Chaos Space - Marianne de Pierres [109]
‘Scholar?’
Thales glanced around.
Latourn stood in the doorway of the fast-trak forcing the sensors to keep it open. ‘You comin’?’
Thales scrambled to his feet and joined the man.
The fast-trak sped off, leaving them to ride a steep conveyor down to the floorspace of Bell One.
The descent gave them a broad view of the layout. The conveyor led straight into an area of rooftops that resembled an ocean of rust-coloured waves, peaking but never quite breaking. They were divided periodically by large and bawdy sculptures.
On the distant side of the Bell another city of high-rise factory buildings loomed through light haze.
Thales sniffed the air. An acrid taste like pepper caught at the back of his throat, sending him into a coughing spasm.
Latourn surveyed the vista with a curled lip. ‘Ventilation ain’t too good in this one. Extractors must be cheap. Or old.’
‘They sh-should be able to get rid of s-smoke at least,’ coughed Thales.
“Taint smoke, scholar. It’s flakes.’ Latourn held out his hand and Thales watched tiny particles settle on his skin.
‘W-what f-from?’
Latourn nodded at the uuli ahead of them on the conveyor. ‘Them, mebbe.’
‘Y-you mean their skin?’ Thales swallowed. ‘But we do not have that p-problem on Scolar.’
Latourn jerked his head to indicate behind him. ‘Yeah, well, guess you don’t get so many. Or them, either.’
Thales turned to the group overtaking them: transparent round-bodied creatures with strange flaps tagged in an irregular pattern across their skin. They balanced on long suckered feet that exuded unpleasant odours with each quick-flowing step. Within moments he and Latourn were left behind in a swirl of floating wet skin flakes.
Both coughed violently.
Latourn spat when he caught his breath. ‘Extros. Filthy skin-shedding Extros.’
Thales couldn’t rid himself of their smell. It besieged his senses and he rushed to the edge of the conveyor to vomit. The hot liquid splashed onto his robe and splattered across the girders below.
When he dragged himself back to Latourn he expected the man to taunt him, but the mercenary was already staring ahead at The Hoes. Thales appreciated, for once, a mercenary’s lack of finer feelings.
They left the conveyor and walked into the first row. At the forecourt of each building was an exhibitor’s bubble where humanesques and aliens performed samples of the pleasures on offer within. Buyers crowded to each bubble.
Thales wanted to vomit again when he saw the enactments. Latourn was wiping his hands against his side and swallowing, repeatedly.
A humanesque female approached them wearing a stiff rainbow-thread robe not unlike the one that Mira Fedor had worn to greet Sophos Mianos. Her hair was secured under a silver-wire headdress and her face had been lightly sprayed with heavy silver paint that disguised any real expression.
The woman spun slowly around. The back of her body was entirely bare, the edges of the fine clothing sutured to the skin at her sides. A belt slung around her waist carried a sheathed dagger that fitted snugly against the line of her backbone. Her bare flesh was a ghastly mess of raised scars and newly crusted cuts and the backs of her thighs were grazed raw.
She pulled the dagger from its sheath with a practised hand and offered it to Latourn. He took it and fingered the blade.
‘We mustn’t stop,’ whispered Thales, terrified.
But the mercenary was transfixed. ‘Go ahead, then, scholar. I’ll catch you up. Stick to this route,’ he said hoarsely. He unhooked the map from his ear and pushed it against Thales’s chest, shoving him away.
Thales opened his mouth to protest but the words never formed; he was better without the surly man. Instead, he turned and kept walking. Confining his gaze to the view directly ahead, he held the bud to his ear and let the map navigate him through the centre of The Hoes. He did not need protection, he told himself. He had changed.
Whether through luck or destiny no other trader approached him, though he felt the weight of their curious stares.
At the edge of The Hoes the architecture