There was another knot of minders by the door, getting instruction from the house manager, and the gaggle of high-teens who sold programs in exchange for a free show were trying to get close enough to overhear without being chased away. Another group—I didn’t recognize them, but from their props and clothes they had to be lobby-show regulars—was clustered by the main ticket booth, heads swiveling from the minders at the door to us and back again. I wondered if the missing shows had had word of impending trouble, and then put that suspicion aside. The kind of people who worked the Empires tended not to be political—though the ones that were went in for dramatic Causes. Most of us were three-gen coolies, though, or midworlders, not the classes from which Realpeace drew its support.
The house speakers clicked on, gave the two-toned call that meant a theaterwide announcement, and at the same moment a bright yellow attention glyph flashed on the callscreens and in virtual space to catch any deaf people not wearing their ears. I squeezed my control disk, muting the colors, and Muthana’s voice spoke smoothly from the space below the domed ceiling.
“Haya, people, listen up. You’ve probably all heard the news, but this is the official word right now.” There was a pause, and when he spoke again it was obvious he was reading from an official release-sheet. “Micki Tantai, formerly of Hati, was shot today outside the Belmara Arcade where he was attending a benefit for Surya Ravellei—that’s the girl from Gamela who got beat up by Realpeace. There’s no further word on his condition, or on the identity of the shooter.” His voice changed again as he put aside the sheet. “Haya, that’s all any of us know, so there’s no point in pestering the house staff about it. As things stand, the matinee is on, but there’s a good chance the night-show will be canceled—the word from the owners is that Security doesn’t want to leave any chance for more protests. They’ve promised to let us know by the time the matinee is over, so the people from the night-show, you’ll have time to get ready if it goes.”
“Which it won’t,” Catayong said, half under her breath, and I saw Fanning nod. Dhao shook his head once, slowly, not disagreeing, but said nothing. They were probably right, too, and I made a face, thinking of the wasted time. My contract said I would be paid regardless, and I’d get my fee for the lobby show, but I resented missing a performance.
“Haya,” Muthana said. “That’s all for now.”
“Places, people,” the house manager, Inay Hasker, announced, and reluctantly people started to move toward their positions along the lobby walls. “Doors open in ten minutes. Security, ticket crew, stand by.”
“Where does that leave you?” I said to Fanning, and he shrugged.
“We get paid some—not the full fee, though.”
Dhao touched his arm. “Come on,” he said, and gave me an apologetic smile. “We’ve got to go.”
They went back up the stairs in a group, heading for one of the interior service lifts that would take them down to the practice rooms, and only Catayong looked back, frowning nervously as the drummer from Tigridi took her place behind the borrowed drum. I put them out of my mind and went back to the cabinet show, drawing the desert cape’s hood up over my hair. The karakuri was ready, the virtual checklights glowing pale green in the air around them; I waved my hand through the lower control space to start the music, and caught a glimpse of myself in the narrow strip of polished brass that edged the nearest half-pillar. I looked worried even under the hood’s massive shadow, paler than I should be, and I wondered, too late, if I should have done more with my makeup. I put that thought away, too, and reached into the main control web to bring the timing chart to the foreground. I watched it click off the numbers, each one matched to a movement from the karakuri, and started the cabinet as the piece returned to its beginning. The rope dancer climbed to her platforms, twirled and stooped, and then the magician lifted her head and began to play with the cup and balls. As she looked to me, I palmed my ball, presented it, and made it vanish again. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw one of the plainclothes minders sign applause, and the speakers crackled again.
“Last call for places. Door crew, stand by.”
The show would run itself for the next few minutes, and I risked a glance at the doors. There were people waiting, all right, plenty of shadows against the glass, but not as many as there should be. I couldn’t tell if they were coolies or not, or even upperworld rather than midworld; there seemed to be the usual number of kids, though, and I wondered if these were just the people who hadn’t heard the news, or the ones who didn’t care. A lot of coolies thought Micki Tantai and Hati had betrayed them five years ago; I could see that those people might have heard the news, and shrugged, maybe even smiled a little, and gone on about their business.
