The desk clerk smiled. His eyes stayed a hundred miles away. “Welcome, Mr. Steward. I have put you in room number seven. There is a message on your phone from Miss Reese.”
“Thanks.”
“The dining room will be open from seventeen-thirty to twenty-thirty.” The clerk gave him orbital time, presumably because he thought that Steward, being a friend of Reese’s, had just shuttled down.
Steward took his key spike, and as he moved to pick up his traveling bag, he saw something under the clear desk top. He hesitated, then frowned. “Is that stuff what it says it is?”
“Bolivian cocaine, sir. Eight dollars per gram Lesser Antilles, or two dollars Starbright.”
“It’s real? Not synthetic? Not a substitute?”
“Direct from the mountains, sir. Two grams?”
Steward stared at the packets in their small green envelopes, sitting under glass beside compressed-air inhalers and chewing gum. “I didn’t think anyone made it anymore. Isn’t it supposed to be addictive or something?”
“I wouldn’t know, sir. Personally I do not cloud my perceptions with chemicals.”
Steward looked up at the clerk’s distant eyes. “Good idea,” he said. He took his bag from the counter.
“God is love, sir,” the desk clerk affirmed.
Steward concluded, on his way to his room, that he had Curaçao figured out.
*
The room was smaller than Steward had anticipated, the walls whitewashed to make it seem larger. There was a water bed, a bureau of battered Jovian plastic, woven straw mats on the floor. A gecko splayed motionless on one wall. A crystal video was set into the ceiling in a position to be watched from the bed, with a camera pickup in case it was yourself you wanted to watch. The phone winked at him in slow red calypso tempo. He picked it up.
Reese’s voice, a deep American Midwest alto. “Hi. This is Reese. I’m going to be diving all day, but if you’re open for dinner, I’ll meet you in the dining room at six.”
Steward looked at his watch. Three hours. He looked up at the gecko on the wall, scented the breeze that gusted through the window. He remembered Port Royal, the touch of warm water, singers crying their hymns to the trades, the ziggurat across the bay sitting black above the glowing city…. He’d been doing seize and hold training then, spending weeks marching along endless alloy corridors, hot city streets, learning what was important in an urban combat zone.
Seize and hold, he thought. He thought he’d had the drill down, but somehow the things that had mattered had all slipped years away, and now he was a million miles from where he wanted to be, standing in a whitewashed room watching a gecko and hoping it might eventually move and provide some entertainment. All he was doing was picking up another man’s wreckage, hoping there might be enough of it to put together and call a life.
Reese was a means to an end, he thought, as others had been: Ashraf, Ardala, Griffith. Rungs on a ladder that would take him up out of the gravity well, beyond the reach of the Caribbean trades to where other winds were blowing, where there were people that mattered. Natalie, de Prey. And Curzon, as yet only a name. People in whom he could see a reflection of himself, and of the Alpha.
The gecko was still motionless. Steward dropped his bag on the bed and turned to the window, gazing out at the divi-divi trees, the ocean beyond. The beach looked as if it were all sand, rocks, and lizards. He decided to visit it anyway.
*
Steward had seen a video Ardala had about presenting yourself for a job interview. The vid advised what to wear, how to act, how to sit, how to smile, and featured two men in conservative dark jackets without lapels—one younger, one older. The older one wore puttees, a fashion that had come and gone during the postwar adjustment. Steward remembered that the item that clinched the younger man’s job was that he shared an interest with the interviewer in indoor tennis. The recording called this achieving rapport with the subject. To the best of Steward’s recollection the recording didn’t seem to offer any useful advice concerning how to meet the drive rigger of an in-system freighter on the terrace of a hotel/bar on a Caribbean island so as to offer a bribe for a job appointment.
Just as well, Steward thought. Bribery was a skill best learned on the job.
