Horizons

SIX

MEETING TIME WAS SCHEDULED FOR THE FOURTH sixhour, this day. They rotated the times so that everyone could make some of the meetings, no matter what shift they worked. Dane drifted near Elevator 3B, watching the swift rise of the car on his handheld security link. Already a half dozen NOW

members talked or watched the Con on their com links, keeping up with the flow of NYUp’s conversation with itself. Beside him, Kyros yawned, his odd eyes, one brown, one green, speculative.

“Politics.” He ran a freeze-scarred hand across his naked scalp. “Good reason to stay out in the Belt.

Got to say though, would be more fun to drop rocks down here than balloons full of ice. Ain’t gonna happen, though, Dane.”

“You might be surprised,” Dane said mildly. He scanned the two men and two women who kicked out of the ‘vator and drifted toward the thickly planted tubes that surrounded the column. “Ripe tomatoes a couple of tubes that way.” He raised his voice, pointed with a subtle jut of his chin that barely stirred him.

“Help yourselves. No strawberries right now. The harvesters went through yesterday.”

”You’re a good host, Dane.” One of the women, Kani, a small business owner with a square, blunt, russky face and the long skinny body of a native, flashed him a grin. “That’s why we keep electing you.”

“For you, I have a few strawberries.” He led her down an aisle, plucked a huge, ruby berry.

“Lovely.” Kani bit into it. “Sweet, Dane.”

“You know, Jaret’s complaining that your juice sellers are squeezing him. He’s a solo operation.”

“Hey, Dane, that’s commerce.” Kani shrugged, stilled her drift on a tube. “If I can sell cheaper… too bad.”

“You’re not selling cheaper in other neighborhoods.” Dane seelected another berry. “Just in his turf.”

Kani shrugged.

“If we’re gonna make this work, we have to keep our backs together, Kani. Your business is making a good profit. You don’t need the few credits you’re squeezing out of Jaret.”

“Look, Dane, it’s not your business.” But she looked worried. He examined the fat strawberry. “I heard Sheila might have some money troubles. She might have to call in that note of yours she holds. How much do you still owe her?”

Kani flushed, looked away. “I’m not pulling my sellers out of Jaret’s neighborhood.”

“Just keep the price fair.” He held out the berry.

Kani glared at it, snatched it from his hand. Bit into it. “This one’s sour.”

“Sometimes they are.” Dane followed her back to the elevator.

“Keeping the population in line?” Kyros eyed him.

“You might call it that.” The elevator sighed open on its final trip and Dane narrowed his eyes as Raj and Kurt, two fringers, kicked out, followed by a small, taut man with a narrow, mixedeuro face followed them.

The troublemaker. Good. He’d gotten the word he was invited, then.

Dane nodded to him, received a grudging tilt of the man’s head and a quick, challenging stare in return.

The man had kicked off a bit too hard and had to spill his forward with both hands on the nearby tube.

Shredded leaves drifted and frog-flies darted from the surrounding foliage, scooping the ragged bits of drifting leaves from the air.

“Shit.” The newcomer recoiled. “What kind of bugs are those?”

“They don’t bite.” Dane lifted one shoulder. “Nice to meet you stranger. Name’s Dane.”

“Sharn.”

Dane faced the loose scatter of NOW members. Some of them sucked on tomatoes, catching drips of juice with the ease of practice, others hung in the bright, humid air, waiting. “This is Kyros. Belt miner.

Ice.” Dane nodded in Kyros’s direction. “He’s been around a long time, knows folk out there. He’s been asking around, keeping his ear to the ground.” He hooked himself backward, giving Kyros space.

“Yeah, I talked around some, listened a lot.” Kyros scanned the scattered group of drifting natives with his mismatched eyes. “Ain’t no re-pre-sent-ta-tive ya’ know.” He drawled the word out. “You repr’sent yerself out there mostly. But yeah, sure, most of us’d be happy to sling rocks down to ya. Long as you catch ’em and pay us for throwin’ ’em.”

