In some city, at some time, not much different than our own ...
Mak Belst, detective officer of the Municipal Safety Force, perked up when autumn came. A damn fine time of year. The air got crisper, even a little cleaner, the stupid hot-season crimes -- the random stabbings and bludgeonings, mostly domestics -- slacked off. Also, his particular manor always saw an increase in patsy activity, so there were satisfactory pickings to be had with little risk.
Best of all was the Regional Forces Weekend out in Gelidin; for the eighth year in a row he was entertainment coordinator, and he looked forward to lining up some wild stuff for his colleagues from the four Regions that attended. It wasn't an official weekend; no official weekend could ever be such a blast. Only two weeks now until three days of unrestricted good times! It was time to get in touch with some of the guys in the other cities.
He swallowed a mouthful of hot vigg and punched Tarn Olm's home number into the call-up. While the screen flicked through its sequences he did a few isometrics, making the chunky muscles of his arms strain against his tunic sleeves. There was a click and a tone, and Tarn's weathered horse-face appeared against the wood-paneled background of his den. "Tarn, buddy," said Mak, "how goes it? Months since we spoke."
"Oh, how are you, Mak?" Tarn sounded sort of flat.
"Hangin' alright. Hey, bud, you don't sound too glad to see me!"
"Sorry, I'm a little fagged, I ..."
"A little what did you say??? What happened, you finally get that sex change operation?"
"Ha-ha," said Tarn. "Tired, buddy, tired. Lots of paperwork at HQ these days. What can we do for you?"
"Perk up, my friend! Forces Festival's a-comin'! Figured you and I should talk about what to do for the fellas this year."
Tarn fidgeted. Then, "I'm not going this year," he said.
Mak couldn't believe he'd heard right. "What did you say?"
"I said I'm not going this year. It's played out."
Mak put down his vigg cup and sat down. His big grey eyes were bulging with astonishment. "What the fug do you mean, you're not going? Why the fug not??"
"Just what I said. As far as I personally am concerned, the Forces Weekend's played out. I'm just not interested any more." Tarn shrugged his wide, bony shoulders, and looked straight into Mak's eyes. "All that getting blasted, and shooting off rounds, and scaring the locals. Who needs it? Big hangover it takes me two days to get over, and hoping-to-god I haven't picked up any little bugs to pass on to the wife. I'm not going to any more Weekends."
It was incredible to Mak. He couldn't get his mind around it. "Tarn, buddy," he said, with a strained attempt at humor, "I can't believe this is you. You must've had that sex change! You? Pass up all that booze and pro nookie??"
"It's different for you," Tarn said defensively, "you're not married. You don't have kids asking if you had fun while you were away ..."
There was a weird look on Tarn's face Mak couldn't decipher. He argued with him, but the look stayed there, and if anything got stronger as Mak put his case. Finally he gave it up. "Well, bud, it's your loss. I'm not going to hide from you, I'm disappointed. I was counting on you to line up some really good items for the lottery prizes -- like," he remembered in a last-ditch attempt to change Tarn's mind, "that wild inflatable crossdressed patsy with the built-in noisemaker we gave for the grand prize last year. God knows where you find that stuff, all the novelty contacts you've built up over the years."
"No more, Mak. Sorry." The note in the man's voice was final. "We can get together some other time, you know." He didn't sound like he wanted to. Then there was the sound of kids' voices in the background. He turned away from the screen and called, "What is it, Onnie? ... No, not 'til later. A half hour. Well, just be patient, we're going soon... okay." Tarn turned back. His face looked lighter. "Taking the boys over to the park in a while," he said.
"Yeah," Mak said. "What's that on your shoulder? You burn yourself? Looks like it hurts."
Tarn went quiet. "Oh, that," he said after a moment. "A burn. It doesn't -- hurt any more. I was fixing the oven for Mirin, and the grille was still hot. Probably got a permanent scar, though."
"Married life, it's great, huh? You'd stayed single like me, you'd be eating out all the time, you wouldn't have to get near a stove."
"I don't mind. If I was eating out all the time, old bud, I'd be eating cheap crap and getting fat, like you."
"Yeah, yeah ..." So they ended on a jocular note, which made Mak feel a little better. But not much. He signed off and drank some more vigg. Funny the way Tarn had stiffened up when he mentioned the red mark on his shoulder, right by his collar; it looked almost like a tattoo, not a burn. Oh, well. He'd call Wilkie next.
Wilkie wasn't going. He would be travelling on Forces weekend, going halfway across the country to Plurza to see the grandparents who'd brought him up. Mak was nonplussed, since Wilkie had always referred to Plurza as "the asshole of the universe", and he tried to make him change his mind. But Wilkie wasn't budging; he didn't argue back or anything, he just shook his head and smiled a little. Finally he said quietly, "I'm gonna sign off now, Mak. Have a good time bonking the pros and throwing up on the grass." He reached his hand up to terminate. As he did, in the instant before the screen went blank, his bare forearm flashed past the screen, and Mak thought there was a small, red, double mark on the inside of Wilkie's elbow. Had that always been there? He scowled.
Now in a sour mood, he found it hard to pretend to be upbeat when he called Ven Crans to coordinate visual entertainment, and impossible when he found Ven making lame excuses about needing that weekend off to work on his house and study for a course he was taking. "This is a course for Supervisors about managing interpersonal tensions on the job, it's..."
Mak lost it. "Oh, GOD dammit, have you guys all gone soft?" he exclaimed, and impulsively hit the Disconnect switch. Mak stared at the blank screen, unseeing, for almost a full minute, feeling alone. Then he called Sars Loun.
The big beat sergeant had been his mentor for five years before moving north to the Union City Force; Sars had taught him hand-to-hand, educated him about the street, about the science of interrogation. It was Sars who'd taken young Mak to his first payback visit to a Pro House. When Sars appeared onscreen and told him he'd quit the Force, Mak felt as if he'd just taken a blow to the gut.
"I'm through with all of it," said Sars. "I did things I would never do again. I taught you things, Mak, you should never have been taught."
Mak stared at him, unable to speak for a moment. "You get religion, Sars?" he finally asked, and his own voice sounded strange to him.
The other's big-jawed face creased into a sudden grin. "Religion? No, I don't think so. I wouldn't call it that ..." His expression got soft, strange. Mak squirmed to see it.
Then he noticed for the first time that there were brightly colored pictures propped against the wall behind Sars. They were -- well, they were paintings. And now he noticed the stains of color on his old friend's shabby shirt, and on his fingers. "What the hell are those?" Mak quavered, pointing at the pictures.
