While Janey watched, while hundreds watched, he took Dark Edward’s double stingstick and turned it on. Crawney and Stumblecat held the victim. The Marquis played for hours.

And she never saw Fat Mollie after that day, either.

Oh yes, she learned, and soon she knew the rules. She was Starlady, and Hairy Hal was her protection and she was safer than most around her. The blackskulls never bothered her. She was beneath them.

“The Marquis is a stupid,” Hal told her after Dark Edward’s death, when she came home early from the Plaza. “Dark Edward, well, he was worse, but still. Listen, the dreamboss clicks, right? The dust comes in on ships an’ his men get it quiet an’ sell it quiet an’ no one knows the dreamboss an’ no one knows how to touch him. Lametta tried, got hit. Hard! Probly the dreamboss will buy himself inside someday, the way he clicks. See?

“But Marquis, he doesn’t click. Too loud. Everybody knows the Marquis, everybody chills to him, only he won’t never buy his way down inside. The insiders don’t want him marching round the Ivory Halls, less he’s got an exotic for them and a quick exit-pass.

“He started with exotics, Starlady. Alters like Stumblecat, an’ a couple Hrangans, green gushies, Fyndii mindmutes, that kind. Got all the exotics on Thisrock, right? The insiders, well, some of them hum sick, but they want to hum bad, an’ they want to hum quiet, an’ they pay a lot. Prometheans come too. The Marquis hums sick himself, but different, he hums to pain, an’ power probly, but mostly pain. Good with a stingstick, though, an’ he got the exotics. After that he got a lot of other things, joy-smoke and grabtabs and ripping, all his now. Exotics are still a big slice, the Marquis has them all.

“Only, well, he’s so loud, an’ it’ll kill him. Someday he’ll try to hit the dreamboss, or squeeze an insider for quiet-money, or something. Maybe Stumblecat will take him. Stumblecat spins quieter, Starlady, an’ Hal knows he don’t like seconds. Hitting Dark Edward in the Plaza was just a stupid. The Marquis wants to chill everybody, cept it won’t click.”