The Mammoth Book of Best New SF 26 (Mammoth Books)

by Gardner Dozois

  “That’s okay. Trust me, I know all about processing.” He gave her a sharp glance, but she shook her head. “Some other time.”

  Then the Skyview was overhead.

  “You know,” she said, “I never tire of this place.”

  “Is this what it’s like piloting a shuttle?”

  “Yes. And no. This has more grandeur. The shuttle has . . . freedom. You know, you can come with me sometime.”

  The thought brought back a touch of the old pang. Yesterday he’d have said no way. Now . . . well, who knew? Though there was a practical concern.

  “I’d never be able to handle the gravity.”

  “Oh, pfoo! You’d just need to work out a bit.”

  “More than a bit.” He paused. “You weren’t all that fond of the ballet, were you?”

  They were leaving the Skyview now, heading down a corridor toward . . . Raz wasn’t sure where. Just heading. For the moment that was enough.

  “Not really. But that’s okay.” She laughed. “And it does give some interesting ideas.” She stepped on a grab plate, shoved off sideways and bumped hips hard enough to make him stagger. Then she stepped on the next plate and pulled him back. “I never realized the plates could be so much fun!”

  “Only if you’re an Amazon!”

  “A Celtic Amazon. We’re not into ballet. We’re into feasting, Finagal, Fimbulwinter . . . or was that the Vikings? Damn, I shoulda’ paid more attention somewhere along the line.”

  He laughed, too. It was the old banter, but somehow different. Fun for fun’s sake, not for hiding.

  “Not to mention blarney,” he said.

  “Got me there. I was raised in Duluth for God’s sake. On the shores of Gitchegume with lutefisk. And Finns. For some reason they all went to Lake Superior.”

  “I didn’t know that.”

  “What, the Finns? It’s true—”

  “No. About you.” Was confession really this good for the soul? It was like something long-pent, suddenly released.

  She braked on a grab plate, so suddenly that again her Earth strength nearly pulled him off his feet.

  “That’s because you never asked.”

  “I—”

  She leaned in. Gave him a gentle kiss. Friendly, not passionate. Though with a suggestion of more.

  “You can’t relive old decisions forever.” She was gripping both his hands now. “That was twenty years ago. You are who you are now. Not who you were.”

  He started to kiss her back, but suddenly his mind clicked over. “Oh, hell. The gwipp.”

  “What about him?”

  “He’s not who he is now. Not to those he left behind. And those folks never give up.”

  His mind was spinning. The stranger asking Leo about the kid. Where do strangers come from? Would a hit man really risk Immigration?

  Celtic Amazons. Ballet. Earther strength.

  He’d spent hours combing immigration records. If there was a hit man, his record was as well forged as the gwipp’s. Raz had put traces on every incoming passenger who’d come close to matching the holo (which wasn’t as good as Archie had thought; the guy had done a good job of staying in shadows), but none had done anything out of tourist-ordinary. Nor had anyone named Guest, Gueste, Jest, Beau, Beauregard, or pretty-boy-anything thumbed an ident or registered at any of the hotels. Raz had about come to the conclusion the whole thing was a figment of Leo’s imagination.

  Chasing rainbows.

  Chasing, with Earther strength.

  Grab plates on the walls.

  “Hell,” he said again. “Double hell.” He tapped his com. “McHaddon? I don’t know where you are, but we’ve got work to do.”

  He squeezed Caeli’s hand, gave her a quick, more-later peck on the cheek that was more than he’d once planned, less than he now wanted. “I think the guy’s really in trouble.”

  She kissed him back—again more than he’d once expected but less than he now dreamed of.

  “Go. Save a life.”

  It was, he realized, the best possible atonement.

  * * *

  “The Greek mob in Baltimore?” Sarah’s voice was still cool.

  “Yeah.”

  “Did you kill people?”

  Drew shook his head. “No. I just accepted money from those who did.”

  “Why?”

  “They were family. And it was a lot of money.”

  How could he explain?

