Horizons

by Mary Rosenblum

  Without a word she slipped it from her pocket, thumbprinted it to activate it, and handed it over. Dane vanished.

  The cordon was complete now. The tourists were being loaded into a cart, two of them threatening legal action, but sobered and subdued now. The third man, the one who had started the brawl with his punch, stood patiently, never once saying a word. Curious, Ahni edged closer. He wasn’t afraid or upset at all.

  Or drunk. Dane appeared just then at her side.

  “Ready to go?” He nodded toward a forming stream of bodies at one point in the cordon, where Security was reading and recordding ID.

  “He’s a pro.” She twitched her chin in the direction of the third tourist. “Hired to do this.”

  “I caught that.” Dane nodded. “I know Carrie–the woman in charge. She’s going to see what she can trip him into.”

  ”You and Laif run this platform, quite well, you know,” she murmured.

  He smiled.

  They had turned onto the main cross corridor where her hotel was located. The doorman was a woman today, with the look of a native, and she lifted her chin to Ahni as she approached.”You have a visitor.”

  Her skeptical expression said a lot.

  “It’s all right.” Ahni nodded. “I gave him the pass.”

  “Okay.” She disapproved.

  “Question,” Ahni said. “Clearly bumping is rude or even a challlenge up here?”

  Dane nodded.

  ”When that tourist passed gas… that is taboo, too?”

  “Oh yes.” Dane shook his head, sighed. “We can’t get the tourist PR people to include that in their intro vids for visitors, but I wish they would. It’s not just rude, it’s sort of like spitting on everyone around you.

  Made a nice trigger didn’t it?” He gave her a crooked smile. “He must have biological control like yours.”

  “Maybe.” Ahni thought back. “Pause would explain his timing and his reflexes.”

  “Does it bother you to have machines in your head?” He was looking at her curiously.

  “Does it bother you that you couldn’t go down to Earth today and walk around comfortably?”

  “That’s just muscle.” They had stopped beneath one of the flowering trees in the courtyard. “I can fix that by spending more time in the gym. If I want to. It doesn’t change who I am.”

  “Nanoware doesn’t either.” She smiled. “It’s not like some sort of AI mind. It doesn’t affect who I am or how I think. It’s just having a really fast computer is all. Don’t people use it up here?”

  “Not much. Tourists bring it up. How do you know that it doesn’t affect how you think?”

  She shrugged. “‘Well, I guess I don’t really know if it affects me. since it was installed before I was born.” She smiled again. “I’m just me. The nanos are just data access hardware, switches, instant connection to the net no matter if I have a link or not. It’s not like I hear voices in my head.”

  Dane shook his head. “If you say so.”

  “What’s going to happen to the people in the brawl?” she asked. “I saw you talking to the natives who were part of it.” She raised an eyebrow. “Did you get them off?”

  “Sure.” He shrugged. “They got set up. I had Laif tell Carrie to bring the tourists in by a different route, and as soon as they were out of sight, let the natives go. That’ll cool off the Con. There’s’ convenient stretch of corridor with a faulty cam in it, so there won’t be any permanent vid record.”

  As they approached the room door the room voice murmured You have a visitor waiting. He had a pass.

  “Thank you,” Ahni said, and the door slid open.

  The man, scruffy in a grubby overall that had once carried an insignia on the front zip pocket and showed the scar where it had been effaced, sprawled in a recliner, a glass of beer in his hand from the refreshment wall. His face had a leathery, weathered look, although how you could get “weathered” up here, Ahni had no idea. As he grinned and lifted the beer in a toast, she noticed that his teeth were all synthetic implants and that he only had a thumb and forefinger on the hand that held the beer. The deformities repelled her. Why, when it was so easy and cheap to get reconstructive surrgery using cloned tissue?

  “Nice company you keep, Dane.” He grinned up at them. “Thanks for the nice soft place to hide. I hate having to come down here looking for you. Heard some rumors that say maybe mining looks good again.”

  Ahni eyed the man, wondering what his age was in years. His bones were about as diminished as Koi’s and the heave of his chest suggested that too much time in fullG would kill him for sure.