"They're mine, they're paintings," said Sars, turning. "I started doing these a couple of months ago. Don't ask me why, because I don't know, exactly. It's something I feel the need to do."
"What are they?"
Sars turned up the zoom at his end, and set the follow-me so the vid would stay on him. Slowly, without explanation, he walked past the four canvases. Two of them weren't about anything; just designs of dots in different colors on a changing color background. They made Mak feel a bit dizzy, though the colors were bright and lively. Then he saw that the little dots weren't dots, but numbers. Two numbers to be exact: the numbers 3 and 4, alternating and repeating across the canvas. What the fug ...?
The third seemed to make more sense for a moment: green hills and trees, and a blue sky; he was surprised that Sars could do such good trees and clouds. Then he realized that the sky was two different shades of blue, and that the paler shade outlined two giant numbers that filled the whole area of the sky. 3 and 4. He was about to ask what it meant when the last canvas came into view. This was different from the others. It was a picture of a darkened room showing a few hints of shapes of furniture, and with sunny daylight coming in a single, large window. A person was standing silhouetted against the light. Just a dark shape, slim and featureless. No face was visible. A sinuous outline around the head, outlined in a sort of cinnamon color, didn't even give a clue whether the figure was a man or a woman; in fact there was no way to tell which it was, much less any other information. Mak stared. "Who's that?" he asked.
"That?" Sars left side took up a chunk of the screen as he stood before the canvas. "No one you know. Someone I met a while back," he said.
"A woman?" Maybe this was the explanation.
Sars suddenly turned back to the camera and he smiled. "You like your job, Mak, my old student?"
Taken by surprise at being called "student", Mak didn't say anything for a moment. Sars's gaze didn't let go. "Yes, I do," Mak grated. "I'm doing the job I always wanted to do, since I was a kid." Sars kept looking at him. Mak said, "Remember what you always used to say, that the streets would be drowned in the crap of humanity if it wasn't for us, the ones who have the guts to flush it down the tubes? Well, I've got what it takes to do that job, and I'm proud of it."
Sar's eyes shifted; his eyelids seemed to get sleepy for a moment. "Yes, I used to say that," he said. "All right, old friend. I'll give you a piece of advice now. It may not be good advice, but for old times' sake ..." he trailed off. Then he looked up. "You say you like your job. Okay, then if you ever see anything that looks like that," he turned and gestured toward the last canvas, "just stay away. Keep clear. No matter what the circumstances. You get me?"
"What do you mean? That woman? Sars, I ..."
Sars gave a short bark of a laugh. "Just keep clear! That's all I'm gonna say."
"Okay! But I've got another question: what's the 3 and 4 mean in your pictures?"
"Thirty-four?" A slow grin spread across Sars's lips and filled his eyes. "That's me. I'm thirty-four! So long, Mak!" Sars raised his hand, and the screen went to dark with a click.
"You're fifty-two, Sars," muttered Mak to the quiet room. "What the fug are you talking about?"
The next few days on the job were tough. A gang war broke out on the edge of the manor, and Mak's division and the division next door had to pool their resources to put it down. Two homicides, scores of aggravated assaults, railcars burned, property damage, the whole normal stinking mess that went with turf warfare. Rounding people up, endless questioning of drugged gangers, or weeping, useless old women, or sullen locals who didn't want to get in bad with the nasty boys. Mak wasn't alone in getting crapped out from it all, but he was more crapped out than most.
The futility of the interrogations, the necessity of cooperating with the adjoining division and its tight-assed rulebook-slave of a commander, not to mention the reams of paperwork, were the exact opposite of Mak's preferred MO. He was not a systematic case worker; he liked a clean catch on the street, a fast, hard, effective inquisition and confession, and off to the detention cells. He was more warrior and hit-man than detective, but he had his talents and uses, and his immediate superiors in the Old Market division, who detested the slippery fringe characters who inhabited a large section of their bailiwick, turned a blind eye to his methods. He was something of a legend among the rookies, some of whom would observe his interrogations the same way Mak had once watched Sars doing the same thing.
By the time weeksend approached, Mak was more than ready for his kind of action. In back of the week's built-up frustration was the dull, wounded anger that had been sitting inside him since his conversations with Wilkie, Sars and the others. His blood pressure was high, he was tense all over.
Weeksend Eve night came, a bright, clear sunset over the towers of the city. A cool, invigorating breeze was blowing and the evening star glowed bright above the western horizon. People were coming back into the metropolis after their summer vacations. There would be action in the Old Market tonight. Mak signed for an unmarked cruiser, took young Hamp Foult with him from the plainclothes rookie pool, tucked his manacles into one pocket, his stunstick and piece into the other, nightstick onto his belt, and set off on the hunt.
It was a relief to have Hamp as a captive audience as they tooled south. Mak unloaded his grievances about the Forces Weekend. "Every last one of 'em! And you should have heard the excuses, the lamest Whole Man kind of crap! Like they've all come down with some kind of faggot plague." He assumed a sneering, mincing whine. " 'I don't wanna tell my kids I drink and screwww... I don't wanna go, I gotta see my granma and granpa.... I wanna see where I grew up when I was a little ki-id... I gotta study to be sensitive on the jo-ob...' I mean, I wanted to puke! It was weird."
"Sounds weird," Hamp agreed, "all of them at once like that. Like they're going back on you. I'd be pissed as hell."
"I am pissed as hell. If they'd been in front of me, I would have clocked 'em!" He dealt the dashboard a vicious blow. "Good thing for them they weren't." They were getting down into the Market. "Let's hope we can do some real work down here, now."
"Market's jumpin' like jazz, boss," observed Hamp, peering out the window at the throngs on the narrow sidewalks and the lit-up shopfronts and eateries. The thump of a street band sounded near by, and the animated chatter of passing groups of pedestrians came in clearly through the cruiser's windscreen.
"You said it, boy. Patsies'll be cruising early tonight with all this clientele around. God, these frumps from the 'burbs, you ever wonder if their husbands know where they go?? Look at that one, she's about to slide off her chair! Mr. Fatass Executive Hubby hasn't been doing his job by her!"
He pointed to a lanky, handsome, brunette woman seated at an outdoor eatery table, fingering a tall, pale drink and watching the crowd with concentration. She was dressed in an extremely expensive version of the current fringe fashion: long, tight skirt decorated with little, dangling strings of beads, and flowing blouse open halfway to her waist, with a froth of bosom and costly underwear spilling out the gap. Every time a young man dressed like a Market regular passed by, she eyed him up and down. Mak slowed the cruiser. The woman reeked money, reeked suburbs, reeked "client".
