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  He passes a row of dark, ramshackle flophouses. The only illuminated place is a Catholic mission with a holosign that says free meals 24 mrs. The projection depicts a smiling Jesus sketching a blessing with one hand and offering a steaming-hot burger plate with the other. A vagrant slouches in the mission doorway, chugalugging the last of a bottle of fortified plonk. Inside, a brother in a white karategi with a black belt waits to unlock and admit him, sans booze.

  Farther along the street are shuttered storefronts: a day-labor exchange, a noodle shop, a minimart with an iron grille across the door and windows. Ragbaggy forms huddle in some of the doorways, wrapped in foil blankets against the pelting downpour.

  One calls out to him as he hurries by, an elderly woman whose face is barely visible. "Spare some small change, citizen? Brings good luck to feed the animals at the Blue Zoo, you know."

  He is superstitious enough to stop and toss her a small-denomination bill, which she deftly snatches out of midair. He asks, "Why in the world are you sleeping outside on a night like this?"

  "Safer here than in the dormitory blocks," she tells him. "No lushrollers, no pussy bandits or bugnuts crawling in bed with you, no screaming meemies, no psychoid icemen looking to waste you for the fun of it—" He shuts his ears to the catalog of horrors and hurries away, finally reaching the blazing clamor of the Strip.

  Here the sidewalks are thronged with roisterers wearing costly rain gear. Many of the pedestrians are anonymously hooded and visored, as he is, but fair numbers of the most youthful men and women go bareheaded in spite of the bad weather. Flashily dressed, shrieking with sycophantic laughter as they cling to the arms of their incognito escorts, these can only be professional whores imported from Outside. Coventry Blue's population of upper-echelon corporate felons probably has a perennial shortage of inmates who are young, attractive, and reasonably priced.

  The funhouses stand cheek by jowl, tricked out with giant holograms, flashing strobes, laser pattern generators, neon constructs, even blinking incandescent-bulb marquees. He cannot help gaping at the outrageous displays and the signs that shriek and blare the Blue Strip's extravagances:

  LIVE YOUR WILDEST WET DREAM GORGEOUS GALS FAB FAGS KLASSY KIDDIES LOVERLY LIVESTOCK PSYCHODELICADO Boutique le pot de chambre corrective whippersnappers orgy porgy helga's house of pain rocket fuel depot narc nooky cesspool follies peter puffer's pooftah palace blood gladiators of ancient rome casino royale—lowest odds on earth boogie bombita bandita russian roulette vampirb planet electric breathing lessons saladin's snuffbox—100% real death drugs drugs drugs sex sex sex xxx . . .

  Grimly, he shoulders his way through the mob, fending off the stoned and the importunate. Barkers and strong-arm touts aggressively seek his custom, but a warning gesture with his zapper glove sends them off with a cheery "Fuck you, guv!" flung after him. The teaser spectacles in the show windows startle him, nauseate him, even arouse him—to his shame and consternation, for he is a cultural snob who had thought himself to be above such vulgar titillation.

  Calm. Competence. Courage.

  And God damn Alistair Drummond.

  At last he sees his goal, a surprising oasis of conservatism amidst the crashing hullaballoo. The large building's facade is slick black, with a bas-relief frieze that appears to wriggle and contort, as though trapped living things are attempting to escape a river of tar. A modest sign above the sheltering portico says silver scybalum. The entrance is flanked by two gargantuan doormen in imitation spacesuits of glolame with reflective helmets. On either side of the doorway are large windows. The one on the left is curtained with silvery drapes. The other, artfully spotlighted, features a curious grotto of pitted white rock thickly mottled and veined by black and red minerals. Some of the cavities are lined with beautiful ruby-colored crystals.

  He approaches and joins a group of idlers who stare at the xeno creature behind the glass. It has the general shape and bulk of a sea lion. The body is roughly pear-shaped, clad in a greenish pebbled hide, possessing only two front limbs armed with oversized claws with which the thing has anchored itself to the irregular sidewall of the artificial cave.

  The hideous wrinkled head is oversized, naked, leathery, with tiny red eyes. Wormlike feelers surround its open beak and apparently guide interior mouth parts that work like reciprocating drills, pecking industriously at the rock. A larger appendage, like a warty tongue, laps up mineral dust as fast as it is produced. The hole the creature has gouged sparkles with minute raw metal surfaces and freshly broken crystals that look like scarlet flecks of pepper.

