Horizons

THREE

THE TOWN MEETING WAS FULL TONIGHT. AND SEETHING with emotion. Dane lounged at the fringes of the crowded public square, perched crosslegged on a bare table that would be crowded with scarves or jewelry or the tools and parts of a service trader come market day, but served as a good vantage point. In the center, a fountain bubbled and leaped with the abandon of the marrginalG up on this residential level. A dozen kids splashed in the water, paying no attention to the adults. All around him, eyes fixed glassy on eyelid screens, adding to the Con, the weave of live-chat conversation that rippled 24/7 through every level and corridor of NYUp. Everyone attended townplazas, either in perrson or by Con.

“Noah?” Dane spoke softly over his com link. “What do you hear on the Con?”

“Running just under forty percent, I’d say, for immediate secesssion.” Noah’s young voice sounded loud in Dane’s ear.”That’s up two percent in a week. Why the change, Dane?”

“I don’t know.” Dane paused, frowning, watching a skinny kid toss handfuls of water into the air. He had the disproportionately long arm and leg bones that were showing up in this generation. Like Koi. “It bothers me, Noah. It’s too fast, too soon. See if you can pinpoint sources, will you?”

“Like hunting for a molecule in an atmosphere,” Noah said, “But I’ll get a few people in to help. Got to quit now. They’re serving dinner. I’ll keep on it while we’re dropping. Sorry, Dane. Bad :ime to go downside.”

“Family comes first, Noah. Just do what you can do. Thanks.” Dane broke the link. He missed Noah.

Noah was the most skilled at reading the Con. The perpetual chatter online had proven to be a very accurate predictor of events. He’d set Noah up to monitor trends with a powerful AI. This new increase in secession fever worrried him. And Laif was late. Not good, tonight. Dane suppressed a frown, blinked his own eyelid screen to life, the crowd vanishing behind a blue virtual wall, lines of speech scrolling down, threads of conversation flowing… With practiced ease, he skipped across a dozen threads, adding a word here, a comment there, but mostly reading, taking the pulse of NYUp.

Noah was right. The Con had a fever tonight. No major nexus… lots of small hot spots… story about a rude downsider here, an accusation of theft in a skinlevel hotel there. Small irritations, but more reaction than usual? Like an allergy-a few moleecules and you’re itching. NYUp was itching. Dane opened a visual link to the control center and Koi, still in Enhancement. Another six hours. He watched the boy’s eyelids shiver. Dreaming. He thought of the strange downsider, Ahni. Wondered if she had made it back all right. Nobody had tried to look for her in the axle. Which might not be a good sign.

She really had understood about Koi and his family. Too bad she was a downsider. He put that regret aside as Laif arrived.

“Sorry to be late.” The Administrator’s voice carried across the townplaza, larger than life, as he was physically. Dane watched him thread his way through the crowd, his mahogany scalp rising well above those around him, his grin flashing, the emerald in his left ear scattering shards of green light. An afroamerican-amerind-euro mix with a longtime resident’s elongated bones, he greeted even the pushy complainers with an easy manner and steel competence that always managed to find balance in any situation.

He needed that talent tonight.

Dane sat up straighter as the crowd parted ahead of Laif, revealling glimpses of the grass carpet and mosaic paths of the townplaza, giving him respectful space. A woman had been making the most of the crowd, selling iced fruit juice from a heavy plastic thermos hung over her shoulder. Laif paused to speak to her. The silver tracery of lightfiber decorating his naked scalp reflected glints of the emerald’s green as he bent to listen to something she was saying. He laughed, his head tossed back, his face so alive with the essence of laughter that people around him laughed, too. Even some of the grim faces, couldn’t help themselves, although they laughed grudgingly.

Laif unclipped his big personal mug from his belt and presented it to the juice seller with a flourish. She grinned, poured ruby colored liquid into the mug, offered the reader at her belt for his thumbprint.

