Galactic Center - Furious Gulf Part 15

"But you can't--""I'm Cap'n, son. Cermo!"Toby opened his mouth, words not coming--and felt Cermo grab himfirmly from behind, pinning his arms. He wrestled, shouted, swore, tried a back-kick that found only air. Cermo had the reach on him. The whole room was watery, clogged with heavy air that did not seem to carry his words, his shouted words, as Cermo pulled him strongly backward, backward down a long aisle. Little pale dwarf faces looked bug-eyed at him, all hiding behind the stuffy air of this strangely rippling room. Toby's throat filled again, this time with a thick, sour taste, a bitter black draft of foreboding.

6.

The Charm of Commerce Toby spent two days under lock in a small bunk room, subject to strict s.h.i.+p's discipline. This meant that he saw n.o.body, knew nothing. Not even Quath could visit. The room wasn't big enough, anyway. Food and study materials were all he got, so he boned up on math and history, listening to Isaac's drone more than he ever had. He spent time doing exercises in the tiny cell. Cermo brought the chow, reluctantly keeping silence, following orders, even when Toby joshed him about it.This meant that he didn't get to attend the general education sessions, explaining how this place worked. Which rankled him so much he worked out his frustration on the room, doing servo'd exercises by rebounding from the ceiling, scuffing the walls, slamming into the floor and then back to ceiling again. He tried to figure out how this place worked by himself, using Isaac, but nothing made much sense as he reviewed it. The deepest mystery was how this impossible solid ground existed at all, whirling around the razor edge of a black hole.After two days Besen w.a.n.gled a visit somehow. Her hair shone with fresh highlights--something in the water here, she said--and she beamed. He held her in his arms, kissed her, murmured of his cares and worries ... but something was wrong. He felt himself stiffen as she touched him provocatively, a palm sliding confidently up his thigh, nestling on his hip.--slick skin sliding--Her kiss seemed metallic, an oxidizing flick of her tongue.--musky warmth spilling over her in the fitful dark--And her hand fell leaden on him, inquiring into his hardness.--light laughter as the two of them rolled, leg over leg--He stiffened in her grip, found it tight and close and hot.--startled yelp of pleasure and pleased surprise--She frowned as he pushed away, slapped away her hand. "What, what--"

184."I don't feel like that right now.""Huh?" Stricken eyes."I've got things on my mind," he said lamely, confused."Well, this sure isn't like the Mr. Anytime I knew.""I guess not.""Toby, maybe if you talked some, we--""Look, I--come back tomorrow, okay? Something isn't sitting rightwith me just now."She went, frowning, mouth quivering uncertainly. He felt sad andangry with himself the moment the door sealed. But then he started talkingto s.h.i.+bo about it and the whole thing didn't seem so important anymore.Besen didn't come back. He exercised, slept, thought fruitlessly.By the time Cermo unlocked the cell, Toby was going buggy. Besenwas there to embrace him, giving a soulful kiss that promised more thantalk ever could. This time it didn't bother him.., but it didn't kindle muchreaction in him, either. Not Mr. Anytime, no--and he didn't know why.First, he was in a mood to splash around in a shower--the nativeshere had tapped Argo into their own apparently plentiful supply--and getoutside. The stubby city was more open than the s.h.i.+p's helical corridors,and he needed s.p.a.ces, range. He got himself spruced up as fast as hecould.He had expected to be summoned to see the Cap'n, but his comm linewas silent. As he strode through the sloped corridors, fidgety from con finement and depressed in general, n.o.body seemed interested in talking tohim. Teams worked to flush and fix up Argo; even in port, s.h.i.+p work wasnever finished.When he struck up a few conversations, crew members discoveredpressing business elsewhere. Finally he decided to not call Besen. She ]ight not understand that he just wanted some distance for a while, a few urs.

As he approached the main lock something looked funny. There were a dozen of the dwarf natives talking to the watch under-officers, haggling . and trying to cull favors--and they all stopped abruptly as he came near.

