Mighty Good Road

CHAPTER 1

The Memorial glowed in the somber light that mimicked Earth’s setting sun, or the reddened light of fires. It was a disturbing light, to anyone who’d spent any time on the orbital stations of the Loop, and deliberately so. At the center of the pool of light were the statues, twice life-size, a man and a woman crouching together, their bodies arched protectively over the huddled shape of a fallen child. The pale stone stood out in high relief against the blackened metal that sealed off what had once been the entrance to the Cross-Systems Railroad’s Platforms Four and Five. There were flowers at the woman’s feet, real flowers, already wilting a little from the heat of the lights: an extraordinary expense on any station, but especially here.

Gwynne Heikki shivered, seeing the frail bundle, and glanced for reassurance back over her shoulder toward the bustle of the still-working platforms. Signs flashed above the entrances, the mass of the most recent arrivals ebbing away through the multiple customs barriers. Few appeared to notice the statues, or the other signs of the disaster, the charred softiles, bare metal, melted wires hanging in tatters, that were still carefully preserved on the memorial wall. Nor did they pay much attention to the man who sat cross-legged on the floor tiles just outside the band of light that defined the memorial, protest banner dangling limply overhead. The green circle stood out sharply against the black background, three interlaced gold “R”s inscribed on its surface. They stood, Heikki knew only too well, for the Retroceders’ creed: Remember, Repent, and Return. Remember that the railroad has failed once, repent of your dependence on it, and return to the planets from whence you came.

Heikki shook her head, and turned away. Popular though that creed might be in the Precincts, for the planets not yet connected to the Loop by a spur of the railroad, it was hardly practical. Settled space depended utterly on the Loop as its economic and political center, and the Loop in turn was dependent on—more than that, was created by and existed only because of—the railroad, the network of permanently open warps that allowed virtually instantaneous travel between the Loop’s stations, the thirteen Exchange Points. But the railroad in its turn was dependent on the Papaefthmyiou-Devise Engine, and that, Heikki thought, was the weak point that the Retroceders could and did exploit. After all, a PDE had failed once, here on Exchange Point One, and the station was still recovering from the disaster a hundred and fifty years later. Despite the engineers’ assurances—and they swore it could never happen again, that it had been the strain of trying to open a fifth warp in an already crowded system that had caused the PDE to fail—not one could be entirely certain that they were right.

Heikki shook herself then and turned away, annoyed at having given Retroceder propaganda even that much consideration. She stepped onto the slidewalk that carried arriving passengers toward the center of Point One, swinging her carryall deftly out of the way as barriers rose to either side. The flexible carpet picked up speed, and signs flashed overhead, warning riders to use the handrail to either side. Heikki balanced easily, shutting out the hum of the machinery and the shop displays flickering past outside the barriers. She should deposit the draft from the ProCal job as soon as possible, now that she had access to Loop banks and the better exchange rates they could offer. Even if she had to search a little to find an open console, she’d still have plenty of time before her next train left for EP7.

The end-of-strip lights flashed overhead, breaking her reverie, and a moment later a dulcet mechanical voice repeated the warning. She stepped from the slidewalk as soon as the barriers went down, disdaining the slow-down strip or the grab bars. To her left rose the massive arch that joined the Station Axis to the Travellers’ Concourse, the gleaming, gold-washed metal engraved with the names of the people who’d died in the disaster: Exchange Point One wanted to be certain no one would ever forget her losses. Heikki made a face, and looked away, adjusting the strap of her heavy carryall.

Outside the arch, the Concourse was crowded, as always—Exchange Point One was still the unofficial capital of the Loop’s Southern Line—but Heikki wove her way through the crowd with practiced skill, heading for the massive staircase that led to the Concourse’s upper level. After several weeks in the Precincts, and in the open air, working sea salvage on Callithea, the noise and the faintly chemical smell of an over-worked ventilation system were almost pleasant: this was home, or close to it. Heikki allowed herself a faint, lopsided smile, and took the upward stairs two at a time, dodging a group of giggling tourists whose clothes marked them as inhabitants of the Danae cluster. The first four uni-bank consoles were occupied, lights on and doors blanked. The fifth was empty. Heikki started toward it, then checked, abruptly understanding why. A group of neo-barbarians crouched in an alcove less than three meters away from the cubicle’s door—probably between trains like any other travellers, Heikki knew, but neo-barbs had a deservedly bad reputation on and off the Loop. In the same moment, she saw a florid, soberly dressed man whose high-collared jacket bore half a dozen variations on his corporate logo, obviously hesitating to use the same cubicle. He saw her glance, and sneered slightly. That was enough to make the decision for her. This was EP1, the Travellers’ Concourse of EP1, not some planetary spaceport. If the neo-barbs were stupid enough to start something, the securitrons would be on them in an instant.

Even as she thought that, the group in the alcove stirred uneasily, scowling down the length of the Concourse and murmuring to themselves. One of the Point’s security teams, a half-armored human and his mechanical enforcer, was making its leisurely way along the walk. The neo-barbs pushed themselves to their feet, the single woman tugging nervously at her greasy skirt, the three men hastily collecting their heavy, shapeless bags, and started back toward the station axis. Heikki waited a moment longer, then stepped into the cubicle, ignoring the veiled annoyance of the florid man. As she latched the door, lights faded on inside, while the clear material of the door darkened to opacity behind her.

