A Dark and Hungry God Arises (23 page)

Grinding his teeth, Milos gave the terminal a voice-print to use for id. His glare suggested that he was thinking of new ways to humiliate Angus.

With a grin to conceal the twist of fear in his stomach, Angus asked the terminal for two rooms in a bar-and-sleep on the cruise.

Of course, he and Milos could have stayed aboard Trumpet in relative privacy. And the Bill was sure to monitor any rooms they hired on Billingate. But for that very reason they were safer in a bar-and-sleep. The Bill would worry less about men who didn't try to hide from him.

Because he wanted to nauseate his second, he booked rooms in a place called Ease-n-Sleaze, which was located near the center of the cruise. Then he took Milos by the arm and said in an acid whisper, 'Look on the bright side. This way all those bastards you've been talking to can find you just by' - he logged off the terminal - 'check-ing. Won't that be nice? And you can see anybody you want without' - he tapped his head - 'asking Lebwohl's permission. '

Thanks so much, ' Milos replied, making an effort to match Angus' malice. 'I didn't know it was going to be this easy. '

'It isn't. ' Angus bared his teeth. 'I'm just trying to lull you into a false sense of security. '

'Please don't threaten me anymore, ' Milos muttered darkly. 'I'm already so scared' - he glared straight at Angus - 'I could just shit. '

Angus tightened his grip for a moment. 'I know. But you ought to be careful what you do about that. Someday you're going to get your balls bitten off.

'Shall we go?' Dropping Milos' arm, he gestured toward the lifts.

Milos complied like a man who was so busy devising complicated forms of murder that he couldn't think about anything else.

The cruise wasn't Billingate's sole lodging sector, but it was much larger than the alternatives. Occasionally the Bill had guests for whom he catered privately. And sometimes ships were willing to pay the extra charge for rooms which were better furnished and less exposed; perhaps because the captain feared he would never get his people back if he let them loose; perhaps because the crew had vices they didn't want to share. But every other human who came to Thanatos Minor stayed either aboard ship or on the cruise.

It filled several of the middle levels of the installation.

Toward the surface were the various worksheets and storehouses which supported the docks and the shipyard, as well as the hermetic Amnion sector; toward the core were the Bill's personal strongroom, his surgical facilities, and Billingate's power-station. Between the surface and the core lived, drank, slept, worked, caroused, cheated, fucked, raped, pandered, pleased and fought the people who supplied - and the people who enjoyed - Billingate's more personal resources.

Perhaps because of the constriction of the halls which the denizens called 'streets', or perhaps because there were millions of tons of rock impending overhead, the cruise seemed to throng with people. Billingate's population was reputed to number roughly five thousand; but the cruise gave the impression that twice that many men and women were here at any given moment. Of course, some of them came from the ships docked around the installation. The rest must have been missed by unin-formed estimates.

After the first assault of smell and light, after the first look at the crowded streets and windows, bars and dens, the most remarkable aspect of the cruise was the proportion of women. Women were rare in what human space called 'entertainment/lodging sectors'. Those who lived on stations generally had their work or their families, and little reason to mingle with transients. And women who were themselves transient — who traveled or crewed on ships - visited entertainment/lodging sectors for what those places supplied, not because they wished to be used as supplies.

On the cruise, however —

The Bill must have scoured human space to attract so many. From sinkholes on Earth and the depraved recesses of stations, from illegal shipyards and desperate ships, he must have begged, purchased and betrayed them by the hundreds to get them here. According to how they were viewed, they were either the glory or the slime of the cruise: women who enjoyed what they did, what they got, and became rich; women on nerve-juice or other drugs who barely kept themselves alive; women with surgical adjustments, bio-retributive and otherwise, who had no choice. No spacefaring illegal who came to Billingate could honestly say that he'd ever had so much beauty and ruin to choose from.

On special occasions, Angus himself had taken advantage of a woman or two here. But that was before he'd known Morn; before he'd debased her as far as his hate and his considerable imagination could go; before she'd begun to break his heart.

