Epiphany of the Long Sun (83 page)

Outside the warder said, "I can get you clean sheets if you want 'em."

"Fetch my prog," the newcomer rumbled. As the iron door swung inward: "You upstairs! You hungry?"

"I am not." Sciathan turned his face to the shiprock wall. "Thank you very much.

"I am." The newcomer seated himself heavily on the lower bunk. "Shaggy hungry and shaggy tired. I been hungry so long I forgot I'm hungry. I'm just sort of empty. I was up shaggy late last night and up shaggy early this morning, and between times I slept on the floor. It was a stone floor, too, but I was so shaggy tired it felt better than this."

He lay down, his position attested by the creaking of the bunk straps. "This's the easiest I've had it all week."

"A pleasant sleep to you," Sciathan suggested politely.

"Oh, I ain't going to sleep. I slept on the floor anyhow, like I said, and I got eating to do." The newcomer chuckled, "How 'bout you? Have a good night?"

Sciathan risked a quick look over the side at the big man below. "I have rested more comfortably."

"Somebody's been dusting your dial, too, so I'm better off than you."

Ten minutes or more crawled by until curiosity tweaked Sciathan. "You are Vironese? You are of this city?"

"Born on Wine Street," the newcomer declared sleepily. "You're scared I'm Trivigaunti, I guess. Been three or four days since I shaved is all. I been too busy."

"I, myself, am a stranger here," Sciathan ventured.

"Yeah, Peeper told me.

At once Sciathan was on guard. "Who is Peeper?"

"Out there with the keys. He's sort of a friend of mine. I been in a couple times, and it helps. I got gelt, too. That always helps. We're not going to pluck, anyhow."

"I understand you," Sciathan said, and fell silent.

"People think it's a nickname, like, 'cause he looks in to make sure we're not chilling each other." The newcomer yawned. "But it's his right tag. A peeper's a kind of a little frog. They're frogs mostly in his family, I guess, and toads and such. Twig him coming? Smells dimber."

Sciathan sniffed. "It smells good, the first good odor I have smelled in this place."

"Beef brisket and noodles. They got some kind of a sour cream sauce they put on it. Sour cream and red peppers dried and pounded up, butter, and some other stuff, I guess."

The warder's keys rattled against the cell door; outside it, the warder himself said, "Here's your lunch."

"My breakfast," the newcomer told him. "I ate something sometime yesterday, some kind of a fruit, I forget what." The key squeaked in the lock, and the newcomer chuckled as though the squeak amused him.

"I did the best I could with what you give me," the warder declared. "I said who it was for and you were real hungry, and half a card but make it good. I've seen you eat, only I doubt you can wrap yourself around all this."

"I mean to try." The newcomer sat up.

"This big one here-" A faint chime sounded as the warder lifted the lid from a covered dish; Sciathan, watching from the corner of his eye, saw a cloud of fragrant steam waft toward the ceiling. "Your beef brisket and the noodles, enough for three's what he said. Then this little one's extra sauce."

There was a somewhat softer chime, followed by an aroma indescribably delicious. Sciathan sat up in time to see the warder lift the lid from a third dish.

"This here's pickled cabbage. He says you like it."

The newcomer rubbed his big hands together. "Yeah, I do."

"Good and hot, he says, and it'll stay hot a long time. Only it's about as good cold, so if you can't finish you can keep it to eat later." The warder paused. "Hoppies didn't rough you up much."

"You're a hoppy yourself," the newcomer told him.

"They don't think so."

"Sure you are. You just don't get the green clothes." The newcomer craned his neck to look up at Sciathan. "Remember what I said about his name? It's 'cause his whole family's hoppies, just about. They want their sprats to be hoppies, too, so they give 'em those names, Peeper and like that."

The warder said, "I got a brother named Buffo and he's a hoppy all right, but not me."

"Pardon." Sciathan leaned over the edge of the upper bunk to look at the laden tray that held the newcomer's meal. "I do not understand."

"He's foreign," the warder informed the newcomer. "They got queer ways in Urbs and places like that."

The newcomer was unwrapping napkins to reveal a loaf as long as Sciathan's arm. "What's itching you, Upstairs? You figure they don't feed everybody this good?"

