She pushed the stone away. "Elf, you are not healed. Your body is well again, but you have a long way to go before you are healed."

The stone would be a real loss to him, but he ached for her to accept it. "Please. For the child we saw. For the man on the punt. For everything this fragging rotten world dumps on you. It was made by one of my people, and it is a true part of me. I don’t have much of me in the world and, uh, sometimes I try to hang on to little things, scraps and papers and possessions, until I get mixed up and leave myself behind with them. But this is Power and I want you to have it. Perhaps it will mean I am remembered here.” Serrin felt embarrassed by the strength of his need. “I don’t usually think about such things."

She took the stone then, quietly turning it over and over in her hands, beginning to fill with the wonder of it. She gestured him to silence as he began to apologize that she would have to bond it, that it would take time, and so he sat quietly looking out into the gathering evening mists. He knew too much and had seen too much of the world ever to be at peace with something as simple as this beautiful, blighted place, and he didn’t know how to deal with that.

As if searching for respite, his thoughts turned again to Cambridge and what the hell he would do when he got back there.

13

Rani had attended too many weeping family scenes in the last three days to have much enthusiasm for any more of them, but at Sachin’s wake one of his cousins made himself useful. She had overheard him in the kitchen, berating Imran for having taken the young man on such a dangerous run. Imran had whined that he hadn’t known it would be dangerous. The mission had seemed so simple and straightforward. His angry interrogator had then asked why Imran was not out on the streets seeking vengeance. Rani could not make out her brother’s reply because just then a whole gaggle of cousins had come teeming into the hallway, jostling Rani away from her listening post just beyond the kitchen door.

Imran had evaded her attempts to question him, spending most of his time away from the house, rising early and not returning until late at night. What she had just overheard suggested that he wasn’t making any moves on the street.

He hadn’t even missed his Predator, though perhaps that was not so surprising. It was Rani who had picked it up as they fled to the car. Imran might have assumed he’d lost it. Afterward, they were all in such a state of shock that she’d forgotten about it, too, until its weight jammed into her ribs when she finally collapsed on the bed. What was surprising was that Imran had never asked about it. Perhaps it was because he felt ashamed and powerless. Whatever he was doing with his days, he was lying low, avoiding his usual chums and fellow gang-boys.

When he still wasn’t back by seven o’clock Wednesday evening, Rani changed into her jacket and thick cotton trousers and geared up for a trip to Bethnal Green Road. She took the knife, as usual, and she raided a small can of ammonia complex from the kitchen cupboards. A faceful of that stuff would stop even a troll, unless he had the kind of cyberware that would make him an instant killer anyway.

Shutting the door behind her and then checking the three locks, Rani paused as the November night mist closed around her. This mist would turn to heavy fog before many more hours had gone by. She pocketed her keys, hoping this wouldn’t take long. Knowing Mohinder, he’d probably turn up three hours late on purpose and she’d have to walk home in ten-foot visibility carrying more than a thousand nuyen on her. Maybe no one in the restaurant would notice a package changing hands. Whatever happened, she’d have the gun, knife, and the gas on the way back, none of which would make her an easy mark for anyone.

Rani set off down the street, smiling despite her fears.

The Toadslab, the East End’s most singular restaurant, was doing a roaring trade by the time Rani arrived and pushed her way inside. A large group of orks and dwarfs sat along the far wall, the trestle tables groaning under the weight of food and tankards of foaming beer. Rani was glad to see as many females as males among them. It made her feel less conspicuous as a female Indian ork out on her own.

The large group wasn’t any local gang she knew of, but a glance around the room showed her the emblems and tattoos of various other gangs of whom she’d heard Imran speak. She saw nose-rings, stapled jeans, rat-tail bracelets, rusted skull badges, the full litany of signs and symbols. Each little group sat in its own area, respecting the territory of the others but making their own presence known. A handful of solitaires strong enough to command respect passed through the crowd. The outsiders didn’t seem to arouse either contempt or dismay among the locals, and she wondered how they had earned such acceptance. Probably because there are forty or fifty of them, she thought; that might do it.

It was a double birthday celebration, she realized. An ork and a dwarf stood up to cheers from their family and friends, and behind the service counter three of the ork waiters were grinning, their huge flat scoops laden with steaming food. As soon as the standing ork at the table seemed ready to speak, food began to fly through the air toward him.

A great cheer and an outbreak of foot-stomping broke out as the waiters pulled out all the stops for this one. With superb coordination, they flung the first volley of foot-square slabs of toad-in-the-hole fully thirty feet to the gathered throng, who grabbed the batter-fried sausage slices and slammed them down on their plates. One of the dwarfs managed the rare feat of impaling a descending slab on his fork, while the standing ork mistimed his grab and got hit full in the face by a greasy serving. The cheers grew louder.

Food continued to fly through the air as a young ork girl came rushing out of the kitchen with another massive flat pan of the sausages in batter. She dropped it onto the serving counter, shaking her cloth-swathed hands to show how hot it was. As one, the waiters spun around, made deft cuts with the honed edges of their scoops, then turned around again and unleashed another volley of foot-square slices.

Rani remembered having once seen synchronized swimming on the trid, but it had absolutely nothing on this. The waiters were poetry in motion, moving as one, their aim perfect, body movements in total harmony with the rhythm of the bhangratech pumping out over the ancient speaker units. It took them less than two minutes to deliver forty portions to their hungry and expectant customers. They completed their act by delivering a steaming pan of glutinous, rich gravy by the simpler method of carrying it across the room. The party managed to spray most of it over the table and themselves as they slam-dunked their slabs of meat into the viscous gunge.

Rani was tapping her feet to the insistent beat of the music by the time her own slab and beer arrived. Perhaps it was her obvious pleasure that made Mohinder frown as he sauntered over, dressed in the heavy synthleather go-gang jacket he favored for evening. It was voluminous enough to conceal a grenade launcher; sometimes it did. She saw his disapproval and stopped enjoying herself so visibly. A good little Indian girl shouldn’t be seen having fun alone in public.

“Imran not showing his face, huh?" Mohinder sat down and helped himself to a chunk of spicy sausage from her slab, swallowing it whole and licking his fingers. She wondered if people with retractable hand razors ever made mistakes when they did that, rather hoping they did.

“He wanted to come, but he’s been out all day and night.”