The Lieutenant in charge stiffly told Toby that there was a hold on his movements. He wasn't to leave the s.h.i.+p.

That got his back up, of course. He mulled over going to see Quath, to .get the drift of what was happening, and then he remembered the dam- :.'aged farm domes. In the big balloon-shaped dome devoted to grain crops, 'he had once tried to fix a small personnel vent that didn't seal quite right. It probably still didn't, but now there was positive pressure outside.

He got there without anybody paying any obvious attention. Sure enough, the vent popped free with just a little wrench work. Somehow the docking fields held the s.h.i.+p delicately isolated from nearby decks. Soft, but firm if you pushed on them.

They brushed him gently aside, like a good- natured wind holding him aloft.

He slipped down, around the bulging slick skin of the dome, and 185.

dropped into shadows below Argo's hovering hulk. Within moments he had made his way through the reception area, nodding to the bored attendants--and was out, away, into the gray city.It was a shock. Rather than the glum, sour streets he remembered, these thronged with life--stalls and shops and incessant chattering that ricocheted from every avenue. This showed how stilted and planned their reception had been before, all part of their bargaining strategy.Toby wandered, stunned. He had spent days worrying and fretting, and now all that seemed to drop away. It had been many years since he had simply let himself go, ambling aimlessly. Then it struck him--not since the Citadel. Not since the spring celebration when his grandfather Abraham had financed a ball-throwing contest between the generations, at a sports booth in the Citadel Square. Sweaty work, cheering and catcalls, itchy dust from many feet. And there had been hot, piping sweetchurns in paper bags, cool drinks, laughter, grins.The memories made him bite his lip, and he plunged into the busy crowds. A few people gave him startled looks, but most ignored his size and strange jumpsuit. It took a while to get used to markets, deals, the quick calculus of value. What Toby thought of as just plain things had a special word, making them somehow better--"goods." You got "goods"

with money, then had to make some other "good" to replace the money you spent. He wondered how you got a "bad" or maybe a "better," but n.o.body spoke of such things.He had credit, it seemed, from a first payment the judge had given all Bishops days before. He minded it wisely. This wasn't like the bartering between Families he had known back on Snowglade. There you could get a syntho-s.h.i.+rt in trade for two of your self-made, gleaming carbon-steel knives, say. Then you had to find somebody who needed knives before you could get something else. Money was easier, really--you just decided whether the "good" was worth so many of the little round coins, or not.

Simple.But the bustle this conjured up here! The place was aswarm to bursting with shopkeepers and hawkers, fortune-tellers, merchants, the nimble-fingered and sadly wise, peddlers, grifters, senso artists, back-alley investment counselors, doxies of sullen smiles, men and women with "goods"

hidden in their s.h.i.+rtsleeves or ballooning pantaloons, and "bads" alike in their hearts. You could buy anything, from a yellow powder that addicted you for life inside of two minutes, to a strange, luminous alien gla.s.sware--which proved to be the alien itself, when he touched it.Some had learned how to beg for ready cash, too. Sitting in a back alley eating a treat, he watched a one-eyed woman who saw better than most could with two. She was getting dressed for her trade and, for a small coin, let Toby watch. Smooth-faced, she daubed on makeup, adding hideous blue hollows under the eyes. A light, comfortable sheath slid over her calf, making her spider-walk like a cripple.Toby watched her set up shop on a busy corner. People threw her 186.coins and looked away. Somehow the illogic of it--surely there were treatments for such ailments?--didn't rob the trade of a jot of its credibility.

Toby couldn't fathom why, but then glimpsed a possibility. She was providing a form of ego-boosting entertainment. Looking at her miserable sell pa.s.sersby could feel a rush of gladness: troubled they might be, but not that badly. She was in show business.

These weren't the demiG.o.ds who made the Chandeliers, no.