The warder laughed.

"Your food was not prepared here."

The newcomer shook his head. "There's a place over on the other side of Cage Street. Peeper went over there for me and told 'em what I wanted, then after he locked me up he went back and got it. I fronted him a card, and he gets half for doing it for me. That's how we do here."

"You have just arrived," Sciathan objected. "There could not be time to prepare so much."

"He was in the hot room," the warder explained, "only they made it easy for him, it looks like, and they let me come in to see if he wanted anything."

"They know me, too," the newcomer said.

Sciathan glanced at the snowflakes drifting down beyond the small, barred window, and drew his blanket about his shoulders. "It is warmer in there?"

Both big men laughed, and the newcomer said, "It's where they ask you questions, only they're pretty easy on everybody today, I figure."

"On myself as well. It may be so. It will be worse the next time, I am sure."

The newcomer was spreading butter over a quarter of the long loaf. He said, "They have you in the hot room today?"

The warder shook his head.

"I do not think the hot room. I was questioned on a horse by Abanja, which was not as bad as I feared. Afterward here by Siyuf, Abanja, and others whose names are not known to me. It was worse then. Siyuf is a hard woman."

"That's this Trivigaunti that's taking over," the warder explained to the newcomer. "Generalissimo Siyuf, and she's got the Caldé doing everything she says."

"They're supposed to be here helping us out," the newcomer protested.

"They're helping themselves, if you ask me."

The newcomer raised his buttered quarter-loaf. "Here, try some, Upstairs. You hear what we just said?"

"Thank you. I could not fail to do so."

"Well, that's why the hoppies made it easy for me. They ain't sure where they stand yet."

"This is your police? Vironese police?"

"Yeah. Only all of a sudden they're working for the Rani, maybe. They don't know, and neither do we."

The warder cleared his throat. "Anyhow, it's all here. Red in the bottle, and here's your tumbler on top. There's pigs' feet, too, in the square dish, and lots of other stuff. Yell if you want anything."

"I sure will," the newcomer told him, and chuckled as the iron door closed behind him. "Keep a sharp eye on me, Peeper. Make sure I don't get out."

"This is good bread," Sciathan said. "Very good. I thank you for it."

"Sure." The newcomer was heaping noodles and brisket onto his plate.

"I wish that I could repay you. I have no means."

The newcomer looked up at him. "You been in clink before?"

"Last night. My arms were chained about a pole, and I was made to sleep upon the ground. There was grass, not as hard as your floor, I am certain."

"Only a lot colder. Had to be. I was pretty warm, even on the floor."

"Cold, yes." Sciathan took another bite of bread; it was soft and white, with a thick brown crust that required chewing.

"I had my mort with me, too, and she kept me warm. You say you ate already?"

It was a moment before Sciathan was able to swallow. "On a horse. A slice of gray meat between bread, bread not as good as this. We had spoken about the Common Tongue, Abanja and I, this language in which you and I converse. She said that my meat was also common tongue, which she thought amusing."

"Wait a minute." The newcomer poured the extra sauce from its small side dish into his plate. "Want me to put you some noodles in here? You'll have to eat 'em with your fingers. We only got the one fork."

"I should not." Sciathan wrestled against temptation. "I must tell you there have been many, many days on which I have eaten less than the gray meat. Always we eat little, and often we do not eat at all." He swallowed again, this time only his own saliva. "But, yes. I would like these noodles very much, and it will not trouble me to eat them with my fingers."

"You got it." The newcomer forked noodles into the sauce dish. "You know, I been wondering why you're so weedy, and I hear the rice is bad in Palustria. You come looking for food?"

"Eating makes one heavy." The concept was so simple and so basic that Sciathan had trouble formulating it. "One no longer flies well. I am a Flier. That is your term."

The newcomer gave him a sceptical look. "They don't never come down, and they're spies anyhow, everybody says."

"I am not a spy. Even Siyuf does not think that."

"Then you better muzzle that clatter about being a Flier. Somebody might believe you." The newcomer passed the sauce dish up to Sciathan, "I put a little bit of smoked turtle on top there for you. They give me a little bit of that, too, smoked turtle and onions. If it makes you too thirsty, we can get Peeper to fetch water."

