Hugh Cook - The Worshippers and the Way

"True, true," said Grim, softening, slackening, anger dying to humor or its semblance. "I need no chocolate, need it not, want it not. Why, rather, right now I want boy, not boy to be boy but boy to sell sister. Hey, you-boy, you have me a sister?"

"I have not a sister," said the boy whom Grim was addressing, a boy whom Hatch had not noticed till that very moment, "nor you no need for one, for I had your eyes but I ate them."

This was a dire insult indeed, for they were talking in Pang, in which the word for eyes is logo nuk, a homonym of the word meaning testicles. (Thus eyes plural – the word for an eye singular being chaba jaf, a word which also means egg, and hence has given the Pang the phrase "to lay eggs on fur", which is used amongst them to denote the act of sexual intercourse). In response to this insult, Beggar Grim said something so obscene that Hatch (fluent in Pang, but not perfect) was hard put to construe the sense of it, though he gathered that the boy was being invited to do something involving a head, a finger, a cat, a river-oyster, some cakes of dung and his mother's brother's wife's daughter-inlaw.

"Boy," said Hatch, when Grim was done, "have you news for me?"

Every day Hatch went past the Brick and saw the Free Corps messenger boys torturing dogs or playing knuckle bones in the dust outside the place. Recognizing this urchin as such a boy, he presumed that the noseless moneylender named Polk had sent him with a message as his burden.

"Why news for you, Mister Purple?" said the boy.

Mister Purple? That was less than polite. Indeed, had boy been man, such an insult could easily have precipitated violence.

But the boy was a boy, and a boy who looked fleet of foot, so Hatch saw no way to chastise him except at the risk of serious damage to his own dignity.

"You have a message," said Hatch. "Get on with it."

"Polk's not in the purple mood," said the small boy. "But he sends his regards and sends three days for the chocolate."

"Three days!" said Hatch, aghast.

Polk had promised him ten.

"Three days," affirmed the boy, "which you collect from the Brick."

Worse and worse. Not only was the price diminished, but Hatch was going to be made to go to the Free Corps headquarters to collect that price. Hatch, angered by insult, could not help himself, and before he knew it he was saying it:

"No."

"No?" said the boy, exaggerating his wide-eyed amazement in an attempt at achieving a comic effect. "Why, Mister Purple, three days is three times your sister."

Three times your sister? What did that mean? The grammar was garbled, but the intent to insult was plain. Hatch was too close to his breaking point to appreciate being made a comedy by a boy from the Brick.

"Come here!" said Hatch, rising from the shadows of the sugar juice stall.

He rose so swiftly that his legs almost buckled, for the blood fled his head and he almost fainted. So he was in no state to chase or catch the boy, who was running already. The boy paused at the first rock on which dung-cakes were laid out to dry, grabbed one of those fuel tablets and hurled it in Hatch's direction. It went saucering through the air and blunted itself on a rock, being as yet too soft to brittle-break. Then the boy laughed and went pelting away through the heat of the day, running so fast and free it was as if he inhabited a different weather entirely.

"Polk promised me ten," said Hatch, still standing, unable to contain his amazement at the cheating unscrupulosity of moneylenders.

"So you reject him at three," said Beggar Grim. "So now you can home you and feast on the fruits of rejection. Hatch, he will feed, he will eat, he will glut himself sick on rejections!

Luxury, luxury! Why, and here's my luxury now! Shona, it's Shona."

Scent alone might have told Beggar Grim that it was Shona coming by, for she habitually drenched herself in Nudik Martyr, a gross proto-perfume too blatant for all but the hardiest of women to wear. There had once been a fad for Nudik Martyr throughout the Nexus, and, though twice a hundred centuries had passed since then, the Combat College had been given no opportunity to update or expunge that quirk of the fashions. Hence Shona, who loved the stuff, smelt as if she had been first lathered in the pulp of a billion over-ripe blossoms and then scraped clean with sun-dried orange peel.

"Been dorking the dorgi, have you, Shona dear?" said Beggar Grim. "Got any left for me?"

Usually Shona ignored such foul-mouthed overtures, for she was too much the warrior woman to waste time on disciplining beggars. But today she had a double handful of slob, a surprise meant for one of the unruly dogs of the neighborhood. On Beggar Grim's provocation, she threw it at him.

"Ya!" shrieked Grim, as the filthy slush slap-sloshed into his face.

His claw-scrabble hands tore at the cold effervescence, accelerating its evanishment.

"Why, Hatch my man," said Shona, challenging that Frangoni warman. "You left an age ago. Still here? Still waiting?"

"I'm waiting for Polk," said Hatch, pretending he was still waiting, and doing his best not to look cheated and downcast, for he was unwilling to expose his vulnerabilities to any woman, even one as staunch and trustworthy as Shona.

"The Cash, is it? That criminal! He'd diddle her own mother on the price of her tits and turds. What's he buying?" In quest of an answer, Shona took Hatch's stuffbag, hefted it, looked in it.

"Your chocolate, is it? Why, it's a fortune!"

"Ten days for my wife," said Hatch, still pretending such good fortune was still on offer.

"Ten days!" said Shona, who knew all about Hatch's wife and her needs. "Why, this is worth twenty. There's a regular run on chocolate, didn't you know? The Bralsh is buying the stuff at doubles and triples."

"The Bralsh!" said Hatch. "What would the Bralsh want with chocolate?"

Said Shona:

"I know what's under my garter belt, but you won't find the Bralsh down there. All I know is the price. Here, I'll pay you with peace, I have some on me."

"You carry it with you?" said Hatch.

"Can't leave it at home, can I?" said Shona.

Then from a girdling money belt she dug a half dozen opium balls, each encased in white wax and stamped with the vermilion seal of the Official Purveyor of Peace. They made the exchange on the spot.

"Thank you," said Hatch.

"It's a pleasure to be pleasing the next instructor," said Shona. "I wish you good luck for the evening."

In the evening, Hatch would be returning to the Combat College, for the competitive examinations in which he was currently engaged were about to enter their practical phase. When next he entered the illusion tanks, he would not be able to lose life or singlefighters for the mere purpose of winning experience.

Instead, his career would be on the line; and his family's fortunes were riding on his career.

"The evening!" said Beggar Grim, unabashed and loud as ever now that he had rid himself of the slob thrown by Shona.

"Fighting, is it? I thought as much."

"No," said Zoplin. "Not fighting but whoring. He's meeting fair Shona tonight."

"Yes," said Shona. "We're interrogating dogs to see which one has the honor of your parentage."

Then she mocked a kick in Zoplin's direction, so good in her acting that Hatch winced in anticipation of impact. But blind beggar Zoplin never stirred, and the kick fell short, and Shona winked at Hatch and set off for home, taking the chocolate and leaving the Frangoni in the possession of his opium.

"Oh, Shona!" said Hatch, calling her back.

"Yes?" said Shona, turning to see Hatch standing in the road with a knife in his hand.

"Could you give this to Dog Java's mother?" said Hatch. "Dog lives near you, doesn't he?"

"Yes," said Shona, accepting the weapon. "That's no problem.