There was a sprawling tangle of streets designed to separate people looking for amus.e.m.e.nt from their cash. Games, booths, things to throw at for a prize--and others where somebody got to throw at you. Dance halls open eternally, fever-bright, with syntho-music that wound around on a long loop, filming the air with p.r.i.c.kly scents and startling pheromone-triggers.

Toby lingered in one, and then in a brief moment when the effects turned off (required by law), he saw what was happening to him and his pocket change. He went back to wandering the streets, which was at least cheaper, though his nervous system kept trying to make his feet circle back.

There were science games and events, operating right next to fortunetellers, a tribute to humanity's ability to believe two contradictory things at once. Hawkers of wonders. Gambling. Feats of strength (care to try?).

Dispensers of drugs and even alcohol, all legal and heavily taxed to offset their probable social effects. Soft drink stands, one offering an ancient dark bubbly fluid that Toby hated and threw away, shocking some kids. They seemed insulted that he hadn't liked the authentic folk treat, KocaKoola, rich and true. But the paprika was enough to turn his tongue.

He began to get the sense of a city again, after years on the move.

Citadel Bishop had been a rambling, dusty pueblo on a canyon floor. It had water-starved gardens and one broad plaza--nothing compared with this.ehad seen ruins of a lesser Arcology at a distance--the mechs were ipping it for materials at the time--and this place resembled that.

The brisk order reminded him of how restful it was to cook a meal, knowing that lamp oil or salt was just around a corner, available. Of how a girl, crossing a street, never paused but swung her head both ways before stepping off the curb. Of how hypnotizing it had been, as a boy, to sit at an upstairs window and watch the people parade past on a sidewalk, oblivious that they were pa.s.sing actors in his imaginary dramas. Cities--a magical compression of humanity, a vessel he could learn.

Toby imagined that his new language-chip must be glowing white-hot, with all the use he was giving it. No set of rigid digital rules can blanket a sprawling, living language, any more than a fine silk handkerchief can cover a slattern. Most of what Toby heard was quick, vivid, direct. Fine for bargaining, but not nuances. He knew as little of those as a dog does of doggerel. Tradeswomen gave him an eye and tried to guess his birthplace from his vowels, thinking he had come from places named Ragpicker, or Avalon, or Tuscaloosa. From his size alone they knew he was 187.

from the Hunker Down Families, shaped by mech war and gravity, but they guessed Jacks or Queens, not Bishops or Knights.There were a band of kids his own age that showed pa.s.sing, mild interest in where he was from, what he had seen--and then quickly focused back on their own amus.e.m.e.nts. Their talk was quick, amusing, slangy, hard to follow. Mostly they just lounged around scruffy back alleys, absorbed, tinkering with gadgets.They wore padded goggles, headphones, gloves and boots, curiously heavy things. Toby tried them on while they snickered knowingly, and found himself immersed in a sensorium of a forest. Big animals came charging out of the thickets, roaring and flas.h.i.+ng huge teeth. A fierce cat-creature with tawny fur bowled Toby over--an odd sensation, because he also could feel himself still standing upright, while his eyes and ears told him that he was tumbling head over heels.After a few minutes he got the knack of this game, though, and started shooting at the animals. They were pretty easy to hit. He tired of that and so tossed aside the weapon he had found in his pseudo-hand. He wrestled the next animal, a big lizard with hot red eyes. It pseudo-scratched and bit him, painful, slas.h.i.+ng--all real enough impressions, but somehow disconnected because Toby knew they weren't anything more than electrical stimuli from a machine, blurred and oddly hollow.Then it struck him--his own in-built systems did this, but finer-grained.