  “When I was young, I wanted free of it. I even found a way out.” Track scholarships, universities clamoring after him. “But it didn’t quite work.” Olympic prospects fading away. Then the car. The girls. No strings, just come back. That’s what family is for. Except, of course, there were expectations. Because those too are what family was for.

  “And then . . . I would have lost me. No, I was losing me. When I was a kid, it was mostly gambling and protection. Loans to people dumb enough to take them. Nothing Darwin wouldn’t approve of. Would you believe my father actually told me that?”

  Sarah shook her head. “That sounds . . . my life always centered around the PEL. Without us there’d be no Luna C. Just a big, dark crater. It always made me feel like a hero.”

  Drew was still in the past. Trying to expunge it. Trying to atone. No, to justify his atonement.

  “Darwin was actually a theologian of sorts. Did you know that? He wouldn’t have approved of what my father said. Me learning that was part of what the family got for letting me go to college. Though by then they were into prostitution, drugs, whatever else would make a credit.”

  He’d been staring across her shoulders at the accelerating pulse of dance lights. Now he forced himself to meet her gaze.

  “Eventually, I knew I’d start helping make the money more directly. In my family, it’s what you do. So when the Feds got a handle on a couple of killings . . . that was my second way out. And this time I made it stick.”

  “So you didn’t kill anyone.”

  “No.” Unless his uncle really did get the death penalty.

  “Didn’t sell drugs?”

  “No.”

  “So what’s the problem?”

  “I took the easy way out.”

  “What, the one that didn’t quite work?”

  “No, I wasn’t strong enough for that.” It wasn’t like he’d lost his place on the team. He’d been the star. Then quit. “My father is in jail because of me. Plus my uncle and a couple of cousins.”

  “And that makes you a bad guy?”

  “It sure as hell doesn’t make me son of the year.”

  Sarah was looking at him oddly, but Drew no longer cared. If he didn’t come clean, he’d be no better than he was before. And he needed to be better. Even if it cost him the only decent woman—the only real friend—to come his way since he’d accepted the car.

  “My father and uncle killed six people I know of. If they did one good thing in their lives, I don’t know what it was.”

  He started to turn away, but Sarah’s voice called him back. “Your father did at least one that wasn’t half-bad.”

  “What?”

  “You.”

  Beau didn’t mind hiking. It cleared the mind, gave him time to think. On Earth, his favorite place was the desert. Nobody there but himself, nothing to disturb him but the occasional snake, scorpion, or tarantula. A simple land. A land where people might never have existed.

  Which meant he particularly didn’t mind hiking on the Moon. Especially now that he knew what he was doing. The quarry had a job outside the dome. A job that would guarantee he’d be outside in a few hours and would remain there until Beau could get back.

  Beau was again smiling. Ultimately, most assignments were like this. Wait, gather information, and the hit itself was trivial.

  Outside the dome, he didn’t need special skills to make the kill. Even if he didn’t score a bull’s-eye, the Moon would finish the job for him. It was amazing how stupid the rabbits could be. It was as if they were begging him to do his job. End th
e chase and put them out of their misery.

  In a few hours, the rim and its Peak of Eternal Light were going to be dumped into thirty-seven hours of darkness. If Beau couldn’t make the hit then, it was time to retire.

  A few minutes after Razo reached his office, Caeli showed up.

  “Sorry, I got bored.” She was leaning against the doorframe again, her theater wear swapped for blue jeans and a nondescript tee. “Anything I can do to help?”

  Raz started to shake his head, then changed his mind. “Yes. Can you get me coffee? There’s a pot—”

  “I know.”

  A minute later, she was back, nose wrinkling.

  “I think it’s been there a while.”

  “Doesn’t matter, so long as it’s got caffeine.”

  “You might also want one of these.” She offered him a pink pill. “I don’t know about you, but the drink I had at intermission was still with me a bit.”

  “Thanks.”

  He swallowed the pill, took a swig of coffee, grimaced. “It’s been there more than a while.” He took another swig. “But it’ll do the trick.”

  “So, what’s up? Or would you rather I made myself scarce? Don’t worry about me.”

