Glory Lane

  “Wonder how cold they let it get down here?”

  “Only cold enough for aesthetic purposes, man. This is an advanced civilization, remember? They got climate con­trol and everything. They don’t have to put up with junk like rotten weather.” Seeth glanced toward the dropshoot. “I’ll bet it stays like paradise all year ‘round.”

  Two hours later they found themselves huddling to­gether beneath a storefront overhang while rain dripped down through the city’s multiple levels. The precipitation was damp and chilling. Even Seeth was subdued.

  But not for long. There was too much energy rushing through the punk for him to stay quiet for more than an hour. “It’s late. This stuff ought to go away soon. I’ll bet they don’t run the faucet all night long.”

  The rain dribbled through the openings formed by grates and drains, as though someone had roofed-over Manhattan. Miranda hugged herself and muttered disconsolately, “I’m still hungry.”

  “What,” said Kerwin bitterly, “you mean there’s some­thing more important than shopping after all?”

  “Don’t get me wrong. I’d like to have all that stuff I ordered. But it’s not, like, vital. The fun’s in the looking and buying, not in the having.”

  “Sometimes I wish I’d stayed with anthropology for a major. Dead people are so much easier to understand.”

  “Not to mention more predictable,” said Seeth. “Look, we’ve got to eat, right? So we’ve got to make some bucks.” He gestured at Izmir. The Astarach had twisted himself into a screen and was making a show of supporting their shielding overhang. “Nobody’s stopped in their tracks to offer us a fortune for the wonder of the universe, here. That means it’s up to us. I know all about survival. I spent a whole summer in Winslow once. Here, each of you take one of these.” From a deep pocket he extracted three tiny, flexible headsets. The right tip of each glowed a soft pink.

  Kerwin perked up at the sight. “What are those? Where’d you get ‘em?”

  “Man, you really think I’ve got nothing between my ears but haggis? They were in a slot at the base of the big communicator in our room. I swiped ‘em when you were arguing with ratface. They weren’t tied down or nothing. Maybe they’re complimentary. You know, like back home where the fancy hotels give you soap and shower caps and crap like that.”

  Kerwin screwed the receiving end of his own translator into his left ear. “These are miracles of miniaturization.” He looked around nervously. “They must be expensive as hell. Hotel security’s probably looking for us already.” He remembered the hirsute spectres that had dumped them out into the street. He had no desire to meet them again.

  “Don’t mean they’re expensive here,” Seeth countered. “With all these different types strolling around, hundreds of different races, I’ll bet this is one of the most common devices on the market. Everybody’s gotta have one to talk to his neighbor. I’ll bet they’re real cheap. Disposable, even.”

  Miranda finished adjusting hers. It blended perfectly with her attire. Naturally. “Wish they had them in yellow and gold. What do we do now?”

  “The best we can, honeyhips.” Seeth gazed thought­fully at Kerwin. “He’s a student, so he’s useless.”

  “Hey, easy.”

  “He’s right, though. You are useless.”

  He looked at her. “What about you? I mean, you’re beautiful and all that, but I don’t think you’d appeal to any of the locals.”

  “I sure hope not. What about you, Seeth? What can you do?”

  “Well, I’ve been known to borrow stuff now and then without asking, but I’m not what anybody’d call a profes­sional thief, and I’ll bet they’ve got anti-burglary machines here so sophisticated we wouldn’t recognize them even after the cops came and picked us up. So that’s out. Anyway, we don’t need a lot. Just enough to rent a place to sleep and get something to nosh. For now, anyhow.”

  “A lot or a little, it doesn’t matter. We’ve no way to earn any money.”

  Seeth grinned at him. “Pockets ain’t empty yet, Jack. Check it out.” He proudly removed two more devices from inside his leather. One resembled a cross between a UHF antenna and a flute. One side was lined with buttons and there were three mouthpieces. The second device looked like a closed flower until he touched a concealed control. The top promptly splayed open, revealing six petallike appurtenances, each of which boasted four strings running from the outside rim down into the center of the “flower.”

  “What are those?” Miranda asked him.

