Mondrian ignored him. He stood up. “Hello, Tatty.” He had switched again to Earth argot. “How’s the hustling?”
“Hello, Essy. It’s good. Or it was, until he interrupted me. I was working a deal up in Delmarva. I told the King to go to hell.’
“She sure did, squire. But I told her I wouldn’t hear no for an answer.”
Mondrian took the hint. Another packet of trade crystals went quietly into Bester’s open hand, then Mondrian patted the bench to indicate that Tatty should sit down next to him.
She remained standing, examining the other two Security men. After a few moments she nodded to them. “Hello, I don’t think that we’ve met,” she said in excellent standard Solar. “I’m Tatiana Sinai-Peres.”
She held out a hand to Luther Brachis. Tatty was tall, slim, and spectacular. She stood eye to eye with Brachis, who openly gawked at her. She stared right back at him. Her gaze was direct and bold, with bright brown eyes. But there were tired smudges of darkness underneath them, and the grey tone of Paradox addiction marred her complexion. The skin of her face and neck was clear and unblemished, but it was the skin of one who never saw sunlight. Her dark green dress was loose sleeved, revealing an array of tiny purple-black dots along her thin arms. In contrast to King Bester and the rest of the crowd Tatty was spotlessly clean, with neat attire, carefully groomed dark hair, and well-kept fingernails.
“I assume that it’s a first-time visit,” she went on to Brachis. “What can I do for you?”
Mondrian squinted at her in the strong light of the Sun-simulator. It’s not what you think.” He reached up to touch her bare arm. “Sit down, Princess, and let me tell you what’s going on.”
“I’ll sit down, Essy. But not here. There’s too much light — it would fry me. Let’s Link back north to my place, and I’ll introduce your friends to some genuine Earth food.” She smiled at the uncertain look on Kubo Flammarion’s face. “Don’t worry, Soldier. I’ll make sure it’s not too rich for Commoners.”
Rank Has Its Privileges. That had never been more true than during the first decades of space development. One odd and predictable — yet unexpected — consequence of automation and excess productive capacity had been the re-emergence of the class system. The old aristocracy, diminished (but never quite destroyed) during the days of world-wide poverty and experimental social programs, had returned; and there were some curious additions to their ranks.
It had been surprising, but inevitable. When all of Earth’s manufacturing moved to the computer-controlled assembly lines, employment needs went down as efficiency went up. Soon it was learned that in the fuzzy areas of “management” and “government,” most business and development decisions could also be routinely (and more effectively) handled by computer. At the same time, lack of results and impatience with academic studies had squeezed education to a few years of mandatory schooling.
The unemployment rate grew to ninety percent. The available jobs on Earth called for no special skills — so who would get them?
Naturally, those with well-placed friends and relatives. There had been a wonderful blossoming of nepotism, unmatched within the previous thousand years. Many positions called for prospective employees to possess a “stable base of operations and adequate working materials.” With living accommodations and family possessions passed on across the generations, the advantage lay always with those from the old families.
Meanwhile, away from Earth there was a real need for people. The solar system was ripe for development. It offered an environment that was demanding, dangerous, and full of unbounded opportunities. And it had a nasty habit of cancelling any man-made advantage derived from birth, wealth, or spurious academic “qualifications.” Cancelling permanently.
The rich and the royal were not without their own shrewdness. After a quick look at space, they stayed home on Earth, the one place in the system where their safety, superiority, and status were all assured. It was the low-born, seeing no upward mobility on Earth, who took the big leap — outward.
The result was too effective to be the work of human planners. The tough, desperate commoners fought their way to space, generation after generation. The introduction of the Mattin Link quadrupled the rate of exodus, and the society that was left on Earth became more and more titled and self-conscious. Well-protected from material want and free from external pressures, it naturally developed an ever-increasing disdain for the emigrants — “vulgar commoners” spreading their low-born and classless fecundity through the solar system and out to the stars. Earth was the place to be for the aristocrats. The only place to be, on the Big Marble itself. Where else could anyone live who despised crudity, esteemed breeding and culture, and demanded a certain sophistication of life-style?