His eyes could ratchet through the spectrum, pick up Dopplered targets, fix ranges and calibrations with the blink of an eyelid, a touch of a tongue to the right tooth. His servos cut in without prompting. All specialized survival gear, added to him before he could do more than squall and fill his diapers.But here, such skills were exotic, down-worlder stuff. Other uses of the same tech were playthings.He threw the big scabby lizard a few times and it threw him, until he got tired of the putrid reek of the leathery green skin, a stench of the rotting meat wedged in its teeth. The kids were there in the jungle around him, shooting and laughing and running around--all without having to do anything for real, or even move their own legs or arms.They liked Toby's idea of wrestling the animals, and one of them got mock-crushed by a huge leprous rat with purple whiskers. But then Toby tired of that, too, and took his helmet off. The kids stayed in the game, though, their arms and legs jerking with fake hits and kicks, fingers tightening around imaginary triggers, killing ghost-creatures that seethed before their blinded eyes. He sat and watched them for a while, slumped into doorways, clasped in momentary action, thrilling to pseudo-lives they could lead as an amus.e.m.e.nt.They were fun kids, but to them the world was just a bunch of signs and symbols and electronic fakery. They had elaborate, hip reasons why their world was better than the crude press of slow-witted reality--a 188.

philosophy, Toby thought, for people who spent too much time indoors.

He wandered off and went for a real walk through a real park and though there were no exciting big green lizards, he liked it better.That was where Quath found him. The hulking ma.s.s did not need to fight the crowds; they got out of the way. And Toby knew she was coming before he even saw her. Into his sensorium pushed a brooding, anxious curtain. Something was wrong. Very wrong.

7.

Animal Spirits "By you, anyway, big-bug," Toby said to cover his surprise. "People give you any trouble getting here?""That big, I guess you can not notice whatever you like. Then too, I don't think the devil himself on red stilts would turn many heads here." Quath clanked and squeaked and many-legged her way into a sitting posture, which Toby knew was a sign that she was serious. Her great head lowered to get under a willowy tree limb. "You couldn't have gotten in the door," Toby said with a lightness he didn't feel."What'd they want to know? I mean, after they'd read our Legacies?"

Toby asked bitterly."You told them?""Mechs get in here much?""They'd better be pretty fine ones." Toby liked the lush greenery of this park, but it missed a quiet, slumbering ambience of Citadel Bishop's--at least, in boyhood memory. Neither did this city equal those lost, charming avenues he had toddled along, led by his mother's hand. And he knew that nothing ever could. 190.

"Aunt who?"

Quath made a metallic rrrrrttttt that might be something like laughter, though Toby had never been able to tell. She made the same sound at times that weren't remotely funny, at least to Toby. When the rrrrrttttt stopped, she told Toby about how ordinary matter had an opposite kind, and if they met, both kinds disappeared in a flash of light.

"Seems dangerous stuff to tinker with," Toby mused.

Toby shook his head. "I want to understand this place, Quath--don't trouble my head with tales of stars."

"That's small talk?" Toby paced in the little grove, listening to the mutter of people and commerce only a block away. Even this sc.r.a.p of the natural world, a few trees and bushes, was enough to make him realize how much he had missed it. "I think I know what you're working up to, though. My dad wants me back, tail between my legs--right?"

"But I'm dead on target?"

"Let him. After he's bargained away the Legacies, why be choosy?"

"Fas.h.i.+on, huh?"

a "Hey, you stick on an extra eye or leg fast as I can change my s.h.i.+rt."

"Hey! I forget, sure, but--"

Toby didn't see why, but he felt something in Quath's manner that made him uneasy. "Why come looking for me, mother of all c.o.c.kroaches?"

Toby kicked at a fallen branch. "Should I care? Let him sell his teeth for it."

"Me? I haven't got anything."

"Sure, but--say, what's my dad been negotiating?"

< p="">

the Restorer, or the Preserving Machine. With a tissue sample and amemory reserve, it can recreate any person who once lived.> Toby felt cold, sharp horror strike into him. "s.h.i.+bo."

"I don't like that."Toby blushed. He tottered, reeled--and sat down abruptly, head swimming. The air swarmed with blue-white dots. His chest heaved to drag in thick, moist gasps. He knew what Killeen wanted was wrong in some dark, terrible way, but he could not muster arguments. "I... I don't "They'll confer with her?""Sure, it'll have to be through me."His head pounded and his hands clenched, strangely cold, but he made himself think. He had only to turn his attention inward and s.h.i.+bo's Personality rose like a ma.s.sive stony wedge inside his mind.