Like most people who did business both on the Loop and in the Precincts, she did her banking through Lloyds/West, with its well-earned reputation for being able to handle any local currency at an acceptable rate. She settled herself in front of the console and keyed Lloyds’ codes into the machine. The screen blanked, the internal mechanisms clicking to themselves, and she leaned back in the little chair to fish her data lens from the outer pocket of her belt. She fiddled with the thick bezel, adjusting the setting to match Lloyds’ privacy codes, then squinted through it as the prompt sequence appeared. She keyed in her personal codes and the serial numbers for the local draft that was the payment for her latest job. Viewed through the lens, the string of numbers was perfectly bright against the dark background; when she opened her other eye, she saw only a blank screen. The machine considered briefly, then signalled its willingness to accept the draft. Heikki fed the embossed datasquare into the port, and watched through the lens while numbers shifted on the screen. The exchange rate was better than she’d expected, almost two Callithean dollars to the pound-of-account. Nodding to herself, she touched the keys that would accept the transaction. The machine beeped twice, and recorded the transfer of 13,128.49 poa, less service fee, from the negotiable draft to the account of Heikki/Santerese, Salvage Proprietors. Even after twenty years in the business, Heikki still smiled a little, seeing the name.

She shook herself then, slipping the data lens back into the belt pocket, and touched more keys to close the terminal and retrieve her access card. The cubicle door swung open, plastic fading again to transparence. The florid man was still waiting for a cubicle, his face prim with disapproval. Heikki hid a grin, and started down the Upper Concourse, still heading away from the station axis. It would be almost five hours, by the exchange points’ standard time, before she could board the train that would take her to Exchange Point Seven, and there was no point, she added silently, in spending that time in the station’s common waiting rooms.

A few meters further along the concourse, a sign flashed invitingly above a General Infoservices multiboard. Heikki paused, glancing over the charges engraved on the plate beside the tiny numeric keyboard—as on most exchange points, the basic locator service was free, but further inquiries were assessed at an increasingly exorbitant rate—then fished her data lens out of her pocket. After a moment’s thought, she twisted the bezel to the Explorers’ Club’s standard setting, and held the five-centimeter-thick cylinder over the multiboard’s screen. Within the charmed circle of the lens, the chaos of colors and shapes vanished, to be replaced by the Club’s greeting and the location of its nearest members’ lounge. As she had hoped, it was on this level of the concourse, perhaps a quarter-hour’s walk from the multiboard. She slipped the lens back into her pocket and turned away, unconsciously lengthening her stride. The disapproving glance of a dark woman in a maroon corporate uniform reminded her that she was no longer on a Precinct world, and she shortened her step to something more appropriate for the exchange points.

The Club lounge was a small place, a sort of alcove off the main walkway that not even dim lighting and carefully sited distortion units could make spacious. There was, however, a bar and an autokitchen, and the two dozen tables were arranged around a four-seater newsvendor. It was not particularly crowded, only a few men and women tucked into the corner tables, barricaded behind their printed flimsysheets. Heikki slipped her membership card through the sensor gate, and seated herself at the empty newsvendor. There were some new options available—a general fiction listing, for one—but she ignored that, and punched in the personal codesequence that would give her a customized precis of the day’s news. The machine murmured to itself for what seemed an interminable time, then spat sheet after sheet of closely spaced print. At the same moment, the service charge appeared discreetly in the corner of the screen. Heikki winced, but tore off the last flimsy, and headed for a table by the wall. An order pad was set into the polished surface. She touched the keys that would bring her a ‘salatha gin—a sequence so familiar she hardly looked at the pad—and settled back to scan the flimsies.

Nothing much was happening on the political scene, either in the Loop or in the Precincts, and she lifted the sheets to allow the Club’s human waiter to set the tall glass in front of her. The Loop’s Southern Extension was accusing the Northern Extension of more than usually Byzantine dealings in the bidding for the new FTL depot; there had been Precincter riots on Bacchus; there was trouble between neo-barb incomer-workers and the eco-fundamentalist settlers on Hauser, in the Tenth Precinct—but that particular problem had been simmering for the past three years, standard. Neither side was likely to listen to reason at this late date.

Heikki sighed, and made a note to put Hauser on her personal watch list when she got back to EP7: it was not a place to be accepting work, just now.

The technical news and markets were more interesting, including an article culled from a scholarly journal describing the exhumation of an ancient Lunar waste-disposal site. Heikki had advised on several similar projects, though always in-atmosphere, and read through the article attentively, noting technique. The next article was culled from an unfamiliar source, the Terentine Argus of Precinct Six, with a screaming headline, Local Business Under Siege from Off-world Magnate; Insiders Baffled. Heikki stared for a moment at the glaring type, wondering what had possessed the compiler to slip this piece of trash into her file, and then saw the first line of the story. Local salvage proprietors Foursquare confirmed today that they are the object of a breach-of-contract suit by the Iadara-based crysticulture firm Lo-Moth, following Foursquare’s refusal to complete its search for the LTA craft lost on Iadara eight months ago.