  “No.” Two heads and all that. “Your gwipp’s got a stalker. I’d gotten a hint, but how could a really bad guy get through immigration?” He leaned back in his chair. Talking it out beat searching the net, anytime. “I mean, your gwipp made it in, but he had help.”

  “So you’re saying this other guy’s also got a government behind him?”

  “No. Just that I’ve been stupid.”

  Here he was, a ballet fan, of all things. Ballet required remaining Earth-strong. But it wasn’t until Caeli’s talk of going back to Earth and the hip-bump that nearly knocked him off his feet that he’d fully realized what Earthers could do. Like Drew—the gwipp—running the plates. Everyone knew Earthers did stupid things in low gee. But they were also strong. And fast.

  He tried to organize his thoughts. “He’s got a lot of money behind him. And he’s smart. He didn’t come through security. He went around it.”

  “How’s that?”

  “He has his own ship. Not that that’s uncommon.”

  “Of course. There are always a few at the port.”

  “But this guy didn’t land at the port. He must have come in low behind the rim, probably way out, and landed somewhere out there. Maybe drove some kind of buggy as close as he dared. Then walked. How far could you walk in this gravity?”

  Caeli shrugged. “Quite a ways. But he’d have to get down from the rim. Kinda steep.”

  Raz noted that she’d not said high. What’s 4,000 meters to an Earther?

  “And dark,” he added. “Even here that could make a nasty fall. And if he took much of a light, he’d stand out like a radar beacon. I’d bet you credits to cranberries he had grab boots.”

  “Grab boots?”

  “Like grab plates, but portable.”

  “What powers them?”

  “Battery.” A big battery, which was why they weren’t common. “They use them sometimes in the ballet, but not much. Any battery that lets you do more than a few moves isn’t the most graceful thing to carry.”

  “So he’s not going to get very far with it.”

  “But he could get far enough. He only has to use the boots when he needs them.” And he was an assassin, not interested in grace. An Earther. He could carry one hell of a battery.

  Raz’s phone chimed.

  “I’ve got him,” McHaddon said. “He registered at the Ambassador as Barton Fink.”

  “You sure he’s our man?”

  “If not, we’ve got two of ’em. That’s another damn movie.”

  Despite himself, Razo laughed. “You’ve been talking to Archie.”

  McHaddon returned the chuckle. “Who doesn’t? Anyway, this guy blew the hell out of a whole floor’s power stats two weeks ago.”

  “Nice job,” Raz said. Then to Caeli’s unasked question he added, “That’s what we were looking for. We knew he’d been nosing around two weeks ago, so we were looking through hotel guests who’d not yet checked out.”

  “That’s still a lot of people,” Caeli said.

  “Yeah, but I figured he’d recharge as soon as he could, which narrowed it down. And”—nothing like a guess that panned out—”he just seemed the type who’d be at the Ambassador. Or maybe the Grand. If your client has that much money to spend on a grudge, why not live it up?”

  He picked up the coffee cup, downed the last dregs. “Only problem is, where’s he got to now?”

  X

  Like all good hits, it was indeed proving easy. Even the long hike had been uneventful, though more time-consuming than Beau had expected. Topping off the boots’ battery pack from the crawler’s generator had been worthwhile, but frustratingly slow. Then, just about the time he’d closed in on them, the sunners finished cleaning one set of towers and trooped off to another—irritating because shifting positions this close, he couldn’t risk more than the dimmest of lights. Just enough for his heads-up to amplify to a grainy image of the rocks he was about to trip over.

  At least with his radio locked on receive-only, nobody could hear him curse. The sunners, on the other hand, chattered endlessly on a dozen channels, the hare’s voice prominent among them. Even when he switched channels, Beau’s state-of-the-art eavesdropping equipment tracked him seamlessly.

  One of the rules of his trade was never to ask why. The hare had done something that meant he deserved to die. That was all Beau needed to know. But while some jobs were pure business, this one smacked of revenge. His clients might like to hear the hare’s last, unsuspecting, words. There might even be a tidy bonus. He twitched a cursor with a shift of his eye, ordering his suit to record everything that came in over the radio.