It is tempting to go back into all that. I will have to think about it.

"What?" he asked her soundlessly. "But we're so close. I've hardly even started to learn what you're really like. Your memories, I love them."

They are digital dust.

"They're just as real as, as this gra.s.s, those trees."

You do not believe that. Remember the ones who fought the fake animals? They embraced the simulated over the real. You laughed at them.

"But your self, it'll last forever in chipstore." He was grasping at straws of logic and hoped she could not sense that.

Nothing replaces life. Still, there are fiavors here that you do not taste. Hard to describe, gray and cool and restful.

Craftily he said to her, "Let's get through this trouble, then talk about this so-called Restorer."

There is some sense to that, I admit.

192.

"Good. Just let me straighten things out with my dad, just you and me, and--"

I have been thinking. Such a transformation might not make for happiness in myself or in Killeen. He is changed. Harder.

"He is that."

I treasure this remove. Here I am free of the coa.r.s.e and momentary, of jars and needs.

Toby caught a sliver of pale s.p.a.ces, strangely delicious, of smooth surfaces flowing in a timeless place. "I see."

You cannot. But I thank you for trying.

He gulped, his hands trembling, and gazed defiantly up into Quath'shovering head. "I I won't let Killeen have her chip."

"I have rights!"He jerked angrily to his feet. "That's not Family custom!""Humanity must've had this, sometime 'way back, or else these people here wouldn't have it. But our customs, they're ancient--and they don't say anything about bringing Personalities back."

So simply put, the brutality of it was unanswerable. "Look, I still won't give her up.""Exploration?" Toby could not get his mind off the prospect before him. And something more dried his mouth, tightened his throat--thestrange currents running like searing rivulets when he thought of s.h.i.+bo.

"I need to think this over." Toby got up unsteadily. $hibo herself was not causing this seethe inside him. It was something he felt, something about him and s.h.i.+bo together, that he could not voice. Each time he tried, he felt a sickening churn, a whirlpool of coming nausea."I won't go back.""Oh yeasay--you will," his father said.Toby whirled. "No!"

193.

Killeen and Cermo emerged from the nearby trees, fully suited. His father's face was lined and drawn, as though he had gone sleepless all these days. "I knew Quath would be better at searching than we are," he said with a tight smile. "You stepped-down your sensorium so much wecouldn't pick you up on the grid."

"Dad, don't do this."

"I have to.""I'm carrying the chip, so Family law says I decide for the Personality.''"Except when Family survival demands. That's the law, too."Toby thought fast. He had never paid much attention to the endless wranglings of Family law and custom, the adults' yack-yack and breezy bl.u.s.ter, and now regretted it. "We're safe here. Nothing's threatening our survival.""Not so. But look, son--I want s.h.i.+bo back. I think you can understand why.""I don't think it's for the best," Toby temporized."Nonsense. We'll be together again, the three of us, a real family."

Toby shook his head violently. "Not the same, not the same.""Sure it will. s.h.i.+bo, in the flesh--just think of it." For the first time Toby could remember Killeen's face lit with joy."That's not why we came here, Dad, and anyway--" He stopped.

"No--this was why you came, wasn't it?"Wariness swallowed Killeen's brief delight. "Not the main reason, no, but--sure, I guessed there was something like the Restorer here. The message in that Chandelier, remember? And other old sayings, myths. You should see the real thing, son! Magnificent, huge, flexible gla.s.s and metal you can see through, tech that can restore anybody, given enough data.

