Flesh and Gold (32 page)

“I want to bring her out of there.”

“You do? That's theft! I'd never be able to do that!”

“Theft? You mean the O'e are property?” Manador put out a bottle of Kemalan brandy and offered a glass and a dopestick to Maggie.

“Well, like . . .”

“Slaves, you mean? I just want to understand, Maggie.”

“There was,” Maggie shivered, “that one called Yoya, they made her do some kind of . . . anyway, she tried to run away, I heard them beating her, Piri'irik yelling, ‘You belong to US! you dirty piece of cattle!' and in the next day or so she sort of disappeared . . . but then so did Piri'irik, the old screwdaw! Can I have another glass of this? It's good stuff.”

“Take all you like. Slaves, then . . . some kind of law is bound to be biting at Zamos soon. It might be safer to be
running a whorehouse in a mining colony—but I never said you had to bring her out. I'll do that.

“What I want you to do is this: tomorrow night after your dinner I am coming into Zamos's with a mixed group of people. First we'll arrange to hire some take-outs, including yourself. Then we'll go into the main gaming room at the Gamblar, where the tables are. We'll mix around for a few moments and then split into two groups. When the first group is passing the checkout you will go out with them and suddenly remember that you've forgotten something. Got that? You will check out with the first group.”

Maggie fingered the gold heart at her neck and nodded doubtfully. “Go out with the first group and turn back. Then what?”

“You will have found Ai'ia and dressed her to look as much like you as possible. Don't flinch! If you feel she doesn't look enough like you, find someone she does look like and get her to do it, you'll still have the money. Of course you'll have to pay whoever does it. I want her out of there, and I don't care who she looks like.

“If you are doing it you will have her ready and send her out in your place. She'll slip out with the first group around her, there will be a lot of people milling about; it's tenday-night tomorrow, and I'll be with you the whole time, taking the same risks. When they've checked out you'll dash over to the second group that's been hanging around with me and call, Yoo hoo, here I am!—but not too loud. Got that?”

“First group, dash back, send out Ai'ia, fidget around till I see the first group going, run out and give you the high sign. Right?”

“Good!”

“Gonna be fucking tight setting up her and the others in the right places for all that.”

“If you think you're capable of running a whorehouse in
the Urgha Mines you'll be able to arrange a few whores in a pretty pattern. Now go take a look at my wig collection and see if you can find anything useful while I run through my pri-V codes and collect the money.”

“What? You been arranging all this without no money?”

“No fear, Maggie. You have a saying about skeletons—I may not know where the skeletons are buried, but I do know all the dirty closets. When I call in my markers I'll have twice and a half twenty-five Russky rooblies.”

Kobai, Lyhhrt

Here's Kobai to say good-bye, going, gone again . . . little fish is swimming, flicking his tail at me all night and day, round that fishbowl in my belly. ‘Little Fish,' some dumb thing to call my son that will be every bit as big as that Crazylegs Om that threw the lump of gold, only not stupid.
:What have you got there, Iron Man?:

:It is a bottle of coldsleep.:

:Looks very blue and cold. Must I drink that?:

:No, Kobai. I will drain most of your water and mix it in. There will be nutrients and other drugs and chemicals to keep you alive and safe on your long journey. I will be doing that tonight.:

:I'm afraid.:

:I know you are
—
but believe me, you have much less to fear on this dangerous voyage than you would if you remained here.:
He left the flask of coldsleep on the worktable and went into his office to call the Front Desk.

“Please remove the guardians you have placed with the delphine. I am going to decant her for transport and they are in my way.”

“Why hurry? She won't be leaving for three days.”

“I must monitor her sleeping heartbeat and the fetus's until they have reached the proper depth. I have not enough room for my equipment in this cramped place. Perhaps you would prefer to take the responsibility yourself.”

“Never mind, I'll call them off.”

Within a standard hour the watchman folded and pocketed his mini-skambi and the Varvani woman rolled up her ball of purple silk and speared it with her crochet hook.