“You want pay, you ride ’em down.” Kani, the juice seller, lifted her chin at him. “Hand ’em to us.”

“Then you pay for our climb back out, sweetlips.” Kyros smiled at her, his grafted-in teeth gleaming neon blue in the harsh light.

Kani didn’t lower her chin. “Catching’s the hard part.”

“You got rock jocks. They stupid, or what?”

“Look, we’ll work out the numbers and who does what when the time comes.” Dane kicked forward just enough to end the confrontation. “What you’re saying is the miner’s will back us on this?”

“Some of ’em.” Kyros’s shrug didn’t move him a millimeter. “Most don’t care who pays. You, Darkside, or the mudball. Doesn’t matter to us.”

“We’ve got plenty of rock jocks out there sweeping for the spitballs,” Dane swept the crowd with his eyes. “We can increase the teams, get the rocks into stable orbits, then do the refining close to home here.” He grinned. “Darkside doesn’t field rock jocks with all that nice protective moonscape for a shield, so they can buy from us. That’ll pay for the extra teams. I finally got the last of the numbers from Maria and Florez,” he nodded his thanks.”We crossed the line a month ago. We got the numbers, we got enough supplies tucked away thanks to our network of hoarders to make it for two years if we live lean and work our butts off. By then, our economy should begin to balance. We’ve got refined metals, some local microG manufacturing that should be well competitive with the big corps that lease space here–after we impose our tariffs.” Dane grinned. “Add in the luxury and art trade and even before tourism gets going again, we can get by.” He let his eye travel from one to the other. “We can do it,” he said quietly. “It’s just a matter of when. We need to focus on that, now.”

“What about the other three platforms?” Sean, small and moonnfaced, downside born, twined his fingers together nervously. “Dragon Home dances to China’s tune. Heck, the Admin over there, or Chairman or whatever you call him, is the son of the Chairman of the People’s Republic. He’s not going to do anything he’s not told to. New Singapore is nothing but a prison and a bunch of tenant farmers.” He lifted both shoulders in disapproval.”They won’t join us.”

“You’re probably right about New Singapore,” Dane said thoughtfully. “We left them out of the equation.

Dragon Home is a guess.” He frowned. “We need three of the four platforms going in on this.” He paused. “But we’ve made some overtures to Li Zhen and he hasn’t said no.”

“Con in Dragon Home is all over the place.” Zero, a random amer-mix, bone thin and a druid of an info wizard, spoke up. “Euro Two is a sure starter, just waiting for us to do the leap. If they get impatient, they might start the show first. They know our numbers and their own are better than ours for supplies.”

He made a face. “The euros stuff extra into every crevice in their can. Squirrels.”

“We may have to carry New Singapore for awhile, if it comes along after all.” Dane shook his head.

”That’ll make things real tight, but we can do it.”

“I don’t think they’ll come along.” Zero looked down his long dark nose, on the verge of insulted. “I told you seventy-three prrcent probability they wouldn’t.”

“Three out of four orients to me,” Kani said. “I’m betting Dragon’s gonna be right on our heels. My cuz has been skimming their Con and compiling for me.” She tilted her head at Zero.”You’re not the only info wizard around.”

Zero lifted one shoulder a milimeter.

From the comer of his eye Dane caught Sharn, the agitator, shoot Raj a glance.

“So we’re all set up here, and we’re gonna do what?” Sharn pushed himself away from the tube he had anchored to, leaving bruised leaves in his wake. “I guess maybe you need to spell this out for me, cause I think I’m lost. We’re waiting for what?” He wore arched eyebrows, a face of innocent confusion.

“Permission? I mean… so who tells us that we’re allowed to say we’re on our own?”

”Nobody said anything about permission,” Zero snapped.”You got four platforms to coordinate. Well, three without the Malays.” Kani retreated a hair as Sharn pushed into her space.”Yeah, I mean, we can’t just say we’re on our own.” Raj threw this in. Out of character. Dane looked at Sharn, because this was a set-up and Raj had just tossed Sharn the ball.

