The Garments of Caean

Dimly he realized that the Caeanic agent was speaking to him again. ‘Unfortunately it is currently impossible to make physical contact with Caean. Ziodean forces have sealed off the Gulf.’

Peder jumped up. ‘Forget what I said,’ he told them thickly. ‘Do not approach me again.’ Staggering from the table, he negotiated his way across the floor of the cafeteria, feeling like a drunkard on stilts.

Once in the open air he seemed to recover his strength. The streets were filling now with Gridirans going about their daily business, and as far as he could tell the Caeanic agents did not follow him.

What if he got rid of the suit? he thought. What if he tore it off him right now and threw it in the gutter? Could he do it?

No, he couldn’t do it. He did not have the will to break its bond with him. He paced the sidewalk, the tussle continuing in his mind, and paused at the corner to look about him. The perspective of streets and buildings was forming into a corridor leading off the curve of the planet and into the sky, across the void to an immensely distant destination. A one-way corridor to Caean!

How did his brain perform this trick? Was it the first stage of a total separation from reality?

And yet, the delusion offered the only certain solution to his predicament. Anywhere in Ziode, he was a hunted man. Only Caean was a safe haven.

Besides, was he not by now more of a Caeanic than he was a Ziodean? Even Caeanics themselves mistook him for one of their own. Yes, he would go to Caean. Perhaps if he journeyed to where the outer Ziodean stars straggled off into the Gulf it would be possible to find a way across it. The suit would help and protect him, as it always had. Help him also because thereby it fostered its own plans, whatever they were, plans which had been sewn and cut, by some arcane sartorial science, some coded language of psychic intentions, into its fabric.

With this decision his brain cleared and he applied himself to immediate details. Once the events at the ZZ house became known it would be difficult indeed to evade the ensuing police net, especially if the dead included the Third Minister. There might still, however, be an hour or so remaining in which to leave Harlos unimpeded. Hailing a cab, he went to his penthouse atop the Ravier Building and quickly collected together money, credit cards and a few documents, leaving everything else behind.

He took the elevator to the street again. As he emerged from the foyer a small, square-shouldered, slightly stooped figure sidled up to him.

‘Hello, Peder. Havin’ fun?’

Castor’s eyes glittered at him. He was even grubbier than usual and his hands moved uneasily over his crumpled clothes. His face was deadpan, his jaw slightly fallen and his unhealthy skin drawn grey and slack over his bones. Peder, having presumed him to have been arrested along with Mast, was astonished to see him.

Before he could prevent it Castor waved away Peder’s cab. ‘You going somewhere, I take it? Think smart, Peder. Go everywhere in the same cab and the police know your movements just by asking one guy. Where were you goin’? Spaceport?’

Peder nodded. ‘How do you know?’

‘It stands to reason Mast will have ratted on you. Me, I got away. Mast wasn’t so smart in the end.’

He touched Peder’s arm and coaxed him along the sidewalk. ‘The spaceport’s not a good idea. They’ll pick you up there. Come along with me. I’ve got a safe gaff where you can put up for a while.’

‘Why should you help me?’ Peder self-consciously moved his elbow from Castor’s grasp.

‘We can do each other some good.’

‘What is it you want?’

‘All in good time.’

Castor walked him a short distance to where a battered runabout was parked. Peder squeezed himself into the unaccustomedly cramped space while Castor took the driving lever and they shot off, heading east.

Peder did not to any degree trust Castor, but the man was an accomplished criminal and in his present circumstances that was a valuable asset. He probably wanted money, Peder reflected. There was always the possibility, of course, that Castor was trapping him on behalf of the authorities in return for leniency, but overall Peder did not think that likely.

Castor drove the runabout on a wandering, zig-zag route. They entered Deberon, Gridira’s example of a type of district possessed by every city of any size and age: an old run-down warren of an area sprawling between the city’s commercial and entertainment sectors, the home of crime, vice, jaded artists and adventurous young.