Jack looked outside. In one of those rare and perfect telepathic moments between human beings, I knew what he was seeing. Through one of the many cams that hovered over the pack, or through the eyes of a tourist, or a naturalist or just somebody who wanted to touch her, was Raksha. Now the center of a hungry and ever-growing crowd, the elk gone, the grass trampled, playing as best she can with the now almost-grown pups, then joining with the rest of the pack, howling against the coming snow.
“Winters,” Jack said at last. “Winters are hard.”
At the Money
RICHARD WADHOLM
New writer Richard Wadholm lives in Seattle, and is at work on a novel set in the universe of the story that follows. He’s made several sales to Asimov’s Science Fiction, and his story “Green Tea,” set in the same milieu, appeared in our Seventeenth Annual Collection.
Here’s a tense and compelling visit inside a high-tech “Stock Exchange” in an evocative and electrifyingly strange far-future universe, one filled with players expert in double-dealing and intrigue—and one where life itself rides on every bet.
Personally, I see nothing wrong in doing deals in a bar. Esteban always loved working out of Chuy’s. He wore the place like an old coat. Every barmaid was his foil and confidante.
We did a deal with a couple of Anglos just before Esteban went out on his last run. Twelve hundred pennyweight of morghium, bound for some ideology franchise in the Scatterhead. Whenever the negotiations got tense, Esteban would vow he didn’t need their money anyway. He could get enough to live on from Doctor Friendly, “the Spaceman’s Friend.” Then he would grab some nether part of himself and give a leer to the old tumor broker at the end of the bar—” What’ll you give me for this, huh?
The Anglos would look appalled. Martisela would look from Esteban to me in amazement, like Sleeping Beauty awakening in the wrong castle. “This is what I sneak out of the convent for? High risk and low comedy?” And Esteban would grin at me, even as he pleaded with Martisela not to tell his wife.
Times like that don’t seem special until later, when you look up and suddenly realize they are over.
Tonight, I was back at Chuy’s. I was meeting the same Anglos, tying up loose ends with the same morghium deal. Only Martisela was back at the convent. She was through missing bed checks for a while. And Esteban?
My last conversation with Esteban, he was on this Bright Matter ship, the Hierophant. They were up in the dusky end of the Scatterhead Nebula, passing through a plume of tungsten ions left behind by some medium-sized supernova. Esteban had loaded the Anglos’ target isotopes onto the Hierophant’s starboard vane. He was calling me to double check their nuclear chemistry: Would perbladium transmutate into morghium under tungsten ion bombardment?
Really, they print this information on splash screens. I would have yelled at him for the price of the call. Except I knew the real reason he was calling. These pinche Anglos and their morghium job had him in sweats. He needed a little reassurance. I told him everything was all right. I promised him he wasn’t going to die, I’d see him when he got back.
Tonight, as I sat at our old table next to the tumor broker, I thought about that promise. All I had left of Esteban was a salvage ticket awarding me 900 pennyweight in unspecified isotopes. Not even a guess what these unspecified isotopes might be, or how long till they decayed to something else. Only that Esteban Contreras had entrusted them to me for the sake of his wife. And they were worth the price of a fleet of Bright Matter ships.
Chuy’s Last Load Lounge was hosting a wake for the crew of Esteban’s ship, the Hierophant. Chuy himself—Jesus Navarete to Anglos or ships’ officers—had worked on the Hierophant as a young man. Dorsal vane mechanic, he reminded his patrons proudly—“Where the money gets made.” A target shelf of hot phoellium had fused the fingers of his left hand into a flipper. A man of lurid humor, he had planed that load of glassified slag into a countertop, mounted it on dark azurewood and made it the centerpiece of his life as an innkeep. To this day, the counter glows from the isotopes embedded within.
Chuy was perfecting the head on a pitcher of French lager as I stepped up to the bar. Grief is thirsty work; three other pitchers extended to his left. Alpha particles from the bar passed through them, trailing arcs of delicate bubbles.
“Ah. Lazarus,” his voice slow with care for the beer. “Back from the dead to tell all.”
“Chuy.”
