They left the top down part of the way, to clear their heads. It was very, very cold.
They set down somewhere where litter blew about under the fans of the flier. Fassin hadn’t thought there was still such a thing as litter.
Boogeytown was much as he remembered it. They hit the lows, looking for highs. They trawled the bowl-bars and narctail parlours, coming up with a brimming catch of buzz and girls, Fassin meanwhile trying to edge Sal in a certain bar’s direction, while Sal — vaguely recalling this wasn’t supposed to be just fun but also a way of getting his old pal Fass to open up with more potentially useful and lucrative details about whatever the fuck was going on — tried to get his old-new best buddy to move in a certain informational direction but without much success and anyway with decreasing amounts of concern and an increasing feeling of oh-who-gives-a-fuck?
Fassin too was getting frustrated, still angling for one more move and one particular streetlet, one particular bar, but they were here now in this diamond-walled emporium called the Narcateria where the sleaze was so coolly glitz it almost hurt, surrounded by people who hadn’t seen Sal in so long and just had to keep him where he was, don’t you dare go away, you wicked man you! And is this your friend? Where you been keeping him? Can I sit here, hmm? Me too me too! So eventually he had to stumble away and make a call in a private public booth and then head for the toilet where he threw up in a thin burning stream all the alcohol he’d drunk since the last time he’d been to the loo (over the hole, so it looked and sounded authentic), then wash his face and rejoin the drunken stoned-out fray of breath-catching loveliness, waiting for the right girl, the one all this had been about, all of it: asking to go to Sal’s in the first place, then getting him drunk and seeming to get drunk himself (which he was, but not that drunk) and then dropping hints about Boogeytown, all so that he could get away and get here and see this one particular girl…
… Who finally appeared nearly an hour later when he was just starting to despair but there she was, perfect and calm and quietly beautiful as ever, though looking quite different, again, with white-gold hair swinging heavy as the real 24-carat article about her near-triangular face, chin just made for holding, strawberry-bruise lips for kissing, tiny little nose for nuzzling, cheeks for stroking, eyes for gazing into (depths, ah, depths!) brows for licking, forehead for licking too, licking dry of sex-sweat after — oo! oo! oo! just too strenuous a session!
Aun Liss.
The one real love of his life, his controlling passion.
Older again but not as old as she should be. Looking different, living different, being different, called different. Called Ko now (and that was all), not Aun Liss, but she would always be Aun Liss to him. No need to say her real name. A lot of what passed between them wasn’t said anyway. Dressed in salarygirl clothes. Nothing special, revealing or provocative.
Nevertheless.
She held out her hand.
Nearby, surrounded by — actually, nearly drowning in — utter human female and super-stimulus hyper-pulchritude loveli-nessence, even Sal looked impressed.
“Fass, you dog!”
Aun Liss was still holding out her hand.
Back in Sal’s flier. Sal was in the front, being grievously attended to by the infamous Segrette Twins, moaning.
Fassin and Aun in the back seat, utterly happy to appear so archetypical. They kissed for a long time, then — looking round, shrugging at the front-seat antics (the flier at this point not really going anywhere, circling in a holding pattern — a clinching pattern, Aun Liss suggested) — she rose up and straddled him, his hands up underneath the light dress she wore, fingers still kneading her back… as they continued to do once they were finally returned to the idiot Kehar house poised over the column of water just as, Aun pointed out, she was poised over his column. (This aloud, for the benefit of anybody listening. They both laughed, not too loudly, he hoped.) Meanwhile she kept the dress on still, even in the heat of it, with his fingers pressing, kneading, moving above her arched spine producing little half-pained gasps until later when they were finally just lying together under a thin sheet she shucked off the dress and he just held her.
And this is what, over the course of those several hours, their fingers said, drawing and tapping out the private, effectively unbuggable code they had used for hundreds of years, since she first became his control, his link:
U STILL MY CNNECTN?
They were in the private booth deep inside the Narcateria, just kissing. She slid her hands between his jacket and shirt, knuckled back, YS. WOT U GOT 4 I?
1ST, I MAJR IN OCULA NW. GOT 2NDD.
Y?
