must have a black market to survive. A great many different
black currencies have seen use. I did an article on it once."
"Did you?"
"Yes. I'm a journalist by profession. I entertain the jaded
among the System's bourgeoisie with my startling exposes of
criminality. Low-life antics of the sundog canaille." He nodded
at Lindsay's bag. "Narcotics were the standard for a while, but
that gave the Shaper black chemists an edge. Selling computer
time had some success, but the Mechanists had the best cybernetics. Now sex has come into vogue."
"You mean people come to this godforsaken place just for
sex?"
"It's not necessary to visit a bank to use it, Mr. Dze. The
Geisha Bank has contacts throughout the cartels. Pirates dock
here to exchange I6ot for portable black credit. We get political
exiles from the other circumlunars, too. If they're unlucky."
Lindsay showed no reaction. He was one of those exiles.
His problem was simple now: survival. It was wonderful how
this cleared his mind. He could forget his former life: the
Preservationist rebellion, the political dramas he'd staged at the
Museum. It was all history.
Let it fade, he thought. All gone now, all another world. He
felt dizzy, suddenly, thinking about it. He'd lived. Not like Vera.
Constantine had tried to kill him with those altered insects.
The quiet, subtle moths were a perfect modern weapon: they
threatened only human flesh, not the world as a whole. But
Lindsay's uncle had taken Vera's locket, booby-trapped with the
pheromones that drove the deadly moths to frenzy. And his
uncle had died in his place. Lindsay felt a slow, rising flush of
nausea.
"And the exhausted come here from the Mechanist cartels,"
Ryumin went on. "For death by ecstasy. For a price the Geisha
Bank offers shinju: double suicide with a companion from the
staff. Many customers, you see, take a deep comfort in not dying
alone."
For a long moment, Lindsay struggled with himself. Double
suicide -the words pierced him. Vera's face swam queasily be-
fore his eyes in the perfect focus of expanded memory. He
pitched onto his side, retching, and vomited across the floor.
The drugs overwhelmed him. He hadn't eaten since leaving the
Republic. Acid scraped his throat and suddenly he was choking,
fighting for air.
Ryumin was at his side in a moment. He dropped his bony
kneecaps into Lindsay's ribs, and air huffed explosively through
his clogged windpipe. Lindsay rolled onto his back. He breathed
in convulsively. A tingling warmth invaded his hands and feet.
He breathed again and lost consciousness.
Ryumin took Lindsay's wrist and stood for a moment, counting
his pulse. Now that the younger man had collapsed, an odd,
somnolent calm descended over the old Mechanist. He moved
at his own tempo. Ryumin had been very old for a long time.
The feeling changed things.
Ryumin's bones were frail. Cautiously, he dragged Lindsay
onto the tatami mat and covered him with a blanket. Then he
stepped slowly to a barrel-sized ceramic water cistern, picked
up a wad of coarse filter paper, and mopped up Lindsay's
vomit. His deliberate movements disguised the fact that, without
video input, he was almost blind.
Ryumin donned his eyephones. He meditated on the tape he
had made of Lindsay. Ideas and images came to him more easily
through the wires.
He analyzed the young sundog's movements frame by frame.
The man had long, bony arms and shins, large hands and feet,
but he lacked any awkwardness. Studied closely, his movements
showed ominous fluidity, the sure sign of a nervous system
subjected to subtle and prolonged alteration. Someone had devoted great care and expense to that counterfeit of footloose
case and grace.
Ryumin edited the tape with the reflexive ease of a century of
practice. The System was wide, Ryumin thought. There was
room in it for a thousand modes of life, a thousand hopeful
monsters. He felt sadness at what had been done to the man,
but no alarm or fear. Only time could tell the difference be-
tween aberration and advance. Ryumin no longer made judgments. When he could, he held out his hand.
Friendly gestures were risky, of course, but Ryumin could
never resist the urge to make them and watch the result. Curios-
ity had made him a sundog. He was bright; there'd been a place
for him in his colony's soviet. But he had been driven to ask
uncomfortable questions, to think uncomfortable thoughts.
Once, a sense of moral righteousness had lent him strength.
That youthful smugness was long gone now, but he still had pity
and the willingness to help. For Ryumin, decency had become
an old man's habit.
The young sundog twisted in his sleep. His face seemed to
ripple, twisting bizarrely. Ryumin squinted in surprise. This man
was a strange one. That was nothing remarkable; the System was
full of the strange. It was when they escaped control that things
became interesting.
Lindsay woke, groaning. "How long have I been out?" he said.
"Three hours, twelve minutes," Ryumin said. "But there's no
day or night here, Mr. Dze. Time doesn't matter."
Lindsay propped himself up on one elbow.
"Hungry?" Ryumin passed Lindsay a bowl of soup.
Lindsay looked uneasily at the warm broth. Circles of oil
dotted its surface and white lumps floated within it. He had a
spoonful. It was better than it looked.
"Thank you," he said. He ate quickly. "Sorry to be trouble-
some."
"No matter," Ryumin said. "Nausea is common when Zaibatsu
microbes hit the stomach of a newcomer."
"Why'd you follow me with that camera?" Lindsay said.
Ryumin poured himself a bowl of soup. "Curiosity," he said. "I
have the Zaibatsu's entrance monitored by radar. Most sundogs
travel in factions. Single passengers are rare. I wanted to learn
your story. That's how I earn my living, after all." He drank his
soup. "Tell me about your future, Mr. Dze. What are you
planning?"
"If I tell you, will you help me?"
"I might. Things have been dull here lately."
"There's money in it."
"Better and better," Ryumin said. "Could you be more specific?"
Lindsay stood up. "We'll do some acting," he said, straightening his cuffs. " 'To catch birds with a mirror is the ideal snare,'as my Shaper teachers used to say. I knew of the Black Medicalsin the Ring Council. They're not genetically altered. The Shapers despised them, so they isolated themselves. That's their
habit, even here. But they hunger for admiration, so I made
myself into a mirror and showed them their own desires. I
promised them prestige and influence, as patrons of the theatre." He reached for his jacket. "But what does the Geisha
Bank want?"
"Money. Power," Ryumin said. "And the ruin of their rivals,
who happen to be the Black Medicals."
"Three lines of attack." Lindsay smiled. "This is what they
trained me for." His smile wavered, and he put his hand to his
midriff. "That soup," he said. "Synthetic protein, wasn't it? I
don't think it's going to agree with me."
Ryumin nodded in resignation. "It's your new microbes. You'd
better clear your appointment book for a few days, Mr. Dze.
You have dysentery."
CHAPTER TWO
THE MARE TRANQUILLITATIS PEOPLE'S CIRCUMLUNAR
ZAIBATSU: 28-12-'15
Night never fell in the Zaibatsu. It gave Lindsay's sufferings a
timeless air: a feverish idyll of nausea.