The Credulity Nexus

by Graham Storrs

  -oOo-

  Clearing customs at Heinlein was easier and no doubt cheaper than it had been leaving Guadalajara. The official who came aboard to inspect The Phenomenon of Man didn't even bother to pretend to do her job. Rik was glad of Lanham's money and organisation, smoothing the road ahead of him wherever he went. Of course, he wouldn't hesitate to pull the plug on the whole of Omega Point if he got the chance, but Rik couldn't deny that having a rich psychopath backing you had its conveniences.

  He left Rivers in the boarding tunnel and went back to med to collect Fariba Freymann. The upload wouldn't go down the ramp to the terminal building without him, but she didn't seem keen for his company, either. There was an electric cart waiting to take them all below, and Rik supposed that Rivers and a few others from the crew would be waiting in it when he got back.

  “You're looking better,” he told Freymann when he reached med. “In fact, you're looking great.”

  Freymann did a twirl for him, smiling happily. She had on a dress that was a mist of pastel gossamer layers, floating impossibly in the Moon's gentle gravity. As she twirled, the material wrapped itself closely around her body, then slowly drifted out again. It was a fashion common among the women of Heinlein, but Rik had seldom seen it worn so well.

  “I've always wanted to try one of these,” she said. “I borrowed it from Vicki in the med bay.”

  “Vicki?”

  “Even doctors have names, you know.”

  “You look beautiful,” he said, and regretted it. He didn't want her to think he was coming on again. But Freymann didn't seem to mind. In fact, she gave him a warm smile that made his heart beat faster.

  “Your carriage awaits.” He glanced towards the door and held out an arm for her to take. “Madame?”

  Freymann laughed and took his arm. “I like the Moon,” she said. “I always feel like I could fly.”

  “You've been to Heinlein before?”

  “No. I went to Verne once for a short trip, and stayed a whole month in Robinson.”

  “Robinson?”

  “I know. It's a dump. But I can't help it, I'm just a low-G kinda gal. I'd probably be happy in the helium 3 mines at L-City.”

  Rik had worked a case last year at L-City, and didn't think any sane person could be happy there, but he didn't want to contradict her.

  They headed for the exit, but Rik stopped before they got there, suddenly serious.

  “Fariba,” he said. “Why don't you take off? There are plenty of places in Heinlein to disappear to. You don't need to tag along.”

  Freymann chose to pretend it was a joke. “Er, hello. Security agent, working a case.”

  “They suspended you, remember. Besides, if things don't work out...”

  “I know the score, Rik.”

  “Maybe. It's a pretty long shot that Maria would have come here. Even if she did, she might not have the package. And, even if she did–”

  “There's a very good chance our favourite zombie will snatch it and take out everyone in sight, just to leave things nice and tidy.”

  Rik gave her a baleful stare. “So that's why you should take off now, before the shooting starts.”

  “That's very noble of you, sweetie, but you're forgetting something.”

  Rik shook his head. “If you've got some crazy notion that you're taking that package back to London with you, you can forget it. Once I get hold of it, it's going up the tether to Partway, onto the first shuttle I can find, and out the airlock as soon as we're at cruising speed.”

  For a second, Freymann looked defiant. Then she sighed and looked up at the ceiling. “Maybe you're right. Maybe that is the best thing. Either way, Rivers is not going to let anyone take it. You'd have to kill her first.” She smiled. “And for that, you'll need help.”

  Rik tried one more time. “It's too dangerous.”

  But Freymann ignored him. She flounced past him in her floaty dress, making it stream behind her. “Come on, big fella. She'll be coming in to get us if we hang about much longer, and I want to get into town and show off my Moon dress.”

  “Are you always this damned stubborn?” he called, setting off after her.

  “No, only when I want to get my own way.”

  “Ha, ha. And do you really think that... that meringue you're wearing is a suitable outfit for fighting ninja zombies?”

  “It's camouflage. I blend in with all the colours your face is turning.”

  He hurried to keep up with her. “So, what, MI6 gives its agents stand-up comedian training now?”