Heikki’s eyebrows rose. Salvage proprietors did not break contract even with mid-rank firms like Lo-Moth; or rather, she amended grimly, one broke a contract in the full knowledge that one was also breaking one’s career and company. Something must have gone very wrong, to force Foursquare to give up like that…. She skimmed quickly through the article, but it said nothing more about the reasons for the breach, concentrating instead on the suit and the possible legal consequences for Foursquare. The dateline on the article was nearly two weeks old.

The final flimsysheet was less than half full, and contained only a single entry. Lo-Moth of Iadara announced today the settlement of its dispute with Foursquare, salvage proprietors, Terentia, in exchange for all data collected by Foursquare during the term of its employment. Lo-Moth is presently accepting bids (licensed proprietors only) for completion of the project abandoned by Foursquare.

“Holy shit,” Heikki said aloud, and winced as the red light flashed above the orderpad. A moment later, numbers streamed across the little screen: the Club’s monitor program assessed a fine of ten poa for immodest language. Heikki made a face, but pressed the acknowledgement button silently.

“Oh, dear, Heikki,” a too-familiar voice said, and a second, equally familiar voice added, “Slip of the tongue?”

Heikki looked up slowly, allowing herself a slight, lopsided smile. Piers Xiang and Odde Engels, known without much fondness as the Siamese twins, smiled down at her, the expression particularly at odds with Engels’ hard-edged blondness.

“What’s up?” she said in return, and did not offer them a chair.

To her surprise, however, the two men lingered, Xiang’s green eyes flickering sideways in what might have been a reproving glance. “I see you’ve seen the news,” he said, in the clipped Havenite accent he’d never been able to erase.

“Which news?” Heikki asked warily.

“About Lo-Moth.” Xiang paused, round face suddenly serious. “May we join you, Heikki?”

Exchange point etiquette required that she say yes— though ‘pointer etiquette also decreed that the question should never have been asked. Heikki hid her annoyance, and gestured to the chairs that stood opposite. “Make free.”

“We heard you spent time on Iadara,” Engels said. He did not reach for the orderpad, and Heikki did not offer it to him.

“Staa, Eng,” Xiang murmured. To Heikki, he said, “I assume you and the Marshallin will be bidding?”

“I only just heard about the opening,” Heikki said. “We haven’t spoken.”

“It is, from all accounts, an excellent opportunity,” Xiang said.

Heikki hid a sigh, recognizing both the ploy and her own imminent capitulation. “I haven’t seen much about the job,” she said aloud, “but Iadara, now. It’s an interesting planet.”

Xiang leaned forward a little, folding his hands neatly on the tabletop. In that position, he looked rather like a young and somewhat naive monk of some ascetic sect. Heikki, who had seen the act before, eyed him with concealed dislike. “Lo-Moth lost a lighter-than-air craft that was carrying some important research cargo, on a flight over the—I gather unsettled—interior. The locator beam went off the air, and the crash beacon did not fire. Lo-Moth is, not unreasonably, curious.”

Heikki leaned back in her chair, her dislike of the Twins fading in the face of an interesting problem. “Crashed in the interior? And a research cargo—so it probably went down in the ‘wayback. The weather’s very bad there, there’s a central massif that sets up a bad storm pattern during the planetary autumn. The storms have been known to—” She caught herself before the monitor could respond, substituted a more modest word. “—interfere with beam transmissions before now. But of course, that wouldn’t explain the beacon. I take it no one’s walked out?”

Engels shook his head silently. Xiang said, “I understand they don’t expect anyone to do so.”

“They wouldn’t,” Heikki said, and allowed herself a grin. “There’s an indigenous primate, nasty job, semi-bipedal and tool-using—probably well on its way to intelligence. They’re fairly territorial, the orcs, and they find humans a pleasant addition to their diet.”

“Don’t try to scare us, Heikki,” Engels said.

Heikki spread her hands, opening her eyes wide in innocence. “Oath-true, Eng. The Firsters—the first settlers—were just lucky they landed in the Lowlands. The orcs don’t come down there.”

Engels frowned, and Xiang touched his shoulder. The blond man settled back in his chair, lips closed tight over whatever it was he had been going to say.

“Still,” Heikki went on, the mockery fading from her voice, “orcs and bad weather—that shouldn’t be enough to make pros break contract. Who is FourSquare, anyway?”

Xiang shrugged. “I don’t know the company, myself. They were—still are, I suppose—licensed in all the proper ways, so….”

Heikki nodded thoughtfully, as much to herself as to the Twins. Something had gone very wrong on Iadara, that much was obvious—something political, possibly; companies had been paid to break contract before now; maybe something technical that wasn’t being reported for fear of scaring off other companies that might bid for the job. Almost without wishing it, she found herself adding up the costs of the job, framing an acceptable bid.

“Then you will be bidding?” Xiang asked softly.

Heikki allowed herself a rather wry smile. “I’ll have to talk it over with Santerese, of course. But it does sound like an interesting problem.”

Xiang returned a crooked smile. “And also a difficult one,” he said, without much hope. Heikki’s smile broadened, and Xiang sighed. “Which is, of course, what makes it interesting.”

“Precisely,” Heikki agreed, and wished they would go away.

