"Who the hell are you?" Hunt asked when he had regained his breath.
The glittering gray eyes looked back at him with an amusement that seemed friendly. "English, eh? Well, most people who like me call me Murray. The others usually think up something else." He jerked his head to indicate the Jevlenese around them. "But let's leave the formalities till later and get away from all the crazies first."
Murray led the way through a warren of passages and arcades, up stairs and escalators, across footbridges. Within minutes Hunt had lost any idea of the way back to the intersection. It was like being inside an ocean liner, a supermall, and a Shanghai street market all rolled into one and swelled to a scale that would have encompassed New York's avenues and Tokyo's railroad system. Even though there were many shuttered shop fronts and vacated apartments, people were everywhere, though how much of the bustle and activity was normal, Hunt had no way of knowing.
The typical Jevlenese Hunt saw were not exactly like any of the Terran races. They were orangy in hue, with hair that varied from copper to black. Their faces were wide and flat, their eyes rounded, the skin of many of them speckled or streaked with brownish blotches, and they wore every form of garb imaginable. They tended to be taller than the average Terran, but flabby—probably from spending too much of their existence inertly coupled into jevex, Hunt guessed. But there were enough who were shorter, darker, lighter, or pinker to make Hunt feel at least not obviously alien, even if something of an oddity.
Everything had happened too quickly for Hunt to be in any state of mind to form a coherent picture of what was going on around him. He registered only disconnected impressions that came and went. Some were of people who seemed grandly attired and ornamented, strutting self-importantly, sometimes with retinues of attendants; others were of dirty and shabby individuals, panhandling from passersby. At one place they passed, which seemed to be a restaurant, a small honor guard of staff waited at the door to greet a party from a chauffeured automobile; a few yards farther on, a loudly protesting figure was tossed bodily from the back door of another place. In neither case did anyone else take much notice.
They came to a dingy, not-very-clean-smelling passage between a bar and some closed-down premises, and entered one of several doorways. Inside, a vestibule with a brave stand of exhausted flowers in a long tub opened through to a hall with several doors of various colors, all scratched and battered. One, larger than the rest, looked as if it might be an elevator, but Murray ignored it and, tossing back a terse "Busted" over his shoulder and making a throwing-away motion of his hand, led the way past it to a stairwell at the rear.
On the first landing, they had to step over a snoring body, drunk or under some other influence. A door on the next was open, with a pair of tots playing with toys on the floor outside. They greeted Murray with smiles. He ruffled their hair as he passed, muttering a few words in Jevlenese. From inside, their mother looked out blankly, saying nothing, while from behind a door opposite came strange, atonal music with a heavy rhythm, punctuated by two voices shouting and shrieking at what sounded like the borderline of murder. "Don't worry about it," Murray grunted, seemingly reading Hunt's mind. "It won't come to that. Jevs never do anything right."
Two levels farther up, they stopped in front of a purple door with a white surround. Murray said something to it, and a female voice answered from nowhere identifiable. The door slid aside, and Murray ushered Hunt through, just as a woman came out of one of the rooms to meet them. She had a clear, dusky complexion, cherry-colored hair, and was wearing a skintight orange top with glittery mauve, calf-length pants. By what seemed to be the Jevlenese norm, she was quite trim and shapely—in fact, her figure wasn't at all bad by most Terran standards, either. Her voice had a bright up-and-down lilt as she chattered more Jevlenese at Murray, who replied in a series of short utterances and grunts.
"This is Nixie," Murray said when he could get a word in. "All that was the Jev way of saying hi. They talk too much. Nixie, meet a new friend of ours . . ." He cocked an eyebrow inquiringly.
"Vic'll do fine," Hunt said. Murray said something to Nixie in which Hunt caught the syllable "Vic."
Nixie smiled, showing white and even teeth, and took Hunt's hand. "Vic, how you do today? We have real good time."
"No, no, you dumb broad." Murray sighed. "He's not a customer. Just visiting. Understand? Vis-it-or. Come here to say hello. Anyhow, it's your day off."
"Ah." Nixie dismissed the error with a matter-of-fact shrug. "Is okay I guess."
"How about a drink, then?" Murray said. "Can fix? Drink?" He raised his hand in a drinking motion. Nixie smiled, nodded, and turned toward a short passage that led to what looked like the kitchen, from which the sound of a popular jazz group was issuing—Terran, this time. Murray patted her behind as she moved away, then he steered Hunt into the lounge. "Put your feet up. Make yourself at home. I guess you've had a long trip."
It was a cheerfully chaotic place, cluttered and colorful in an unapologetically gaudy kind of way, yet cleaner and better kept than Hunt's impression of the exterior had prepared him for. It went with Murray's hatband. There was a suite of puffy-looking chairs in gray and red that molded themselves into whatever shape the occupant assumed, with a couch of the same; a large table by the wall, bearing a vase of Jevlenese plants amid a litter of household oddments, a box of tools, and some magazines; and a fluffy pink carpet that looked like mohair. Various ornaments and knickknacks filled every shelf and recess, and most of the wall space was taken up by posters, pictures that included some raunchy girlie poses, both native and Terran, and several embroidered blankets of the kind that tourists everywhere liked to buy. A picture of the Golden Gate Bridge formed a centerpiece on one wall. It was surmounted by an American flag, with a Chicago University bumper sticker, dollar bills of various denominations, and an arrangement of Budweiser, Miller, Michelob, and Coors coasters framing the whole.