“Why not?” Behind his mask of confusion, Sharn’s eyes gleamed. “I mean, we could hold our butts for what… years? Waiting for the ‘right time’? Who benefits from that?” He faced Dane directly, chin up, his stare direct. “Our Admin is busy skimming a little sweetness for himself up here. Any chance you’re getting a taste of that cream?”

Silence. A frog-fly made a tiny creak that seemed loud in the sudden stillness. Dane smiled, because yeah, this creep or somebody working for him, had tried real hard to plant just that, the way they’d planted the fish farm purchase that had scorched Laif. But Koi had spotted it and Noah had fixed it. “If I was doing that, I bet you’d have found it by now.” He made his lips smile, locked his glance with Sharn’s.

“You want to show us that link?”

“Doesn’t mean it’s not there.” But Sharn’s glance faltered just a hair.

“Get out of the way.” Kani made a rude noise. “Admin migh skim, not Dane. You want me to believe that, you better show me something that Zero here couldn’t do himself. Then I’ll believe it.”

“I’d have found it first.” Zero was looking hard at Sharn. “Wondered how come you got to that little game of Admin’s when I missed it.” He pushed forward, into Sharn’s space. “You scammed that? You’re not bad.”

“Get off.” Sharn flexed, pushing off the tube behind him, stiffened fingers aiming for Zero’s groin. But Dane had been waitting for that. He shot forward, caught the agitator just off his center, killed his forward as he spun him. Kyros, silent in the shadows, arrowed forward just right to deflect Sharn’s spin, sent the man spiraling, flailing gracelessly for control. Gently, precisely, Kyros drifted back to his place in the shadow of the leaves. Dane drifted less than thirty centimeters from where he had kicked off.

Kani snickered.

Zero raised an eyebrow, nodded at Dane.

Smiles, and quiet chuckles wave-fronted across the group. Sharn had finally halted his tumble, kicked back to the group, wearing a tight smile. “Nice schoolyard trick.” He nodded deeply to Dane. “I’ll watch my back.”

And with that act of humility, with tone, and his words, he… changed… the actions of the past moments. Suddenly, he was the victim and Dane the bully. Dane watched derisive smiles falter and grow thoughtful.

He was a pro, Dane thought sourly. He realized suddenly that Sharn had set him up for just this. “So what do you think we should do.” Dane retreated slightly because he had to now, gave him space. “What is your take on our next step?”

“You don’t ask the downsiders, that’s my take.” Sharn gave Dane a measured look that didn’t quite conceal the glint of his triumph. “We throw everyone of ’em off the platform, rough some of ’em up, tell ’em if they want to come back up here they ask pretty please. Let ’em shut down the climbers. Who cares? Didn’t you just say we don’t need stuff anymore? So how come you’re all standing around? If they want to manufacture up here, come screw in microG, they pay rent. And tariffs for shipping down.

We’re up here and we call the shots, it’s our turf, and tlley can damn well say please when they talk to us.”

“That’s what we’re doing.” Dane kept his eyes on Sharn, but noticed the furtive nods here and there among the other NOW members.

“So how come we’re standing around here?”

“The Con. You notice it?”

Sharn shrugged.

“It’s ugly. We start that–shut the platform down, and send the downsiders home–and people are going to get killed.”

“So?” Sharn held Dane’s stare. “A few bodies just make the point better.”

“It’ll be more than a few. Then what?” Dane pushed forward ten centimeters, another ten. Aware of the low murmur behind him. “What do you think the downsiders will do? Cave? Roll over? The four major powers never have trusted one another up here. They’ve got the military platforms to watch us and they’re loaded with weapons that could take us out. What are we gonna shoot back with? We do it our way and we get a World Council vote, not missiles and Council Security Forces.” He pushed closer.

Sharn would have to back up or react.

For a moment, their eyes locked and Dane relaxed his muscles, ready for the first twitch of movement.

