Flesh and Gold (9 page)

“A little.”

“I'll tell the Keymaster. You will meet him tomorrow after the doctor has seen you.”

Jacaranda, a careful observer, was hard put to keep track of where she was taken, and almost lost the way among the narrow corridors, staircases, slides, and elevators that twisted into heights and depths she would never have guessed at from seeing the brothel's exterior. The atmosphere of the windowless place was close and full of perfumes that went deeply into musk and sometimes lingered on scorch or sweat, and she did not know whether she was in the upper-class section or the lower—or if there was any difference. Soft light bloomed from the walls; the hallways were lined by doors with handles and latches of crystal knobs or golden loops. Some entrances rose to the ceiling, or were oddly broad or round: many of these were closed by half a score of locks and labeled with warnings of alien pressures
and atmospheres; some that were ajar seemed to lead now into more passages, stairways and bolt-holes; now into storerooms heaped full with garments of bright scales and drifting luminescent tissues, leather and cloth-of-gold, wigs and whips and armor, jars of oils, creams and skin colorings, tanks and cartridges of liquids and atmospheres; and now again they led into unoccupied silk-draped retiring-rooms furnished with chairs and divans contoured to support the passions of seven or eight human species, and machines fitted out in soft leather and polymer appendages to help stir them.

Sound was muffled here, whether of feigned ecstasy or real pain, but Jacaranda thought she saw down one of the shadowy halls a dark creature scuttling on fours, and heard the iron clank of a chain—even that noise might have been part of the music that wafted on the air: wind chimes, harps, a snarling song wailed along with stones rhythmically cracked against each other. A screaming of machine joints.

No image of Zamos appeared to disturb the privacy of clients, but wherever the doors of retiring rooms were open Jacaranda could glimpse the holograms: the old satyr grunting and panting as he writhed with his three sylphs in a Laocoön's knot of passion, the Varvani crooning in their new skins, the two snake-joined women shuddering in orgasm, or seeming to. Through some unguarded doorway she heard along with the performers the Bacchic cries of another many-mouthed group.

None of these displays affected Jacaranda any more than they moved the performers and servitors. She knew brothels, and had seen all the acts, if not the players. She wondered about the children for a brief moment, what made it worth-while for the brothel-masters to bring fragile young children far from home to dirty their hands and souls on old lechers. For herself, she turned tricks when stranded in ports
without arenas, and spied when Galactic Federation's gears meshed with hers. Now, having come to Starry Nova as a pug, she was spying on her own dangerous employer Zamos, and had let Ned Gattes beat her for a cheap whore. She was tired, not from physical exertion but tired of herself; she kept her mind on the turnings and landmarks of her trail, and when she reached the small room that was spare as a nun's cell, did not even hear the final sarcasm of the Kylklad, but lay down on the bed and closed her eyes.

After a moment the image of Zamos sputtered briefly into life and roused her awake: clearly, in the world's most luxurious bordello, there were electronics even in so spare a room, but the image was not quite clear or whole: it mouthed into space and did not look at her, and perhaps had been beamed in by accident. There was not much she would do in this scrubbed white room either to please or disturb Zamos. The bed was narrow, but at this moment it meant safety to her. Jacaranda did not allow her mind to dwell on more than the next move: she fell asleep wondering what she must do to please the Keymaster, and how to communicate with the innocent sea creature. It came into her dreams wearing Manador's face.

The Devil's Wife

Jacaranda had three stads of sleep, and when she opened the door a thick-armed bruiser, cousin to the bouncer who maintained the peace at the common-gate, was waiting for her in the doorway with arms folded and feet crossed. She gaped at him. “How long you been here?”

“As long as I had to. You're going to the doctor.” He was chewing something. Betel: his lips were red.

Jacaranda shrugged and ran her fingers through her hair. “What's your name?”

“Barr.” He followed after, touching her arm, muttering, almost subvocalizing:
This way. Down here
.

The house doctor worked out of a small lab crammed with computer consoles and diagnostic machines. Barr waited in the hall, crossing his arms and feet.

Jacaranda was relieved to find this doctor no coarse-fingered groper but as in all Zamos brothels, a Lyhhrt in a gold-plated hominid workshell with a sunburst face, a person capable of jacking into any of the instruments that surrounded him. He—or it—was so subtle and neat-handed that Jacaranda did not feel grossly violated delivering blood and urine.