  He reads the descriptive sign at the front of the exhibit.

  The sapient denizens of Gwalior [Sector 8], requiring arsenic and sulfur in their unique metabolism, consume native rock containing the red mineral proustite (silver arsenic sulfide) together with free silver. The latter is egested as a waste product.

  After a few minutes the Gwaliorite detaches itself from the wall and flops down with comical abandon, inspiring considerable mirth among the observers. It slithers clumsily to a pool of steaming liquid and drinks daintily. Then it rears back and begins to shiver.

  "Yes!" cries one of the crowd. "Do it, sweetheart!" Others contribute encouraging shouts.

  The trembling intensifies and the Gwaliorite utters a series of prolonged screams, broadcast electronically to the world at large. He recognizes the exotic ululation he had heard earlier, in the hopper park.

  After a final tortured cry the alien wriggles backward to a depressed area of the floor where there is an in-spiraling gutter. At its center is a sensor knob that suddenly starts to blink red. A roll of recorded drums rattles from a loudspeaker. The Gwaliorite lifts its massive legless posterior slightly and excretes four golfball-sized droppings of gleaming solid metal that roll down the gutter, strike the sensor, and trigger a triumphant display of multicolored strobe lights and a flatulent tuba fanfare.

  The crowd applauds raucously, the silver scybala disappear through a little trapdoor, and curtains sweep shut on the window, hiding the now motionless creature. Simultaneously, the drapes of the second window open, revealing a smaller Gwaliorite already munching minerals.

  He remembers the lot attendant's chilling remark about pseudo-alien performers. But surely .. .

  He questions one of the spacesuited doormen. "They're animatronic, aren't they? Just robots?"

  The giant deopaques his helmet and looks down on him with a patronizing smirk. "The exhibits are alive, Citizen Frost. Perfect genen transforms. The procedure is illegal on the Outside, but there are no such restrictions in Coventry Blue."

  "But why would even a Throwaway—"

  His queasy speculation is cut short by a sudden chilling insight: the doorman has recognized him, called him by name. His supposedly scannerproof visor has been penetrated by some high-tech gadgetry and his iris pattern analyzed and identified.

  Alistair Drummond lied when he said that their meeting would be secret.

  The doorman is saying, "We've been expecting you. Here, take this. Your entry fee is already paid." In the palm of the outstretched gloved hand is a shining sphere of xeno ordure. "The Silver Scybalum will be your passport to erotic delights beyond human comprehension. If you choose to accept them."

  With a curse, he knocks the thing aside. The ball falls into a filthy puddle on the street, where shouting bystanders scrabble eagerly for it. Both doormen ignore the fracas, swing wide the double doors and gesture for him to enter. Having no choice, he does.

  The establishment's lobby simulates a funky 1930s-style Buck Rogers starship, all brushed multicolored metal with gemlike rivets, obsidian panels, and round portholes framing astronomical scenes. Three heavily muscled ushers, dubiously female, insist upon divesting him of his outerwear and weaponry. They wear topless "space-girl" uniforms of bias-cut satin with cantilever support for their enormous bare breasts, elbow-length silver gloves, silver high-heeled boots, and open silver helmets topped with goofy little antennas. When they attempt to outfit him in an i
ridescent bodysuit with strategic cutouts he balks and threatens to leave.

  "Be like that," one of the attendants sniffs. "You'll find it very inconvenient for the activities."

  They open an inner portal that imitates an antique airlock with a handwheel. "Please follow the illuminated floor guides to Citizen Drummond's private box."

  He squares his shoulders and moves forward slowly. It's dark in there. Music swells around him and the turgid air is redolent of musky perfume. Amplified moans and other wordless human cries mingle with insistent Stravinskyesque discords and thudding tympani. At his feet is a trail of tiny green lights shaped like arrows. They lead him down a short corridor that opens into a great murky bowl-shaped chamber, a theater-in-the-round with a central stage surrounded by tiers of spectator boxes that look like imaginary space vehicles conceived by a retro comic-book artist. Some of the boxes are open; others are enclosed for complete privacy, with mirrored one-way windows.

