Horizons

FOUR

HANDRAILS LINED THE CORRIDOR BEYOND THE LOCK IN the Pan Malaysian Elevator.

Ahni blessed them as she pulled herself confidently along, trying hard to look as if she belonged there.

Painted a soft and boring green, lacking the protective resilient carrpeting that lined the tourist areas, the corridor clearly handled service traffic. At the end of the corridor she halted herself, and drifting, dropped briefly into Pause, calling up the specs for this Ellevator.

She located the service lock where Dane had let her off, traced a route to the travel plaza, the main arrival and departure areas where the climbers docked. Most of the retail trade clustered around the travel plaza. She wondered how long it would take Xai’s dogs to check this Elevator once they realized they had lost her trail on NYUp? The door in front of her wasn’t locked from this side and opened to the touch of her palm.

A dense plush carpet in a soft blue-lined floor and walls contrasting with a pale, carpeted ceiling. If tourists bounced off the walls, they wouldn’t even bruise. The Elevator interiors were still founded on the right angle, unlike the upper levels of the platforms, and a part of Ahni’s mind found the corners where wall met floor comforting. The corridor was moderately busy, full of tourists still awkward in microG.

Few even glanced at her.

Ahni found she blended nicely into the mostly Indonesian and Indo-Pakistani crowd, her tawny skin and black crop a bonus. A dress shop offering microG-spun spider silk caught her eye. Ahni stepped into the shop, nodded to the shopkeeper’s smiling bow, waved away her offer of assistance and browsed quickly down the display of scarves, sheathes, singlets, sari-suits, and even full saris. She chose a full sari in a shimmering salmon embroidered with gold, and found a creamy undershirt to match it. The shopkeeper was nearly beside herself with delight as she floated gracefully to a high shelf to retrieve a packaged model. Ahni could certainly understand her enthusiasm as the shopkeeper totaled the purchases. Tourist prices, she thought sourly, but the spider silk was lovely, shimmerring in the light, finer than real silk to the touch. “Don’t wrap it,” she told the woman as she started to fold the sari. “I think I’ll wear it right now.”

“Oh, what a marvelous idea!” the woman gushed. “You’ll look lovely in it and it’s quite secure in microG

with the hidden closures. Are you headed to a Platform?”

“Dragon Home.” Ahni nodded and palmed the milky oval of the reader set into the counter. It chimed completion of her purrchase as the woman scooped the sari and shirt into her arms.”We have a fitting room here.”

Ahni followed her into a curtained alcove lined with mirrors and hangers for garments. She stripped awkwardly, even with the woman’s deft hand to keep her from drifting, pulled the shirt on over her head, and let the woman wrap the sari around her. Hissing softly to herself, the shopkeeper tucked and arranged the drape of the fabric to her satisfaction, fastening it into place so that it wouldn’t float too freely. “You can open the fasteners when you reach Dragon Home,” she said as she pushed herself away to eye Ahni critically. “It looks even better on you than I expected.”

It looked lovely, Ahni thought absently. She stretched her senses, searching for a hunter’s cold purpose, felt only the white noise of a crowded travel plaza–weariness, expectation, nausea in microG, and annoyance. The woman continued to gush compliments, hands clasped, her smile as bright as the ruby fiberlight inlay on her forehead, shaped to resemble a caste mark. Ahni studied her reflection briefly. The sari would confuse her pursuers briefly. She bought a scarf on the way out, pinned it into her hair, sloppily so that it drifted across her face. Waved away the shopkeeper’s clucking attempt to fix it. Many Moslem women wore decorative head scarves and it added to the distraction. The shopkeeper graciously packed her discarded singlesuit into a shopping bag with the shop’s logo prominently glowing in fiberlight script, handed it to her with a bow.

Leaving the woman reciting blessings on her health and future, Ahni proceeded down the corridor, senses alert, feeling less conspicuous. She passed a string of offices, a flower seller’s shop, a small tea and coffee bar featuring Turkish pastries, and exited into the main travel plaza, her senses alert.

Passengers emerged from an arriving climber, while others waited to board for the trip down, or purchased tickets from the many kiosk screens scattered at all levels about the room. Ahni made her way to the nearest screen, her body language hesitant and awkward, a tourist, unfamiliar in microG. She touched in her ticket purchase, using an anonymous cash card. She received her Economy Class ticket and struggled across the crowded plaza along the guiding handrails, pausing to bend over a small, wide-eyed child and smile, a doting auntie to any onlooker, a tourist on her way home from a first time in Near Earth, bringing souvenirs for those at home.

