The Last Dancer

by The Last Dancer (new ed) (mobi)

  Someone behind me murmured, "Oh, shit." Necks around me craned upward, and I joined them.

  The debarking area at Lock Ten is about ten meters high; cargo often gets unloaded here, and the extra cubic is useful.

  Five--no, six of them, and four of them were clowns--had tethered themselves to the ceiling, high above us. They pointed laser rifles straight down on us.

  Two of them wore Tytan Security blues; Lopez and McCarthy. McCarthy grinned at me, called out, "Hi, Chief."

  I brought my eyes back down from the ceiling, to face the young black clown. From nowhere the clown had produced a small hideaway maser; he held it in his naked right hand, pointed at my face. "One wrong move," said the clown in a grim voice, "and we'll kill you all."

  Jay stood closest to me; he took a step back, and then lifted his hands very carefully and put them atop his head and stood motionless. I heard the distant rustle of uniforms as the others emulated him.

  I stood still, didn't move, not even to put my hands on my head.

  The clown smiled then for real, and passed the maser to the Master of Ceremonies. He looked at me. "You're Neil Corona, aren't you? The Neil Corona?"

  When people say it that way the only thing they ever mean is, Are you the Neil Corona who surrendered to the Unification outside of Yorktown? I always am. "Yeah. That's me."

  "Great. Pleased to meet you." The clown held out his bare right hand to be shaken. The other was still enclosed in a red clown glove. "I'm Trent."

  * * *

  56.

  "Trent?" Jay said stupidly. "The Trent?"

  His hand dropped back to his side. Dark brown eyes studied Jay from inside white clown makeup. "You know," he said after a moment, "when people say it that way the only thing they ever mean is, are you Trent the Uncatchable? I always am."

  "You don't look like your pictures."

  "I used to be a white man, yes. You're Jay Altaloma, aren't you?"

  "Yes."

  "I thought so. They said you were stupid." Trent turned back to me, held his hand out again. "Pleased to meet you."

  I took it this time. I wasn't being the least sarcastic when I said, "Likewise."

  Over the course of the next two hours I watched one of the most professional operations it has ever been my dubious pleasure to have run on me. The lock cycled all the way open, inner and outer doors both, and some two hundred men and women in United Nations Space Force uniforms came pouring through, armed mostly with needlers.

  SpaceFarers' Collective. If I hadn't known they couldn't be real Space Force--not with Trent there--I'd have bought them for what their uniforms proclaimed. They looked like downsiders--but SpaceFarers do; the Collective raises its children under gravity, so that they can withstand the kind of boost that Space Force employs chasing them. The only thing that marked them for Collective rather than Space Force, and I doubt I'd have noticed this if I hadn't been looking for it, was that though they had the compactness of size that only comes from being raised under gravity, they moved in drop like Halfers; humans are only capable of learning to move that way in childhood.

  Trent the Uncatchable, I learned quickly, knew Halfway's security layout every bit as well as I did.

  He did what I'd have done in his skin; restrained the Security Jay had brought down with us, snakechains all around; left most of his troops in the debarking area, put a laser in my back and walked Jay and me up to Marc Packard's offices. Marc's offices sit in a little blister on the outer surface of Administration Central; mine are down the hall. They went in and secured Marc's office before bringing Jay and me through. Marc sat unconscious in his chair, with half a dozen anesthetic slivers still visible, though melting rapidly, in one cheek.

  They put Jay and me in a corner of the room, snakechained us together, and put a huge clown with a laser rifle on us.

  Trent pulled Marc free from his chair, tossed him over to a bunch of clowns who had come up with us, and sank down behind Marc's desk.

  Abruptly things got quiet. Jay started to say something, but the big clown waved him to silence. Trent sat with his eyes closed, doing God knows what; if it was true, as I'd heard, that he was one of the greatest Players in the System, it could be almost anything.

  In the distance, breach alarms went off. None of the circus people, if any of them were circus people, seemed alarmed, and I worked it out quickly enough; the breach was not real, it was simply that the alarms would seal Administration Central off from the rest of Halfway more quickly than anything else.