  “Don’t you remember? When you finished buying out Hong Kong I started blinking through the instrument sec­tion. I put these away the same time I borrowed these headset translators.”

  “Why these two?” Kerwin wondered curiously.

  Seeth shrugged. “They were the only portables—the only ones that folded up.” He touched another switch and the flower petals lit up from within. Fingers run along one set of strings produced a delicate, bell-like tone.

  “No guitar, but a little practice and I ought to be able to do even better than row, row, row your boat.”

  Kerwin felt a little sheepish. “Sorry about that. I was upset.”

  “Forget it. Never happened.” He turned to Miranda.

  “Don’t look at me. I can’t play a thing.”

  “No sweat. We’ll handle it.” He passed the flute-antenna to Kerwin. “Think you can do anything with this?”

  Kerwin examined it with interest, finally placing his lips over one of the mouthpieces. It was too small for his jaws, but then so was the mouthpiece for a bagpipe. A querulous puff generated a sound of astonishing depth and resonance. He began experimenting with the buttons set in one side, finally removed it from his mouth.

  “Might be able to. What are we going to do? Give a concert?”

  “Hey, why not? You see any signs banning street musicians?”

  “No, but I don’t see any street musicians, either. Not that we’d be able to read any signs.”

  “So much the better. We’ll be a novelty. Our music sure will.”

  “I have to confess I don’t have any better ideas. I don’t guess you know any Mozart?”

  “Mozart schmotzart. Are we gonna play real music or what?”

  “All right,” Kerwin said tiredly. “I knew it was proba­bly too much to ask and I don’t want to argue about it. You start with something and I’ll try to follow, okay?”

  Seeth did just that, his hands roaming in circles across the top of the flower petals. As for the flute-antenna, Kerwin found it surprisingly simple to get the hang of. Before long the two of them were jamming away like mad in the rain and cold, wondering if the sounds they were fashioning were even comprehensible, much less appeal­ing, to the few remaining passing pedestrians.

  After a while the rain ceased, not gradually, but as if someone had turned off a faucet far above. More pedestri­ans began to appear. Stores and shops began to reopen along the walkway, which was soon alive with nocturnal strollers. Kerwin would have put a beckoning hat on the pavement if they’d had one.

  Miranda’s boredom was replaced by a growing interest in the music the two young men wove on alien instru­ments. She started by nodding her head, then smiling, then moving sensuously in some private universe of her own. Soon she was dancing and twisting in time to the eclectic rhythm, swaying and kicking like a lost line escaped from its oscilloscope.

  It was all Kerwin could do from then on to concentrate on his pseudo-flute. The girl could move, though whether her supple gyrations would appeal to non-humans was a matter for contention. But when Izmir joined in, lighting up like some atomic-powered Christmas tree, changing shapes and colors while bleating incomprehensibly, they began to attract the attention of many of the passersby.

  Miranda slipped out of her shoes and danced barefoot. The pavement was pleasantly cool and drying rapidly. Soon her abandoned footgear began to fill up with an interesting assortment of metallic, plastic and ceramic shapes. It looked like the debris gleaned from the depth
s of a child’s toychest.

  Izmir grew several long legs and tried to dance with Miranda. Failing to keep in step with her or the music, he abruptly transformed himself into an extensive sashlike sheath of glittering gold and copper, the alternating bands rippling like fluid metal. Electric discharges crackled in the air as he wrapped himself around the girl. It worried Kerwin for a moment, but she assured him she wasn’t feeling a thing and that this new Izmir-form weighed next to nothing.

  The Astarach seemed content to be treated like a piece of clothing. Miranda easily whirled him through the air, spinning him above her head like a Spanish dancer. Through­out it all the single blue eye drifted amidst the gold and copper, mournfully surveying its surroundings.

  It was a presentation sufficiently exotic to stop even sophisticated alien travelers in their tracks. A crowd grew as many lingered to watch. Kerwin tootled on, keeping a wary eye alert for anything that looked like a policeman. He had the feeling a cop was recognizable as a cop no matter how many limbs or eyes he possessed.