Grinned wider as he bowed and imprinted it. Dane smiled grimly. Laif scores again. The mood in the crowded townplaza had lightened, and when Dane blinked into the Con, the spinning conversations were lightening, too: laif does a good job, not his fault the heavyweights keep milking us, he does his best to keep their grubby downsider paws where they belong, and did you hear about that kid, some heavyweight tourist hit with a cart, why they need carts when they can go up a couple of levels where we live or maybe lose some of that heavyweight flab…

In a heartbeat the Con had recast Laif from stooge for the downsiders to beleaguered hero. Not bad, even if it didn’t chill the secession fever. Dane lifted a finger in a quiet salute, one that Laif didn’t acknowledge, although Dane was pretty sure Laif had spottted him. He might act casual and hurried, the overworked Adminisstrator rushing in from his screen, but he would have scoped the crowd through the security cams first, surfed the Con, and counted the members of NOW in the crowd. Like Dane. He leaned forward as Laif made his way to the podium set up for the meeting.

“All right, let’s get it over with.” He swung himself casually up onto the podium. “Don’t want to make you all start throwing stuff. Costs to clean up, after, so we’ll just cut to the yelling.”

“Well, hey, I’ll start.” A small man, round-faced, with native muscles, waved. People around him withdrew politely, giving him floor. “What the hell joke is this Security tariff all about?” Arms crossed on his chest he stared up defiantly. “Security for who? Who is Earth keeping us secure from? We’re the ones in the Arrival Hall scanning the scum that comes up here. They let anybody get on the damn Elevators. I mean, my sister, she had these two guys just walk out of her shop the other day, ate a full lunch, didn’t pay. And for that, she’s gotta pay extra next time she boosts realmilk cheese up here?”

“So how come she can’t use soy like the rest of us?” The juice seller spoke up, her half-empty jug sloshing as the crowd gave her pace. “If she wants downsider cheese, fine, let her pay their ‘security’

skim. Me, I like the local stuff. She too good for it?”

“She’s on the skinlevel, got to feed the customers what they want.”

“Maybe the customers should learn to like something different. Or stay home.”

The crowd cheered at this and the man flushed. “You sell what you want, you…”

“You’ve both got a point.” Laif’s drawl cut through the rising voices and the crowd hushed expectantly.

“Yeah, we need to buy upside when we can, but on the other hand, the downsiders bring their credit up here with them. If they want a little Earthside cheese on their local salad, hey,” he spread his hands, winked. “I’d rather boost a little realmilk feta up here than see them bringing their picnic lunches and leaving trash instead of credit.” He paused as laughter and applause, along with a few whistles of disapproval, rippled through the crowd. “But I came here tonight to bitch about the new security tariff right along with the rest of you.” He leaned forward now, the emerald flashing, his smile fading. “That caught me blindside, made me feel like a fool, I can tell you. I’ve been screamming about it all afternoon.

We do our own security up here, and it’s a whole lot more effective than anything the North American Alliance puts on the ground, at least if you go by the crime stats.”

“So why didn’t you just tell ’em no?” Dane unfolded his legs, rising to his feet on the table, looking over the upturning faces beeow to fix his stare on the Admin. “Tell ’em we don’t have to pay for what we don’t use.”

”It’s more complicated than that. Don’t try to oversimplify things for your own purposes, Nilsson. You’re good at that and we all know it.” Laif faced as the crowd’moved back to reflect the line of tension between the men. “I walk a damn fine line between telling the Alliance downstairs what they can’t do and kissing butts. I don’t know about you, Nilsson, but I hate kissing butts.”

Nervous laughter skittered through the crowd.

“But I do a hell of a lot more of it than I want to do. If they yank me out of here, the next Admin is gonna dance to their tune, you better believe it. I’ve pissed off too many people down there. They won’t make the same mistake twice. They’ll put somebody in here who not only likes to kiss butts, but takes orders, too.”

“And we appreciate the butts you kiss, believe me.” Dane’s earnest tone brought more laughter. “But we need to talk about this new tariff. I don’t know about you, but a bunch of folk I’ve talked to, the ones who still have to boost stuff up here, are really hurting. We’re on a thin enough margin already. What does the NAA want? Is it out to bankrupt us all, repo the can?”

