Archipelago.
The islands. Torus, spindle, cluster. Human DNA spreading out from gravitys steep well like an oilslick. Call up a graphics display that grossly simplifies the exchange of data in the L-S archipelago. One segment clicks in as red solid, a massive rectangle dominating your screen. Freeside. Freeside is many things, not all of them evident to the tourists who shuttle up and down the well. Freeside is brothel and banking nexus, pleasure dome and free port, border town, and spa. Freeside is Las Vegas and the hanging gardens of Babylon, an orbital Geneva and home to a family inbred and most carefully refined, the industrial clan of Tessier and Ashpool.
On the THY liner to Paris, they sat together in First Class, Molly in the window seat, Case beside her, Riviera and Armitage on the aisle. Once, as the plane banked over water, Case saw the jewel-glow of a Greek island town. And once, reaching for his drink, he caught the flicker of a thing like a giant human sperm in the depths of his bourbon and water. Molly leaned across him and slapped Rivieras face, once. "No, baby. No games. You play that subliminal shit around me, Ill hurt you real bad. I can do it without damaging you at all. I like that."
Case turned automatically to check Armitages reaction. The smooth face was calm, the blue eyes alert, but there was no anger. "Thats right, Peter. Dont."
Case turned back, in time to catch the briefest flash of a black rose, its petals sheened like leather, the black stem thorned with bright chrome.
Peter Riviera smiled sweetly, closed his eyes, and fell instantly asleep.
Molly turned away, her lenses reflected in the dark window.
"You been up, havent you?" Molly asked, as he squirmed his way back into the deep temperfoam couch on the JAL shuttle.
"Nah. Never travel much, just for biz." The steward was attaching readout trodes to his wrist and left ear. "Hope you dont get SAS," she said.
"Airsick? No way."
"Its not the same. Your heartbeatll speed up in zero-g, and your inner earll go nuts for a while. Kicks in your flight reflex, like youll be getting signals to run like hell, and a lot of adrenaline." The steward moved on to Riviera, taking a new set of trodes from his red plastic apron.
Case turned his head and tried to make out the outline of the old Orly terminals, but the shuttle pad was screened by graceful blast-deflectors of wet concrete. The one nearest the window bore an Arabic slogan in red spraybomb. He closed his eyes and told himself the shuttle was only a big airplane, one that flew very high. It smelled like an airplane, like new clothes and chewing gum and exhaustion. He listened to the piped koto music and waited.
Twenty minutes, then gravity came down on him like a great soft hand with bones of ancient stone.
Space adaptation syndrome was worse than Mollys description, but it passed quickly enough and he was able to sleep. The steward woke him as they were preparing to dock at JALs terminal cluster.
We transfer to Freeside now?" he asked, eyeing a shred of Yeheyuan tobacco that had drifted gracefully up out of his shirt pocket to dance ten centimeters from his nose. There was no smoking on shuttle flights.
"No, we got the bosss usual little kink in the plans, you know? Were getting this taxi out to Zion, Zion cluster." She touched the release plate on her harness and began to free herself from the embrace of the foam. "Funny choice of venue, you ask me."
"Hows that?"
"Dreads. Rastas. Colonys about thirty years old now."
"Whats that mean?"
"Youll see. Its an okay place by me. Anyway, theyll let you smoke your cigarettes there."
Zion had been founded by five workers whod refused to return, whod turned their backs on the well and started building. Theyd suffered calcium loss and heart shrinkage before rotational gravity was established in the colonys central torus. Seen from the bubble of the taxi, Zions makeshift hull reminded Case of the patchwork tenements of Istanbul, the irregular, discolored plates laser-scrawled with Rastafarian symbols and the initials of welders.
Molly and a skinny Zionite called Aerol helped Case negotiate a freefall corridor into the core of a smaller torus. Hed lost track of Armitage and Riviera in the wake of a second wave of SAS vertigo. "Here," Molly said, shoving his legs into a narrow hatchway overhead. "Grab the rungs. Make like youre climbing backward, right? Youre going toward the hull, thats like youre climbing down into gravity. Got it?" Cases stomach churned.
"You be fine, mon," Aerol said, his grin bracketed with gold incisors.