"We'll come back in a few minutes. If she hasn't made a pickup, she will, and we'll be there to take her little patsy-baby off her hands." There was a vibrant undertone in Mak's voice. "Very good night we got going here, Hamp my man. Very good. Two, three we can haul in before eleven, I bet. Nice pickings. Two, three babies who'll be more careful the next time ..."
"They always go back on the street, don't they? Like it's a drug."
"The ones who get out of the cells in one piece, yeah! There's some stubborn pats I've worked on personally maybe four or five times, before they finally give up and haul their used-up asses to some other venue."
"Ever wish we could just pull our pieces and blast 'em? Save the taxpayers a lot of bucks and trouble, Mak!"
Mak grinned. He knew Hamp was talking tough to impress him. Kid stuff, but he liked the spirit it showed. "I think about it. But our way's better, more humane, you know? Commissioner Vov and those fags at Procedures wouldn't like it if they knew about it -- they'd say they don't, anyway -- but our way, we give the pittypats a chance to learn the error of their ways!" He laughed, his teeth glinting in the gloom of the cruiser's cab.
They nosed into the tangle of one-way side streets that fed off the main thoroughfare, where if anything the weeksend atmosphere was even more festive. These little streets were full of places of entertainment -- arcades, vidbook shops, several small theaters, more eateries, performance clubs. Lights were permanently installed in the wispy little trees that lined the sidewalks, and gleamed in many colors from every establishment. The air was full of food smells, good spirits, adventure, and sex for sale. You could smell it. Mak could smell it. His instinct for a patsy or a trull was infallible; Hamp could only look on in awed respect as his senior pointed out individual after individual -- looking like regular Marketers to the younger man -- engaged in conversation on the sidewalks. "That little girl," Mak would say, "the doll with the long eardrops. Trull, definitely. And that musclebound baby over there in the blue shirt, talking to the big-haired frump. Deal about to happen."
"He could be her son, though, Mak ..." but sure enough, there was the flash of a cashcard from the big-haired woman's breast pocket, she took Blue Shirt's elbow in a proprietary gesture, and they strolled, chatting, toward a small doorway between two shops, to disappear into one of the flats that occupied the upper floors of most of the Market's quaint old buildings. "How come you didn't collar that one?" Hamp asked.
"What's the point? That guy's a drudge, not working the high stakes. I concentrate on the dangerous ones, the ones that corrupt women who should be home with their men. Respectable women who start out nice before they get a taste of Mr. Pro. You'll never get rid of patsys. But we can pick the really bad ones and teach 'em, boy. Teach 'em."
They crept through the slow traffic back to the main street, and once again the eatery where the rich brunette had been sitting came into view at the end of the block. The traffic signal changed, and they stopped at the intersection, the cruiser's drive vibrating. A surge of people swept across in front of them. Hamp peered through gaps in the crowd, trying to spot the brunette, when suddenly his boss jabbed him in the biceps. "Look at that!" exclaimed Mak.
On the opposite corner of the side street, perhaps fifteen feet away from them, was a cluster of six or seven people in front of a book store, all women except for one man. They were laughing and talking gaily. The women were nice-looking, casually well-dressed, ranging in age from perhaps the early twenties to somewhere in the upper thirties or early forties, and they were centered on the man. They almost looked like friends who had gotten together for a reunion of some kind, and the man was the one whom everybody had missed most of all.
He was turned just past side-on from the cruiser's point of view, so Hamp couldn't really see what he looked like; he got the impression of a slim build, dark shirt and trousers that were extremely simple by fringe standards, and wavy dark hair twirling around the man's pale face and onto the back of his pale neck. The man said something with a gesture of his head, all the women burst out laughing, and several of them patted his arms or shoulders. He patted them in return with a big, sinewy, long-fingered hand, the touch gentle. For some reason the hand and the touch stuck in Hamp's mind. He heard Mak say, "Oh, we gotta break this up."
Hamp stared at Mak's profile, amazed. "You think??"
"I know," Mak said, took a quick glance at the crossing traffic and the signal that was just changing in their favor, gunned the motor, and zipped the cruiser nimbly over to the sidestreet curb next to the bookstore, partly obstructing the crosswalk. The group on the corner were deep in their interaction; other pedestrians flowed around them. Mak leaned back to look through the rear windscreen. "Oh, yeahh," he breathed. "Big, big-time highrolling pat we got here, Hamp. Take a look. You'll never see a better example. He's got all those broads lined up. Nice girls by their looks, aren't they? Homes and families, little kids waiting to be tucked into bed, husbands wondering where the fug their women are... 'Oh, I'm just gonna meet Tril and Cossi for dinner, don't wait up'... Take a look."
Hamp twisted around. The light from the bookstore's front shone full on the faces of several of the group, including the man. He was handsome all right; the kind of handsome that makes people stare. A long face, with features more like a sculpture in a museum than a normal human being, and his skin looked paler and smoother than that of any of the women with him. One of them said something and he turned his gaze toward her, and Hamp saw the flash of sapphire-blue eyes under the soft, thick, dark slope of the man's eyebrows. Then he grinned, and there was a second flash, of white teeth in a big, crescent-shaped smile. Hamp could see the excitement in the women, even the ones whose backs were toward him -- a burst of amusement took the group, their laughter reached the two detectives. The woman on the man's right put her hand on his upper arm as she spoke and he smiled into her eyes. His face in profile was like a statue of some idealized god, except for the warmth in it.
Mak was out of the cruiser. Hamp scrambled to follow him. They approached the group. It didn't take long.
"Sir, may we ask you some questions?" A quick display of badges.
Women's voices. "What is this? What's going on? Nem, what's going on? Officer, what's the trouble?"
Mak made a calming gesture. "Don't be upset, ladies. Sir, we don't want to upset these ladies, do we? If you would step over here."
The man looked in turn into Hamp's eyes and Mak's. He was shorter than Hamp by about an inch, making him Mak's height. Hamp saw that he was in good shape, but Mak must outweigh him by fifteen or twenty pounds of solid muscle. There didn't seem to be any combat in him. No fear either. Hamp was beginning to be doubtful of the whole enterprise.
The man turned to the women, whose faces were etched with various combinations of anxiety, puzzlement and anger, and said, "I'm sure it's some mistake. This will probably only take a minute." His voice was in the middle tenor range, slightly husky. He didn't sound like a local at all. He turned back to the detectives, nodded, and stepped over into the relative shadow beside the cruiser.
