She took his arm and guided him through the grisly multitude to a man sitting on a stool next to a tall, dull grey machine. He was small and smiling and kept wiping his nose with a large kerchief which he stuffed raggedly into his otherwise immaculate suit.
‘Doctor, this is the man we told you of, Mr Staberinde.’
‘Sincere greetings and things,’ said the little doctor, his face collapsing into a moist and toothy smile. ‘Welcome to our Injured Party.’ He waved round the room at the wounded people, and waved his hands enthusiastically. ‘Would you like an injury? The process is quite painless, and causes no inconvenience; repairs are speedy and there aren’t any scars. What can I tempt you with? Lacerations? Compound fracture? Castration? How about a multiple trepanning? You’d be the only one here.’
He folded his arms and laughed. ‘You’re too kind. Thank you, but no.’
‘Oh don’t, please,’ the little man said, looking wounded. ‘Don’t spoil the party; everybody else is taking part; do you really want to feel so left out? There is no risk of pain or permanent damage of any sort. I have carried out this sort of operation all over the civilised universe, and have never had any complaints except from people who get too attached to their injuries and resist repair. My machine and I have performed novelty injuries and wounds in every centre of civilisation in the Cluster; you may not have this chance again, you know; we leave tomorrow, and I’m all booked up for the next two years standard. Are you absolutely sure you don’t want to participate?’
‘More than absolutely.’
‘Leave Mr Staberinde alone, Doctor,’ the woman said, ‘If he does not want to join us then we must respect his wishes. Must we not, Mr Staberinde?’ The woman took his arm in hers. He looked at her injury, wondering what sort of transparent shielding kept everything intact. Her breasts were frosted with small, tear-shaped gems, and kept high by tiny field projectors on their undersides.
‘Yes, of course.’
‘Good. Would you wait a moment, please? Please share this.’ She pushed her drink into his hand and stooped forward to talk to the doctor.
He turned to look at the people in the room. Strips of flesh hung from beautiful faces, grafted breasts swung from tanned backs, slender arms hung like bloated necklaces; chips of bone peeped from torn skin, veins and arteries and muscles and glands squirmed and sparkled in the plain light.
He lifted the glass the woman had given him and wafted some of its fumes into the fields around the helmet neck; an alarm sounded and a small screen on the suit’s wrist revealed the specific poison in the glass. He smiled, pushed the glass through the suit’s neck-field and knocked the contents back, then coughed a little as the half-alcohol concoction went down his throat. He smacked his lips.
‘Oh, you’ve finished it,’ the woman came back to him. She was patting her smooth belly, now whole again, and motioned him towards another area of the room. She donned a small, glittering waistcoat as they walked through the mutilated throng.
‘Yes.’ He handed her the glass.
They went through a door into an old workshop; lathes and punches and drills stood around under layers of dust and flaking paint and metal. Three chairs stood under a hanging light, a small cabinet beside them. The woman shut the door and waved him into one of the low seats. He sat down, placing the suit helmet on the floor at his side.
‘Why didn’t you come in the costume we sent you?’ She altered the lock on the door, then turned to him, suddenly smiling. She adjusted the glittering waistcoat.
‘It didn’t suit me.’
‘You think that does?’ she nodded at the black suit as she sat down, crossing her legs. She tapped the cabinet. It opened out with chinking glasses and already smoking drug bowls.
‘I find it reassuring.’
She leant over, offering him a glass of gleaming liquid, which he accepted. He settled into the chair again.
She sat back too, cradling a bowl in both hands and closing her eyes as she leant over it, breathing in deeply. She flapped a little of the smoke under the lapels of the waistcoat, so that as she spoke the heavy fumes curled back out between the material and her breasts, and twisted slowly into her face.
‘We are so glad you could come, whatever your attire. Tell me; how are you finding the Excelsior? Does it meet with your requirements?’
He smiled thinly. ‘It’ll do.’
The door opened. The man he’d seen with the woman at the street party and when they had chased him in their car was outside. He stood back for Mollen to enter before him. Then he strode to the remaining seat and placed himself in it. Mollen stood near the door.
