Palace (66 page)

‘Yeah,’ Vida said. ‘Let’s get it over with.’

* * *

Somewhere around the fourteens Hi realized that Riva was never going to make an attempt to destroy Rico’s deen sig loop. Through his cyberarm’s grid link he received the news that Kata was safely captured and Vida safely married. Riva had no reason left to wander into his trap. Since the cyberdrugs were wearing off, he could feel his body aching and complaining. He left the Map, disengaged his cyberarm from its jacks, and stood up, stretching, to find Molos waiting in the doorway. The Lep had dressed himself in the dirty grey rags that meant mourning to his people.

‘How long have you been there?’ Hi said. ‘You could have taken that other chair.’

‘I just arrived.’ Molos limped in and sat down with a long hiss. ‘I’ve come to ask a favour, Hivel. I called the prison. They won’t let me see my brother. They think I represent a threat to security.’

‘I’ll get hold of Dukayn.’

‘Thank you.’ Molos leaned back in the chair. ‘I’m very tired. I never thought that this particular present would turn into a past, that Kata - that Nalet, I can use his real name again

- would ever really be caught. Now he has no future.’

‘Yeah, sure doesn’t.’ Hi gestured at the mourning clothes. ‘He’s the last bloodkin you have left, isn’t he?’

‘Yes. These rags are for the line of Tal, not for him.’

‘For their sake, I’m sorry.’

‘Thank you. But for your son’s sake, I’m glad Nalet is going to die.’

They shared a silence.

‘You’ve probably guessed this already,’ Hi said at last. ‘Riva never showed up to try to protect him.’

‘Yes, I assumed that you’d be celebrating a victory if you’d tagged her. Things look grim on that front. I logged on using the Gate just at the twelves, as we’d planned. I went to her protected area in the old Citizen Assist net and found it destroyed.’

‘What?’

‘Wiped clean away. The revenant data is gone, completely gone, not a routing mark, not a trace, nothing. I didn’t want to contact you on the Map, of course, and spoil your trap.’

‘It didn’t matter. We’ve lost her.’

‘Not forever. Do you really think she’ll be able to stay off the Map?’

‘Oh no. She’s too damn clever for that.’

‘Not clever enough. We’ll be on our guard now.’

‘Yeah, yeah, but how the hell did she figure out we’ve been spying on her?’

‘She couldn’t. There is no way that she could have known without us knowing she knew. She must have panicked when she discovered Rico’s looping input icon. That was very clever of your nephew, by the way.’

‘I thought so, yeah.’ Hi found himself thinking of Arno. He shoved the thought away. ‘Where is Rico, anyway? Did you see him when you came in?’

‘No. I thought he’d be at the contract ceremony.’

‘Not likely.’

‘Are you going to Vida’s reception? I assume you’ve been invited. She invited me, but I won’t bring my mourning into her happiness.’

‘She did, but I’ll see her at the guild dinner instead. Let’s see what Dukayn can do for you. I’ll just give him a call.’

* * *

Rico couldn’t remember exactly when he’d decided to go to Pleasure Sect. He went to the compound first, showered, and changed his coveralls for some of the non-guild clothes hanging in his old closet. The house seemed so empty that he left almost immediately. At the wiretrain station the E train bound for Pleasure Sect slid in first, and without thinking, as if he’d planned it all along, he boarded.

In a drizzling fog he walked down the Boulain until he found the square where he’d first seen Vida, talking to a Lifegiver at the festival. Two weeks ago - had it only been two weeks?

In the near-rain the square stood deserted, but when he looked up he saw Vida or rather images of Vida looming above him on the enormous public vidscreens. In her flowing green gown she stood smiling next to Wan, posed with pen in hand at the special table for signing the contract, handed flowers to a small girl in the congregation, wagged a coy finger at her new husband, posed with Sister Romero. In the centre window her portrait gleamed, maybe twenty feet on a side, smiling down at the world. Her red hair hung unbound and free, and he found himself remembering the way it stuck to her face with sweat when he made love to her. With an inarticulate mutter of pain, Rico turned away and started walking. He thought of going to The Close, but he realized that it held too many memories of her. They’d be talking about her, all the girls, envying her. Maybe the boys would, too. He was willing to bet that Wan Peronida was the kind of guy who’d appeal to that kind of boy. The thought gave him a great deal of satisfaction.

‘Hey buddy, looking for some fun?’

