“Not by your aim, honest. Excuse me,” I said, and stood up. A bit too fast. She grabbed me around the rib cage.

“Whoa, Paint, old girl. It’s that way that’s up. Put one foot there, and the other — that’s it.” She stepped back, and I swayed, but that was all. “Now, is there someone to carry you away, or are you doomed, like a public works project in cast cement, to grace this bridge forever?”

It was true that nothing I’d said or done up to then had indicated I ought to be allowed out alone. “No. I’ll be fine, I’m just going into the Deeps.” Now there was a mindless utterance. Still, if I could reach the Deeps, I would be all right. Or at least, the burrowing instinct told me so. I looked around and realized that the Jammers were gone. I must have stopped being interesting.

She raised her eyebrows: delicate inquiry. “The D — oh, downtown.” She swiped at a trickle of sweat on her forehead with the back of her wrist, then snatched impatiently at her helmet, yanked it off. The hair underneath was tangled, wet with perspiration, shoulder length, and very black. “I suppose your career as a caryatid will have to be cut short,” she said. “I’m going that way myself.” Glorious smile, hiding nothing, signifying nothing.

I had a dirty shirt, a dirtier pair of jeans, and a pair of sneakers, none of which I intended to give up. I had a few useful things in my pockets, but none that would turn to gold in someone else’s fingers. So riding would entail racking up an obligation to a formidable stranger. But the thought of sitting down, closing my eyes, and effortlessly reaching the Deeps — no, I had no credit here. “No thank you,” I croaked. “It’s a lovely day for a walk.”

Breath burst out between her lips. “Oh, Our Lady of Martyrs. I missed the odor of sanctity on you. Get in.”

She meant it as one kind of blasphemy. It fell on my ears as different, and worse. Where were the lovely, familiar cadences of the Deal, the careful weighing of goods and considerations, the call-and-response of buying and selling? Hers was an alien and heretical language, for all that I knew the words. She propelled me to the trike, and I tried not to go. But I really did want to sit down under the shell of the tri-wheeler where the sun couldn’t get me, even if I paid with the rest of my life -

She stuffed me onto the back seat as if I were her laundry, straddled the front seat, and slammed the hatch. In a moment I was surrounded by engine noise and the rattle of the weather shell.

Well, one more for the debit side of the ledger. “I’ll pay you back,” I said as loud as I could, doubting it was loud enough.

She turned in the saddle, passed a quick glance over me, and said mildly, “Good God, with what?”