Catspaw

by Joan D. Vinge

  “Shit—” I said softly. I stopped, forcing myself to lean against a wall while I got my bearings. Now I knew I’d been too long with the taMings. I hadn’t just begun to forget who I really was, I’d actually begun to hate myself. It must be catching. I pulled up my collar as I moved away from the station steps. I almost thought I could still smell the sea bottom. that stench and tang I used to catch a whiff of sometimes in Oldcity, when an accidental breath of real sea air found its way inside. But the sea bottom was buried under monomole and composite. It was only my imagination, trying to make something better of the stale smell of sweat and urine.

  This was the place I wanted, the station called Free Market Square. Argentyne and the players had described it to me, filling in holes in each others’ knowledge until my own mental map was as clear as I could make it. The warren of streets around the Tube stop entrance was at the heart of the Lack Market’s business district. The Lack Market had a motto: “Anything you want.” Representatives ready to provide the kinds of services the combines liked to pretend didn’t exist any more cruised the open square, mingling with bodies looking for those services and with other bodies that were only here because they didn’t have anywhere else to go.

  I froze suddenly, staring out across the crowds. Someone was moving through them, coming toward the station entrance—someone I recognized. Stryger. He was cloaked, and surrounded by followers but no media that I could see. Nobody else even looked at him twice. I stepped behind a peeling ad kiosk, keeping out of sight as I watched him pass. I brushed his thoughts, wondering what the hell he could possibly want from a place like this. Hoping it was dirty.

  He glanced over his shoulder, looking back the way he’d come. He felt pity, and satisfaction … but that was all. One of the shelters his money had paid for was right here, across the square. He’d come to the Deep End on his own, to see for himself what kind of job it was doing. That was the only reason he’d come here. There was nothing else on his mind right now; not the Assembly vote, not the Council slot, not genocide.… I watched him disappear into the Tube station, while a kind of numbness spread inside me. Once all he’d wanted was to do that kind of good. Maybe there was even some part of him that still wanted it. I tried to imagine him that way, the way everyone else saw him—controlling the kind of money and power he did, and using it only for good.

  It made me feel lousy. I pushed out of my hiding place and moved on into the crowd.

  Vendors had set up stalls or just squatted on the pavement with food and wares spread out around them, interrupting the flow of foot traffic. Their shrill cries and blaring music drowned out the murmured queries, the muttered answers of the real transactions going on. Argentyne had said that sometimes the Corpses put in an appearance, just to keep things orderly; I didn’t see any out now. It was just like Oldcity: all they cared about was appearances, anyway. They were out of their depth here, literally and figuratively, and they knew it. You could do or buy anything down here, as long as you did it by the numbers.

  I took my left hand out of my pocket and caught hold of my collar: a sign that I was looking for drugs. I left it clenched there as I found the nerve to push out into the sea of grotesques and hunters and derelicts. I saw other seekers with a fist clenched over a collar; some of the fists were real white-knuckled. There were hands locked behind backs, hands clutching the opposite wrist, hands speaking in silent gestures against a thigh, all sending out different messages to whoever was interested. If you didn’t know the codes you could walk here for hours and never get a single response from anybody you wanted to meet. The signs were different from the ones I knew, but in subtle ways. Prying into thoughts as I passed, I checked the codes against their meanings, learning, remembering. If I made clumsy mistakes somebody might not notice; but then again, somebody might.… I dodged past something human the size of a horse, that was leading a half-naked burnout on a chain.

  One after another, dealers came up to me, offering me the usual street shit. They all shook their heads when I said what I wanted. All of them knew the names Argentyne had told me to use, the ones Daric did his major business with, but none of them would admit it. Some of them turned around and walked away from me like I was poison when they heard; but some of them just looked silent, and then went away to check. I should have known none of them would trust me on sight—they couldn’t read my mind. Daric usually met with his dealers in Purgatory, Argentyne had said … halfway between his world and theirs. They wouldn’t circulate personally in this crowd. So all I could do was wait, and hope one of them was interested enough to send for me.

