Slow River

“But-”

“What?” Spa

Lore looked at the cup in her hand. “Nothing.”

“Don’t wait up.”

Lore stood where she was until the front door closed; then she went back into the kitchen and carefully poured Spa

Moving slowly, numbly, trying not to think, not to let in the pictures of Stella and Spa

Don’t think about it, she told herself again, only this time it was the outside she was trying not to think about, the big wide world full of open sky and strangers who might take a casual look at her, then look again, then open their mouths to shout, to point… She opened the door and headed back to the conservatory.

It was four in the morning and all the lights in the flat were off when Spa

Lore walked barefoot into the living room. “Happy birthday.”

Spa

When the shift finally ended I was almost glad I had to go to the Polar Bear to meet Spa

Outside it was cold and clear. Winter was coming. When I got to the Polar Bear my face was red and my hands tingled with cold. Hyn and Zimmer were already there, with Spa

Zimmer nodded back. “Spa

“It’s rare,” Hyn agreed.

“And we don’t know of anyone who’s holding what you need.”

“But you could find out,” Spa

“Oh, yes,” Hyn said, “but do you really want us to?” I took a sip of my beer. It was cool and nutty. “They’re not the kind of people it’s wise to know.”

Spa

Hyn and Zimmer looked at each other. They seemed troubled. “Do you really need this equipment?”

“Yes.”

Zimmer touched my wrist with one brown gnarled finger. “And you?” His eyes looked more like berries than ever, and still bright, but older somehow.

I nodded reluctantly. “Yes.”

Hyn sighed. “Then we’ll do it. But it’ll be expensive.” We all knew she was talking about more than money.

“How much?”

Hyn shrugged, looked at Zimmer. “Fifteen thousands. Maybe more.”

That was more than I had expected. “I’m not-”

“We’ll get the money.”

I looked at her. “Spa

“We’ll have the money,” Spa

I had never seen them look so unhappy, but they nodded and stood. They left their unfinished drinks on the table.

Hyn and Zimmer were scared, but danger was just an adventure to Spa

“I changed my mind about the PIDA records. I need that information substituting as soon as possible.”

“When?”

“Yesterday.”

“No problem.”

Silence again. This time it lengthened until I couldn’t bear it any longer. “Where will you get the money?”

“Does it matter?”

No, not really. I already knew.

When I got back to my flat, the air seemed stale and lifeless. There was no message from Ruth.

I heated soup, glad of the machine sounds and the occasional soft pop as the liquid bubbled. I ate slowly.

Once the bowl was empty and washed, I had to face the silent, empty flat.

I could sleep, of course, but then what would I do in the morning? I sat in front of the screen, checked to make sure that a power hit had not wiped out any message that might have been left. I drummed my fingers on the desk, then pulled up my projects file.

When I first left Spa

Tonight, when I pulled up the digital image of the pipeline stretched like a blazing crystal snake across the desert, I knew that was not what I wanted to see.

I changed the image to night, the perspective to the view a small nocturnal rodent might have from the desert floor. The ceramic support pylons and the vitrine troughs became huge, menacing. I darkened the sky to an eerie indigo-black, brought out the stars. Northern constellations burned like specks of magnesium. Better. I added cloud cover. The smeary, milky hint of a moon. I wondered what it would be like to sit out there, with the water overhead hissing endlessly. I wondered if a small rodent might mistake the hissing for the rasp of scale against sand, run terrified into the night from a snake that was not there. The whole world changed if you just altered your perspective a little.

I shook my head. For all I knew, the pipelines could lie like a broken dinosaur skeleton, crashed onto the sand, dry as dust, the victim of some interethnic conflict or other.

For the hundredth time I contemplated, then rejected, calling up information on the project from the net. There was always the possibility of someone smart—my family, or the kidnappers—having a trace out for that kind of inquiry. I had no doubt that they were still looking for me.

I turned the screen off and went to the fridge. I pulled a beer free of the four-pack, then changed my mind and dragged the whole thing from the fridge.

One of the reasons I had taken this flat was because the livingroom window opened outward onto the fire escape. From the fire escape, I could get to the roof. It was an old building, with a complicated roofline. There was one place, near the middle chimney stack—which had been blocked off years ago and served now to vent gas appliances—where the roofs rose in steep pitches on either side and I could lie on my back, face to the sky, hidden from the world. I had built six big planters up there, and filled them with dirt. One of these days I would get around to planting something in them.

That was where I took my beer.

Every city has a different-colored sky. In Amsterdam, the only city I had known until I was five, it had been gray-blue, a particular low-country Protestant shade that spoke of cheeses and oil paintings and grassy dikes. On Ratnapida it had been like light, clear glass. This city’s sky made me ache. It could have been so beautiful: full of reflected river light and that soft, clear ambience that you only get near a northern sea. But the city glow stained the atmosphere like a muddy footprint.