Somehow, the end of the tunnel had become its bottom. Case embraced the weak gravity like a drowning man finding a pocket of air.
"Up," Molly said, "you gonna kiss it next?" Case lay flat on the deck, on his stomach, arms spread. Something struck him on the shoulder. He rolled over and saw a fat bundle of elastic cable. "Gotta play house," she said. "You help me string this up." He looked around the wide, featureless space and noticed steel rings welded on every surface, seemingly at random.
When theyd strung the cables, according to some complex scheme of Mollys, they hung them with battered sheets of yellow plastic. As they worked, Case gradually became aware of the music that pulsed constantly through the cluster. It was called dub, a sensuous mosaic cooked from vast libraries of digitalized pop; it was worship, Molly said, and a sense of community. Case heaved at one of the yellow sheets; the thing was light but still awkward. Zion smelled of cooked vegetables, humanity, and ganja.
"Good," Armitage said, gliding loose-kneed through the hatch and nodding at the maze of sheets. Riviera followed, less certain in the partial gravity.
"Where were you when it needed doing?" Case asked Riviera.
The man opened his mouth to speak. A small trout swam out, trailing impossible bubbles. It glided past Cases cheek. "In the head," Riviera said, and smiled.
Case laughed.
"Good," Riviera said, "you can laugh. I would have tried to help you, but Im no good with my hands." He held up his palms, which suddenly doubled. Four arms, four hands. "Just the harmless clown, right, Riviera?" Molly stepped between them.
"Yo," Aerol said, from the hatch, "you wan come wi me, cowboy mon."
"Its your deck," Armitage said, "and the other gear. Help him get it in from the cargo bay."
"You ver pale, mon," Aerol said, as they were guiding the foam-bundled Hosaka terminal along the central corridor. "Maybe you wan eat somethin."
Cases mouth flooded with saliva; he shook his head.
Armitage announced an eighty-hour stay in Zion. Molly and Case would practice in zero gravity, he said, and acclimatize themselves to working in it. He would brief them on Freeside and the Villa Straylight. It was unclear what Riviera was supposed to be doing, but Case didnt feel like asking.
A few hours after their arrival, Armitage had sent him into the yellow maze to call Riviera out for a meal. Hed found him curled like a cat on a thin pad of temperfoam, naked, apparently asleep, his head orbited by a revolving halo of small white geometric forms, cubes, spheres, and pyramids.
"Hey, Riviera." The ring continued to revolve. Hed gone back and told Armitage. "Hes stoned,"
Molly said, looking up from the disassembled parts of her fletcher. "Leave him be."
Armitage seemed to think that zero-g would affect Cases ability to operate in the matrix. Dont sweat it," Case argued, "I jack in and Im not here. Its all the same."
"Your adrenaline levels are higher," Armitage said. "Youve still got SAS. You wont have time for it to wear off. Youre going to learn to work with it.
"So I do the run from here?"
"No. Practice, Case. Now. Up in the corridor . . ."
Cyberspace, as the deck presented it, had no particular relationship with the decks physical whereabouts. When Case jacked in, he opened his eyes to the familiar configuration of the Eastern Seaboard Fission Authoritys Aztec pyramid of data.
"How you doing, Dixie?"
"Im dead, Case. Got enough time in on this Hosaka to figure that one."
"Hows it feel?"
"It doesnt."
"Bother you?"
"What bothers me is, nothin does."
"Hows that?"
"Had me this buddy in the Russian camp, Siberia, his thumb was frostbit. Medics came by and they cut it off. Month later hes tossin all night. Elroy. l said, whats eatin you? Goddam thumbs itchin, he says. So l told him, scratch it. McCoy, he says, its the other goddam thumb." When the construct laughed, it came through as something else, not laughter, but a stab of cold down Cases spine. "Do me a favor, boy."
"Whats that, Dix?"
"This scam of yours, when its over, you erase this goddam thing."
Case didnt understand the Zionites.
Aerol, with no particular provocation, related the tale of the baby who had burst from his forehead and scampered into a forest of hydroponic ganja. "Ver small baby, mon, no long you finga." He rubbed his palm across an unscarred expanse of brown forehead and smiled.
