gone sour.
“There's Hairy Hal," Starlady called from her perch, “Hairy Hal the quiet pimp, but you ought to call him Chilly Hal. Ask Mayliss, and she'll tell you. Ask me, too, about Golden Boy and Hal."
Stumblecat, his stingstick sheathed, pushed his way forward and stood next to Hal. “Hal's just smart, Janey,” he said, smiling. “You, sadly, are not. Though you are pretty. Maybe the Marquis will let you live, and rent you out to nervelash freaks."
Hal laughed, coarsely. “Yes. Hal could hum to that."
Her eyes flashed at him, as the red light flicked to gold. Then Marquis came.
He walked easily, gracefully, swinging his stingstick and smiling. His eyes were lost behind their dark ring. Crawney scrambled beside him, trying to keep up.