  She stopped and turned. Rik almost ploughed into her. Stopping in low gravity being harder than it looks.

  “Rik, you've lost this one. Accept it with good grace and move on. Otherwise I'll have to pull my concealed weapon and blow your head off, OK?”

  He could see she was right. If she wanted to come along, there was nothing he could do about it, so he might as well stop sulking. And in any other circumstances, he'd be glad to have her around.

  “You don't have one,” he said.

  “One what?”

  “A concealed weapon.” He grinned.

  She grinned back and bobbed up to kiss his cheek. “Well, bless you for noticing.” She turned away, laughing, and glided towards the exit.

  Rik trudged after her. “Did that doctor give you the wrong shot or something? No-one is this cheerful on their way to certain death.”

  Chapter 32

  Maria and Kirsty entered The Harsh Mistress arm-in-arm, like a couple of old friends. Partly this was because Kirsty was sick and tired of her prisoner stumbling around and falling over. Partly, it was so that the silly little airhead didn't get the idiotic notion that she could make a run for it. It also kept Maria close in case Kirsty had to shoot her with the dart gun. Those things were hopeless at long range.

  The bar was scruffy on the outside and dingy within, not out of place at all in its neighbourhood. It was bigger on the inside than she had expected. Cleaner, too. As her eyes adjusted to the dimness, she saw that the giant behind the bar was a zombie; a mean looking guy who was already checking them out, as he idly wiped a glass he'd probably been wiping all day. She took a moment to scan the room. A dozen or so men sat around talking and drinking. Rough types. Tether monkeys. Most of them had weird body-mods. Men like that had themselves modded these days the way they would have had themselves tattooed in more genteel times. She didn't see anyone who looked like a cop. Even the drunk woman sleeping alone at a table looked kosher.

  “You know anyone?” she asked Maria.

  The blonde shook her head. “Just the barman.”

  Kirsty raised an eyebrow. “How does a pretty little girl like you know a scarred up old bastard like that?”

  Maria barked out a laugh. “If you're around Rik long enough, you get to meet all kinds of charming people.” She seemed to think better of it, though. “I don't know; he seems OK. I only spoke to him once, on the phone.”

  So the zombie had made Maria when they came in and he hadn't let on. That was worth keeping in mind.

  “OK. Introduce me.”

  They went up to the bar and Veb nodded a brief greeting. He didn't offer to get them a drink.

  “You're Mr. Rea,” Maria said. She seemed nervous in the zombie's presence. “I'm Maria Dunlop, We spoke on the phone.”

  The barkeep leaned forwards. When he spoke, he had a deep, soft voice. “Maria, is this woman bothering you?” He turned slowly to face Kirsty. Maria's eyes widened in horror.

  “Easy, tiger,” Kirsty said, smiling pleasantly. She let him see the pistol pointing at Maria's ribs. “We're all friends here.”

  The upload did not seem in the least surprised. “You hurt my friend's wife,” he said calmly, “and you don't hurt anyone ever again.”

  “That's good,” Kirsty said. “Now we all understand each other. I'm looking for Rik. Why don't you go fetch him?”

  Veb looked across at Maria.

  “It's OK,” Maria said. “She just wants to sell hi
m something.”

  He looked back at Kirsty, still calm, still menacing. “Something that already belongs to him, I'm guessing.”

  Kirsty smiled, suppressing the urge to tell the damned machine where to stick his guesses. “Such a clever boy to be stuck tending a rat-infested bar all day.”

  “Rik's not here.”

  “Where is he?”

  “Judging by the time-lag on our last conversation, he's a long, long way from here.”

  Now Kirsty was really confused. Time lag? What the hell was the man doing in deep space? She rounded on Maria. “You told me he'd be here.”

  “All I told you was I hoped he'd be here. All I said was that I don't know where else he could go.”

  “So now what?” Veb asked.

  It was a good question and Kirsty didn't have an answer. If she was going to get any money for those phials, she needed this Rik guy, and she needed him fast. She could only stall her client for so long. Which gave her an idea.

  “Rik was doing a job for someone. Who's paying him?”