Hamp knew his part in this kind of operation. He stood in front of the mark and said, "Do you live here, sir?" As the man was opening his mouth to answer, Mak came up close behind, took hold of the man's wrist that was nearest the cruiser, and bent his arm up behind his back in a jackknife hold. Hamp saw surprise and pain grab the man's face, and his doubt deepened. But there was no struggle; the guy could feel that Mak was holding off, not really pulling up enough to hurt him badly, but could do so at any moment. No one but the three of them knew what was happening. Mak said in his ear, "Officer Foult is going to open the door of the car, and you're going to get in first. Sir."
"Am I being arrested?"
"Shut up," said Mak pleasantly. "Hamp?"
It was painless, except for the mark's arm. He slid into the car's back seat as easily as a man going to the commuter train in the morning, and Mak followed him. Hamp kicked the engine on, and the cruiser swung into traffic before the women on the pavement grasped what was happening. The cruiser, being unmarked, wouldn't tell them anything. There was no way they could have noticed the detectives' badge numbers in the split second they'd been visible. As clean a street collar as could be wished for.
Hamp wove through the traffic press. The tension in the car was palpable. The vital streets outside seemed remote now. Then the man said, "I want to know", and that was all: There came simultaneous sounds of a muffled impact and of breath forced out very suddenly.
In the silence that followed, Hamp glanced in the rearview, and couldn't see the guy's head; he must be doubled over. Mak said, "No, I'm the one who wants to know. You're the one who's gonna tell me." A rasping attempt at an inhalation from the back seat, and the sound of violent movement.
Hamp was negotiating a left turn onto the main Avenue that led out of the Market. Once into the stream of traffic, he looked in the rearview again. Mac had the guy sitting up, and his head was close to the guy's face. More than that Hamp couldn't see. "Take it easy." Mak's voice came smoothly from the rear. "We've got the whole night ahead of us." Nothing after that, just the sound of the mark's breath trying to saw past the spasm that results from a blow to the diaphragm. Mak was skilled. There'd be no marks.
At Division, the booking officer didn't do more than give one searching glance at the suspect's face, then he nodded at the detectives. "Early collar, Mak. How many you figure to bring us tonight?"
"This one's worth a half-dozen drudges, he was lining up a group of six when we tapped him. We get him to gossip a little about his contacts, we can mop up a whole Patsy House."
"You're wrong," said the man, unexpectedly. "You're making a mistake."
He had been manacled by this time, so Mac jerked the cuffs upward behind him, double jackknife. The mark bent sharply forward at the waist. "Shut up, sir." Mac winked at the booking sergeant. "Talkative! Just can't wait to get it off his chest. Soon's we get some particulars off him, Jado, you can make up his form. Okay?" He eased the pressure, and the mark straightened up slowly, panting through his nostrils. Hamp was standing nearby, watching; as the mark's head came up, his eyes fastened on Hamp's. It almost seemed there was a question in them. Hamp looked back at him, and shook his head slowly. The mark's gaze lowered, went inside. Hamp heard Mak repeat, "Okay, Jado?"
"Yeah, that's fine, Mak. I'll be here."
"You coming along, Hamp?"
"Sure."
The interrogation room was like a featureless office. Grey walls, grey ceiling, dark grey tile floor. Desk, chairs, lamp. A small cabinet with official forms. A long, low bench, like one you might see in a waiting room. There were recorders built into the desk to take the spoken testimony of witnesses, the confessions of suspects.
The mark was put in one chair that sat about five feet in front of the desk; it had brackets on either side of the seat for attaching wristcuffs, but Mak brought the mark's arms backward and over the chair-back and secured the manacles to the back's middle rail. The detectives turned on the overhead light and sat down on the other side of the table. A silence fell.
It was so quiet they became aware of the sounds of their breathing. At length, Mak took out a form, pulled a biro from his tunic pocket and said, "What is your name?"
"Nemo Vran."
"Occupation?"
"I have an independent income. I'm travelling at present."
"Where do you reside?"
The mark named a mid-priced hotel just south of the Old Market. Mak asked two or three more routine questions, and got routine answers. Vran's voice stayed quiet, almost uninflected. The silence fell again.
"How many female clients do you see in one day, Nemo Vran?"
The man's eyes came up with a glint. "I don't have clients. I'm not engaged in any kind of business."
"That's right. 'An independent income,' that's what you said. That must be a nice life. Travel around, stay at good hotels, eat at good restaurants, move on when you get bored. How long have you been in our City, Mr. Vran? "
"I've been here a week."
Mak whistled. "Only a week! Hear that, Hamp? Man's been here a week, and already he's got lots of nice friends. You must make friends easily. Unless those women you were with are old college pals. That what they were, old college pals?"
"No." The man shook his head. His hair shifted with the movement, gleaming in the light. Mak consciously registered its unusual dark-red color for the first time. It waved around the mark's head, and around back of flat, well-shaped ears. Fine strands of it curved in front of each ear almost as if they'd been arranged there on purpose, the thicker tendrils ending like curling decorations on his smooth white neck. It was definitely a strong, masculine neck, but there was something about that skin and hair that wasn't right... the mark was volunteering further information: "We started talking in an eatery. We were at neighboring tables. They all know each other, but I'd never met them before this evening."
"You usually feel up women you've just met, Mr. Vran?" The man raised his head again, and opened his mouth, frowning; it was the first sign of a real reaction since they'd entered the room, but Mak blocked it by turning to Hamp again. "What about it, Hamp? Is that normal, to be feeling a girl on the public street who you just met over dinner?"
"No, it's not normal," Hamp said. "Um, the way I saw it-"
"Think it's normal for nice women to be feeling up a man on the street? Right after they've met him for the first time?"
"No," Hamp said after a slight hesitation.
Mak sat with raised brows and half-lidded eyes for several moments; then he rose to his feet and came around the desk to stand over Nemo Vran. It suddenly was clear to Hamp that this meant that Vran would either have to look at Mak's crotch, which was right in front of his face, tilt his head far back to meet Mak's gaze, or look pointedly to one side or the other. But he did none of these things. He dropped his chin and looked down at the floor. He was sitting up straight in the chair, or as straight as his pulled-back arms would allow.
"I don't want to listen to any more lies," Mak told him. "I've had a long, hard week of getting nothing accomplished, and that makes me mad. Which could be bad for you, sir. But I don't want to be unreasonable. So I'm going to tell you the truth, and you're going to agree to it, and then you're going to answer my questions, and then you're going to sign the form I print out, and after that neither of us will have to hang around in this fuggin' room any more. But if you don't agree to my sensible agenda, my patsy friend, you're going to be very sorry. No one will hear you being sorry, and if they do, they won't care."
