But Vadim was done with him. He paused only to wipe his arm against the fabric walling of the commons, then unhooked himself, ready to kick off towards one of the exits.
I calculated my arc and kicked off first, savouring an instant of breezy freefall before I impacted with the wall a metre from Vadim and his victim. For a moment Vadim looked at me in shock.
"Meera-Bell . . . I thought we concluded negotiations?"
I smiled.
"I just reopened them, Vadim."
I had myself nicely anchored. With the same casual ease with which Vadim had struck the man, I struck Vadim, in more or less the same place. Vadim folded in on himself like a soggy origami figure, emitting a soft moan.
By now the rest of the people were less interested in minding their own business.
I addressed them. "I don't know if any of you have been approached by this man yet, but I don't think he's the professional he'd like you to think. If you've bought protection from him, you've almost certainly wasted your money."
Vadim managed a sentence. "You're dead man, Meera-Bell."
"Then I've very little to fear." I looked at the other man. He had regained some of his colour now, wiping his sleeve across his mouth. "Are you all right? I didn't see how the fight started."
The man spoke Norte, but with a thick accent which it took me a moment to penetrate. He was a small man, with the compact build of a bulldog. The bulldog look didn't stop at his physique, either. He had a pugnacious, permanently argumentative face, a flat nose and a scalp bristling sparsely with extremely short hairs.
He unrumpled his clothes. "Yes . . . I'm quite all right, thank you. The oaf started threatening me verbally, then started actually hurting me. At that point I was hoping someone would do something, but it was like I'd suddenly become part of the décor."
"Yes, I noticed." I looked around at the other passengers disparagingly. "You fought back, though."
"Fat lot of good it did me."
"I'm afraid Vadim here doesn't look the type to recognise a valiant gesture when he sees one. Are you sure you're all right?"
"I think so. A little nausea, that's all."
"Wait."
I snapped my fingers at the servitor, hovering in cybernetic indecision some metres away. When it came closer I tried to buy another shot of scop-dex, but I had exhausted my shipboard funds.
"Thank you," the man said, setting his jaw. "But I think I've sufficient funds in my own account." He spoke to the machine in Canasian, too quickly and softly for me to follow, and a fresh hypo popped out for use.
I turned to Vadim while the other man fumbled the hypo into a vein. "Vadim; I'm going to be generous and let you leave now. But I don't want to see you in this room again."
He looked at me with his lips curled, flecks of vomit glued to his face like snowflakes.
"Is not over between you and me, Meera-Bell."
He unhooked himself, paused and looked around at the other passengers, obviously trying to regain some margin of dignity before he departed. It was a pretty wasted effort, since I had something else planned for him.
Vadim tensed, ready to kick off.
"Wait," I said. "You don't think I'm going to let you leave before you pay back whatever you've stolen, do you?"
He hesitated, looking back at me. "I have not stolen anything from you." Then to the other man. "Or you, Mister Quirrenbach . . ."
"Is that true?" I asked the man he'd just addressed.
Quirrenbach hesitated too, glancing at Vadim before answering. "Yes . . . yes. He hasn't stolen anything from me. I didn't speak to him until now."
I raised my voice. "What about the rest of you? Did this bastard con you out of anything?"
Silence. It was more or less what I had expected. No one was going to be the first to admit that they had been duped by a small-time rat like Vadim, now that they had seen how pitiful he could become.
"See," Vadim said, "there isn't anyone, Meera-Bell."
"Maybe not here," I said. I reached out with my free hand and snagged the fabric of his coat. The rough quilted patches were as cool and dry as snakeskin. "But what about all the other passengers on the slowboat? Chances are you've already fleeced a few of them since we left Idlewild."
"So what if I did?" he said, almost whispering. "It is none of your concern, is it?" Now his tone was changing by the second. He was squirming before me, shifting into something infinitely more pliant than when he had first entered the commons. "What do you want to stay out of this? What is it worth to you to back out and leave me alone?"