Ahni let hurrying families haul themselves along the handrails past her, scolding their playful children, slowing her down, getting in her way, leaving this timid auntie confused and blinking as the shimmering holo clocks blinked closer to departure time, a look of helplessness and mild dismay on her face. She hesitated, pretending to rearrange a fold of her sari. Almost time… A couple of hurryying latecomers scurried through the gate and entered the car.

Now.

Lifting her head, she pulled herself forward, ignoring the uniiformed attendant who pushed off to stop her. He raised his voice, his irritation hidden behind a polite face, thinking her deaf, or stupid and she gave him the confused, obedient expression he expected, used his instant relaxation to duck around him, grab the bar, and fire herself through the entry port. The closing doors hissed, halted, opened for her, then closed again, right in the face of the pursuing attendant.

He could stop the climber, hold up the trip, but that would afffect the schedule and she had a valid ticket.

She waved it in front of the scanner. Sure enough, the departure chime sounded and the car shivered.

Ahni grabbed on to one of the ranked handrails forming a semicircle around a vid window that would offer a stunning view as the climber ascended or descended. Now it allowed her to see into the travelplaza. A young couple waved. Ahni scanned the crowd and spotted the dogs immediately. One was the man who had darted her in the axle. The other was unfamiliar, an unselect northern Chinese.

They stared at the departing car, their faces revealing no emootion. She frowned, wondering what allied Li Zhen and her brother. The picture blinked, and now the window showed the diamond brilliance of a million distant suns and the dwindling crown of lights that was the Elevator platform. She turned away from the window and made her way to her seat, pulling herself along by the handholds along the rows of recliners. A single attendant cruised up—a downsider, she guessed from his body mass—and offered help.

She found her seat, a relatively luxurious recliner, she supposed, but not a welcoming prospect for the long drop. Especially since significant gravity would be a long time coming. They wouldn’t achieve 50 percent Earthnormal until they down-climbed to the 2,600 km level. With a sigh, Ahni pulled herself into the seat and snugged herself to the cushions with the mesh netting provided. Coming up, she had traveled Business Class and her grief had disstracted her. Her smile twisted and she banished it, putting on the face of mild confusion that went with the sari and her act in the travel plaza. She was not about to underestimate her brother again.

She stowed her shopping bag in the bin below her. The seat sprang to life, elongating, cushioning her head, back, legs. It occcurred to her that it was probably made of the same stuff as Dane’s ship with its melting walls. Next to her, a lanky man with a unseelected celtic face hunched over a portable holodesk, his fingers flying among the cryptic icons. Orbital native, she guessed, assessing his lanky build and lack of muscle mass, a bit younger than her, maybe early twenties. A fiberlight inlay circled his wrist, emerald green, in an intricately woven pattern. He glanced her way, no hint of curiossity in his face, looked quickly away and back to his desk.

Ahni closed her eyes, at full awareness in spite of her relaxed posture, searching for any predator hint among the passengers.

What were Xai and Li Zhen up to? Leaving her senses alert so that she would notice any focused attention, she shifted into Pause. Methodically she sorted through her memories of her brother’s reecent activities… up to the moment of his apparent assassination. From this perspective, they reeked of stealth.

I do not really know my brother. The thought troubled her. A lot. It made her vulnerable.

SHE SPENT THE first twenty-four hours of the down-climb awake and aware, pulling herself around the Economy level of the climber, brushing up against passengers and crew, making eye contact whennever possible–the best, if most dangerous, way to startle a revelation from someone shielding their intentions. At the end of that time, exhausted, she decided that she was safe enough, unless one of the absent crew members tending to First Class or Business was in her brother’s pay.

She decided to assume not–that would be farsighted even for him–and finally dropped into Pause to induce sleep. She slept without waking for twelve solid hours. When she finally waked, she could discern a down, a slight sense of weight that slackened the mesh net holding her into the recliner. Gratefully she released it, yawning, wincing as her muscles protested the long slumber in the confines of the recliner. The minimal lights illuminating only the aisles between the recliners suggested that this was night, by local Earth time. Sure enough, the digital clock displaying Elevaator time told her it was three AM at its midocean base. She pulled her gaze away from the windows and stretched again, realized that the man sitting next to her was awake and surreptitiously glancing at her.

