Toba touched her shoulder. “Come on,” he said anxiously. “Let’s get the stretcher out of the car. And then we’ll find someone to…”
“Well. What have we here?” The voice was harsh, amused, and shared Toba’s stilted accent.
Dura turned. Two men were approaching, Waving stiffly through the Air. They were short, blocky and wore identical suits of thick leather; they carried what looked like coiled whips, and wore masks of stiffened leather which muffled their voices and made it impossible to read their expressions.
The eyes of these anonymous beings raked over Dura and Farr.
She dropped her hands to her hips. The rope she’d taken Crust-hunting was still wrapped around her waist, and she could feel the gentle pressure of her knife, her cleaning scraper, tucked into the rope at her back. She found the presence of these familiar things comforting, but — apart from that little knife — all their weapons were still in the car. Stupid, stupid; what would Logue have said? She edged backward through the Air, trying to find a clear path back to the car.
Toba said, “Sirs, I am Citizen Mixxax. I have a patient for the Hospital. And…”
The guard who had spoken earlier growled, “Where’s the patient?”
Toba waved him to the car. The man peered in suspiciously. Then he withdrew his head from the car, visibly wrinkling his nose under his mask. “I don’t see a patient. I see an upfluxer. And here…” — he waved the butt of his whip toward Dura and Farr — “I see two more upfluxers. Plus a pig’s-ass in his underpants. But no patients.”
“It’s true,” Toba said patiently, “that these people are from the upflux. But the old man’s badly hurt. And…”
“This is a Hospital,” the guard said neutrally. “Not a damn zoo. So get these animals out of here.”
Toba sighed and held out his hands, apparently trying to find more words.
The guard was losing patience. He reached out and poked at Dura’s shoulder with one gloved finger. “I said get them out of here. I won’t tell…”
Farr moved forward. “Stop that,” he said. And he shoved, apparently gently, at the guard.
The man flew backward through the Air, at last colliding with a wooden-paneled wall. His whip trailed ineffectually behind him.
Farr tipped backward with the reaction; he looked down at his own hands with astonishment.
The second guard started to uncoil his whip. “Well,” he said softly, “maybe a few spins of the Wheel would help you learn your place, little boy.”
“Look, this is all going wrong,” Toba said. “I didn’t mean for any of this to happen. Please; I…”
“Shut up.”
Dura clenched her fists, ready to move forward. She had no doubt that she and Farr could account for this man, leather armor or not — especially with the immense new strength they seemed to have acquired here. Of course, there were more than two guards in Parz City; and beyond the next few minutes she could envisage a hundred dim and dark ways for events to unfold, flowering like deadly Crust-flowers out of this incident… But this moment was all she could influence.
The guard raised the whip to her brother. She reached for her knife and prepared to spring…
“Wait. Stop this.”
Dura turned, slowly; the guard was lowering his whip.
The man who had been supervising the unloading of the other car — tall, commanding, dressed in a fine but begrimed robe, and with a head shockingly denuded of hair-tubes — was coming toward them.
Dura was aware of Toba cringing backward. The guard looked at Farr and Dura with frustrated hunger.
Dura said, “Who are you? What do you want?”
The newcomer frowned. He was about Logue’s age, she judged. “Who am I? It’s a long time since I was asked that. My name is Muub, my dear. I am the Administrator of this Hospital.” He studied her curiously. “And you’re an upfluxer, aren’t you?”
“No,” she said, suddenly heartily sick of that word. “I am a Human Being.”
He smiled. “Indeed.” Muub glanced at the guards, and then turned to Toba Mixxax. “Citizen, what is happening here? I don’t welcome disturbances in my Hospital; we have enough to cope with without that.”
Toba bowed; he seemed to be trembling. His hands moved across the front of his body, as if he were suddenly embarrassed by his underwear. “Yes. I’m sorry, sir. I am Toba Mixxax; I run a ceiling-farm about thirty meters upflux, and I…”
“Get on with it,” Muub said mildly.
“I found an injured upfluxer… an injured man. I brought him back. He’s in the car.”
Muub frowned. Then he slid across to the car and pulled his head and shoulders through the doorway. Dura could see the Administrator efficiently inspecting Adda. He seemed fascinated by the spears and nets of the Human Beings, the artifacts which had been used to improvise splints for Adda.
Adda opened one eye. “Bugger off,” he whispered to Muub.
The Administrator studied Adda, Dura thought, as one might consider a leech, or a damaged spider.
Muub withdrew from the car. “This man’s seriously hurt. That right arm…”
“I know, sir,” Toba said miserably. “That was why I thought…”
“Damn it, man,” Muub said, not unkindly, “how do you expect them to be able to pay? They’re upfluxers!”
Toba dropped his head. “Sir,” he said, his voice wavering but dogged, “there is the Market. Both the woman and the boy are strong and fit. And they’re used to hard work. I found them at the Crust, working in conditions no coolie would withstand.” He fell silent, keeping his head averted from the others.
Muub brushed his soiled fingers against his robe and gazed vacantly into the car. At length he said mildly, “All right. Bring him in, Citizen Mixxax… Guard, help him. And bring the woman and the boy. Keep your eye on them, Mixxax; if they run wild, or foul the place, I’ll hold you responsible.”
Mixxax’s misery seemed to lift a little. “Yes, sir. Thank you.”
Another car sailed into the bay, evidently bringing in more patients for the Hospital; Muub Waved away, tired responsibility etched into his face.
7
Toba grudgingly offered to let Dura and Farr stay at his home in the City while Adda’s injuries were treated at the Hospital. At first Dura refused, but Toba gave her a look of exasperation. “You haven’t any choice,” he said heavily. “Believe me. If you had, I’d tell you about it; I’ve got my own life to get back to, eventually… Look, you’ve nowhere to go, you’ve no money — not even any clothes.”
“We don’t need charity.”
“The noble savage,” Toba replied sourly. “Do you know how long it would take for you to be picked up as vagrants? You saw the guards at the Hospital. And at the Hospital, they’re picked specially for their warm bedside manner. Vagrants aren’t popular. No tithes to the Committee, no room in the City, as the saying goes… You’d be on a Committee-run ceiling-farm doing forced labor, or worse, before you could turn around. And then who’s going to pay poor old Adda’s bills?”
Dura could see there was indeed no choice. In fact, she thought, they had every reason to be grateful to this irritable little man — if he weren’t offering to take them in, they could be in real difficulty. So she nodded, and tried, embarrassed, to form a phrase of thanks.
Toba said, “Oh, just get in the car.”
Toba drove them through the still-crowded streets away from the Hospital. The streets — wood-lined corridors of varying widths — were a baffling maze to Dura, and after a few twists and corners her orientation was gone. Cars and people were everywhere, and more than once Toba’s team of Air-pigs came into jostling contact with others, forcing Toba to haul on his reins. Speaker-amplified voices blared. Here in the City, Toba drove with the car door open. The Air in the streets was noisy, thick, hot, and laden with the stink of people and Air-pigs; beams of brightness shone through the dust and the green clouds of jetfart.