“Sam, what is there to do around here at night?”
Click. “Look at the stars, smell the clear air, wander out along the wild hills and meadows.” Click-click—
188 Samuel R.Delany click. “That’s what I’m planning to do, anyway. If you’re stuck in the far reaches of Outer Mongolia, even in this day and age, there isn’t much to do, except figure out more and more interesting ways to relax.” Click-click.
“Do with somebody. I have to take someone out tonight.”
Click; Sam reached for his drink, missed it, got it, and maneuvered the straw into his mouth. Click-click. “The woman you went running after, after breakfast?” He put the drink back on the table (Click); the edge of the glass was just over the side.
Bron narrowed an eye, wondering if he should move it. “I said I would take her someplace exciting. Tonight.”
“I can’t think of anyplace you could—” Sam looked up, frowning. “Wait a second.” He moved the glass back on the table.
Bron breathed.
Sam dug among the rack of pockets down the side of his toga, pulled out a square sheaf of colored paper, which he opened into a rectangle.
Knowing full well what it was, Bron said: “What’s that?”
“Money,” Sam said. “Ever use it?”
“Sure.” There were quite a few places on Mars that still took it.
Sam counted through the sheaf. “There’s a place I’ve been to a couple of times when I’ve passed through here—about seventy-five miles to the north.” He flipped up more bills. “There, that should be enough to take you, your friend, and half her theater commune.” While Sam separated the bills, Bron wondered how Sam knew she was in the theater. But then, maybe he’d found out at breakfast. And Sam was saying: “It’s a restaurant—where they still take this stuff. Some people consider it mildly elegant. Maybe your friend would enjoy it. If nothing else, it’s a giggle.” Sam held out the bills.
“Oh.” Bron took them.
“That’ll cover it, if I remember things right. It’s quite an old place. Dates all the way back to People’s Capitalist China.”
Bron frowned. “I thought that only lasted ten years or so?”
“Six. Anyway, it’s something to take a gawk at, if you’re in the neighborhood. It’s called Swan’s Craw—which I always wondered about. But that’s Capitalist China for you.”
“You say it’s seventy-five miles? I don’t remember quite how much a mile is, but I suspect it’s too far to walk.” Bron folded the bills again and wondered where to put them.
“By a bit. I’ll tell the landlady to make you a reservation. They’ll send a transport for you—you know about tipping and all that sort of thing?”
“In the circles I moved in as a youth, you picked up the etiquette of money along with your monthly checkup for arcane and sundry venereal diseases.” The bill showing was a thousand something—which he knew was as likely to be very little as it was to be a lot. “What is the tipping rate here?” he thought to ask. “Fifteen percent? Twenty?”
“Fifteen is what I was told the first time I went; nobody looked unhappy when I left.”
“Fine.” Bron had no pockets in this particular outfit, so he folded the money again, put it in his other hand, then transferred it back. “You weren’t planning to go there, were you? I mean, if you needed this for yourself ... ?”
“I was planning definitely not to go,” Sam said. “I’ve been half a dozen times before. I really do prefer the open rocks and grass, the night, the stars. I brought the scrip specifically to get you off my neck for at least one evening while we were here, hopefully at something you’d enjoy.”
“Oh,” Bron said. “Well ... thanks.” He looked for a pocket or purse again, again remembered he had none. “Eh ... Where do we go to pick up the transport?”
“Don’t worry,” Sam smiled slightly. “They pick you up.”
“Ah-ha!” Bron said, and felt knowing—“It’s that kind of place—” because there were no such places in the satellites.
“Elegant,” Sam repeated, putting his eyes back down to the reader. Click-click-click. “Hope you enjoy yourself.” Click.
In the room, Bron sat on the bed and wondered what to do till nine o’clock. Minutes into his wonder-ings, the landlady came in, carrying a tray on which was a tall glass filled with something orange, a straw, and leaves.
“You are going to the Craw this evening, with a friend? It is very nice there. You will enjoy it. The reservations have all been made. Worry about nothing more. If you, or your friend, wish to go in period dress, just let me know ... ? Many people enjoy that.”
“Oh,” Bron said. “Sure ...” with a dozen memories returning from his Bellona youth (as the landlady retired): He knew exactly the dress for an expensive, male prostitute, going to a similar, money-establishment on Mars. Certainly not period (the precredit period when money was in use) dress. That marked you immediately as one of those appalling tourists who visited such a place once, twice, maybe three times in their lives, who moved through leaving gentle smiles and snide chuckles. You went in period dress if you owned your own and were known by the establishment; anything else consigned you to that category of velvet contempt for those who did things Not Done. Also, the Spike didn’t know where they were going. Her own dress was likely to be something modern and informal. On the other hand, he didn’t want to go looking like one of those oblivious yokels who wander into such places with no sense that they were, indeed, in a historical institution. No matter how inappropriate the Spike’s dress, if his own, unthinkingly, merely emphasized it, even if she were not offended, she would certainly not be impressed.
And this was Earth—not Mars. His experience of such places was not only from another world: it was from fifteen years in the past. But, he found himself thinking, the essence of such places was anachromism. Even if styles themselves changed in such establishments, the structure of stylistic deployment remained constant. In fact, an elderly woman client (with silver eyelids and cutaway veils, who had once taken him to such a place, where she herself had been going for twenty years) had once said to him as much in Bel-lona. (Her veils and lids recalled, her name and face somehow escaped ...) With such ponderings and reveries, he occupied the rest of the morning: His own clothes, he decided, the ones he had brought, would provide his outfit, whatever he wore. He drank his drink, went out into the garden, looking for Sam—who was gone.
He went back into his room. Well, his own clothes and Sam’s; he was sure Sam wouldn’t mind. And he had gone looking for him to ask.
During the afternoon he spent at least two hours sitting in the garden trying forceably to relax. Each time, the landlady appeared with a drink. He’d assumed it contained some drug or other—caffeine, alcohol, sugar? But, from all effects, it was metabolically neutral. (Vaguely he remembered something about an Earth law preventing the administration of drugs of any sort without prior and complicated announcement and consent.) By eight he had laid out his clothing:
One silver sleeve with floor-length fringe (Sam had two in his bag, but only a prostitue would go to such a place so flamboyantly symmetricaclass="underline" two would have been all right for breakfast, barely acceptable at lunch. But supper—?) and a silver harness (his own) rather like a Tethys e-girl’s, and the silver briefs that matched it: a black waist-pouch (Sam’s) for the money. No pouch at all (implying secret pockets) would have marked him (again) as a prostitute. His own pouch, with its inset mirrors and flashing lights, in such a situation would have identified him as a prostitute’s client. He agonized over the footwear for half an hour, till suddenly he had a brilliant idea: First his own, soft, black boots—then he rummaged Sam’s makeup kit out of the bottom of Sam’s bag and, with the plastic lacquer, carefully painted his gold eyebrow (occasionally stopping to brush at the shaggy real one with his thumb) black.
He had the lacquer-remover out, sure that he would have to redo it half a dozen times; he had never done it before (at least not in black) and was sure he would get paint all over his face. Crane and squint as he would at the magnifying mirror, however, he had done, with three strokes, a perfect job.