King Bester was a king, a genuine monarch who traced his line across thirty-two generations to the House of Saxe-Coburg. He was one of seventeen thousand royals reigning on and under Earth’s surface. He regarded Tatty Snipes, Princess Tatiana Sinai-Peres of the Cabot-Kasnoggi’s, as rather an upstart. She had only six centuries and twenty-two generations in her lineage. He did not say it, of course, in her presence — Tatty would have knocked the side of his royal head in with one blow of her carefully-manicured and aristocratic fist. But he certainly thought it.
And King Bester, like Tatty, was nobody’s fool. He realized very well that the real power had moved away from Earth. The Quarantine operated by Solar Security applied only to people moving outward from Earth. Bester could sense the brawling, raw strength that lay in people like Luther Brachis. It ran right through the off-planet culture, and he was afraid of it. Far better to stay home, operate within the familiar rituals of the Big Marble, and take a little when the opportunity came from visitors like Mondrian and his colleagues. Those visitors were far more numerous than System government liked to admit, and they came down to Earth for reasons rarely shown on any travel permits.
So Bester quietly tagged along with Princess Tatiana and the three visitors. He hung at the back of the group, listened carefully while Mondrian explained to Tatty the reason for the trip to Earth, and looked for his working edge.
He had never heard of the Morgan Constructs and the disaster on Cobweb Station until Esro Mondrian described it. He was not much interested. His reward lay in examining Mondrian, Brachis, and Flammarion, and learning in which category of pleasure-seeking their interests might lie.
There was sure to be one. Bester had his own ideas of Earth visitors. No matter what they might say, or how the official agenda read, there was always another angle. And that was where the profit lay.
Brachis should not be difficult. Big, powerfully-built, lusty, still in early middle age, he could be offered things undreamed of through most of the solar system. Flammarion would be even easier. He already had the poached-egg look to his eyes that told of a habitual use of alcohol. One good shot of Paradox, and Flammarion wouldn’t be looking elsewhere for entertainment while he was on Earth. Withdrawal symptoms after he left? That was not King Bester’s problem.
The big question mark was Mondrian. He had scared Bester the moment they met, when he had fixed him with those cold, dark eyes.
But on the other hand, Mondrian wasn’t a good prospect, anyway. He was clearly no stranger to Earth, and he had probably found a way to gratify his own needs long ago. From the way she looked at him, Tatty Snipes had in the past helped to serve them.
When they reached Tatty’s underground apartment, Bester stopped any pretense of listening to Mondrian. He quietly helped himself to the free food and drink — Princess Tatiana had decidedly royal tastes — and moved a little closer to Kubo Flammarion. The scruffy man’s pleasures could probably be guessed, but they had to be confirmed before his pockets could be emptied.
“Ever see a public beheading, Captain?” And, as Flammarion’s eyes widened, “I mean with full staging — steel axe, real wooden block, hooded executioner. We use a top-quality simulacrum under the chopper, you’d never know the difference — the
spurt from the neck is exactly like real blood.”
“Bleagh!” Flammarion glared at him in disgust. He shook his head, and laid down the slice of underdone beef that he was holding. “What you doing, trying to make me throw up or something?”
“Not for you? How about him, then?” King Bester nodded to Mondrian, still deep in conversation with Princess Tatiana. “Think he might be interested?”
Kubo Flammarion scratched his head. “The Commander? Nah. To get him hooked, you’d have to have a real victim and real blood.” He pointedly took a couple of steps away from Bester.
The King turned to Luther Brachis. “How about you? like to know more about some of our entertainments — I mean the Big Marble specials, the ones you’ll never see in the catalogs. How would you like one of those?” Brachis smiled at him pleasantly. “And how would you like a big fistful of knuckles” — he spoke in poorly pronounced out quite passable Earth-argot — “right up your royal nose?”
King Bester decided that his glass needed refilling at the sideboard across the room.
