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By Root 537 0

she immediately mistook his black Macfarlane for a Gentleman’s uniform, her look shifting quickly from seeing stars to cold-steel contempt. As he opened his mouth to say “nothing to fear,” a cadet, who had made the same mistake as Lilian, hit Brentford with a neat punch on the chin that sent him reeling toward the spectators. The world took some time to oscillate back into place, and all that Brentford could see as soon as he was able to regain some control over his eyes was some Gentlemen of the Night carrying Lilian Lenton toward an ambulance aerosled that had just arrived from the other side of the Bridge.

He watched the ambulance go, stroking his chin with his gloved hand and checking on the tips of his fingers that he was not losing blood. A Gentleman of the Night flew by in front of him, crashing into the cheering crowd. As he had feared, the historic revolt that had enthused him so much a few minutes ago had reverted back to the trivial slapstick of a Venustown carnival brawl. He shook his head, his brain a painful tuning fork vibrating back to the right pitch.

CHAPTER XIV

Unwelcome Guests

O! Sleep it is a gentle thing

Beloved from pole to pole

Coleridge, The Rime of the Ancient Mariner

If there was a place that Gabriel liked as much as New Venice itself, it was his apartment on New Boree Street. Not that it was especially vast or comfortable. The lower level was occupied by a kitchen at one end and a greenhouse at the other, and both were equally neglected. The space between, with bare walls but floorboards copiously covered in a quilt of thick carpets, was sparsely furnished, just an enormous stove, a round table, and four upholstered chairs, a buffet, a pianorad, a phonograph, and, usually facing the hothouse, a worn-out, puffy burgundy velvet sofa that had seen some action and still more inaction.

At each side of the flat, two corkscrew staircases led to his favourite place, a horseshoe-shaped mezzanine whose walls were covered with bookshelves almost up to the ceiling.

Behind the fine wrought-iron railing that surrounded the mezzanine, a mammoth writing desk sat in the middle of the central platform, commanding a panoramic view of the whole flat; the rear part was occupied by a bathroom boasting a round tub, and a small but cosy bedroom whose ceiling displayed a crude map of the heavens: the stars were, in curious accordance with ancient Eskimo beliefs, little holes, but the only supernatural presence beyond them was the Electricity Fairy. Large windows framed with thick velvet curtains offered a vista of St-Brendan Bridge and the leaden Crozier Canal, and beyond that the small whitewashed houses of Ballymaclinton Harbour.

To the obsessively obsidional Gabriel, this was his Troy, where he would defend himself to the last. His books, lined up with a compact precision, were the battlement from which he would shoot the poisoned arrows of his wit. Needless to say, then, that he was disgusted when he came home to find the door ajar and his place occupied by the Nemesis Brothers, Sealtiel Wynne and Robert DeBrutus.

The plundering had begun. Books were strewn all over the floor, some open and some not. Wynne was plucking them off shelves, flipping through them and tossing them aside at full steam under the benevolent, if not affectionate, look of the Angel of the Law, who was sprawled across the displaced sofa. Discipline was slackening, noted Gabriel. That was what happened when you were indulging your basest instincts. He knew something about that.

“Ah, Mr. d’Allier,” said DeBrutus. “We were expecting you. I hope you do not mind our having preceded you. The concierge was so kind as not to let us wait in the cold. She has been very helpful. It really is a pearl that you have.”

Gabriel said nothing, slowly assimilating the scene. He felt surprised, and a bit saddened, by his own detachment from it. Maybe it was the exhaustion. Maybe he was through judging them. They were dead men, as far as he was concerned. He just hoped that when they came to realize it, it would be slowly and painfully.

“Oh, and