Starlady & Fast-Friend Read Free Page B

She was beneath them.
    “The Marquis is a stupid,” Hal told her after Dark Edward’s death, when she came home early from the Plaza. “Dark Edward, well, he was worse, but still. Listen, the dreamboss clicks, right? The dust comes in on ships an’ his men get it quiet an’ sell it quiet an’ no one knows the dreamboss an’ no one knows how to touch him. Lametta tried, got hit.
Hard!
Probly the dreamboss will buy himself inside someday, the way he clicks. See?
    “But Marquis, he doesn’t click. Too
loud
. Everybody knows the Marquis, everybody chills to him, only he won’t
never
buy his way down inside. The insiders don’t want him marching round the Ivory Halls, less he’s got an exotic for them and a quick exit-pass.
    “He started with exotics, Starlady. Alters like Stumblecat, an’ a couple Hrangans, green gushies, Fyndii mindmutes, that kind. Got all the exotics on Thisrock, right? The insiders, well, some of them hum sick, but they want to hum bad, an’ they want to hum quiet, an’ they pay a lot. Prometheans come too. The Marquis hums sick himself, but different, he hums to pain, an’ power probly, but mostly pain. Good with a stingstick, though, an’ he got the exotics. After that he got a lot of other things, joy-smoke and grabtabs and ripping, all his now. Exotics are still a big slice, the Marquis has them all.
    “Only, well, he’s so loud, an’ it’ll kill him. Someday he’ll try to hit the dreamboss, or squeeze an insider for quiet-money, or
something
. Maybe Stumblecat will take him. Stumblecat spins quieter, Starlady, an’ Hal knows he don’t like seconds. Hitting Dark Edward in the Plaza was just a
stupid
. The Marquis wants to chill everybody, cept it won’t click.”
    He was sitting at his table eating as he spoke, his cape thrown back, his claw-like right hand clutching the plate as his left cut and speared with a kitchen knife. Janey sat across from him. In the corner of the room, regarding them both with immense blue eyes, Golden Boy sat on the couch.
    Golden Boy had an easier time of it than Janey. Hairy Hal had run boys before, he said, but he wasn’t running Golden Boy, not yet. He just kept saying that he had plans. The youth sat around the compartment all day, eating and staring at people, never saying a word. Somehow he seemed to know what was required of him, whenever something was. Mayliss, after mothering him for a week, had finally gotten tired of the way he shrank away in fear whenever she came near him. She clawed him badly with sharpened nails, then ignored him after Hairy Hal promised her a taste of no-knife if she did it again. “Golden Boy’s got to stay
pretty
,” he told her, with his ghost-blade in his good hand. She’d been backed up against her bedroom door, looking terrified but oddly ecstatic. That night she and Hal had slept together, the only time since Janey Small and Golden Boy had arrived.
    Most times Hal slept alone. That first night, he’d tried to sleep with Janey, but she’d pulled away and glared at him. “I did it for you all day, and you’ve got the money,” she said. “I’m not going to do it
with
you too.”
    And he’d let her go and shrugged. “Starlady, you’re a strange one,” he said. Then he went to his room by himself. Janey sat by Golden Boy on the couch, looking at his eyes and brushing back his silver hair. Finally they’d gone to sleep together in the free-fall chamber, arms wrapped around each other as they nestled in the sleep-web. Golden Boy simply held her and slept. He knew what was required of him.
    It was that way every night. Hairy Hal tried once more, after he’d saved her from the corridor club. Back in the compartment, he’d sat by her on the couch and kept his arm around her until she stopped her trembling. Then he got up and went to his bedroom. He paused at the door, favoring her with a smile and one of his cock-the-head questioning looks. “Janey?”
    “No,” she said. He shrugged, and gave up