Engels’ eyes narrowed as though he’d read the thought, and he leaned forward a little, as though he wanted to prolong the conversation out of sheer perversity. To Heikki’s relief, however, Xiang rose gracefully, shaking his head at Engels. “It was good to see you again, Heikki,” he said aloud. “I’m sorry to rush, but we have to catch a train.”

“Nice talking to you,” Heikki said, to their retreating backs, and knew Engels, at least, heard the patent insincerity in her voice.

When they were out of sight, Heikki fished her data lens out of her pocket, tilting it so that she could read the chronodisplay that flashed in the heart of the lens. She had a little more than three hours to kill before her train left for Exchange Point Seven: not enough time to do any useful research into this possible contract, and too much time to fill. She touched the pad again, ordering a second gin, and stared into space, hardly seeing the hurrying waiter.

Trouble on Iadara—no, she amended quickly, not necessarily trouble, you can’t jump to that conclusion yet, but a problem to be solved, and on Iadara…. She had not been on that world in more than twenty years, but to her surprise the memories were still startlingly clear. She could almost taste the dank air of Lowlands, heavy with salt and the peppery smell of the perpetually encroaching clingvines, could feel the kick of a sailboard crossing the dirty bay, see the sunlight flaming from the long low roofs of the crystal sheds on the sands just outside the city line. She had learned to drive heavy-load vehicles on those sands, and flown her first aircraft over the scrubby backlands; it had been Iadara she had left to work in salvage. It would be strange to go back there now, her parents dead, her brother gone who knows where, to work for the corporations the family once had scorned.

She shook the thought away, forcing her mind back to business. If they bid for the job, they—she—would have the advantage of knowing the planet: it would help, but not that much. They would still have to make a canny estimate, and impress whoever was doing the hiring at Lo-Moth, before they got the job. She touched the orderpad again, summoning the waiter, and when the man appeared, asked him for an intersystems messageboard. The waiter bowed and vanished, to return a moment later with board and stylus. Heikki thanked him—the Explorers’ Club did not permit gratuities—and punched in the familiar codes. After a moment’s thought, she began to write.

M. Santerese, sal/prop, UMC RQ5JBIP19.22051, greetings. Do me a favor and check the bid listings for Lo-Moth, no numbers known, out of Precinct 10IIadara, then meet me at the Club on the far concourse. I’m on the 1805 out of EP1. Thanks, love. G. Heikki, sal/prop, UMC RQ5JBIP19.22053. She read the message through a final time, wincing a little at the transmission charge displayed in the upper corner of the screen, but there was nothing she could cut without offending her partner. She sighed, and pressed the transmission codes, watching the message fade from the screen. There was no acknowledgement, and she had expected none. She sighed again, setting the board aside, and reached for her drink instead.

Salatha gin was an Iadaran drink: the taste brought back more memories, less pleasant ones. Iadara was a divided world, split like almost every Precinct world between the first settlers—who had to be generalists, jacks-of-all-trades, simply to survive the first years—and the second wave of specialists, come to exploit the particular resources discovered by the first wave. In Iadara’s case, the second wave had been crysticulturalists, corporate employees importing a corporate, ‘pointer, ethos completely foreign to the Firsters’ ways of thought. Heikki had come to Iadara just turned fourteen, newly admitted to the ranks of the almost-adult; her mother had worked as a consultant for Lo-Moth itself. Ten years a consultant, Heikki thought, an unconscious echo of her father’s constant complaint, ten years a consultant to one firm, and then offering contract work, begging her to take it, but she never gave in, never gave any of us that security. They had settled in Lowlands, the largest—the only—city, a hot, dirty place cooled only fitfully by the wind off the too-distant fields or by the seasonal storms. It filled every tenth-day with workers from the crystal fields—neo-barbs, many of them, another local grievance, that off-worlders could be hired so cheaply—a tide of people that ebbed and flowed with the rhythm of the growing stones, black sheep, too many of them, shipped off to sinecures where they could do no harm. They tended their putative business when they felt like it, or when they had to, and spent most of their lives in the clubs and private houses inside the charmed circle that was Lowlands’ inner range. The fourteen-year-old Heikki had taken a long look at them and theirs, and with the cold certainty of the adolescent had thrown in her lot with the Firsters. She had eaten their food and learned to drink their liquor, learned their lisping dialect, accepted corporate scorn and parental reproof, and never been one of them. These days, she had to admit the folly of the attempt, but she did not—entirely—regret it.

Cold thoughts make hot choices: the Iadaran proverb made her grimace, and push her drink away unfinished. She touched the orderpad a final time, calling up and verifying the list of charges, and stood slowly, the carryall a sudden weight on her shoulder. Maybe we shouldn’t bid on the job after all, she thought, but the outrageousness of that idea steadied her. If half of what Xiang had said was true, it would be an interesting problem, and interesting problems usually brought healthy fees.

She walked a little further down the concourse, barely seeing the brightly-dressed crowd, and turned after a few moments into the bow of an observation bubble. It was filled with tourists, perhaps half of them ‘pointers, the rest planetsiders, all exclaiming and hanging back from the front of the bubble, where floor and walls alike were made of clear armorglass. Heikki ignored them, and made her way silently through the crowd until she could rest her hands against the cool surface of the glass. The bubble did not look out into space—not even the architects of Exchange Point Four, the most structurally ambitious of the stations, would have dared so to compromise an exchange point’s integrity—but onto the immensity of the Main Concourse. Directly opposite, several hundred meters away, the concourse wall ran with color: the most imposing lightfall in the Loop, responding instantly to every sound made on the concourse below, the noises translated to light that blended in a display more gorgeous than the most active aurorae.