Cheers erupted, some whistles, but not that many. The crowd buzzed, anger and agreement sweeping his senses like a hot wind. He blinked into the Con for a few seconds, did a quick surf. Yep, it mimicked the townplaza tone pretty closely. Little less enthusiasm from the skinside merchants who depended on downside traffic, more from the service level folk who had local businesses on the side, like the juice seller.

“Yeah, they probably wouldn’t mind if they could repo this place.” Laif raised his voice. “We’re a pain in the butt up here. They’d love to do away with the lifetime leases they handed out back when nobody wanted to live long-term up here. Then they could stick a bunch of nice obedient tenant-farmers up here, like New Singapore has.” His face grew grim as the crowd quieted. “But I don’t plan to go along with that. I’ve been pressuring them to let us impose that tariff on the refined metals and spider silk they’re so hungry for down there?collect on all that stuff going down the Ellevators. Told ’em it’s to pay for more rock jocks out scouring the skies for falling stones that might mess up the cities down there.” He waited for the applause and clapping to fade. “They’re listening. Falling rocks scare ’em.”

”What do we use as a lever next time, Admin?” Dane crossed his arms, his body language challenging, despite the smile on his face. “And the time after that? It’s gotta stop some day. If we ever want to start expanding on our own, we gotta stop hemorrhaging raw materials and credit down there!”

Cheers bigtime, solid enthusiasm, only a couple of whistles, but then the ones who didn’t want independence for the orbitals mostly didn’t show up in person at the townplazas. It’s in your court, Laif, Dane thought. We need a good slam here.

“Jeeze, Nilsson, I don’t know what game plan I’m going to run until I know what the game is.” Laif shook his head tolerantly, but anger flashed in his dark eyes, bright as the emerald. “Why don’t you get yourself appointed to my job for awhile. See how well you walk this tightrope, huh?”

“I’d rather stand down here and ask the questions.” Not good enough, Dane thought. Come on, Laif. Cancel that percentage we’re seeing.

“I got a question for you, Admin.” A small taut man appeared as the crowd gave him space. “Why walk that tightrope of yours, huh? You’re right. It’s gotta be a tough job. Gets you a paycheck, sure. But that doesn’t seem like a whole lot of payoff for a tough job.” The crowd fell silent. The man was a stranger, small and mixedeuro with a narrow face and a fanatic’s eyes. Fringer? Dane watched him, senses alert.

One of the extremes who were ready to go to war with the planet? Dane didn’t recognize him from the NOW meett:ngs. New here?

”We pay the tariffs on stuff we haul up and they make sure we have to haul it up, so it’s a sweet deal.”

He turned his back on the Admin, his voice rising, body swaying with the cadence of his words. “Only way out, I see, is to tell the heavyweights the rules instead of saying ‘yessir’ and standing around in crowds like this, blowing air. Wow, our Administrator might get us some credit on a few pounds of metal going downside. Who cares? They own us and they know it!” He turned and pointed at Laif -the rude gesture eliciting a murmur of disapproval. “I think you’re getting paid to help ’em own us.”

The crowd erupted again. Some whistles, too much applause, the anger back, just like that. Damn.

“Now hold on.” Laif strode to the edge of the podium, his anger radiating, real this time. “You walk in here and accuse me of being on their downsider team, then you better be ready to back it up,” he boomed. “You want to do that?”

“You bet, mister Administrator.” The small fringer stood alonein a wide space now and the crowd fell instantly silent. “What about those investments you made this week? Downsider companies. I’ve been watching for that sort of sneaky backdoor type of deal, and hey ho, Mister On Our Side, I sure found it.

You bought a nice slice of a pretty profitable sea farm off China. Profits go into a downside bank, and they’re nice profits. Retirement fund? Pretty sweet deal, boss man. Don’t want all your eggs up here in the basket with us, huh? They sure must pay you a good salary if you can buy something that pricey.”

