Spin State

by Chris Moriarty

  * * *

  St. Joe’s sprawled in the shadow of the poorest projects. It had one permanent building—a drafty-looking parish church whose brick facade was overdue for pointing. The rest of the orphanage was housed in colonial-era modular units that weren’t much more than Quonset huts.

  The sister who met Li at the door wore blue jeans, a flannel shirt, and a rawboned no-bullshit air that made Li wonder if she were ex-militia.

  “So you’re the one who wants to know about Hannah,” she said. “What are you, half-XenoGen? That why you’re interested?”

  “I’m the senior UN officer on-station,” Li said. “It’s my job to be interested.”

  The sister narrowed her eyes at Li for a moment. “You’d better keep your cab,” she said. “You won’t find another one in this neighborhood.” She waved her into a long, dimly lit corridor. “Sorry for the lack of a welcoming committee, but everyone else has class now. You’ll have to make do with the principal.”

  “Thanks, Sister…”

  “Just Ted.” She grinned. “For Theresa. Class lets out in two minutes. We’d better beat a strategic retreat to my office.”

  They walked back through the rat’s nest of tin-roofed buildings, down linoleum-floored hallways, past long racks of children’s winter coats and school bags. The smell of chalk and Magic Markers seeped out from under the classroom doors, along with the disciplined refrain and chorus of every Catholic-school class everywhere. As they passed one room, Li heard a voice that could only belong to a nun say, “You’re not as cute as you think you are,” provoking a quickly smothered wave of childish laughter.

  The bell rang ten minutes to the hour, and a noisy, laughing, rambunctious flood of uniformed schoolgirls poured out into the corridors. Sister Ted waded through the flood with the decisive step of a woman who expected people to make way for her. And make way they did; for the next several minutes, Li shadowed her through an unrelenting barrage of Good morning, Sister Ted and Excuse me, Sister Ted and Hello, Sister Ted.

  “You’ve got them well trained,” Li said.

  The other woman turned a sharp unforgiving look on her. “We wouldn’t help them by cutting them any slack, Major. You can bet no one else ever will.”

  “How many of your students are genetics?”

  “Look around and take a guess.”

  Li looked at the sea of young faces, so many of them the same two or three faces. “Two-thirds, I’d say.”

  “Then you’d be right.”

  “Any jobs for them when they get out of here?”

  “Not unless they’re five times as good as any human who wants the job. And not unless they’re polite enough to not scare people.” The nun threw another of her sharp looks at Li. “I bet you learned how to keep your mouth shut early.”

  “You’d bet right, then.” Li grinned. “I can’t walk into this place without the creeping feeling that Sister Vic is going to rise from the grave and ask me for my hall pass.”

  That got a laugh.

  “What can I tell you?” Sister Ted asked, when they were settled in the dilapidated relative peace of her office.

  “What Sharifi was doing here two weeks ago for a start.”

  “Making a donation. We have a lot of Ring-side donors.”

  “Do all of them come here to visit personally?”

  “Hannah was a former student. And she was extremely generous.”

  Li couldn’t help glancing around the run-down office at that and thinking of the cheap buildings the school was housed in.

  “She gave the things that counted,” Ted said. “Books. Food money. And she guaranteed every student college tuition at the best school she could get admitted to. Every student. Do you have any idea what that means to the girls we get here?”

  “I can imagine.”

  “I imagine you can do more than imagine.”

  “How well did you know Sharifi?” Li asked, brushing the implied question aside.

  Ted smiled. “Not that well. She was my age, you know. The women who would have taught her are all long gone.”

  “What did she visit for, then?”

  “To talk to me.”

  “About?”

  “A new gift.”

  “Look,” Li said. “I’m investigating Sharifi’s death, not your school. Can you just spare me the effort of dragging this out of you?”

  The sister’s eyes widened slightly. “Can you just tell me what you want to know, then, and spare me the effort of guessing?”

  “I want to know who killed her.”

  “Oh.” Sister Ted pursed her lips and made a faint blowing sound. That was all the reaction Li’s news got from her. But then Li got the impression this was a woman who was used to bad news. “She seemed like her usual self. I’d only ever met her instream before that, of course.” She gestured to the ramshackle bulk of an old VR rig gathering dust in the corner of the office. “But she was adamant that she wanted to wrap this gift up in person.” She shifted in her chair, setting the old springs creaking. “If I’d thought anything like that was going on, I would have tried to help, Major. I liked her. And not just because she got our girls to college. She was the kind of person you just liked, somehow.” She grinned. “Well, the kind of person I liked. I imagine she pissed the hell out of most people.”

