“Hey, fella, what’cha lookin’ up?”
Magnus turned, surprised. Could someone really be talking to him?
It was a slender youth with shortish hair and very old eyes, fine-boned features, and a sinuous walk inside a body suit which was, fortuitously, totally opaque. “Saw y’ walk away from the skirt, pard. Interested in a little something else?”
It came to Magnus that he was being propositioned. He felt that odd sort of locking within him, and his face went neutral. “I thank you, no. My plans for the evening are already fixed.”
“Tightwad,” the young man said contemptuously. His left hip went suddenly transparent. He glanced at it, then up on a line with it, and saw a matronly looking, lumpy woman with hot eyes. Instantly forgetting Magnus, he strolled toward her.
The sickness settled by the whiskey rose again, and Magnus followed the signs down the concourse and through the automatic iris that passed for a door.
The corridor was ten times what the concourse had been, except that the businesses themselves were hidden by partitions with doors. Floating glaresigns and moving, three-dimensional displays lined the sides of the broad thoroughfare, making very clear what sort of goods or services were purveyed behind each door. In the center, overhead, dancing displays advertised various brands of products. Magnus was overwhelmed by simple profusion—and by the decadence of it all. Suddenly, he was glad that he had begun his introduction to modern civilization with the much smaller-scale milieu of Maxima. He had studied all of this in Fess’s data banks and 3DT displays, and it had prepared him for this, but not enough—the physical reality of it was stupefying.
So he cut it down to size. He took the first display that showed liquor pouring from an antique bottle into a glass, and went through the door.
There was a bar against one wall, tables and chairs in the center, and a line of closed booths against the far wall. Magnus could only imagine what went on in such privacy, and from the moans and gasps, he wasn’t sure he wanted to know. Looking at the displays behind the bar, he realized why—there were at least as many drugs on display as there were liquors.
“Name your poison,” said the man with the smoking dope-stick and traditional sleeve-garters, and Magnus didn’t doubt that he meant it. He scanned the bottles and pointed to something in a fluorescent purple. “That one.”
“Aldebaran Bouncer?” The man shrugged. “Your life, citizen.” He punched a combination on the machine in front of him. “Thumbprint.”
A glowing square appeared in front of Magnus, and he rolled the ball of his thumb across it. Didn’t they need to see the card?
Apparently not; the bartender nodded, satisfied, and took a brimming glass from the machine. He set it in front of Magnus.
Magnus stared; he hadn’t known it would be so large.
“ ‘Smatter? Don’t like it?”
Magnus shrugged, hoisted the tumbler, and drank. It seared his throat, and he could feel the fire trail all the way down into his belly, but it felt good somehow, burning away the shame that had soiled him within. He set the glass down, inhaled long and hard, and found the bartender staring at him. Magnus caught his breath, nodded, and said, “Good. Another.”
The bartender shook himself, shrugged, and said, “Your funeral. Thumb it again.”
Magnus rolled his thumb, and the bartender set another livid purple glass in front of him. Magnus took a bit longer with this one—it must have lasted two minutes. As he lowered the empty, he looked up to see the bartender watching him with a speculative look. “A girl?”
“Several of them.” Magnus pushed the empty glass toward him.
“Several!” The bartender snorted. “Lucky bozo! I’m doing good to get turned down by one! Thumb it.”
Magnus rolled his thumb across the plate and settled down to a single swallow at a time. He was beginning to feel numb inside, and that was good, very good. He studied the people around him, and found that a disconcerting number of them seemed to be looking his way. He scowled and locked stares with them, straightening to his full height, and one by one, they found something more interesting to look at.
Except for one man—in his thirties, at a guess—who was nowhere as tall as Magnus but had arms far longer than they should have been, and shoulders to match. He grinned back into Magnus’s glare and shuffled over toward him.
“Hey now, Orange!” the bartender snapped. “Let the kid alone!”
“Alone?” Orange stepped up close, grinning up at Magnus. “I wouldn’t think of it. You peaceable, kid?”
Magnus recognized a push for a fight when he saw one. Joy lit within him—at least it was something clean! “ ‘Orange’?” he said. “What sort of name is that?”
“Short for ‘orangutang.’ Wanna make something of it?”
“Juice,” Magnus said.
“Not in here!” the bartender yelped.
Orange grinned around at the crowd. “You’re all my witnesses—he tried to put the squeeze on me.” He lifted his hands, balling them into fists.
The bartender lifted his hand—with a nasty-looking little blaster in it. “Out!”
“Why, how inhospitable,” Magnus murmured. “But I was never one to stay where I wasn’t wanted.” He turned away to the door. Behind him, Orange grunted, “Then how come you’re still on Ceres?”
“You don’t want me, then?” Magnus said as he stepped through the door and pivoted about.
“Just for a target,” Orange snapped, as his fist slammed into Magnus’s midriff.
Magnus rolled back, not quite fast enough; the punch hurt, and for a few seconds, his breath was blocked. But he caught Orange’s fist, sidestepped, and yanked, and sent the shorter man sprawling into the wall of spectators, of whom there seemed to be an increasing number—and two of them were moving from person to person, punching the keys of their noteboards. Several of the bystanders obligingly shoved Orange back on his feet, and he snarled, leaping in and out, feinting, then slamming a quick combination of punches at Magnus’s belly and jaw. The second shot at the face clipped Magnus on the cheek; he recoiled and ducked around and in, under Orange’s next punch, and up, hauling him by his shirtfront and throwing him. But one of those long arms snaked out and snagged itself on Magnus’s neck, throwing him off-balance and pulling him down. Magnus stumbled into a fist, staggered back as two more hit him, then caught the third and threw Orange away, shaking his head to clear it and seeing two copies of the human gorilla as he stepped back in, hand grabbing at a flat pocket against his hip …
… and coming out with a knife that flicked open, its blade glowing.
Magnus stepped back, recognizing a force-blade from its descriptions. The cleanliness of punch and pain was suddenly soiled, but not much, for he parried the arm with the blade twice, then caught the wrist with his right hand and slammed an elbow back into Orange’s solar plexus. The shorter man doubled over, gagging; Magnus twisted the blade out of his grip and backhanded him on the side of the head. Orange stumbled into the cheering spectators—there were three times as many of them now, and four men with noteboards moving among them.
The nearest watchers obligingly shoved Orange out again. He was game, he swung at Magnus even now, but the young giant blocked the clumsy punch easily and slammed a right to his jaw. Orange folded and slumped to the ground.
Magnus stood, staring down at the man, teeth bared in a grin, heaving deep breaths. He reached down and hauled Orange to his feet with a surge of fellow-feeling. “Good fighting, friend. I’ll stand you to the next drink.”
“If he can stand to drink,” someone said, but orange only snarled and shoved Magnus away, then tottered back toward the bar. Magnus was about to go after him when he realized he was hearing a high, shrill sound, and the men with the noteboards stopped their collecting and paying-off to call, “Peace-ers!”