Shouts of outrage, applause, and whistles filled the plaza. Laif was saying something, yelling. Dane hopped lightly down from his

perch, merging with the throng, nodding, shrugging, agreeing, shaking his head as he worked his way toward the fringer. He caught a

hard thread of a cold, calculating satisfaction as he neared the site where he’d seen the man last, but if the emotion belonged to the agitator, he couldn’t tell, couldn’t spot him in the surging crowd.

“Do you believe him?” A woman stepped front of him, her chest heaving with anger, her euro-latino face pale. “Laif ‘s on our side, he wouldn’t sell out.”

“Why say it if it’s not true?” A smaller mixed afroamericanasian man pushed between them. “We can check and—” his gaze went vacant as he checked the Con—“Oh, gods, it is true. It’s all over the Con. He bought the shares, he’s selling us out, can you believe it?”

Danefroze just for an instant. Bad. He glanced toward the podium, but Laif was no longer there, was down on the floor, gesticulating, not losing his cool but danm busy right now. They weren’t giving him much space, either. The afro—asian wasn’t the only one who had checked the Con

Dane made his way through the crowd,watching for the agitator. He wasgoo d. He was a stranger.

Might be a smart idea to invite him to the next little get together of NOW, get a handle on where he came from, what he was up to. He blinked into the Con. Yeah, a few hundred people had found the new purchase made by Laif or at least by someone with credit registered to Laif Jones Egret and hidden just enough to make it believable. If you didn’t think about it too hard.

Dane skipped across a half dozen Con threads, dropping cormmentsinto the raging torrent of words.

Dumb move for someone as smart as Laif. Pretty easy to really hide your tracks. Stupid to leave the evidence just sitting there, waiting for some fool to stumble over. Dane skipped here and there, using the various solid personas that Noah had hacked up for him, slick enough to fool even Con security. Bit by bit, his planted questions began to ripple through the outcry.

Without warning, his implanted link buzzed, tickling the skinon his shoulder. An alarm. He blinked his link open. Someone was trying to get past the security lock on Elevator 3B.

Which wouldn’t be a big concern except that Koi lay locked into the med-unit in the core, and 3B was the closest elevator to the core. Which suggested that someone was after Koi.

Good luck, Laif, Dane thought as he headed fast for the corridors and the nearest elevator bay. You’re on your own. As he reached the corridor he felt someone’s pointed attention on him, but when he looked around, the corridor was empty.

Damn.

This had the feel of a very well-planned set-up.

Dane pushed himself into a skimming run, taking the long flatstrid es that lowG allowed. He took the closest service elevator, thumbed in manual control and sent the bare unit up at max speed. He shot out of the door as it opened, pulling goggles from his belt clip, even as he soared through the aisles of ‘ponic tubes. A couple of Koi’s people flanked him, worrying. Hide, he told them silently. Just in case. They vanished instantly. He slowed as he neared the control room, checking his link. According to his security system, the intruder hadn’t managed to disable the lock on 3B yet. Dane kolled his momentum on the side of the control center, slung himself intothe lock and eyeballed the inner door open. He glanced at Koi’s glazed and dreaming face, then opened the main control field,one toe tucked under the grab bar in front oh the main console as the icons blinked to life.

Nothing. Dane stared for a long moment at the security readout, then shut down the field, pried loose an access panel in the conntrol wall, and slid his hand in behind a tangle of wires. Removed a small lethal-grade stunner. For a moment he stared down at the palm-sized gray oblong, then he slipped it into his singlesuit, and grim faced, let himself out through the lock.

Salad vegetables surrounded Elevator 3B, spirals of red, green, and yellow lettuces and leafy plants, herbs, tomato vines trained around the ‘ponic tubes. Dane slowed, drifting to a halt at the elevator entry, eyeballed the control scanner and paused, his eyes on the door.

If Li Zhen opened the door?

Dane slipped the stunner from his suit, thumbed the control to non-lethal. Killed the security lock. Then he pushed off, drifting away from the light, fading into the leafy vines of a tomato’s sprawl where the heavy crop of orange, ripening fruit would camouflage his NYUp uniform. The elevator whispered to a stop. Dane drew a slow breath, relaxed his muscles, stunner aimed at the door.

