Up Against It - M. J. Locke [114]
Soon his waveware gave him an alert. He spotted the restaurant Vivian had told him about, Portia’s Mess. It looked rather nondescript, other than the big lighted sign, as if someone’s house had been converted. He stepped inside. Six small tables crowded the room, all empty. Through the open door into the kitchen, he saw two women leaning on a counter, talking. They gave him uninterested looks and went back to their conversation. On a small raised stage sat a man whose facial features and complexion were of African ancestry, but who looked so much like Vivian that Geoff knew he had to be related to her. The man had a harp between his knees and was running through some scales.
Geoff cleared his throat. The man looked up, and seemed surprised and pleased. “Ah, the bug artist!” His accent was similar to Vivian’s, a blend of Lunarian and, Geoff realized now, East African. Though he strongly resembled Vivian, he seemed taller and leaner. Geoff recalled her mentioning she had a brother.
“My twin told me about you,” he said. “She said you might come here looking for her. Geoff, is it?”
“That’s right.”
“Gabriel Thondu wa Macharia na Briggs. Waĩthĩra’s brother. Call me Thondu.” He stuck out his hand, and Geoff brushed palms with him. Though quite lean and muscular otherwise, he had a bit of a belly, which Geoff caught a glimpse of when he sat back. Like his sister, he had prominent cheekbones; dark, close-cropped auburn hair; and large dark eyes. He was disconcertingly attractive.
“Waĩthĩra?” Geoff repeated.
Thondu’s lips quirked at him, and his eyebrows went up. He was irritated; Geoff knew the look well. “Vivian, her given name. Waĩthĩra, after her grandmother. Briggs after her mother, Macharia after her father. If you must know.”
“Oh, sorry.” Geoff felt his face warm. He said, “She told me I could come here for help.”
“Ah yes! I have been seeing the reports. Bone dancers, is it? Nice trick, that. But it appears they have gotten somehow … out of hand.” It was not a question. Geoff felt his face warm.
“Something like that. Where is she? I need to talk to her.”
“She is unavailable. But we have been expecting you. Follow me.” Thondu took him out of the restaurant, through an alley, and into a back hallway. At the end of it, a large woman whose body was covered in gleaming scales searched Geoff, and then allowed him to enter the place she guarded. Geoff could not tell whether the scales were clothing or her skin. They seemed to be skin. Which meant other than jeweled coverings for her nipples, and a jeweled patch covering her pubic area—if they were coverings, and not more scales—she was completely naked. He tried not to stare, and failed. An urgent erection pressed against his jeans. He hoped no one would notice.
Geoff had been expecting another tiny room—Zekeston was a warren of cramped passages and small crannies—but the door Jeweled Scale Woman was guarding slid open into a section of Kukuyoshi he had never seen before. Geoff looked around and whistled sharply, impressed. The noise startled a flock of song birds, which scattered into the air nearby.
He had read about temperate rain forests, and this appeared to be one. This park’s footprint was a relatively narrow slice of space—only room for a dozen or so big trees, and maybe a handful of smaller ones—but it was very tall. Its bottom level, where he stood, near the roots of a massive cedar, was only a few levels up from Zekeston’s lowest story. Its upper reaches—it was hard to see through the mists—but clearly they rose many levels. A third of the way to the Hub, even, though this wasn’t a spokeway. At least not an official one. Vines draped from the trees’ branches; mists scudded past, obscuring boulders, birds, and ground squirrels.