Robert Charrette - Arthur 03 - A Knight Among Knaves by Robert N. Charrette Read Free Book Online

poised on the cusp of change, and the wind seemed to carry whis-
    pers that all would be different soon. Somehow he felt that the wind had the truth of it.
    Most of the night was gone and John was tired. The wind start ed to pick up, so he took the first offer of shelter, the entryway of a building. He leaned against the wall, grateful to be free of most of the wind. He could hide from the wind, but he couldn't hide from his problems.
    Why couldn't things be simple?
    A leaf gusted into the alcove and fetched up against his boot, a fellow refugee from the rising tumult. Another leaf blew in and landed atop the first, clinging to it. A third tumbled in, fluttering over the first two and leaping the toe of John's boot to skitter about the alcove in an errant vortex, Joh n shifted his foot. The first two leaves joined the third an d all three were swept up and tossed back onto the street. John watched them flutter away, tumbling over and around each other. They whisked past a figure moving furtively along the street. A slight figure, wearing a familiar floppy ha t. The figure wore layered clothing, pure bag-lady fashion, but the jumble of rags couldn't disguise the lithe, lively grace of the body beneath them. Spillway Sue.
    He watched her approach, waiting for her to notice him. She seemed unaware of his presence in the shadowed entry-way. She had almost passed by the time he realized that she wasn't going to acknowledge him. He stepped out.
    And she spun to face him, pulling a pistol from somewhere within the tattered rags. She pointed the weapon at him. Streetlight reflections flashed from the three tiny chrome studs implanted on her cheek, highlighting the smooth curve of the bone and the delicate slope of her nose.
    "Tall Jack," she said in a tone halfway between question and statement. Her eyes were narrowed, suspicious.
    He couldn't tell if she was glad to see him. "Hello, Sue."
    "Ya shouldn't oughta sneak up on me like that."
    If a gun had become her answer to anyone approaching her, she was right. He kept his hands clear of his body. She sighed, and the gun disappeared back beneath the rags. He was glad of that. Guns were loud and ugly, not her style at all. "I've been looking for you."
    "I know."
    "Why have you been hiding from me?"
    Instead of answering his question, she scanned the street around them. "Oughta not stand around in the open."
    She led him back the way she'd come, back into the shadows from which she had emerged, the darkness was an alley mouth. They traversed several more alleys between the tightly packed buildings before she led him down a short. flight of stairs to a door. Sue unlocked the door and opened : it, gesturing him inside. He went in.
    The interior was a rat's warren of trash, its only illumination a fading Bulbstrip™. She led him on a twisting path through the debris to another smaller room, less cluttered but no cleaner. Another Bulbstrip, somewhat healthier, lit the place. A mattress sprawled in one corner. In another, a pers-comp, conspicuous by its newness, sat on a board supported by two sawhorses. A jury-rigged patch connected the box to the building's power line. Another cord, a communications line, snaked up and through a small hole in the construction plastic covering the window. There wasn't much else beyond a box holding a couple of apples, a three-pack of YoHo Choc Drink™, and a few Readi-2-eat™ meals.
    "Is this where you've been staying?" he asked. The place wasn't really any worse than his own slump, but he didn't like the idea of Sue staying here. She deserved better.
    "It's a place. Guess I'll hafta find another." She shrugged, fiddling with the keys of the perscomp and not looking at him. "Watcha want?"
    He didn't want to lose her again. Impulsively he reached out and took her shoulders between his hands. Her muscles tensed under his touch. For a moment he feared that she would tear herself free from his grip, but she didn't. Slowly she turned to face him. She said