by Horizons
He wadded the stained towel into a ball. “It’s the edge of violence that bothers me. Where the hell did this come from?” he growled. “We’re not a violent folk up here! Except on the Scrum field.”
“Dragon Home.” Dane said.
“What about it?”
“I’m not sure,” Dane said thoughtfully. “Li Zhen was prowling around here recently. Unofficially. Noah says the hot threads in the Con are starting out with people he hasn’t seen before. I doubt Noah is the only person capable of hacking up a fake persona that can pass Security.”
”What in nine hells is Zhen up to? He’s ambitious and has his own agenda, everybody knows that. And China is a power-hungry loner, up here, and downside on the World Council. Why us?”
“I don’t know.” Dane frowned at the orchids blooming along thecurve of the inside wall, touched one perfect petal. “I ran into a wildcard up here. Private war from downside, I gather, but Zhen is involved.”
“Who?” Laif snapped, his emerald earring glinting.
“Name is Xai Huang. Taiwan Families.” No need to mention Ahni. He wondered if she had checked the DNA sequence he had done for her. “I don’t know what Huang’s agenda is.”
“I’ll get an image of him, plug it into Security. I hate wildcards.” Laif scrubbed his face again, glowered at the stained towel in his hands. “We’re so damn close,” he said softly. “If we increase the resident population just a little … within the current livingspace limits we’ll tip the balance. We’ll have a stable economy. Producers and consumers. It’ll be tough, but then we can start expanding for real. And we won’t need Earth. We can run our own show, make our own rules. Put our interests first.”
“Ifwe can start dropping rocks down here.” Dane shook his head. ”We can’t do it if we have to depend on the asteroid miners refining up in the belt. Darkside figures they own the moon and they’re willing to fight for resources. Rocks make Earth nervouss– as you so aptly pointed out this evening. I think you’re underestimating downside opposition to that. They’ve got the weaponry to shoot at us and hit us, Laif.”
”Hey, you’re the leader of the secession group, what’s with this pessimism?” Laif stilled his sudden drift with a grab at a nearby vine. “The Council can be swayed. We’re spending every spare credit we can scrape up to sway them and we all know better than to talk rocks at this stage. Meanwhile, a wildcard war is not what we need up here right now. They’re messy.”
“I think it might be more than that,” Dane said slowly. “Huang family doesn’t have any interests up here. I checked. I’ll keep all my ears open.” He pushed himself away from the Administrator. “And I’ve got a list of favors I need from you. A couple of subsidized loans, some jobs, and a couple of ‘get out of jail free’
cards.”
“Not too many, I hope.” Laif sighed. “All I need is a corruption charge from some whistle-blower.”
“No more than usual.” Dane sailed a data sphere his way.
“Will do.” Laif snagged it. “Now I’d better find Koi and apollogize.”
“Yeah, you’d better apologize.” Koi stuck his head through the wall of leaves. “You know, a six-month-old baby gets around better than you.”
“I believe it.” Laif gave Koi a lopsided smile. “Okay, I was an asshole and didn’t think about what I was saying. Didn’t mean it either, was still kind of fried from getting my butt whipped at that townplaza this afternoon. But you stuck it to me proper, so how about it we call it a tie? Or a truce, anyway?”
“Tie? I won. You looked pretty stupid with tomato all over your face.”
Dane swallowed a chuckle, turned it into a cough.
“Okay, fine.” Laif sent Dane a sizzling glance. “I cede the game, kid. And you’re not only better at me in microG– way better–you’re better in the Con, too. So please find out who scammed that fish farm purchase for me, will you, so that I can airlock the bastard?” Laif held out a hand. “Don’t throw me this time, okay? I might break someething of Dane’s.”
“You might.” Koi grabbed his wrist, vaulted past Laif’s head, rebounded from the far wall and came to a perfect halt at eye level and upside down in front of the Admin. “That was a dirty trick,” Koi said. “I’ll find out who did it.”
“Thanks,” Laif said and nodded. “You’re impressive, kid. If this is how we’re gonna evolve, I guess it could be a lot worse.”