  “What about the gift? Anything unusual there?”

  Sister Ted twisted in her chair to reach a file drawer. “Have a look at it,” she said, handing a thick sheaf of paper to Li. “The digital original’s on file Ring-side.”

  Li flipped through the document, her heart beating faster with every page she read. It was a will. A will that left everything Sharifi owned to St. Joseph’s School.

  “Congratulations,” Li said. “You’re rich.”

  “I know. I would have expected to feel better about it.”

  Li handed the papers back, and Sister Ted set them on the desk, absently, as if she were thinking of something else. Or someone else.

  * * *

  There was a problem finding Korchow’s street. The cabbie kept circling through lunch-hour traffic, insisting that he knew the address, that the turn was in the next block, or the next one. Finally Li got out and walked.

  She stumbled onto the shop abruptly, turning a blind corner into a narrow flagstoned alley and bumping up against a spotlit window full of old carpets and inlaid furniture. A gold-lettered sign readANTIQUITIES and below it, in dark red, she saw the same intricate lozenge design she had seen on Korchow’s card.

  He sat at a small desk toward the back, in a carved laminate chair that was either an astronomically expensive generation-ship artifact or a very professional forgery. A tank silk raincoat and a stylish gas mask lay neatly across a nearby table, as if Korchow had just come in or was just leaving.

  “Major,” he said. “What a surprise. I hope you didn’t have too much trouble finding me?”

  “I did, actually. Pretty out-of-the-way place to run a business from. Must cut into your profits.”

  Korchow smiled. “I have a certain reputation among discerning collectors. Can I get you something? Tea?”

  He bustled through a curtained doorway into the back of the shop, and Li heard the clink of glass on china, the sound of running water. He returned with two covered teacups, an ornately carved glazed-iron teapot, and a sleek black box that he set carefully on the desk between them.

  He served the tea, which was excellent. Then he picked up the box and handed it to her. “I thought you might like to see it,” he said. “You seemed quite put out by it the last time we met.”

  She turned the device over, feeling the weight of it, trying unsuccessfully to scan it.

  “Second button from the left,” Korchow said.

  She pressed it. The box beeped discreetly. A bioluminescent display window began counting thousandths of seconds. Li’s security programs flashed a yellow alert on her retina and went dead as her internals cut out.

  Korchow leaned across the desk and took b
ack the box. “Some things are better kept private,” he said.

  “What do you want from me?” Li asked.

  “Nothing complicated. Just to do business. Business that could be to our mutual advantage.” He paused and fingered the controls of the jamming device.

  “It’s working fine,” Li snapped. “And it’s giving me a headache. So just tell me what you want and get it over with.”

  “I represent parties who are, shall we say, interested in recent events in the Anaconda mine. Particularly in the aspects of the explosion that your, er, office seems to be investigating.”

  “You want information about Sharifi,” Li said.

  “Among other things.” Korchow smiled. “I can see how difficult this is for you, Major. You’d rather halo-jump into enemy territory than sit over tea talking to a Syndicate spy. I understand better than you can imagine. But we are not always called to serve in the ways we prefer. This is the price of owing allegiance to a greater good.” Steam curled from his cup, veiling his narrow, intelligent face. “We’ve met before,” he said. “Do you remember? Or have they taken that from you?”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “I was with the Thirty-second on Gilead. I fought on Cale’s Hill.”

  Li looked at him, her face stiff. She’d commanded that assault.

  “You don’t remember me, I suppose. Corps files are so… unreliable. But I remember you. I remember with perfect clarity.” He unbuttoned the top two buttons of his shirt, pulled the cloth aside to show Li a chewed-up slash of scar tissue at the base of his neck. “I was sitting in the sun. The first warmth after a cold night. Drinking a cup of tea, of all things.”

  An image of a thin, stubble-faced soldier flashed through Li’s mind. A spill of dark tea and darker blood runneling over boot-packed dirt.

  She looked at the wound. The shooter had pulled high and left, missing the spine by a hair. “I remember,” she said finally. “There was a crosswind. I overcorrected.”

  Korchow buttoned his shirt. “Do you remember what happened after that? Or have your psychiatric technicians deleted it?”

  Li watched Korchow, her heart pounding.

  “I was still conscious when you arrived,” he went on. “I remember that your captain’s insignia was ripped off another uniform and sewn on with mismatched thread. I remember your smile—quite a lovely one, by the way. I remember you talking to your lieutenants. They asked you what to do with the wounded. Do you recall what you told them?”

  “I told them to shoot everyone still breathing.”