I had to laugh. "Are you actually trying to buy me off?"
"It's always worth try."
Something inside me snapped. I dragged Vadim back, slamming him against the wall so hard that he was winded again, and began to pummel him. The enveloping red haze of my anger washed over me like a warm, welcoming fog. I felt ribs shatter under my fists. Vadim tried to fight back, but I was faster, stronger, my fury more righteous.
"Stop!" said a voice, sounding like it came from halfway to infinity. "Stop it; he's had enough!"
It was Quirrenbach, pulling me away from Vadim. A couple of other passengers had arced over to the scene of violence, studying the work I had inflicted on Vadim with horrified fascination. His face was a single ugly bruise, his mouth weeping shiny scarlet seeds of blood. I must have looked about the same when the Mendicants had finished with me.
"You want me to be lenient with him?" I said.
"You've already gone beyond leniency," Quirrenbach said. "I don't think you need to kill him. What if he's telling the truth and he really does have friends?"
"He's nothing," I said. "He doesn't have any more influence than you or I. Even if he did . . . this is the Glitter Band we're headed to, not some lawless frontier settlement."
Quirrenbach gave me the oddest of looks. "You're serious, aren't you? You really think we're headed to the Glitter Band."
"We're not?"
"The Glitter Band doesn't exist," Quirrenbach said. "It hasn't existed for years. We're heading for something else entirely."
From out of the bruise which was Vadim's face came something unexpected: a gurgle which might have been him clearing his mouth of blood. Or it might just have been a chuckle of vindication.
Chapter Twelve
"WHAT DID you mean by that?"
"By what, Tanner?"
"That little throwaway remark about the Glitter Band not existing. Are you planning on just leaving it hanging there enigmatically?"
Quirrenbach and I were working our way through the bowels of the Strelnikov to Vadim's hideaway, my progress made all the harder because I had my suitcase with me. We were alone; I'd locked Vadim in my quarters once he had revealed the location of his berth. I assumed that if we searched his quarters we'd find whatever he had stolen from the other passengers. I had already helped myself to his coat and had no immediate plans to return it to him.
"Let's just say there have been some changes, Tanner." Quirrenbach was wriggling awkwardly behind me, like a dog chasing something down a hole.
"I didn't hear about anything."
"You wouldn't have. The changes happened recently, when you were on your way here. Occupational hazard of interstellar travel, I'm afraid."
"One of several," I said, thinking of my bruised face. "Well, what kind of changes?"
"Rather drastic ones, I'm afraid." He paused, his breathing coming in hard, sawlike rasps. "Look, I'm sorry to shatter all your perceptions in one go, but you'd better start dealing with the fact that Yellowstone isn't anything like the world it used to be. And that, Tanner, is something of an understatement."
I thought back to what Amelia had said about where I would find Reivich. "Is Chasm City still there?"
"Yes . . . yes. Nothing that drastic. It's still there; still inhabited; still reasonably prosperous by the standards of this system."
"A statement you're about to qualify, I suspect." I looked ahead and saw that the crawlway was widening o
ut into a cylindrical corridor with oval doors spaced along one side. It was still dark and claustrophobic, the whole experience feeling unpleasantly familiar.
"Regrettably . . . yes," Quirrenbach said. "The city's become very different. It's almost unrecognisable, and I gather much the same goes for the Glitter Band. There used to be ten thousand habitats in it, thrown around Yellowstone like-and here I'm going to indulge in some shameless mixing of metaphors-a garland of fabulously rare and artfully cut gems, each burning with its own hard radiance." Quirrenbach stopped and wheezed for a moment before continuing, "Now there are perhaps a hundred or so which still hold enough pressure to support life. The rest are derelict, vacuum-filled husks, silent and dead as driftwood, attended by vast and lethal shoals of orbital debris. They call it the Rust Belt."
