A hulk stood nearby, an iron-bound club thonged to his massive wrist, picking at his teeth with the thumbnail of his other hand. Probably a retired policeman; he looked John over once, and tapped the head of the club warningly against the stucco. John cringed realistically, turning and ducking his head.
“Prices are posted,” the clerk said in a monotone; she was in her fifties, flabby with a starchy diet and lack of exercise. “You want I should read ’em? Booze is extra.”
John pushed iron counters across the table and through the scoop trough beneath the iron grille. Fingers arranged them in a pattern; they were from Zeizin Shipbuilding AG, one of the bigger firms.
recognition, Center said. Pointers dropped across the clerk’s pasty face indicating pupil dilation and temperature differentials. 97%, ±2.
That was about as definite as it got; now the question was whether this was his real contact, or whether the Fourth Bureau had penetrated the ring and was waiting for him. His palms were damp, and he swallowed sour bile, eyes flickering to the doors. He wasn’t carrying a weapon; it would have been insanely risky, here—a Protégé caught armed would be lucky to be executed on the spot. And when they found his geburtsnumero . . .
subject is contact, Center reassured him. anxiety levels are compatible. 73%, ±5.
A whole hell of a lot less certain than the first projection, but still reassuring. A little.
The clerk nodded and pressed a button on her side of the counter. A light went on with a tick over the girl closest to the stair; she stood with a mechanical smile and picked up her towel.
The upper corridor was fairly quiet, in midafternoon; a row of cubicles stood on either side, with curtains hung before them on rings and a shower at one end. John’s guide pulled aside a numbered curtain and ducked through.
He followed. Within was a single cot, a washstand and tap, and a jar of antiseptic soap . . . and crouched in a corner, the burly form of Angelo Pesalozi. He stood, bear-burly, more gray than John remembered.
“Young Master Johan,” he rumbled.
John extended his hand. “No man’s master now, Angelo,” he said, smiling.
The hand of Karl Hosten’s driver and personal factotum closed on his with controlled strength. John matched it, and Angelo grinned.
“You have not grown soft,” he said. “Come, we should do our business quickly.”
The girl put her foot on the cot and began to push on it, irregularly at first and then rhythmically; with vocal accompaniment, it was a remarkably convincing chorus of squeaks and groans.
“A minute,” John said. “My life is at risk here, too, and will be again, and I must understand. Karl Hosten is a good master, and your own daughter is one of the Chosen. Why are you ready to work against them?”
Brown eyes met his somberly. “He is a good master, but I would have no master at all, and be my own man. I have four children; because one is a lord, should the others be slaves, and my grandchildren? There are more bad masters than good.”
He jerked his head towards the girl. “She dropped a tray of insulator parts, and so she must whore here for a month—is this justice? If a man speaks against the masters when they send his wife to another plantation, or take his children for soldiers, his brother for the mines, he is hung in an iron cage at the crossroads to die—is this justice? No, the rule of the Chosen is an offense against God. It must cease, even if I die for it.”
John met his eyes for a long moment. subject is sincere; probability—He silenced the computer with a thought. I know.
And Angelo had always been kind to a boy with a crippled foot . . .
“Yes,” John said. “That is so, Angelo.”
The Protégé nodded and produced folded papers from inside his jacket; they were damp with sweat, but legible.
“These I took from the wastebasket, before the daily burning,” he said. “Here is an order, concerning five airships—”
* * *
“I worry about that boy,” Sally Farr said.