  The ceiling is velvet-black, sparkling with colored stars and projections of interstellar gas clouds and galaxies. On the eerily lit stage, where hologrammatic plantlife impersonates an otherworldly jungle, four naked men struggle in the clutches of an enormous barrel-shaped alien resembling a feather-crowned purple sea anemone equipped with dozens of glistening opaline arms.

  At first glance he thinks that the human performers are being devoured by the gorgeous monster. Their torn trek-suits and broken weapons are scattered among the scenery. Then he realizes that the men are engaged in bizarre sexual congress with the extraterrestrial, convulsing and uttering delirious wails as the final movement of the Rite of Spring rises to an overorchestrated crescendo.

  He tastes bile in his throat and turns away, fighting for self-control. When he is finally able to pull himself together, the music has reached a thunderous climax—and so, evidently, have the human participants in the spectacle. He dares to look again and sees the performers lying spent in the beautiful creature's grasp. There is a blinding flash. When his vision recovers, he discovers that the stage is empty except for a ring of blue footlights.

  He pauses, irresolute. The lights fade, a new tritely erotic theme begins—de Falla's El Amor Brujo—and a column of whirling flames momentarily curtains the circular stage. The blazing barrier lowers to reveal a more ominous species of exotic seducer, insectile, skeletally thin, and studded with atrocious black thorns. It sways hypnotically and its amber eyes glow as a woman in ornate bondage harness slowly approaches it with outstretched arms.

  The trail of green arrows still glows on the floor. He follows it down a long aisle of shallow steps to the lowest tier, which is entirely taken up by six exceptionally large enclosed spectator boxes. One of them is his destination. He raps firmly on the compartment's side door and it slides open, emitting a cloud of sweet narcotic fumes.

  The Chairman and CEO of Galapharma Amalgamated Concern stands there, dimly backlit by interior wall sconces. His princely features have the perfection of genen rejuvenation, and every hair of his elaborately styled leonine coiffure is in place. Alistair Drummond is a tall man, and his shoulders are massive and his hands very large. He wears one of the obscene shiny bodysuits, mercifully covered with a belted scarlet brocade dressing gown. Poised artfully in his right hand is an antique jade cigarette holder with a smoldering giggle stick.

  "Come in, lad! I'd nearly given up on you."

  "Hello, Alistair." He is a good thirty minutes late but does not apologize.

  Drummond motions his guest inside and shuts the door, diminishing the volume of the music. His voice is pitched low, peculiarly soft, with a slight Glaswegian accent. "I see that you didn't let the ushers dress you for the occasion. What a shame. I had some interesting entertainment planned for us before we got down to mundane matters."

  "No, thank you," he says with polite regret. "Pseudoalien sex isn't really my style."

  Alistair Drummond laughs. His ice-colored eyes show no sign of intoxication, and as always, they are completely unreadable. "The Silver Scybalum can furnish any sort of amusement you'd like. Anything the Blue Strip has to offer. Don't tell me that none of the attractions you saw on the way here appealed to you."

  He mutters, "Not really."

  "You're lying," Drummond says, without rancor. "It had better be your last lie. Do you understand me, lad?"

  He swallows. "Yes."

  "Excellent. Would you care for a drink?"

  "Scotch and water would be fine."

  The box seems much larger on the inside and apparently extends back beneath the steeply raked auditorium floor. The opulently cheesy interior continues the Art Deco starship theme. The place resembles the private retreat of Ming the Merciless or some other out-of-date science-fiction potentate. Its most conspicuous piece of furniture is a very wide couch covered with burgundy leather that takes up most of the compartment's far end. Three matching armchairs stand before a long one-way viewing window overlooking the stage. Underfoot lies black carpet as lush as mink fur. An onyx and silver food and beverage bar backed by softly illuminated erotic stained-glass murals occupies part of the rear wall, where there is a second door with a small electronic service panel mounted beside it.

  For a brief, blood-quickening moment he wonders what might have come through that inner door if he had accepted the "entertainment" offered by his host. Then he feels a quaver of revulsion. Whatever it looked like, it would have been human once.

  Drummond goes to the bar, stubs out the smoldering narcotic joint, and pours thirty-year-old Lagavulin single malt into two crystal tumblers, adding water to one. Before returning with the drinks, he touches a pad on the service unit and speaks.