You'll be--""You don't need her now, Dad. Later, maybe, when we've found Abraham, gone--""Abraham? Killeen's sunny elation returned. "I got his message. He sent coordinates of where he is. They're not reliable, Andro says, but they'll get us to the neighborhood. Abraham is alive--here! Somehow he got away from the Citadel. Said to bring you for sure and--""s.h.i.+bo can come after that. She's personal business, Dad. Abraham, all the rest--that's Family Bishop business. First deal with that.""There's more beyond to discover, I can smell it. I need s.h.i.+bo. She was my, my core, son. You can't understand that, I know, but..."In Killeen's face unease and uncertainty warred with his set-piece Cap'n's hard-mouthed mask. Toby realized suddenly how much a s.h.i.+eld that calm, resolute image had been, for years now."I need her. I want to have her back before we go searching for Abraham. It's an emergency, so I'm setting aside the usual Family customs--"

194.

"We're safe! No mechs here, even. You can't invoke some--""I already have." Killeen's mask had returned at Toby's outburst, the window between them closing in an eye-blink.Killeen and Cermo stood together, tall and certain, Cermo chunky and giving away his apprehension with elbows c.o.c.ked, knees loose. The crevices in Killeen's face seemed deep, shadowed, hiding something. Yet the voice was mild, calming as he argued further. Toby had heard him use the same tones on a crewman who had stepped out of line and needed herding back in.Toby took a deep breath, licked his lips. Using his Aspects, he dredged up legalistic lore, rattling jargon he only dimly understood. "Override our customs? How can you? I haven't even been informed by Family Council of any of this." He let his peripheral vision drift, sizing up opportunities.

"First you have to--""I called a special Council. Since you had left Argo without permission of the watch officer, they allowed as how they could pa.s.s judgment without your being informed."Toby was aghast. He should have suspected when it was so easy to slip away. "You let me leave.""I gave orders that you were confined to the s.h.i.+p."

"Sure, knowing you could turn it this way, and then--"

"The Family demands this."

"Family? Ha! It's you who want it.""I stood aside during their deliberations.""Huh!" Toby spat back, edging to his left. Of course--his father knew how days in that tiny cell would affect him, make him jump s.h.i.+p. So the Cap'n prepared arguments, finished the dealings, then waited for Toby to skip. The shock of seeing how he could be so easily used, his impulses culated, seethed through Toby like a chilly, clarifying dash of water.

He got control of his voice and said slowly, as mildly as he could, "Dad, s.h.i.+bo doesn't want to be 'restored.'"Killeen laughed dryly. "Nonsense. An Aspect always wants out.""She's a Personality--bigger, more ample ..." Toby struggled to say what he felt. "You don't carry one, you can't know what it's like. They're above all this, the surge of anger and want and fear that we feel--all of it.

She likes herself the way she is."Killeen was still smiling, shaking his head. "You can't expect anybody to believe that.""I certainly do! No Personality carried in this Family ever had a choice of coming out again. n.o.body ever asked the question.""Well, we can," Cermo said carefully. "Just manifest her before the Council.""No," Killeen said abruptly, clenching his fist. "I'll settle this. Manifest her now, right here.""What?" Toby made himself take a deep breath. His mind reeled with harsh, violent imagery. Nausea burned his throat.

195.

"Come on, let her speak.""No!"--fevered skin softly resistant, a cupped rosy breast--"You'd have to anyway, before the Council," Cermo said reasonably."Any objection she has, I can talk her out of it," Killeen said affably.

"Come on, son."--tongue flicking in damp hollows, secret crevices--"No!"Killeen's smile hardened. "Yeasay. Now."s.h.i.+bo said, If it causes this, I'll think again. I don't want to see you two -- No! Toby sent to her in the confines of her imprisonment. No.

Killeen's mouth hardened. "Now. And I mean it."Toby broke to his left. He didn't have much hope but he dug in, revving his knee-servos to max, feeling their surging whine beneath his skin.Shouts behind him. They probably could run him down but he would give them a chase anyway. He leaned into it, puffing hard.Then the shouts became hoa.r.s.e, shrill. He snapped his head around.