Then, Sharn laughed. “Fine. Finish your scout meeting!” He had drifted too far from his anchor and had to work his arms graceelessly to get himself moving. Which detracted a bit from his exit, but he did his best to compensate for it. “I thought we were after the same thing. But I think I was wrong.” He made it to the ‘vator. “Don’t get too old waiting for tomorrov.” The door whispered open and he pulled himself inside, followed by Raj and Kurt. Kurt turned, his pale scalp white in the glare of light, and gave Dane a cold stare. Then the ’vator door cut off the view.

“I don’t know.” Kani was staring at Dane, challenge in the set of her shoulders. “Why not his way, Dane?

We got to push if we’re going to start the rock moving. Maybe he’s right. I’m so damned tired of downsider attitude.”

”They don’t.” Zero spoke up, legs tucked up into a modified lootus, his frown thoughtful. “They don’t think about us the way we think they think about us —”

“Speak English will you?” Kani snapped.

”You dip into the Con and the heavyweights are throwing it all around up here. Pushing kids around, spitting on us, farcing all over the plazas. But… you see any of that? Huh?”

Kani lifted a shoulder. “Wrong place, right time.”

”Wrong place, no time!” Zero rotated slowly upside down. “Kani, nobody sees this stuff happen because it doesn’t happen. I tracked a bunch of threads back and you know what? Somebody’s friend, somebody’s cousin got spit on, pushed, farted at.” Zero looked to Dane. “You get what I’m saying?”

“Yeah, I do.” Dane let his gaze travel from face to face. “I’ve been unraveling some of those threads, too, backtracking. Know something? Somebody is putting a hell of a lot of code power into hacking all kinds of Con. And it’s all about the downsiders. Acting like heavyweights!”

“Gossip.” Zero curled his lip. “Con is full of it.”

“Nah.” Dane shook his head. “Not with this kind of spike. It’s an attack.”

“I was right, huh?” Zero looked pleased. “Like somebody planted that stuff about Admin. They were good. I didn’t spot the mock up ‘till I went in after and started looking for the patches. I figured I couldn’t have missed it, cause I look for that kind of stuff all the time.”

“They were good.” Dane nodded. “Same operator tried to set me up, too. Make it look like Admin was paying me off.”

“Shit.” Kani, pushed forward, her earlier anger forgotten. “Who the hell is doing this? That creep?”

“Dunno.”

“Bet it was.” She lifted her chin. “He thought he could walk in here and take over.”

“We’re off topic.” Annie Devereaux, who contracted cleaning services in the upper levels, pushed forward. “When do we shift this rock? Dane, it’s ready to move! The can’ll be on fire in an hour once we start.”

“Didn’t you hear me?” Dane pushed forward, into the midst of them, scattering them backward. “We start pushing now and it’s gooing to get out of hand. We need China to back us up at the Council. We’re walking a fine line here. We get seen as terrorists and all the old ghosts from the last century are going to pop up. They’ll shoot holes in the can and figure they’ll clean out the bodies and rebuild later. We want to shift the rock, not smash the can with it. We want to shut things down, make it clear to the people downstairs that they can’t conduct business as usual up here if we don’t cooperate, but we’ve got to keep bloodshed out of the equation. If we start that…” He let his glance travel among them. “We’ll lose. If we let the media label us monsters, the planet’ll back whatever the North American Alliance tells them they need to do to us. Which means we need to be the good guys, no matter what it costs us. This is a media war. We got to look good on the Net. We’re going to get arrrested, and some of us are going to get hurt. We need to be the victims, the underdog. Then, we’ll win. We’ll force the World Council’s hand.

Because it’s not going to cost the average downsider anything personally to let us have our independence,” he said softly. “Most of them won’t care either way, and if we’re a good story, they’ll back us. But if we scare them… they won’t.” He looked at each of them in turn, reading reluctant agreement.”We need to calm things down. Then… we shift this rock.”