When Reese arrived, Steward was dressed in tropical white, sitting on the dining-room terrace with his third piña colada. Reese seemed to be in her mid-thirties, about an inch taller than Steward, wiry and small-breasted, with a long-legged stride that was all confidence. Her hair was short, a dark bronze that the sun was turning to copper. She wore white cotton drawstring trousers, sandals, and a sleeveless bright tropical shirt. Steward could see dark floss beneath her arms, silver ear cuffs dropping bangles that gleamed against her neck, fading imprints on her cheeks where the mask and gill unit had pressed into her flesh. She was carrying a tall iced drink of a mellow golden color.
“Try the grilled flying fish,” she said. “The conch salad isn’t bad, either.”
“I’ll have one of each,” Steward said. “I haven’t eaten since morning.” He stood up to shake hands. Muscle moved catlike in her upper arms as she clasped his hand.
“Are we alone in this place?” Steward asked.
Reese looked around at the rows of blank linen tablecloths. “It’s the off season,” she said. “And it’s early.”
They settled into their chairs. The sun on the terrace was bright and Steward was wearing his shades. Reese looked at him without squinting. Steward concluded the dark gray eyes were artificial implants.
“You’re pretty young to be such a good friend of Griffith’s,” Reese said.
“It’s a new body. I’m a clone.”
“Griffith ought to get a new body soon,” Reese said. “He looks worse every time I see him.”
“How did you come to know each other?”
Reese smiled. “We were dumped on the street together. After the Artifact War.”
Steward sensed himself stiffening. “You were on Sheol?”
“No. I was on Archangel. Ross 47, with Far Jewel. It wasn’t as bad there.”
Steward sipped his drink and settled back into his seat. “Griffith and I were in the same unit,” he said.
“That’s what I heard.” She put her drink on the tablecloth and frowned at it for a short minute, then looked up at him. “You’ve done vac training?”
“Yes.”
“Rad suit?”
“Yes.”
“How long ago?”
“About eight or nine months ago, in terms of my memory. Years ago, real time.”
Reese seemed startled. “Your former…personality…he didn’t update your memories?”
Steward was mildly surprised she had realized this so quickly. “I lost about fifteen years.”
“My god.” She looked at him. “I don’t suppose he told you why?”
“Afraid not.”
She shook her head. “I hope you’re not as forgetful as he was.”
“He didn’t forget. I think there were just some things he didn’t want me to know.”
“Yeah. Well.” Reese shifted uncomfortably in her seat. “I guess we all have memories like that.” She took a sip of her golden drink. “I don’t suppose you’re familiar with the specifications of a Fiat-Starbright FSVII inertial drive? Because that’s what you’d be working with on the Max Born.”
Relief trickled into Steward. “As a matter of fact, I know the FSVII,” he said. “Some of Coherent Light’s ships used them.” The specifications he knew were mainly for purposes of sabotage, but at least they gave him a good idea of how the engines were put together.
Reese grinned. “So. That makes things easier.”
“I was afraid you’d have some fancy new system I’d never heard about.”
“A lot of ships do. But the Born’s a venerable beast. Sixty years old, but they keep rebuilding it.” She sipped her drink. “I should tell you something, by the way. Born isn’t owned by Starbright—it’s a tramp ship, owned b
y a company called Taler. But the drive system is owned by Starbright and on perpetual lease to the owner of the ship. So the drive riggers are Starbright employees, and the rest of the crew are Taler people. At least Born owns its own computer and telemetry systems. Otherwise there’d be another group of techs on board.”
The news didn’t particularly surprise Steward. Expensive equipment on the order of large complex drive systems was often leased rather than bought, particularly by smaller freight companies operating on the margin.
“I imagine that gives the riggers a certain amount of autonomy,” Steward said.
Reese nodded. “Something like that.”
Steward rubbed the bridge of his nose where his shades were chafing him. “There’s this other thing I want to mention,” he said. “I have this investment opportunity you might be interested in.”