When that had sunk in, I said, "What was it? A war? Did someone insult someone else's taste in habitat design?"
"No, it wasn't any war. Though it might have been better if it had been. You can always claw back from a war, after all. They're not as bad as they're cracked up to be, wars . . ."
"Quirrenbach . . ." My patience was wearing thin.
"It was a plague," he said hastily. "A very bad one, but a plague nonetheless. But before you start asking deep questions, remember that I know scarcely any more details than you do-I only just arrived here as well, you realise."
"You're a lot better informed than I am." I passed two doors and arrived at a third, comparing the number with the key Vadim had given me. "How did a plague manage to do so much damage?"
"It wasn't just a plague. I mean, not in the usual sense. It was more . . . fecund, I suppose. Imaginative. Artistic. Quite deviously so, at times. Um, have we arrived?"
"I think this is his cabin, yes."
"Careful, Tanner. There might be traps or something."
"I doubt it; Vadim didn't look like the kind to indulge in any kind of longterm planning. You need a developed frontal cortex for that."
I slipped Vadim's pass into the lock, gratified when the door opened. Feeble, muck-encrusted lights stammered on as I pushed through, revealing a cylindrical berth three or four times as large as the place I'd been assigned. Quirrenbach followed me and stationed himself at one of end of the cabin, like a man not quite ready to descend into a sewer.
I couldn't blame him for not wanting to come much further in.
The place had the smell of months of accumulated bodily emissions, a greasy film of dead skin cells glued to every yellowing plastic surface. Pornographic holograms on the walls had come alive at our arrival, twelve naked women contorting themselves into anatomically unlikely postures. They'd begun talking as well; a dozen subtly different contraltos offering an enthusiastic appraisal of Vadim's sexual prowess. I thought of him bound and gagged back in my quarters, oblivious to this flattery. The women never stopped talking, but after a while their gestures and imprecations became repetitive enough to ignore.
"I think, on balance, this is probably the right room," Quirrenbach said.
I nodded. "Not going to win any awards, is it?"
"Oh, I don't know-some of the stains are quite interestingly arranged. It's just a pity he went in for the smeared-excrement look-it's just so last century." He pulled aside a little sliding hatch at his end-touching it only with the very tips of his fingers-revealing a grubby, micrometeorite-crazed porthole. "Still, he had a room with a view. Not entirely sure it was worth it, though."
I looked at the view myself for a few moments. We could see part of the ship's hull, strobed now and again in stuttering flashes of bright violet. Even though we were underway, the Strelnikov had a squad of workers outside the whole time welding things back together.
"Well, let's not spend any longer here than strictly necessary. I'll search this end; you start at yours, and we'll see if we turn up anything useful."
"Good idea," Quirrenbach said.
I began my search; the room-panelled wall-to-wall with recessed lockers-must once have been a storage compartment. There was too much to go through methodically, but I filled my briefcase and the deep pockets of Vadim's coat with anything that looked even remotely valuable. I scooped up handfuls of jewellery, data-monocles, miniature holo-cameras and translator brooches; exactly the kinds of thing I'd have expected Vadim to steal from the Strelnikov 's slightly more wealthy passengers. I had to hunt to find a watch-space travellers tended not to take them when they were crossing between systems. In the end I found one that had been calibrated for Yellowstone time, its face a series of concentric dials, around which tiny emerald planets ticked to mark the time.
I slipped it on my wrist, the watch pleasantly hefty.
"You can't just steal his possessions," Quirrenbach said meekly.
"Vadim's welcome to file a complaint."
"That's not the point. What you're doing isn't any better than . . ."
"Look," I said, "do you seriously imagine he bought any of this stuff? It's all stolen; probably from passengers who aren't aboard any more."
"Nonetheless, some of it might have been stolen recently. We should be making every effort to return these goods to their rightful owners. Don't you agree with me?"