Hamp had quietly stood up and come around to where he could see the mark's reaction. There was no reaction.
"Here's the truth: You're a whore. You sell sex to women rich enough to afford you. You brush your pretty curls, and dress like a regular guy so the innocent ones won't guess what you are, and go looking for prey in the fringe sections of town. You use a good hotel, and the contacts you make who you can't handle yourself, you pass on to the patsy house you work for.
"And you're good at making those contacts, Mr.Vran. You can chat up a respectable wife so smooth and quick, she hardly knows what's happening except it's makin' her hot. Start off with the weather, and pretty soon it's what a nice necklace she's wearing, does she come to the City often? Is she bored being just a mommy, does Hubby go on business trips a lot? Oh, you're really understanding, you understand all her frustrations and troubles, it's like magic. And you're taking peeks down her shirt, maybe patting her hand. Pretty soon she's petting you, rubbing your arm, feeling your shoulder, squeezing you.
"You're so sympathetic, you can help her with what ails her. You've got the cure, back in your hotel room, and she's willing to pay for it. You'll line her up, get her coming back again and again. She can't get enough, and when she can't have you, she'll take one of the other baby-boys from your House. She starts running out of cash, she starts going downhill. Her kids never see her any more, finally her husband kicks her out. She'd sink her monthly alimony on you, but that's not enough, because you're high-priced, aren't you? You've moved on. No cashee, no fuggee, right? She's in the gutter, and you're raking it in from somebody else.
"How many a day, Mr. Vran? What were you going to do with those dolls you just met tonight? Have 'em come up one after the other? Spread 'em out over a couple of days? You a hard guy, Mr. Vran? You in good shape? How many were you gonna do yourself, and how many were going to your colleagues?"
Silence.
"That's the truth. Isn't it, Mr. Nemo Vran?"
"No."
Mac hit him in the abdomen without warning. Vran doubled over involuntarily, but what made him exclaim was the sudden jerk on his manacled arms caused by the abrupt change in position. With a gasp, he straightened to alleviate the pressure, and sat there, quivering slightly, on the edge of the chair. Mak waited several seconds until he had just begun to relax, then hit him again, about one inch to the right of where the first blow had struck, avoiding the area of the appendix. This time Vran gave a sharp cry. Mak always used a bent finger blow for the abdomen, rather than a fist.
"I ask you again: It's the truth, isn't it?"
Nothing. Mak waited for a full 20 seconds, then suddenly slapped him on the side of the face. The sound cracked in the bare room. Hamp flinched involuntarily, then blushed, hoping Mak hadn't noticed. The impact knocked the mark sideways, the manacles clanked sharply. Mak brought Vran's face back with a gentle hand, and hit him in exactly the same place, except harder. Hamp caught a glimpse of the man's eyes as his head snapped around, a gleaming streak of blue blur. Mak hit him again, then again, harder each time. Then he stepped back, observing.
Vran leaned sideways, breathing hard through his open mouth, his head down. His face would be red and swollen on one side for a while, but that would fade before any court official saw him... Each breath made his body rise and fall slightly on the straining struts of his pulled-back arms. His ankles had instinctively clamped around the feet of the chair.
Mak glanced up at Hamp with a smile, then came over to him. In a voice just loud enough so the mark would hear him without being able to make out the words, he said to Hamp, "This is the kind of thing you get every once in a while with these very high rollers. They're so used to having things go their way, down deep they think nothing can touch them. Doesn't happen often, but it happens. This baby's going to be a nut to crack. The trick is, to find the weak spot in the psychology. With a pretty boy like this guy, a little humiliation usually works wonders. I'll have to unlatch him. In case he puts up a fight, I want you to be ready to stun him. You on?"
This was new to Hamp, but he wasn't going to let his senior down. "Sure."
Mak walked back. In measured tones he said, "Nemo Vran, I have reason to suspect you of possessing illegal substances. Do you have anything to say to that?"
The mark stirred, straightening a bit in the chair. He brought his head up partway. "I deny it," he said, softly and hoarsely.
"Under Section 14 of the Regional and Municipal Dangerous Substances Act, I have the right and duty under these circumstances to search your person." Mak motioned for Hamp to go around to the back of the chair. Hamp unfastened the cuffs from the chair back, unlinked them so Vran's hands dropped to his sides. His boss took the front of Vran's shirt and pulled him to a standing position, stepped back several paces, and ordered him to strip.
The mark stood motionless for a moment. Hamp could see the tension in his back, in the back of his head. Then he brought his hands around in front of him. The manacles clicked slightly: he was unfastening the front of his shirt. He pulled it off one shoulder. The skin was very white.
Hamp stepped backward, feeling that in some way he was too close to Vran. The dark shirt was now all the way off. The mark's back shifted with well-defined muscle. He was slim-built but put together like an athlete. When he began to remove his trousers, Hamp wanted to look away. Then he wanted to sneak a look at his boss, to see what he was doing with his eyes -- what did a guy do in this situation? He was afraid Mak would see him, though, so he took another step backward and tried to keep his eyes fixed on the back of Vran's head. It didn't work. The sudden revelation of more white skin, the forbidden lower part of the body, grabbed his eyes for a shocked second. He averted them, his cheeks burning. When he forced himself to raise his head, he found himself looking past the mark's head and into Mak's face. Mak took no notice of him; he was staring at the mark with an expression Hamp had never seen before. As he watched, blood suffused the older detective's neck, and then mounted to the roots of his hair. He was embarrassed! Now he'd let the guy get dressed again...
"Search those clothes," Mak ordered Hamp, in a flat voice, and gestured toward the stone floor. "The shoes, too. Inspect the facings and the hems, check the heels." Hamp knelt over the clothes, which were warm from their wearer's body. The young detective's sense of embarrassment intensified. He didn't want to be doing this. I'll look at the shoes first, he thought. They seemed less personal. They also seemed to contain no drugs. He gave the shirt a thorough lookover next, with the same results. A faint, clean, live scent rose from the fabric. He became aware, at that point, of Mak's voice murmuring softly a few feet away.
"... what it takes to follow the profession, don't you, Mr. Vran? What the girls all want. Bet you took a look at yourself in the mirror one fine morning and thought, why the hell should I work like an ordinary citizen when I got this? Why should I sweat in some office when I could be using it for pay? You take stimulants to keep in working condition, Mr. Vran? You got a prescription for 'em?"