“Ten seconds to opening,” Hasker said, and I turned my attention to the cabinet show. Everything was running smoothly, all the check-lights green, filling the air around it, and I took a deep breath.
“Input, command. Reduce display to preset minimum.” The lights faded as I spoke, the suit pulse trickling down to almost nothing, and I ran the gain to its highest setting. The background readings sprang up again, security systems and the hot blue lights of the automatic ticket counters, and I had to shift my position to get out of the nearest tightbeam line. The bright lights faded, and I could see the ghost of the cabinet show’s controls again. Very few people would have skinsuits, not in an upperworld crowd—the suits are mainly for FTL pilots and high-level constructors and design engineers—but anyone who did would be unlikely to have it turned up high enough to spot the cabinet’s transmission, especially not today with the house systems so bright. And that would only help hide how the illusion worked.
“Three seconds,” Hasker announced. “Two… And one… Opening the house now.”
I caught a quick glimpse of the doors swinging wide, triggered by his voice, then I’d frozen into my position for the act. I could hear the babble of voices, the rapid rise and fall and the long-held vowels of the coolies’ tonal dialect, but the hood blocked my side vision, so that I could only see the cabinet show and its virtual controls and a narrow wedge of the lobby. The liveried minder rocked forward onto the balls of his feet, and the first of the kids, a gang of three followed by a low-teen girl who had to be their caretaker, skidded to a stop in front of the show. They were coolies by their faces, smiling and excited; if they’d heard anything about Tantai, which I doubted, it meant nothing to them. The rope dancer reached the top of her platform and turned; the magician lifted her cup to show the crystal ball glowing against the dark purple velvet of her table, and we were off. I closed my mind to everything except the rhythm of the show, the pattern of gesture and the weight of the crystal in my hand, shutting out the voices except as counterpoint and the directing murmur of applause.
I couldn’t hold them, though. Except for the kids, the ones too young really to remember Hati or the Manfred Riots, they were all distracted, their thoughts not really here in the Empire but ten levels down on the Zodiac with Micki Tantai and a mysterious gunman in a sarang. I could have shown them miracles, pulled fire from the air without benefit of sleight of hand, and nothing would have registered except a pattern of pretty lights. I hate an audience like that, one that won’t give, won’t take even the spark of an idea from me. Between their distraction and my own anger and unease, the show was lifeless, technically correct, but without the edge, the breath, that it should have had. I have rarely been more relieved than I was when the lights flashed for the final warning, and the last pair of high-teens dragged themselves away from the lobby show and up the stairs to the balcony. A blue light flared in front of my eyes, telling me that the doors were closing.
“Stand by,” Hasker announced. “Haya, stand down. All doors are closed. Nice job, people.”
The lobby show closes after the main show starts—at intermission, one buys souvenirs or food. I palmed my crystal for the last time and shoved back my hood. “Input, command. Return display to preset optimum.”
&nbs
p; The checklights strengthened again, and I waved my hand through the control space to begin the shutdown. I remember that I was pleased, seeing how well it had functioned, with no notice and no chance to do more than the most basic repairs. I remember, too, that I looked for Tigridi’s drummer, and saw her still standing behind the racked drums, the sweat standing on her face. The minders who’d been watching her were sweating, too: Tigridi is just the kind of band the low-teens love. And then I saw Fanning coming down the stairs from the gallery, his face if anything whiter than it had been before, and I knew what had happened before I saw the sign.
*Micki Tantai—* The famous name sign, heart and the initial, circling over Fanning’s heart to add the emphasis, and then both hands to finish*—Micki Tantai’s dead.*
“Ah, Fan,” I said, not knowing what else I could say, and he shook his head, switching to speech as he came closer.
“We heard it on All-Hours, there was a bulletin.” He shook his head. “There’s going to be hell to pay for this.”