  “Kyros, Ahni. She’s okay, Kyros.” Dane amiled. “Ahni, meet Kyros. He’s a miner… asteroid miner… so he doesn’t have any manners to speak of, but he’s harmless.”

  Lot of affection there. Longtime friends, Ahni guessed.

  “What were you doing down here?” Dane dropped wearily onto the end of the bed. “Not even I can save your butt if Laif gets hold of you.” He sighed.”You’re lucky Ahni was there with her pass.”

  “Dane, you asked me to keep an eye out.” Kyros sat forward. “I seen something. Somebody’s tooling around out there where they don’t belong.”

  “Not just some new competition?” Dane’s eyes narrowed.

  “Nah.” Kyros shook his head. “It’s Swat-Prala’s old ship… that bucket of bolts that’ll get any fool killed who trusts it too long. And whoever is using it is a crappy pilot. Damn lucky one of the rock jocks hasn’t holed him, just to get him out of the way beefore he hits someone. Or one of Darkside’s catchers.

  Jazmin’s just about hot enough to do it. He nearly clipped her, bringing in a load of ice.”

  ”You ID the pilot?” Dane asked softly.

  “Nope. I don’t run around with a chip reader. Somebody told Jazmin he’s a wildcard. I think that’s why she didn’t scuttle him, but why would a wildcard buy a crap heap like that ship of Swat-Prala’s? They’re all filthy rich.”

  Ahni met Dane’s eyes. “What’s he’ doing out there?” she asked the miner.

  “Nothin’.” Kyros shrugged. “That’s what’s funny. He’s just kind of scootin’ around. Driver’s ed?”

  “You hear any other rumors about him?” Dane asked.

  Kyros shook his head. “Nobody really knows anythin’ much about him. Or cares. Rocky’s selling him ice for the ship and she gave the guy a few pointers. Wants to keep him alive to keep buying, I guess.

  Heard another bit that might or might not have someethin’ to do with this.” His eyes, dark and sly as a dragon’s moved between them. “But I’m doin’ all the givin’ here, Dane. I’ll tell you what else I hear when you tell me what’s going on. You know me.” He chuckled. “Just gotta know everything.”

  “It’s blowing up, Kyros,” Dane said slowly. “CSF is on the way. I need the guy who’s in Swat-Prala’s ship. He’s the only bone Laif can throw this dog.” He smiled mirthlessly. “And if he doesn’t throw it something, it’s going to eat us both.”

  Kyros leaned forward, his manner suddenly, deadly serious. “Dane, you don’t need to end up the bone.

  This is Laif’s game, not oyours.” He glanced fleetingly at Ahni.

  “She knows, Kyros.”

  “Okay then. This is what’s gonna come down, Dane.” Kyros tilted his glass, drained the last of his beer.

  “CFS pops on up to the hub and all hell breaks loose. You’re smack in the middle. ‘Bout time you headed back out to the Belt before you get busted for those pets of yours.”

  Ahni winced at Dane’s reaction. Watched Kyros’s eyes darken. “Damn,” the old man said, and drew a deep, labored breath. “What you see in them, I don’t know. But then I don’t, do I?” He levered himself to his feet with difficulty. “I’ll go catch up with Jazmin. She’s picking up a load and it’s slow coming in. She’s got time on her hands to go lookin’. You want him alive?”

  “If possible,” Dane said evenly. “It would be better to have him talk
ing, but I don’t want people dead who don’t need to be.” He didn’t look at Ahni.

  “Will do.” Kyros shuffled toward the door, paused to look into Ahni’s face. “Too bad you got mixed up in this. Dane’s good at watching your back for you.”

  ”Yeah.” She gave him a faint smile. “I bet he is.”

  Kyros gave a cackling laugh and left the room.

  Dane got Noah out of bed between shifts. Not sleeping, Ahni guessed from his tone of voice. But he agreed quickly to head down to the admin offices and work on the medallion’s data dot. “Should be a piece of cake,” he said.

  “Tell him that Taiwanese will be the base for the encryption,” Ahni said.”Not modern, but classical.”

  Noah sounded stressed.