"I don't find anything here, boss," Hamp reported. He hadn't expected to. Vran didn't look like a druggie; it was just a pretext for the benefit of the recording devices in the desk.
He got up from kneeling over the clothing; the mark was in profile to him. The man stood there like a statue, stark under the light. His skin shone in the dark grey room. Like his back, the rest of his body was an arrangement of toned muscles on a slim frame. His skin reflected light almost like silk or satin, and his small nipples were red. He didn't have visible body hair except a thick oblong of dark-red pelt between his legs, very precisely delineated against the surrounding pallor of flat abdomen and the shallow articulations of the groin. Hamp looked irresistably downward and felt the blood rising into his face just as it had into Mak's. For a second or two Hamp felt like he was having a hallucination, because it didn't seem like it could be for real. He snatched his eyes away, ashamed. He had to look again, and did, and that made him more ashamed. "Nothing in the clothes," he repeated, his ears humming and hot.
Mak was standing about three feet from the mark. Hamp couldn't see much of Mak's face, but he could see Nemo Vran's. It was really like a sculpture now. The man's smooth, downsloping eyelids half-hid eyes that seemed to be looking at something far away in space or time. Hamp thought: He looks like everything's inside him.
"We'll have to take a look inside, then," said his superior's voice, which caused Hamp to gape at him in a moment of astonishment before he realized what Mak meant. "Open your mouth, Mr. Vran."
Vran's distant eyes focused, he took a breath, and complied. Mak took a pocket flash out and peered into the deep red cave. Druggers sometimes carried adhesive capsules, tiny flat things, plastered to the hard palate or the surface of the back teeth. Mak stuck his forefinger in and pushed Vran's cheek flesh out on both sides in turn, stretching the man's lips. Then he ran his finger roughly across the teeth and the roof of the mouth. Vran gagged a bit, Mak withdrew his finger, and wiped it off on a tissue.
He pocketed the flash, then surprised Hamp by stepping very close to Vran. Their eyes were just about level. Mak lifted his hands to either side of Vran's head and thrust them into the mark's hair, searching with his fingers, all over Vran's scalp and through the strands of his hair. It was a strange sight. That hair glinting and sifting through the detective's fingers could have been a beautiful woman's hair. Mak's mouth was tense. Vran's eyes were open but fixed on some invisibility beyond. Mak then stuck his little fingers right into Vran's ears, searched around, pulled them out and took hold of the ears themselves. Vran's brows drew together slightly and his eyes focused on Mak. For three or four seconds they were motionless, looking at each other. Dull red mottled patches appeared on Mak's neck and jaw. His fingers clutched the man's ears harder and he moved Vran's head slightly from side to side as he said, "One or two places left to look."
Hamp knew what was meant. He'd heard about this kind of thing; stories and jokes at the academy, jokes that rose from fear -- as he realized at this moment, because he knew himself to be afraid, and it wasn't just a rookie's nervousness about doing something embarrassing for the first time. He knew Mak didn't really believe the guy had drugs on him. He knew the humiliation Mak spoke of was probably a good way to soften up an over-confident suspect. He knew Mak hated patsies worst of all the criminal types, and up until now he would have said that every experienced policeman has his specialties, and that hating crime and wanting to protect the public are the exact reasons a man should become a member of the Force. But something was going on here.
The burly detective let go of the suspect's head and gave the younger man a searing glance, as if he'd read his mind. "Officer Foult," he said, "put Mr. Vran in position for further search," and stepped back. Hamp came up beside Vran, cleared his throat and said almost diffidently, "Step around back of the chair, please, sir." Vran, his eyes half-lidded and distant again, turned his head partway toward him as if he were listening to the sound of Hamp's voice like music, rather than attending to the words.
"What are you going to do?" Vran asked him.
It was a shock. He had been so silent. His voice was that of a young father speaking to his baby: gentle, quiet.
Hamp stepped back from him, his mouth open partway. Vran's eyes rose to his. Hamp felt his insides shudder. Then he turned abruptly and went over to Mak, who immediately took hold of his arm and pulled him several feet away. "We can't do this," Hamp said in a low, strained voice, removing his arm from Mak's hard grasp.
"What's the matter with you?"
"This guy's no drugger. He's no patsy, either. He's innocent."
"You're psychic all of a sudden? Or are you just faggot-scared to do your duty?"
"I'm scared of what you're doing, Mak. You know he's innocent. You don't care."
"I'm your superior officer. I'll have you up before the Board. I order you, go over there and bend him over that chair!" Mak's whisper was a savage hiss over his teeth.
"Do what you want. I refuse the order. You don't give a damn about what he's done or hasn't done. You just want to hurt this guy." Hamp's face was covered with sweat, but he stared back into Mak's quivering eyes. He saw the other man's ridged neck and shoulders swell, and flinched. But no blow came.
"Get out, you coward," Mak whispered. "You cowardly faggot. You say one word about this to anybody, and I'll get you. You understand that? No one will know. You know I'll do it. Get out."
Hamp left. He felt the world of the grey room seal itself behind him as the door clicked shut. There was sweat all over his body now. He looked back at the door. There was a small double-glass window in it. He wanted to go back in; he wanted to look through the glass. He was afraid of Mak. He had never seen a face like the face that had just now been inches from his. "My god," he whispered, "what am I gonna do?"
He rubbed his quivering hands over his face, shook his head, and slowly walked away, up the corridor toward the front of the stationhouse.
In the grey room, Mak took out his stunstick. He was through with games, through with protocol. Many a recording of his interrogations contained cries and curses. The division heads had never said a word to him. The white nakedness of the patsy stood shining in mockery at the center of the room. With a flick of the forefinger Mak activated the end of the stick. He felt sweat in his armpits, and saliva pooling in his mouth, and licked his lips unconsciously as he approached the man. Man? Was this a man? Really a man? He looked like he was something else. Something in between. It was disgusting, it made Mak's gut roil. He was now in front of Vran, and brought the stunstick up to touch his arm.
Vran yelped and jerked away. For a second his eyes shone into Mak's with a purely physical outrage, and it gladdened the detective's heart. Laughing with joy, he touched the stick to Vran's chest. The mark let out a curse of pain and backed away from him, toward the blank wall near the door. Mak shook his head as he followed him. "Room's locked, Mr. Vran. You're naked and there's nobody to holler for. Nobody who knows, nobody to hear, nobody to care, except me. So I suggest you bend over the chair. That way I won't have to use this again."
Vran's chest was rising and falling, his eyes burned into Mak's. "If I bend over the chair, what are you going to do to me?"