“I’m sorry,” I said, and would have held him if he’d been the sort to let me, or if I’d quite known how to offer.
“It’s bad, Cissy.”
I let him get away with the old nickname, making allowance. “If it was Realpeace, they’ve just lost a lot of support.”
“Or gained a lot,” he answered, and shook his head again. “God, I hope you’re right, Fortune.”
“Look what happened to Dreampeace,” I said. “Manfred wasn’t even their idea, not directly, but it killed that constructor, tried to kill that FTL pilot, and that buried them. If Realpeace did this, they’re history.”
“That was five years ago,” Fanning said. “Things have changed.”
He was right about that, too, or maybe it was more that not enough things had changed. Manfred had killed machine rights without doing anything for the coolies, either. “If Realpeace did it, they’ve gone too far,” I said, and hoped it was true.
2
Reverdy Jian
For once, she could see the ship from the transfer tube, a bright point of light outlined in vivid glyphs still coded yellow to remind her that it was her responsibility until the handover on Persephone. It was a good ship—a joint-venture prototype, Kagami wireware, Adastra hull, the new Merlin V power plant, designed for the carrier trade, fast enough to make the time bonuses and cheap enough to run to make it practical in the Rim Sectors—and she watched it down the length of the tube, enjoying the sense of satisfaction. This test flight had been a Kagami contract, and came with Kagami bonuses: the company still acknowledged its debt to her for what she had done and not done these last five years. More than that, though, she had liked the ship, a tight, fast hull, a little stolid, maybe, but better than the temperamental one-of-a-kind hulls she dealt with on a regular basis. Definitely a good one, she thought. Score one for the buyers, this time.
There was a human steward at the end of the tube, and she handed him her destination disk, saw the subtle lift of eyebrows as the disk confirmed her first-class status. It wasn’t usual, especially for a mere pilot—it was fallout from a power struggle among the joint-venture companies, Kagami proving her worth—but he made no comment, just pointed her forward toward the appropriate compartment. She squeezed past him, awkward in the narrow space of the lock, swung her carryall forward on her hip to make it easier to handle. She heard voices rise behind her, one familiar, sharp and querulous, but she didn’t look back. If it was her business, Vaughn would make sure she heard.
The first-class compartment was empty: it was a perk most Cartel employees were willing to forgo, on the short flight, or traded for something better. She settled herself into one of the forward seats, slid her carryall into its webbing, and stretched her long legs into the aisle, intending to sleep if she could manage it.
“Reverdy.”
The voice was not going to be denied, and she opened her eyes, ignoring the momentary blur as the autofocus mechanism sighted on the nearest object. She blinked, resetting them, and Imre Vaughn’s face swam into clarity, the lines at the corners of his eyes tightening not with laughter but something like concern. Beyond him, on the far side of the aisle, Red was little more than a blur of hair and ivory skin: the machine eyes still didn’t cope terribly well with multiple targets until they’d had a chance to set their ranges. The world shifted again, and her sight was normal.
“Yeh?”
“Did you hear the news?”
Jian shook her head, not bothering to ask what news he meant. Nothing she’d seen was important enough to catch Vaughn’s attention; whatever this was, it was enough to distract him from his recent obsession with machine chess. She could even see the most recent form report, unmistakable on its lime green paper, crumpled and forgotten in the outer pocket of his carryall.
“Micki Tantai’s dead—shot to death,” Vaughn said. “Probably by Realpeace.”
Jian blinked. “Who’s Micki Tantai?”
“You remember Hati?” Vaughn asked, and Jian nodded.
“Oh. Yeh, I remember them.” The band had been big in the upperworld just before the Manfred Riots—and they were a mixed band, too, she added silently, coolies and midworlders, no, coolies and yanquis—which hadn’t been usual even then. And they broke up right after the Riots, something about somebody being a Dreampeacer—“One of them was Dreampeace, right?”
Vaughn gave her a look. “Two of them were, and three of them weren’t. Micki Tantai was one of the Dreampeacers, and he was a coolie—and their face, for that matter. And now Realpeace has shot him.”
