They emerged from the cavern on to a broad stone promenade. Chasm’s opposite wall reared massively half a mile away. Scarne looked up and saw what looked like a racing flood leaping across the top of the canyon. The broad-fronted river was wind-borne dust, flowing in complicated streams and tendrils on the surface.
A balustrade, only waist-high, bounded the promenade. He walked to it, peered down – and caught his breath. The abyss simply went down and down, criss-crossed with bridges that merged into a cobweb-like tangle, the walls glowing with coloured lights.
Soma laughed. ‘Quite a sight, huh?’
Scarne drew back. ‘How deep is it?’
‘Five miles. But the city itself only goes down a mile and a half. After that the air gets too thick. Let’s take a dive.’
He led the way to an elevator station. They swooped down with sickening speed – it was like being in a tower city – coming to a stop in a tiled tunnel-like area. Passing through a proscenium arch, they came out on to what was, to all intents and purposes, a crowded street. On one side, the gulf; on the other, an endless procession of gaudy entrances, animated light-signs and barkers.
Cadence hung on Scarne’s arm as he gaped around him. The sky was no more than a crack far above. Seen from here, deep among Chasm’s numerous levels, the plummeting walls were less sheer. Not only were they carved and tunnelled into, they also supported jutting piers, daring walkways, slender bridges, all of which made up a seemingly rickety maze hanging over the abyss.
Out into that abyss, too, floated noise and music, drifting from the levels of the city above and below. Chasm fulfilled its reputation: it was fantastic, and unique.
Then Scarne gave a cry of horror. ‘Look!’
Someone had fallen from one of the overhanging structures. The figure came tumbling through the air, narrowly missing an arched bridge, limbs flailing. Scarne saw the victim’s face – a man’s – as it swept past them barely yards away, eyes staring and the mouth drawn into the Oh of a soundless scream. Then it was gone.
Soma cackled. ‘Oh, you’ll soon get used to that. It happens all the time. Every few minutes, in fact.’
Scarne stared at him blankly. ‘But why?’
‘Just the natural accident rate. Don’t look so shocked, Cheyne, it isn’t any greater than the rate for automobile accidents on Mars or somewhere like that. It’s just more visible, that’s all. Think about it: Chasm has a population at any average time of a third of a million people. They slip off a bridge or something occasionally; and then there’s suicides. The point is, there’s only one way for them to go, and that’s down this narrow chasm where everybody can see them.’
‘But why not have safety nets?’
‘This is Chasm,’ Soma answered, his mouth firming. ‘Come on, we have to get to our quarters. There’s a lot to sort out.’
They walked along the street. Scarne had already noticed, in point of fact, that, as on the top level, all balustrades protecting pedestrians from the gulf were only waist-high.
Cadence seemed to notice his questioning stares. She gave his arm a squeeze.
‘It’s like he says,’ she told him. ‘Just a normal accident rate. You soon get used to it.’
Do you? he wondered. But people who came here, he reflected, had attuned themselves to the idea of risk. They were looking to win; some were looking to lose. But other people’s losses were a matter of indifference.
They turned into the lobby of a hotel. Scarne took a last look up into the gulf. Far above, falling fast, were two small figures, one a woman’s, the other, even smaller, probably a child’s. Still holding hands, tipped upside down, they went hurtling together towards the depths.
The Straight Flush restaurant was built on a platform that extended out over emptiness and gave an excellent overall view of the chasm city. Here, while eating or whiling away his time over drinks or beverages, the customer could gaze down into the ever-busy gambling metropolis and, protected from falling objects and bodies by a transparent sloping roof, drink in the lurid scene that was like a visionary’s painting of one of the minor departments of Hades.
Scarne sat near the edge of the semi-circular ledge, sipping coffee laced with rum, an extremely worried man.
Though he had more than one problem, the most pressing of them was that his last spray-can of SIS drug would not last more than a few weeks now. Here in Chasm the holo numbers he had been given were useless, so he had no direct means of renewing his supply.
But he had hope. There would be Legitimacy agents in Chasm, he reasoned. If they knew that Dom had brought him here they might contact him.
During the starship journey he had come directly under Dom’s tutelage. The work was taxing; therefore every fourth day was his own. On these rest days he deserted Cadence and tried to make himself available, establishing a routine round of the city, visiting one or two of the big casinos, the displays, and a leisurely hour or two, always at the same time, at the Straight Flush.
A shadow fell across him.
‘Mind if I sit here?’ a voice said.
Scarne made a vague gesture. ‘Of course not.’
His heart thumped as he studied the face of the man who sat down at the table. He didn’t recognize him.
The stranger pointed into the gulf. ‘Weird, isn’t it? Some might say scary.’
‘A lot different from Earth, or Tycho,’ Scarne agreed.
‘Are you new to Chasm?’
‘Yes.’ The man leaned suddenly forward and rattled off one of Scarne’s holbooth numbers. ‘You’re moving fast, aren’t you?’ he said. ‘What’s going on?’
Scarne shrugged, glancing around him, wondering for the thousandth time if the Wheel had tabs on him. ‘Marguerite Dom brought me out here. It wasn’t my idea to stage that raid on Luna. That was a real hick move, wasn’t it?’
‘Based on information supplied by you.’ The agent’s voice came to him in a metallic, bitter-tasting tone. ‘But nothing was found.’
‘Of course not! You ought to have known Dom’s own intelligence service is good enough to tip him off about any developments of that kind. He’s got people everywhere, he’s probably better informed than you are.’
The Legitimacy agent took the sideswipe insult without overt reaction. ‘Did Dom bring the goods with him?’
‘I don’t know.’
‘We figure he must have. He’s making this place his base. The mathematical cadre is here.’
‘I didn’t know that,’ Scarne said truthfully. There had been a lot of people on the ship; he had seen only a few of them.
‘Apparently you’re quite a protege. You’re right close to the centre.’
‘I’m only a trainee. Nothing’s definite yet.’
‘A trainee for what?’
‘A games player of some sort.’ He hesitated. ‘For one of their special clubs, or something, I think.’
He couldn’t do it. He couldn’t tell his Legitimacy masters what the game really was, not if his suspicions, his horrible but all-too-probable suspicions were true. Because he knew what the Legitimacy’s reaction would be, once they had confirmed his story. Indeed they would see very little choice, desperate though the recourse would be. Chasm would be the first world to be delivered a planet-busting bomb. Other Wheel-dominated worlds would also be destroyed, in short order. It was fairly certain, too, that the Wheel would have some means of retaliating to all this. And the Hadranics would walk in to trample on what was left.
‘Listen,’ he said, lowering his voice, ‘I’ve been waiting for you to contact me. Did you bring me a supply?’
‘Supply?’
‘My supply! The aerosols!’ He became suddenly impatient, irritable.