She got up without another word.

'You're not a port lady at all,' he called after her as she threaded her way through the audience to the door. But he wasn't really talking to her.

The evening went on, The Spacer's Rave got packed out. The management closed the doors in a suicidal move to suffocate the hands that fed it. 'I'm gonna rock and roll you baby,' sang Tiny Skeffern, 'rock and roll you all night long — ', an old sentiment, and enduring but Track had lost interest. About an hour after Angina Seng had squirmed her way out, he went off to look for somewhere quiet. She had soured it for him. He couldn't imagine who might want him for himself and not My Ella Speed.

As he went out the door, Tiny and his drummer were exchanging strokes, playing with psychopathic detachment and gentleness.

Outside, the same old wind. East Thing was a street without apparent function, a barrack thoroughfare for the shabby privates of the great commercial army — warehouses, and the occasional front-office. Packed by day with clerks and chandlers, it was a desert of vapor lamps by night; nobody walked it then except to get to the Spacer's Rave, and most of them were already there. Track loved it for itself. You had to.

Coming abreast of a deep doorway in the high numbers, he noticed nothing: but a sneaky foot whipped out of it nonetheless, and tangled up his long legs. He kicked his own ankle painfully and fell on the floor.

'Fuck,' he said. Somebody sniggered.

A shadowy figure issued from the doorway — loomed over him as, rubbing one elbow, he got himself into a kneeling position. A quick cold flicker of vapor light reflected from wicked steel knuckles. His neck exploded, he thought that his windpipe had collapsed, but he fell carefully, knees drawn up into his stomach.

'Up, son. I'm not carrying you. Get up.'