  Drew was dusting. Not the way his mother once made him do it during a brief between-maids phase, but with an electrostatic wand that made the dust fly off in a fountain of motes that sparkled in his suit lights. He wondered how much would eventually end up on other panels he’d wind up dusting next Darkout. Nobody knew how the dust found the panels, though he’d been told that when power generation was at max, the stuff practically seemed to climb the towers. Luckily his job wasn’t to figure out why. It was just good, physical work that left him feeling like he’d actually accomplished something useful.

  Dozens of other workers were spread across the array like sailors on an ancient frigate, but somehow Sarah had wound up next to him on the same panel. “Just looking after the newby,” she said. But Drew knew better. Not to mention that he was no longer the newby. That honor, along with the ridiculous spacesuit, had been handed over to Damien something-or-other. Drew was now in a professional skinsuit that not only made him feel like a full member of the team, but finally, blessedly, allowed him to move.

  “Why don’t they just make panels that do this automatically?” he asked.

  They were on their first break, sitting on a scaffold fifty meters above the surface.

  She shrugged. “Why do they do anything?”

  In Darkout, her face was unreadable. A black void behind her helmet light, just as everything beyond the range of his lights was now dark as the pit of Hell. But she’d been here her whole life, knew how to communicate when vision failed and voice was all you had.

  Maybe her shoulders shrugged. Maybe not. Her voice did. “You’d never have asked that on Earth. There, you’d just know labor is cheap, technology expensive. Here, nothing is cheap, but I guess we’re cheaper than redesigning the panels. And hey, it’s a job.” She touched his arm. “With a view.” Again the maybe shrug. “When you can see it. Would you really rather be inside?”

  “No way.”

  Sarah checked her tether. A reflex. She’d not unclipped during break, never would. Most accidents, she’d told him more times than he could count, came simply from falling off. Even in lunar gee, that could be deadly.

  “Me neither,�
� she said. Then she shifted to the general com-channel. “Break over.”

  Beau was finally in position. He unlimbered his rifle, set up the tripod. Watched, looking for surprises. Not that he expected any, but it was the watching and waiting that kept it that way.

  He removed his overglove—the inner would be enough for thirty or forty seconds, more than enough time. Dialed the range into his autoscope.

  Three hundred forty-two meters. He couldn’t miss. He’d made hits from three times that range. He put the outer glove back on to warm his hands. The hare was on the scaffold far above, doing nothing. Break over. The perfect epitaph.

  He removed his glove again. Slipped his finger over the trigger. Lined up on the helmet, just below the visor light. Breath in. Hold it. Pulse low, hands steady. Squeeze the trigger, not pull it. Nothing new. He’d done this countless times.

  “Damn it, Damien!” At Sarah’s shout, Drew’s head swiveled to the new guy, at the far end of the scaffold he’d been sharing with Sarah. “What kind of idiots is Lum hiring these days? Tether up! Never unclip this high off the ground. You got me?”

  Drew stood up, glad he himself had graduated from beginner to journeyman, or whatever you became when you no longer had to wear the training suit. Damien clipped in and started to wave a desultory hand. Drew knew what he was thinking. Yeah, yeah. Sorry boss. Only, of course, he wouldn’t be truly repentant because the scaffold was wide, the railing secure, the tether a nuisance. How could you fall off?

  Then, suddenly, the panel shattered. Cracks ran across it in a starburst ripple and sections began falling away in a slow-motion scattering of giant daggers.

  Drew’s first thought was that he himself had somehow broken it. But he’d barely moved, hadn’t even touched the panel. If they were this fragile, why hadn’t Sarah told him?

  The unthinkable had happened. Beau had missed. At first he was simply stunned. Then he realized: the autoscope was calibrated for Earth. Six times higher gravity. The damn shot had gone high.

  For the first time in his career, he’d made a mistake. Two, actually. Trusting the autoscope was the second. The first had been going for the head shot. Yeah, it was the classic kill. But in a vacuum? Any hole should be good enough.