Behind them another hovercraft, with the markings of the Hegemonic Police, drifted down toward a landing on the quay. But he did not look back, and so he did not see it settle beside his own.
“Where are we going?” Moon maneuvered around a cluster of laughing sailors.
“To meet a friend.”
“A woman friend? Won’t she mind—”
“It’s business, not pleasure. Just mind your own when we get there.”
Moon shrugged, and pushed her numbing hands into the pockets of her pants. She could see their breath now, as the temperature followed the sun down. She peered curiously into the assortment of one — and two-story building fronts, more buildings than she had ever seen in one place, but stolidly familiar in form. Mortared stone and wood planking leaned on each other for support, and among them she saw an occasional wall made of something that was not really dried mud. Multiple layers of exotic noise reached out to catch at her ears as they passed by one tavern after another. “How did they know what I was, if you didn’t, Ngenet?”
“Call me Miroe. I don’t think they did. I think they probably just noticed that I was a lot bigger and a hell of a lot more sober than either one of them.”
“Hm.” Moon fingered the scaling knife at her belt thoughtfully; she felt the knots go out of her back muscles as she realized that the eyes of everyone passing were not staying on her too often and too long.
Ngenet turned down a narrow side street; they stopped at last before a small, isolated tavern. Light rainbowed out onto the cobbles through colored glass; the peeling painted sign above the door read The Black Deeds Inn. He grunted. “Elsie always did have a peculiar sense of humor.” Moon noticed a second sign that read Closed, but Ngenet pulled on the latch; the door opened, and they went inside.
“Hey, we’re closed!” An immense balloon of woman pouring beer into a mug for no one glowered at them from the bar.
“I’m looking for Elsevier.” Ngenet moved into the light.
“Oh, yeah?” The woman put the mug down and squinted at him. “I guess you are at that. What took you so long?”
“Engine trouble. Did she wait?”
“She’s still in town, if that’s what you mean. But she’s out looking into — other arrangements, in case you decided not to show.” The woman’s buried eyes found Moon; she frowned.
Ngenet swore. “Damn her, she knows I’m dependable!”
“But she didn’t know if maybe you’d been permanently delayed, if you take my meaning. Who’s that?”
“A hitchhiker.” Moon felt Ngenet’s hand on her arm again, moved forward at his urging, reluctantly. “She won’t make any trouble,” cutting off the woman’s indignation. “Will you?”
Moon looked up into his expression. “Me?” She shook her head, caught a whisper of a smile.
“I’m going out again to look for my friend. You can wait here until I get back.” He pointed with his chin toward the room full of tables. “Then maybe we’ll talk about Carbuncle.”
“All right.” She chose a table near the fireplace, went to it and sat down. Ngenet turned back toward the door.
“You know where to look?” the fat woman called. “Ask around the Club.”
“I’ll do that.” He went out.
Moon sat in uncomfortable silence under the innkeeper’s dour gaze, running her fingers along the scars in the wooden tabletop. But at last the woman shrugged, wiping her own hands on her apron, picked up the glass of beer and brought it to the table. Moon flinched slightly as it came down in front of her, froth spilling out onto the ring-marked wood. The woman billowed away again without speaking, did something to a featureless black box behind the bar. Someone began to sing abruptly, in the middle of a song, the middle of a word, with pieces of the same rhythmic stridency Moon had heard in the streets as accompaniment.
Moon started, glanced back over her shoulder to find the room as empty as before. Emptier — she watched the innkeeper disappear up the stairs, taking another mug of beer with her. Moon’s eyes came back to the black box. She had a sudden smiling image of it stuffed full of sound, like a keg or a sack of meal. She took a swallow of her beer, grimaced: kelp beer, sour and badly brewed. Setting down the mug, she pulled off her slicker. In the fireplace a solitary chunk of metal glowed red hot like a bar of iron in a smithy’s forge. She twisted in her seat, her fingers exploring the animal faces capping the chair back while she absorbed the heat and the music. Her foot began to tap time as a kind of pleasant compulsion moved her body. The harmonies were complicated, the sound was loud and throbbing, the voice trilled meaningless noise. The effect was nothing like the music that Sparks made with his flute… but something in it was compelling, distantly akin to the secret song of the choosing place.
Moon closed her eyes, sipping beer; let her mind separate out the memory of all that had gone wrong from all that was right between herself and Sparks , as she listened to the music that he had always heard with a different ear. They would talk about Carbuncle, Ngenet had said. Would he take her there, then? Or would he only try to change her mind? No one would change her mind… but she thought she could change his. She could use his concern about her to make him take her there, she was sure of it. She could be there tomorrow… She began to smile.
But was it right? Some part of her mind stirred uneasily. How was it wrong? Ngenet wanted to help her; she knew he did. And she didn’t even know why Sparks needed her: She imagined him sick or hungry, moneyless, friendless, starving. A day, an hour, could make a difference… Lady, every minute that she could spare him any sorrow or pain was important, more important than anything else.
A noise at the back of the room made her open her eyes. She looked toward the doorway at the rear of the room, felt her eyes widen, and widen again, as her mind refused to accept the information they took in. It was alive, and moving. It stood on two legs like a human being, but it’s feet were broad and webbed, its motion was the fluid shifting of sea grass in the underwater swell. The gray green, sexless body, glistening with an oily film, was naked except for a woven belt hung with unidentifiable shapes; the thing’s arms split into half a dozen whiplike tendrils. Nacreous, pupil less eyes fixed on her like the eyes of a sea spirit.
Moon stood up, her mouth too dry for the sounds she was trying to make; she put the chair between herself and the nightmare thing as she reached for her knife. But at her motion the creature gave a guttural cough and darted back through the doorway, disappearing from her sight before she could really believe that it had ever been there.
Standing in its place was a man she had never seen before, half again her own age, with a stiff crest of blond hair falling over one eye. He was wearing a fisherman’s parka, but his pants were a lurid green in the flame less brightness of the room. “Don’t go for it, young mistress, I’ve got you marked.” He stretched out his arm, she saw something unidentifiable in his hand. “Toss it out onto the floor, now, gently does it.”
She finished drawing her knife, uncertain about the threat. He moved his hand impatiently, and she tossed the curved blade out. He came forward far enough to pick it up.
“What do you want?” The shrillness of it told her just how afraid she really was.
“Come on out, Silky.” The man glanced toward the doorway, in stead. Unintelligible hissing sounds were the response; the man smiled humorlessly. “Yes, precisely as delighted to meet you as you were to find her here. Come out and give her a better look.”
The creature came cautiously through into the room again; Moon’s hands tightened over the animal heads on the chair back. The thing made her think suddenly of a family crest come to life. “I — I don’t have any money.”