Heikki stared into the lightfall, letting her mind go blank. The solid wall cut off the sounds from below, but she had been on EP1 often enough to guess at some of it. The rippling background light, yellow and oranges spiked now and then with blossoms of acid green, was the sound of human voices, the ‘pointer linguaform spiced now and again with pitched languages and the drug-deepened voices of FTLships’ crews. Another, more brightly colored pattern, deeper greens and blues with a flush of lavender, moved in counterpoint across the lighter background: music, Heikki thought, and craned her neck until she found the musicians, a group of four seated just outside an expensive-looking restaurant.

The lightfall was a famous landmark, the one thing every visitor, even those who had only an hour or two between trains, had to say she’d seen. It was also, Heikki thought, one of the very few famous sights that lived up to its reputation. She edged back a little, letting others get between her and the open wall, watching the crowd as well as the spilling light. They were much the same as any group of travellers, the subtly-shaded, soberly-tailored clothing and brilliant facepaint of ‘pointer fashion mixing with the looser, lighter styles that prevailed planetside. There were even a pair of neo-barbs, their elaborate crystal-and-copper jewelry at odds with their coarse homespun trousers and fraying tunics. They were cleaner and younger than most of their kind, but the rest of the crowd gave them a wide berth. They edged forward together to stare wordlessly at the technological marvel, then left as silently as they had appeared.

Heikki followed them a few minutes later, retracing her steps along the crowded upper corridor, then down the secondary stairs that led to the slidewalk and the station arch. It was still a little more than an hour before the train could leave—it took several hours for power to build up again in the cells, and for the crystals to return to the resting state—and she hesitated for a moment at the end of the slidewalk, wondering if she really wanted to spend that time shut into the train’s tiny capsule. She shrugged to herself, and reached into her belt for the disk that was her ticket. There was nothing else to do, unless she wanted another drink, and there wasn’t time for that. Sighing, she resettled the carryall, and shouldered through the crowd to the accessway that led to platform three.

The ticket machine whirred gently to itself as she inserted the disk, and then the padded barrier swung back. The disk did not reappear. Heikki sighed again, and touched the button that would route the costs to her tax file, then stepped through the opening. A moment later, the barrier fell back into place with a dull thud.

The platform was crowded, men and women—predominatly ‘pointers—milling back and forth between the string of capsules and the dozens of vendors, mechanical and human, that were crammed into the arches against the stationside wall. Most were tape-and-game dispensers, but Heikki counted four different newsservice kiosks and at least three preprinted bookstores, as well as a brightly lit Instapress. All were busy: the actual act of travelling between Exchange Points might be virtually instantaneous, but the preparations for each translation could take several hours while the crystals relaxed, the capacitors regenerated, and cargo and passengers were moved on and off the train. A multi-Point trip, one between two stations not directly connected, could take six or seven hours; if one were travelling from the Loop—from any of the Exchange Points—into its parent planetary system, the trip could take days. Even with the new generation of FSL taxis, “fast sub light” remained something of an oxymoron. It was no wonder that the multi-system businesses tended to concentrate management and sales functions in the Loop, and leave only production facilities planetside. That shift of power was the real reason for the Retroceders’ popularity, Heikki thought, and it’s not that unreasonable. Of course they, the planetsiders, want back the power they lost— but you can’t reverse four generations of change.

Lights flashed overhead, and a chime sounded, signalling that the capsules were open for boarding. There was a general rush for the train. Heikki lifted her eyebrows as an acrimonious voice rose over the general noise of voices—it belonged to a thin woman in a planetsider’s loose robe and the Retroceders’ tripleR pin, haranguing strangers in an unfamiliar linguaform—and chose a capsule as far from the stranger as possible. The door swung open under her touch, and she slung the carryall into the empty compartment. The capsule rocked a little as she climbed aboard, settling under her weight, then steadied as she shut the door behind her. With any luck, she thought, lowering herself into the forward-facing seat, she wouldn’t have to share the capsule.

Automatically, she tucked the carryall into the space beside the seat, suddenly aware of the way the capsule swayed in the light lifting field. The high-bowed boats that crisscrossed Lowlands’ silty harbor moved just like that at anchor…. She pushed the thought away, and reached back into the carryall for a workboard. Scowling to herself, she began to scribble down the information Xiang and Engels had given her, making notes for Santerese. After a moment, she leaned back, studying the faintly glowing screen. The locator beam failed, she thought, and then the crash beacon. The odds against that being accidental—she cut off that thought with a frown. No, it was still possible that it was merely an accident—planetsiders, especially in the Precincts, were notorious for running without working safeties, just to save a few poa—but still, a double failure like that sounded unpleasantly like deliberate sabotage. She and Santerese had dealt with a couple of jobs that turned out to be sabotage, and neither had been easy.