“I hear share prices for the Hierophant’s salvage rights have gone up 27 percent since the accident. I don’t suppose you’d like to take a little credit for that.” He never looked up from his task. In the best of times, there is antipathy between vane dogs like Chuy and mercaderos like myself. This was not one of those times.
I smiled. “You’re just saying that so I’ll buy the next round.”
He leaned forward to give me a malign squint. For one moment, an arc of quiet speculation seemed to spread out around the two of us. My life was, as they say on the Exchange, in play.
But the night was too sad for that sort of foolishness. He slapped my arm and gave me a snicker at once ugly and forgiving. The sort of laugh meant to be passed around between pinche cabrones like ourselves.
“Here,” he said, and passed me one on the house. As he did, he leaned in close. “A couple of gabachos looking for you.” He waved his flippered hand toward the room. “They’re around here somewhere. You keep your business quiet. I won’t be responsible, you start offending people’s sensibilities.”
Even as he spoke, I felt a presence at my side. In the mirror just past Chuy’s head, I saw a copper-haired Anglo with pouty lips and strawberried cheeks. I doffed my beer to him. “Mister Chamberlain,” I said.
He smiled. “Orlando Coria. And your friend, Contreras ... ?” He looked past my shoulder as if Esteban might be waiting in the crowd. No Esteban; Chamberlain lifted his eyebrows, well well well. “Damn shame,” he said. “Smart guy like that. And that nasty little nun?”
“Back at the convent.”
“Well,” he offered, “I’m sure you miss her.” He took my hand as he spoke. More than a handshake—I felt myself gently directed toward a quiet spot at the end of the bar.
Another Anglo waited there. This one sprawled across his chair, hips and shoulders cocked fashion-model style. A little smile played at his lips. This would be Chamberlain’s ... “chauffeur?” These Anglos.
Chamberlain gave him a nudge that knocked his leg from the tabletop. “Bell, be convivial.”
Bell said, “Hey, Buddy.” They must have been bashful where Bell came from.
I made room under the table for my barter bag. It was mostly empty but for a couple of perbladium samples from one of Esteban’s little jobs. These gabachos had introduced themselves as perbladium speculators. I was curious to know if they would recognize real perbladium when they saw it. I was curious to know who they really were.
I set Esteban’s salvage ticket on the table and leaned back to take in their reactions.
Chamberlain studied the ticket over tented fingers. He might have been counting his money. He might have been adding up his crimes.
“That’s a lot of money for a bit of morghium,” he said.
“That was my thought as well. Have you seen what’s left of the Hierophant? Whatever you gave Esteban to turn, it didn’t transmutate into morghium.”
He gave his partner an expression of aggravation. “I told Seynoso to pay for this stuff outright.”
“That would have been awkward,” I said.
“When would it have been more awkward than right now?”
“About the time the Hierophant burned with all hands. Someone from the Mechanics’ Guild makes a point of looking up every registered investor.”
I was calling him a ship killer, is what I was doing. There were two possible reactions to this sort of slander. Horror and outrage, and this other one. More rueful, more considered.
Chamberlain pressed his fingertips a little tighter. “There’s a story
behind this morghium deal. Things are more complicated than you think.” He waved his hand, the story was too complex to go into now. “I’m willing to buy these salvage rights from you, blind. I’ll pay you 10 percent market price. And before you laugh, consider the realities. You don’t know what you’re holding anymore than we do. You might be holding lead futures for all you know.”
I would have stood up to leave, except that Chamberlain was right. All I had in my hand was a market mirage. It was expensive as such things went, but all salvage looks good from a distance.
This was when I missed Martisela’s market expertise. She had three of the seven basic Thommist Catastrophes ingrained as quantum processors into the unused DNA of her hands. Wasn’t a decay chain she couldn’t follow. I had nothing to go on but my unscientific nose, which wrinkled considerably at these two.
“I’m not in a position to negotiate,” I lied. “This salvage claim belongs to Señor Contreras’s family. Unless you’ve got some further claim, I am obliged to sell it at the market price.”