  I kept moving, to fend off the pickpockets and beggars and sellers trying to sell me things I didn’t want to buy. A skinny kid with a runny nose and an ugly scar across one eye, a skinnier little girl dragging behind him, whined and pulled at my sleeve, “Please, mister, please—”

  I started to pull away; didn’t. I felt in my pockets for the markers I always carried, a habit left from the days when my wrist was as bare as his. I gave him a handful. He disappeared, but someone else was there to fill the hole he left before I could take a step, and someone else after her and someone else, until I’d emptied my pockets of everything. When they saw I wasn’t giving any more the beggars disappeared, looking for fresh marks with fresh markers, leaving me space to move on. There were some kinds of holes you could never fill; even if your credit never ran dry.

  I glanced at my databand, swearing as I saw the time. I looked up, but there was nothing to see—the dome high above me was invisible against the sea. The sky was a deep green suffusion of light reflected from the streetlamp stars. That was all the higher your hopes ever went in a place like this. I wondered what the Deep End looked like from above, to the strange creatures swimming outside. At least I still had my databand; in a crowd like this, that was something. I wore a thumblock on it, because I knew how easy the usual latch was to unscramble.

  I leaned against a lightpost at the edge of the square and shook out my hand, which was getting numb from hanging on my collar. I felt tired and strung out; every second that winked past as I watched was more proof that I was getting nowhere. Down one of these streets, behind some door with heavier security than most combine embassies carried, there was somebody in a black lab making just what I wanted, or somebody willing to front it to me. I began to wonder why nobody had come back, whether there was something going on that maybe Argentyne hadn’t even known about, that was keeping me from getting what I needed. Some mistake I was making; some secret, some hidden trouble.

  I wanted to go find out. Except that if I was right, pushing on into those strange green streets alone might be the worst thing I could do. Maybe it would get the attention of the right people. Maybe it would just get the wrong ones. Why the hell couldn’t anything ever be simple—? My head wanted to hurt again. I pressed my fingers against my temples, trying to will the pain to stop.

  “Hey, hotpants, come with us. We’ll give you everything you’re asking for, and more—”

  I looked up again, jerked back as the gang of half a dozen bully bitches gathered around me. The stink of leather and pheromone perfume made my stomach turn over. Their leader pinned me up against the lightpost, her metal-studded fingers grabbing at my crotch. “You like to party rough, huh baby?” Her fist closed over my balls. “So do we.”

  I swore with the pain, and knocked her hand away. “Back off. I didn’t ask for sex. I’m looking for something else.”

  “Then why were you signalling for sex, sweetmeat?” Her hand mimicked the way I’d been rubbing my head. She caught me by the front of my jacket. “I get it, you just want to play hard-to-get…?” She jerked me forward and slapped me.

  I slapped her back; knew it for a mistake as her gang moved in on me. Hands in chainmail and leather pinned me up against the pole while she slapped me again, two, three times. I sat down in the garbage, dazed, as they let me go. She jerked a lipstain out of the ancient cartridge belt slung across her chest. Her own mouth twi
sting, she pulled it open and smeared it across my mouth. The rest of the gang followed her away into the crowd.

  I hauled myself up again, wiped my face on my jacket sleeve, wincing as I ran into buckles. I only managed to smear the dark leather with lipstain, and with blood from the place where she’d laid open my cheek. The crowd just kept flowing past, like nothing unusual had happened. Nothing unusual had.

  “Hey, kid—” A heavy, stubble-bearded face pushed in front of mine, blocking my way as I started forward. He was half a head taller than me and twice as wide, dressed in dark, flapping clothes. I braced, ready for another mistake, wondering what the hell I’d done to attract the wrong attention this time. But he laughed at the look on my face—or maybe the way my face looked—and said, “I hear you’re looking for Venk.”

  “Yeah,” I said, trying to keep the sudden screaming relief out of it. He was real. He knew Venk, worked for him.