  After perhaps five minutes Trent opened his eyes, stretched slightly, and smiled at me. "You have six tunnels, fourteen major airlocks, forty-seven single-person locks, seven emergency locks. All sealed. Am I missing anything?"

  "If you were I wouldn't tell you."

  Trent nodded. "Fair enough. I think I've got Administration Central sealed off. We took care of the Security barracks on the way in; blew off a couple of fadeaway bombs inside it. We'll go in and clean up in a bit; fadeaway, if you're not familiar with it, won't hurt your people. Please notice, 'Sieur Corona, that we've gone to real lengths to make sure that none of your people are hurt."

  "I've noticed."

  "Good. So, by now the rest of Halfway thinks that there's been a breach at Administration Central; by the time they'll expect the emergency to be over, they'll have been believably informed that Space Force has taken over both Halfway Administration Central, and--" Trent paused, got a slightly distant look, and said, "--and the Halfway InfoNet Relay Station. We're set up to do a very good imitation of a Space Force battalion, and as long as we don't have to deal with PKF or real Space Force I think we'll get away with it. We'll be cleaning up Administration Central for the next several minutes, but we're already reporting secured for about eighty percent of Central. The Relay Station we've got cold, along with one of the Secretary General's webdancers." Trent stopped, looked at me where I sat with Jay, and said, "'Sieur Corona, I'd like your help."

  Jay said hotly, "You can't think you're going to get away with impersonating Space Force. It--"

  "I do think so," said Trent without looking away from me. "Space Force is busy at the moment, trying to take back the laser cannon; the PKF are just as busy getting ready to take back Japan. All we have to do here is stay quiet for a couple days, give the Halfers an explanation they'll accept. A Space Force takeover will make sense to them, to the degree they bother to think about it. Most of them are distracted by the fighting over the laser cannon anyway."

  I'd worked my way through it by then; I said simply, "Tell me what you need." I could feel Jay's stare of disbelief boring into the side of my head.

  "We're going to hold Administration Central, and the Halfway Relay Station, for two, three days; it depends. After we've done what we came for, we're out of here. Shortly after we've left, it's going to become apparent that it wasn't Space Force here, but Trent with Collective troopers. When that gets out, the PKF will have Halfway under martial law. Do you follow the chain of events?"

  Unfortunately, I did. "Yes."

  "Okay. So you have no real choice. Perhaps today, if we screw up, a couple of days from now if things go well, Halfway goes under martial law. And when that happens, 'Sieur Corona, you're going up against the wall."

  He was correct and we both knew it.

  "Look," said Jay, "you don't know--"

  Trent did not raise his voice particularly. "Shut up, Altaloma. 'Sieur Corona," said Trent softly, "I need your help. Do you want to live?"

  I looked around Marc's office, at Marc's unconscious form, the clowns, the men in Space Force uniforms. I said to Trent. "Sometimes it seems like a lot of effort."

  Trent nodded. "I've had whole days like that. You can come with us when we leave; or we can try to arrange passage downside, and you can take your chances hiding among Earth's seven and a half billion."

  "And if I come with you, how are you getting out of Earth/Luna without being blown to pieces?"

  "We're going to run backward."
>
  "That thing you came in is a boat. What are you going to do when it's time to leave?"

  Trent shrugged. "Leave."

  "Just like that."

  "Run away."

  I'm sure the skepticism showed in my voice. "You're not serious."

  Trent looked genuinely perplexed. "Why do people always say that to me?"

  Jay said, "I don't think you know what you're doing here."

  "Yes I do. Listen, Corona, this is--"

  "But, damn it, you're messing up our--"

  Trent did not raise his voice. He just started talking and assumed that everybody in earshot would shut up and listen. A good trick; it worked. "If you don't stop talking at me," said Trent carefully, "I'm going to have your arms broken."

  Jay blinked. "You're a pacifist."

  Trent actually grinned at him. "I used to think that too. But I'm not. I'm a, what's the word, there isn't one, a person who doesn't believe in killing. But if you don't shut up I'll have the big clown break your arms, okay?"

  "Listen, damn it. If you thi--"

  "Wait." It cut Jay short; he stopped in midword. Trent spoke so quietly I had to strain to hear him. "Rule One: Pay attention. Rule Two: Don't whine. Rule Three: Don't take any shit from anyone. Do you understand?"