FOUR
HANDRAILS LINED THE CORRIDOR BEYOND THE LOCK IN the Pan Malaysian Elevator.
Ahni blessed them as she pulled herself confidently along, trying hard to look as if she belonged there.
Painted a soft and boring green, lacking the protective resilient carrpeting that lined the tourist areas, the corridor clearly handled service traffic. At the end of the corridor she halted herself, and drifting, dropped briefly into Pause, calling up the specs for this Ellevator.
She located the service lock where Dane had let her off, traced a route to the travel plaza, the main arrival and departure areas where the climbers docked. Most of the retail trade clustered around the travel plaza. She wondered how long it would take Xai’s dogs to check this Elevator once they realized they had lost her trail on NYUp? The door in front of her wasn’t locked from this side and opened to the touch of her palm.
A dense plush carpet in a soft blue-lined floor and walls contrasting with a pale, carpeted ceiling. If tourists bounced off the walls, they wouldn’t even bruise. The Elevator interiors were still founded on the right angle, unlike the upper levels of the platforms, and a part of Ahni’s mind found the corners where wall met floor comforting. The corridor was moderately busy, full of tourists still awkward in microG.
Few even glanced at her.
Ahni found she blended nicely into the mostly Indonesian and Indo-Pakistani crowd, her tawny skin and black crop a bonus. A dress shop offering microG-spun spider silk caught her eye. Ahni stepped into the shop, nodded to the shopkeeper’s smiling bow, waved away her offer of assistance and browsed quickly down the display of scarves, sheathes, singlets, sari-suits, and even full saris. She chose a full sari in a shimmering salmon embroidered with gold, and found a creamy undershirt to match it. The shopkeeper was nearly beside herself with delight as she floated gracefully to a high shelf to retrieve a packaged model. Ahni could certainly understand her enthusiasm as the shopkeeper totaled the purchases. Tourist prices, she thought sourly, but the spider silk was lovely, shimmerring in the light, finer than real silk to the touch. “Don’t wrap it,” she told the woman as she started to fold the sari. “I think I’ll wear it right now.”
“Oh, what a marvelous idea!” the woman gushed. “You’ll look lovely in it and it’s quite secure in microG
with the hidden closures. Are you headed to a Platform?”
“Dragon Home.” Ahni nodded and palmed the milky oval of the reader set into the counter. It chimed completion of her purrchase as the woman scooped the sari and shirt into her arms. ”We have a fitting room here.”
Ahni followed her into a curtained alcove lined with mirrors and hangers for garments. She stripped awkwardly, even with the woman’s deft hand to keep her from drifting, pulled the shirt on over her head, and let the woman wrap the sari around her. Hissing softly to herself, the shopkeeper tucked and arranged the drape of the fabric to her satisfaction, fastening it into place so that it wouldn’t float too freely. “You can open the fasteners when you reach Dragon Home,” she said as she pushed herself away to eye Ahni critically. “It looks even better on you than I expected.”
It looked lovely, Ahni thought absently. She stretched her senses, searching for a hunter’s cold purpose, felt only the white noise of a crowded travel plaza–weariness, expectation, nausea in microG, and annoyance. The woman continued to gush compliments, hands clasped, her smile as bright as the ruby fiberlight inlay on her forehead, shaped to resemble a caste mark. Ahni studied her reflection briefly. The sari would confuse her pursuers briefly. She bought a scarf on the way out, pinned it
into her hair, sloppily so that it drifted across her face. Waved away the shopkeeper’s clucking attempt to fix it. Many Moslem women wore decorative head scarves and it added to the distraction. The shopkeeper graciously packed her discarded singlesuit into a shopping bag with the shop’s logo prominently glowing in fiberlight script, handed it to her with a bow.
Leaving the woman reciting blessings on her health and future, Ahni proceeded down the corridor, senses alert, feeling less conspicuous. She passed a string of offices, a flower seller’s shop, a small tea and coffee bar featuring Turkish pastries, and exited into the main travel plaza, her senses alert.