"On some distant theoretical level, just possibly." I continued my search. "But there's no way we'll ever know who those owners were. I didn't notice anybody coming forward in the commons. Anyway-what does it matter to you?"
"It's called retaining the vestigial trace of a conscience, Tanner."
"After that thug nearly killed you?"
"The principle still applies."
"Well-if you think it'll help you sleep at night-you're very welcome to leave me alone while I search his belongings. Come to think of it, did I actually ask you to follow me here?"
"Not as such, no . . ." His face contorted in an agony of indecision as he glanced through the contents of one opened drawer, pulling out a sock which he studied sadly for some moments. "Damn you, Tanner. I hope you're right about his lack of influence."
"Oh, I don't think we need worry ourselves about that."
"You're quite certain?"
"I've a reasonable grasp of lowlife, believe me."
"Yes, well . . . I suppose you could be right. For the sake of argument." Slowly at first, but with increasing enthusiasm, Quirrenbach started trousering Vadim's booty indiscriminately, wads of Stoner currency, mainly. I reached over and pocketed two bundles of cash before Quirrenbach made it all vanish.
"Thanks. They'll do nicely."
"I was about to pass some to you."
"Of course you were." I flicked through the notes. "Is this stuff still worth anything?"
"Yes," he said, thoughtfully. "In the Canopy, anyway. I've no idea what passes for currency in the Mulch, but I doubt that it can hurt, can it?"
I helped myself to some more. "Better safe than sorry, that's my philosophy."
I continued searching-digging through more of the same junk and jewellery-until I found what looked like an experiential playback device. It was slimmer and sleeker than anything I'd ever seen on Sky's Edge, cleverly engineered so that in its collapsed form it was no larger than a Bible.
I found a vacant pocket and slipped the unit home, along with a cache of experientials which I assumed might have some value in their own right.
"This plague we were talking about . . ." I said.
"Yes?"
"I don't understand how it did so much damage."
"That's because it wasn't a biological one-I mean, not in the way we'd usually understand such things." He paused and stopped what he was doing. "Machines, that's what it went for. Made almost all machines above a certain complexity level stop working, or start working in ways they were never meant to."
I shrugged. "That doesn't sound that bad."
"Not if the machines are merely robots and environmental systems, like the ones in this ship. But this was Yellowstone. Most of the machines were microscopic devices inside human beings, already intimately linked to mind and flesh. What happened to
the Glitter Band was just symptomatic of something far more horrific happening on the human scale, in the same way that-say-the lights going out all over Europe in the late fourteenth century was indicative of the arrival of the Black Death."
"I'll need to know more."
"Then query the system in your room. Or Vadim's, for that matter."
"Or you could just tell me now."
He shook his head. "No, Tanner. Because I know very little more than you. Remember, we both came in at the same time. On different ships, yes-but we were both crossing interstellar space when this happened. I've had little more time to adjust to it than you've had."
Quietly and calmly, I said, "Where was it you came from?"
"Grand Teton."
His world was another of the original Amerikano colonies, like Yellowstone, Yosemite, Glacier and two or three others I couldn't remember. They'd all been settled by robots four centuries ago; self-replicating machines carrying the templates necessary to construct living humans upon their arrival. None of those colonies had been successful, all of them failing after one or two subsequent generations. A few rare lineages might still be able to trace themselves back to the original Amerikano settlers, but the majority of people living on those worlds were descended from later colonisation waves, arriving by lighthugger. Most were Demarchist states, like Yellowstone.
Sky's Edge, of course, was another case entirely. It was the only world that had ever been settled by generation ship.
There were some mistakes you didn't make twice.
"I hear Grand Teton's one of the nicer places to live," I said.
"Yes. And I suppose you're wondering what brought me here."
"No, actually. Not really my business."
He slowed in his rummaging through Vadim's loot. I could see that my lack of curiosity was not something to which he was accustomed. I continued my investigations, silently counting the seconds before he broke his silence.
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