The sound of a chime put an end to those thoughts. Automatically, she returned the board to its place in the padded carryall, then drew the safety webbing across her body. She settled herself more comfortably against the cushions, feeling a familiar tension tightening her muscles, and willed herself to relax. Santerese claimed blithely that she was never worried before a train ride; Heikki, who had seen her partner go pale each time the trains lurched into motion, was only half grateful for the lie. Sten Djuro, the firm’s third member, claimed that the first trip through the open warp left its print in every fiber of the body, and that the tension one felt wasn’t fear, but a sort of physical memory of passage through the unreality of the warp. Well, he should know, Heikki thought—Djuro had been an engineer-crewman on FTLships before he left that for the asteroids and then for salvage, and knew more about the theories of the Papaefthmyiou-Devise Engine than either of the others—but the explanation wasn’t particularly helpful.

Overhead, red lights flashed on the ceiling board, and the chime sounded again, deeper and more insistent this time: last call, and clear the platform. The roving vendors would be retreating to the shelter of the arches as the vacuum shields slid into place—not much use in the case of catastrophic failure, and everyone knew it, but regulations still required them. Outside the capsule’s bubble window, the light turned blood red as the platform was sealed. The PDE was running up to power, the full power necessary to move the train’s mass through the permanently open warp. Heikki could feel the capsule wobble as the field’s grip weakened. Ahead of the train, the barriers that sealed off the warp would be folding back, a gap too empty to be real replacing the comfortable grey of the massive doors; beyond that, the crystals that created and held the warp would be crackling, sparks snapping between them and out into the unreality of the warp. And at the heart of it all, the twinned central crystals, one on EP1 and one on EP5, would be glowing blue-white with the power they had absorbed from the cells, ready to unleash it, to fling the train capsule by capsule across the gap between stars.

Then the train lurched into motion, each capsule jerking forward separately. In the same instant, the shutters came down over the capsule’s windows. Heikki swore softly, half in exhilaration, and flattened herself against the yielding cushions. The capsule bucked once, crossing the “threshold,” and then she hung for an interminable moment outside all reality. Then the capsule was through, reality returning to body and mind, and the shutter lifted to show the familiar platform of Exchange Point Five’s Station Axis.

Overhead, the lights faded from red to normal-white as the capsule slowed in the clutching gravity field. Heikki touched the tractor, and waited while the safety netting reeled itself back into the housing. She stretched then, and leaned forward to look out the now-unshuttered window. She could just see the notice board and its flashing message: This train is proceeding to EP7. Transfer to platform 2 will begin in 15 minutes. She sighed, and reached for her workboard again, calling up the newsservice article on the lunar waste dump. She read it through twice more, paying solemn attention to each word, before the train was finally shunted onto the station’s second track, positioned in front of the warp that led to EP7.

There were no vendors on the platform outside her window. Heikki frowned, and then remembered that Exchange Point 5 restricted them to the outer station. Instead, a double row of dark red rubiglass pillars stretched along the platform’s face, casting weird shadows across the last hurrying travellers. It was a severe and somber architecture—typical of EP5, Heikki thought. For some reason, it and EP6, the other major FTLport, where most goods were brought into the Loop from the Precinct worlds that fed them, seemed to favor an aggressively functionalist design.

The warning sounded, and a few moments later the platform lighting went from white to red. The pillars glowed eerily in the changed color, and then the shutters closed and the train lurched into motion. Translation came almost at once, jolting away breath and thought, and then the capsule was through the warp, and sliding up to the platform on EP7. Heikki reached sideways a little stiffly and pressed the release. The safeties retracted into their housings, while in the same moment the door folded back, letting in the bright lights and the noise of home. She seized her carryall and levered herself out onto the platform, balancing herself almost absentmindedly against the rocking of the capsule, enjoying the familiar chaos of a newly-arrived train.

As a resident, she was entitled passage through the priority gate. The duty officer barely gave her a glance as he scanned carryall and papers, then waved her through the dissolving barrier field. “Thanks,” Heikki said, to his unresponsive face, and headed down the length of tunnel that connected the Axis to the main body of the Exchange Point. There would be jitneys available on the concourse.

There was a queue at the jitney stand, of course, and it was obvious that the ten jitneys pulling to a stop in a neat line would not be enough for half of the waiting crowd. Heikki swore to herself, and pulled the lens from her pocket. The chronodisplay read 1829: she could take a float, or be late. She swore again, silently this time, and joined the queue at the float platform. It was shorter—the floats were expensive, and only carried passengers across the open inner volume of Pod One—but even so she was still ten people away from the head of the line when the attendant shook her head.

“Sorry, full up. The next float will be along in five standard minutes.”

Heikki grimaced, and bit her tongue to keep from saying something immodest. To her surprise, however, it was only a few minutes before the next float swam gently up out of the lower levels, and into the platform’s grabbing arms.

“Let the people off, please,” the attendant chanted, barring the entrance with her body. Heikki schooled herself to wait, one hand already on the cash card in her belt. Finally, the last of the passengers had left the float. The queue moved forward. The attendant took Heikki’s card, snapped it through the reader, and returned it to its owner in a single smooth gesture.

“Move to the front, please, dam-i-sers, move to the front.”

Heikki did as she was told, edging along the row of seats until she could go no further. She was in a good position, near the middle of the car, between two window braces and just opposite the floor window’s widest point, and she felt some of her impatience ease. It had been a long time since last she’d ridden the floats through Pod One.

