It had enough smarts to see my point and back-tracked quickly, leaping into the cable car as Mal came after us.
I slammed the door and the Intimate hit the button to get us moving. We rattled downwards, leaving Mal to vent her aggravation on the oleander bushes around the edge of the landing pad.
Still holding its innards, the Intimate introduced itself and welcomed me to Chalice Two.
‘Where’s Chalice One?’
It pointed north to the next mountain.
‘Who owns that?’
‘Sera Bau.’
Figures.
I leaned against the cable-car window and took in the Intimate’s denims, shiny shoes and a clean white long-sleeved shirt with the buttons missing where its guts hung out. Despite the injury it launched into its programmed tourist blurb.
‘Monk House extends over many levels. Your accommodation is situated on the twenty-fifth terrace. Terraces twenty to thirty are reserved for employees. You are permitted to visit certain areas of the beach, the dais and the gymnasium. The rest of the estate is restricted.’
‘What’s that?’ I pointed at a huge structure midway down the mountain.
‘The Orchid Cage is a restricted area. The plants are easily disturbed. The gardeners will choose flowers for display in your cabin on a daily basis should you wish. A mellifluous version of the
oncidium
’s cultivation is available to you on Channel Sunshine of your in-house entertainment. A medic has been requested to attend to your wounds.’
I cleared my throat. It still tasted like blood. ‘No medic.’ I said. ‘Just painkillers.’
‘Painkillers will be available to you via the service chute located near the bathing pavilion. Perhaps when you have had time to reflect on your appearance you may wish to request further assistance. In that case, please call the housekeeper.’
I glared at the Intimate, searching for signs of intended insult, and found only a bland expression. If it was trash-talking me, it was very subtle.
‘Mr Monk’s personal assistant will contact you in due course. Please feel free to make use of all the accoutrements and services provided in your cabin.’
Whew.
I’d never been spoken to like that. It was downright freaky. And what the hell did
mell-if-luous
mean? I delved into my language infusion and inhaled a snort of laughter.
Well,
mell-if-luous
orchid-song probably beat the hell out of Tert homebake.
The cable-car trip was nearly as bad as flying - the car flapped about on its cable like washing in a cyclone. It took all my powers of self-control not to jump ship and climb.
That and the sealed, bulletproof safety doors. Maybe I wasn’t the first person to have that urge.
I stumbled out of the door and felt the
woosh
of air as the Intimate rattled away. It seemed an archaic way to get up and down a mountain but there was no accounting for a rich boy’s tastes.
The doors to the cabin were all open and I wandered around inside like a burglar in the wrong house. Lavish’s club had been luxurious but it was still a club. Gerwent Ban’s palace had been a show-piece - a mausoleum of useless antiques. The sort of thing you’d expect from a King.
This was something else altogether. All the little touches of wealth: the telescope and viewing lounge on the deck, the translucent walls shimmering with high-density art, the crisp white sheets, the crackle of the bug net safely collecting and delivering stray insects back into the world unharmed.
Why would Monk care about keeping bugs alive, I wondered?
I wandered through, searching for the chute with the painkillers. It was between the san and the bedroom. I sucked down twice the recommended dose, then continued taking a tour as though the cabin was the dark side of the moon.
‘San’ was hardly the word to describe - what had the Intimate called it? - the bathing pavilion. I stood, torn between wanting to wash and get the blood off my face and the need to check the place out.
The recce option won.
I couldn’t lie naked in the bath until I’d checked out what might be looking back at me through the untinted windows.
From the balcony the gardens dropped away steeply into jungled terraces, each with its own white-topped cabin. No tell-tale goat tracks for hikers. James Monk’s guests weren’t encouraged to wander.
Not convinced that everyone on the mountain couldn’t see me, I climbed into the viewing lounge and peered through the telescope.
Maybe I could see them too.
I swung the telescope through several full arcs until I felt satisfied that I was currently unobserved.
