The cab stopped. “The Asilo, sefior,” it said. “Will you want further service at a particular time?”
“N-no.” He got out. The cab departed.
The street, narrow but clear and clean, had scant traffic, pedestrian or vehicular. The bistro occupied part of the ground floor of a square masonry structure; the rest might be apartments, or might have uses more peculiar. A light sign danced surrealistically above the door. He went in.
The chamber beyond was broad and long. Tables and chairs filled a splintery wooden floor. At the rear were a bar and cuisinier. The air lay blue-hazed. Among the reeks Kenmuir recognized tobacco and marijuana, guessed at opium and sniph. Customers sat at about half the tables, by themselves or in small groups. Synthesized music, at the moment tinkling not unlike a pi pa, wove beneath a buzz of talk. A live waiter bore a tray of drinks. Kenmuir hadn’t seen a dive like this in years. Downright medieval.
He tapped his informant for the time. 2032. Half an hour to go, if Norton was punctual. He took a place offto one side but not so obscure that she’d have to search for him. The agent in San Francisco would have recorded his eidophone image and played it for her.
The waiter delivered his order and came over. He was a metamorph himself, a Titan, his shaggy head 250 centimeters up into the smoke, the body and limbs bole-thick to support his weight. Upon such a mass, shabby tunic and trousers were somehow pathetic. One had better not pity him, though, Kenmuir thought; he could pluck an ordinary man apart. Had the management lately engaged him to stop violence, or had he stood by while that fellow was beaten last year? “What’s for you?” he rumbled.
“Uh, beer,” Kenmuir said. “Sun Brew, if you have it.” Most establishments did, and it was drinkable.
“Cash.”
“What? Oh, uh, yes,” Kenmuir fumbled in his pouch and brought out a ten-ucu note. It had lain there for quite a while, but the fabric still showed startlingly clean against this tabletop. The waiter nodded and went off. The floor creaked to his tread.
Kenmuir looked around. Although he wasn’t the sole standard human here, this certainly was a hangout for metamorphs. Several Tinies chattered shrilly. A party of Drylanders held likewise to themselves. A Chemo talked with two Aquatics, who huddled unhappily in garments that the water tanks on their backs kept moist. Why had they come so far from the sea? Was the Chemo, easily breathing this tainted atmosphere, taking advantage of their discomfort to work some swindle? … The impression of poverty was not universal. It was surprising how sumptuously dressed four Chimpos were, and what a meal they were tucking into. Yet they didn’t seem joyous either. . , . The saddest sight was perhaps a bulge-headed Intellect, playing a game of heisenberg against a computer. He’d have had to make it employ a low enough level of competence that he stood a chance.
“Hola, amigo.” The throaty trill brought Kenmuir’s attention around. Another metamorph had come to his table, a female Exotic. Otter-slim save for hips and breasts, attired in a string of beads and her sleek brown fur, she smiled at him with great yellow eyes and sharp teeth. Her plumy tail arched up above the delicate features and tumbling black mane, seductively sinuous. “Are you lonesome?” she murmured. “I am Rrienna.”
“No, thank you,” he said clumsily.
“No-o-o? A handsome man like you shouldn’t sit all alone. You must have come here for something.”
“Well, I—”
“I don’t think you’d care to meet a Priapic. It could be arranged if you want, but—“ She leaned close. Through the smoke he scented her musk.
“No! I’m, I’m waiting for somebody.”
She straightened. “Muy bien, I only thought I’d ask.”
“I’m sorry.” How lame that sounded. “Good luck.”
She undulated off. He caught a snatch of what she sang under her breath, “Gin a body meet a body Coming through the rye—and then she was out of earshot, half lost again in the haze.
Ruination, he was sorry. These poor creatures, living fossils, victims of regimes long since down in ‘the dust with Caligula, Tamerlane, Tchaka, Stalin, Zeyd—genomes modified for purposes of science, industry, war, pleasure—why did they go on, begetting generation after hopeless generation?