“ ‘Further claim?’ ” Chamberlain gave his compañero a nudge, such language! “We have further claim,” he said. “We bought first position on your decay rights.”
He produced a futures contract for whatever isotopes might decay from Esteban’s unspecified salvage. I looked down till I found the signature of Esteban’s wife, Cynthia. I looked back and the two of them were grinning at me.
There is nothing illegal in optioning 900 pennyweight of pterachnium to one investor and then optioning its decay products to someone else. Martisela always warned me to cover those isotope futures in the contract. What had Cynthia been thinking?
“Señora Contreras is distraught,” I said. “Whatever she hoped to gain with this will be satisfied some other way. I think I will leave you now.”
“What about our decay rights?”
“The problem with decay futures? They are useless unless something actually decays. That is why they are cheap to buy. Ay te wacho.”
Chamberlain needed a moment to realize what I was saying. “You really are going to make this hard, aren’t you?” To himself: “He’s really going to make this hard.” He looked at Bell to do something. Bell seemed utterly impassive.
I was pushing myself back from the table when I noticed a fluorescence in the gloom of Bell’s shirt cuff. I recognized the source from my own improvident youth—a 48 yuen piece on a leather loop. With a bit of steghnium to light old Mau’s eyes. Or a 128 yuen piece, bearing Emperor Yuan, lit by phoellium. Or a 256 yuen piece, glowing with albatine. Depending on what sort of smugglers they were and what sort of detectors they had to confuse.
Bell had been toying with the coin all this time, but I hadn’t noticed till he let it slip from his fingers and into the gloom of his sleeve. He twisted his cuff as if embarrassed, but not so quickly I would miss the bleeding ulcer beneath the coin. Yes, he had been wearing it a very long time.
He noticed my eyes on his smugglers’ charm. He gave me a smile as desolate as every darkened doorway along Galle de Campana. Chamberlain nudged my barter bag with his foot.
“Enjoy the evening,” he said. “We’ll catch up with you.”
I glanced to the rest of the room. An engineer off of the Page of Wands sang a corrido to the vane mechanics of the Hierophant. How much they loved their pepper seed mash. How bad it made them smell. A compañero chimed in, something about their dubious sexual practices. Make no mistake, they’d all be weeping in a moment. Had I miscalculated?
The entire roomful of people seemed caught in their grieving. Save one little Anglo. I spotted him sitting by Doctor Friendly, the tumor broker. I remember hooded eyes, and this goatee that seemed to point the way for his nose. He watched me intently. I thought he might come to my aid. The little Anglo merely nodded at me and smiled—now what?
They do have their sense of fun.
I turned back to Chamberlain: “What if I made you a counter proposal?” I said.
Chamberlain lifted an eyebrow at Bell—are you listening to this?
“One moment of patience, I will show you real wealth.” I had come here to deal for Esteban’s legacy after all. And why not offer them a sample?
I gave Chamberlain my confidential smile. Careful, careful, so as not to alarm, I pulled the pouch of woven lead from my barter bag. It was a small pouch. It barely filled my hand. But heavy enough I had to stiffen my arm beneath it.
There is an art to this sort of presentation. I peeled back the double-sealed flap. I made it an unveiling. Inside gleamed a ball coated in mirror-smooth nickel. I could see Chamberlain was fascinated. He wanted to touch it. Still, I held onto it. I waited till he asked before I slipped it from its leaden sheath and into his palm.
He laughed at the surprising weight of it. “It’s heavy.”
“Yes, it is.”
“It’s warm.”
“Like holding a hamster in your hand. It’s a subcritical amount of perbladium, distilled from liquid suspension and purified. Up in the Scatterhead Nebula, the militias use it as a crude proximity trigger. That warmth in your palm? That’s alpha particle radiation, knocked off the sealant.”
Chamberlain shrank back. He had the cerrazadito’s abhorrence of contamination. Now it was my turn for amusement.
“Forget the alpha particles,” I soothed.
He looked at me to see if I was having him on. His shoulders eased. “Perbladium,” he said. He laughed a rueful little laugh. “I stay away from the real touchy stuff.” This was a big admission for Señor Chamberlain.