She stood shivering in a doorway, a skinny girl dressed in a black skirt above her knees, a black loose shirt hanging half-open. She was pretty, but only in the way that all women on Palace were pretty, bland except for her red hair, cropped short like a boy’s, the same colour as her Mark. Dyed, probably, but it caught him, that soft coppery gleam.

‘I can get you drugs, too,’ she said. ‘Whatever you want.’

‘I don’t want drugs. How much?’

‘Depends on what you want me to do.’ She was smiling now, stepping out of her doorway, still shivering in the damp air. ‘I can do a whole lot of things. Any way you want it.’

‘Let’s see some of them. A hundred?’

‘Sure.’ She brightened and slipped her arm through his. ‘I work just down here. Let’s get out of this rain.’

Down here turned out to be a cheap hotel sandwiched between a bar and an empty shop front. In a faded gold lobby a clerk wearing a grubby grey shirt sat behind a counter. When he saw the girl, he grunted once and returned to his vidscreen. He was watching Vida’s recepdon after the ceremony, or rather some condensed version of it on the evening interactives, and he seemed totally absorbed in the images. Rich people danced in beautiful clothes inside a dimly-lit hall with an inlaid jadium floor.

When the red-haired girl tugged on his arm, Rico was glad to follow. They took a smelly lift booth up a floor and walked down a narrow hall to her room. She lived there, Rico realized, rather than just working out of it. He could tell by the cheap knick-knacks on the dresser, the clothes hung neady in the closet, the landscape holo in a cheap frame on the wall, the blue and purple coverlet laid over the hotel blankets on the bed. Out of the window he could see the street, slick with a real rain, now, as the streedights glimmered on.

‘I’m so cold.’ She sat down on the bed and curled her arms around her knees. ‘At least it’s warm in here tonight. They’re so fucking cheap with the heat, usually. What’s your name?’

‘Rico. What’s yours?’

‘Betta. Come on and warm me up, Rico. You’re awfully cute.’

‘Think so?’ Rico took off his damp jacket and tossed it onto the dirty blue armchair. For an answer she pulled her shirt over her head and threw it onto the floor. When he sat down beside her she turned, half-naked into his arms.

* * *

At her reception Vida danced with everyone but Wan. For the entire afternoon, her new marriage partner sat and drank, or stood and drank, or walked around holding a drink. In the evening, at the formal dinner, sponsored by the Conjoint Guild Council of the city, he did eat a decent meal. Since they were sitting together at the head of the banquet table, she could see that he was making some effort to sober up, refusing a second glass of wine, asking for water instead of an afterdinner drink. The long banqueting room with its sealed windows grew hot, the air thick with the smell of food and excited saccule waiters. Sweat beaded on Wan’s face and ran, dampening the collar of his Fleet smock. What with the conversations of two hundred people and the music, the noise stabbed at her ears and threatened a headache. She knew that she had to stay or disappoint the very people whose high opinions would cement her career.

There were speeches. Wan began drinking again. Vida gobbled ice cream like a child and tried to remember Aleen’s advice about customers. If they were really loathsome you were supposed to concentrate on how funny they looked, panting and sweating while you didn’t really care. But Wan was in his way beautiful. She should concentrate on that, she supposed, and remember the way he looked on the day of disaster, so much in command, so much in love with danger. Her mind insisted on drifting to Rico.

The speeches ended. When Wan went to put his glass down on the table, he missed the edge and dropped it. In the general confusion, with people getting up, calling for coats, talking and laughing, no-one noticed. Leni appeared, also red-faced and sweating, to steady Wan when he got up.

‘Vida,’ Leni said. ‘You go on ahead, okay? Wanito, we’re going to the men’s room. I’m gonna run your head under the cold water.’

Wan muttered something in Helane. From the way Leni winced, Vida was glad she understood none of it. As they walked, more or less steadily, out the door, Rico’s uncle came up beside her.

‘May I escort you home, Vida?’

‘Thank you, Se Hivel. I’d appreciate that.’

When they left the room, Jak fell in behind them a respectful distance away; he wore a comm set that linked him with Tower Security. Even with the ranks of lift booths that East Tower sported, the size of the crowd forced a long wait. Vida let Hi lead her down a side corridor to wait in a welcome draught of air from the cooling system. Jak waited at the juncture with the main hall. The silence soothed her, and she yawned.