"Its the ganja," Molly said, when Case told her the story. "They dont make much of a difference between states, you know? Aerol tells you it happened, well, it happened to him. Its not like bullshit, more like poetry. Get it?" Case nodded dubiously. The Zionites always touched you when they were talking, hands on your shoulder. He didnt like that.
"Hey, Aerol," Case called, an hour later, as he prepared for a practice run in the freefall corridor. "Come here, man. Wanna show you this thing." He held out the trodes. Aerol executed a slow-motion tumble. His bare feet struck the steel wall and he caught a girder with his free hand. The other held a transparent waterbag bulging with blue-green algae. He blinked mildly and grinned.
"Try it," Case said.
He took the band, put it on, and Case adjusted the trodes.
He closed his eyes. Case hit the power stud. Aerol shuddered.
Case jacked him back out. "What did you see, man?"
"Babylon," Aerol said, sadly, handing him the trodes and kicking off down the corridor.
Riviera sat motionless on his foam pad, his right arm extended straight out, level with his shoulder. A jewel-scaled snake, its eyes like ruby neon, was coiled tightly a few millimeters behind his elbow. Case watched the snake, which was finger-thick and banded black and scarlet, slowly contract, tightening around Rivieras arm.
"Come then," the man said caressingly to the pale waxy scorpion poised in the center of his upturned palm. "Come." The scorpion swayed its brownish claws and scurried up his arm, its feet tracking the faint dark telltales of veins. When it reached the inner elbow, it halted and seemed to vibrate. Riviera made a soft hissing sound. The sting came up, quivered, and sank into the skin above a bulging vein. The coral snake relaxed, and Riviera sighed slowly as the injection hit him. Then the snake and the scorpion were gone, and he held a milky plastic syringe in his left hand. "If God made anything better, he kept it for himself. You know the expression, Case?"
"Yeah," Case said. "I heard that about lots of different things. You always make it into a little show?" Riviera loosened and removed the elastic length of surgical tubing from his arm. "Yes. Its more fun." He smiled, his eyes distant now, cheeks flushed. "Ive a membrane set in, just over the vein, so I never have to worry about the condition of the needle."
"Doesnt hurt?"
The bright eyes met his. "Of course it does. Thats part of it, isnt it?"
"Id just use derms," Case said.
"Pedestrian," Riviera sneered, and laughed, putting on a short-sleeved white cotton shirt.
"Must be nice," Case said, getting up.
"Get high yourself, Case?"
"I hadda give it up."
"Freeside," Armitage said, touching the panel on the little Braun hologram projector. The image shivered into focus, nearly three meters from tip to tip. "Casinos here." He reached into the skeletal representation and pointed. "Hotels, strata-title property, big shops along here." His hand moved. "Blue areas are lakes." He walked to one end of the model. "Big cigar. Narrows at the ends."
"We can see that fine," Molly said.
"Mountain effect, as it narrows. Ground seems to get higher, more rocky, but its an easy climb. Higher you climb, the lower the gravity. Sports up there. Theres velodrome ring here." He pointed.
"A what?" Case leaned forward.
"They race bicycles," Molly said. "Low grav, high-traction tires, get up over a hundred kilos an hour."
"This end doesnt concern us," Armitage said with his usual utter seriousness.
"Shit," Molly said, "Im an avid cyclist."
Riviera giggled.
Armitage walked to the opposite end of the projection. "This end does." The interior detail of the hologram ended here, and the final segment of the spindle was empty. "This is the Villa Straylight. Steep climb out of gravity and every approach is kinked. Theres a single entrance, here, dead center. Zero gravity."
"Whats inside, boss?" Riviera leaned forward, craning his neck. Four tiny figures glittered, near the tip of Armitages finger. Armitage slapped at them as if they were gnats. "Peter," Armitage said, "youre going to be the first to find out. Youll arrange yourself an invitation. Once youre in, you see that Molly gets in."
Case stared at the blankness that represented Straylight, remembering the Finns story: Smith, Jimmy, the talking head, and the ninja.
"Details available?" Riviera asked. "I need to plan a wardrobe, you see."