  "Will you join us now, Baldwin? There's been a slight change in plan."

  Surprise, consternation. "Alistair, I thought we'd agreed that this meeting would be private!"

  "Did we?" Drummond hands him the drink.

  He struggles to keep his composure, sipping the marvelous smoky liquor. The inner door slides open upon a tunnel that leads into the bowels of the theater. He half expects a loathsome xeno facsimile to appear, but the smiling man who enters has a perfectly ordinary, even genial, appearance—except for the jarring steely intensity of his eyes. He appears to be in his mid-forties and has a narrow face that is slightly freckled. His curly auburn hair is cut very short. He is dressed in a neat business suit of oxblood worsted with a matching silk turtleneck. Grimacing at Drummond, he mops at one sleeve with a pocket square.

  "Some kind of damned slime on the corridor wall got all over me. You wouldn't believe the geek collection hanging out back there in the green room!... Or perhaps you would."

  Drummond chuckles, turns to his guest and says, "This is Ty Baldwin, head of Galapharma Security. He'll sit in on our conference."

  "Glad to meet you, Citizen Frost." Baldwin heads directly to the bar. "Don't mind me. I'll set myself up. You two just go ahead with your business."

  Indignation and suppressed fear. "We can't talk in front of him!"

  "Certainly we can," Drummond says easily. "Come and sit down with me by the window. We can watch the show while you tell me about the Rampart board meeting." He turns up the music. On the stage outside, rings of dancing flame encircle the performers. The spiky entity has enfolded the woman in its multiple arms and penetrated her. She is bleeding from scores of small wounds.

  He turns away in disgust, almost spilling his scotch as he sinks into one of the oversoft leather chairs. "I have some disappointing news. The Rampart Board of Directors turned down your acquisition tender again."

  Alistair Drummond speaks so quietly that he can hardly be heard above the driving Spanish rhythms. "You stupid shit. You assured me that this time we'd win."

  He forces himself to show no emotion. "The decision was extremely close. I was able to pass a resolution calling for a new vote at the end of six weeks. By then the ICS will have ruled on Rampart's application for Concern status. They're almost certain to turn us down. And then the board will have no alternat
ive but to accept Galapharma's offer—even if it's lower than the present bid. In the long run this temporary setback will redound to your advantage."

  Drummond grunts dubiously, failing to affirm the attempt at damage control. "Who was the holdout? Scranton and her mob of Small Stakeholders?"

  "No, it was Katje Vanderpost. Her action was totally unexpected because Beth and I had worked very carefully to bring her around. I took a quiet poll yesterday before the meeting, when everyone but Katje had already arrived at the Sky Ranch. All the stakeholders except Simon Frost were in favor of the Gala merger this time—even Thora Scranton. I suspect that Simon found out that Katje had been pressured. The old devil went to work on her as soon as her hopper landed. She caved in at the last minute—saying she couldn't vote for the merger and betray her late brother's dream for the Starcorp." "Sodding sentimentality! Trust a damned woman to ignore logic. Her quarterstake would eventually double in value."

  "In retrospect, I wonder if Katje's poor health might have influenced her decision more than any twaddle about Dirk Vanderpost's noble aspirations for Rampart." He pauses, swallowing a fair amount of his drink. "She could be thinking ahead. Intimations of mortality. Afraid that her children might contest her will and cut off the major source of funding for her precious Reversionist Party if Rampart merges with Galapharma." He utters a dry little laugh. "As might very well be the case! Asa tried to get her to set up a trust benefiting her pet causes, but she vacillated—thank God. I'll keep hammering away at her. We'll get her vote on the next go-around."

  Drummond is obviously uninterested in these tactical details. His gaze is riveted on the increasingly lurid theatrics outside, and from time to time he moistens his pale, finely chiseled lips. "Just make bloody certain that she favors the merger next time."

  "You have nothing to worry about. When the board meets again in six weeks—"

  "Six weeks!" Once more the gentle intonation of Drummond's voice belies the brutality of his words. "I've been waiting four fucking years for you to make good on your promises, lad. But your pissant little Starcorp still owns the Perseus Spur, and the Haluk trading embargo remains firmly in place. Inside of six weeks the Secretariat for Xenoaffairs could launch an official inquiry into Gala's role in the fiasco on the planet Cravat. And then my cock could be on the block."