“I didn’t know you spoke their lingo, too,” said Kubo Flammarion admiringly, watching Bester’s rapid departure.
“It’s good to have a few things about you that most people don’t know.” Brachis turned, so that no one but Flammarion could see his lips. “There’s things about your boss that you don’t know, too. Remember that. I don’t give away information — but I’m always willing to trade.”
Chapter 5
Tatty shook her head as soon as Mondrian explained what he was looking for.
“Not here, or in any of the areas where I have clout. There’s a local ordinance forbidding the off-Earth sale of anyone with more than four degrees of consanguinity with my imperial clan — and that means everybody. They all claim relationship, even when they don’t really have it.”
“Any ideas, then?”
“You might try over in BigSyd, or maybe Tearun. I don’t know the dealers there, though. And Ree-o-dee would be a cert, except you need to pay off so many people it gets out of control. Better if we could find somebody locally.”
“How about Bozzie?” King Bester had given up any pretense that he was not eavesdropping. “He’s top bod for that line of business. And he’s nearby, sort of.
“Could be worth a shot. I don’t know what he has, though.” Tatty turned to Mondrian. “We’ll have to find him first — but he’ll be somewhere in the Gallimaufries, so it shouldn’t be too hard.”
“Bozzie?” Kubo Flammarion was struggling to make an intelligible record of the conversation, but the last exchange was too much. “Find him in the Garry-what’s?”
“Bozzie. The Duke of Bosny. Also Viscount Roosevelt, Count Mellon, Baron Rockwell, and the Earl of Potomac.” Tatty’s face said what she thought of all those titles. “Upstart houses, every one. But I’ll say this for him, he prefers to be called plain Bosny, or just Bozzie, He hasn’t lived in Bosny City for years, though he claims to have been born there. He certainly has consanguinity with every major royal line in the Northeast, and he’s a big mover and shaker down in the Gallimaufries — the basement warrens” (She had seen Flammarion’s mouth starting to open again) ” — two hundred levels below where we are now.
Tatty glanced at King Bester. “More your stamping-grounds than mine. Think we might get him today?”
“You’ll have to hurry. Never find Bozzie there after dark — he’ll be topside with his Scavvies, scouting the surface.”
Luther Brachis was looking at his watch. “Then we’re too late. It’s already dark up on the surface.”
But Tatty was shaking her head. “It’s dark now where you landed, in Africa, but we came a long way west through the Links. We picked up six hours. Local time is only two in the afternoon.”
“Sorry.” Brachis sounded annoyed — with himself. “I’ll keep my mouth shut until I know what I’m talking about.”
“You’re not so far wrong as you think,” replied Tatty. “We’re in the northern hemisphere, and it’s winter. It gets dark early — something else you’re not used to.” She paused for a moment, calculating. “I think we can do it — just. Provided that we take the fastest routes. Hold onto your hats, and let’s go.”
Tatty lived on the sixtieth under-level. It was prime real estate, minutes from the surface and within easy reach of a Link entry point. But because it was prime, it by design had no direct drop connection with the deeper and poorer levels of the Gallimaufries. To descend, the group had to travel far north, then double back. Led by Tatty, they travelled half a continent horizontally in order to descend five thousand meters vertically. They did it in thirty minutes. For the off-Earth visitors it was a confused race along networks of high-speed slideways, a plunge along vertiginous corkscrews of spiraling ramps, and finally a series of long dives through the black depths of vertical drop-shafts.
“First time I’ve felt comfortable since I got here,” said Flammarion, savoring the long moments of free-fall.
The last drop was a long one, down a curving chute that expelled them into a vaulted chamber, hundreds of meters across. The smoothed rocky roof was studded with powerful sun-simulators that lit the whole enclosure. The chamber’s volume was enormous, and crammed full. The newcomers were surrounded by a baffling jumble of stalls, corridors, partitions, tents, and guy-ropes. And development was not confined to two dimensions. Slender support columns ran from floor to roof at twenty meter intervals. Their steel pylons supported shish kebabs of ramshackle multi-level platforms, many of them open-sided, with rope ladders hanging down to the ground beneath.