The same question that had stopped Hamp Foult in his tracks ... An answering image burst up into Mak's mind from nowhere -- and he exploded. He was on Vran so fast that it shocked both of them, but the detective's rage swamped his shock, the man's hard white body was trying to writhe away from him, the strength of it and the smoothness of the hot skin under his hands fuelled Mak's frenzy, he used the stunstick as a bludgeon on Vran's shoulders and head, pounding him to the floor, his own voice roaring over Vran's cries was like the sound of a train, a storm, a disaster. He felt his arm flying through the air, white skin blossomed with blood, he felt the impacts traveling up his arm, the nude body bucked like fury, a leg hooked around his and he lost his balance, almost fell.
He recovered, howled and lunged forward as the patsy rolled swiftly to his feet. Mak swung a roundhouse blow at the man's kidneys, but Vran eluded him and the stunstick smashed against the wall, cracking in two. Mak instantly unhooked his nightstick, which was six inches longer than the stunstick, and came on in towering rage. Vran, his head and shoulders bleeding from cuts caused by the steel collar of the stunstick, skipped backward toward the center of the room, trying to get the chair or the desk between them. He stepped on his own clothes that were lying on the floor, slipped very slightly. Mak brought the stick down onto his arm just above the elbow, and he screamed. Mak seized him and threw him forward over the back of the interrogation chair. Even in the agony of a cracked humerus the patsy tried to hook his feet around Mak's ankles, but Mak had a good grip on him, and bore him forward over the chair back with the full weight of his own body. He yanked the man's wrists down brutally to the side of the chair-seat, and secured the manacles to the brackets with a single expert wrench and click. The patsy let out a ululating wail from the pain of his broken arm, and then just hung there over the chair and gasped. Mak was gasping, too, still leaning on him, leaning down hard over his back, pressed against his buttocks.
Rage rose in him again, and a kind of nausea that was almost pleasure. The smooth skin under his hands burned him, repulsed him, pulled him, galled him. In fascination he looked down at the articulations of the back bent before him, the ribs heaving, the vertebrae in their perfect march down toward the curving muscles of buttocks and hips and legs -- and watched his own hands moving across the skin. What was he doing? He made a guttural sound under his breath and stepped away, dimly aware that he was trembling. Examine the patsy, search him for drugs. He went toward the desk, feeling the floor strange underneath his feet. His legs felt disembodied, watery, his body was full of warmth. He fumbled open the bottom drawer and pulled out a box of finger cots. He unwrapped three, slipped them onto the first three fingers of his right hand. They were tight, uncomfortable as always on Mak's big fingers. The tightness was a focus in his increasing lightheadedness. Now he'd share some discomfort.
He came back, stood behind the wordless, gasping man. He reached down, but found himself again moving his open palms across the prisoner's flesh. Further down, between, that was where to search. "No," whispered the man, "don't." Mak shuddered with tension at that whisper, and pushed his first finger inward. It was hot, hot. He felt for the hard nodule of an ampule. No ampule, but hot, smooth, powerful muscle squeezing, trying to exclude him. He pushed the other two in, listening to the sobbing breathing. It was like a song, like the song of blood, of pain, of surrender, except he wasn't surrendering -- but he would. Mak pulled out his fingers, stepped back.
The patsy's back, buttocks and legs shone as white as milk. Mak had his nightstick in his hand; he felt like he was being consumed a holy blazing light that had a flaming blood-hot core in the center, the fire of vengeance at last. It was like when he nailed that trull who'd been turning him down, laughing at him, at the last Forces Weekend. He'd gotten her in an empty bunkhouse, gagged her and given it to her good. He was in a dream. He remembered how she yelled her muffled yells under the gag. He took his nightstick and put it where it belonged, and listened in ecstasy to the wailing, spiralling voice as he thrust.
Then he realized that he had reached his other hand around to the front of the prisoner's body. He realized what he had in his hand. He realized what he was doing. He let out yells as awful as the man's yells, pulled out the stick, and beat down once. The blow slammed Vran on the back of the head. He slumped instantly. No more resistance. Nothing. His private parts were warm in Mak's left hand. Heavy, soft, tender. Mak let go. The nightstick fell from his hand. He backed away. The room rocked. In the center of the rocking was the hanging, sprawled form of a naked man sliding slowly down the back of a chair as his legs collapsed beneath him.
Jado and Hamp came down the long corridor at a run. The screams that had reached them at the front desk were unlike any sound either of them had ever heard, the sound of two men screaming in rhythm. The interrogation room was near the far end. "Oh god, oh god," Hamp said; the screams had stopped, and that was worse. Jado, out of shape from years behind his desk, was panting hoarsely beside him as he pounded heavily along. The door at the far end swung open. Mak Belst came out, and walked toward them. They slowed, stopped and stared. There was fresh, bright blood on Mak's tunic, spattered all up his right hand and arm. His eyes came up to theirs, tried to focus on them. "Get him to the hospital," he said. "Right away. I think I killed him."
The paramedic was rigid with controlled emotion. "He says you can go in," she said through her teeth. Mak looked quickly away from her blazing eyes. He nodded mutely.
He looked at the door of the suite, took a breath, and went in.
The room was quiet, neat, and had hardly any hospital smell. A large uniformed officer sat silently in an armchair in one corner, listening to music on his headset. Mak could feel his eyes on him, but didn't greet him or even glance in his direction. He knew the kind of look he'd get in return. His only real interest was the occupant of the bed. He edged forward, gripped by a slow twisting knot of fear and shame. Nemo Vran looked up at him from the pillow.
His left arm was casted and stiff by his side. A cap of bandage covered the top of his head, kept in place by swathes of bandage wound down from his crown under his chin. Several deep red curls escaped in elf-locks from this wimple of bandage, curved down onto his brow and trailed across the pillow under his head. More dressings were just visible at the neck of his bed-gown. An intravenous drip line led to his right arm, which was marked with heavy bruises at the wrist. His sapphire eyes didn't leave Mak's. What amazed Mak to the core was their calmness.
"Why don't you sit down, Mr. Belst?" said the man in the bed.
Mak nodded, and pulled up a chair beside the bed. A silence fell. Mak was looking down at his hands. "You call me Mr. Belst," he said at last. "You should call me ..." he fell silent.
"What?" murmured Nemo Vran.
"Animal. Worse than that."
"I'm not going to. I know what you mean, but... it wouldn't make me feel any better to call you names. It wouldn't help anything."
"It would help me," said Mak, watching his hands twist. The hands that... He stopped twisting and looked out the window, which had an uninteresting view across rooftops.
"Do you think so? What do you want me to call you, then?"