Adrenaline flushed into her blood and she came alert, feigning another relaxed yawn as she probed for any threat. Found only curiosity, a trace of hostility, and a hint of lust. That’s right. The platform natives didn’t look at people directly. She relaxed slowly, gave him a slight smile. “Insomnia?”

“Different time here.” He shrugged, the lust component of his attention sharpening. “I sure can’t imagine living down under all those clouds where you can’t see that view. No wonder downsiders are so shortsighted.”

”Not everyone is shortsighted,” she said mildly. “You can see the stars on Earth, you know.”

He waved that observation away. “The attendant was going to wake you up, tell you dinner was served.

I chased him off. You looked pretty beat when you conked out.”

“Thanks,” she said, checking a flash of irritation at his patronizzing manner. “I needed sleep more than dinner.” But now her stommach reminded her that except for the fruit Koi had handed her… how long ago?… she hadn’t eaten since her climb up here. Her stomach immediately contracted with hunger, so strongly that she stilled an urge to double over.

“I was just gonna flash our guy for food,” the orbital native said. “Can’t help it if they keep the wrong time on these things. Mostly downsider food, but they offer a few decent choices for snacks. You can call up the menu on your screen.”

She thanked him politely and touched the control that extended the small flatscreen mounted on her recliner arm. It unfurled and stiffened, and she selected refreshments from the screen menu. Thai and Japanese influences predominated. Lots of seafood. The food would be nuked for shelf-stable storage, not fresh. She passed on the sushi plate, selected tofu Pad Thai instead and a cup of seaweed salad.

Those items could take life as a shelf -stable package and still remain edible, she thought wryly.

When the food came, she noticed that her seat mate had chosen a grilled cheese sandwich-one of the few non-Asian offerings on the menu. He eyed the small golden longan fruit that accompanied it skeptically as he removed the cover.

“They’re good,” she said, and showed him how to peel one. “Dragon’s Eye,” she said. “Sort of like lychee, but better, I think. Which platform are you from?”

”NYUp. Good!” He sounded surprised, began to peel a second longan. “I wonder if they’ll have that where I’m going. Edinburgh,” he said, before she could ask. “My great-grandfather wants to see me before he dies and refuses to take the Elevator. But the old boy’s a hundred and forty two, so I figure I can climb down.” He laughed, made a face. “I’m his only male descendent. I guess the family runs to girls.

So he made a big fuss about meeting me once before he dies. Even sent the credit for the trip.” He shrugged. “Bad timing, it turns out, but who knows? The old boy thinks he won’t live much longer and I might never get down to Earth, otherwise. Might as well see what it’s like.”

That casual statement, his total dismissal of Earth, rather shocked her. No regret, no sense of moment..

. I might never get down to Earth… No big deal. “Aren’t you excited?” she asked, curious.

“About Earth?” He took a big bite of his thick sandwich, made a face as he chewed and finally swallowed. “Cheese tastes weird. I don’t think I’m all that excited.” He tilted his head. “Yeah, I’m excited to see someplace new. Like I said, I’ve never been down the Elevators before. Costs a lot.” He tried another bite of sandwich. “But not because I’m going back to Earth or anything, if that’s what you mean,” he said finally. “That’s something you downsiders don’t get. You always ask it.” He peeled another longan. “If we don’t miss the Earth, I mean. What’s to miss? Never been there, never really wanted much to go. You weigh a ton down there and you can’t see the stars.” He popped the sweet, white globe of fruit pulp into his mouth. “Wonder if we could grow this on NYUp?”

“Ask Dane,” Ahni said absently. It had never occurred to her that upsiders wouldn’t miss Earth.

”You know Dane?”

The change in his tone snapped her out of her reverie. “Yes,” she said cautiously.

“Cool.” His smile warmed a bit, and his edge of hostility vannished. “That’s really cool. How’d you meet him?”

Ahni ran potential answers through her mind. “I got to know him this trip,” she said. “His garden is quite a place.” She wasn’t reaching him. Thought about what Dane had said, about the fuuture, took a gamble.

“I’m pretty impressed with what he wants for the platform. I think he has the right idea.”