  Dane passed on the information, closed the link, and stood, more gracefully than Kyros, although it clearly cost him an effort, too. For a moment he looked down into her upturned face, then leaned down and kissed her gently on the mouth. “Now we need to visit Li Zhen” he said. “We’ll use my ship and see if you can get us in.”

  You have a message,the room broke in. From Li Zhen, Chairman of Dragon Home.

  “Speak of the devil,” Dane murmured.

  It was prerecorded. Li Zhen would be happy to speak with her and would send a Courier.”You can’t come,” she told Dane. “A bonded courier won’t take you without an invitation. And Laif needs you here,” she answered his frown. “I’ll convince him to meet with you.”

  He agreed, reluctantly, because she was right, took the guest pass she gave him and left. “Be very careful,” he said from the doorway. “Please.”

  When the door closed behind him. Ahni dropped into Pause. Time to lay all her puzzle pieces out and see how Kyros’s new piece fit.

  FIFTEEN

  THE SAME NATIVE COURIER WITH THE CANTONESE FACE arrived at Ahni’s hotel room. He greeted her with a respectful bow and that quicksilver glimner of an internal smile that she rememmbered from her previous trip with him. They didn’t speak as the Courier led her to his ship, and in seemingly no time, the Courier docked his craft in the familiar bay and popped the winged hatch for her. “Thank you,”

  she said as she climbed out of the craft. “I hope you can bring your family up here.” She bowed to him.

  He returned it with a smile.

  The antechamber beyond, with its eggshell colored walls and emmbroidered silk hanging was empty.

  Ahni slipped off her shoes, her feet caressed by the woven carpets. The room gave her no message as she crossed the room to the inner door. She wondered if something had detained Li Zhen or if this was some sort of interesting test. The door opened for her, admitting her to the garden beyond. Today, the sky was streaked with thin white clouds and a flower-scented breeze kissed her cheeks. A gold and crimson dragon kite danced on the wind and she admired the reality of the holo for a moment, before she reallized that it was real, that she was seeing a small kite up there beeneath the artificial sky. It must have some kind of propulsion system, although the delicate construct of silk and light wood might have been one of the kites she had flown as a child. She followed the barely visible line of the string down to the other end of the small garden.

  A woman sat lotus-legged on a mat of woven bamboo, laughing up at the boy who held the kite string.

  About five, maybe, he watched the kite, rapt. Chinese, she noted absently, and felt a tiny shock of recognition as he followed the kite’s dance with milky, blind-looking eyes that seemed to shine in his too-long, tawny face. A cap of embroidered crimson silk covered his hairless scalp, and his arms and legs seemed a little too long for his body, too thin and dellicate to be human. They… curved. Just slightly.

  Another Koi. Not just in New York Up, then.

  As if she had spoken out loud, the child turned to look at her. He smiled, and she felt the pressure of his curiosity. She smiled back, summoning a vision of Koi shooting through the NYUp garden, wondering if he would catch it.

  The woman spied her and leaped to her feet, full of alarm and dismay. She grabbed the boy’s arm and started to pull him away, the kite abandoned now, dancing erratically beneath the sky that was really a ceiling. But he twisted free and ran to Ahni, awkward and coltish on his too long, too fragile, bendable legs.

  “Where?” His Mandarin was whispery, raspy, a bit like the sound of wind through grass. “Can I play with him? Is he here?”

  ”We have to go. I am sorry.” The young woman… a native by her looks, but not nearly as extreme as the child… tugged at his arm, a metallic tinge of fear edging her words. “I apologize. I did not know that Li Zhen expected company, please excuse us.” She had a grip on the boy’s arm now, but he resisted and she seemed reeluctant to use force.

  “It’s all right.” Ahni smiled reassuringly. “I don’t mind. I am pleased to meet you. Your kite is very wonderful,” she said to the boy.

  He shrugged. “Where does he fly like that?” he asked in his papery, grass-wind voice. “I want to do that.”

  “I am so sorry.” The woman’s resolve hardened. “He is… as you see… a tragedy.” Her expression challenged Ahni to disagree, but near panic still surged beneath her apparent calm. “Come now,” she said to the boy, “And I will take you fiying.”