They left, two or three at a time, expressions thoughtful, body language not quite as positive as when they had come up here. They had been working toward this point for years now, some of them for a lot of years. Hard to wait, knowing it was almost time. Kani lingered after Zero left.

”Where did this guy Sharn come from?” she asked. “I never saw him around before.”

“I don’t know.” Dane frowned. “I’ve tried to find out.”

“Everybody heard me being pissed at you. I may have a change of heart about your policies.” Kani’s eyes glinted. “After all, you levered me.”

“Watch yourself.” Dane shook his head. “This guy is a pro. He’s going to expect that.”

“I’ll distract him. He was giving me the eye, earlier.” Kani winked, kicked lightly off the tube next to Dane and arrowed neatly into the elevator, the door whispering closed behind her. Dane watched it drop.

“He’s not a native.” Kyros drifted gently from his shadowy station. “No matter what he looks like. He’s not good enough in micro.But he’s sre good with people. You should have let him double that kid over.”

“I should have.” Dane let his breath out in a sigh that sent him drifting slowly. “He set me up, there, and I fell for it. Someone’s paying him. I can smell it.”

“You should have stayed out in the Belt.” Kyros laughed and kicked himself into motion. “You got yourself all tangled up in this politics thing. What do you care who runs this can? It’s still a can.”

“You know why.” Dane sighed.

“Yeah, those damn kids.”

”Who, us?” Koi zipped by them, followed by two of his cousins.

“By all the hells.” Kyros’s flinch sent him off his trajectory. “Yes, you. Watch your clearance.”

“I missed you by a mile.” Koi somersaulted off a tube to drift along with Kyros, matching his pace perfectly.”You’re better than Dane in here. Not much, but a little.”

“He goes skinside sometimes. I don’t. Any new kids in the family?”

”Nah.” Koi somersaulted, toed himself back into a parallel course with Dane and Kyros. “Laif is in the control center. Waiting for you.” He planted one long-toed foot on a tube and shot away like a missile, his two playmates flanking him.

“Uh oh, I’m out of here,” Kyros said. “Let me know when you’re ready to start your little revolution. Us miners’ll stay out of your way and sell to the winners.”

“Miner loyalty.”

“Call it survival.” Kyros kicked off. “I got plenty of ice for annother miner in the patch I’m working. Less stress, Dane.”

“Watch yourself out there, miner.” Dane angled off a tube newly planted to fennel and headed for the control center, flanked by Koi and his friends.

Koi peeled off, somersaulted off a tube planted with small perfect pineapples and killed his forward on another tube beside Dane. “Laif’s mad.” He blinked at Dane. “Just so you know.”

Damn. Koi was upset. “Thanks.” Dane smiled for one of the girls who had spun back to join Koi. She greeted him without words. They didn’t talk much. Had the ability, just… didn’t.

Sure enough, Laif was inside the control center, webbed into a hammock, fingers stabbing into the icons dancing above his holodesk.

“Bad timing.” Dane killed his forward on the autodoc and faced Laif.”You need to take this guy seriously. Sharn ‘s his name, by the way. He already tried to set me up like he did you.”

“I saw that. Good thing you were on top of it. Sharn Smith. Talk about a spit in the face, that name. A little challenge huh?” The Admin grinned sourly. His left eye squinted, swollen and dark.

“What happened to you?” Dane snagged a hammock, pulled himself into it.”You need the autodoc?”

”Nah.” Laif started to shake his head, grimaced. “I got in the way of a little… altercation on the skin level.” The tension in his face belied his light tone. “Dane, there just happened to be a freeelance eye wandering around. Downside media.”

“Just happened to be.”

”Yep. Look.” He stabbed fingers into the holofield, and a scene shimmered to life in front of them, soundless, a scene of a skinny native with an angry face and blood red scalp inlays slugging a young, well dressed tourist. Inset, a geneselect scandanavian media-head spoke wide-eyed, her expression suggesting outrage.

“Must be a slow hour downside,” Dane drawled, but the obviious slant dismayed him.”What’s her voiceover?”