Reese seemed amused. She put one of her feet up on an empty chair. “What sort?”
“It’s this special account where they start you off with a thousand Starbright dollars. And then you do whatever you want with it.”
Reese laughed. “Okay.” Her silver ear cuffs flashed in the sun. “The last guy offered me thirteen hundred Pink Blossom, but I’d have to train him. It might be worth three hundred not to have to bother. Hey.” She was waving at someone over Steward’s shoulders, presumably the waitress. She looked at Steward. “I’m starved. Do you mind?”
The waitress was about sixteen, black, with severe acne and a jacket that flashed scenes of beaches, palm trees, and Heineken greenies. Steward watched the pictures’ reflection track across Reese’s face as they ordered. The waitress smiled, then padded back into the interior of the hotel.
Reese finished her drink and leaned forward across the linen tablecloth. “The major thing about this job is that it takes someone who can be comfortable with himself, all alone, for long periods. You’re gonna be spending months in a bottle with only four other people. If you’re the kind who needs other people around him all the time, you’re going to drive everyone crazy.”
Steward shrugged. “I can be as solitary as the next person.”
“Griffith said that about you, but sometimes I don’t know what to think about Griffith’s friends.”
Steward smiled. “I know what you mean.”
She was frowning at him. “You got religion?”
“I’m sort of a Zen agnostic.”
“People who babble about God all the time make a trip a lot longer than it has to be. How about ideology?”
“I thought Starbright has no official ideology.”
“No, it doesn’t. Do you?”
“No.”
“Do you smoke?”
“Yes.”
Reese’s look turned cold. “You’ll quit. That’s a condition of employment. I’m allergic, and I’m not going to live with it.”
“I’ve quit before.”
“I’m talking permanently. No sneaking smokes, either, when I’m not around. I’d rather have a pork junkie on board than a nicotine junkie. At least when you stick things in your veins, it doesn’t pollute the air.”
“I can quit.”
“Okay.” Reese seemed dubious, then shrugged and continued. “As far as benefits and votes are concerned, you spend the first three years as an apprentice. The pay’s shit, but you get room, board, and your health is taken care of. After that, you get citizenship and one vote. There are stock options and such built in, so every ten years you get another three votes. If you buy more stock, you get more votes, but on the basic fifty-year plan you’ll be able to contribute sixteen votes to the political health of our plutocratic democracy. Of course that’s balanced by the tens of thousands of votes that the chairman, board members, and major stockholders can command, but that’s politics. Things are more liberal in Starbright than elsewhere.”
“How does the pay advance?”
“It stays shit. You don’t get into drive rigging if you want to make money. It’s just for those with a yen to travel.” She smiled. “I think that falls under the category of tradeoffs.”
“Clone insurance?”
“Available, but expensive. You put yourself into hock for thirty years if you want it.” Reese leaned closer. “There are some options available on most ships, though, under the heading of private enterprise. If there’s space in the cargo hold, you can ship a limited number of personal goods. These are known as ventures. You pay the shipowners by the ventures’ weight. But if you want to get into making money on the side, you can get enough to retire on in thirty or forty years.”
The girl with the photojacket arrived with Steward’s conch salad and Reese’s second drink. Reese ignored her.
“Something else I should mention,” she said. “I don’t fuck other people in the crew. Neither does anyone else on the ship. That’s a rule. If you think you’re irresistible, or if you have to prove something to yourself by jumping every woman you meet, this job isn’t for you. And if you can’t keep your hormones under control, we have plenty of drugs aboard that will do it for you.”
Steward glanced up at the waitress to see if she was enjoying this. She glanced at him, expressionless. “Another drink?”
“Not just yet. Thanks.”
She took Reese’s empty glass and left. Steward turned to Reese. “I can live with that,” he said. “I have in the past. I had transit time as an Icehawk.”
“A lot of people can’t deal with it. And once the crew starts snuggling up to each other, they start playing favorites on the job, and that’s bad.”