  That got his attention although it was tinged with skepticism, and the woman hustled him away, vanishing through a small door hidden by a pair of miniature cypress trees. Ahni stared thoughttfully at the kite bumping along the ‘sky’ and the woven mat where the woman had sat. She reached for the dangling kite string, gave it a sharp, short tug. It tumbled instantly to her feet, the red and yelllow silk tails fluttering like broken wings, to land in a puddle of bright silk at her feet. She picked it up, noticing the carved bones of real wood that formed it. Someone had made this, carefully and well. The propulsion system was small enough not to be visible to casual inspection. Electromagnetic, she guessed, interacting with hardware in the ceiling/sky.

  “I apologize. My garden is messy for your visit.”

  She turned to face Li Zhen. He must have come in from some other hidden doorway and he was flustered. “How surprising to find a kite up here.” She smiled at him. “Very ingenious.”

  “A touch of home.”

  A tiny spike of pain/anger with that word ‘home’? Ahni put on her sweetest and most unaware expression. “How can one live here and not be homesick for all the things we so take for granted on Earth?”

  “Please.” He managed a smile. “Some tea? Huang Ahni, you are far more than a mere delicate blossom meant to beautify some man’s garden. Shall we talk clearly?” He offered her his arm.

  She masked her uneasiness with a smile. “Clear talk is always the straightest path,” she said and allowed him to usher her from the garden and the crumpled kite. They entered his private chamber again, with its mother-of-pearl inlaid furniture and the bamboo growing in its celadon pot.

  “I was charmed to find a child playing in your garden,” she said as Li Zhen bent to pour from the pot that steamed gently on the low table.

  The tiny jerk of his hand was almost unnoticeable. Anger? Fear? Love? A little bit of all of that? Anhi kept her expression unaware as he handed her an eggshell fragile cup of golden tea.

  “Ah, the child,” he said at last, as he filled a cup for himself. “Such a tragedy for the parents at his birth.

  He is the child of a friend, badly deformed and retarded, but simple things delight him.”

  Lie. An interesting one.

  “So I allow her to bring him to the garden. Why should I keep something just for myself?” He smiled at her, more confident now, sipped his tea.

  Anhi smiled, too, her face expressing her admiration for someeone who was able to share with those beneath him, the flowery taste of the tea filling her mouth.

  A young woman, her long hair braided into a tight knot at her neck, brought in a tray of sliced bamboo shoots and cooked green soybean pods along with two pairs of lacquered chopsticks. This was the woman, the na
tive, who had been playing with the child in the garden. Ahni glanced at her and turned back to Li Zhen, but she kept her attention focused on the woman. She set the tray on the table, her eyes downcast, bowed stiffly and nervously, and withhdrew, carefully not looking at Ahni.

  Ahni weighed the value of asking him outright if the boy in the garden was the reason he had tried to kidnap Koi. But she would only have one question to slip past his guard. After that, his armor would be in place and they would merely fence. He was as good a fencer as she was. Even though she had the advantage of her E ratting. “So you grow bamboo here, too?” She picked up the choppsticks and selected a fat, chambered slice. It crunched between her teeth, thick and crisp, as succulent as the best grown in Taiwan. “Very nice,” she said. “I am impressed.”

  “It is a strain developed for shoot production.” Li Zhen waved a hand, but her praise warmed him.

  “Bamboo in particular seems to thrive in a micro gravity environment. A taste of home.” He lifted his cup.

  Question there, not a statement. Ahni lifted her own cup. “Perhaps,” she said, and the word caught her by surprise. But this was not the time to look too deeply into her unconscious responses. She picked up a soybean pod in her chopsticks, deftly sucking the fat beans from the pod. “China gains power against the NAA,” She said. “What is it that you gain from the arrival of CSF on New York Up?”

  He felt a moment of triumph, but gave her a face of innocence, his eyebrows arching. “I am sorry.” He spoke in careful and precise Mandarin. “I had not heard that the World Council intended to occcupy our sister platform.”

  Ha. “My brother is your agent there, creating friction there between native residents and tourists.” She let her Taiwan accent dominate. No formality here, just truth. “But his presence has been detected, so the usefulness of that approach has been blunted.” She smiled. “The spear in the dark has the sharpest edge.