:I am glad those are gone,:
Kobai said.
:They would never even look at me.:

“Now you may have a rest and a few dreams to yourself.”

:No, Iron Man, I want to look and feel and think as my true self until I sleep. I think I will have too long a while in darkness.:

The Lyhhrt left Kobai to her daydreams and went along the hall and down a ramp to the office of the Recordmaster. She was a hearty Miry woman with straight hair in a bun. She looked up from an endlessly scrolling display of vital statistics.

“Hullo, Doctor! Haven't seen you for a while. Been wondering what you mean to do about the deadhead we've been supporting the last four tendays. A sister has turned up to claim her.”

“I had been saving her for autopsy but have had no opportunity. That is the reason I came. I will have her finished and packed for shipment by tomorrow.”

“Good! Those Pinxin never seem to last. Clients are always asking for them because they're exotic and they'll do anything that's kinky, but they just seem to have no stamina. Get on drugs and OD before they've earned their money's worth. Too bad we can't get decent clones off them.” She looked glum for a moment but cheered up. “Got a new batch of Varvani coming. Less than zero on looks, but real
hard workers—and tough! You won't find any of them among the deadheads.”

“Quite,” said the Lyhhrt. Solthrees sometimes called this woman the Dead Reckoner. He went past her and down through long ranks of steel boxes, most of which contained the dead, until he reached one rack of narrow tanks that looked little different from the coffin cases. There were no more than four or five in suspension, waiting on the disposition of relatives. The Lyhhrt paused before the Pinxid woman's body and extruding a sensor from the end of one fingertip plugged it into a socket and listened:
Lubb-a-dubb-flick-dubb-flick-flick-lubb-a-dubb
, said the two hearts.

Pinxin were the only two-hearted people beside Khahgodi that the Lyhhrt knew of on this world. He did not look at the woman's flat-line brain signal, but summoned the gurney and had it load her, then called up a robot wagon carrying a life-bearing capsule. He directed these two containers past the Reckoner and her automatic checkout. “This life-case is being loaded and shipped to Shen Four,” he told her. “I have a requisition for it.”

“Yes, I see that. Go ahead.”

The two robot bearers carrying the steel case and the capsule followed him along the corridor and up the ramp; the three of them made a small cortege. In the upper passageway he passed the room where the Ix was staying, and before he noticed that the door was ajar his sensors perceived the sharp electric smell by which he knew that people.

:Lyhhrt!:
the terrible mindvoice called.

“Yes?” The Lyhhrt stopped the gurneys and waited while the door opened. In the dim light even he saw little more of the Ix than the glittering of the jeweled harness; its surface negated light.

:There is a new agreement for your next term of service, Lyhhrt, waiting for you to seal it.:

“I know nothing whatever of that,” the Lyhhrt said steadily.

:Now you know it. It has been arranged with your superiors.:

“Is that so?”

The Lyhhrt went on and delivered the body and the life-capsule to the room where Kobai was waiting for coldsleep, then went upstairs to his laboratory office. He prepared a nutrient bath with a special mixture of neurotransmitters, and from the safe took a triply sealed vial of the hormone that would allow him to fission. He considered this for a long moment and returned it to the safe.

After he had fed and refreshed himself in the calming bath and placed himself in the plainest of his workshells, a dark matte grey with a few gold scrawls, he picked up his calls and found two impatient ones from Administration. “At your earliest convenience!” they cried, a degree of haste much faster than “asap.”

He presented himself there, to the tall Khagodi woman and the two Solthrees who formed the present triumvirate. “With all celerity,” he said, “I present myself.”

“Ah, Doctor,” said the Solthree woman, “you are the Doctor, are you not? You look somewhat less exquisite than usual.”

“I have been speaking to the Ix,” said the Lyhhrt. If the Ix had had a name and he had troubled to learn it, the Lyhhrt would not have addressed or referred to him by it. He considered names dangerously individualistic; Kobai and Lebedev were the only people he used them with. “I had not been told about a new contract.”