I nodded. Sure, sure. “You need something to worry about, consider the neutrons reflecting back from your body. They are quickly pushing that little ball to criticality.”
He was still smiling as he looked up at me. I’ll never forget the moment he stopped.
“You’re lying.”
I had a particle detector on the table. It roared to life at my touch.
Chamberlain made a strangled yip. He dropped the ball of perbladium. He dove backward into a drunken throng of vane mechanics, which might have been the wrong thing to do.
That left Mr. Bell. His eyes skittered from the sample on the table to me. One of us would kill him. He seemed uncertain which. I was about to clear up his confusion when Chuy Navarete rounded the bar with a couple of beefy crane operators off of the Ace of Pentacles.
“What did I tell you?” I think Chuy was more furious with me than anyone else. “Come in here. Ruin the somber mood ...” He glared down at my perbladium, which had dented the table where it landed and never even bounced. “That stuff better not be real.”
“Sorry, Choo. I was just putting it away.”
Chuy reached into the brawl and withdrew a very bruised and confused guero, who swung at him in wild frustration, and snarled, “Let go of me, you fish-handed freak!”
I winced. Everyone in the bar winced. Chamberlain might have said a lot of wrong things and not said that.
Chuy gave Chamberlain the sort of benign smile a chef bestows on a favored lobster. “¿Como?”
We will avert our eyes at this point. Take my word, the fate of these two gabachos only gets more wretched. In any case, I had a fortune disintegrating in my pocket. And only one person in Buenaventura could tell me what it was.
I want to tell you about Martisela. Martisela and Esteban and myself. A trio of swindlers were we. I was sleeping behind the kiosks that line Borregos Bridge. I imagined myself a romantic figure, a Prince of the Barrio. Though, a little older and a bit less turned-out, I might simply have been “homeless.”
Martisela had already been exiled to the Convent Santa Ynez for selling short on the anti-money market just as it pitched into its long-overdue collapse. One of the few truly blameless things she had done in her entire sordid career. Ahh, but she had made money where others had lost, and that was not to be forgiven.
Esteban Contreras actually held down a steady job—Starboard Vane Chief on the Bright Matter Ship Hierophant.
He us
ed his position to solicit these little side jobs—a couple hundred pennyweight of phoellium to melt a polar ice cap into atmospheric gasses. Or vanodium to be turned to echnesium to confine a bit of industrial grade Vacuum2.
He always backed up his commodity by optioning futures on its every decay state. Then he sold these options to his partner—me—and I used them as collateral to pump the stock of the Orlando Coria Mining and Bright Matter Company, Incorporated. Amazing, the sort of people who will throw money at a little brokerage with the right sort of pedigree. It might have been criminal if we had made any real money. But Martisela was the brains behind this mob, and she never really cared about the money. The fun for her was in rigging the game.
Only one time did we get serious. This was prior to Esteban’s last trip out with the Hierophant. Esteban had agreed to turn this load of morghium for Chamberlain and Bell, and their iffy Spanish friend, Seynoso. Esteban thought the job over some more and decided that it liked him not. We decided to put this Spaniard’s morghium to our own ends.
Morghium is pretty humble stuff. It has a bit of Vacuum1 at its heart, which alters the speed of light through certain crystal lattices—big news if you’re a designer of quantum optic switches. It is more spectacular as a target material. Flown through a cloud of tungsten ions at just under the speed of light, morghium transmutates under bombardment into some of the most exotic stuff on the Bright Matter Exchange. Lyghnium, and Vacuum4, which whispers of a universe full of magnetic monopoles. Pterachnium and Vacuum5, used to convert underloved white dwarf stars into highly desirable singularities.
With our client’s morghium in hand, Esteban offered futures on pterachnium, even though he would have been crazy to actually turn anything so dangerous. Martisela optioned Esteban’s potential pterachnium using money borrowed against its potential isotopes. I was the one in charge of cashing it all in.
For about two hours there, our stock was leading a small bubble market in lyghnium 485 futures. I was as wealthy as I had ever been in my life.
The Year's Best Science Fiction: Twentieth Annual Collection Page 69