  “What’s it worth to you?”

  I held up my wrist, let him see my credit line. “I can make it worth his time.”

  “Why do you want to see him?”

  “That’s personal.” He already knew the answer. It was tough playing headgames when my own head was still ringing.

  “Then how do I know Venk can help you?” He kept pushing … he wanted my source.

  I wiped my smarting cheek again. “Daric taMing sent me. You want to deal, or not?”

  “Follow me.” He started away before I could say anything more.

  I followed him. It took all my concentration to keep from losing him in the crowd. He moved like he didn’t care if I lost him, like I needed him more than he needed me. He was probably right. But a part of his mind was keeping track of me behind him even while he pretended he wasn’t—and he was subvocalizing to somebody somewhere ahead of us.

  He led me away from the station, out of the square. We headed down one of the murky streets full of hidden specialties that waited beyond the lights and noise. It was a relief to get out of the square alive; but the relief only lasted until I couldn’t hear the crowd noise behind me any more.

  I realized that there’d been a kind of invisible field around Free Market Square. Nothing tangible, just a kind of attitude, an unspoken threat, that kept the outsiders in. On this street there was nobody moving who didn’t belong here, and who wasn’t being tracked through a hundred windows, visible and invisible. Outsider. The featureless, prefab building walls whispered it, reaching up into the eerie gloom of a sky just waiting to fall on us from fifty meters above. A luminous grid of geodesic lines glowed faintly, marking the inverse line of sea and sky like electric fishnet … all that separated us from the fish.

  I felt tension settling on me like a weight, until it was hard to breathe … realized suddenly that it wasn’t just my imagination. “Hey,” I called.

  My guide slowed, turning back to look at me.

  “This isn’t the way to Venk’s. Where you taking me?”

  He shrugged. “Venk’s orders. He’s gonna meet you down by the Locks instead.”

  “The Locks?” I repeated, picking an image out of his mind. The edge of town, here in the Deep End. Where divers went out to tend maintenance or seafarms … where they got rid of their garbage. But Venk was going to be there, waiting for me. That was what he’d been told, and he believed it. “Why?”

  He shrugged. “Venk didn’t say.” He started on.

  I followed him wordlessly. Where they got rid of their garbage. This whole thing felt bad, felt worse with every step. I wanted to stop, turn back—but it was too late now. We kept walking, mods and ground trams slipping silently past, other pedestrians looking at us sidelong as we got closer to the end of the line.

  The shining grid of the sky arced down to meet us as we came out on a kind of quay. You actually could smell the sea here, where clusters of airlocks lined the wall, in sizes running from single-occupant to gigantic, their designation data glowing patiently in the green gloom. I could see strange shadows moving beyond the dome wall; natives of the other side, or divers invading their space. It was hard to see much beyond the dome, but somewhere out in the murky darkness I thought I saw lights. There were separate little blister worlds out there in the bay that belonged to people who wanted more anonymity or security than even the Deep End had to offer.

  The quay at the end of the street was empty; too empty. Nothing moved anywhere nearby, on the open dockyards, between the gaping-mouthed warehouses. It took a minute for my mind to find the lone figure waiting near the black mouth of one of them. Venk came forward slowly, his bodyguard glowing faintly in the dim light, until I could make out his face, and he could make out mine.

  I felt the shock of recognition as he registered my features. “I saw you on the threedy,” he whispered. I wondered why he was whispering. “Daric sent you to find me…?” he asked, his voice dragging a strange accent.

  “Yeah,” I said, groping with my mind. My skin prickled as I felt the images begin to harden suddenly behind his eyes. Shit—“I need some.…”

  “No,” he whispered. He wiped his nose.

  My guide was about a meter away from me. He turned as Venk moved, his own hand rising—

  I kicked out, hit his arm with my foot just before the beam of hot light lanced out of his sleeve. Pain branded my side as the white heat punched a hole in my jacket. I kicked him again, hit body armor where his balls should have been. I threw myself at him, because he was expecting me to run, and knocked him down. His head cracked hard on the pavement. I scrambled up. And then I ran like hell, away from the lone figure glowing like a haunt on the too-silent quay and whatever lightning he was calling down on me.

