Flesh and Gold (31 page)

Her hope had been to attract attention and help, and if that did not work to kill Kati'ik with one hard blow. Disturbances meant nothing here and Trax would not let her near Kati'ik.

Gobo, who was staring at her, said, “Kati'ik, stop—” but Kati'ik had grasped Zella's arm, while another set of muscles came from the workout areas with an O'e foreman.

This is it, Zella
. The long walk with the depthless onyx
eyes reflecting her. She snarled, could feel her mouth muscles working like a trapped animal's, “Let go of me!”

The robot began rocking again and another one drew up beside it. Trax grabbed a baton from the O'e foreman's hand and advanced on one of the robots. Three or four O'e had gathered, and there was a moment of stillness as if everyone was in check.

It was broken by a spy hawk that flew with a pneumatic pop out of its nest beside an airshaft, fluttering and squawking,
“Awk-ik!
Front Office asap!” There was a startling sense of the ordinary in the cry of this messenger, and every one twitched as if coming out of a spell.

“Kati'ik! Front Office asap!
Awk!”
The spy hawk flew home.

Kati'ik stood in a stillness of her own. “Me?”

“Hello, Kati'ik! You're wanted at Front Office.” Spartakos's warm cheerful voice came down the hall before him.

Kati'ik whirled. “Don't give me orders, you machine!” She spun her head on her twisty neck and scoured all those around her with her black onyx eyes. “Get back to work, you! And take Sztoyko into that office and keep her there!”

Gobo pulled himself together and yelled, “I'm damned if I will! You can go fuck yourself! No fighter of mine is going to be abused!”

“We'll see about that!”

“Sztoyko is to be reassigned,” Spartakos said. She gave him one fierce look and scuttled down the hall with her clogs clacking.

Zella stood still. Just stood, with her arms wrapped around her and the sores burning on her face.

Gobo came up, staring at her. “You sure you're all right, Zel?”

“I don't know,” Zella said, “I guess I'll find out soon,” and bit her lip to keep from giggling.

Gobo scratched his head and went back into his office.

Trax and his companion were still confronting the two robots. The O'e moved off without fuss or hurry, but the robots remained crouched where they were. There was an odd staredown for another moment of silence. Perhaps the two bullies with stunners had heard of the rebellion of a thousand powerful robots in the Biological Station on Barrazan V, but the machines made no move in their direction. They shrugged and went off to other tasks, and almost immediately after the robots went off as well.

“Come along, Zella Sztoyko,” Spartakos said. He urged her toward the escalators.

“Is that all there was?” Zella asked. “It's all over?”

“For you it is.”

“Nothing happened.”

“What did you want?”

“She wanted to kill me. I'd thought it all out. We were going to walk down that hall, and I was going to fight. I was going to smash her face till it split and watch that damned slimy orange blood-stuff run out.”

“It would not have happened that way. Of course, you knew that. Come quickly now, before Kati'ik discovers that I am the only one who wanted her in Front Office.”

“I'm really reassigned?”

“I am sending you to Portside City. You will find work there if you want it. You will have to go by way of the underground rail to Athenae Mills because there is nothing flying from here, and the Freightmaster will give you a lift. It is not first class travel, but I promised Ned Gattes that I would send you to him if I had to pilot a ship myself, and this is the nearest I can manage.”

Zella murmured, “Ned . . .” But relief did not quite lift her heart yet, and she was left to dispose of her fury and hatred however she could.
It's like having sex and calling it off just
when you've started to come
. An unpleasant thought that described the feeling too well.

Fthel V:
Manador and Maggie

YOUR HEART
'
S DESIRE. SATISFACTION GUARANTEED
.

When the message turned up on Manador's terminal it did not excite her much. It was a damned boring rainy day in Starry Nova and nothing new had come along for a ten-day. A lot of spongers and PAYMENT DUE notices, solicitation from the Friends of Shanghaied and Marooned Workers, the business as usual.

HOW MUCH DOES MY HEART
'
S DESIRE COST
? she asked.

YOU MUST SAVE AN IMPORTANT PERSON AT SMALL RISK TO YOURSELF
.

She sat back and looked at the symbols saying these words, and remembered the deadly little streamer showing Jacaranda . . .

HOW
?

GO INTO ZAMOS
'
S GAMBLAR AND BRING OUT ONE OF THE O
'
E
.