Whatever a Lyhhrt might look like externally, it was really a brain-sized and timid lump of protoplasm working its shell with pseudopods, trembling with desire to be at home on its own world, lying entwined in many layers of its fellows and engaged in Cosmic Thought. If Galactic Federation had not discovered and encouraged the Lyhhrt passion for metal-working they would have deprived themselves, if not the Lyhhrt, of half their surgeons, anatomists, goldsmiths, and professors of these arts. It was a feature of Lyhhrt philosophy to work for the welfare of others, but they hated being separated and were almost fanatical anti-individualists. This avoidance often made them feared and hated. Not by Jacaranda. They treated her with care and respect.

After the examination the Lyhhrt extruded sensors, dipped them into the samples, and read the values into a computer. “You are free from communicable diseases.” He took her hand, turned it palm up, and touched her wrist with a burst of cold spray from a plastic bulb. “These are the boosters you need for forty-six viruses endemic in this district. Your breath is a trifle short and you should change
oxygen cartridges more frequently.”
:It is dangerous to interfere.:

Jacaranda's reaction time was a little slow after three stads of sleep out of the local twenty-eight; it took her a half second to realize that the Lyhhrt was communicating by esp.

Lyhhrt were very powerful ESPs but held fastidiously to the rules of law and courtesy they had helped to frame. Jacaranda was not an ESP, but kept her mind rigorously to herself and was quick to defend herself against intruders. She glanced at the expressionless gold mask. The Lyhhrt, though they loved ornament, were masters of good taste and did not try to create false expressions: the metal head might be hollow, or filled with computer chips or nutrients; the Lyhhrt itself would be ensconced somewhere in the torso, operating its gleaming shell in the silence and darkness it loved.

Within the space of the half second, she understood that the Lyhhrt was—reservation: claimed to be—the agent of another GalFed department; the object of investigation was unclear, but she was being told:
Do not try to rescue Kobai
. She asked no question, did not give herself away except to show by the stance of her body and mind that she was far from planning to interfere. She was here only to find out if Kobai was inside the establishment, and make sure she was being well treated. She had brought no weapon and never had a thought of rescuing Kobai: it would have taken a traveling circus to do that. “Thanks. I'll take your advice.”

The Lyhhrt asked with grave courtesy, “Are there any other problems you wish to discuss, madam?”

“None whatever.”

“Remember to renew your oxygen cartridges more often. The lift is down the hall to your right. You will find the Keymaster's office one floor down just opposite.”

“I have an escort.”

“Yes. So I see.”

The Keymaster was another Kylklad, a flutterer in dyed green feathers who had sore eyes, and wore thick lenses set in a clamp around his head. “Jacaranda. Is that all of your name?”

“Drummond. Jacaranda Drummond.” She had already given that name to the Varvani madam—even though it was not her own—along with references to two other Zamos houses. A self-important man, this.

The Keymaster's office was very small; Barr was forced to wait outside again. The upper half of the wall facing the door was slotted to hold code-card files of employee information, as in other houses where Jacaranda had worked, and the lower was a panel with hundreds of hooks holding little gold locks and keys. A second wall was composed of tiny doors with ostentatious complicated hasp locks, and probably contained client information. Or perhaps not. Perhaps all this was for show and deception. Another wall was lined with screens that looked into hallways, offices, and whatever retiring rooms were in use. There was no day or night in Zamos's brothel.

“Not much flesh to you, is there, dear?”

She said with rouged lips: “I do what I can to make it effective.”

“Tik-tik!
And I am sure you shall!” He ran a black-enameled claw down her arm very lightly. “Here is something to wear around your neck.” A little gold lock in the shape of a heart or vulva. “Let me put it on you.” The claws circling her neck with a narrow cold line. “Piri'iryk says that you can swim.”

Purple feathers given a name. “A little.”

“Good. You will go into the tank with the delphine.”

“Delphine?”

“We call her that, not having other names for her kind,
whatever they are.” No questions please. “In structure she is basically Miry”—an approximate word for Sol III popularized by the Russians—“and the dolphin of your world is an intelligent animal—so there you are.”

“Yes, Keymaster.”