  No representatives of local authority showed themselves, however, and for all they knew such sidewalk performances were perfectly legal. If not, none of the onlookers voiced any complaints. In a city the size of Alvin, it was conceivable that police responded only to reported viola­tions of the law and didn’t have the time to go hunting them up. Just to patrol it you’d need a force the size of the French Army.

  The performance finally ended when Kerwin ran out of breath and Seeth’s fingers were starting to turn raw from his constant strumming of the flower machine. Kerwin collapsed his flute and Seeth folded up his musical petals. Miranda looked askance at the two of them.

  “What’s the matter? You’re not tired already, are you?” She looked as fresh as a marathon runner after a month’s time off.

  “Not entirely,” Kerwin wheezed. “Dead tired’d be more like it.”

  “Come on.” She snapped her fingers. “That music was like, totally rad.” She spun a circle, tresses flying.

  “Pack it in, sugarthighs.” Seeth was leaning back against a wall, wiping sweat from his forehead and the shaven sides. “What do you run on, fusion?”

  “No.” She looked down the well-lit street. “But now that you mention it I am, like, you know, kind of hungry. Remember?”

  Seeth slung his portable onto his back. There was no strap, but the instrument clung to his leather jacket as if both surfaces had suddenly acquired a Velcro overlay. Maybe it just liked leather. Then he bent to examine the bizarre contents of her shoes.

  “Coins?” Kerwin wondered aloud.

  Seeth sniffed one shoe. “Looks like garbage to me.”

  “Maybe they were rendering their opinions.”

  “Yeah. So it’s garbage or money.” He squinted at the boulevard lights. “Only way to find out’s to try and spend the stuff.”

  Miranda needed her shoes back, so each of them took handfuls of the booty and stuffed it into their pockets. She slipped the right shoe on, then the left, frowned and removed it again, turned it upside down and gave it a shake. Something that looked like a mouse-sized copper barbell fell out, clanged on the pavement. Like much of what their audience had deposited, it was covered with indecipherable writing. Some of the specimens pulsed with internal light while others were merely softly luminescent. Kerwin pocketed the barbell and joined his companions as they headed down the street.

  They found the restaurant by smell rather than sight, since they couldn’t read any of the various inscriptions on the buildings. Same went for the extensive computerized menu. Fortunately it was duplicated verbally and their tiny headset translators worked wonders.

  In exchange for a pair of silvery thimbles and half the length of a spool of gold-colored wire, the restaurant supplied them with three enormous platters piled high with what resembled shelled lobster meat, some kind of steam­ing purple vegetable that tasted like an impossible mix of strawberries and asparagus, a single, monstrous loaf of seed-filled bread that popped when it was cut or broken, twelve different kinds of spread to apply to it, and tall glasses of drinks that laughed as fizz broke their surfaces, each bubble containing a miniature giggle in a different language.

  They approached this alien repast with some trepidation, which lasted only as long as the first few bites. Everything was new and wonderful. Kerwin didn’t see how they could finish half the colossal meal, but he hadn’t reckoned with their accumulated appetites. Traveling and slipping and fighting and running and shopping and dancing were hard work.

  He had a little trouble with the lobster-meat legs that lined one side of the platter because they bore more than a passing resemblance to the limbs of a quartet of aliens seated two booths away. The food was in plain view, however, and since it didn’t seem to bother them he knew he oughtn’t to feel as though he was snacking on some of their distant relations. Come to think of it, what would an arachnoidal alien make of a human eating monkey meat?

  They offered Izmir a choice from the cornucopia, but he ignored it all. Assuming the shape of a chair, he looked on blankly, only occasionally producing a soft, meaningless mumble. The blue eye gazed blithely from the back of the seat.

  “He doesn’t sleep and he doesn’t eat.” Kerwin shoved breadstuff into his mouth. “Wonder if he breathes?”

  “Not if he’s a machine, man,” said Seeth.

  “He doesn’t look like a machine.” Kerwin shrugged. “Doesn’t look like anything, actually.”

  Miranda was munching on a chunk of bread that was decorated with at least four different kinds of spread. Each time she took a delicate bite she emerged utterly unsmeared. Kerwin had grease all over his face. So did Seeth, but it didn’t trouble him.