“I see your point.” Steward began working on his salad.
“Just want to make sure it’s made.”
“This is pretty good salad. Thanks for the recommendation.”
Reese narrowed her eyes, said nothing. Then she relaxed, took her drink, and settled back into her chair. She shook her head. “You’re not what I expected. I’m not sure how to read you at all.”
“If I get the job,” Steward said, “you’ll have months to figure me out.”
“I guess so.” She looked over her shoulder, toward the beach. “What do you think of Curaçao so far?” she asked.
“Lots of rocks and lizards. I haven’t seen much else.”
“Parts of the island are lovely.”
Steward glanced up at her. “Care to show me a few later?” he asked.
Reese laughed. “Hey,” she said. “If I give you the appointment, we’ll have months in which to get sick of each other. Why start now? I want to preserve my mystery for the moment.”
“As you like.”
Steward watched Reese sip her golden cocktail and concluded that he could get along with her. She insisted on being in charge, which was okay, but she hadn’t made a fetish of it, which was better. It argued for her confidence, that she wasn’t interested in scoring points off him, and that would make someone he could live alongside for a long time without it getting wearisome.
He also decided he’d liked the way she’d accepted her bribe. Like it was part of business, an accepted thing. Not as if she were royalty. She’d even laughed.
Steward, like Reese, had standards for the people he had to live with.
Bright color reflected on Reese’s face told Steward that the waitress was bringing their dinners. The girl set plates on the table and asked if there was anything else she could bring.
“Coffee,” Steward said, and she smiled and nodded.
When she brought the coffee later, he thanked her.
“God bless,” she said.
*
The next morning, before breakfast, Steward worked out on the beach. The sand provided elusive traction that tired his calves early but proved interesting in terms of balance and coordination. Accordingly, he practiced spin kicks, which were harder on the inner ear anyway: whirling, cocking, looking over his shoulder, stabbing the air with his thrusting foot.
Rhythm built. Heart, lungs, body, mind, all working in synchrony. Balance became second nature, even on the treacherou
s ground. The sea was white noise in his mind, background noise for an empty universe, a null filled by his motion.
He spun, cocked, glanced, and saw Reese rounding a headland. He lashed out with the foot, retracted, planted on the sand.
She was wearing a dark green one-piece swimsuit and running barefoot on the sand.
Steward whirled, spun, cocked, fired. Into the rhythm.
She was running wind sprints, Steward concluded.
He spun again, kicked again. Sand flew in a wave from his lashing foot.
She passed him without speaking, without acknowledging his presence, absorbed by her own rhythm. Sun gleamed on the coppery hair on her arms and legs.
Steward kicked again, then again. Sand adhered to the sweat on his body.
He decided he had the job.
*
Griffith met him as he got off the coleopter that had taken him from Vandenberg to the Los Angeles airport. He was dressed in a dark silk shirt over a pair of tan slacks. He seemed healthy, even exuberant. “Congratulations on your new job,” he said, as he offered his hand.
“It was all your doing. Thanks.”
Griffith smiled. “I had ulterior motives.”
Steward looked at him. “Please don’t tell me that you want me to deliver a package to some friend on Titan.”
“No. I don’t. I want you to pick up some packages.” He saw the warning look in Steward’s eyes. “No,” he said quickly. “It’s not what you think.”
“Tell me how it’s different.”
“Come with me to the coffee shop, and I will. But first. Do you play chess?”
“I know the moves. Not much else.”
“At least you have some idea. Good.” The coffee shop was a small dim place, almost deserted at one in the morning. Half the place was roped off. The hum of scrub bots came from the closed section.
Griffith bought two cups of coffee and paid. He led Steward to a small table in a corner and lit a cigarette. “Okay. Here’s the deal.”
“You’re going to tell me that this isn’t even illegal, aren’t you?”
Griffith seemed surprised. “It’s not. Would you rather it was?”
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