Susannah! What do I do?
No answer. Of course not, she really couldn't expect Susannah's help after what had just happened, but...
The grinning man was still thrusting the flash-machine at her. He looked a trifle puzzled, but mostly undaunted. "Yooo take-ah pickcha, preese?" And put the oblong thing in her hand. He stepped back and put his arm around a lady who looked exactly like him except for her shiny black hair, which was cut across her forehead in what Mia thought of as a wench-clip. Even the round glasses were the same.
"No," Mia said. "No, cry pardon...no." The panic was very close now and very bright, whirling and gibbering right in front of her
(yooo take-ah pickcha, we kill-ah baby)
and Mia's impulse was to drop the oblong flasher on the floor. That might break it, however, and release the deviltry that powered the flashes.
She put it down carefully instead, smiling apologetically at the astonished Japanese couple (the man still had his arm around his wife), and hurried across the lobby in the direction of the little shop. Even the piano music had changed; instead of the former soothing melodies, it was pounding out something jagged and dissonant, a kind of musical headache.
I need a shirt because there's blood on this one. I'll get the shirt and then I'll go to the Dixie Pig, Sixty-first and Lexingworth...Lexington,I mean, Lexing ton...and then I'll have my baby. I'll have my baby and all this confusion will end. I'll think of how I was afraid and I'll laugh.
But the shop was also full. Japanese women examined souvenirs and twittered to each other in their bird-language while they waited for their husbands to get them checked in. Mia could see a counter stacked with shirts, but there were women all around it, examining them. And there was another line at the counter.
Susannah, what should I do? You've got to help me!
No answer. She was in there, Mia could feel her, but she would not help.And really, she thought,would I, if I were in her position?
Well, perhaps she would. Someone would have to offer her the right inducement, of course, but -
The only inducement I want from you is the truth,Susannah said coldly.
Someone brushed against Mia as she stood in the door to the shop and she turned, her hands coming up. If it was an enemy, or some enemy of her chap, she would claw his eyes out.
"Solly," said a smiling black-haired woman. Like the man, she was holding out one of the oblong flash-things. In the middle was a circular glass eye that stared at Mia. She could see her own face in it, small and dark and bewildered.
"You take pickcha, preese? Take pickcha me and my fliend?"
Mia had no idea what the woman was saying or what she wanted or what the flash-makers were supposed to do. She only knew that there were too many people, they were everywhere, this was a madhouse. Through the shop window she could see that the front of the hotel was likewise thronged. There were yellow cars and long black cars with windows you couldn't look into (although the people inside could doubtless look out), and a huge silver conveyance that sat rumbling at the curb. Two men in green uniforms were in the street, blowing silver whistles. Somewhere close by something began to rattle loudly. To Mia, who had never heard a jackhammer, it sounded like a speed-shooter gun, but no one outside was throwing himself to the sidewalk; no one even looked alarmed.
How was she supposed to get to the Dixie Pig on her own? Richard P. Sayre had said he was sure Susannah could help her find it, but Susannah had fallen stubbornly silent, and Mia herself was on the verge of losing control entirely.
Then Susannah spoke up again.
If I help you a little now - get you to a quiet place where you can catch your breath and at least do something about your shirt - will you give me some straight answers?
About what?
About the baby, Mia. And about the mother. About you.
I did!
I don't think so. I don't think you're any more elemental than...well, than I am. I want the truth.
Why?
I want the truth,Susannah repeated, and then fell silent, refusing to respond to any more of Mia's questions. And when yet another grinning little man approached her with yet another flash-thing, Mia's nerve broke. Right now just getting across the hotel lobby looked like more than she could manage on her own; how was she supposed to get all the way to this Dixie Pig place? After so many years in
(Fedic)
(Discordia)
(the Castle on the Abyss)
to be among so many people made her feel like screaming. And after all, why not tell the dark-skinned woman what little she knew? She - Mia, daughter of none, mother of one - was firmly in charge. What harm in a little truth-telling?
All right,she said.I'll do as you ask, Susannah or Odetta or whoever you are. Just help me. Get me out of here.
Susannah Deancame forward.
Eight
There was a women's restroom adjacent to the hotel bar, around the corner from the piano player. Two of the yellow-skinned, black-haired ladies with the tipped eyes were at the basins, one washing her hands, the other fixing her hair, both of them twittering in their birdy-lingo. Neither paid any attention to thekokujin lady who went past them and to the stalls. A moment later they left her in blessed silence except for the faint music drifting down from the overhead speakers.
Mia saw how the latch worked and engaged it. She was about to sit down on the toilet seat when Susannah said:Turn it inside out.
What?
The shirt, woman. Turn it inside out, for your father's sake!
For a moment Mia didn't. She was too stunned.
The shirt was a rough-woven callum-ka, the sort of simple pullover favored by both sexes in the rice-growing country during cooler weather. It had what Odetta Holmes would have called a boatneck. No buttons, so yes, it could very easily be turned inside out, but -