Fatigue began to take over. I forced myself into the bath (Teece’s tub was never gonna feel the same), thinking that the water offered some privacy at least, and was almost asleep when Monk’s PA contacted me on the wall screen.
It told me it would come in a short time and that, in view of my hurried departure from the Markets, I should avail myself of the wardrobe provided for guests, and of the light refreshments that were also supplied.
A tray of unrecognisable food was waiting in the bedroom. I roamed around it, stuffing the strange tastes in my mouth and pondering a whole range of things.
In between mouthfuls I tried on clothes and stripped them off again. I spared a moment to look in the reflect. My nose had stopped bleeding but was more than a mess. Gaping skin and chipped cartilage.
Not exactly a good appearance for an
Amorato.
The why-had-Monk-hired-me question surfaced again and bobbed about.
I climbed into a pair of tight pants and, despite the warm temperature, a high-collared silk coat. I’d had more than enough public nudity for one lifetime. Monk was out of luck.
As promised, another Intimate arrived to escort me to the boss’s pad somewhere in the middle gradient of Chalice Two. I saw figures in their transparent cabins all the way there. Monk was obviously keen on entertaining - and on voyuerism.
Must be a media thing
, I mused.
For what it was worth I’d tried to reassume the mantle of the haughty
Amorato
again, twirling Glorious’s dizzie ring on my finger. As the Intimate gave me a
mell-if-luous
travelogue, Glorious occupied my thoughts, until the car wobbled to a stop outside a pagoda. The outside reminded me of Lavish’s club. A stern mixture of opulence and extreme cleanliness. Or maybe I was too accustomed to filth and poverty.
After MoVay most things were hard to digest.
The Intimate walked me through a detector and into a sparsely furnished room with doors and solid walls and banks of screens. In fact, all the walls in the boss’s pad were opaque.
Seemed that he liked to look, not be looked at. Even the view over the sparkling beach was through tinted shutters.
‘Jales Belliere? I’m James Monk.’
Finally. Let’s get this over.
He stared at my nose and for a moment I thought he was going to laugh.
Then I thought I was going to.
Monk was actually not much older than me. I stifled my reaction immediately. One thing that living with my stepdad Kevin had taught me: never let age or physical appearance deceive you. People who blew your expectations were dangerous because they nearly always had a point to prove.
Hell, I should have known that - I was one of them.
‘Your public fotos are fake,’ I said.
‘Wouldn’t do for everyone to know what the most powerful man in the Southern Hem looked like.’
‘Are you?’
He stared moodily out to sea while I appreciated his deep tan, sprinkling of freckles, and thick brown hair. If Loyl Daac had cornered the ’zine-centrefoldonly-barely-tainted-with-the-slums appeal, Monk
owned
the sophisticated-gangster look.
Even the flat metallic plug behind his ear glinted style. I figured the guy was getting live sport while we talked.
‘Man? Yes. Person - soon enough. You don’t appreciate what comes to you too quickly,’ he said.
This time I couldn’t hold back my laugh or its derogatory edge.
Monk stared back at me, his shaped eyebrows drawn into a frown. ‘And why, Jales Belliere, do you strike me as
not
the person you say you are? Could it be that unfortunate mess you’ve made of yourself
brawling
?’
My hand moved automatically to partially cover my face. ‘Wouldn’t do for everyone to know the real me,’ I drawled softly. And waited.
Intuition told me that even though I’d piqued his curiosity I stood on the edge of an abyss. If his interest turned to annoyance - or, worse, suspicion - I’d be in a quod somewhere quicker than Raul Minoj could close a weapons deal.
Monk knitted his fingers together, the gesture of an older person.
‘Aside from your injuries, you
look
like an
Amorato
. And a review of your earlier communication with my factotum suggests that you have the talents of one. But you are rough and your language is rented.
Amoratos
also don’t usually come complete with battle scars.’
Rough? Rented? I paid a fortune for that infusion.
For half a cred I’d snot him. How did the world get to be filled with so many conceited, arrogant people? It felt like I was sizing up against a Loyl-me-Daac with money.