“An unfortunate oversight,” said the Khagodi woman. “The Ix are very eager to have you keep serving us.”

The Lyhhrt did not ask what new trade Zamos and the Ix were engaging in that needed his talents so badly. “I and my
progenitors have served you for a long time. Are there no others you would find useful?”

The stocky slab-faced man said, “We need Lyhhrt and there are no others. It will not go well with you if you refuse.”

“And for how long?”

“As before, one of your cycles. We have the contract and we want it sealed now.”

The Lyhhrt's workshell rattled and he said in a shaking voice, “I will agree if I must, but I have so seals with me, and there is still one day and ten Standard hours before my present contract ends. I beg you for one half-stad of freedom, so that I may say prayers and make my peace with the Cosmos and its Spirit.” Before anyone could answer he said, “Please. Allow me this much. Please.”

He could perceive that the triumvirate were amused to see the magnificently arrogant Lyhhrt begging so humbly. After a moment of collective thought the Miry woman said, “I think we just might allow that much.”

“Thank you,” he said quaveringly, and backed out of their presence, leaving them smirking with thoughts of further torment and plans for sliding out of this agreement.

“How disgusting it was, Lebedev!” the Lyhhrt said. His movements were jerky and his voice genuinely trembling. “I begged them! I said
please
, and again,
please
, as if I had learned to love slavery.”

Lebedev said, “If the oath binds you so strictly as you believe, it is destructive.”

“Yes, I know it, but I cannot help that.”

It was nine days since Lebedev had met with the Lyhhrt. Not a pleasant nine days, spent looking forward to being inhabited by the Lyhhrt. For some reason the thought had made his ear hurt.

“Nothing is wrong with your ear,” said the Lyhhrt. “Your
pain is caused by fear. Do you think I have no fear of—” He stopped. Both he and Lebedev had been seized by mutual revulsion and would spend their whole lives in this bond. “We need not discuss it. Do not eat any more food today, Lebedev.” He took a flask from the desk. “Here is a potion I have prepared. There are nutrients and tranquilizers for both of us, and you must drink it tonight before you retire. When you wake it will have been done.”

Lebedev accepted the flask. It was a flat silver one with classical engraving, and looked as if it contained whiskey.
How I wish it did! Ai Lebedev, what are you letting yourself in for now? and however did you get into this fix?

“In my room? You will look strange coming into that area.”

“I will take care not to look strange.”

They parted for the second last time without another word.

When he went to his room to change for his afternoon session at the
skambi
table, Lebedev found a little card shoved beneath his door: it told him his services were no longer required as of tomorrow. He did not know whether his discharge had been arranged by the Lyhhrt; it was his pass out of Zamos's Gamblar. He stared sadly at his soup crock. He had eaten the last of its contents for lunch and it stood empty. It was too heavy to carry under his arm out the front door when he meant to leave quickly, and he had nowhere to deliver it, though he supposed for the sake of appearances he ought to make some kind of gesture. It was not expensive or valuable like a silver samovar passed down through the family for hundreds of years, but . . .

Dressed in fresh linens and closing the door behind him, he found Tally coming down the corridor toward his room. He had spent the night with her again half a tenday ago, and
their coupling was one of comfort and warmth rather than passion, somewhat like eating a good soup. The thought of sleeping with Manador came into his head suddenly and made him grin; Tally took the grin for her own and her face brightened.

“Hallo, Lev!” She turned to match his walk and tucked her arm in his. “I heard some talk.”

“What kind?”

“Not very good.” She was smiling and nodding, leading him toward a sofa in Employees Common Area. “They like to have me serving them at private parties . . .” He saw that she was wearing an impervious net of very fine wire with, he thought, real diamonds in it; it fitted close to her scalp and her hair had been combed through it so all that could be seen was the occasional glitter. The gift, perhaps, of some old friend. “They get me to dress up like a whoremaster's idea of Marie Antoinette, only at my age I don't have to take the clothes off like the others do. And they like it if I have something to tell them, whatever I pick up at the stables. They don't much like me screwing you—”