  "I think so."

  "Good. Stop bothering me. Corona--"

  Jay said, "But--"

  Trent said, "Break his right arm." He turned to me. "You had a Player arrive here recently."

  I said slowly, "Yes--I think so. She's just a girl."

  "What's the Player's name?"

  "Michelle Altaloma. Jay's cousin, they call her Shell." I stopped when Jay screamed, waited for the scream to subside. "I mean Jay does."

  "Cute name. She staying with him?"

  "I think so."

  To the clown who'd been holding the laser on us, Trent said, "Go get her, take her to the Station." He turned back to Jay. "You okay?"

  Jay glared at him. "Fuck you."

  Trent nodded. "Break the other arm."

  Jay started to scream; he stopped midway through, when his left arm snapped. For a moment he just gasped for breath, staring at Trent; Trent stood looking back at him. "You should learn to pay attention," Trent said after a moment. "It would save you no end of trouble." He gestured to a pair of smaller clowns. "Take them somewhere safe and fix the loud one's arms. I don't want to listen to him anymore."

  They stashed us together in one of my own holding cells, down the hall from my office. I'd have been indignant if I hadn't been numb.

  "Christ," said Jay. "First he called me stupid and then he broke my arms."

  "He didn't call you stupid," I said. "He was just repeating something someone else said about you."

  "But--"

  "I don't think you're stupid," I told him. "Not really stupid. I just think you talk too much."

  He shut up.

  About fifteen minutes later Trent stopped in to see us briefly, at the same time the medbot arrived to take care of Jay's arms. "How are your arms?"

  Jay said, "They hurt."

  "They will," Trent agreed. "Better remember to ask the medbot for a painkiller, or it won't do anything but set the bones and inject a nanovirus to help them knit." To me he said, "Thank you for your help. I've got some business to take care of, but I'd like you to join me over at the Relay Station, in about an hour."

  "I'll check my calendar."

  Trent nodded. "Thank you." He turned to go--

  "Hey!"

  He turned back for a moment. "Yes?"

  "I have a lot of questions--"

  "And I'll answer them, later."

  I don't know where the question came from, or why it suddenly seemed important: "Did you really walk through a wall once?"

  Trent grinned at me. "Don't believe everything you audit." The door unrolled and left us alone with the medbot tending Jay's arm.

  After a bit Jay said, "You know, he reminds me of my grandfather."

  "Oh?"

  Jay winced as the medbot grasped his arm and braced him, prior to pulling the broken bone back into position. "Plainest spoken man I ever knew, my grandfather. If he told you he'd do something, he did it. If there were more people out there like him and Trent, there'd be a lot less--" Jay screamed, and then breathed deeply, rapidly, for several seconds, before resuming. "--there'd be a lot less misunderstanding in the world."

  I gave Jay long enough for the painkillers to take effect. "Want to tell me?"

  He didn't look at me. "Tell you what?"

  "What are you? Reb, Claw--Peaceforcer?"

  "TrueBreed," he said shortly.

  "Oh." That told me a great deal. Somehow I wasn't surprised. TrueBreed isn't as well known as Project Superman, but anybody who follows the Rebs even casually--say, Chief of Security at Halfway--knows about their existence. "Reb, then. Why are you up here? Something to do with the Relay Station, I've got that, but--"

  He spoke wearily. "Neil, does it matter?"

  Point. "How did you pass the psychometric?"

  "Vasily."

  That was mildly interesting. "A Russian in the Johnny Rebs?"

  "There's more Russians in the Rebs than in the Erisian Claw, Neil. The Claw is heavily European; Europeans look down on Russians."

  Learn something new every day. "How did Vasily pass? I tested him myself."

  Jay nodded. "We recruited him afterward. We almost tried to recruit you. If we'd had more time to work with, Shell was supposed to give it a shot. Your psychometric said you'd be responsive."

  "Responsive? Well, she's a cute girl," I conceded. "One last question?"

  "Sure."

  "Is she really your cousin?"

  He grinned a trifle crookedly. "True story."

  I nodded. I couldn't think of anything else I wanted to know from him.