“Yeah, no kidding.” Her companion’s face relaxed, and his smile was genuine this time. “He really sees pretty clear. Clearer than the heavyweights, that’s for sure.” He jerked his chin toward the floor. “We’re just a cash cow to them. That’s all. All that stuff about it not being safe to drop rocks down to Near Earth? That’s stupid. We’re a whole lot more vulnerable to crap upstairs than Earth is, and we make darn sure none of it hits us. We’re sure not gonna let it hit Earth. Hi.” He offered her a hand, as if they’d just met. “Name’s Noah.” He made a face. “Mom’s joke. Don’t ask”

“Ahni.” She gave him her real name because that’s the name Dane knew. “Could the platforms really survive on their own, withhout stuff coming up from Earth? The media made a big fuss about how it wasn’t possible.” And the World Council had solidly voted an independence discussion right off the floor, two years ago. China had been one of the strongest backers of that vote, along with the Taiwan Families, of course.

“Well, we could, but it would be really tight for awhile.” He was frowning. “We need a ten percent minimum expansion in populaation. Then we’ll have enough people to make a self-sufficient economy work, balancing producers and consumers, even if the tourist trade stops for awhile. Dane has been increasing the productivity of the garden so that we can eat, but life will be pretty spare. Until we really get flying.” He made a face. “That’s what the people worry about who aren’t behind it… they like their little downside treats I guess. But we can survive.” His eyes sparkled. “And pretty soon, we won’t even miss the stuff that comes up the climbers. We’ll do just as good.”

“I’m already impressed,” Ahni said, thinking of Dane’s garden. This is Dane’s religion, she thought. The future he sees for his strange children. And wondered how many orbital natives shared this particular religion. The downside politicians didn’t realize that this fervor existed up here.

And her brother? Connected? She shook her head. Too many questions and no real answers. “So what do you do in NYUp?” she asked, alert for his response to this question.

He shrugged, his emotional spectrum relaxed. “I do system traffic… keeping the Con moving. Takes a lot of people to keep it flowing. The Con is the constant chatter on the net,” he answered her blank look.

“The Conversation. Want to know what’s going on? Jump in and surf the threads. Everybody talks about everything all the time. Fun job though… but you gotta like code. You think on your feet, do some quick patches when things heat up, keeping the flow evened out so you don’t get a jam. But we only work one sixhour on, two off, so I got time to slack out. And I crunch some data for Dane. Keep him in the picture.”

Ahni nodded, projecting comprehension, although he had lost her.

“I just can’t handle the taste of this cheese.” He dropped the unneaten sandwich half onto the tray with the longan peels and covered it. “Feed it to the plants. Or whatever they do with the recycle here.” He slid it into the disposal port on his recliner and it vanished with a slight sucking sound. “You get to the axle free-park while vou were here?”

“No.” She shook her head.

“The tourists all go.” His sneer flavored the air. “But they keep downside time, so you go when they’re not there. Next time you’re up, look for a pickup game of scrum. That’ll give you some exercise.” He chuckled. “And a few bruises. But hey, it’s a great way to loosen up, you know?”

“Scrum?”

“You got two teams… however many people you got divided in two… and you got a ball and a couple of goal buckets anchored wherever. You just go at it. You can run with the ball, play defense, be a shooter or do cannonball, see if you can take out the runner so that your runner can get the ball and score…” He went on to regale Ahni with the details of what sounded like microG mayhem. She suppressed her amusement, thinking that maybe good old primate agggression had to have its outlets, even in orbit. She hadn’t seen a single hostile confrontation between natives in the corridors, aside from Dane’s little intervention. Maybe you could rid yourself of a lot of it slamming into your buddies like a bunch of sentient pool balls. Apparently broken bones happened. No big deal, according to Noah.

For the rest of the long climb down, she managed to maintain her “insider” status in Noah’s eyes with a bit of adroit evasion and some lucky guesses. An attack of lactose intolerance brought on by his cheese sandwich made with milk cheese rather than soy cheese, actually kept Noah pretty busy and pretty miserable for the next twenty-four hours. But in spite of his physical distress and general frustration with all things Earth, he was a fount of information on NYUp politics, and the social climate of NYUp.

She filed the information for future use, enjoyed the slow and steady return of gravity, and spent her time thinking about just what Xai and Li Zhen were up to.

And what her father’s reaction would be to the news of his clone-son’s survival.

