As they advanced, Stumblecat sidled up to Hairy Hal. He grinned, and lifted his stingstick, and jabbed Hal very lightly in the chest. Pain sparkwheeled out, and Hal winced.
“Your no-knife, Hal,” Stumblecat said. “On the ground.”
“Hey, sure, Hal’s on your side,” he said. His good hand reached under the cape, came out again, and dropped a dead knife to the floor. “Straight spin, Stumblecat! Starlady needs a stinging, she never learned the rules, right?”
Stumblecat just smiled. “Maybe,” he said. “Maybe that’s what you think.” He eyed Hal speculatively. His stingstick wandered under the corner of the cape, began to lift it. Then, suddenly, he glanced over at the Marquis, laughed, and changed his mind. Stumblecat put the stick away.
“They all saw me disarm you, Hal,” he said, nodding.
Meanwhile Janey circled, holding her no-knife out clumsily, trying to keep the Marquis at bay. He hadn’t moved yet. He just grinned at her and waved his stick, like a snake preparing for the strike.
When the light clicked from purple to green, she jumped, bringing the ghost blade down at his baton. One touch, cut it in half, and he was hers. She’d seen Hal do it oh, so often.
But the Marquis just flicked his stick back, blinking-quick, and her no-knife severed air. Then it whirled forward again, to brush her wrist. Janey screamed and pulled back. The no-knife rang upon the floor.
She backed away. The Marquis followed. “Not over, silly ship girl,” he said to her softly, as she clutched her wrist. “I’m going to chill you good, and hurt you, and teach you how things work. Come to me, Starlady.”
And he darted at her, his stick brushing one cheek. She screamed again, as an angry flush appeared. The Marquis had his stick set on maximum.
He was cornering her, advancing towards her, herding her toward the ring of stingsticks that kept the crowd away. As he drifted in, oh so slowly, the watchers pushed and shoved for better position, while inside the ring, Crawney and Stumblecat and Hairy Hal followed behind him.
Janey took one step too far backwards, came up against a stick, yelped, jumped forward again. The Marquis stroked her lovingly, down her side, and heard another scream.
She rushed at him then, tried to grab the stick, screamed again as she finally caught it and had to let it go. He gave her another swat as she rushed past, past him and Hal and Stumblecat, towards the fallen no-knife.
Marquis swiveled and started to follow. But Hal stepped beside him, then, and the Marquis shoved up against his cape.
And cried a gurgling cry.
And fell.
It was quite an ordinary kitchen knife sticking through Hal’s cape. Beneath, clutching it and trembling, a crottled blackened hand.
By then, Janey had recovered her no-knife. She finished the Marquis as he lay there bleeding.
There were loud noises from the crowd. Stumblecat snarled and gestured, and suddenly the ring broke, the blackskulls began swinging their sticks and people shouted and shrieked and scattered. A few swaggers fought briefly before running. And Crawney was still standing open-mouthed while Stumblecat picked up Hal’s no-knife, moved in behind him, and neatly slit his throat. There was only room for one emperor at a time.
In the center of chaos, Hal stood smiling. Janey knelt by the Marquis. “Hey, Starlady,” Hal said. “We did it. I did it. Now we can get back an’ buy our way down, an’…”
“I still don’t have Golden Boy,” she said coldly.
Stumblecat walked over and smiled down at her. “Ah, but you do. He doesn’t seem to understand us. I think he had some sort of empathic link with you, or Hal, or both. Join us, Starlady, and you’ll have him every night.”
“Hey!” Hal said, angrily.
“All right,” said Janey.
He looked at her shocked. “Janey,” he said. “You’re spinning wobbly. I killed him for you, Starlady, my Starlady. Like you wanted.”
“That’s what Mayliss wanted, Hal,” she said, standing. “I just wanted Golden Boy. And I’m going to have him. He’s not like the rest of you. He’s still clean, and kind, and I love him.” She smiled.
“But,” said Hal. “But, Starlady, Hal hums—I love, you. What about me?”
“What about you?” Starlady said.
And she went off with Stumblecat, to find her Golden Boy.
In the end, some of them were dead. The rest survived.
Fast-Friend
BRAND woke in darkness, trembling, and called out. His angel came to him.
She floated above him, smiling, on wings of soft gauze gold. Her face was all innocence, the face of a lovely girl-child, softness and light and wide amber eyes and honeyed hair that moved sinuously in free-fall. But her body was a woman’s, smooth and slim and perfect; a toy woman fashioned on a smaller scale.
“Brand,” she said, as she hovered above his sleep-web. “Will you show me the fast-friends today?”
He smiled up at her, his dreams fading. “Yes, angel,” he said. “Yes, today, I’m sure of it. Now come to me.”
But she moved back when he reached for her, coy, teasing. Her blush was a creeping tide of gold, and her hair danced in silken swirls. “Oh, Brand,” she said. Then, as he cursed and reached to unsnap his web, she giggled at him and pouted. “You can’t have me,” she said, in her child’s voice. “I’m too little.”
Brand laughed, grabbed a nearby handbar to pull himself free of the web, then whipped himself around it toward the angel. He was good in free-fall, Brand; he’d had ten years of practice. But the angel had wings.
They flowed and rippled as she darted to one side, just beyond his reach. He twisted around in midair, so he hit the wall with his legs. Then, immediately, he kicked off again. The angel giggled and brushed him with her wings as he flew by. Brand hit the ceiling with a thump and groaned.
“Ooo,” she said. “Brand, are you hurt?” And she was at his side, her wings beating quickly.
He grinned and put his arms around her. “No,” he said, “but I’ve got you. Since when is my angel a tease, eh?”
“Oh, Brand,” she said. “I’m sorry. I was only playing. I was gonna come to you.” She was trying to look hurt, but despite her best efforts, a tiny smile escaped the corner of her mouth.
He pulled her to him, hard, and pressed her strange coolness against his own heat. This time there was no reluctance. Her delicate hands went behind him, to hold him tight while he kissed her.
Floating, nude, they joined, and Brand felt the soft caress of wings.
When they were finished, Brand went to his locker to dress. The angel hovered nearby, her wings barely moving, her small breasts still flushed with gold.
“You’re so pretty,” she told him, as he pulled on a dull black coverall. “Why do you hide, Brand? Why can’t you stay like me, so I can see you?”
“A human thing, angel,” he said, hardly listening to her chatter. He’d heard it all before. His boots made a metallic click as they pulled him to the floor.
“You’re beautiful, Brand,” the angel murmured, but he only nodded at her. Only angels said that of him. Brand was close to thirty, but he looked older; lines on a wide forehead, thin lips set in a too-characteristic frown, dark eyes under heavy eyebrows, and hair that curled tight against his scalp in sculptured ringlets.
When he was dressed, he paused briefly, then opened a lockbox welded to the locker wall. Inside was his pendant. He took it out and stared. The disc filled his hand, a coolness of polished black crystal with a myriad of tiny silver flakes locked within. The pale silver chain it hung from curled up and away, and floated in the air like a metal snake.