“Yes,” she answered, without hesitation.
“Ah! A wise decision. And who could blame you? Who would not wish to escape this grim city, where every day at dawn the failed peacocks spill down the wall in waves. A spectacle — no doubt about that — worth seeing, but terrible... ”
The Flesh Tinker took her back down the passageway. In the last cabin he laid her on a cold steel gurney. A cluster of probes sprouted from the gurney at one end, and the tray beneath was filled with black boxes and a tangle of datastrips.
He attached induction patches to her cheekbones. “I hope I get what I want,” she whispered to herself.
The Flesh Tinker made a warding gesture, spreading his hands before his face. "Careful! Such wishes are more dangerous than curses.”
Madeira woke in darkness, propped in an old wing chair, wrapped in a fleecy blanket. Soft light shone from an idling holotank before her. She sat passively, mind empty, watching ghosts flicker through the dim blue cube.
The Flesh Tinker stood quite near. “Ah!” he said. “Awake.”
She sat up, and the world no longer fit. The weights and lengths of her body were alien. She stretched out an elegant arm, and saw the luster of her new skin. Even her eyes felt out of place, too large perhaps, rubbing in their orbits, though her vision seemed perfect.
“Watch the cube.” The Flesh Tinker pointed, and color poured into the holotank.
A beautiful naked woman moved gracefully through a shadowy, early-morning garden. Golden light slanted through the lush vegetation. Madeira recognized none of the flowers. The woman stepped into the full light.
Her skin was pale as ice, her hair like black smoke about her face. Her mouth was wide and red, quirked up at the corners. Her eyes were a clear coppery yellow, impossibly large...
The scene changed. The woman attended a crowded party. She wore a patterned sari that crawled slowly over her body, around and around, the intricate gray-mauve design sliding lovingly over perfect flesh. In a language unknown to Madeira, she spoke to a vaguely man-like creature. It reminded Madeira of the seals that followed Arcimor through the sea, except that it wore a plaid kilt. The woman broke an ampoule under the seal thing’s nostrils, and it lurched away, flapping its long webbed hands. The woman laughed.
“You admire yourself?” the Flesh Tinker whispered at her ear.
The beautiful woman now danced with another seal creature, an awkward hopping shuffle, which the woman nevertheless performed gracefully.
The Flesh Tinker’s words sank in. “Me?”
The Flesh Tinker looked annoyed, an expression as exaggerated as all his others, and Madeira shrank back. “No, of course this isn’t you; it is only how you now appear.” The Flesh Tinker gestured at the holo. “Ammon Tiyado. Dead a thousand years. But still a worthy model, eh? Eh?” His expression was fierce.
“Yes,” she said faintly. “But please, have you no mirror?”
A moment later the lights brightened and a screen on the opposite wall bloomed with a silvery flash.
The beautiful woman sat in a chair under a white blanket, watching Madeira, perfect mouth tense, yellow eyes narrow.
Madeira gasped and put her hands to her mouth. The woman made the same gesture. Madeira’s face was wet, and she saw the tears in the mirror.
The guards were gone when she stepped from the boat.
Madeira returned to the storeroom where she and Binter had lived their lives together, but he was gone.
She made a bundle of the few things she owned. She started to carry the bundle out, then turned and cast it back among the other rubbish.
Binter would be frantic when she did not return. But what could she say that he could believe? Perhaps it was better that she had not found him.
When she turned to go, tears hot on her cheeks, Binter stood there, his eyes wide. He turned away, hunching his shoulders, his hand to his vocoder. “I’m sorry, Citizen,” he said.
“Binter,” she said. “It’s me, Madeira.”
He shrank away and his fingers touched the vocoder. “Where is Madeira Ezolico? Please tell me.”
She drew back. “I know I look like a night person. I have to go away, until after Reveldevil Night.” She bent close to him. “Listen, Binter. On the morning after Reveldevil Night, we’ll go corpsewalking together. The sea will be full. We’ll walk a mile on their bodies. And Tomov will be there!”
Then she left him and went up through the levels, back to the Flesh Tinker’s boat, to wait for Reveldevil Night.
The Flesh Tinker brought her the gown, pale clinging blue-violet moonskin, beaded with tiny amethysts and trimmed with frosty ruby fur. There was a stole, a shade lighter than the gown, woven from a soft silky fiber. It floated around her naked shoulders, an opalescent fog.
“Yes, perfect,” she said, laughing, pulling the stole close.
In the starboat, Madeira stood one last moment before a mirror, as the sun went down and Reveldevil began.
“Come, you’re too beautiful already,” said the Flesh Tinker, taking her arm. The Flesh Tinker was dressed in slightly tawdry magnificence, his suit crusted with linear sapphire, so that light coruscated from him with every movement.
In the corridors, rich fabric rustled, the air was sweet with subtle perfume. When they reached the junction with a major north-south corridor, they joined a bright river of celebrants and poured with them down into the human ocean of the Grand Hallroom.
This night the Hallroom was organized into three levels. When the festivities peaked, a half-million of the city’s hopefuls would fill the vast floor. A smaller dais rose ten meters above the main floor; a third pavilion thrust through the roof of the Grand Hallroom into the night air.
She wondered how she would find Tomov. He’ll find me, tonight, she thought.
The music was an endless pervasive drone, full of a thousand modalities. The Hallroom surged about them, waves of celebration, the crowd growing denser as more and more packed in. The Flesh Tinker beckoned to her, and they danced.
The Flesh Tinker had modified more than the shape of her body; she who had never danced before moved gracefully. Something in her responded, gloried in it, and at times she forgot that the one who held her was a mad oddling with unknowable motives.
Here and there above the crowd, watchmechs floated, slowly scanning. One drifted in their direction, dropped down. “Chosen,” it said. Its voice was thin and sweet.
They extended their arms, and it snapped slender bracelets around their wrists. Then it was gone, and the nearest dancers were applauding, were screaming their enthusiasm, and she had a strange long moment when all the faces froze. The faces expressed every emotion, from black envy to unselfish joy, but each handsome face was imperfect. For the first time, she understood what it was to be beautiful. Tears wet her cheeks, and the Flesh Tinker dabbed at them with a square of lace. “Not yet, not yet,” he said.
On the second level, the dancers were more brilliant, all glittering eyes and smiling mouths. Madeira imagined that she ran with a pack of feral creatures. Should she stumble, would they converge on her, teeth flashing?
Tomov found her there, and the Flesh Tinker faded away, to be seen no more. Tomov was garbed magnificently in black orbsilk and white stonemole leather. He smiled brilliantly at her, as if he had found a long-lost friend. “Dance with me,” he said, extending an elegant hand. “We’re a beautiful pair.”
She took his hand, anticipation burning through her. “What is your name?” she asked.
“Tomov,” he answered. “Your faithful companion. And yours?”
“Ammon Tiyado. Your... companion for now.”
They danced, they talked, she leaned against him intimately. “Oh yes, we’re a pair,” he said.