THAT
'
S NOT EXACTLY SMALL RISK. O
'
E ARE BONDSERVANTS. I
'
D NEVER BE ABLE TO BRING ONE OF THEM OUT
.

THEY ARE NOT BONDSERVANTS. YOU KNOW HOW TO TAKE CARE OF IT. YOU HAVE DONE THAT SORT OF THING BEFORE
.

AND WHEN DO I RECEIVE THE HEART
'
S DESIRE I DON
'
T EVEN KNOW ABOUT
?

THIS MOMENT IF YOU WILL PROMISE. WE MUST HAVE THE O
'
E WOMAN VERY SOON
.

WHO ARE YOU, COMMUNICATOR
?

THE LESS YOU KNOW THE HAPPIER YOU WILL BE
.

YOU MAY BE AN ENEMY
.

NO EVIL ONE TRIES TO SAVE THE LIFE OF AN INNOCENT PERSON
.

Manador did not push further.

I
'
M NOT SURE I LIKE THE LOOK OF IT
.

YOU ARE AN EXTREMELY CAPABLE WOMAN WHO HAS ARRANGED HER LIFE VERY WELL EXCEPT FOR ONE THING AND YOU WANT THAT MORE THAN ANYTHING. YOU SHALL HAVE IT. ONLY GIVE US ONE WORD
.

WHAT DO YOU THINK I WANT SO MUCH
?

A RECORD OF EVENTS
.

She considered for a moment. The day was very dull.

YES
.

WATCH CAREFULLY
.

Without pause she was looking at the body of Jacaranda lying in the Florence-flask tank, and the dark red woman with the tail, dead or alive she could not tell, being lifted out. Apparently alive, for she was dropped like an exotic fish into a transparent bag full of water and carried away quickly by two Varvani.

They went away and came back, or two others came—Manador could not tell them apart through a camera usually angled in the corner of a ceiling—and the thinner one climbed down by a knotted rope, tied it around Jacaranda's ankles, and the other Varvani hauled her up. Then the rope was let down again, and the first one climbed up. There was sound with this sequence, as rough and unedited as the camera work, and the Varvani were muttering in a language of their own.

The camera drew back and showed a group of Miry, or some other Solthrees coming up to the platform. They were wealthy and ravaged by the depths of their pleasures. In spite of the poor sound it was clear that they were complaining about the performance and—Manador was not quite sure which—wanted their money back or another ticket.

Cutaway, a new scene. She recognized the bouncer who usually lurked by the gateway, along with another bruiser with the same kind of build and tattoos; his mouth was red from what he was chewing. This was the one who had come to meet and accompany Jacaranda on one relay toward her death.

They went down ever-narrower halls lined with doors, finally paused at one and Red-Mouth pounded on it. It was deeply solid, but did not seem to hurt his knuckles. There was no answer. He thumped it again. After a moment he twisted about, bent one leg for purchase, put both sets of fingers in the hand-well and wrenched. Manador watched the muscles swarming under his skin like animals. The door hissed open, rammed back into its socket with a
thunk!
rebounding to slide closed and back open, and he reached in and hoicked out two shivering, squeaking Kylkladi into the arms of the bouncer.

Manador recognized them by their green and purple dyed feathers. The green one was the brothel's Keymaster with the sore eyes and dark glasses, and the other the madam who had escorted Jacaranda, with those little claw-flicks, into the amphitheater. These wretches were dragged along corridor after corridor while the curious watched, a Bimanda woman dressed in iridescent
uki
scales, two Kylkladi with feathers dyed pink and vermilion, a seven-world score of others. Some were hugging themselves with sudden cold.

Finally the procession reached a door opening into a more spacious office where the two Kylkladi were shoved in to face a triumvirate of two Solthrees and a Khagodi, a big Southern woman and the tallest person in the room.

The Solthree woman launched herself at the Keymaster, screaming, Put her in the window? Who did you think would buy her? And you other one, brainless turd? tried to use her for a snuff act? what did you think you were?

But the Solthree male snarled and pulled her aside, punched the beaked face till it split and bled orange. All the while yelling while the Keymaster squawked and feathers flew, then wrenched off the dark glasses to bare the sore blinking eyes. While the two thugs held the Kyklad's shuddering wing-arms this Solthree plucked the eyes from the shrieking Keymaster's head with thumbs and fingers. Piri'irik, secured in the thick hands of the bouncers, had been screaming long before the first blow fell.