Murray tossed his hat across the room onto the table and flopped down in one of the chairs, stretching a leg out over a footstool. He had wiry hair streaked with gray, like his beard, and was beginning to show a thin patch at the crown. Hunt sat down in the chair opposite, pressing his body this way and that until the contours suited him.
"Her real name's Nikasha," Murray explained. "Don't be taken in by the act. She's smarter than she lets on. Keeps her sights on the real world out there—and that's saying a lot for this place." He reached up to a shelf near his chair and took down a silver metal box. Flipping open the lid, he offered it to Hunt. It was partitioned into two sections, holding rolled joints of different colors, thicknesses, and lengths in one end, and a selection of tablets and capsules in the other. "Burn up? Cool down? Blow a weed? Some of the local stuff'll put you back into h-space."
Hunt shook his head. "Don't use it. I'll stick to conventional poison." He felt in his pocket for his cigarettes.
Murray snapped the box shut and threw it back on the shelf with an approving nod. "Damn right. Awful shit. I never figured it, either."
Hunt still had not caught up with the turn of events. He pinched his eyes for a moment, then tossed his hand out vaguely. "You were obviously one of the first here . . ."
"Natch."
"But not with any of the official parties, I take it?"
"I hitched a ride back on the first Thurien ship that showed up, right after the blowup with the Jevs," Murray replied. "I guess most people still don't realize that the Thuriens'll take just about anyone for the askin'."
Hunt shook his head in a way that said that many of the things Murray seemed to be taking as obvious were not obvious. "What was the attraction here?" he asked.
Murray tugged at his beard, his gray eyes glittering mischievously. He seemed to be enjoying Hunt's bemusement. "Nothin' that I'd ever heard of. It was more a case of having to get out of there. You know how unreasonable the Feds can get about anything they think they're not getting their cut of."
"What weren't they getting a cut of?"
&n
bsp; "Oh, a little bit o' this, little bit o' that . . . I was mainly in what you might call the `creative import-export' business. It involved certain psychotherapeutic agents and other substances that aren't covered by monopoly patents, which you can't get approval for."
"I see," Hunt said, nodding. He should have guessed. "So you've been here , . ."
"It's getting to be over six months, now."
"Where from?"
Murray gestured at the Golden Gate picture below the flag. "Born and raised. Hell, where else is there?"
"What do you do here?"
Murray shrugged and looked vague. "Oh, bit o' this, bit o' that. Buy and sell, deal and trade in anything there's a demand for. Jevlen's a pretty easygoing place that way: not exactly what you'd call restrictive. The Thuriens don't need a lot of telling to make them act smart and stay in line, so I guess they never thought to set up much of it here, either. Now that the lunatic fringe that were trying to play Napoleons are gone, there's a lot of opportunity."
Nixie reappeared carrying a tray with a bottle and glasses, a dish of broken ice, and a bowl of mixed snacks. "When Vic get here Jevlen?" she asked, setting the tray down and sitting by Murray.
"Today," Hunt said. "An hour ago, maybe less."
"Today," Murray repeated, adding something in Jevlenese. "You drink rum?" he asked, looking back at Hunt.
"Sometimes."
"Local gutrot. Something like rum, but kinda minty. It's called ashti. Give it a try." He poured Hunt a generous measure from the bottle, pushed across the ice, then half filled two more glasses for himself and Nixie.
Hunt took a neat sip and found it not bad. He added an inch of ice. "So Vic have no girl here yet," Nixie said. "We fix. Know plenty girl. Find real pretty one. Good and kinky."
"Jesus, don't you ever think of anything else?" Murray grumbled. He lounged back and raised his glass toward Hunt, Nixie took a small case from a side table and began applying a pink cosmetic to her nails. "So what's your story?" Murray asked Hunt. "Is there a Thurien ship in today?"
Hunt nodded. "I'm part of a group that UNSA sent to have a look at some aspects of Ganymean science. There are going to be big changes."
"So, is that what you are—a scientist?"
"Yes."
"What kind?"
"Originally nucleonics. But since the Ganymeans showed up, it's been getting more general."
Murray took a gulp from his glass and regarded Hunt quizzically. "So how in hell did you wind up being bounced around in the middle of a Jev banana parade? For somebody who's been off the ship an hour, that takes real talent. You must have a guidance system that homes on trouble."
"Not really. The tube in from the shuttle port wasn't running—"
"Typical."
"—so we used a bus. Our group will be based at PAC."
"The old government center. Okay."
Hunt shrugged. "The bus had to divert and got bogged down in the crowd. The Jevlenese who were with us decided to try and make it on foot. I got separated from the others. And then you showed up."