Slowly, the faint glitter of lights on the dark, distant ball of Earth gleamed brighter, until the view of the planet was breathtaking. Light dusted the continents and spangled the ocean where the big pontoon resorts and Elevator cities floated amidst their houseboat communiities and the tethered icebergs that provided water and recreation. As the planet grew larger, Ahni noted with amusement that Noah’s connfidence dwindled proportionately. By the time they began to descend through the atmosphere, he was spending most of his time lying back in his recliner, a pair of VR glasses on his face, immersed in the disstress of increasing weight and changes in pressurization.

Even after only a few days upside, Ahni noticed the pervasive discomfort as she neared sea level. Noah seemed to have been flatttened by a giant and invisible hand, uninterested in food or even the special electrolyte beverage that the attendant tried to persuade him to drink. As they approached docking, Ahni visited the galley and returned with a container of the orange-flavored electrolyte. “Drink this,” she said, touching the control on this recliner to bring it to full upright.

He jerked out of his doze with a snarl, jerking off his VR glasses, his glare moderating as he focused on her face. “I don’t want anything.” He fumbled with the glasses.

“Oh, knock it off.” She snatched them from him, shoved the container into his hand. “They know what they’re doing on the Elevator. If you get stubborn, you’re going to spend your first twentyyfour hours downside throwing up. Your choice.”

He glared at her, glared at the orange liquid in the container, then popped the lid and drank it down.

“Awful.” He dropped the container into the disposal slot. But his color improved noticably and he seemed to be less indisposed as the Elevator sank to its landding site on the huge ocean platform.

The First Class and Business passengers on the lower levels dissembarked first. In Economy, passengers collected personal items, breaking camp, as it were, after their long climb down. The pressure changed as the doors unsealed and then they slid open.

A wave of sea-scented air wafted into the cabin. Noah drew a shallow breath. “Smells,” he muttered under his breath.

Better than NYUp, Ahni thought. She and Noah fell into the flow of people. Everyone hurried now, a destination in mind, places to go. They exited into the Arrival Hall. Noah looked lost, staggerring a bit as if he was drunk, his legs refusing to do quite what he asked of them.

He looked as if he was going to throw up any second. Ahni slowed her pace, touched his elbow which made him start violently, pointed her chin at the single line for arriving orbital residents. Returning tourists queued up at several other desks that separated them according to travel class. Ahni stayed in line with him, since it didn’t much matter which line she chose, thinking he was going to need a steadying hand while he upchucked any moment now.

But he made it past the official, his expression grim. Ahni shook her head, then smiled for the uniformed young woman manning the scanner whose eyebrows rose just a hair. She was new, Ahni guessed, hadn’t run into many of the elite, yet. “You’ll need to get a retinal,” she prompted the woman, who gave her a quick smile, blushed, and swung the scan arm her way.

Ahni rested her face lightly against the mask, staring at the small green dot glowing in darkness, withdrew as the scanner chimed.

“Welcome back, Miss Huang,” the woman said with an overly bright smile. “I hope you enjoyed your visit to the Platform.”

“I did,” Ahni returned the smile. If someone finally noticed that she had managed to take a one way climb down from the platforms without going up, she would be long gone. With no luggage, she headed out across the huge hall, ignoring the carts offering fresh seafood, flowers, personal services, escorts, bodyguards, tours, and leisure services. On the alert, because instructions traveled much faster than a climber, she stretched muscle groups as she wove through the crowd, assessing her mobility. She was readjusting to full gravity quickly.

Good thing. She spotted them on the far side of a flower seller, nearly invisible behind the bank of greens and bright tropical blooms. Hired dogs. Unselect malay types, a man and woman dressed as economy tourists, their focus prodded her like a sharp finngernail.

Nobody had told them about her empathy rating. She altered her course just enough to angle her away from the flower stall, but not enough to alert them that they had been spotted. From the corner of her eye she watched them change direction, their casual stroll on a course to intersect her path where the arriving passengers swirled and backed up around the various travel kiosks. He carried a small holo camera, she carried an embroidered shoulder bag. Neeedle attack, Ahni guessed. Quick stab, quick acting poison.

By the time people realized it wasn’t just a heart attack, they’d be long gone. And she’d be dead.

Death was their intent. This was too public for anything else.