“Run along now, dear, Piri'iryk will tell you all about it and outfit you. Up two floors and second door on your right.”

It is not very easy to see expressions on Kylkladi faces, though there are a thousand fluttering gestures that express what a Kylklad feels. Jacaranda did not know very many of them.

Piri'iryk's office was even smaller than the Keymaster's; it was also lined with slots, but by their symbols these held key-cards to a thousand other closets and cupboards. The Kylklad was waiting for her. “There you are.” She plucked a card from its slot: “Come,” and with a feather-draped arm led Jacaranda along and through the narrow hallways she had traversed the night before. Lit by artificial light, they looked no different, but Jacaranda felt the brush of a feather across her ribs, the touch of a long silvered claw on the prominent vertebra between her shoulder blades. Barr followed along, silently plodding. “Here.” The Kylklad woman seemed less stupid today. Evidently she did not need much sleep. She stopped before a door and slotted the card.

The entrance opened into a vast storeroom of costumes and parts of costumes. Piri'iryk looked at Jacaranda with a beady eye. “Underwater . . .”

Jacaranda waited.

“This one, I think . . . try it.”

A tube of blue, green, and silver spangles like fish scales. Jacaranda stepped out of her torn finery and pulled it on. It fitted her quick, not covering anything. “I'll need waterproof Pinxid makeup.”

“That will not be necessary.”

A diamond light in the bright fixed eye made Jacaranda think of escape routes. “Is the delphine woman a professional?”

“You will teach her whatever she needs to know.”

That was it, then. They were not seriously hiring her on for her experience. She had been ticked, and they knew her. And they seemed to be willing to sacrifice Kobai.

All in my mind?

No. She had the dread conviction. She had had friends and lovers who were snuffed . . . The Lyhhrt doctor, maybe, had twigged her, the only one she could think of. But he had tried to warn her: more than tried. He had warned her fair and square. If it was true, Kobai would not need any experience.

The appearance of Barr should have warned her; if she had killed him—there would have been an excuse to snuff her more conventionally and right away.

She sniffed. “I don't work in aquatics or with nonprofessionals,” she said firmly. “Even my rotten gentle-Johnny can do better than that for me.”

“You do not want work, then.”

“Yes I do, but not this kind.”

“This is all we have, dems'l. We took you in and sheltered you when you did not want to have much to do with your pimp. And now you want to go back to him! Do you specialize in hurt-sex?”

“You want me to pay you back.”

“It seems reasonable. One short act for a well-paying audience . . . don't you agree?”

She doubted she could handle two of them. Piri'iryk's neck was very scrawny, but she bristled with home-grown weaponry: the talons, the horny mouth and ankle-spurs; she had the advantage of home ground.

And it did seem reasonable. “I suppose so,” said Jacaranda. She had nowhere to run in this ant-heap of winding tunnels and twisted cul-de-sacs. Alarms would harry her down.

Piri'iryk pulled open a drawer, one of the many set into the wall, and found a wire cage studded with cheap jewels and plated with imitation gold. “Here is your imper helm.” Jacaranda put it on and fastened it. “And your oxygen mask.” This was in the shape of a white scallop shell worn with the flutes raying upward; it had slanting eyepieces set into it, and inside, nose tubes that curved up inward. The three mini-cartridges together would last half a stad. Crossing her fingers mentally, she fitted the tubes into her nostrils and sniffed. The usual stale smell, nothing to make her dizzy or drop dead; she had a moment's flicker of hope.

“This capsule is a little off.” She pointed to a crystal that was slightly discolored. Without a word Piri'iryk opened a tiny drawer and gave her one in an unbroken package.

Barr and the Kylklad followed her down the corridors where she had come last night feeling the momentary false safety. Jacaranda did not claim a vivid imagination, but it seemed to her as if all the office workers and all the professionals not in the retiring rooms were turning in chairs or slings or harnesses to look at her. Kylklad, Solthree, Dabiri, a Tignit in bubble-helmet, a Lyhhrt in brushed silver, the faunish stripling who had played with the satyr, looking as if he had not quite wakened from leafy sleep. In fur, feather, or spangle, they stared at her affectlessly, with flat eyes. Piri'iryk's clogs hammered the floor, her talons and feathers grazed now Jacaranda's shoulder and neck, now her thigh. At no time were the two alone.