  About an hour later, he said, "It was just business, Neil. I've enjoyed your company a lot."

  "Sure."

  About an hour after that a pair in Space Force uniforms came for me.

  "Sorry about the delay," said Trent as I was ushered into Marc's office. He stood with his back to me at the huge bay window Marc had installed there, looking out on most of Halfway, the Unity, and Earth. "We had a problem."

  "What?"

  Trent didn't turn around. "Securing Administration Central. One of your people hid, and then when he was found he fought."

  My voice wasn't steady. "Who?"

  "Vasily Koslov. Your number two."

  "And?"

  Trent was silent a beat. "Dead. He cut both the legs off one of our girls. The rest of her squad shot him nine or ten times." Trent turned to face me. In low gravity, tears move very slowly. Trent the Uncatchable looked at me through his tears and said, "I'm so sorry."

  We took a pressurized sled together, over to the Halfway Relay Station, and talked very briefly. Trent wanted to know if he'd had a family.

  "None that I know of. It would be in his file."

  Trent nodded. Muscles in his jaws were clenching and unclenching as I watched. "Yes."

  "A girlfriend I think he might have been serious about."

  "We'll do what we can for her."

  "Trent, is this worth it?"

  I knew the cold fury in his voice was not directed at me. "It's never worth it."

  Michelle Altaloma waited for us, angry and scared, when we docked at the Relay Station. The Relay Station is not large; you can fit maybe twenty people inside, tops. Half a dozen SpaceFarers in Space Force uniforms, Shell, myself and Trent, made a cozy enough fit.

  She looked like she'd dressed hastily; a pair of jeans and a pale blue sweater. Without the fashion ensemble she looked even younger.

  She was seated in front of a full-sensory traceset; she rose when we cycled through.

  Trent didn't make her wait. "You're the Player who thought this stunt up?"

  Shell said stiffly, "Yes," and I wondered what "this" was.

  "Great. You want to explain to me how this was supposed to
work?"

  She stared at him a moment. "Who are you?"

  Trent seemed to realize for the first time that he was still wearing the clown uniform. He glanced down at himself, seemed briefly embarrassed. "Oh. Sorry. I'm Trent."

  In an entirely different voice she said, "Really." I could see she believed him instantly. Not surprising; I had. "So what do I call you, anyway? 'Sieur Uncatchable?"

  He said simply, "My name is Trent Castanaveras. You can call me Trent."

  Shell nodded slowly, looking him up and down. "Suzanne Montignet designed you."

  "Yes. And you're second generation TrueBreed."

  "Yes."

  The two genies stood there, just looking at each other, for a long moment, and then I saw them both, at almost the same moment, shake themselves slightly. Trent spoke as though they were the only two present: "You'll be an interesting person to know, someday."

  Shell actually flushed. "Fuck you too."

  "Tell me about the takedown. How it was supposed to go."

  "Why should I?"

  "If I like it, I might still do it."

  Shell took a slow, deep breath, looking searchingly at the man's stone expressionless features, and then seemed to accept it. "Okay. Here's how it's supposed to go."

  For most of an hour Trent listened to her, nodding occasionally, asking questions where I didn't recognize half the words he was using. At one point he interrupted her: "Who ran this simulation?"

  "The chain breakdown? An AI named Ring, works with the Claw. I needed it; no human could have run the simulation at the depth I needed."

  Trent, sitting in the chair facing her, said absently, "Speak for yourself," and she flushed again, though I and perhaps she could tell it was nothing but a throwaway comment. "All right, so you have two, three of the supplemental InfoNet Relays, the little talk-to-me's. You'll need them--"

  "We'll have all of them," she said swiftly.

  He waved a hand. "That's minor. Halfway Relay is the big one. How were you going to control the traffic when the Relay Stations started going down?"

  "Ground stations, primarily--"

  "No, I thought of that one myself. It doesn't work. If--"

  She interrupted him eagerly. "Sure it does. Look, the Earth InfoNet moves an average 1,240 transactions per person per day, a total of 9.3 trillion transactions per day. At peak traffic you push one trillion transactions per hour. Trent, there's sufficient surplus logic--by an order of magnitude--in the Earth InfoNet to handle that load. If--"