It sighed open.

The empty compartment yawned at him.

With a shrug, Dane pushed over to the elevator and sent the car back down. Frowning, he headed back to the control center to up the security levels for all access points. It would be a nuisance beecause he’d have to okay every shipment going down, but that was his only option right now.

Thoughtfully, Dane kicked his way back to the control center. There, he reset security, okayed the shipments scheduled to go out in the next shift, then turned to Koi. He touched the boy’s face and for an instant, Koi’s glazed stare sharpened into focus. He tried to smile.

“You’re just about finished here,” Dane murmured. “I think I’m going to let you out a little early. You can finish the job on your own, okay?” The fractures were 90 percent solid and the organ damage had already finished healing. He’d be okay kicking around and a whole lot safer than he was tied down here.

Dane overrode the med-unit’s program and ended the healing protocol.

Drifting, he watched Koi’s eyes brighten as the unit sent drugs down The microtubing implanted in his veins, banishing the heavy soporifics that kept him immobile for the enhanced healing, shutting off the stimulation protocol that kept muscles and tissues healthy and toned while healing progressed. Koi blinked as the microtubes and catheters withdrew and the unit opened to release him. He moved a shoulder and drifted upward with perfect control. Yawned and stretched, without drifting a hair.

“Did she come back?” Koi’s cloudy eyes glowed with memory. “The pretty one?”

“Ahni?” Dane shook his head. “I hope she’s safe.” His smile disappeared. “The people who took you tried to come back up here.”

Koi shivered. “It hurts down there. I can’t breathe.” He pushed himself off with one toe, drifted toward the refreshment panel. “The ones who took me… they hurt me. But the one down there, he looked at me for a long time. Took blood out of my arm, but he didn’t hurt me, like they did.”

“I think it was Li Zhen, the Chairman of Dragon Home. I sure wonder how he fits into this.” Dane closed his hand gently around Koi’s fragile arm. “You need to stay invisible. It’s really important.”

“We will.” Koi gave him a sideways look. “How come we scare them?”

“You scare them, because you’re different.” Dane let his breath out in exasperation. “The downsiders, I mean. The people up here… they’ll get used to you. Later. When the downsiders can’t do anything about you.”

“Stupid.” Koi pushed off delicately with one toe, arching into a slow and perfect back somersault, his body supple as an Earth-ocean dolphin. “I don’t want to live down there anyway.”

“You’re right, it is stupid, and it’s really a downsider fear,” Dane said patiently. “Right now, we’ve got some other things to fix.”

“Uh oh, is Laif in trouble again?” Koi rolled an eye at him. “He’s always in trouble isn’t he?”

”Not really.” But Dane had to smile. “It’s a tough job, trying to run the orbital from our end of the Elevator and from the North American Alliance’s side at the same time. But we need him.”

“Okay.” Koi pushed off harder this time, arching into another perfect somersault.

The chip in Dane’s shoulder tickled, and he pushed over to the control desk, brought up the field. “Laif’s on his way up. Let’s go meet him.” He snagged an extra pair of goggles from a gear hammmock, pushed off for the lock. Koi drifted along beside him.

“You take it easy,” Dane told him sternly. “I let you out early. Get wild and those bones might crack again.”

“I’m not going to get wild,” Koi said loftily.

“Noah’s going to need your help,” Dane told him. “Somebody bought an expensive aqua culture farm Earthside. They did it with credit registered to Laif. It’s a frame, but we need to know who did it and how, and Noah’s stuck downside for a few days.”

“No problem.” Koi spun effortlessly, his trajectory wobbling not at all. “That why you woke me up early?” He smirked at Dane as he shot ahead of him.

“I woke you up so you wouldn’t be a gift-wrapped prize for someone walking through Security,” Dane snapped after him.

“Sorry, Dane.” Koi slowed his momentum with a complex shiver of limbs. “If somebody made that downside buy so easy, I bet I can track ’em back, if Noah’s busy. He says I’m almost as good as he is, now.”