Passengers emerged from an arriving climber, while others waited to board for the trip down, or purchased tickets from the many kiosk screens scattered at all levels about the room. Ahni made her way to the nearest screen, her body language hesitant and awkward, a tourist, unfamiliar in microG. She touched in her ticket purchase, using an anonymous cash card. She received her Economy Class ticket and struggled across the crowded plaza along the guiding handrails, pausing to bend over a small, wide-eyed child and smile, a doting auntie to any onlooker, a tourist on her way home from a first time in Near Earth, bringing souvenirs for those at home.
Ahni let hurrying families haul themselves along the handrails past her, scolding their playful children, slowing her down, getting in her way, leaving this timid auntie confused and blinking as the shimmering holo clocks blinked closer to departure time, a look of helplessness and mild dismay on her face. She hesitated, pretending to rearrange a fold of her sari. Almost time … A couple of hurryying latecomers scurried through the gate and entered the car.
Now.
Lifting her head, she pulled herself forward, ignoring the uniiformed attendant who pushed off to stop her. He raised his voice, his irritation hidden behind a polite face, thinking her deaf, or stupid and she gave him the confused, obedient expression he expected, used his instant relaxation to duck around him, grab the bar, and fire herself through the entry port. The closing doors hissed, halted, opened for her, then closed again, right in the face of the pursuing attendant.
He could stop the climber, hold up the trip, but that would afffect the schedule and she had a valid ticket.
She waved it in front of the scanner. Sure enough, the departure chime sounded and the car shivered.
Ahni grabbed on to one of the ranked handrails forming a semicircle around a vid window that would offer a stunning view as the climber ascended or descended. Now it allowed her to see into the travelplaza. A young couple waved. Ahni scanned the crowd and spotted the dogs immediately. One was the man who had darted her in the axle. The other was unfamiliar, an unselect northern chiinese.
They stared at the departing car, their faces revealing no emootion. She frowned, wondering what allied Li Zhen and her brother. The picture blinked, and now the window showed the diamond brilliance of a million distant suns and the dwindling crown of lights that was the Elevator platform. She turned away from the window and made her way to her seat, pulling herself along by the handholds along the rows of recliners. A single attendant cruised up–a downsider, she guessed from his body mass–and offered help.
She found her seat, a relatively luxurious recliner, she supposed, but not a welcoming prospect for the long drop. Especially since significant gravity would be a long time coming. They wouldn’t achieve 50
percent Earthnormal until they down-climbed to the 2,600 km leveL With a sigh, Ahni pulled herself into the seat and snugged herself to the cushions with the mesh netting provided. Coming up, she had traveled Business Class and her grief had disstracted her. Her smile twisted and she banished it, putting on the face of mild confusion that went with the sari and her act in the travel plaza. She was not about to underestimate her brother again.
She stowed her shopping bag in the bin below her. The seat sprang to life, elongating, cushioning her head, back, legs. It occcurred to her that it was probably made of the same stuff as Dane’s ship with its melting walls. Next to her, a lanky man with a unseelected celtic face hunched over a portable holodesk, his fingers flying among the cryptic icons. Orbital native, she guessed, assessing his lanky build and lack of muscle mass, a bit younger than her, maybe early twenties. A fiberlight inlay circled his wrist, emerald green, in an intricately woven pattern. He glanced her way, no hint of curiossity in his face, looked quickly away and back to his desk.
Ahni closed her eyes, at full awareness in spite of her relaxed posture, searching for any predator hint among the passengers.
What were Xai and Li Zhen up to? Leaving her senses alert so that she would notice any focused attention, she shifted into Pause. Methodically she sorted through her memories of her brother’s reecent activities … up to the moment of his apparent assassination. From this perspective, they reeked of stealth.
I do not really know my brother. The thought troubled her. A lot. It made her vulnerable.
SHE SPENT THE first twenty-four hours of the down-climb awake and aware, pulling herself around the Economy level of the climber, brushing up against passengers and crew, making eye contact whennever possible–the best, if most dangerous, way to startle a revelation from someone shielding their intentions. At the end of that time, exhausted, she decided that she was safe enough, unless one of the absent crew members tending to First Class or Business was in her brother’s pay.