Now he tasted the air, watched the lights, and leered at the women as if he were in his natural element at last.

But neither he nor his datacore had any interest in female recreation.

For his part, Milos pursed his mouth and frowned like a man who found most women - and perhaps sex itself

- vaguely disgusting.

Angus had no time to enjoy his second's disgust, however. He had other priorities.

The air which greeted him as he left the lift was exactly as he remembered it: too hot; inadequately processed; clotted with smoke, perfume, sweat, rot, estrogen, vomit, booze, and every other human stench he could think of.

The lighting may have been deliberately garish, full of colors that screamed and shades that whimpered; or it may have simply been made garish by the accreted grime of the atmosphere.

Nevertheless neither the air nor the light blinded him to the EM aura of the bugeyes which ranged along the ceiling in all directions, or the telltale emissions of the guards and wires with communications prostheses. As impartial as death, the Bill tried to keep track of everything that happened on Thanatos Minor.

Some of the guards were easy to spot. They were obvious because they patrolled the cruise as if they had nowhere particular to go; and because they carried weapons - or had weapons installed in their arms. Angus counted six within fifty meters. But others - the Vires', he called them - were disguised. Their communication equipment was hidden in their clothes or their bodies, or camouflaged as something else - an artificial hand here, a prosthetic jaw there. Still Angus recognized them all. Their EM emissions were as plain as placards. Anything he said in their hearing would be instantly recorded in the Bill's databanks.

The computers and personnel charged with sifting and collating such information must have been inundated by it.

One of the wires had a more complex emission signature. That attracted Angus' attention. When he located its source amid the jostling surge, he found himself looking at a man whose head had been cut off and attached to a mechanical neck which could swivel in any direction.

That, Angus decided, was the duty officer in command of this section of the cruise.

With a slight nudge, he turned Milos to glance at the man. Watch out for that goon, ' he whispered. 'If we do anything the Bill might not like, he can react faster than Operations. '

Milos nodded. Scowling at a woman with a pneumatic bosom, he breathed, 'What are we going to do that the Bill might not like?'

Angus grinned humorlessly. 'Don't ask me. You probably know more about that than I do. '

Satisfied that he'd located all the guards in his vicinity, he launched himself into the throng, heading down the congested street toward Ease-n-Sleaze.

Milos probably did know more than he did about what he might do. His datacore didn't answer that kind of question. It kept track of the guards for him, collating auras and vectors so that he seemed to know where they all were without effort; but so far it hadn't unlocked any new information - or issued any new directives. Apparently his only immediate assignment was to install himself on the cruise and behave as normally as possible.

That meant a room in Ease-n-Sleaze; it meant a seat in the bar and a few cheap drinks. Which suited him fine: for a while longer, he could cherish the totally false impression that he was doing exactly what he would have done anyway.

Some distance down the street, Milos caught up with him. Anchoring himself at Angus' elbow, he muttered,

'I hope you're having fun. You probably think this place is heaven. '

'Don't you like it?'

Milos didn't appear to notice Angus' contempt. In a low, raw voice, as if he needed to swallow and couldn't, he said, 'It's like a city that's been taken over by a guttergang. Just one. Completely. No factions, no levers - no way to change anything. No escape. '

'Nobody to betray in exchange for a little protection, '

Angus put in. Then he added, 'Except me. And if you do that, you'll have to live in places like this the rest of your life. The cops'll fry you as soon as they get their hands on you. '

Milos' expression gave Angus another piece of reassurance. The nausea lurking at the back of his gaze was unmistakable.

The crowd rolled around Angus. Men and women bumped into him and stumbled or strode past; on their way, some of them flicked light fingers along his shipsuit, looking for valuables he didn't carry. Just for exercise, he would have liked to catch one of those hands - he could have done that easily - and break it. Nevertheless he let them go. He didn't want the guards and wires to focus their attention on him.