“I hope so.” Dane killed his momentum on a tube planted to Asian eggplant, placing his hand carefully between the narrow, black fruits. What had Noah said of Koi? A pain to teach, but really creative. A shred of blossom drifted away from the tube and one of his frog-flies darted out to seize it, ricocheted off the next tube, vannished back into its sheltered niche on the eggplant tube. The small creatures he had created had adapted so effortlessly to microG. Within a single generation, many of them — phenotypes shifting radically, genes expressing in surprising ways.

Like Koi and his family.

The elevator doors opened and Laif drifted out, squinting in the brilliant light. He looked… battered.

Dane pushed off. “Here.” He shoved the spare set of goggles into Laif’s hand. “Sorry I had to cut out. I had an intruder down here, and not an accidental one either.”

“That’s all we need.” Laif pulled the goggles into place, his voice weary. “A legal fuss about Koi’s folk would be the last straw right now.”

“I sort of thought of that,” Dane drawled.

“You know, you and your family are a great big pain, kid.” Laif had drifted clear of the tubes, stalled now, out of reach of anything to push off of. “Damn, I’m bad at this. Koi, gimme a hand.” He, eld out one of his long-fingered hands. It engulfed Koi’s but instead of pulling Laif in closer to a tube, Koi pushed off, gave Laif’s arm a sharp downward jerk and spun the tall Administrator into an ungainly somersault.

Laif yelled.

Doing a neat somersault turn off another tube… without bruising a leaf… Koi snagged Laif by one wrist and stilled his spin with impressive precision, then shoved the Admin face first into a rube planted with tomato vines–just hard enough to squash the fruit–and arrowed away into the green light.

“Damn!” Laif sputtered, wiping red tomato juice from his face. A cloud of frog-flies darted about him, scooping up the drifting droplets and fragments of pulp. “Double damn.” Laif waived at them. “Good thing you didn’t make them bite. Everything up here is better than I am in microG. What did I say to piss him off?” Laif wiped his face on his arm.”You got a towel somewhere? I need you to find out who planted that fake purchase. I had hell’s own time getting up here without anyone seeing. Everybody wants to ask me personally about that. If I ever get hold of the SOB who did it, he’s airlocked.”

”You called Koi’s family a pain in the butt, Laif. And whoever that was down there today, he sure stuck it to us.” Dane regarded the Administrator thoughtfully. “Come along and clean up. Tell me how bad it got after I left. I did manage to seed some questions about that ‘sale’ into the Con. Dunno if it did any good. Haven’t had time to drop in again. Noah’ll tell me.”

“I guess it worked. Last time I sampled — on the way down here — people were wondering just when I got so stupid. Something I wonder almost daily, but we won’t tell anyone.” Laif’s laugh sounded loud, even down here in the vastness of the garden.

Dane smiled. “Only you could laugh right now.”

“Beats screaming and crying and tearing my hair… which I don’t have. Slow down will you?” Panting he caught up to Dane, leaving a trail of damage behind him about as bad as Ahni had done. “So where did that asshole come from? Is he one of your crowd?”

”No, he’s not a member of NOW. Not yet.” Dane slowed as they approached his home, waited for Laif to catch up to him. “I think I’ll invite him though. If I can find him. He’s an outsider. New to me. Makes me wonder.”

Laif grunted, made his way through the twined tubes that made up the shell of Dane’s living space. “We need to know who holds his leash. According to his entry data, he’s an NAA citizen, recently employed as a contract code writer for some little manufacturing. That’s crap. Made up story.”

“I thought so, too.” Dane pushed across the spherical space, reetrieved a towel from a storage hammock, sailed it toward Laif. “I think he’s a pro, doing a job. Did you get my forward of Noah’s report?”

“Yes.” Laif snagged the towel, scrubbed his face. “Two percent is bad. We can’t go to the Council yet.

That pricey synthesist we hired downside tells me it’s a ninety-two percent certainty that an autonomy motion on behalf of the platforms would go down. I don’t get it. People up here have been getting increasingly unhappy with NAA control, but it’s been a steady curve. How come it’s heatting up now?”