  Veb shrugged. “He doesn't tell me his business.”

  Kirsty played a hunch. “But you know anyway, don't you, clever boy? Nothing gets past you, right?”

  Maria spoke up. “Please, Mr. Rea. If you know, just tell her.”

  Veb looked at her with what must have been zombie compassion. “Maria, I know you think you're in a bad place right now, but the truth is I could reach out and snap this woman's neck like a toothpick any time I wanted to.”

  Kirsty took a step away from the bar, dragging Maria with her. “Don't even think about it buddy.”

  Veb shrugged again. “Point is, Maria, Rik's got friends, and that means you got friends. This sour old lady isn't going to hurt you 'cause she knows what's good for her. Now, supposing I could tell her who Rik was working for, do you think he'd want me to?”

  Maria looked down at the barrel of Kirsty's gun, then up at the enormous mechanoid. “I don't know. All I know is, whatever plans he might have had seem to have gone completely pear-shaped. I have a feeling he'd be better off right out of it.”

  “So spill it, Tin Man. Who do I deal with?”

  Veb shook his head. The big upload looked like he'd had enough of making hard choices. “I'll make the call,” he said. “Why don't you two take a seat, and I'll bring you a couple of drinks. What do I call you by the way, if I get asked?”

  “Call me what you like, just tell them I've got the package.”

  -oOo-

  Greet-Greet McGregor was in church when the call came. The Church of the Holy Radionuclide wasn't a popular one in Heinlein. It wasn't particularly popular anywhere, for that matter, and was banned in several European countries, but its followers were devout.

  The viewscreen at the front of the tiny chapel flicked from one number to another, and Greet-Greet checked his reader. The numbers were randomly generated by the nuclear decay processes in a consecrated Thorium source, kept in the Church's Grand Cathedral on Earth. They were translated into individually-tailored Bible verse references by a sanctified algorithm in his electronic Bible. In this way, God, through the physical laws of His universe, spoke directly to the faithful. It was an idea that filled Greet-Greet with joy whenever he contemplated it.

  He didn't appreciate being called from this holy communion to deal with matters mundane, but when he saw who was calling, he forgot immediately about the verse he'd been studying and made a beeline for the door.

  Outside in the street – the church was no more than a standard three-by-five commercial prefab unit – he almost tripped over a young boy. The boy was thin and pale, with sandy hair. He watched Greet-Greet from under his brows with an expression that was already half flinching.

  “Me Mam sent me,” the boy said, getting in his defence before Greet-Greet had time to scold him.

  The Scotsman looked up and down the street, twitching with irritation. “Here,” he snapped, and transferred some money using his cogplus. “Now bugger off.”

  “She said she wanted–”

  Greet-Greet raised a hand, and the boy ducked his head. “I don't care what she wanted. That's all she'll get. Bugger off, I said.”

  “But, Dad...”

  Greet-Greet took a swipe at the boy, but the lad dodged out of range. Greet-Greet cursed, but didn't try to catch him. “Just sod off home, and don't let me catch you hanging about here again, d'ye hear? Now off wi' ye. I've got business to attend to.”

  He set off down the road without a backward glance. The boy watched in silence.

  Chapter 33

  Although he'd come four hundred thousand kilometres to find her, the last thing Rik expected to see when he walked into The Harsh Mistress was his ex-wife.

  Not that he saw anything until his eyes adjusted to the gloom. The place was darker than usual, with half the light fittings shot up and not yet replaced. A mournful ballad was oozing out of the sound system, as if The Mistress were singing her own lament for better days. He saw Veb behind the bar, and the usual collection of off-shift tether-monkeys propping it up.

  If Veb hadn't made a discreet nod towards the far wall, Rik might not have noticed the two women sitting there, deep in shadow. One was Maria, staring at him as if he'd just come back from the dead. The other was an older woman who, from the unnatural position of her right arm, was probably pointing a gun at Maria under the table.

  He suddenly became very conscious of the others, bustling in behind him; Freymann in her bright dress, and Rivers, dark and sinister, with the two goons she had brought. As soon as Rivers realised Maria was there, she would be on her like an attack dog, and there would be nothing Rik could do about it.