A woman stopped in front of him and offered to sell him a vial of nerve-juice. A man lurched into his way and asked if he had any nerve-juice to sell. A creature, apparently hermaphroditic, paused to clutch his/her crotch and stroke his/her breasts invitingly. Angus dismissed all such interruptions with a snarl and steered Milos on toward their destination.

The sign was like a shout blazoned up one wall, aggressive yellow and green:

Bar & Sleep

Fun & Frolic

YOU NAME IT:

IT'S HERE

As if he were coming home, Angus pulled Milos into the crowded doorway.

Left to the bar; right to what passed for the front desk.

Angus went right. At a small counter with nothing on it except a data terminal stood a man with a doomed and bitter air; he gave the impression that to punish a no-doubt minor infraction his employer - the Bill or some subsidiary profiteer - had implanted an unstable explosive in his stomach. He didn't look up as Angus slapped a palm on the counter and said, 'Rooms. ' Instead he asked distantly, 'Id?'

'Voice-print, ' Angus replied.

The man snorted as if this were an inferior answer. He touched a key on his terminal, then waited for Angus to go on.

Distinctly Angus articulated his name.

After a glance at his readout, the man sighed as if he were contemplating the gulf of his fate, 'Four twelve. '

At a nod from Angus, Milos announced his name.

'Four thirteen, ' the man responded in the same tone.

'Messages?' Angus inquired.

Still without raising his eyes, the man pointed at his readout. There's a message here for me. It says to make sure you pay for everything up front. '

Milos frowned a question.

Angus shrugged. The Bill just wants us to remember he doesn't trust us. '

Turning his back on the counter, he moved to the lift.

On the fourth level they found their rooms directly opposite the lift. Milos hung back as Angus approached four twelve, scanning hard for electromagnetic data.

Bugeyes along the corridor there and there. An intercom, id tag jack, and palm plate outside the door: normal wiring; no booby-traps. If the room itself held any surprises, their emissions didn't leak through the door.

'Anything to worry about?' Milos asked tensely.

Angus ignored the question. He wasn't worried himself: he was simply cautious. Balancing his weight so that he could jump in any direction, he told the intercom his name.

The door slid open.

The room was bigger than his cabin aboard Trumpet, but not much. The air was no better than the atmosphere outside Ease-n-Sleaze: apparently the room had recently been occupied by someone who like to smoke nic laced with dorphamphetamines. The nacreous walls were rank with stains; some of the splotches looked like old grease or blood. Two ersatz stainless steel chairs slumped against them. A ratty fabric like exhausted velcro covered the floor. Light the color of defeated neon spread from reflectors in the corners of the ceiling. A data terminal set into one wall gave him the means to contact people

- or spend money - without leaving his quarters. The bed probably knew almost as much about desperation and hate as he did.

Before his heart beat again, he was sure that the room was safe. It had its own bugeye, sure — privacy was an ambiguous concept anywhere in the Bill's domain. But the room itself wasn't dangerous - he could do whatever he wanted here. As long as he didn't mind being watched.

For completeness he checked the bathroom. Then he returned to Milos.

'Home sweet home, ' he announced. 'Let's see if yours is any better. '

Compelled by his zone implants to take care of his second, he confirmed that there was no material difference between his room and Milos'. Only the shade of the stains varied.

Milos hardly glanced at the room. He studied Angus'

face, looking for dangers; hints of alarm.

Concerned that Milos might feel driven to demand reassurance by issuing a Joshua order in the Bill's hearing, Angus growled sourly, 'It's like living beside a bugger.

Everything's recorded. You're safe - as long as you never do anything. ' By now he was sure that Milos knew enough about buggers to understand him.

Milos shrugged stiffly, as if he could feel the bugeyes pressing against his shoulder blades. Nevertheless he made an effort to play his part. 'If we never do anything, '

he asked plaintively, 'how are we going to have any fun?'

Angus snorted. Torn between what he wanted and what his programming required, he said, 'You should have thought of that before you got yourself on DA's shit list. ' Then, as if he were relenting, he added, We can at least get drunk. We probably won't get in trouble doing that. The Bill doesn't trust us, but he'll let us spend your money. '