For all his bravado, Irongrip was obviously sensitive about his level of education. Fiben’s put-on assurance momentarily set him back, and he blinked at the suggestion that anyone could possibly sleep through all the cacophony around them.
Finally he growled angrily. “We’ll just see about that. Come on.”
The other zipsuits crowded close. Fiben knew he wouldn’t stand a chance taking on all six of them. And there would be no calling on the law for help, either. Authority wore feathers these days.
His escorts prodded him through the maze of low tables. Lounging customers chuffed in irritation as Irongrip nudged them aside, but their eyes, glazed in barely restrained passion, were all on Sylvie’s dance as the tempo of the music built.
A glance over his shoulder at the performer’s contortions made Fiben’s face feel hot. He backed away without looking and stumbled into a^soft mass of fur and muscle.
“Ow!” a seated customer howled, spilling his drink.
“Sorry,” Fiben muttered, stepping away quickly. His sandals crunched upon another brown hand, producing yet another shout. The complaint turned into an outraged scream as Fiben ground the knuckle down then twisted away to apologize once again.
“Siddown!” a voice shouted from the back of the club. Another squeaked, “Yeah! Beat it! Yer inna way!”
Irongrip glared suspiciously at Fiben and tugged on his arm. Fiben resisted briefly, then released, coming forward suddenly and shoving his captor back into one of the wicker tables. Drinks and sniff stands toppled, sending the seated chims scrambling to their feet, huffing indignantly.
“Hey!”
“Watch it, ye bastid Probie!”
Their eyes, already aflame from both intoxicants and Sylvie’s dance, appeared to contain little reason anymore.
Irongrip’s shaven face was pale with anger. His grasp tightened, and he began to motion to his comrades, but Fiben only smiled conspiratorially and nudged him with his elbow. In feigned drunken confidence, he spoke loudly.
“See what you did? I told you not to bump these guys on purpose, just to see if they’re too stoned to talk…”
From the nearby chims there came a hiss of intaken breath, audible even over the music.
“Who says I can’t talk!” one of the drinkers slurred, barely able to form the words. The tipsy Borachio advanced a step, trying to focus on the source of this insult. “Was it you?”
Fiben’s captor eyed him threateningly and yanked him closer, tightening the vicelike grip. Still, Fiben managed to maintain his stage grin, and winked.
“Maybe they can talk, sorta. But you’re right about them bein’ a bunch o’ knuckle-walkers…”
“What!”
The nearest chim roared and grabbed at Irongrip. The sneering mutant adroitly stepped aside and chopped with the edge of his free hand. The drunk howled, doubled up, and collided with Fiben.
But then the inebriate’s friends dove in, shrieking. The hold on Fiben’s arm tore loose as they were all swamped under a tide of angry brown fur.
Fiben ducked as a snarling ape in a leather work harness swung on him. The fist sailed past and connected with the jaw of one of the zipsuited toughs. Fiben kicked another Probie in the knee as the chim grabbed for him, eliciting a satisfactory howl, but then all was a chaos of flying wicker-work and dark bodies. Cheap straw tables blew apart as they crashed down upon heads. The air filled with flying beer and hair.
The band increased its tempo, but it was barely to be heard over shrieks of outrage or combative glee. There was a wild moment as Fiben felt himself lifted bodily by strong simian arms. They weren’t gentle.
“Whoa-aoh!”
He sailed over the riot and landed in a crash amidst a group of previously uninvolved revelers. The customers stared at him in momentarily stunned puzzlement. Before they could react, Fiben picked himself up from the rubble, groaning. He rolled out into the aisle, stumbling as a sharp pain seemed to lance through his still-tender left ankle.
The fight was spreading, and two of the bright zipsuits were headed his way, canines gleaming. To make matters worse, the customers whose party he had so rudely interrupted were on their feet now, chuffing in anger. Hands reached for him.
“Some other time, perhaps,” Fiben said politely. He hopped out of the debris away from -his pursuers, hurriedly threading between the low tables. When there was no other way forward, he didn’t hesitate, but stepped up onto a pair of broad, hunched shoulders and launched off, leaving his erstwhile springboard grunting in yet another pile of splintered wicker.
Fiben somersaulted over a last row of customers and tumbled to one knee in a broad, open area — the dance floor. Only a few meters away towered the thunder mound, where the alluring Sylvie was bearing down for her final grind, apparently oblivious to the growing commotion below.
Fiben moved quickly across the floor, intending to dash past the bar and out one of the exits beyond. But the moment he stepped out into the open area a sudden blaze of light lanced down from above, dazzling him! From all sides there erupted a tremendous cheer.
Something had obviously pleased the crowd. But what? Peering up against the glare, Fiben couldn’t see that the ecdysiast had done anything new and spectacular — at least no more so than before. Then he realized that Sylvie was looking straight at him! Behind the birdlike mask he could see her eyes watching him in amusement.
He whirled. So were most of those not yet enveloped by the spreading brawl. The audience was cheering him. Even the Gubru in the balcony appeared to be tilting its goggle-shielded head his way.
There wasn’t time to sort out the meaning of this. Fiben saw that several more of his tormentors had broken free of the melee. They were distinctive in their bright clothes as they gestured to each other, moving to cut him off from the exits.
Fiben quashed a sense of panic. They had him cornered. There has to be another way out, he thought furiously.
And then he realized where it would be. The performer’s door, above and behind the padded dance mound! The beaded portal through which Sylvie had made her entrance. A quick scramble and he’d be up and past her — and gone!
He ran across the dance floor and leaped onto the mound, landing upon one of the carpeted ledges.
The crowd roared again! Fiben froze in his crouch. The glaring spotlights had followed him.
He blinked up at Sylvie. The dancer licked her lips and rocked her pelvis at him.
Fiben felt simultaneously repelled and powerfully drawn. He wanted to clamber up and grab her. He wanted to find some dark niche in a tree branch, somewhere, and hide.
Down below the fight was still going strong, but had stopped spreading. With only paper bottles and wicker furniture to use, the combatants seemed to have settled down to an amiable tumult of mutual mayhem, the original cause quite forgotten.
But on the edges of the dance floor stood four chims in bright zipsuits, watching him as they fingered objects in their pockets. There still looked to be only one way. Fiben clambered up onto another carpeted, “rocky” cleft. Again, the crowd cheered in intensifying excitement. The noise, smells, confusion… Fiben blinked at the sea of fervent faces, all staring up at him in expectation. What was happening?
A flash of motion caught Fiben’s attention. From the balcony over the bar, someone was waving at him. It was a small chim dressed in a dark, hooded cloak, standing out in this frenzied crowd, more than anything else, by a facial expression that was calm, icy sharp.
Fiben suddenly recognized the little pimp, the one who had accosted him briefly by the door to the Ape’s Grape. The chim’s voice didn’t carry over the cacophony, but somehow Fiben picked out the mouthed words.