"I have never eaten this." Sciathan dipped up the brown concoction with two fingers and tasted it. "It is delicious."

"Maybe I ought to try some myself."

"I have spoken of becoming heavy," Sciathan muttered, "but why should I not? My wings will not fly again."

The newcomer peered at him. "You really are a Flier, huh? They go up in the big airship and catch you?"

Sighing, Sciathan shook his head. "We landed to question them. I knew that it would be hazardous." More swiftly than a conjuror's transformation, his wizened face twisted to display a corpse's rictus. "Hello, Auk."

"Hi. You really can do this. Jugs and Patera swore you could, but I guess I didn't believe 'em."

"Do you need help?"

"Nah." Finding the empty stare that had become Sciathan's unsettling, the newcomer returned to his plate. "Tell 'em it's going fine, and I'll give a signal when I know which one." He mopped up sauce with a piece of beef hoping she would be gone before he finished. "I'll send Peeper to fetch something, too. Be better to get him out of the way."

"So hungry, this tiny man."

The newcomer chewed brisket into submission. "He's got more meat on him than you."

"I'd like some soup. I'll ask Grandmother."

"Do that," the newcomer said.

Sciathan blinked and grabbed, discovering that the sauce dish was about to slide off his lap. He made himself breathe deeply. "This is not expected."

The newcomer nodded without looking up. "What's that?"

"When one flies too high, one grows faint. Now too I felt faintness. Could your food be drugged?"

"No," the newcomer said.

"You spoke to me several times. I replied, but I do not recall what you said, or what I said."

"Doesn't matter."

Sciathan finished his smoked turtle and started in on his noodles. "I have no reason to trust you. You might be a spy."

"Sure."

"I have received good food from you, for which I thank you very much. It is better to be spied upon than beaten."

"You can say that again."

"There is nothing I know that I have not told Siyuf and Abanja. Why am I confined?"

The newcomer lifted the lid of another dish. "You like cheese? He gave me some of that, too."

"I have eaten more than suffices already. I have not even finished the bread you gave."

"Here." The newcomer offered a blue-streaked, whitish lump. "Try some of this with it."

"Thank you. We make good cheese in my home, but I have not eaten any in a long while."

"Now you listen up, Upstairs." The newcomer poured four fingers of brandy into his tumbler. "These Trivigauntis you talk about, Abanja and Siyuf? I never seen either one of 'em. I don't know 'em from dirt, but I know about this place here, and the hot room, and the courts and beaks, and all that. If you want to tell me what you did and what's going on with you, I just might be able to scavy you a couple answers. If you don't want to, dimber here. Only don't ask me stuff I don't know, why'm I confined and that clatter."

"You desire to know my crime. I have done nothing wrong."

"Then if they're keeping you here, it's 'cause they're afraid of what you'd do if you got out. What's that?"

"I would resume my searching for the man called Auk. That is all. They know this."

"You going to chill him when you find him?"

Sciathan leaned over the side of his bunk to look down at the newcomer. "Is this equivalent to
kill?
The softer sound instead of the hard sound at the top of the mouth?"

"Yeah. It's what this holy sibyl that taught us would say was a alternate pronunciation."

"No, I would not chill him. I would tell the masters of the airship above this city that they must take me, with this man Auk and those he chooses, to Mainframe."

"Wait up." The newcomer cleaned his ear with the nail of one forefinger. "To Mainframe? I ain't sure I heard you right. Say it again."

"I am from Mainframe. This is where we live, we Crew. It is our director, it shelters us and we repair it as it directs, when repairs are needed."

"A real place." The newcomer sipped brandy.

"Mainframe is where we live. Viron is where you live."

"If you live there, why are you shaggy flying over here all the time making it rain?"

"Because Mainframe directs it. It is the director of the
Whorl,
not ours alone. If rain did not fall, you Cargo would perish. Or if too much falls. Mainframe has many sources of data. We are one, not the least."

"You want some red?" The newcomer offered his tumbler. "You still feel like fainting, it might be good for you."

"No, thank you."

"All right, what's this about cargo? Like on a boat?"

"You people, the animals, and the plants. It is the same as a boat, yes, because we are in a boat, we as well as you."