Grinning, the Jester came on, bolder than ever, hacking and slashing. He did not fear a body blow, and probably had an armored codpiece to boot.
Antonio feinted low, as though going for the groin. The Jester rose on his toes, aiming a downward slash. Antonio again parried high with the dagger—this time aiming his sword thrust beneath the upraised arm. His grandfather had been on the losing side at Benevento, and never tired of telling how King Manfred’s German mercenaries were cut down by French knights striking à l’estoc, into the armpit. His point slid through the Jester’s sleeve, and over the cuirass.
The Belled Fool folded up, staggered, and fell gasping against the Doctor. He had the impudence to take Antonio’s blade with him, its point tangled in the puffed sleeve and the top of his lung.
Letting go of the sword, Antonio sprang forward with just his dagger, staking everything on a single drunken rush. Pushing the dying Jester aside, the bird-faced Doctor aimed a sweeping blow at Antonio. Too late. The Noble Dog got inside his guard, grabbing the Doctor’s right wrist, slamming him against the alley wall. His dagger at the man’s throat, he hissed, “Yield.”
Helpless, the Doctor let his blade fall. His white bird mask looked blankly at the Noble Dog.
Antonio glanced up to see the woman disappear into the Arena archway. Damn. Missed her again. The man beneath him would die for that. But first…
Keeping the dagger clenched in his hand, he grabbed the beak of the white bird-mask, wrenching it back. Finding the face beneath irritatingly familiar. He knew this man from somewhere. “Why?” Antonio demanded. “Why dare to accost me?”
Amazingly calm, despite sure death at his throat, the man managed a devil-may-care smirk. “There is a call on your service. Clients are coming down the Beanstalk.”
Heartbreak Hotel
Tearing off his headset, Toni stared at the 3V deck resting on his knees. Naked thighs shone slick and white in the artificial light. Disoriented and drenched in sweat, it took time for the truth to sink in. Those were his thighs. He was no longer in Verona. No longer the Noble Dog. No longer wearing pants.
An audio beeper indicated incoming messages. Toni ignored it, still fixed on Verona. Who was she? Had she really gone into the Arena?
Beeps increased in volume, dragging him into the here-and-now, badgering him with incoming calls. He hated that. Hated being jerked out of the program. Hell, he hated being out of the program period. Hated being anywhere but Verona.
Shutting down the beeper, he stared at the stained white ceiling of the sanitary unit. Sitting bareassed in a dingy portable toilet, fed by a glucose drip, was a piss-poor substitute for being a prince’s nephew at Carnival time. Or at any time.
Setting aside the 3V deck, he climbed up on his exercise bike, thankful that Ariel’s pull was only ,5g. Any more, and he never would have made it off the toilet seat. Toni found physical exercise boring—but most realtime activities were essentially tedious. So Toni put his tedium to maximum use, telling Proteus—Programmed Techno-Environmental Utilization Service—“Give me the priority messages.”
The housekeeping program obeyed. Grunting atop the bike, Toni responded to his calls as best he could.
“Check. Hunting party headed down the Beanstalk.”
“Yes. Of course I still think of you.”
“Fuck off.”
“2100 tomorrow—at the soonest.”
“Will call back.”
“Shit. OK, OK, I’ll get to it.”
When he could not take any more, he told Proteus, “Dump everything over forty hours old. Hold the rest.”
Toni got down off the bike, inserted the glucose drip, and set the deck on his lap, tempted to return at once to Verona. He had to follow her into the Arena. And…
His hand hovered above the deck, fingers itching to hit VERONA. He hit DRAGON HUNT instead.
Instantly, Toni was outside—standing at the base of the Beanstalk, looking out over Freeport with infrared eyes. Geodomes and apartment blocks glowed softly from internal heat. Powered filters showed as bright firefly streaks. Pair-a-Dice Beanstalk towered above him, piercing the dawn sky, connecting Freeport to the Pair-a-Dice geosync platform thousands of klicks overhead. The topless stalk cast a thin shadow onto the cloud plain, a dark razor-straight line disappearing in the direction of Nightside.
It was early morning. Prospero had just cut a notch in the cloud plain surrounding Mt. Beanstalk. Another long drawn-out day had begun. This far into the Twilight Belt, it was always dawn or dusk. Ariel kept the same face turned toward her primary, Prospero. Orbital libration produced a slow-mode version of day and night; long cool mornings alternating with shady twilights. Prospero never climbed too high in the sky, nor sank too low below the horizon.
A Transgalactic Liner was in on Pair-a-Dice. Tourists jammed the slidewalk, wearing tinsel wigs and chrome yellow pompoms—laughing, joking, and generally embarrassing themselves. Toni was not in the mood to be amused by rich fools with nothing to do. And he could have done something about it. At the moment he was three meters tall, standing head and shoulders above the crowd on duraluminum legs. His metal arms—all four of them—could have scythed through the throng, braining the lot of them without so much as raising a sweat. Plasti-metal does not perspire.
But he had better things to do. Better as in paid. Otherwise, he would have deleted Freeport completely, and gone straight to Verona. He flipped off the infrared filters. The last time he had inhabited the cyborg body had been for a Nightside hunt. Here, he did not need them.
Ali, Harpo, and Doc came striding up. They too were three meters tall, with plasti-metal bodies. Except for Ah, who was a head shorter, nonchalantly carrying his cyborg cranium tucked under his arm. The helmeted head, with its radar dome, sonar receptors, and binocular lenses, looked up at Toni. “Draw if you be men,” the head dared him. Its speak-box exactly mimicked the Noble Dog’s accent.
Toni glared at the talking head.
“Or we’ll make worm’s meat of you,” Harpo added.
“Shut up with the Shakespeare,” Toni growled. In Verona, he could have had the three of them flayed.
The cyborgs laughed. In Ali’s case, the chuckle came from under his arm. He hefted the head and screwed it—still laughing—onto his shoulders. “We had to come for you.”
“But not just then. I was this close.” Toni lifted his upper left hand, holding two heavy gauntleted fingers a micron apart.
“Gives you a reason to go back.” Harpo’s attempt at a grin looked like the front end of a ground car. As if Toni needed a reason. As if any of them did. They all had their private Veronas. They enjoyed jerking him out merely because misery loves company. He would get them back.
A soft subsonic buzz warned that their Pair-a-Dice capsule had arrived. The pressure door at the base of the Beanstalk began to disgorge luggage. Hand-tooled leather flight bags. Fancy holographic camcorders. Field shelters. Night glasses and freeze-dried gourmet rations. An autobar and a silver tea-service. Along with sufficient ancillary equipment to start a small colony.
Port workers in mint-green candy-striped coveralls attacked the mountain of belongings, loading them onto gravity sleds, working briskly, but without enthusiasm. They wore electronic shackles and shock collars. Most were government employees—addicts, vagrants, debtors, and moral degenerates, working off their debt to society.