Outside, in the open air plaza in front of the Elevator, she could snag a cruising freelancer, a skimmer or an air car, ride it to one of the travel companies that wasn’t willing to pay the exorbitant usefees for operating directly from the Elevator compound itself. That should throw a bit of random into this little plan.

If she could make it outside in one piece.

They were closing fast, their movements languid in spite of their speed, drawing no attention with any sign of chase, but fast as sharks driving in for the kill. Ahni wove quickly through the throng, zig-zagging, heading always for the huge portals that opened onto the plaza. She could feel them now. They had split up, were closing from both sides, making use of her evasion tactics. Smart to send a palr.

The damp, salty air brushed her face, heavy as wet silk as she exxited, seabirds crying overhead, crowds and chaos. Skimmers hovered at the edges of the platform, fan-jets idling at a whisper, poised on wheeled skids to launch themselves into the swells that slapped up against the distant edge of the vast platform. Air car would be faster. She looked around, but all the cars were loading passengers, felt that “gotcha” of the final attack, spied an empty skimmer a few dozen yards away and ran.

Ahni almost missed the third one coming at her out of nowhere. Damn. Three of them! She hesitated for a second, assesssing distance, realizing that she had lost, if she dodged this one, the others would reach her.

A tall skinny figure burdened with a large out-of-style tote lurched from beyond a chattering group of Japanese tourists, slammed full tilt into the third attacker. Both went down and she reccognized Noah!

He was on top, apologizing loudly, even as his knee jerked up between the man’s legs.

Her attacker jerked, gasped, snarled a curse in Malay.

Ahni grabbed Noah’s arm, hauled him to his feet. “Run,” she snapped and yanked him, stumbling, along with her. The skimmer pilot had the door open, his round Straits-Born face bright with deelighted curiosity. Ahni tumbled in, hauling Noah in after her. He still clung to his damn tote. It hit her in the shoulder hard enough to bruise. The door hissed closed and the skimmer launched, fast enough to throw them both against the rear cushions, its right ski lifting as it veered around a slower craft. The lip of the platform appeared, hurtling toward them and the skimmer launched arcing out over the wrinkled blue skin of the water, down–“Brace!” Ahni yelled and grabbed Noah who still didn’t seem to have quite caught up to the moment.

The skimmer slammed down onto the sea’s surface with the immpact of a car dropped onto asphalt. The force of the landing nearly tore Ahni’s grip from the safety strap and her arm felt as if it had pulled half out of its socket as Noah’s weight lifted from the seat. A curtain of water fountained up on either side, and the skimmer rocked wildly for a second, slewing half around before the pilot straightened it out and hit the throttle.

The little craft lifted on its extending legs, gaining speed, hull totally clear of the water.

“Hey, Hollywood getaway!” The pilot chortled, throwing a deelighted glance back over the seat. “Fine for speeding, three thouusand Peoples Republic of China dollars.”

He wasn’t quite right about her nationality, but close enough. She told him off for that bit of thievery in very precise Beijing Mandarin, which impressed him, then told him exactly what the local fine for reckless launch actually was, which made him think she was an upper level bureaucrat, and impressed him even more. Then she told him that she would certainly pay the fine, even though he had committed a major violation of the personal safety laws by not requiring them to secure their safety harnesses before launch, and if she chose to pursue the matter the fine for that was three times the fine for reckless launch from the Elevator deck.

Crestfallen, he thanked her very stiffly in polite, if lower-class school boy Mandarin, then switched back to the Straits-born dialect to tell her with a sly look that if she wanted her arrival at a travel float to be unknown, his ID system just happened to have a bad connection and it shorted out from time to time.

Everybody knew about it. Nobody worried. Which meant he payed a hefty price to smuggle blind.

Before he could name a price, she told him that was worth five thousand PRC dollars, payable in cash when they disembarked safely and without further interference. That was more than he had dared to ask, and she watched him up her status from bureaucrat to someething much greater. He bowed to her, his respect smirched a bit by his panting hunger for her business. Asked which float they wished to use, did she wish anything, any comfort, did her passenger wish anything?

She wondered what Noah’s reaction would be if she explained to him that their taxi driver regarded him as sort of a large pet? Nor really human, but valuable because he belonged to her? Decided that it would not be a nice thing to do. And probably, she would occupy that particular set of shoes upside, if she was up there with Noah as guide. “Global Express,” she told her fawning pilot. They cost, but you could go anywhere on the planet from any base, and if you had… special needs… they did their best to accommodate you, local laws notwithstanding. Plus, they did business with the Huang Family regularly.