She decided to assume not–that would be farsighted even for him–and finally dropped into Pause to induce sleep. She slept without waking for twelve solid hours. When she finally waked, she could discern a down , a slight sense of weight that slackened the mesh net holding her into the recliner. Gratefully she released it, yawning, wincing as her muscles protested the long slumber in the confines of the recliner. The minimal lights illuminating only the aisles between the recliners suggested that this was night, by local Earth time. Sure enough, the digital clock displaying Elevaator time told her it was three AM at its midocean base. She pulled her gaze away from the windows and stretched again, realized that the man sitting next to her was awake and surreptitiously glancing at her.
Adrenaline flushed into her blood and she came alert, feigning another relaxed yawn as she probed for any threat. Found only curiosity, a trace of hostility, and a hint of lust. That’s right. The platform natives didn’t look at people directly. She relaxed slowly, gave him a slight smile. “Insomnia?”
“Different time here.” He shrugged, the lust component of his attention sharpening. “I sure can’t imagine living down under all those clouds where you can’t see that view. No wonder downsiders are so shortsighted.”
”Not everyone is shortsighted,” she said mildly. “You can see the stars on Earth, you know.”
He waved that observation away. “The attendant was going to wake you up, tell you dinner was served.
I chased him off. You looked pretty beat when you conked out.”
“Thanks,” she said, checking a flash of irritation at his patronizzing manner. “I needed sleep more than dinner.” But now her stommach reminded her that except for the fruit Koi had handed her … how long ago? … she hadn’t eaten since her climb up here. Her stomach immediately contracted with hunger, so strongly that she stilled an urge to double over.
“I was just gonna flash our guy for food,” the orbital native said. “Can’t help it if they keep the wrong time on these things. Mostly downsider food, but they offer a few decent choices for snacks. You can call up the menu on your screen.”
She thanked him politely and touched the control that extended the small flatscreen mounted on her recliner arm. It unfurled and stiffened, and she selected refreshments from the screen menu. Thai and Japanese influences predominated. Lots of seafood. The food would be nuked for shelf-stable storage, not fresh. She passed on the sushi plate, selected tofu Pad Thai instead and a cup of seaweed salad.
Those items could take life as a shelf -stable package and still remain edible, she thought wryly.
When the food came, she n
oticed that her seat mate had chosen a grilled cheese sandwich-one of the few non-Asian offerings on the menu. He eyed the small golden longan fruit that accompanied it skeptically as he removed the cover.
“They’re good,” she said, and showed him how to peel one. “Dragon’s Eye,” she said. “Sort of like lychee, but better, I think. Which platform are you from?”
”NYUp. Good!” He sounded surprised, began to peel a second longan. “I wonder if they’ll have that where I’m going. Edinburgh,” he said, before she could ask. “My great-grandfather wants to see me before he dies and refuses to take the Elevator. But the old boy’s a hundred and forty two, so I figure I can climb down.” He laughed, made a face. “I’m his only male descendent. I guess the family runs to girls.
So he made a big fuss about meeting me once before he dies. Even sent the credit for the trip.” He shrugged. “Bad timing, it turns out, but who knows? The old boy thinks he won’t live much longer and I might never get down to Earth, otherwise. Might as well see what it’s like.”
That casual statement, his total dismissal of Earth, rather shocked her. No regret, no sense of moment . .
. I might never get down to Earth … No big deal. “Aren’t you excited?” she asked, curious.
“About Earth?” He took a big bite of his thick sandwich, made a face as he chewed and finally swallowed. “Cheese tastes weird. I don’t think I’m all that excited.” He tilted his head. “Yeah, I’m excited to see someplace new. Like I said, I’ve never been down the Elevators before. Costs a lot.” He tried another bite of sandwich. “But not because I’m going back to Earth or anything, if that’s what you mean,”
he said finally. “That’s something you downsiders don’t get. You always ask it.” He peeled another longan. “If we don’t miss the Earth, I mean. What’s to miss? Never been there, never really wanted much to go. You weigh a ton down there and you can’t see the stars.” He popped the sweet, white globe of fruit pulp into his mouth. “Wonder if we could grow this on NYUp?”