  Veb moved casually along the bar towards the flap, looking as if he was going to serve someone. Rik had never felt another person's presence so comforting as he did Veb's in that moment. He moved into the bar, staying ahead of Rivers, keeping away from Maria. If he could distract the upload for a while, stop her looking Maria's way, maybe he could get them all out of there again and think about what to do.

  “Rik?” He stopped dead and closed his eyes. It was Maria's voice, her English accent clear and crisp, even in that one word. “Rik, over here.”

  He glanced at Rivers just as she glanced at him. She was smiling. “Wait a minute,” he said, but she was already in motion, heading straight for the seated women. He pulled his gun, not knowing quite what he would do with it, and felt another gun pressed hard into his back. He didn't have to look to know one of the heavies had him covered.

  The upload walked across the room with the easy menace of a black panther. “You must be Maria,” she purred.

  Rik stepped forward, ignoring the gun at his back. “If you hurt her, there won't be a place in this system where you can hide from me, Rivers.”

  The upload ignored him, still addressing Maria. “You're prettier than his new girlfriend. Classier, too. I bet those lovely long legs would break so easily.”

  Maria looked past Rivers at Rik, fear and confusion in equal parts in her eyes. Rik took another step towards her. “Rivers, I'm warning you.”

  The heavy behind him spoke up. “That's far en-oof!”

  Rik turned in time to see the man go down and Freymann whirl away in a flash of pastel colours to slam the heel of her hand into the other goon's nose. Rik still had his gun in his hand, so he hammered it hard against the first guy's skull before turning to join Freymann in dealing with the other one. But the MI6 agent didn't need any help. In a move that would have made a martial arts film director green with envy, she leaped nearly two metres into the air and kicked the goon twice in the temple. Then she fell slowly back to the ground to land catlike and ready for more, her gossamer dress floating around her. Rik grunted with surprise even as the victim of Freymann's attack toppled over like a felled tree.

  “Very nice!” Rivers said.

  Their heads flicked round to her. The upload was holding Maria by the throat.

  “I'd like the package now, Maria, o
r I'm going to have to start squeezing this lovely long neck of yours.”

  Kirsty Winters, who had watched the whole proceedings in silence, now reached out a hand and touched Rivers on the hip. Immediately, the upload went into convulsions. She dropped Maria – who had also taken a shock – and staggered back, revealing the stunner in Kirsty's hand.

  Rik ran, his only plan to get to the upload before she recovered from the shock, but Veb beat him to it. The former bouncer grabbed Rivers from behind, holding her by her upper arms. She recovered quickly and struggled like a wild animal; one that knew a lot of good expletives. She was strong and inhumanly flexible. She kicked and writhed and yelled, toppling tables and chairs and making Veb hold her at arms length as he flinched away from her. After a short but frantic struggle, however, it was obvious that Veb could hold her like that all day if he wanted to. With no pause between wild violence and acquiescence, she relaxed and let him set her feet back on the ground.

  Maria ran to Rik, stumbling and falling into his arms. He held her while she sobbed into his chest, glancing across at Freymann, who was watching him with an unreadable expression. Maria felt delicate and frail in his arms. The feel of her body, the scent of her hair, the way she clutched him to her, stirred deep memories within him. He remembered how much he had loved her, how that love had tortured him, how helpless it had made him feel. He realised that he was thinking about his feelings in the past tense.

  One of the heavies recovered and pushed himself up off the floor. Seeing his boss in Veb's firm grip, he made for the door and ran off. Rik turned his attention to Kirsty Winters, who was looking shaken but determined.

  “Who the hell are you?” he asked.

  “I'm the one with the package,” Kirsty said. She had her little dart gun pointing at him. “You're the one who's going to buy it off me.”

  “You don't know what you've got there,” he told her. “That stuff should be destroyed. Trust me.”

  “What is it?” Maria asked, looking up at him.

  “Poison,” he said. “Mind-altering shit that could give someone far too much power.”