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Two women dressed in yellow uniforms are inside, operating a pulley system. The thick, vertical pole of the abacus runs through the centre of the bead, which is attached to it in a variety of places with arms and spokes.
I come to rest above a short platform. There are several platforms inside the bead, at various levels, connected by ladders. The women wait until I stop swaying, then undo the straps and let me down.
“Thanks,” I smile.
The women don’t return my smile or make the greet. Instead one of them barks, “Reason for visiting Suanpan?”
“Um...”
“He’s with me,” Inez says from her adjoining platform, where she’s been released by a couple of other women.
“And why are you here?” the woman who barked at me barks at Inez.
“We’re with Dermot’s thesps,” Inez says, and the woman rolls her eyes.
“Thesps,” she spits, as if the word left a sour taste on her tongue.
“Don’t mind her,” the other woman says with the thinnest sliver of a smile. “She has no imagination, but most of us love a good show. Do you know where to find them?”
“Yes,” Inez says.
“Then be on your way,” the woman says, and turns to the glider to take it down.
There’s a door in the floor of the bead. We take a ladder to it, and Inez slides it open, to reveal that we’re nestled on top of another bead. There’s a knotted rope suspended from the bead that we’re in, and she climbs down this to a layer of planks running across the middle of the second bead.
“What are thesps?” I ask.
“Actors,” Inez says.
I scratch my head. “We’re going into showbiz?”
“Kind of,” she grins.
We climb down to the base of the bead, where Inez opens another door. There’s a gap between this bead and the next, fifteen or twenty metres. There are small poles sticking out of the large, silver pole, and Inez climbs onto these. She pauses and pushes a lever up into a niche in the hull of the bead.
“What does the lever do?” I ask, nervously climbing onto the pole as Inez descends.
“Most pods can slide up and down,” Inez says, and I make a mental note to start calling the beads by their correct name. “The levers will hold them in place when we’re moving between pods, otherwise they could slide together and squash us.”
I gulp. “How secure is that system?”
“Almost foolproof,” Inez says.
“Almost?” I squeak. “Couldn’t we wait for the pod below to rise?”
“We could,” Inez says.
“Then why don’t we?”
“It’s not the Suanpan way,” Inez says, carrying on to the next pod, leaving me with no choice but to follow, hoping that the levers do their job and hold the pods in place, no desire at all to be flattened into an Archibald Lox sized pancake!
We make it to the next pod in one piece. Inez slides the door open and presses a lever similar to the one above, then swings into the pod. I’m hot behind her.
This pod is larger than the other two, with walled-off sections. We climb down a ladder, past a series of doors, into a corridor.
“Are those people’s homes?” I ask, nodding at more doors as we pass.
“Possibly,” Inez says, “but more likely they’re storage areas or resting rooms for the guards. Not many people live on the outskirts of the city.”
We come to another sliding door at the end of the corridor and Inez opens it. I’m expecting a pole to the pod in the neighbouring row, but there’s nothing connecting them, and the pod opposite is a few metres lower down than ours.
“How do we get across?” I ask.
“Jump,” Inez says.
“You’re joking,” I gasp — the gap must be eight or ten metres.
“Yes,” she says, and laughs when I glare at her. She presses a button in the floor with her foot. There’s a short wait, then a rope drops from high overhead. Inez catches it as it swings towards her. At the same time, the pod in the next row rises until it’s level with ours, and the door in its hull slides open.
“We’re going to swing across?” I moan.
“That’s how it’s usually done,” Inez says. “There are slings for those who need them, but most of us do it this way.”
“What if your grip slips or you swing short of the pod?” I ask.
“The rope automatically rises after a minute,” Inez says, “so if you come up short, hold on and get off at the top, then make your way down through the pods. If you fall...” She looks down and purses her lips.
Inez swings across the gap and lands neatly in the neighbouring pod. She sends the rope back to me. I catch it, shake my head moodily, then wrap my arms around it and jump.
I swing across the gap with a howl, kicking wildly for the ledge. Inez waits for me to complete my arc, then grabs my legs and hauls me in. My heart is hammering.
“Not bad for your first time,” she says, unclasping my fingers to release the rope.
“This place is crazy!” I wheeze.
“Life is crazy,” she winks, and we move on.
There are more rooms in this pod, and in the two beneath that we descend through. We pass six female guards heading upwards, but otherwise don’t see anyone else.
“Are all the guards women?” I ask.
