big protection out there, boss. I'll just — ' He made off toward the corner of the hold where he kept his stuff.
'Leave that bloody thing where it is, Fix. You're not coming.'
'Stuff it.'
'Sorry.'
He was, too. He fastened his second-best jacket, a heavy brown leather thing lined with peculiar gray fur from some place he had never been. Some of his hair got stuck in the ornamental zip; zips were as fashionable in the hinterlands that year as Tiny Skeffern and for similar reasons. He shrugged at Fix. He left the ramp.
Tiny was still in the ship. Hearing Truck's receding boot heels, he stuck his head out of the forward lock and, silhouetted against the cabin lights, puffed ectoplasm into the frosty night.
'I'll be at the Boot Palace on Sauchihall if you need me,' he called.
'Thanks, Tiny.'
Gazing sentimentally back over his shoulder, Truck lost his footing among the clumps of couch-grass that had forced their way through the broken concrete of the landing field.
'See you.'
He brushed himself down and trudged out into the empty, depressed streets of Carter's Snort.
Most northerly of the five major zones of Albion Megaport (that 60,000 square mile complex of bunker-docks, keelyards, freight terminals, and warehouses that had once been called 'Great Britain'), the Snort had been the first of them to succumb to the domino recessions of the post-colonial period, and the only one never to have recovered.
Cargo was no longer handled there, and no ships were built — although a few keelyards still had tower cranes erected above them, as if to disguise their impotence. Only the breakers flourished, catering to the spares trade and melting down what they couldn't resell in great pig-furnaces that turned the midnight concrete arcades of Carter's Snort into a dull red maze.
Its original population dispersed in search of work, the zone had moved quickly through that process of cultural decay peculiar to ports, attracting the poor, the rootless, the ruthless— and finally the artistic and cheap intellectual elements not only of IWG but of the stars.
The only music you heard in Carter's Snort was the New Music. Its feet were booted. It was the hinterland of all hinterlands.
Truck, who had once lived there long enough to make one of his more elementary errors, hunched his shoulders and walked east. He stopped for a moment to gaze at the broken spine of a refrigerator ship curving up out of its own corroding ribs, his face over-lighted by the savage glare of the plasma torches; their half-visors dark and numinous, the wreckers grinned at him, a race of amiable Vandals.
FREE ANYWHERE, said the graffiti on the walls of the dim derelict warehouses; SUSQUEMADELION LIVES, and IS THERE LIFE BEFORE DEATH? Truck laughed; he liked them; he felt at home. He pulled his collar up and ignored the few bitter flakes of snow that stung his face when he turned into the wind.
Ruth Berenici Truck lived in wrecker territory down by the river. He stood in the street looking up at her windows and wondering not so much why he had come as what part of him had suggested it. Silent explosions of light from the yards, then the tolling of a monstrous girder as it flexed and fell.
The walls had been his manuscript when he still slept here: all the way up to her floor, they sent him messages from a youthful alien head.
GO HOME TRUCK.
He didn't remember doing that one.
Ruth Berenici stood outside her open door, presenting out of nervousness her left profile only, perfect and still. She was tall and thin, she moved very slowly. Her eyes were gray (devoid, though, of ice), her hair was streaked with it; her jaw muscles were a little too strong.
'Ruth.'
'I saw you in the street.'
Ruth Berenici had allowed the universe to wound her at every turn; because of this, she possessed nothing but a sad grace, a yielding internal calm. Truck reached out to touch her right cheek. She closed her eyes, and the left side of her mouth smiled.
'It's still there,
'Leave that bloody thing where it is, Fix. You're not coming.'
'Stuff it.'
'Sorry.'
He was, too. He fastened his second-best jacket, a heavy brown leather thing lined with peculiar gray fur from some place he had never been. Some of his hair got stuck in the ornamental zip; zips were as fashionable in the hinterlands that year as Tiny Skeffern and for similar reasons. He shrugged at Fix. He left the ramp.
Tiny was still in the ship. Hearing Truck's receding boot heels, he stuck his head out of the forward lock and, silhouetted against the cabin lights, puffed ectoplasm into the frosty night.
'I'll be at the Boot Palace on Sauchihall if you need me,' he called.
'Thanks, Tiny.'
Gazing sentimentally back over his shoulder, Truck lost his footing among the clumps of couch-grass that had forced their way through the broken concrete of the landing field.
'See you.'
He brushed himself down and trudged out into the empty, depressed streets of Carter's Snort.
Most northerly of the five major zones of Albion Megaport (that 60,000 square mile complex of bunker-docks, keelyards, freight terminals, and warehouses that had once been called 'Great Britain'), the Snort had been the first of them to succumb to the domino recessions of the post-colonial period, and the only one never to have recovered.
Cargo was no longer handled there, and no ships were built — although a few keelyards still had tower cranes erected above them, as if to disguise their impotence. Only the breakers flourished, catering to the spares trade and melting down what they couldn't resell in great pig-furnaces that turned the midnight concrete arcades of Carter's Snort into a dull red maze.
Its original population dispersed in search of work, the zone had moved quickly through that process of cultural decay peculiar to ports, attracting the poor, the rootless, the ruthless— and finally the artistic and cheap intellectual elements not only of IWG but of the stars.
The only music you heard in Carter's Snort was the New Music. Its feet were booted. It was the hinterland of all hinterlands.
Truck, who had once lived there long enough to make one of his more elementary errors, hunched his shoulders and walked east. He stopped for a moment to gaze at the broken spine of a refrigerator ship curving up out of its own corroding ribs, his face over-lighted by the savage glare of the plasma torches; their half-visors dark and numinous, the wreckers grinned at him, a race of amiable Vandals.
FREE ANYWHERE, said the graffiti on the walls of the dim derelict warehouses; SUSQUEMADELION LIVES, and IS THERE LIFE BEFORE DEATH? Truck laughed; he liked them; he felt at home. He pulled his collar up and ignored the few bitter flakes of snow that stung his face when he turned into the wind.
Ruth Berenici Truck lived in wrecker territory down by the river. He stood in the street looking up at her windows and wondering not so much why he had come as what part of him had suggested it. Silent explosions of light from the yards, then the tolling of a monstrous girder as it flexed and fell.
The walls had been his manuscript when he still slept here: all the way up to her floor, they sent him messages from a youthful alien head.
GO HOME TRUCK.
He didn't remember doing that one.
Ruth Berenici stood outside her open door, presenting out of nervousness her left profile only, perfect and still. She was tall and thin, she moved very slowly. Her eyes were gray (devoid, though, of ice), her hair was streaked with it; her jaw muscles were a little too strong.
'Ruth.'
'I saw you in the street.'
Ruth Berenici had allowed the universe to wound her at every turn; because of this, she possessed nothing but a sad grace, a yielding internal calm. Truck reached out to touch her right cheek. She closed her eyes, and the left side of her mouth smiled.
'It's still there,
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