He wadded the stained towel into a ball. “It’s the edge of violence that bothers me. Where the hell did this come from?” he growled. “We’re not a violent folk up here! Except on the Scrum field.”

“Dragon Home.” Dane said.

“What about it?”

“I’m not sure,” Dane said thoughtfully. “Li Zhen was prowling around here recently. Unofficially. Noah says the hot threads in the Con are starting out with people he hasn’t seen before. I doubt Noah is the only person capable of hacking up a fake persona that can pass Security.”

”What in nine hells is Zhen up to? He’s ambitious and has his own agenda, everybody knows that. And China is a power-hungry loner, up here, and downside on the World Council. Why us?”

“I don’t know.” Dane frowned at the orchids blooming along thecurve of the inside wall, touched one perfect petal. “I ran into a wildcard up here. Private war from downside, I gather, but Zhen is involved.”

“Who?” Laif snapped, his emerald earring glinting.

“Name is Xai Huang. Taiwan Families.” No need to mention Ahni. He wondered if she had checked the DNA sequence he had done for her. “I don’t know what Huang’s agenda is.”

“I’ll get an image of him, plug it into Security. I hate wildcards.” Laif scrubbed his face again, glowered at the stained towel in his hands. “We’re so damn close,” he said softly. “If we increase the resident population just a little… within the current livingspace limits we’ll tip the balance. We’ll have a stable economy. Producers and consumers. It’ll be tough, but then we can start expanding for real. And we won’t need Earth. We can run our own show, make our own rules. Put our interests first.”

“Ifwe can start dropping rocks down here.” Dane shook his head.”We can’t do it if we have to depend on the asteroid miners refining up in the belt. Darkside figures they own the moon and they’re willing to fight for resources. Rocks make Earth nervouss– as you so aptly pointed out this evening. I think you’re underestimating downside opposition to that. They’ve got the weaponry to shoot at us and hit us, Laif.”

”Hey, you’re the leader of the secession group, what’s with this pessimism?” Laif stilled his sudden drift with a grab at a nearby vine. “The Council can be swayed. We’re spending every spare credit we can scrape up to sway them and we all know better than to talk rocks at this stage. Meanwhile, a wildcard war is not what we need up here right now. They’re messy.”

“I think it might be more than that,” Dane said slowly. “Huang family doesn’t have any interests up here. I checked. I’ll keep all my ears open.” He pushed himself away from the Administrator. “And I’ve got a list of favors I need from you. A couple of subsidized loans, some jobs, and a couple of ‘get out of jail free’

cards.”

“Not too many, I hope.” Laif sighed. “All I need is a corruption charge from some whistle-blower.”

“No more than usual.” Dane sailed a data sphere his way.

“Will do.” Laif snagged it. “Now I’d better find Koi and apollogize.”

“Yeah, you’d better apologize.” Koi stuck his head through the wall of leaves. “You know, a six-month-old baby gets around better than you.”

“I believe it.” Laif gave Koi a lopsided smile. “Okay, I was an asshole and didn’t think about what I was saying. Didn’t mean it either, was still kind of fried from getting my butt whipped at that townplaza this afternoon. But you stuck it to me proper, so how about it we call it a tie? Or a truce, anyway?”

“Tie? I won. You looked pretty stupid with tomato all over your face.”

Dane swallowed a chuckle, turned it into a cough.

“Okay, fine.” Laif sent Dane a sizzling glance. “I cede the game, kid. And you’re not only better at me in microG– way better–you’re better in the Con, too. So please find out who scammed that fish farm purchase for me, will you, so that I can airlock the bastard?” Laif held out a hand. “Don’t throw me this time, okay? I might break someething of Dane’s.”

“You might.” Koi grabbed his wrist, vaulted past Laif’s head, rebounded from the far wall and came to a perfect halt at eye level and upside down in front of the Admin. “That was a dirty trick,” Koi said. “I’ll find out who did it.”

“Thanks,” Laif said and nodded. “You’re impressive, kid. If this is how we’re gonna evolve, I guess it could be a lot worse.”