  “You guys play pretty good together.” Green jam dripped off the edge of her bread. Kerwin held his breath, but no law of nature was about to be contravened. The jelly tumbled to the floor as she gestured casually with her hand. “Almost like you’d, you know, done it together before.”

  Kerwin looked away, slurped a sip from his laughing glass. “We kind of used to fool around with stuff together. Piano, drums, anything we could get our hands on when we were younger.”

  “Yeah,” agreed Seeth, “but that was a long time ago.”

  “Long time ago.” Kerwin found himself nodding. “We don’t get together much anymore. Kinda gone off in dif­ferent directions.”

  “Hey, that’s, like, sad. I mean, it’s nothing to me, but it’s like the stuff you see on TV; childhood buddies not getting along anymore, stuff like that.”

  Seeth let out a single, sharp laugh, as much bark as anything else. He grinned nastily. “Childhood buddies, hell.” He nodded at Kerwin. “That Yuppie jerk is my brother.”

  Kerwin glared across at him. “Who you calling a jerk, joke? Look at yourself. You don’t even look like a human being anymore. You fit right in with all the other aliens.”

  “Hey, buddy boy, I don’t need definitions of what’s human from the likes of you.”

  Miranda’s eyes darted from one young man to the other. “No kidding? You two are really, like, brothers, huh? I mean, same parents and like that?”

  “Can’t you tell, sweetnails? Ain’t it obvious?”

  She frowned uncertainly. “Not really.”

  Kerwin let out a snort of disgust. “This little twerp could’ve been something. Lawyer, doctor, engineer—his SAT scores were out of sight. Back before he fried his brains with that music and started hanging around with animals.”

  “That’s me, man.” Seeth leaned back in his chair and grinned proudly. “I was gonna be a lawyer, but I got saved.”

  “Sure you did. Born again ape-man.”

  The grin vanished. “Shut up, Jack. Just shut up. I do what I want when I want to. People take me as I am. I don’t have to wear any phoney suit-and-tie uniform so’s I look nice and safe like everybody else. I don’t have to kiss—“

  “That’s enough, guys,” Miranda interrupted. “I mean, I just wanted to make sure you were re
ally related. Be­sides, you’re upsetting Izmir.”

  Both men glanced in the Astarach’s direction. Izmir continued to hold his chair shape.

  “He doesn’t look any different to me,” Kerwin told her dubiously.

  “Well, it’s just like, I mean, I can almost sense stuff inside him. Not like he’s got a mind or anything. Just sorta like vibrations and things. I thought I sensed something like that just now. I don’t think he likes arguing and dissension. I think he likes neatness and order.”

  “Sure he does,” said Seeth. “That’s why he changes his shape every ten minutes.”

  “But each new shape is ordered.”

  Seeth patted her hand reassuringly. “It’s all right, good lookin’. This is probably more complicated than anything you’ve ever had to deal with, right? So it’s only natural you’d be feeling a little weird about stuff.” When she didn’t object to his patting her hand he tried to pat her shoulder. She frowned at him disapprovingly and edged away.

  “Watch the hands, I mean, like, this is a public place and all. They probably have laws about stuff like that.”

  “Like what? You putting me on?” He gestured at the street. “What’s public about this? We’re the only chimps in this circus. We could probably do it here on top of the table and nobody’d even blink. They probably wouldn’t even know what we were doing.”

  Kerwin probably should have kept his mouth shut, but he didn’t. “Give it a rest, Seeth. Besides, we’ve got enough of this money-stuff to last us for a while. We don’t need to do any more exhibitions. If we got any kind of reaction out of these creatures from the sight of your naked body it’d probably be laughter.”

  Seeth went for his throat, right across the table. Izmir skittered aside on his three chair legs while Miranda just sighed and leaned clear. Dishes, bread, jams, spreads, meat, drinks and alien silverware went flying. None of it touched her, of course. A few fortunates like Miranda were born encased in invisible force fields. Stains and slop never soiled them. One of the miracles of natural physics that even Einstein couldn’t explain. Like color and taste and weak forces, it was right up there with the most esoteric nuclear theories. The dirt repellers.