"The simplest ways are always best," he said, and gave a short laugh. Then, more soberly, "That was unfortunate. What does Wyatt know?"
Lehmann met DeVore's eyes, smiling, then put an arm about his shoulders. "Nothing. He knows nothing at all."
Slowly, DeVore peeled off his gloves and laid them on the table.
"Good. Then let's speak openly."
THE STONE DRAGON was a big, low'Ceilinged inn at the bottom of the City; a sprawl of interconnected rooms, ill lit and ill decorated; a place frequented only by the lowest of those who lived in the ten levels below the Net. A stale, sweet-sour stench permeated everything in its cramped and busy rooms, tainting all it touched. Machines lined the walls, most of them dark. Others, sparking, on the verge of malfunction, added their own sweet, burning scent to the heavy fug that filled the place. Voices called out constantly, clamoring for service, while shabbily dressed waitresses, their makeup garishly exaggerated, made their way between the tables, taking orders.
The two men sat in the big room at the back of the inn, at a table set apart from the others against the far wall. They had come here directly, two hours back, unable to sleep, the enormity of what they'd done playing on both their minds. To celebrate, Kao Jyan had ordered a large bottle of the Dragon's finest Shen, brought down from Above at an exorbitant price, but neither man had drunk much of the strong rice wine.
Jyan had been quiet for some while now, hunched over an untouched tumbler, brooding. Chen watched him for a time, then looked about him.
The men at nearby tables were mainly Han, but there were some Hung Mao. Most of them, Han and Hung Moo alike, were wide eyed and sallow faced, their scabbed arms and faces giving them away as addicts. Arfidis was cheap down here and widely available and for some it was the only way out of things. But it was also death, given time, and Chen had kept his own veins clear of it. At one of the tables farther off three Han sat stiffly, talking in dialect, their voices low and urgent. One of them had lost an eye, another was badly scarred about the neck and shoulder. They represented the other half of the Stone Dragon's clientele, noticeable by the way they held themselves— somehow lither, more alert, than those about them. These were the gang men and petty criminals who used this place for business. Chen stretched his neck and leaned back against the wall. Nearby a thick coil of smoke moved slowly in the faint orange light of an overhead panel, like the fine, dark strands of a young girl's hair.
"It's like death," he said, looking across at Jyan.
"What?" Jyan said lazily, looking up at Chen. "What did you say?"
Chen leaned forward and plucked a bug from beneath the table's edge, crushing it between his thumb and forefinger. It was one of the ugly, white-shelled things that sometimes came up from the Clay. Blind things that worked by smell alone. He let its broken casing fall and wiped his hand on his one-piece, not caring if it stained. "This place. It's like death. This whole level of things. It stinks."
Jyan laughed. "Well, you'll be out of it soon enough, if that's what you want."
Chen looked at his partner strangely. "And you don't?" He shook his head, suddenly disgusted with himself. "You know, Jyan, I've spent my whole life under the Net. I've known nothing but this filth. It's time I got out. Time I found something cleaner, better than this."
"I know how you feel," Jyan answered, "but have you thought it through? Up there you're vulnerable. Above the Net there are pass laws and judges, taxes and Security patrols." He leaned across and spat neatly into the bowl by his feet. "I hate the thought of all that shit. It would stifle the likes of you and me. And anyway, we hurt a lot of people last night when the quarantine gates came down. Forget the assassination—someone finds out you were involved in that and you're dead."
Chen nodded. It had meant nothing at the time, but now that the drug had worn off he could think of little else. He kept seeing faces; the faces of people he had passed up there in Pan Chao Street. People who, only minutes later, would have been panicking, eyes streaming, half choking as Security pumped the deck full of sterilizing gases. Children too. Yes, a lot of them would have been just children.
He hadn't thought it through; hadn't seen it until it was done. All he'd thought about was the five thousand yuan he was being paid for the job: that and the chance of getting out. And if that meant breaking through the Net, then that's what he would do. But he hadn't thought it through. In that, at least, Jyan was right. The Net. It had been built to safeguard the City; as a quarantine measure to safeguard the Above from plague and other epidemics, and from infiltration by insects and vermin. And from us, thought Chen, a sour taste in his mouth. From vermin like us.
He looked across, seeing movement in the doorway, then looked sharply at Jyan. "Trouble. ..." he said quietly. Jyan didn't turn. "Who is it?" he mouthed back. Chen groomed an imaginary moustache. "Shit!" said Jyan softly, then sat back, lifting his tumbler. "What does he want.7" Chen whispered, leaning forward so that the movements of his mouth were screened by Jyan from the three men in the doorway. "I owe him money." "How much?" "A thousand yuan."
"A thousand!" Chen grimaced, then leaned back again, easing his knife from his boot and pinning it with his knee against the underside of the table. Then he looked across again. The biggest of the three was looking directly at them now, grinning with recognition at the sight of Jyan's back. The big man tilted his head slightly, muttering something to the other two, then began to come across.
Whiskers Lu was a monster of a man. Almost six ch'i in height, he wore his hair wild and uncombed and sported a ragged fur about his shoulders like some latter-day chieftain from a historical romance. He derived his name from the huge tangled bush of a moustache which covered much of his facial disfigurement. Standing above Jyan, his left eye stared out glass-ily from a mask of melted flesh, its rawness glossed and mottled like a crab's shell. The right eye was a narrow slit, like a sewn line in a doll's face. Beneath the chin and on the lower right-hand side of his face the mask seemed to end in a sunken line, the normal olive of his skin resuming.
Ten years back, so the story went, Whiskers Lu had tried to come to an arrangement with Chang Fen, one of the petty bosses of these levels. Chang Fen had met him, smiling, holding one hand out to welcome Lu, his other hand holding what looked like a glass of wine. Then, still smiling, he had thrown the contents of the glass into Lu's face. It was acid. But the man had not reckoned with Whiskers Lu's ferocity. Lu had'held on tightly to the man's hand, roaring against the pain, and, drawing his big hunting knife, had plunged it into Chang Fen's throat before his lieutenants could come to his aid. Half blinded he had fought his way out of there, then had gone back later with his brothers to finish the job.
Now Whiskers Lu was a boss in his own right; a big man, here beneath the Net. He stood there, towering over Kao Jyan, his lipless mouth grinning with cruel pleasure as he placed his hand on Jyan's shoulder, his single eye watching Chen warily.
"Kao Jyan. . . . How are you, my friend?"
"I'm well," Jyan answered nervously, shrinking in his seat. "And you, Lu Ming-Shao?"
Whiskers Lu laughed gruffly, humorlessly. "I'm fine, Kao Jyan. I killed a man yesterday. He owed me money."
Jyan swallowed and met Chen's eyes. "And he couldn't pay you?"
Lu's grip tightened on Jyan's shoulder. "That's so, Kao Jyan. But that's not why I killed him. I killed him because he tried to hide from me."
"Then he was a foolish man, I'd say."