Ghosts of Punktown by Jeffrey Thomas Page B

platform crouched three identical figures, each tucked into a  ball, tucked so tightly in fact that one might not at first realize these uneven spheres were meant to be people. Apparently they represented a clerical order associated with an Antse religion that had died out centuries ago. The clerics were said to contort their bodies into balls such as this trio of sculptures portrayed, and remain that way through long periods of meditation. They did not wear the flayed fluke skins, but they did paint their naked gray bodies with a bright yellow mineral. These sculptures were so painted, too, and either this pigment or the stone they were carved from gave them a porous texture like pumice.
     
         LeBlanc stooped down, trying to look at the face of one of the figures, but its head was so tucked in, besides being covered over with its arms, that he couldn’t see it. The fingers laced between its shoulders had dark stains on them, no doubt from age.
     
         Straightening, LeBlanc read the rest of the plaque. The rites of these clerics were so secret that anyone not invited to view them would suffer grave consequences. The usual threats to infidels, LeBlanc thought.
     
         His wrist comp beeped, and he lifted his arm to gaze down at its little screen. Miter was there, and he talked while chewing. “Hey, El Jones, I thought I’d give you a head’s up, even though I might just be going crazy in my old age. A little while ago when I was sitting here in the café, I swore I heard a sound like a bare foot slapping on the floor. So I turned around and out of the corner of my eye I thought I saw someone run past the café doorway, but when I went to look I couldn’t find anybody. I’m going to check out the rest of the floor now, so you keep your eyes peeled too, okay?”
     
         “What did they look like?”
     
         “It was just a flash, you know, like you get sometimes looking too quick from a light area into a dark area? So it could just be my imagination, man; too much coffee or not enough. But it sort of looked like someone small, with no clothes. I don’t know, maybe just wishful thinking.” The man snorted. “Just have a look around, will ya?”
     
         “I’ll do that.”
     
         Miter signed off.
     
    *     *     *
     
         LeBlanc checked the rest of the third floor thoroughly, then descended to the second floor. He beeped Miter in the process. “I haven’t seen anything. You?”
     
         “No. Maybe I need a nap, man; I barely slept today, you know? I’m not a young guy like you. How old are you, now...like fourteen?”
     
         “Fifteen.”
     
         “Wow. Be patient, El Jones, and you’ll be able to legally drink in a few years.”
     
         LeBlanc said nothing, but cut their connection.
     
         When LeBlanc had finished his rounds of the second level and returned to the third, he was surprised but not startled to find Miter in the Hall of Antiquities, reading the plaque on the wall beside the flesh scarecrow in its glass case. “Hey,” said LeBlanc, and Miter whirled around fast, a hand going to the pistol holstered under his gray suit jacket.
     
         “For Chrissakes, dung-hole, are you trying to burst my beater? Jesus.” He straightened up. “That’s what I get for coming in here and reading about all this creepy Antse stuff.”
     
         “Did you see someone come up here?”
     
         “No, but I thought I’d have a look around where I found that body last week, you know?”
     
         Miter blew out his cheeks, still shaken, and LeBlanc smirked internally. The older guard had been on the day shift twenty years ago, when the psychotic artist Toll Loveland had terrorized Punktown with his bio-art. Two Health Agents on the artist’s trail had come to the Hill Way Galleries to have a look at Loveland’s art therein, in the hopes of discovering clues. The way Miter told it, he had assisted the