"Probably just as well for you, too. They can get pretty wild. Most of them are headworld cases who forgot the difference between cuckoo-land and reality a long time ago—assuming they ever figured it out in the first place."
"There was something else, too," Hunt said. "On the way in from Geerbaine we passed an accident."
Murray pulled a face. "It gets a bit like I-405 sometimes. How bad was it?"
"It wasn't a pileup. A traffic bridge collapsed—part of an exit slipway."
"Goddamn turkeys," Murray muttered beneath his breath. "Anyone hurt bad?"
"It looked like it. And I think one of them was the deputy police chief. Apparently he was driving over it."
"Oh, shit. Well, I guess we'll be hearing all about that."
Hunt looked around the room, tapping his fingertips lightly on the tabletop next to him. His eyes came back to Murray. "Look, I don't want to be unsociable or anything, and maybe it's been a long time since you talked to anyone new from back home. But the others will be wondering what's happened to me. I need to get to PAC. Is it very far from here?"
"You're right. We can shoot the breeze some other time." Murray turned to Nixie and said something in Jevlenese. She replied with a stream of chatter, nodded, and said something in a raised voice. Another female voice answered from what seemed to be the room in general.
"That's Lola, the house computer," Murray murmured. Hunt nodded.
Nixie exchanged a few words with Lola, and then another female voice came on and entered into a dialogue with Nixie.
"Nixie and Osaya will take you there," Murray said, turning back to Hunt. "Osaya's one of the girls upstairs. I'd do it myself, but I've got somebody coming here in about fifteen minutes. Business."
"That would be fine." Hunt nodded and finished his drink. "That stuff's not bad."
"Glad you like it. Don't forget to come back and have another."
They were silent for a few seconds. Then Hunt said, "That `headworld' that you mentioned a minute ago. What is it? Do you mean jevex creations?"
"Yeah. Most Jevs never learned to ask questions, so they believe anything anyone tells 'em. It's Madison Avenue's dream out here. I'm telling ya, if them Thuriens don't wise up and start limiting the tickets, there's gonna be every con artist and snake-oil salesman from home comin' in by the shipload once the news gets around."
Nixie finished her conversation. She examined her nails, then opened the front of the top she was wearing and began painting one of her nipples.
"So what's going on everywhere today?" Hunt asked. "Who are these people with the purple spiders, or whatever it's supposed to be? One of the guys who met us said something about a big guru arriving in town."
Murray nodded with a weary sigh. "You remember they used to call California the Granola state: full of nuts, fruits, and flakes? Well, I'm tellin' ya, it's like a convention of judges and bishops compared to this place. They've got every brand you can think of here. Magical forces, mystical dimensions, mind-power, faith-power, psychic messages—if you can think of it, somebody believes it."
"And the Thuriens were never able to change it," Hunt commented, drawing on his cigarette.
Murray turned up his empty hand. "That's the way it is . . . Anyhow, one of the biggest outfits calls itself something that translates roughly as the `Spiral of Awakening'—that's what the purple spider is. They're into some kinda reincarnation crap. It's leader is a guy called Ayultha: a kind of Hitler that's got religion."
"Ayultha, he make lots crazy people," Nixie said, catching the name. "Not good. Terrans not so crazy. Think I go live Earth. Terran men like Shiban girl, you think, Vic?"
"I think they'd find them quite . . . passable," Hunt told her. Murray translated. She looked pleased and transferred her attention to the other nipple.
"Ayultha says it was the old regime that caused all the problems," Murray went on, "and jevex had nothing to do with it. He wants the Ganymeans out and the system restored. But then, all of the cults have got some reason for wanting jevex back. With all those junkies out there, they can't lose. They know when they're onto a good thing."
"So who are the ones with green sickles?" Hunt asked.
"Axis of Light: another of the same—except their guiding genius thinks he's a computer. Basically they're all as bad, but the leaders carve up the territory by getting everyone hyped up over details that don't matter—you know, like whether you make the sign with this hand or that hand, or whether some book said a line this way or that way, and that kind of garbage. But it isn't exactly something I've spent a lot of time worrying about."
"I imagine not."
An off-key chiming sound came from the room system. Nixie acknowledged it, and what sounded like two laughing female voices replied. Leaving her handiwork displayed, she got up and went into the hall to open the door. Murray raised his eyebrows. "You'll have quite an escort," he told Hunt, draining his glass and standing. "That sounds l
ike Osaya plus one of the others. They're curious to meet the Terran."
"I'm not complaining," Hunt said, rising to follow. "And thanks again for the help. I've got to hand it to the U.S. Cavalry again, eh—you showed up just in time."
Murray handed him a card, printed in Jevlenese. "This has our address and call code. Stop by again when there's more time to talk."
"You can count on it." Hunt went through to the hall, where the three girls were waiting. Osaya turned out to be six feet tall, with a skirt not more than twelve inches long. Her companion was a redhead in pants that went transparent to light at certain angles, causing devastating things to happen as she walked.
"My God," Hunt muttered. "I'll never explain this. I hope Chris isn't around when we get there."
Chapter Twenty-One
The Two Worlds Page 53
