Marianne, the Madame, and the Momentary Gods by Sheri S. Tepper Page A

after her, slapping his riot gun into one beefy palm, a sneer on his face that she could feel through her light jacket. ‘You should’ve applied for a job,’ he yelled after her as she turned the corner. Then you’d know where you are!’ Through the furious pounding of her blood in her ears, she could hear his laughter halfway down the next block, joined by that of the sycophants on the street corner.
    Police persecuted non-locus people as legitimate prey. They harrassed people whose eyes were bad, as well, people who had trouble reading the maps. Or even foreigners who had trouble with the language. So far as the police were concerned, ignorance of the map was no excuse. She trudged on, leaving the dirty laughter behind.
    She no longer tried to make an orderly search pattern. In order to avoid making circles, she turned alternately right and left, without any particular system. When she was so tired she could scarcely drag one foot in front of another, the street lights went off and she found herself in front of an all-night diner. She stared at the door for long, unconscious minutes before recognizing the red ‘24’ painted on the glass. A map vendor.
    She ordered coffee, went into the rest room and took enough money from her belt to pay for tomorrow’s map, cursing in futile anger when she caught the crystal in her bracelet on the belt and could not get loose for long moments. ’Get rid of that bracelet,’ she told herself in an unfamiliar voice. ‘It’s always catching on things.’ As she was about to unclasp it and throw it away, however, someone came into the rest room and distracted her. Getting tomorrow’s map was the important thing, she reminded herself. It would not help her today, but at the next shift, she would be able to find her way home.
    ‘Gettin’ it early, eh,’ the counterman said as he handed her the map. ‘Always smart to have your map early. Glad to see you, too. Didn’t think I’d have any business today. Hate it when I end up surrounded by warehouses this way. At least, I guess they’re warehouses. Just bad for business.’
    ‘I suppose it would be better in the theatre district,’ Marianne remarked. ‘People staying out late.’
    He nodded judiciously. ‘That’s a nice idea, a theatre district. Don’t know I’ve ever seen a theatre district, if you mean a place where the theatres sort of cluster. Not much clustering any more. Lately it seems like every shift scatters things out more and more. I was surprised to see all these warehouses near each other this way when I came down to work this morning, to tell you the truth. Where I was yesterday, there was an aristocrat’s mansion on one side of me and a junkyard on the other, and down the side streets was an amusement park and three office buildings. The noble had his screen up all day. Didn’t blame him, either. That roller coaster practically ended up in my back booth.’
    Marianne said something innocuous and noncommital.
    ‘You on your way to work?’
    She nodded, putting down coins to pay for the coffee, saying thank you, going out the door into the light of day with no idea where she was.
    No one would be there to open the laundry. It might be all right. Business would be light on the day after sin day. Her legs felt like lead weights. She could not possibly lift them to walk another step. She had to find someplace she could sit, someplace she could stay until the next shift. A movie theatre. A park. No one would bother her in either place…
    She walked slowly, pausing frequently to rest, leaning against fences, perching briefly on window sills while she pretended to take nonexistent stones out of her shoes. Shadows moved from one side of things to the other. She came to a botanical garden, which made her think of benches. After a moment’s consideration, she paid the small fee to enter and moved among the scanty viewers along the sandy walks.
    There was a grove of snatch trees set behind high fences with warning