[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]
lights at inter-vals but the rest was obscurity, the silence turgid with
unspoken things.
Villam giggled, poked his elbow into Veschant s side, ducked the swing that
came at him and ran backward a few steps, jumped onto the rail and dived off,
Page 116
ABC Amber Palm Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abcpalm.html
drifting to a second webway where he stood and jeered at his twin. Veschant
yelled and plunged after him. They chased each other about the nexus for
several minutes more, then Vil-lam spread his hands, the black cloth of the
robe drop-ping in folds over them. Hey, Vesh, truce?
Veschant slapped at one of the hands, slapped again. Truce, Villi. He
fumbled the sleeve back and checked his ringchron. Almost time, let s get
there, huh?
They d come in together on an old ore hauler, humping cargo for the Master,
hot cargo heading for
Fences Row, and smuggling in everything they could think of they could
use to make nuisances of themselves and create the maximum of confusion
without pulling the roof in on them.
They were the distraction. The smoke screen to draw attention while the rest
of the team scooped up the pilot and got it away.
They came out of the dark nodes into Playground, stood blinking in the glare
and shivering at the noise.
It was Starstreet cubed, with holofacades and drifting holoas shilling the
pleasures of the taverns and the clubs, the arenas and the duel/kill stages,
the bordellos and ca-sinos, the flake palaces and sensi dromes, the
chassures with live prey, every taste catered to, every nuance tick-led.
They were supposed to start a riot, but now they were here, they didn t quite
know how to proceed.
They stood a moment on the edge of the light, looking around at the jumbled
garish hollow.
Veschant turned to Villam. Tic-tac blow, he said; he pushed his sleeves
back, bared his fists, set one against the other. Call.
Villam pushed his sleeves back, bared his fists, set one against the other. He
knocked his fists against his broth-er s. One. Two. Three. Go! They knocked
fists again, again, again....
Veschant jerked his hands apart, two fingers flipping out of each.
Villam was a second behind, his thumbs up and out. Veschant said, Four.
Villam said, Ten.
Veschant said, Fourteen up, east west.
They knocked fists again again again....
And continued the game until they had the coordinates laid out, then they
linked arms and went strolling into the confusion, hunting for the place
that Chance had pinned for them.
##
They stopped in front of the
Bannerman s.
It wasn t much, a grimy box simmering in self-created murk, a
flickering facadeholo (a line of shapeless forms that might once perhaps
have been cousin hommes, do-ing something that might once perhaps have been
danc-ing), a thick;smell of sweaty feet, grease, and beer.
Villam, looked at Veschant, shrugged and pushed through the door.
It was dark inside, cavities like ratholes lit by purple lusotorches, heavy
tables in them with dark shapeless fig-ures hunched about them.
Villam stopped, hit by a wave of hostility that was hard enough to stop his
breathing for a moment.
Veschant bumped into him, knocking him a few steps farther.
There was a hiss, it got louder, the forms at the tables, they all turned to
face the two in the doorway.
If this place had catered to cousins some time in the past, the clientele had
obviously changed.
Ophidians. Lots of ophidians. And they didn t want company.
To the young Dyslaerors the stink was loud as a shout and it announced an
ancient enemy. Their dreadlocks bushed out, anger musk poured off them.
The hissing increased, and the stench. The hate was mutual.
Page 117
ABC Amber Palm Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abcpalm.html
Villam wrinkled his nose, spat. Stinks in here, he said; his voice carried
to the far corners of that convo-luted space. Snakehouse in the zoo. Whoo-ee,
gonna stomp me some snakes. He dug into his sleeve, fetched out a cherrybomb,
scraped his thumb across the igniter and flung it into the middle of the room.
As it went off, he hauled out his pellet gun and began plinking
luso-torches, spattering the customers with hot components.
With his heater set at singe, Veschant was sweeping the beam about the room,
starting smolders in the robes and raising blisters on ophidi skin.
As the hissing rose to shrieks of rage, Villam poked Veschant and dived for
the door.
Cutter beams flared behind them, left smoking holes in the floor,
missing them by the seven centimeter shunt programmed into their robes.
They ran into the webways with a horde of raging ophi-dians after them,
howling for their hides.
[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]