  I made the end of the street, luckier than I’d ever thought I’d be—Venk’s man wasn’t wearing heatseekers. I saw a tram waiting at the turnaround and bolted for it, yelling. It jerked forward and drifted away, picking up speed as it left me behind … on purpose. I slowed, panting, cursing. The few people left on the street looked through me like I was invisible. Or marked. They disappeared into the shadows, into doorways, melting away from me without seeming to. I ran on down the street, my heart hammering, letting my mind search ahead and behind for hunters. Wondering how far I was going to get, wondering what I’d done to make Daric’s dealerman want to kill me. I tried to remember when I’d felt as stupid, or as scared. I didn’t think they’d waste me in the middle of the street, even here. Hell, I was a fucking media star. But if they couldn’t they’d take me someplace where they could. And then the Locks would be waiting.

  Behind me now I felt three minds converge, searching for me. Up ahead there were three more, moving in to cut me off. I dodged into a side street as I saw the shadows start to take form. I felt like I was swimming through the green light, running in a nightmare. God, getting out of shape—I heard myself laugh, a gasp of noise, as some part of my mind drifted free inside a bubble of panic, rising up toward somewhere outside of reality.

  Light leaked through the sudden gap of a barely-open gate, catching my eye. I crashed through it, not caring what was on the other side. I collided with something—someone, almost knocking him down in a tangle of rough white robes. “Huh,” I wheezed, half a question, and half a gasp of relief. A prayer meeting. My night eyes made out some kind of cult objects on an altar; a cluster of figures all wearing white, none of them expecting me, looking for me, hunting me.

  There were curses and gasps as hands reached out to steady me—frisked me, and then jerked my arms apart until I was spread-eagled between them like a prisoner. Light flared, blinding me. The hard, tattooed faces closing in on me as my sight cleared didn’t belong to a bunch of holy men. I started to struggle, and somebody hit me in the stomach. I went down, helpless, as they let me go. Doubled over on the floor, I heard a wailing moan that didn’t sound human, heard it shape itself into words: “A sacrament! Fresh wine for the cups of the Souldrinker—” Heard the clip of a knifespring.

  My head jerked back as someone’s hands braced it. The knifeblade
flashed in the light, arcing down toward my chest. I threw up my hands, screamed as pain slashed through my palm, and my own blood spurted into my face.

  The sound of a stungun fired too close to my ear tore my senses apart, and all at once there was more shouting, more swearing, as the number of bodies in the space around me suddenly doubled. The white-robes scattered, screaming the name of the Souldrinker into the night—leaving me on the ground in a forest of dark, armored legs. More hands hauled me up, as the street soldiers who’d driven me into this dead end claimed what was left of me for themselves.

  NINETEEN

  I LET THEM think I couldn’t walk because I couldn’t walk, telling myself while they dragged me back out to the street that I was just waiting for the right chance to make a break for it.…

  Someone stood waiting for us in the dimly-lit throat of a building across the way. He wasn’t glowing; wasn’t shielded. Wasn’t the same one, not Venk, that I’d left standing on the pier.

  “Hullo, Cat,” he said.

  The two men who’d been dragging me stopped, letting him take a look at me, letting me look at him. He knew me; he thought I knew him. There was something vaguely familiar about his voice, but I was sure I’d never seen that face before. A light chip flickered in his palm, showing me his features in sudden clear detail: Young-old, bronze-skinned, with a sharp nose and hard unreadable eyes under a fall of straight dark hair. He was wearing body armor like the rest, but his face shield was up so that I could see him. The silver ring through the left nostril of his nose winked in the light. “Know me now?”

  I shook my head, my brain still strobing back to the image of a knifeblade coming down, again and again.… “No,” I mumbled, wondering why he didn’t just kill me and get it over with.