Manador watched steadily until the two bundles of ragged feathers and broken limbs were tossed in the trash heap. The screen abruptly went blank until the symbols appeared:

ARE YOU SATISFIED
?

YES
.

WOULD YOU LIKE A REPLAY
?

NO
.

ARE YOU STILL WILLING TO BRING OUT THE O
'
E
?

DO I HAVE A CHOICE
?

OF COURSE YOU DO IF YOU CAN SHOW CAUSE. BUT YOU ARE AN HONORABLE WOMAN AND ONE WHO IS WILLING TO TAKE A DARE
.

YOU FLATTER ME. BUT ENLIGHTEN ME ANYWAY
.

HERE IS A PICTURE OF THE O
'
E. HER NAME IS AI
'
IA
.

Manador looked at the still of Ai'ia for a moment.

WILL YOU ALLOW ME TO TAKE HARD COPY
?

YES BUT DESTROY IT AFTER YOU USE IT
.

CAN YOU GET PICTURES OF ZAMOS WOMEN RIGHT AWAY
?

YES
.

Inside worker.

SHOW ME EVERY WOMAN THERE OF AI
'
IA
'
S FACE AND BODY TYPE
.

They turned up on the screen, blue, bluish, greenish, pink, creamy, brown, and tan, with red, blue, green, orange, yellow, white, pink, gold, brown, black, and purple hair.

Going through them a second time she pushed STOP and wrote:

THAT ONE. MAGGIE MELADY. SEND HER TO ME TONIGHT. CAN YOU GET SOME MONEY IN A HURRY
?

I CAN ARRANGE CREDIT BUT IT IS VERY RISKY JUST NOW
.

REAL MONEY I MEANT
.

NO. YOU MUST FIND THAT FOR YOURSELF. YOU WILL BE REIMBURSED
.

WHERE DO YOU WANT THE O
'
E DELIVERED
?

KEEP HER WHERE YOU PLEASE UNTIL SHE IS CALLED FOR. IT WILL BE LESS THAN ONE DAY. PREFERABLY NOT IN YOUR HOME
.

YOU CAN BET ON IT
.

YOU WILL NOT HEAR FROM THIS SOURCE AGAIN. I WILL MAKE ARRANGEMENTS TO REIMBURSE YOU
.

HOW
?

SOMEONE VERY FAMILIAR WILL BRING IT TO YOU
.

THERE
'
S STILL NO LEGAL DOCUMENT
.

YOU HAVE MY OATH AS THE DESCENDANT OF AN ANCIENT RACE. IF THE MONEY IS NOT PAID WITH INTEREST WITHIN ONE YEAR I WILL ANNIHILATE MYSELF
.

THAT
'
S A VERY WEIGHTY OATH. GOOD ENOUGH. I GUESS
.

ONE MORE THING. DO NOT BE INSULTED MANADOR BUT WHATEVER PLEASURE YOU TAKE IT IS NOT TO BE WITH THIS ONE
.

NO FEAR. SHE
'
S NOWHERE NEAR MY TYPE. AND I
'
M SAVING HER FOR JACARADA
'
S SAKE
.

THANK YOU FOR YOUR COOPERATION. FAREWELL
.

GOOD-BYE
.

Manador did not thank the communicator for the fulfillment of her heart's desire. She shut down her terminal, lit a dopestick, and spent the rest of the afternoon thinking long thoughts.

Maggie Melady was a cheerful young woman with a coarse
face framed by brown curly hair. “Who wants me, you? I don't do much fancy stuff.” She grinned. “I'm the basic training course for young muggsters from the Urgha Mines that wants to brag they had a whore at a Zamos house.”

“I want something fancy from you, dear, but it isn't sex. How would you like twenty-five big yellow ones?”

“Russki rooblies, real toothbiters? I'd take lessons in fancy dancing for them! Shit, I could even open up my own house!”

“Better not let Zamos find out.”

“Nyet, back in the mines I meant, when I'd earned passage. No fucking at all?”

“Not with me. I want to play a trick, not be one. Here's the game: look at this picture.”

“That's Ai'ia, she's one of the O'e. The house put her on the job bussing the Joint, but she gave somebody a kind hello and offered a drink, and they kicked the shit out of her, thought she was,” Maggie sniggered, “trying to rise above her station.”