The float lay steady in the platform’s arms as the last passengers filed aboard, and the attendant closed the heavy door. The seals sighed into place, and then the arms snapped back. The float lifted slowly, light as a bubble, falling upward into the open volume of the pod. There was an awed murmur from the ring of passengers, people shifting in their seats to try to see in all directions at once. Heikki smiled, suddenly overwhelmed by a strange, fierce happiness. If EP1 was all metallic grandeur, an architecture of massive columns and gleaming arches, and EP5 a severe marriage of form and function, EP7 was air and fire. The open center volume of Pod One—unique in the Loop—was broken here and there by the glittering, multicolor webs of filament and slag crystal, spun by an artist who called herself Spider. Beyond those sculptures, more lights, blue-white, pink, fire-red, acid-green, and eye-searing purple, glowed through the crystal walls that enclosed the Pod’s working levels. Above and below, at the spherical pod’s twin poles, the crystals of the light traps glared and sparked, running together into a single mass of color. The float rose faster now, the multicolored bands of metal that marked the different levels blurring into each other. There was another murmur, first time riders glancing nervously around them, and then the float swung neatly over into the down-drawing beam. Glancing back, Heikki could see the distant mouth of the projector, thought she saw the crystal glowing red-black in its depths.

The float fell gently toward the farside platform, slowing as it came closer to the attractor. The platform’s arms swung up and out, and the float glided between them, landing against the platform with a dull thud. The seals released with a hiss, and the passengers began to get to their feet, reaching for bags and carrycases as the hatch swung open. Heikki followed them out onto the farside concourse, blinking a little in the strong light of the pole crystals.

There were plenty of jitneys available on this side of the pod. Heikki lifted a hand to summon the nearest, and swung herself into the passenger compartment as soon as the door popped up. “Explorers’ Club,” she told the voicebox mounted on the forward wall, and ran her cash card through the sensor. The jitney’s computer beeped twice, and the door closed.

The jitney deposited her at the entrance to the Club in record time. The cast-glass panels, patterned with a stylized representation of Loop and Precincts and the uncharted stars beyond, opened at her touch, the Censor verifying her membership. Inside, she deposited her carryall on the conveyor that led to the checkroom, and headed for the main room. The corridor lights grew dimmer as she made her way past the print and film libraries, then brightened again, blued now by the reflected light of the pole crystals, as she turned the final corner.

Light blazed beyond the tinted glass wall, a pair of floats rising and falling through the central volume. The same light, softened only a little by its passage through the greenish glass, spilled across the dozens of tables, across faces and sober, rich suits. Heikki blinked, half blinded, and a voice at her elbow said, “Dam’ Heikki?”

Heikki glanced down at the grey-haired man in Club livery, nodded automatically. In the same moment, a familiar voice called, “Heikki!”

Grinning foolishly, Heikki said, “I see my party, thanks, maitre.” Still grinning, she made her way through the maze of tables toward the voice.

Marshallin Santerese rose from her seat, her smile belying the formal gesture. “Welcome home, Heikki.”

There was someone else at the table with her, but Heikki ignored that for the moment, reaching instead to take the smaller woman in her arms. They embraced, holding each other longer and more closely than was considered modest—but that was the

Precincts’ prejudice, not the Loop, Heikki thought, and rested her cheek against Santerese’s braids.

“Lord, doll, it’s good to see you.” That was Santerese’s private voice, too soft to carry beyond Heikki’s shoulder. More loudly, she said, “I got the information you wanted, the bid specs and all, and I brought Malachy down to draft us a contract.”

Reluctantly, Heikki released her, and nodded to the man still standing politely by the table, a rather amused half-smile curving his lips. The lawyer was wearing a severely cut evening suit, the short jacket molded to his still-slender form. The trousers, despite the dictates of this year’s fashion, were not full enough to disguise slim hips and elegant legs. The cord of a data lens stretched across his flat middle, and a plain gold fob marked the presence of a palmcorder in the jacket’s left-hand pocket: certainly he’d come for business.

“You’re looking good, Malachy,” Heikki said aloud, and lowered herself into the remaining chair. “So, what did you find out, Marshallin?”

Santerese looked up from the orderpad, then fumbled in a pocket of her own day suit. “Here are the specs,” she answered. “I don’t know if it tells you anything new.”

“Excuse me, Malachy?” Without waiting for his answer, Heikki reached for the viewboard that lay discarded on the table, and fitted the datasquare into the port. A moment later, the screen lit, but no letters appeared on the glowing surface.

“It’s protected,” Santerese said, unnecessarily.