‘What have you been saying?’ the man asked, waving away the woman’s hand with a glass in it.
‘He’s about to tell us who he is,’ the woman said; they both looked at him. ‘Aren’t you, Mr… Staberinde?’
‘No I’m not. You tell me who you are.’
‘I think you know who we are, Mr Staberinde,’ the man said. ‘We thought we knew who you were, up until a few hours ago. Now we’re not so sure.’
‘Me, I’m just a tourist.’ He sipped at the drink, looking at them over the top of the glass. He inspected his drink. Minute specks of gold floated in its glittering depths.
‘For a tourist, you’ve bought an awful lot of souvenirs that you’ll never be able to take home with you,’ the woman said. ‘Streets, railways, bridges, canals, apartment blocks, stores, tunnels.’ She waved her hand in the air to indicate that the list went on. ‘And that’s just in Solotol.’
‘I get carried away.’
‘Were you trying to attract attention?’
He smiled. ‘Yes, I suppose I was.’
‘We heard you suffered an unpleasant experience this morning, Mr Staberinde,’ the woman said. She wriggled down deeper into the chair, drawing up her legs. ‘Something to do with a storm-drain.’
‘That’s right. My car was diverted down a spillway, from the top.’
‘You weren’t hurt?’ She sounded sleepy.
‘Not seriously; I stayed in the car until…’
‘No, please.’ The hand waved up from the indistinct mass of the chair, tiredly, ‘I have no head for details.’
He said nothing; he pursed his lips.
‘I understand your driver was not so lucky,’ the man said.
‘Well, he’s dead.’ He leant forward in his seat. ‘Actually, I thought you people might have arranged the whole thing.’
‘Yes,’ said the woman from the mass of the chair, her voice floating up like the smoke, ‘Actually we did.’
‘I find frankness so appealing, don’t you?’ The man looked admiringly at the knees, breasts and head of the woman, the only parts of her still showing above the furry arms of the seat. He smiled. ‘Of course, Mr Staberinde, my companion jests. We would never do such a terrible thing. But we might be able to lend you some assistance in finding the real culprits.’
‘Really?’
The man nodded. ‘We think now we might like to help you, you see?’
‘Oh, sure.’
The man laughed. ‘Who exactly are you, Mr Staberinde?’
‘I told you; I’m a tourist.’ He sniffed the bowl. ‘I wandered into a little money recently, and I always wanted to visit Solotol – in style – and that’s what I’ve been doing.’
‘How did you get control of the Vanguard Foundation, Mr Staberinde?’
‘I thought direct questions like that were impolite.’
‘They are,’ the man smiled. ‘I beg your pardon. May I guess your profession, Mr Staberinde? I mean before you became a gentleman of leisure, of course.’
He shrugged. ‘If you like.’
‘Computers,’ the man said.
He had started to raise his glass to his lips, just so he could hesitate, as he now did. ‘No comment,’ he said, not meeting the man’s eyes.
‘So,’ the man said. ‘The Vanguard foundation is under new management, is it?’
‘Damn right. Better management.’
The man nodded. ‘So I heard, just this afternoon.’ He sat forward in his chair and rubbed his hands together. ‘Mr Staberinde; I don’t want to pry into your commercial operations and future plans, but I wonder if you’d give us even a vague idea in what direction you see the Vanguard Foundation going, over the next few years. Purely as a matter of interest, for now.’
‘That’s easy,’ he grinned. ‘More profits. Vanguard could have been the biggest corp of the lot if it had been aggressive with its marketing. Instead it’s been run like a charity; relied on coming up with some new technological gizmo to restore its position each time it falls behind. But from now on it fights like the other big boys, and it backs winners.’ (The man nodded wisely.) The Vanguard Foundation’s been too… meek until now.’ He shrugged. ‘Maybe that’s just what happens when you leave something to be run by machines. But that’s over. From now on the machines do what I tell them to, and the Vanguard Foundation becomes a competitor; a predator, yeah?’ He laughed, not too harshly, he hoped, conscious he might overdo this.