"Learn the streets," Armitage said, returning to the center of the model. "Desiderata Street here. This is the Rue Jules Verne."
Riviera rolled his eyes.
While Armitage recited the names of Freeside avenues, a dozen bright pustules rose on his nose, cheeks, and chin. Even Molly laughed.
Armitage paused, regarded them all with his cold empty eyes.
"Sorry," Riviera said, and the sores flickered and vanished.
Case woke, late into the sleeping period, and became aware of Molly crouched beside him on the foam. He could feel her tension. He lay there confused. When she moved, the sheer speed of it stunned him. She was up and through the sheet of yellow plastic before hed had time to realize shed slashed it open.
"Dont you move, friend."
Case rolled over and put his head through the rent in the plastic. "Wha . . . ?"
"Shut up."
"You th one, mon," said a Zion voice. "Cateye, call em call em Steppin Razor. I Maelcum, sister. Brothers wan converse wi you an cowboy."
"What brothers?"
"Founders, mon. Elders of Zion, ya know . . ."
"We open that hatch, the lightll wake bossman," Case whispered.
"Make it special dark, now," the man said. "Come. I an I visit th Founders."
"You know how fast I can cut you, friend?"
"Don stan talkin, sister. Come."
The two surviving Founders of Zion were old men, old with the accelerated aging that overtakes men who spend too many years outside the embrace of gravity. Their brown legs, brittle with calcium loss, looked fragile in the harsh glare of reflected sunlight. They floated in the center of a painted jungle of rainbow foliage, a lurid communal mural that completely covered the hull of the spherical chamber. The air was thick with resinous smoke.
"Steppin Razor," one said, as Molly drifted into the chamber. "Like unto a whippin stick."
"That is a story we have, sister," said the other, "a religion story. We are glad youve come with Maelcum."
"How come you dont talk the patois?" Molly asked. "I came from Los Angeles," the old man said. His dreadlocks were like a matted tree with branches the color of steel wool. "Long time ago, up the gravity well and out of Babylon. To lead the Tribes home. Now my brother likens you to Steppin Razor."
Molly extended her right hand and the blades flashed in the smoky air.
The other Founder laughed, his head thrown back. "Soon come, the Final Days . . . Voices. Voices cryin inna wilderness, prophesyin ruin unto Babylon . . ."
"Voices." The Founder from Los Angeles was staring at Case. "We monitor many frequencies. We listen always. Came a voice, out of the babel of tongues, speaking to us. It played us a mighty dub."
"Call em Winter Mute," said the other, making it two words.
Case felt the skin crawl on his arms.
"The Mute talked to us," the first Founder said. "The Mute said we are to help you."
"When was this?" Case asked.
"Thirty hours prior you dockin Zion."
"You ever hear this voice before?"
"No," said the man from Los Angeles, "and we are uncertain of its meaning. If these are Final Days, we must expect false prophets . . ."
"Listen," Case said, "thats an Al, you know? Artificial intelligence. The music it played you, it probably just tapped your banks and cooked up whatever it thought youd like to"
"Babylon," broke in the other Founder, "mothers many demon, I an I know. Multitude horde!"
"What was that you called me, old man?" Molly asked. "Steppin Razor. An you bring a scourge on Babylon, sister, on its darkest heart . . ."
"What kinda message the voice have?" Case asked. "We were told to help you," the other said, "that you might serve as a tool of Final Days." His lined face was troubled. "We were told to send Maelcum with you, in his tug Garvey, to the Babylon port of Freeside. And this we shall do."
"Maelcum a rude boy," said the other, "an a righteous tug pilot."
"But we have decided to send Aerol as well, in Babylon Rocker, to watch over Garvey."
An awkward silence filled the dome.
"Thats it?" Case asked. "You guys work for Armitage or what?"
"We rent you space," said the Los Angeles Founder. "We have a certain involvement here with various traffics, and no regard for Babylons law. Our law is the word of Jah. But this time, it may be, we have been mistaken."
"Measure twice, cut once," said the other, softly.
"Come on, Case," Molly said. "Lets get back before the man figures out were gone."
"Maelcum will take you. Jah love, sister."