COS I FND SMTING IN THE FMOUS DLVE. BOUT THE DWLLR LIST. YOU HRD OF?
VGLY.
2ND SHIP THERY, he sent. SCRT “HOLE NTWRK.
WAIT, she sent back. WORMHOLE NTWRK?
YS. SCRT 1.
There was a pause. She kept on kissing him. Her fingers sent, YR CRZY.
Walking to the flier, hands up each other’s jackets:
OL AFTR WHTI FND. E-5 DISCONINVDS IN 6 MNTHS TO 1 YR. THEY THNK BYNDRS WITH THEM. TRU?
CMPLCTD. SUM R, SUM RNT.
MRGNCY COS OF THS.
U STRTD THE FKNG MRGNCY?
YS. SORY. SUMD FLT ON WAY. BIG BIT AHED OF ESHIP. HYR IN 2 YRS MAYB. USD A.I. TRNSMTD FRM SUMD FLT 2 TEL US OL THIS.
AN A.I.?
YS.
HYPCRTS.
Then, in the flier:
WOT NXT 4 U?
DLVE SOON AGEN. WITH CHF C-R GNSRL, OERL SHRVLTY CNL C-R PGS YRNVIC. TRY FND RST OF WHTVR WS I FND IN 1ST PLACE.
Straddled-ridden like that, they could talk, too.
“How’s that for you?” she whispered.
“Oh, that’s very good. And you?”
“As above.”
WHT DID U FND?
DNT NO XCTLY. I NO RL2E AT TIME. OL CAME OUT MUCH L8TR WHN JELTCK DID ANLYS. SMTHNG ABT THIS 2ND SHIP THNG CALLD A TRANSFORM, SPSD 2 MAK RST OF DWLR LIST MEAN SMTHNG. JLTCK SNT FLEET 2 TRY FIND. NO FIND. FLT WRKD.
She felt him pause, tense. She sent:
WOT?
ALGDLY THIS ALSO Y BYNDRS WRKD PORTL. TRU?
DNT NO. IJST A MSG GRL. She paused. SO U SAY NOT ONLY U START THIS MRGNCY, U COSD LAST 1 2 GOT PRTL DSTRYD?
YS. GES I JST ACCDNT PRN.
FKNG HEL.
“Very good to see you again.”
“Copy that.”
“We should do this more often.”
“Indeed we should. Now, shh.”
BUT IF SO THIS KNWN, Y I NOT ASKD 2 DLV FIND MOR INFO 4 GUD GYS ERLYR?
NO IDEA.
OL NONSNS ANYWY BUT THEY WNT I 2 LUK.
SO LUK.
WHT U MYN SUM BYNDRS 4 E-5 DISCON, SUM NOT?
FACTNS.
FACTIONS? YR GVNG I FKNG FACTIONS? RLY BEST U CN DO?
KYP BING PASSYN8. CVR SLPNG.
He made passionate moves, uttered passionate sounds.
In his bed, his hands at the small of her back:
I GO 2 3RD FURY MOON 3 DAYS TYM.
… OH.
OH?
KND OF A RMR. I SHLDNT EVN NO. MAYB ATK ON NASQ MNS.
NASQ MOONS? NOT “GLNTN?
NO. LTL MNS.
CN U GET WRD, NO ATCK ON 3RD FURY MOON? NO ATK ON ANY SEERS?
WILL TRY.
TRY HRD.
PROMIS.
OK. IF I DO FIND ANYTHING ON NASQ WILL GET 2 U, NT MRCTRIA.
OK. GOOD. HOW?
STN A MICROSAT MIDWY BTWN OUR SATS EQ4 EQ5. I AIM BRST THER. MY OLD CODE FREQ STL GOOD?
THNK SO. TAK TYM 2 SET UP.
TAK I MNTHS 2 FIND NYTHNG. PRBLY 0 TO FIND ANYWY. HAV MICROSAT ABL 2 RCV FRM B-LOW 2, IN CASE I IN NASQ.
WILL PASS ON.
A little later:
LUV U.
YR CRZY.
TRU.
B MOR PASSYN8.
He pulled the sheet further over his Beyonder girl. CVR SLPNG AGEN?
NO, JST B MOR PASSYN8…
THREE: