City of Diamond, стр. 5
“Iced shortbread, sweetheart—have some. It’s the same as I gave Mrs. Cathcart and Jenny Pierce when they came by yesterday.” Spider smiled and grabbed a couple of cookies as he fell back into the old armchair. His mother loved to have her cronies by to see the style in which she now lived; and he was pleased at her pride, since it was all produced from his own illegal funds. “I didn’t quite know what to tell them when they asked about you, my heart.”
“Tell them I’m a corporal in Inventory, respectable as anyone.”
“That doesn’t explain why you can’t attend church.”
“How should they know I don’t attend church unless you tell them, Ma? Maybe I go to Saint Tom’s up on court level.”
His mother poured tea into a cracked china cup. “You haven’t escorted me to Christmas service in two years. You’re not a ghost anymore, what can I tell people?”
He stretched out his legs and examined his boots broodingly. Damned souls aren’t allowed to attend church, as his mother very well knew. Mrs. Hastings said, “It’s unnatural, Stratton, consorting with demons the way you do. It tears the meat from my heart whenever I think about it.”
Spider did not reply to this. It was his demonic connections that made possible this snug compartment on the very border of middle-class territory, far from the level where he’d been born as the son of an unknown father and a mother on the Sin List—for the one and only time, to hear her tell it. Ma knew as well as he that her present comforts depended on his ultimate damnation, which was why she pricked him about it, but never too hard. Ma was a practical woman.
“Heard anything from the old neighborhood?” he asked.
“Your friend Rat’s been taken in the lottery.”
Spider whistled between his teeth. “When?”
“Last Thursday—probably when we were having tea, now that I think on it. Well, you can’t say you’re surprised, Stratton. Rat was in trouble since the day he was bom; if he wasn’t drunk on the church steps, he was sassing somebody who oughtn’t to be sassed. With all the times his name went in, it was bound to come up one day.”
The cookie was dust in his mouth. Rat had never been a real friend, but he was the last of the childhood gang still living; the rest had gone to the lottery, the recycler, labor on the radiation levels, or the ghosts.
The ghosts … “Did he get away?”
“Stratton!”
“Just asking, Ma. Be fair—if I hadn’t got away to the ghosts when my name came up, we wouldn’t be having tea here now, would we?”
“I heard,” she said, lowering her voice, and jettisoning any pretension to moral outrage, “that he approached a runner on K level who said he’d put him in touch with some ghosts down there; but the nathy just turned him in for the reward.”
“No surprise there.” The shock was wearing off; Spider took another cookie. There were always people who claimed they could reach a ghost or two, but they were generally liars. Ghosts chose their contacts carefully, and not for their talkativeness. He should know; he’d lived with a ghostband for a year and a half, dodging the priests and police, stealing food and clothing, sleeping in places respectable folk never knew about. He could still recall the day they came to tell him he’d come up black in the lottery—his own damn fault for not getting that jail stint wiped off his records fast enough. Shit. What a day that had been, with Ma hysterical and himself under house arrest. Good thing Pete was right about the ghost trail he’d found, good thing he could run faster than the bored escort he’d dumped out in Reynardine Street South. Of course, he’d hadn’t had these one or two extra pounds then….
“Best hold back on the sugar, love,” said his mother disconcertingly. “You’re getting a bit of a paunch.”
He glared at her in mild outrage. She should talk! Ma weighed two hundred and fifty, if she weighed an ounce. “Maybe I should join the ghosts again, hey? I was skinny enough then.”
“Don’t be difficult, Stratton. What’s the news from court deck?” She settled into her chair, leaning forward just a bit to hear better.
“Busy as fleas up there, the admin decks, too. Tal says we haven’t officially approached Baret Two about trading yet. He says we’ll make first overtures at Baret Station so we can feel the situation out.”
“Never mind what your demon says, Stratton, I want to hear about the wedding!” She bounced impatiently on the cushions, and the ancient chair gave an alarming groan.
“Oh.” Of course. “Adrian’s having a welcoming ceremony for the lady’s representatives this afternoon—right now, in fact. Tal’s there, that’s why he could spare me for a while.”
“They let a demon go to the ceremony?” For the first time Mrs. Hastings sounded impressed with the person responsible for leading her Stratton into a life of sin.
“Ma, he’s a Special Officer of the Diamond. I wouldn’t be surprised if Adrian made him best man.”
“No!” Clearly the scandal thrilled her. She reached into a bowl of walnuts without looking.
“Well, he’d get the ten thousand other people who think they’re going to be in the wedding off his back. And he could avoid having to single out any of the families on court deck as a mark of favor. They’re ripping each other’s throats out over it now, I hear.” Spider took another cookie without opposition, pleased he could speak so intimately about social jockeying on court level. “And dear Adrian still hasn’t seen the lady?”
“Not yet. She’ll be presented in a few days.”
Mrs. Hastings sighed happily, forgetting the wonders of baked goods she’d