But I gave a little subservient bow instead - the hardest thing I’d ever done in my life.
‘I’m from the Interior, sir. My manners may be coarse, but my talents are considerable. May I ask . . . why did you choose me if you thought as you seem to about me?’
I kept my head bent as Monk circled me, prodding and squeezing me like I was a side of meat on a butcher’s hook.
‘Let’s us just say . . . a good friend recommended you.’ He touched the skin of my neck. Then he lifted my coat to look at my figure.
‘And what’s this?’ He touched Glorious’s ring.
I kept my head down, hoping that he wouldn’t spot how rigid my jaw had become.
‘An
Amorato
is never without some tools in’ - I drew on my infusion for a word - ‘company.’
He prised the ring off my finger, then walked to a small diagnostic module in an alcove. When he’d finished examining it he brought it back to me, satisfied that it was harmless.
‘I’ve scheduled you for an exhibition this evening. Tomorrow I am having guests and I am short on entertainers. If you impress me tonight you can work tomorrow and I shall be happy to recommend your services.’ Monk’s voice dropped lower. ‘I hope you’re as good as you imply you are, Jales Belliere. I risked a considerable amount bringing you here - a favour to a friend. In fact, let’s make the situation quite clear. Perform well, or I shall consider the investment a bad debt.’ His face lit up with a brilliant, handsome smile and he made an expansive gesture. ‘In the meantime - get your face fixed.’
Interview over.
Chapter Twenty-One
I
told myself that I was letting the medic attend me because the painkillers weren’t working, not because Monk had told me to. I had no desire to make myself attractive for my evening
exhibition
but the fact was that I
had
to get to Monk’s party.
‘This mess needs proper reconstruction,’ the skinny medic grumbled through her body film. She was taking no risks with my body fluids on principle. ‘I really can’t spare the nanomeds for employees. Do you know how many people are staying here? The skin peels alone are stretching my limits.’
‘Just give me something strong and straighten it.’
Her eyes brightened. ‘You mean . . . the old-fashioned way?’
I pulled a face.
Like a kid given a gun to play with, the medic dermed me up and stuck a thin straightening probe up each nostril.
My eyes watered as the cartilage crunched like gravel trodden underfoot.
She was whistling by the time she glued the skin flap flat and heal-creamed the splits there - those and on my forehead - and gave me something for the bruising.
I stood up groggily.
She tossed me another derm. ‘Take this for later. You look like you know what to do with it.’
I prepared for my evening appointment as if I was going to war - dread and determination mingling to keep me in an unsteady state.
Could I keep this together?
I’d thought I’d made some hard choices recently. But now I realised I hadn’t. All those decisions had been made under threat, under the pressure to survive.
Simple stuff. I hadn’t really had to think about them.
But this I could run away from.
No one but me was looking over my shoulder telling me that I had to go through with it. It all came down to how much I truly cared about what was happening to The Tert now that I was no longer mired in the stench of it all.
I stared morosely up the mountain at Monk’s prized Orchid Cage and then at the darkening sky. Although the air was clear of pollution, I still couldn’t see the stars for cloud.
My resolve was slipping. All of a sudden I wanted to talk to Teece and eat shawarmas at Lu Chow’s. I wanted Larry to pour me a beer and tell me that Riko was planning to ambush me at the next full moon.
I could handle those things. I knew what to do about them.
But this was a foreign place. Wealth so unmerited. So wrong. Yet, from inside, so . . . seductive. So liberating.
Losing myself would be too easy.
Yes . . . yes . . . lose yourself . . .
The Eskaalim urged me towards surrender of a different kind. A new trick: Parrish without anger was Parrish without purpose.
I pushed away the languor by recalling images of Roo as he drowned in the poison canal - victim of Ike’s post-human lunacy, funded by Sera Bau.
When the memory was fresh enough in my mind to bleed, I ordered some innocuous provisions from housekeeping and inquired after Mal.