“You said probably,” Jian said.
“Since when has Realpeace claimed anything it’s done?”
“They’ve got a lot of crazies hooked up with them,” Jian said. “It doesn’t have to have been their idea—the organization’s, I mean.” Even as she spoke, she could hear the echo of her last argument with Chaandi, and winced at the memory. You think we’re too weak to have an organized movement—or too emotional to control ourselves, or something, she had said, so you won’t take Realpeace seriously. I’m so fucking sick of hearing ‘it wasn’t really them, it was just some misguided I-don’t-know-whats’ that I could join the fucking party myself just to prove it was for real.
“Elvis Christ, those people know what they’re doing,” Vaughn began, but the hatch slid open then, and he swallowed anything else he would have said. A tall man with a pair of corporate pins on the lapel of his neat jacket took his seat at the rear of the compartment: definitely new to Persephone, Jian thought, seeing his unmarked skin. The steward followed him in and began the regulation safety check. Here in first-class especially, it was unnecessary—anyone traveling on this ticket would have heard the same speeches over and over in the main cabin before being promoted—but this time Jian was grateful for it, glad to divert the subject from coolie politics.
She stretched her legs again, nudged the carryall, and felt the edge of the headbox that held her Spelvin construct solid through the thin fabric and her wadded clothes. She needed a new construct, wanted it before she took another job, and she leaned sideways a little to see past Vaughn. Red was sitting quietly in his couch, a manga-block floating in front of him, tethered by the headphone’s cord. For a moment, she thought he was asleep, but then he lifted one thin-fingered hand to adjust the screen. He knew the technical grey-markets, knew a lot of hard-hackers, too; he might be able to point her to the right person, this time, even if the current construct hadn’t been quite what she was looking for. Now, however, was not the time to ask, not with the Cartel employee sitting within earshot, and she leaned back again, positioning herself so that she could watch the tightbeam display as the shuttle fell away from the transfer station toward the planet below. Once they landed, she would be able to ask.
In the display, new glyphs blossomed, and Jian felt the first soft tug of gravity. A few minutes later, the shuttle trembled as it touched the edge of the atmosphere, and Jian let the rising gravity draw her back down into he
r couch. They landed without incident, the lurching runout abruptly tamed and silenced, and Jian watched for the display that would signal the land tugs’ arrival. The shuttle lurched, and the red light came on: under tow. Beside her, Vaughn stirred, collecting his belongings, but he said nothing even after the shuttle slowed to a stop and the docking lights came on, first virtual, then real. She kept silence herself while they worked their way through the perfunctory Customs check—they and their job were known, and expected—then made their way through the rose-and-ocher halls toward the tunnel where the land shuttles left for Landage. It was late, a little past midnight by the planetary clock, a little past noon in the long planetary day, and The Moorings was quiet, the few passengers who remained either frankly asleep on the long benches or clustered by twos and threes at the little tables in the all-night kaffs. Jian suppressed a yawn and saw Vaughn look sideways at her.
“They’re loading in ten minutes,” he said. “Think you can make it?”
“No problem.”
They made the land shuttle with about five minutes to spare, piling together into the sun-warmed interior that smelled faintly of sweat and the thick oilcloth of the seat covers. There were plenty of empty spaces, and Jian claimed a block in the corner while Vaughn ran their passes through the shuttle’s reader. Red settled himself opposite her, eyes lowered to look at nothing, and Jian shifted her carryall out of the way, aware of the hard corner of the headbox against her ankle. Got to trade it in, she thought, and the intensity of the wish startled her, so that she looked around the cab for distraction. The only other passengers were frankly asleep, two midworlders from Astarte’s Prejani Division propped upright in the side seats directly below the air vent, a couple of cargo handlers sprawled awkwardly across several seats. Foremen, probably if they’re travelling this late, she thought, but their cotton coats, bright with company insignia, were balled beneath their heads as makeshift pillows.
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