There was an ugliness in the emphatic way he said the last word. A hint of violence.
She watched, her irritation with Ben transformed into fear for him. She knew just how dangerous Sergey could be when he was in this kind of mood.
Ben smiled and turned to call the waiter over. Yes, she thought, that's best. End it now, before it gets out of hand. But instead of asking the waiter to remove Sergey, Ben ordered a fresh bottle of the house wine and an extra glass. He turned back, facing his antagonist.
"You'll have a drink with us, I hope?"
Sergey gave a snort of surprise and annoyance. "I really can't believe you, Shepherd. You're such a smooth shit, aren't you? You think you can buy the world."
"Sergey—" she began, but he banged his fist down hard, glaring at her.
"Shut up, Catherine! You might learn a few things about smiling boy here."
She turned away, shutting her eyes, wishing it would stop.
Sergey leaned forward, his whole manner openly hostile now. "You're not from here, are you, Shepherd?"
Ben was silent, musing.
"You're not, are you?"
Catherine opened her eyes and looked across. There was a faint smile on Ben's lips, a wistful little smile.
"I've been doing a little digging," Sergey said, leaning across the table toward Ben, his breath heavy with wine. "And guess what I found out?" He laughed coldly. "Our friend here bought his way into Oxford. Just like he buys up everything. They waived the rules to let him in."
Catherine shook her head. "I don't follow you. I—"
Sergey huffed, disgust written large on his face. "He's a charlatan, that's what he is. He shouldn't be here. He's like all the other parasites. The only difference is that he's not a Han." He laughed brutally, then turned and looked at her again, angry now. "Unlike the rest of us, Shepherd here has no qualifications. He's never passed an exam in his life. As for work—" The laugh was broken, the sneer in the voice pointed. At nearby tables people had broken off their own conversations to see what was going on. "He's never attended a single tutorial. Never handed in a single essay. And as for sitting the end of year exams, forget it. He goes home before all that. He's above it, you see. Or at least, his money is."
There was a flutter of laughter at that. But Sergey was not to be distracted by it. He was in full flow now, one hand pointing at his target as he spoke.
"Yes, he's a strange one, this one. He's rich and he's obviously connected. Right up to the top, so they say. But he's something of a mystery, too. He's not from the City. And that's why he despises us."
She stared at Sergey, not understanding. What did he mean? Everyone came from the City. There was nowhere else to come from. Unless . . . She thought of the handwritten letters—of the strangeness of so many things connected with Ben—and for a moment felt uncertainty wash over her. Then she remembered what he was doing: recollected what she herself had experienced in the frame.
"You're wrong, Sergey. You don't understand—"
Sergey pulled himself up, went around the table, and stood there, leaning over Shepherd. "No. I understand only too well. He's a fucking toad, that's what he is. A piece of slime."
She watched the two of them anxiously, terrified of what was going to happen. "He's drunk," she said pleadingly. "He doesn't mean it, Ben. It's the drink talking." But she was afraid for him. He didn't know Sergey, didn't know how vicious his temper was.
Ben was looking at her, ignoring the other man. He seemed calm, unaffected by the words, by the physical presence of the other man above him.
"Let him have his say, love. It's only words."
It was the first time he had called her love, but she scarcely noticed it. All she could see was that the very mildness of Ben's words acted to inflame Sergey's anger.
"You're wrong," he said icily. "It's more than words."
Ben turned and looked up at him, undaunted. "When a fool tells you you're wrong, you rejoice."
It was too much. Sergey lunged at him with both hands, trying to get a grip on his neck, but Ben pushed him away and stood, facing him. Sergey was breathing heavily, furious now. He made a second grab at Ben and got hold of his right arm, trying to twist it round behind his back and force him down onto his knees.
Catherine was on her feet, screaming. "No.1 Please, Sergey! Don't hurt him! Please don't hurt him!"
Waiters were running toward them, trying to force a way through the crowd and break it up, but the press around the table was too great.
Using brute strength Sergey forced Ben down, grunting with the effort. Then, suddenly, Ben seemed to yield and roll forward, throwing his opponent off balance. Sergey stumbled and fell against a chair. When he got up, there was blood running from beneath his eye.
"You bastard . . ."
With a bellow of rage he threw himself at Ben again, but Ben's reflexes were much quicker. As Sergey lunged past him, he moved aside and caught hold of Sergey's right hand, turning the wrist.
The snap of breaking bones was audible, Sergey shrieked and went down onto his knees, cradling the useless hand.
For a moment Ben stood over him, his legs planted firmly apart, his chest rising and falling erratically; then he shuddered.
"I didn't mean . . ."
But it was done. The sculptor's hand was crushed and broken. Useless, it began to swell. Sergey pushed at it tenderly with one finger of the other hand, then moaned and slumped forward, unconscious.
Ben stepped back, away, his eyes taking in everything. Then he turned and looked at Catherine. She was standing there, her hands up to her mouth, staring down at the injured man.
"Ben . . ." she said softly, her voice barely in control. "Oh, Ben. What have you done?"
meg looked around her as they walked down Main toward the transit. The air was still, like the air inside a sealed box. It was the first thing she had noticed. There was no movement in the air, no rustling of leaves, none of the small, soft sounds that moving water makes, no hum of insects. Instead, small boys walked between the flower boxes with spray cans, pollinating the flowers, or watered the huge oaks that rested in deep troughs set into the floor. From their branches hung cages—huge, ornately gilded cages filled with bright-colored birds. But nothing flew here. Nothing bent and danced in the open wind.
"They like it like this," Ben said, as if that explained it all. Then he frowned and turned to look at her. "But it doesn't satisfy. Nothing here satisfies. It's all surfaces. There's nothing deep here. Nothing rooted."
It was Meg's first full morning in the City, though morning here meant little more than a change in the intensity of the overhead lighting. Outside, beyond the City's walls, it was still dark. But here that fact of nature did not matter. Throughout City Europe, time was uniform, governed not by local variation but in accordance with the rising and setting of the sun over the City's eastern edge.
Morning. It was one more imperfect mimicry. Like the trees, the flowers, the birds, the word lost its sharp precision here without a sun to make it real.
They went up fifty levels to the College grounds. This was what they termed an "open deck" and there was a sense of space and airiness. Here there were no tight warrens of corridors, no ceiling almost within reach wherever one went; even so, Meg felt stifled. It was not like being in a house, where the door opened out onto the freshness of a garden. Here the eyes met walls with every movement. She had forgotten how awful it was. Like being in a cage. "How can you stand it here?"
He looked about him, then reached out, taking her hand. "I've missed you, you know. It's been . . . difficult here." "Difficult?"
They had stopped in the central hexagonal space. On every side great tiers of balconies sloped back gently toward the ceiling, their surfaces transparent, reflecting and refracting light.
"You should come home, Ben. All this," she looked about her, shaking her head, "it's no good for you."