‘I’m sorry,’ she said. ‘It’s been an awfully long day.’

‘You bet, kid. You must be ready to drop.’

‘I am, yeah, but at least I’m still alive. You don’t think Kata’s going to escape, do you?’

Although Vida was expecting the usual joke about her taste in fiction, Hi considered the problem seriously.

‘No,’ he said at last. ‘Central Detention is the best planned prison in the Pinch. I helped install the cyberlocks, and they modelled the surveillance on Dukayn’s system here. And beyond the fancy stuff, it’s got damned thick walls.’

‘Okay. Oh, I want to ask you - Dukayn said something to me this afternoon, just when I saw him at the reception, and I didn’t really hear all of it. He said Rico saved my life.’

‘That’s about it, yeah.’ Hi smiled briefly. ‘Well, he wasn’t the only one, but he figured out how to track Kata down before he could get too far in.’

Vida turned away and felt her pulse pounding in her throat like a trapped bird. Why wasn’t Rico here? She wanted to bury herself into the shelter of his arms, stammer out her thanks and tell him she loved him.

‘Hey, what’s wrong?’ Hi was speaking softly. ‘You afraid he won’t love you any more? That’s the last thing you need to worry about.’

Vida felt tears well and spill. She rubbed them away, felt her make-up smear along with them, and realized that Hi was holding out a wad of tissue.

‘Thanks.’ She took them and wiped tears and make-up both away. ‘Why do you Cyberguild people always have pockets full of tissue? Rico’s the same.’

‘For wiping input jacks. They generate a static field, and dust sticks to them.’

‘That makes sense.’ She glanced around, saw no receptacle, dropped the tissues for a cleaning bot to devour when the crews came through. ‘Thank you. I mean, for - well, just thanks.’

‘Sure.’ Hi was looking down the corridor. ‘The crowd’s thinned out. We can go down now.’

At the door of her suite Vida wished that she could invite him in and keep him talking, knew it was impossible, and began wishing instead that Wan would forget where he was supposed to sleep that night. When she walked in, she found the high boots from his dress uniform lying in the middle of the gather floor. The narrow trousers were hanging over the arm of the sofa. Down the hall a light glowed from the master bedroom.

‘Wan?’

No answer. She found the smock of his uniform, medals and all, lying in the hall, his underwear on the floor of the bedroom. Wan himself sprawled naked on his stomach across the bed. He’d thrown the covers onto the floor, apparently, and then fallen asleep clutching a pillow. His damp hair curled around his neck. Seeing Wan abstractly in the strong modelling of a bedside lamp, she had to admire how beautifully built he was, tall and lean, muscled like the athlete he was at heart. Just as she allowed herself to hope that he’d passed out and wouldn’t wake till morning, he roused, pulling the pillow under his chest to prop himself up and yawning. ‘Sorry,’ he said.

‘It’s okay. It’s been a long day.’

‘Yeah.’

Vida took off her jewellery and laid it on a dresser top, tapped the smart thread at the neck of her gown and let it open and fall. Underneath she was wearing a long slip of the same green. In the mirror panel above the dresser she could see Wan watching her with an utterly unreadable expression. She picked up the gown and tossed it onto a chair, then pulled off the slip with a toss of her head to free her hair. She dropped it on top of the gown and walked over to the bed. Obligingly he rolled to one side so she could lie down next to him. He smelled of sweat mingled with the sweetness of half-metabolized drink. First customer, she thought. Rico was something different.

Thinking of him that way she could smile and cuddle close to him, run her fingers down his sweaty chest, mottled with dark hair. He laid one hand along her face and kissed her, made a small appreciative noise and kissed her again, then slid his hand down and found her breasts. She closed her eyes and thought of dancing, of going through the motions of a dance with a partner that she didn’t know, who didn’t matter. She was aware of every caress he gave her, rough but not brutal, and of every kiss; she could arch her back and murmur in pretended enjoyment; but all the while she wondered what was taking him so long. A few kisses more, and she reached down to fondle him. He was still soft.

At her touch he tensed and moved away. She opened her eyes to find him staring at her, his face set like stone.

‘Wan, you’ve been drinking all damn day,’ she said. ‘That’s all it means. We can wait, you know.’

With a wrench he pulled away from her and flopped onto his stomach again, his arms wrapped around the pillow. He looked so miserable that she reached out and stroked his hair.