The VLO wasn't coming. It didn't exist. Electronic Metals existed. Clovis had betrayed us, after all.

"There's still time," I tried to say.

"Not really," he said. He turned away from them again and stood in front of me so I wouldn't see them.

He blotted them out, as long ago he'd blotted out the harsh light and fear of the world, so I could learn to bear it. "Listen," he said. "None of this matters. What we've had matters-listento me. I love you. You're a part of me. I'm a part of you. You can't ever lose that. I'm with you the rest of your life."

"No Silver-Silver-"

"Yes. Trust me. It's true. And I'm not afraid of this. I was only afraid for you. Do you understand?"

I shook my head. He took my hands and held them against his face, and he looked at me, and he smiled at me. And then he glanced back again, and they were very close.

Swohnson was in the lead.

"You've been a bit of a silly girl," he said to me, "creeping off with your friend's property. It isn't, ah, legal, you know."

I don't think he recognized me, but he disliked me just the same. I'd made him come out in the cold. He always got the rotten jobs-placating the mob and irate callers, shutting the gate, doing the visual interviews and acting dumb, chasing runaway machines and female children across the winter countryside.

I couldn't say a word that would alter anything, but the words tried to come, and Swohnson showed his teeth at me and said, "You're lucky if no one lodges charges. Not that that's our business. Our business is this, here. Didn't you know how dangerous these things can be? They can short out at a second's, er, notice. A faulty line. Yes, you've been b.l.o.o.d.y lucky."

I started to plead, and then I stopped. Silver was standing by me, looking at them silently. None of them looked in his eyes.

"Er, yes. Give us the lady's bags," said Swohnson. "Um, you take the guitar, will you," he added to one of the other four bears. "That's E.M. property."

Silver put down the bags quietly. Men picked them up. He handed the guitar to the elected man, who said, "Thanks-Oh, s.h.i.t," and bit his mouth.

"Yes, they're convincing," Swohnson said. "Till they blow a gasket. Now, young lady. We stopped your cab on the road. It'll take you back to the city."

"She hasn't," Silver said, "got the fare."

They all started. Swohnson coughed. He swung around on another bear. "Go and put some, ah, cash in the d.a.m.n cab. Enough for the ride."

The bear hurried off. They were obedient henchmen. If Silver resisted them, would they be enough to stop him? And then I saw something come out of Swohnson's pocket, in his gloved paw. He toyed with it, so I could see the b.u.t.tons.

"Don't," Silver said, "do it in front of her."

Swohnson coughed again. His breath fluffed through the air. The Canyon vibrated.

"Oh, don't worry. You don't think we'd carry you to the car when you can walk? Start walking now.

Left, right. Left, right."

Silver walked, and I walked. The men walked with us. No one spoke. We went up the steps and came out in the ravine. When we got to the top, the cab was back, a bear leaning on one side.

"All paid up and primed for the city center," he said, quite cheerfully. "All right? Mr. Swohnson?"

"Fine."

Swohnson walked on, and Silver walked, and I tried to and one of the bears caught my arm and prevented me. My bags were lying by the taxi.

"Here's your cab, now, please."

"Let me," I said. "Let me come with you. As far as-the center."

"Sorry, madam. No."

"Let me. Please. I won't do anything."

Silver was taller than they were. He walked like an actor playing a young king. The cloak flared from his shoulders. His hair blazed through the monochrome white-blueness of the day, as he walked away from me toward the long black car like an ancient hea.r.s.e.

"You see," I said to the man, smiling, plucking at his sleeve, "you see I'd much rather."

He shook me off. Agitated, he said, "It's only a bit of metal. I know it looks-but it isn't. Let it go, can't you. They're dangerous. It could hurt you. We just take them apart. Melt it down. It'll be over in another hour. That's no time, is it. Nothing to fret about."

I held out my hands to him and he backed away.

Silver moved in a graceful bow to get into the car. The windows were tinted like Swohnson's spectacles, and I couldn't see him anymore, not even the fire of his hair, his hair, his hair.

Swohnson got into the car. The others called. The man who had stopped me ran up the road to them, slipping once and almost going down.

"Please," I said to the empty distance between us.

Their car started. Snow fanned away from it. It moved powerfully. It raced and dwindled.

"Please," I said.

It was gone.

Automatically, I fumbled to open the taxi door, and one by one I loaded the bags into it, and the umbrella. Then I got in and shut the door.

I sat in the taxi. I wasn't crying. I was making a little noise, very low, I can't describe it. I couldn't seem to stop. I think I may have been trying still to say "Please." I sat and watched the clock in the taxi.

I didn't even think of going after them. They had, at least, taught me that.

It'll be over in another hour.

When you leave me, there's nothing.

There's all the world.

It'll be over, in another hour.

Where the cat had scratched me, my wrist hurt.

I watched the clock. I didn't visualize any of what they did to him. I didn't wonder about it. I didn't feel him die.

"Jack's lost all his gla.s.s. All smashed."

When the hour was up, I took off my left boot and smashed the gla.s.s over the taxi clock, and taking up the largest shard I could find I cut my wrists with it.

Blood is very red. I began to feel warm. Everything grew dark. But in the dark, little bright silver flames were turning and burning...

When he shall die, take him and cut him out in little stars, and he will make the face of heaven so fine, that all the world will be in love with night...

Somewhere there was a great rushing and roaring. The sky was falling. The sky with its Silver stars, his hands, his feet, his limbs, his torso, even his genitals scattered to give light, dismembered like Osiris, Romeo, Dionysos.