Heikki nodded, already adjusting her data lens to their private setting. Within its circle, text sprang into existence. She scanned the formal paragraphs quickly, but it contained little more than what the Twins had already told her. The LTA had gone down in bad weather, all right, just as she’d suspected—it had been one of the worst storms of the winter season, in fact, bringing down several other craft. It had been flying from the main research station at Retego Bay to Lowlands, on a course that took it near the edges of the central massif. She stared down at the board, not really looking at the glowing letters in the circle of the lens, seeing instead a wall of clouds lurching up over the wall of greenery that marked the slope of the massif, moving faster than she had ever thought clouds could move outside of a viewtape. The Firsters with her had sworn, and scrambled, one turning the scanning radar groundward, looking for a clearing, the pilot swinging south, to lay the latac parallel to the prevailing winds, the engineer hurrying to bleed gases from the envelope, ready to collapse it as soon as they could land. They had found a place at the last possible minute, and the adolescents of the crew had scrambled outside, stakes and mallets in hand. They’d tied the latac down with double chains, the rising stormwind whipping dirt and bits of leaves about their bare legs, the envelope hissing as it folded down on top of the basket. They’d made it back inside just as the first rain fell, and huddled shivering together while the rising winds lashed the grounded ship, making it shudder and tremble against its moorings. At the height of the storm, thunder sounding almost instantaneously with the lightning, the latac had lifted a little from the ground, and she’d heard the pilot whispering, hold, damn you, hold…. over and over again. When the storm ended, and the engineer began to refill the envelope, they’d gone back outside to find that three of the starforged chains had snapped.

She looked up, shaking aside the memory, and Santerese said, “Where’d you hear about this one, anyway?”

“The Twins,” Heikki answered, and nodded when Santerese laughed.

“Are we bidding out of spite, doll, or is it a decent job?”

Heikki glanced sideways, and saw Malachy’s imperfectly concealed frown. She suppressed her own laughter—the lawyer was ‘pointer enough to be appalled by the thought of filing a bid for any but the most businesslike of reasons—and said, more seriously, “No, I know Iadara. The only thing I’m worried about is the chance of sabotage.”

“Does sound bad, doesn’t it?” Santerese leaned back with an abstracted smile as a waiter appeared with a platter of tapas. “I think we should build a risk factor into the contract.”

Heikki nodded, reaching for one of the little pastries.

Malachy said, a touch of disapproval in his voice, “That sort of clause is always tricky, to write and to enforce.”

“That’s what we pay you for, darling,” Santerese said.

Heikki suppressed a chuckle, said indistinctly, “I think it’s warranted.” She swallowed, and added, “And I’m sure you can draft something that will stand up in court—if it has to.”

“God forbid,” Santerese murmured, and grimaced as the table’s monitor flashed. The fine for invoking a recognizable deity was only five poa; she acknowledged it with a sigh, pressing the button beside the orderpad, and went on, “There’s only one problem with the job, though, doll. I’m promised to Pleasaunce at the end of the week.”

“Pleasaunce?” Heikki frowned.

“PAMCo, Pleasaunce Automatic Mining Company— the seamine that went aground,” Santerese said,

“I didn’t know that had come through.”

“Oh, yes.” Santerese smiled. “The owners did some looking at what it was going to cost them, doing it themselves. Even with the shipping, I can get it off for less, and save the cargo. Pleasaunce is pretty low-tech,”

“When do you leave?” Heikki asked.

“The end of the week.” Santerese shrugged. “It should take a week to a ten-day, so I could join you on Iadara, if necessary.”

Malachy cleared his throat reprovingly. “This contract,” he began, and Santerese broke in hastily.

“It’s just the standard form, darling, with the hazard clause added. Nothing more.”

“Surely that’s quite enough,” Malachy answered. He pushed himself to his feet, and the women rose with him. “I’ll have the form sent to you in the morning.”

“Thank you,” Heikki said, but the lawyer was already on his way. She reseated herself, shrugging, and reached for another pastry.

“I’ve set up an appointment for you tomorrow,” Santerese said. “Charged them for a full consultation, too.”

“They paid that?” Heikki stopped in mid-gesture, her hand frozen above the platter. She made herself continue the movement, took and ate another of the cooling pastries.

Santerese nodded, her smile no longer amused. “That’s right, doll. And they didn’t even ask about haggling.”

“No one pays full price,” Heikki said. “Not when they’re putting it out to bid.”

“Lo-Moth is.”

There was a moment of silence. Heikki stared at the half-emptied plate, wondering if she’d made a mistake after all. We don’t have to put in a bid, she thought, but 1 as good as told the Twins we were going to. I don’t want to back down to them—though we could make it an unreasonable offer, 1 suppose, something Lo-Moth couldn’t accept.

“Jock Nkosi’s back on station,” Santerese said suddenly, and Heikki looked up.

“Is he, now? He’d be a help. And I’ll want Sten, Marshallin.”

Santerese lifted an eyebrow. “I could use his help too, you know.”

“Not on Pleasaunce,” Heikki answered, and Santerese laughed.

“All right.”

Heikki smiled back, but the expression faded quickly. “I’ll want local help, too, a pilot and a local guide, and hire for a heavy-duty aircraft—not an LTA. Did the sheet give any idea of a budget?”

“No.” Santerese shook her head, black braids swinging. “Doll, the man I spoke with—Mikelis, his name was—didn’t seem to care.”

Heikki swallowed a curse. It sounds like trouble, she thought, but then, trouble’s usually profitable—and besides, I told the Twins we were bidding. “When’s the appointment?” she said aloud.

“Fourteenth hour,” Santerese answered.

“Well.” Heikki pushed aside her glass. “I might as well hear what the man has to say.”

“It couldn’t hurt,” Santerese agreed. She was smiling, and, after a moment, Heikki returned the smile.

“I’m beat, Marshallin. Shall we go home?”