Quath was blocking Cermo and Killeen, moving with surprising speed. She shot out a telescoping leg and hooked Cermo's foot, tripping him. Killeen she stopped with a rude b.u.mp, sending him sprawling.Toby was astounded, but he didn't let it slow his pounding boots. He got out of the park and plunged into the busy streets beyond.Escape has two steps: first, separating from the pursuer. Then, distancing yourself from the incident, so n.o.body suspects the distant hubbub has you as its prey.Toby cut down alleys where he could, leaped clean over a stubby building--his servos cutting in hard--and dodged his way through three streets, faster than he could think through a plan. People chuckled and shouted at him but they seemed to a.s.sume he was a mere oddity, not a thief escaping from a job. He relaxed slightly and had the presence of mind to wave at the curious, smiling broadly, as though this was some stunt.

Pretty soon he slowed to a fast walk and n.o.body seemed much interested in him.He angled through an open-air market without attracting more than the usual attention paid his size. He made his breathing slow. His antic, popping anxiety faded.Without thinking he found that he had circled around, always turning right when he could. Ingrained Family training. Coming around on your pursuer let you know where he was, since he was following your trail. You could decide whether to take him by surprise, but you had to do it before the tracker realized what you were doing. Or else you took off in a totally different direction, taking time to cover your tracks.

196.

Only in a city there was no tracking, unless Toby had stirred up a crowd somewhere to mark his pa.s.sage. But Killeen and Cermo couldn't talk easily with these dwarves, especially in their mood. So he might have a margin of time.He had ended up behind the park. A chase moves away from the start and usually n.o.body thinks to check back there. He had learned that playing in the dusty streets of Citadel Bishop, then later again, dodging mechs. Now he hoped that his own father couldn't read him that deeply.

The thought made him fidgety, glancing around corners before exposing himself on the approach to the park area. After all, Killeen had played him like a penny flute lately.No sign of Killeen or Cermo. No shouts or unusual hurry. He leaned against a building, eyeing the park a block away.This was only a temporary victory. The Family would comb this city and pluck him out.He felt a familiar cool signal in his comm. Quath, apparently, had played the same kind of games as a child--or hatchling, or whatever the Myriapodia were when young. But Toby couldn't see her anywhere.The bulky form was above him, clinging somehow to the side of abuilding, concealed in shadow. n.o.body nearby had noticed.

"With Dad acting that way, it had to happen."

"Freedom starts between the ears, sticky-paws. I had to follow what I know. So did you. Thanks.""Really? Do you think I should give s.h.i.+bo back to him?"

"Come on!"Toby leaned against a wall, watching Quath clamber down the gray ceramic building--which shuddered and popped with the strain--andsaid, "I don't hear much music these days, buggo. Just noise."

"How would you know?""You don't have unconscious thoughts? I mean, impulses, things that just turn up when you're not thinking about them?"

"Maybe we like ourselves the way we are.""So I can't really think about s.h.i.+bo? That's why I'm so messed up?"

He felt exhausted, and not from his running. He let himself slide down, back to the wall, legs splaying out until he was sitting in the alley."That's ... why we feel so much ..."

"And we can't."Toby wondered if he would ever know what stormy emotions tossed him about on the surface of a deep, troubled inner sea. He shrugged. "In that case, maybe I'll feel a smidge better if I do something more than sit on my fat a.s.s, waitin' for Cermo to fall over me here.""Hey, without you I'd be having my spinal chips picked clean." Tobygot to his feet, feeling lighter, easier in himself."Like my grandfather used to say, bug-brain--Cheer up! We'll live to p.i.s.s on the graves of our enemies." It seemed odd to be giving Quath a pep talk."Part of the line. We got plenty more like him." It felt good to say it,even if he didn't really know if it was true. Maybe no son ever did know.

Quath rustled her legs, then restlessly played her boosters, hovering in air. People in the street nearby looked up, startled, and moved away.

They were pretty savvy, but Quath was a bit much."Neither do I. We can't stay here, though. You're kinda conspicuousand I'm a wanted man.""I dunno. We flew Argo in through the grand entrance and they were ready for us. Is there a back door to this place?"