The sky fell in the Canyon.

Later, the door of the cab was wrenched open.

"Oh, Jesus," someone said to me. I heard this someone retching and fighting to control the spasms. But I closed my eyes and slept.

I remember the hospital in little blurred white flashes, like damaged film. I needn't describe that. Or the pain, which didn't stay in any part of me, but ran through all over me, so that even to turn was awful. I remember being helped to use the lavatory, moaning with pain. All these pains were physical. Below, beneath, beside them all, a thin grey pain that was not physical ran on and on like a tape. I dreamed sometimes. I was a child, and someone had thrown my black fur bear into a fire. It was coming apart and melting and I screamed with horror. I also dreamed that I was taken to meet my father, the man who had supplied the sperm for me to be born. But whenever I arrived where he was supposed to be, he wasn't there anymore. These are symbols. I didn't dream-I didn't dream of him.

I didn't come fully conscious until I was in a room I knew, and for a moment couldn't identify. Then I moved a little, and my foot skidded. The sheets were dark green satin. And then Clovis was sitting on the arm of a chair, looking at me.

Two things. His hair was still long, but dark now, not dark red, de-molecularized. And his face was hollow, which made him look oddly holy.

"I'm sorry about the sheets," he said. "I forgot. I can change them tomorrow."

Clovis. I was in Clovis's spare bed, in Clovis's apartment. I was with Clovis. Who had betrayed us. My mouth was dry. I said softly, "Hallo, Judas."

He slowly shook his head, as if he knew fast gestures made me giddy.

"No, Jane. Not me."

Did I feel anything? Did I want to hurt him, to kill him? No. I didn't want anything. I didn't even want to die anymore. It was too much trouble. But I was obliged, having started the conversation, to go on with it.

"You called E.M. You told them where we'd be."

"I did not."

"Where you knew we'd be, because you'd promised me the VLO would come."

"It did come. Who do you think found you? The hapless Gem. He put a tourniquet on you and got you in the plane. He then flew that impossible crate over the city, which is strictly illegal, and landed on the roof of State Imperial Hospital. The place was packed with quake casualties stacked like sardines, but he wouldn't move off until they took you in as well. I never knew he had it in him. I don't think he did. He is now on opium-based tranquilizers, which are not going to put the color back in his cheeks. Christ, Jane, what a b.l.o.o.d.y foul thing to do to yourself."

"If it came, it came too late. You made sure E.M. would get to us first."

"It was late because half the Historica sheds collapsed in the tremor. Gem got the VLO out past security as soon as he could."

"I don't want to talk to you. I don't want to be here."

"All right. I know you think I'm the villain of this rather sordid plot. I'll leave you alone. Just stay put until you're stronger, and then you can go."

He got up and walked away into the blur that misted the edges of my vision. When the blur had almost swallowed him, he said, "Your mother called. She calls every hour. Do you want her to come over?"

I suddenly began to try to cry. It was very difficult. The tears wouldn't come. It was like trying to give birth to a stone. When I stopped trying, my heart was thundering, and Clovis was standing over me again.

"Jane-"

"No. I don't want my mother." I shut my mouth.

Presently Clovis went out. Then I tried to get out of the bed. The last thing I remember is that I couldn't.

There were large white sealed and waterproof bandages on my wrists. In another month, I would go back to have the st.i.tches out, and then I could book up for the treatment that would take the scars away.

Clovis wrote to tell me this in a note he left lying on the coffee table. He said he would pay for the treatment. Or Demeta would. He'd gone out and left the place to me on the day he thought I was strong enough to get up. He seemed to trust me. He seemed to know I wouldn't repeat my earlier performance.

Why should I? I hadn't the energy. It takes a lot of determination to die. A lot of conviction. Unless someone helps.

The note also said he'd asked Demeta not to phone, but a couple of times the phone sounded, and I knew it was her. The second time I reached out blindly and switched it on.

"Hallo, Mother," I said.

"Whoops." A male voice, laughing. "I may not be enormously butch, but I've never been mistaken for anyone'smother before."

I sighed. I thought about being polite. At last I said, "I'm sorry."

"That's okay. Any chance of Clovis being there?"

"No. He's out."

"Dammit. Would you tell him Leo rang?"

Would I?

"All right."

"Leo. L as in Love. E as in Edible. O as in Oh my G.o.d why doesn't this M-B idiot get off the line."

"Leo," I said dully, missing his wit, I suppose offensively.

"Good-bye," he said, and switched off.

I scribbled across the bottom of Clovis's note to me: LEO CALLED.

I went into the green bathroom and lay in the bath three or four hours. Sometimes I would try to cry. My mind went plodding on and on. It's wrong to repress grief. Was I repressing grief? I thought about Silver. I tried to cry. No tears would come. I'd cried for so many trivial reasons, over visuals, dramas, books, out of embarra.s.sment and childish fear. Now I couldn't cry.

When I heard the lift come up, I was glad, with a sort of deadly gladness, not to be alone anymore. I heard Clovis come into the apartment, and move about there, and once he whistled a s.n.a.t.c.h of tune, and then stopped himself suddenly.

Perverseness made me go out of the bathroom, carrying my robe, naked, and walk across the room in front of him to the bedroom. He stared at me as I pa.s.sed, then turned away.

I got back into the spare bed and lay there, and eventually he came in.

"Are you hungry? The servicery is bursting with food. Truffles, pate, eggs angeliques, roast beef...

mince on toast."