Nearby, a few animals stirred, but many more slept dreamless in the stasis chambers. The air was warm, rich with competing stenches: animals, rust, mildew, and the ozone-and-plastic reek of high-level tech.
Metal doors crashed open, and lights flared. The Glimmerchild squinted through his fingers. Veek swaggered in, still encased in his servoarmor. The fat Trader rode an upholstered power chair.
«Come on, Hovhannes. I'll show you my latest.» The madman gestured at the Midnight Beast. «I caught this one last night. Oh, she'll be prime. Biolume reticulations – rare – and that fine black hide.»
The Trader peered incuriously at the Midnight Beast. «And what will you make of her, Ortolan?»
I'm thinking about that. Beastbreaking is a patient art.» Veek pondered the Midnight Beast. «But at a guess... maybe a warbeast. Or a domestic guardian. Ho ho. You'd never fear the pinchmasters, with her in your kennel. Eh?»
The Glimmerchild glared out at the madman with as much ferocity as he could muster. Ugly visions filled his mind: the Midnight Beast chained to a gate, guarding trinkets. Or worse: the Midnight Beast carrying some fop into the dueling lists, the Midnight Beast spilling her precious blood for a fool's honor, the Midnight Beast lying torn and discarded. He made a grunting sound of despair.
The Trader glanced at the Glimmerchild. «What's this? I thought you took only beasts.»
«So I do, Hovhannes.»
«But Ortolan, this is human. Or once was.»
«You lie! To confuse me. I take no part in your filthy commerce, selling souls. Never say I'm a slaver! I break beasts only! That's no man! Where are its tools, its clothes, its ornaments?» He turned a madly affectionate eye on the Glimmerchild. «Like a star's nightgown, this one's skin.»
«Of course, of course. My mistake; I meant no offense.» The Trader fixed a placating smile on his face. The Glimmerchild watched a thought float to the top of the Trader's mind, a bubble of rancid conviction: it's all the same; we're all beasts, ancient dingwilly. The thoughts had a murderous shape, and the Glimmerchild withdrew with a shudder.
«All right!» Veek shook himself, armor clattering. «All right. Now let me show you the goods. The hunting's been fair.» Veek trudged off down the line of cages, and the Glimmerchild followed his mind, touching the old madman lightly – just enough to see through Veek's eyes. Veek's perceptions wavered constantly. Shapes bubbled, flowed like thick water, and the bars of the cages took on a sinuous life. The Glimmerchild grew dizzy.
«Now here, here's a fine property, a spiny chumog. Highly poisonous – the tribes call it a two-beat chumog. Two heartbeats, right? Notice the armorglass cage? It throws its spines. I've trained it to stealth.»
Through Veek's mad eyes, the chumog seemed a red-eyed demon: malevolent, sly, calculating.
«It attacks selectively. I show it an image of the victim, whistle a bar of 'Up Pops the Weasel,' and... death's a-slither!»
«Marketable,» the Trader said.
Veek took a stasis vial and a sensie chip from a cagefront rack, dropped them into a rack on the Trader's chair.
The Glimmerchild understood then that the madman would not sell the Midnight Beast herself, only her cloned sisters. He felt no relief.
«And here,» Veek said, moving on to the next cage. «What do you think of this?» The Glimmerchild saw a yellow hydrasnake, its tentacles knotted around a chunk of meltstone, its hundreds of tiny heads weaving in a slow, crisscrossing dance.
The Trader shrugged. «I prefer your colorful descriptions to my ignorant speculations, Ortolan.»
Veek snickered. «Ah, you know just what to say. You're dangerous; why did I let you in?»
The Trader sighed. «Because I pay you well for your cell samples and your training chips. Because you don't get many visitors. Because you can trust me.» Though the Glimmerchild was touching Veek's mind, a thought pulsed so strongly from the Trader that he caught it: Because you re a fool.
Veek turned a sharp glance at the Trader. For a brief instant, the madman's thoughts ran pure and cold. Then the fog closed in again, and Veek cackled, only a little uncertain. He took a small silver pitch pipe from his belt and blew a tone. The hydrasnake swayed as Veek swung his arm in a spritely rhythm. The creature began to hum a melody in a minor key, a hundred-voice harmony. The Glimmerchild pressed against the bars. The song was beautiful beyond anything the Glimmerchild had ever heard.
But the Trader shrugged and shook his head. «Interesting, Ortolan. But....»
«You don't want it?» Veek seemed both amazed and hurt. Then a red blaze of anger: «Why do I ever let you in? You're a bloodsucking pig; all you want are killers and fighting beasts and things ugly enough to turn jaded stomachs. Beauty – what does that mean to you?» Veek seemed to swell, to tower over the fat Trader. His armored fists were clenched; his helmeted head trembled back and forth. The hydrasnake's song faltered, died away.
The Trader raised a placating hand. «Perhaps you're right, Ortolan. I'll take it after all; your judgment is often sound.»
By slow stages, Veek relaxed. He led the Trader to his other treasures, but there was a sourness to his thoughts, a weariness that quieted his madness. The Glimmerchild found himself almost pitying the old man.
Veek made the circuit of the cages, went through the motions, put his beasts through their paces, handed vials and chips to Hovhannes – but there was no pleasure in it.
Had his emotions somehow exhausted themselves? Was he doomed ever after to this weary automatism? He was afraid; he cast about for a distraction. He remembered the Trader's remark about the shiny little beast. Human? Absurd! His irritation with the Trader returned, but this time he hid it in his heart, banking the fire, hoarding the heat.
When the tour was over, he took Hovhannes back to his armored pod. A crane levered from the pod, transferred the Trader inside, where the machines that sustained the Traders life clucked over him, touching his bulk with slender silver probes. The Traders head rolled loosely; his eyelids drooped.
Veek watched, unleashed his madness for a moment. Suddenly he saw a frightening symbolism in the movements of the probes. Were they carrion creatures, licking at the Trader's body, tasting the death hidden inside that taut bag of guts? He almost cried out a warning; then he remembered that he was mad, and turned away.
The Glimmerchild, exhausted by the contact with Veek, curled and slept. When he woke, the dim light was unchanged. The Midnight Beast still leaned against her bars. The Glimmerchild sent her reassuring thoughts. She seemed stronger, more alert, as though she had gathered herself to make the best of this strange situation.
A few mintues later, a small, shiny robot trundled along the aisle, pulling a high-wheeled cart. At each cage, it paused to feed the creature within.
When it reached the Midnight Beast, it lifted a bloody haunch of fenlizard from its cart and passed it through the bars. The Glimmerchild was pleased to see her fall on it hungrily.
The robot turned its black lenses on the Glimmerchild. A long arm shot through the bars and seized him by the neck. Before he could react, another arm pried his mouth open, the rubber-padded fingertips probed his teeth, and then the robot released him.
He stumbled back warily. The robot held a bowl under a spigot on the cart, set the bowl inside the cage, rolled on.
The bowl held a slurry of meat and vegetables. After a brief hesitation, he ate.
When the Midnight Beast slept, he slept.
Veek laid his hand against the switch. Light burst over the arena, illuminating a thousand surrounding cages and stasis chambers.
This morning his madness seemed weary, as if extended beyond some natural limit the day before. Anxiety pulsed through Veek. Now was no time for his madness to desert him, now when he must begin with the new beasts, now when he most needed inspiration.