“Yes,” Inez says. “Urszula only employs women.”
“Who’s Urszula?”
“The empress of Suanpan. She’s a deviser, which means she can directly control the pods. If people annoy her, she can reduce a pod to the size of a pea, killing them quickly if she’s feeling merciful, or tormenting them for as long as she pleases if she’s in a playful mood.”
“Charming,” I mutter.
“Don’t worry,” Inez says. “We won’t be crossing paths with her. Once we hook up with the thesps, we’re out of here.”
We press on and hit a gaming pod packed with loud, cheerful gamblers, and from that point on it’s a steady string of them. It quickly becomes clear to me that Suanpan is a giant casino, the Merge’s version of Las Vegas.
“I thought you said you didn’t have money in the Merge,” I say as we pass a table where a delighted winner is cheering and gathering up chips.
“We don’t,” Inez says.
“So what are they playing for?”
“It varies,” she says. “A lot are playing purely for the thrill of winning, but the more committed gamblers only enjoy it when something of value is at stake.”
We enter a small pod and pause by a table where two men and a woman are playing a card game. It’s obvious this is a high stakes affair, because thirty or so people are watching, eyes bright, murmuring with excitement or edginess as the players lay down a series of cards.
“The real gamblers bet valuable objects or services,” Inez whispers.
“Services?” I echo in a whisper as low as her own.
“For instance, I might stake a year of servitude on a game. If I lost, I’d have to spend that year transporting whatever the winner told me to transport, or doing anything else that they told me to do.”
I whistle softly. “People really risk a year of their life?”
“Some bet a lot more than that,” Inez says. “It’s not uncommon for gamblers to bet decades or even centuries on a game.”
“Why would they risk becoming slaves for centuries?” I mutter.
Inez pulls me away from the table, but continues to whisper as we make our way to the next pod. “Because if they win, they stand to gain the services of those that they beat, and sometimes that’s worth more than all the money in the Born.”
“What do you mean?”
“Some gamblers are nobles,” Inez says. “We have dukes, earls and the like in the Merge, people who strive to gain power and control over others, the same way they did in the Born. Most of us leave those kinds of ambitions behind us when we die, but some cling to the old desires. If you win the service of a noble, you also win the service of the people they govern. You even come up against the occasional deviser, and if you beat one of those in a high-stakes game, you can gain control of entire zones, even kingdoms.”
Inez swings across the gap to a large pod and I follow. Soon after that we come to a door and she knocks softly. The door is opened by a wary looking Asian woman. Her expression brightens when she spots Inez and she drags her inside, calling over her shoulder, “It’s Inez.”
I step in after them and close the door. There are two men in the room, sitting on a couch, heads close together. They smile when they see Inez and get to their feet, then look at me curiously.
“This can’t be Winston — he’s far too young,” one of the men says. He has dark brown hair and brown, bloodshot eyes. “Based on his age and attire, I assume this is your travelling companion, Archibald?”
“Archie,” I correct him, making the greet.
“Cal refers to you as Archibald,” the man says as he returns the greet. “I’m Dermot.”
“And I’m Maiko,” the woman says, then looks questioningly at Inez.
“Winston wouldn’t come,” Inez says. “Archie agreed to take his place.”
“Archie can fill Winston’s shoes?” Maiko asks with surprise.
“Winston thinks he can,” Inez says, then points at Dermot. “Dermot’s the leader of the thesps, Maiko’s his wife, and this other gentleman is –”
“Oleg,” the man says with a bow. He has thin grey hair and a hawkish but kindly face. “A humble treader of the boards, pleased to make your acquaintance.”
“Treader of...?” I repeat uncertainly.
“An actor,” Inez explains as Maiko leads us to the couch, where she sits with us, the men pulling up chairs. “Dermot and his troupe travel round Sapphire, putting on shows. I knew they’d be heading for the city where I’m bound, so I met with them months back, explained about my mission and asked for help.”
“I wish you’d explain it to me,” I grumble softly.
“We haven’t told the rest of the thesps who Inez is or why she’s joining us,” Dermot says, “bar a select few.”
“Such as my good self,” Oleg beams, “but I was only let in on the secret because of what happened to my co-star.”
“What are you talking about?” Inez asks, and the faces of the thesps drop.
“Inez...” Maiko says hesitantly. “There’s been an unfortunate incident involving Urszula and Baba Jen...”
And as she continues, Inez’s face darkens with a mix of fury and fear.