faltered and slowed. He heard her gasp, and a couple of drunks leaning on an auto-bar looked at them quizzically;
one turned on his bar stool to
watch.
“Seven… thr—" the guard began. Then her legs buckled. Horza was dragged down with her, the locked glove staying tight while
the
muscles in the woman’s body relaxed. He connected his shoulder again, twisted and heaved; the field filaments in the glove
gave way, leaving
him with livid bruises already starting to form on his wrists. The guard lay on her back on the walkway
floor, her eyes closed, breathing lightly.
Horza had scraped her with a non-lethal poison nail, he thought; anyway he had
no time to wait and see. They were sure to come looking for the
guard soon, and he couldn’t afford to let Kraiklyn get too
far ahead of him. Whether he was heading back to the ship, as Horza expected he
would, or staying to observe more of the game,
Horza wanted to stay close.
His hood had fallen back during the fall. He pulled it forward, then hoisted the woman up, dragged her to the bar where the
two drunks sat
and heaved her onto a bar stool, putting his arms crossed on the bar in front and letting her head rest on
them.
The drunk who had watched what had happened grinned at the Changer. Horza tried to grin back. “Look after her, now," he said.
He
noticed a cloak at the foot of the other drunk’s bar stool and lifted it up, smiling at its owner, who was too busy ordering
another drink to notice.
Horza put the cloak round the woman guard’s shoulders, hiding her uniform. “In case she gets cold,"
he told the first drunk, who nodded.
Horza walked off quietly. The other drunk, who hadn’t noticed the woman until then, got his drink from the flap in the counter
in front of him,
turned round to talk to his friend, noticed the woman draped across the bar, nudged her and said, “Hey, you
like the cloak, uh. How about I get
you a drink."
Before he left the auditorium, Horza looked up. The fighting animals would fight no more. Beneath the shining hoop that was
Vavatch’s far—
and, at the moment, day—side, one beast lay, in a broad, shallow pool of milky blood, high in the air, its huge
fourlimbed frame an X poised
over the proceedings beneath, the dark fur and heavy head gashed, white flecked. The other creature
hung, swaying gently, from its trapeze; it
dripped white blood and twisted slowly, hanging by one closed and locked set of
talons, as dead as its fallen adversary.
Horza racked his brains, but could not recall the names of these strange beasts. He shook his head and hurried away.
He found the Players’ area. An Ishlorsinami stood by some double doors in a corridor deep underneath the arena surface. A
small crowd of
people and machines stood or sat around. Some were asking the silent Ishlorsinami questions; most were talking
among themselves. Horza
took a deep breath, then, waving one of his now useless negotiable account cards, elbowed his way
through the crowd, saying, “Security; come
on, out of the way there. Security!" People protested but moved. Horza planted
himself in front of the tall Ishlorsinami. Steely eyes looked down
at him from a thin, hard face. “You," Horza said, snapping
his fingers. “Where did that Player go. The one in the light one-piece suit, brown
hair." The tall humanoid hesitated. “Come
on, man," Horza said. “I’ve been chasing that card-sharp round half the galaxy. I don’t want to lose him
now!"
The Ishlorsinami jerked his head in the direction of the corridor leading to the main arena entrance. “He just left." The
humanoid’s voice
sounded like two pieces of broken glass being rubbed together. Horza winced, but nodded quickly and, pushing
his way back through the
crowd, ran up the corridor.
In the vestibule of the arena complex there was an even bigger crowd. Guards, wheeled security drones, private bodyguards,
car drivers,
shuttle pilots, city police; people with desperate looks waving negotiable cards; others listing those who were
buying space on shuttle buses
and hovers running out to the port area; people just hanging around waiting to see what was
going to happen or hoping that an ordered taxi was
about to show up; people just wandering around with lost expressions on
their faces, their clothes torn and disheveled; others with smiles, all
confidence, clutching bulky bags and pouches to themselves
and frequently accompanied by a hired guard of their own: they all milled around in
the vast expanse of noisy, bustling space
which led from the auditorium proper to the plaza outside, in the open air, under the stars and the
bright line of the Orbital’s
far side.
Pulling his hood further over his face, Horza pushed through a barricade of guards. They still seemed concerned with keeping
people out,
even at this late stage in the game and in the countdown to destruction, and he was not hindered. He looked over
the swirling mass of heads,
capes, helmets, casings and ornamentation, wondering how he was going to catch Kraiklyn in this
lot, or even see him. A wedge of uniformed
quadrupeds pushed past him, some tall dignitary carried on a litter in their midst.
As Horza was still staggering, a soft pneumatic tire rolled over
his foot as a mobile bar touted its wares. “Would you like
a drug-bowl cocktail, sir." said the machine.
“Fuck off," Horza told it, and he turned to head after the wedge of four-legged creatures making for the doors.
“Certainly, sir; dry, medium or—."
Horza elbowed his way through the crowd after the quadrupeds. He caught up with them, and in their wake had an easy passage
to the
doors.
Outside, it was surprisingly cold. Horza saw his breath in front of him as he looked quickly around, trying to spot Kraiklyn.
The crowd outside
the arena was hardly less thick and rowdy than that inside. People hawked wares, sold tickets, staggered
about, paced to and fro, tried to beg
money from strangers, picked pockets, scanned the skies or peered down the broad spaces
between buildings. A constant bright stream of
machines appeared, roaring out of the sky or sweeping up the boulevards, stopped,
and after taking people on, raced off again.
Horza just couldn’t see properly. He noticed a huge hire-guard: a three-meter-tall giant in a bulky suit, holding a large
gun and looking about
with a vacant expression on a broad, pale face. Wisps of bright red hair poked from underneath his helmet.
“You for hire." Horza asked, doing a sort of breast stroke to get to the giant through a knot of people watching some fighting
insects. The
broad face nodded gravely, and the huge man came to attention.
“That I am," the great voice rumbled.
“Here’s a Hundredth," Horza said quickly, shoving a coin into the man’s glove, where it looked quite lost. “Let me up on your
shoulders. I’m
looking for somebody."
“All right," the man said, after a second’s thought. He bent down slowly on one knee, the rifle in his hand put out to steady
him, butt first on
the ground. Horza slung his legs over the giant’s shoulders. Without being asked, the man straightened
and stood again, and Horza was
hoisted high above the heads of the people in the crowd. He pulled the hood of the blouse over
his face again, and scanned the mass of
people for a figure in a light one-piece suit, although he knew that Kraiklyn might
have changed by now, or even have left. A tight, nervous
feeling of desperation was building in Horza’s belly. He tried to
tell himself that it didn’t matter that much if he lost Kraiklyn now, that he could still
make his way alone to the port area
and so to the GSV that the
Clear Air Turbulence
was on; but his guts refused to be calmed. It was as
though the atmosphere of the game, the terminal excitement of the Orbital,
the city, the arena in their last hours, had altered his own body
chemistry. He could have concentrated on it and
made
himself relax, but he couldn’t afford to do that now. He had to look for Kraiklyn.
He scanned the gaudy collection of individuals waiting in a cordoned area for shuttles, then recalled Kraiklyn’s thought about
having wasted
a lot of money. He looked away and surveyed the rest of the crowd.
He saw him. The captain of the
Clear Air Turbulence
was standing, his suit partly covered by a gray cloak, his arms folded and his feet
apart, in a queue of people waiting to
get buses and taxis, thirty meters away. Horza dipped forward and leaned over until he was looking at the
hire-guard’s upside-down
face. “Thanks. You can put me down now."
“I have no change," the man rumbled as he stooped; the vibration went up through Horza’s body.