The floor of the chamber was not rock, but rich black earth. Bright-blossomed flowers thrived everywhere, growing profusely along the zigzagging walkways and festooning every wall and column.
“Bozzie’s imperial court,” said Tatty. “As you can see, he’s a flower buff. Stick close to the King, now. If you get lost down here I don’t know if you’d ever find your own way back.”
The human population of the Gallimaufries was packed as densely as the plant life, and no less colorful. Gaudy jackets of saffron, purple and vermillion were favored, trimmed with sequins and piped with blue, silver, and gold. The clothes were all dirty, and the smell — to a spacer’s nose — appalling. King Bester s costume, garish and grubby-seeming when they had first seen it, now appeared clean, modest, and conservative.
The first impression was of continuous noise and clashing color. And then the submerged second element of the Gallimaufries slowly emerged, in quiet counterpoint to the vivid brawl. Mingled in with the eye-catching bright clothes and bustling movement, and almost invisible among them, were the others. Like pale lilies hidden among orchids, people sat in small groups on benches, or walked slowly through the alleys. Their clothes were simple, monochrome tunics of white or grey. They did not seem to speak, even to each other.
“Commoners,” said Tatty. She had followed Luther Brachis’ look, to a group of three women dressed in plain ivory tunics. “The raw material for your Pursuit Teams, if you can make the deal. Bozzie has contract rights over almost everyone here in grey or white, like those women.”
“But they get nothing out of it? They’ll never agree to go.”
“They can’t say no. Bozzie owns their contracts. Anyway, some of them might be glad to get out of here, no matter how bad your deal sounds. Take a look. I’ll go find Bozzie and bring him back to you.”
She ducked under a guy rope, rounded a tent, and headed for the edge of the chamber. Her height allowed them to follow her progress for the first thirty meters, then she was lost in the tangle of people and buildings.
Brachis turned to Esro Mondrian.
“Want to change your mind about that wager? If not, I’m ready to go ahead with it.”
“I don’t know. It depends if I can find someone suitable here.”
“Hey, you’re weaseling out. Come off it, Esro. You know you’ll never find someone suitable, not when nothing good has come out from Earth in three h
undred years. They’re all losers, every one of them too decadent and spineless to do anything right. You didn’t talk about ‘someone suitable’ before — you said you could train anyone to be acceptable as a Pursuit Team member.”
“I can. I’ll make the bet. Just name the terms.”
Even though Brachis had been pushing Mondrian again, he was surprised by the rapid acceptance. But he was too experienced to let it show.
“All right, then. Let’s keep it simple. You select any pair of candidates that you like. You do it today, and you do it down here. You train them any way you want to. In a reasonable time — say, six months? — you get them accepted as Pursuit Team members. You do it, you win. You fail to do it, for anything short of candidate death, you lose. Simple enough?”
“Simple enough.” Mondrian paused. “What about stakes?”
“I’ll stake my personnel monitoring system against yours. Don’t pretend you haven’t got one. You’ve been tracking my people for years, same as I’ve been tracking yours.”
“Right. Accepted. In front of witnesses.” Mondrian turned to Bester and Kubo Flammarion. “I will select two people. Here, today. I will train them. When their training is complete, they will be accepted — ”
“Both be accepted. One won’t do.”
“ — both be accepted as Pursuit Team members. Commander Brachis has my hand on it.”
Brachis shook Mondrian’s hand for only a split-second, then turned to examine the bustling court around him. He made a big point of holding his nose. “There they are. Take your pick. White or grey, Princess Tatiana said, and I’m glad you’ll be doing the training, not me — I couldn’t stand the smell.”
The courtiers were all grubby energy and extravagance. By contrast, the commoners were listless and subdued. A team of three was passing Brachis as he spoke, leading an odd-looking beast on a steel chain. Its muzzle was blunt and its forehead low, but the animal stared around with sparkling hazel eyes, and showed more interest in the scene than its keepers did. It paused by Flammarion and sniffed at him inquiringly.
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