Mak's face screwed up. He shut his eyes tight. "Torturer. Sadist." He heaved a tight breath. "Faggot sadist." He clenched his fists as tight as his eyes.
"Faggot sadist," repeated Nemo Vran quietly. His voice had a strange quality; it made things sound very clear, as if they stood by themselves to be looked at, now that he had named them. "Do you want to fug me, Mak?" he asked, watching him.
Mak's eyes snapped open. The thought was preposterous, monstrous, subhuman. He had nearly killed Vran. His eyes threatened to fill. "No," he muttered, shrinking. He sensed Vran lying like a fragile vessel in the bed, half-shattered by these heavy ham hands that lay on his knees. He twisted with self-loathing.
"Well," said the patient, as if that "no" answered the problem.
"Don't you remember what I did?" said Mak desperately.
"I remember. You went out of your mind. Something about me put you in a rage."
"It was more than that," Mak grated. "I... I kept wanting to touch you."
"Maybe that was what made you so angry? That you wanted to touch me?"
Mak's shoulders quivered with a burst of tension. "Men don't want to touch other men," he said. "Men should touch women."
"You arrested me because - "
"Oh, god!" Mak stared out the window. "I thought you were a patsy!" His chest heaved tightly. "No, I didn't. I didn't know. Usually I know, they're easy to spot. You... with you, I wasn't sure, but I told myself I was. My mom left my dad for a professional when I was twelve. I'll never forget her yelling at him, 'He's twice the man you are! Three times! I'll go anywhere he goes, do anything he wants me to do. He knows what love is, you'll never know. You've never satisfied a woman in your life, you pathetic little dick!' Dad hit her, but she left anyway. She was laughing when she went out the door with her suitcase, even though her eye was cut, and the blood was coming down. I'll never forget it."
"What did you do?" asked Vran.
"Oh, I started crying. And laughing. Both. I was just barely twelve, skinny, I still looked like a little kid. I was scared, I didn't really understand what was happening. My dad put me over a chair and beat the crap out of me. Worst beating I ever had. He kept saying you pathetic little dick, and bringing that paddle down..." Suddenly Mak stopped and went red, then pale. He glanced hesitantly over at the man in the bed, because he could feel him waiting. The clear blue eyes had no condemnation in them, no avidity. No anger, no hatred. "I...I had my first real sex experience while he was paddling me," Mak said, barely above a whisper. "I just remembered." A bubble of old pain rose and burst in his chest. He felt hot water pouring out of his eyes, and it was an amazement. But even more of an amazement was the fact that Nemo Vran had put out his good hand and laid his long fingers on the back of Mak's clenched fist. Mak's hand of its own volition turned over, and the other's fingers went around it.
Mak hung on to Nemo's hand. Slow waves of realization swept over him as he clung to the strong, warm hand and felt the tears pour down his cheeks. Things he had forgotten. Feelings, terrible, all-powerful feelings that seemed they would snuff him out, then blew away on a strong wind. It was like standing in an overmastering surf, and Nemo Vran's hand was the strong anchor line leading back to shore that he hung on to, so that his feet could not be swept away from under him. When he came slowly out of it he didn't know how much time had passed. The afternoon light was slanting more strongly in the window. Mak blinked, and slowly passed his hand over his wet face. Nemo's hand went soft in his, and let go.
Now an ache began in Mak, that felt like it would become a long, grey, lonely ache. He looked over at the man in the bed. "I'm off the Force, you know," he said. "They wouldn't give me over for an internal Forces trial. They'd have been in trouble themselves for letting me do the stuff I've done over the years. So they told me to resign for health reasons."
"Are you sorry?"
Mak pondered. "I couldn't go back to it. I wonder what I'll do."
"Something will come to you," said Nemo quietly.
"Like you did," replied Mak. "Will I ever see you again?"
At that Nemo smiled. It was like a warm light being turned on in the room. "No," he said. "I'm being moved tomorrow. I won't be back."
Mak felt miserable, like a child being left behind. He tried to straighten up and "be a man", but it didn't help much. "This whole thing, it seems like a kind of dream. I feel like my life before three days ago was -- lived by somebody else. Right now, I feel like the only thing that's real -- that ever has been real -- is to be sitting here in this room with you. I'm afraid that when I leave, you'll seem more and more like a dream. That I'll forget. Forget you."
"I don't think you will." Nemo watched the saddened man turn his blunt profile to the sunlight again. "Do you want something you can remember me by?" he asked at length. "A memento?"
Mak looked back, with a kind of eagerness. "Yes! I don't want to forget."
"A permanent memento, understand," Nemo told him. "Nothing big, but - "
"What is it?"
"A mark on your skin. Just a little one. Where do you want it?"
Comprehension began to dawn on Mak. Tarn, Willkie, Sars... all of them. He looked down into the beautiful face, the warm eyes. "Does it hurt? How do you do it?"
"A little bit, for a little while. With the tip of my tongue. I do it because some people want it, and it seems to help them. I suppose that's how you feel?"
Mak nodded. "I want it somewhere I can see it," he said. He rolled up his sleeve and pointed to a spot on the smooth skin of the inside of his right arm. He flushed. "Right now, I guess?"
The former detective got up and sat on the edge of the bed. He held out his bared arm to Nemo, who pushed himself up a little with his good hand. A shadow of pain crossed his face. Mak's eyes filled with tears, and he put his hands under the injured man's arms and helped him to raise himself further up on the pillows. Nemo gasped slightly, then smiled a little and said, "Thanks, Mak."
The other couldn't say anything. He shook his head wordlessly, then held out his arm again. Nemo took hold of it with his one hand. Mak felt the touch of lips that opened, warm breath, and the contact of the tip of Nemo's tongue, strong, warm, moist and delicate. There was a slight burning sensation for about four seconds. Then it was over, and he sank back on the pillow. Mak didn't look at his arm; instead he leaned over and kissed the man's smooth forehead, astonishing himself. "I ask for your forgiveness," he muttered, his lips still near the other's brow and his heart contracting with pain. He felt the big hand close on his arm for the last time. "You have it," said Nemo Vran.
Mak rose from the bed and went to the window. Medium-sized white clouds were moving with speed across the sky; it must be windy up there. He looked at his arm. Two little marks, bright red, side by side. A three and a five. He touched the slightly hot skin delicately, then looked over at the bed. "Why won't you be back?"
Nemo laughed, a real laugh. It had the same quality as the clouds flying across the sky: strong, natural, and completely free. "It's the way it is. Thirty-five is all I have to do. You were the last one."