"What's to be the fate of the man?" I asked.
"Like the Boss said: they're gonna immure the bum for his pains."
"You mean wall him up?"
"Yeah. Just a peep hole to pass chow in every day ... so's he don't starve, see?" The bodyguard chuckled.
"How long—?"
"He'll last; don't worry. After the Change, Owner Qohey's got a newman—"
"Shut up," another bruiser said.
The crowd was slowly thinning. The bodyguards were relaxing, standing in pairs, talking. Two servants moved about where the fight had taken place, making mystical motions in the air above the floor. I edged forward, watching them. They seemed to be plucking imaginary flowers. Strange....
I moved even farther forward to take a closer look, then saw a tiny glint.... A servant hurried across, made gestures. I pushed him aside, groped ... and my fingers encountered a delicate filament of wire. I pulled it in, swept up more. The servants had stopped and stood watching me, muttering. The whole area of the combat was covered with the invisible wires, looping up in coils two feet high.
No wonder Foster had stumbled, had trouble raising his sword. He had been netted, encased in a mesh of incredibly fine tough wire ... and in the dim light even the crowd twenty feet away hadn't seen it. Owner Qohey was a good man with the chopper but he didn't rely on that alone to hold onto his job.