“Increasing incidents of violence. Hostility.” Laif sighed. “He was out of control. I bounced him off a bulkhead. Turned out he had a couple of friends. Didn’t see ’em in time. They’re house guests of NYUp right now. Blood tests say they’d all been doing some of that mushroom juice those guys are growing in storage, one level down. I guess we’re going to have to shut them down.”

“That’s just a psilocybin mutation.” Dane frowned at the screen. “If anything, they should be too busy watching the pretty lights to bother anybody. It’s not the mushrooms, Laif. It’s the Con.”

“Well, it’s cranky.” Laif shrugged. “Damn bad timing if you ask me. How come that freelance just happened to be wandering the halls?”

“Good question. You ask him?”

“Her. She didn’t want to talk to me. In a hurry to sell her scoop.” Laif winced again. “Damn, my head hurts. You think those bozos set that up for her?”

Dane shook his head. Maybe, but he doubted it. Laif didn’t see the power the Con had, didn’t spend much time on it. He had his info people keep tabs on it for him. Your ordinary NYUp resident, working in manufacturing, or a little self -business, or cleaning rooms for the skinside hotels… they plugged in all day, scanning or listenning with audio, heads filled with the whispered conversations. “Back in the old days,” Dane said slowly. “Back in the Terror Years, you wanted to take out a city, you poisoned the water system.”

”You worried about the water system now? Who the hell is gonna poison it and how? It’s so monitored now, you couldn’t drop a molecule in there without shutting down the system.”

“Not the water.” Dane shook his head, hiding his worry. “The Con.”

The newsfeed holo now showed a rolling vista of green hills and a line of hikers. Some human interest/eco story. “Video off,” he said aloud and it vanished.

“So what did you hear tonight?” Laif closed his eyes, long legs raking up a lot of the room in the small space. “You were gonna tell ’em about the numbers.” You could hear a ghost of New York in Laif’s voice when he was tired.

”Yeah.” Dane scowled at nothing. “The numbers work, but now… I don’t know. This isn’t the time.

They don’t want to hear that.”

“I don’t want to hear that.” Laif glanced at him sideways. “We wait too long, Dane, they’re gonna yank me, put my so-well beehaved Admin Assistant in my place and his first move is going to be to stuff you out an airlock.”

“You’d do that.” Dane gave him a crooked smile. “Boone doesn’t have the balls.”

“Be glad.” Laif glared.”You’re running this show, and I’m glad you are, but are you sure that putting this on hold is the right way to go? We’re set to go here. We’re at the peak, opportunity-wise. It’s not going to get better.”

“I thought we were.” Dane levered himself lightly out of the hammock. “But… things have changed.”

Ever since Ahni Huang had bolted out of that elevator, right into Koi’s arms.

“What things?”

“The Con.”

“Don’t give me that.” Laif pulled himself out of the hammock, considerably less gracefully than Dane.

“The Con is a bunch of chat. That’s all. And those bozos tonight, they were doing mushhrooms and the pretty lights weren’t enough for ’em, and I’m going to shut down our boys with the fungi farm and make sure the downside media gets it as a bigtime story.” Laif pulled himself tooward the door. “Look, Dane. I sure don’t want to go up against you, but I don’t think we can put this off.”

“I’ll let you know.” Dane called up security and checked the elevators. Nobody had tried to come up here since the meeting started. He followed Laif out into the harsh light of the axle. Koi arrowed past, gave a thumbs up. All clear. “Take the backdoor down, okay?”

Laif waggled his fingers in acknowledgment, and pushed off, heavily, flanked by Koi, who made a point of zig-zagging across the Admin’s trajectory in perfect slices, doing precise somersaults off the tubes, stirring barely a leaf.

It was lost on Laif, but Dane smiled, caught Koi’s mental wink. He pushed off, himself, heading for his room, wanting to eat some dinner, curl up in his hammock and see if he would think his way to insight on this strange attack on the Con. It mattered.

A lot.

He needed to figure out what was going on here before they shifted this rock wrong.