The pilot bowed again and turned back to his controls. Acceleration squashed them into their padded couch and Noah grunted.

“Relax,” she told him. “It’ll last only a few seconds at the rate he’s going. Then you can breathe again.”

”Want to explain to me-what just happened?”

“Someone wants me dead.”

“I got that part,” he growled. “How come?”

“Call it a dysfunctional family feud.” She didn’t try to mute the bitter edge to her voice. “And thank you very much for getting in the way.” She regarded him soberly. “That was risky.”

“I didn’t quite mean it to happen that way, but I saw that they were attacking and figured I’d mess that up anyway.” He blinked. “I guess I always wanted to do the hero thing.”

“Saw them?” She blinked. “I figured you’re an E-eight.”

“Empath? Me?” He laughed. “Hey, if I was, I’d be working Immigration and making a ton of money in a cushy station in the Arrival Halls. Nah.” He shook his head. “You could just see what they were up to, you know? How come nobody else did anything?”

Clearly the orbital natives were a whole lot more aware of body language than the average Earth resident. “They didn’t realize what was going on,” she said absently. Because they hadn’t been obvious about their intent at all. Except to an empath. Or to Noah. The orbitals might not look at you directly, but they might be a whole lot more aware than she had assumed.”You’re headed to Edinburgh, right?”

“Yeah, I guess so. Although I’d rather take the next climber back up,” he grumbled.

“Hopefully, the rest of your stay will be less… eventful.” She looked out the glassteel canopy as the skimmer slowed for its approach to the Global Express dock. The hull sank gracefully to the water, the bump of its immersion barely jarring them. Good piloting. She upped the amount of her tip.

The pilot whisked them in through the arched entry port to the domed travel plaza, brought them to a perfect stop at the carpeted dock and leaped out to offer a hand as the canopy opened. With the other hand, he offered the charge tablet.

Ahni smiled, upped the balance due with a tip that made his eyes gleam and eyeballed her signature to the charge. Noted his call number and filed it in short term memory. When she had time for Pause, she’d drop it into her data file. Never knew when you might need a fast, no-questions ride somewhere. He’d drop what he was doing and show up, after this.

The main desk, well staffed, faced the dock. Ahni greeted the small geneselected Han woman behind it in brisk business Mandarin, booked a First Class fare to Edinburgh with custom delivery to destination and an open reservation on any of the Elevators. She booked her own fare to the Huang Family compound. The facilitator realized immediately who she was, Ahni noted with approval. She would have a scanner field covering the customer space in front of the counter so she knew Ahni didn’t wear an ID chip, and would of course have memorized the faces of the Elite families the company regularly served.

She nodded, acknowledging the woman’s professional service, made a note of her name, to email with approval to the supervisor here. Ahni accepted the twin trip cards from her and handed Noah his.

“What’s this?” He eyed the card skeptically.

“Give it to anyone wearing a Global Express insignia.” Ahni smiled up at him. “They’ll take you to your grandfather’s door. And when you’re ready to leave, you can contact the service and someeone will come pick you up. You have an open reservation on any of the Elevators for your return trip.”

“Wow.” He looked at the card, then at her. “Who are you, anyway?”

“My family has money.” She shrugged. “They owe you as much as I do.”

He was shaking his head. “I don’t know — I mean this seems like too much. It’s a lot of credit-“

“It’s just money.” She touched his arm. “What you gave me was life. This isn’t enough, but it’s something I can do right now.”

“I still have a hard time getting my head around people just running up to someone and killing them.” He hunched his shoullders. “I’ll be damn glad to get back to civilization.”

She smiled and offered her hand.”Thank you, Noah,” she said. “If you need assistance while you’re down here, contact Ahni Huang.”

“I’ll remember.” He clasped her hand and smiled, his face relaxing briefly. “I just hope these people speak English,” he said.

“They do. They speak twenty-five languages.” She nodded to the waiting porter. “He’ll take you to your shuttle.”

“Thanks again.” Noah waved and almost grabbed for his tote as the Malay man hefted it, but the porter whisked it out of reach, grinned at Noah, and beckoned. Ahni waved and followed the uniformed woman to the small private skimmer-jet that would take her to the family compound. Her smile faded as she boarded. Time to face her parents.