  “Don’t think I blame you,” Korchow said. “Though I do owe my life to the fact that some of your soldiers had more… scruples than you did. Still, it was a moment of revelation. A conversion of sorts. Do you know what I thought as I looked up at you?”

  Li stirred restlessly. “How the hell would I?”

  “I thought, She’s one of us. She’s like us. She can’t help but be merciful. I saw your face, you see. And I thought you would spare us because of what you were. Because of who you were. When you ordered them to shoot us, I understood, finally and completely, what they had stolen from you.”

  Li watched the hypnotic blinking of the status lights on the jamming device. She probed her memory, poking at the Gilead files, looking for the cracks, the places where the emotions welled up between the digitized data and gave the lie to the official story. They should never have sent us, she thought. And the thought that she could think that—that she already did think it—frightened her more than anything she remembered doing on Gilead.

  “No one’s stolen anything from me,” she said finally. “I sold it. And why, and when, and what for is none of your business.”

  Korchow watched her over the rim of his teacup. When he spoke, his voice was cool and detached, and he looked up at the ceiling instead of at her. “I’ve been on five Trusteeships in the last eight years. And I’ve seen the same game, a sport I suppose, on all of them. A poor man’s sport, popular in the Trusteeships, but not at all known in the inner worlds. The enthusiasts breed male chickens—”

  “Cocks,” Li said.

  “Cocks, then. They breed them to kill each other. The fights are held at night and in secret; the sport is illegal on most worlds. Spectators arrive at the appointed place and hour, lay bets, drink various types of hard liquor. Then the handler of each bird takes it from its cage, attaches razor blades to its spurs, and sends it into the ring to peck and claw a fellow chicken to death.”

  Korchow put down his teacup and leaned across the desk to pour Li another cup of tea. “Good tea, isn’t it?” he said.

  “Yes.”

  “I get it from a friend in New Ceylon. They appreciate the art of tea there. And the art of the deal. Ever been there?”

  “No.”

  “Mmm.” Korchow settled back in his chair, cup in hand. “Between tournaments the fighting cock lives in oriental luxury. He is a prince, a diva, a satrap. He knows nothing of the ordinary woes and sorrows of his species. But each pleasure we savor must be purchased with pain—a principle I am sure you appreciate, Major. And even the most spectacular fighting cock is, after all, a chicken.” He drew a taut index finger across his throat. “I wonder what those cocks would say about their lives if you could get inside the cage with them. I wonder if they’d tell you they chose this fate. That they’d sold their life, their death, and gotten a fair price for it.”

  “I wouldn’t know,” Li said. “I’m not a chicken.”

  “No you’re not.” Korchow smiled. “And I have a powerful presentiment that you’re about to tell me to get on with it and stop wasting your time.”

  Li raised an eyebrow.

  “I represent certain interested parties,” Korchow continued after a few beats.

  “The Syndicates.”

  “Let’s not name names just yet. In any case, at the time of Hannah Sharifi’s death, these parties were engaged in… ongoing negotiations. Their negotiations had reached a point at which the involved parties expected to receive specific items of information from Dr. Sharifi. That information was never received. The parties believe that you, as the UN officer investigating her death, are in a position to deliver it.”

  “You want the datasets from Sharifi’s live field run.”

  “Ah. The direct approach. How like you.”

  “You can forget about it. I don’t have them.”

  Korchow rocked back in his chair as if he were dodging a blow. “Now that is a most interesting statement. First, because we have assumed until this moment that you did in fact have them. Second, and correct me if I err, your answer suggests that if you were to acquire this information, you might not be absolutely opposed to sharing it.”

  Li shrugged.

  “I think,” said Korchow, “this is the juncture at which I am supposed to inform you that my… clients would be prepared to reward you liberally for your assistance. In money, or in ways that might, in the end, mean more to you than money.”

  “Are we talking about chickens again?” Li said.

  Korchow threw back his head and laughed. “Major,” he said, still laughing. “You more than live up to your reputation. No, we are not talking about chickens. We are talking about a level of remuneration that would allow you to, how shall I put this?… decide when and where and for whom you strap on the razor blades.”

  “Or?”

  “Or incorporation. What you would call political sanctuary. Into the Syndicate of your choice.”

  “Christ, Korchow. I’ve seen the Syndicates. I’ve seen how you people live. Why the hell would I want that?”

  “I’ll leave you to answer that question for yourself, Major.”

  The bells on the shop door tinkled. Li turned just in time to see a new customer walk in. A tall man, dressed in ministerial gray. A diplomat or banker. Definitely not local.

  “Mr. Lind!” Korchow beamed at the new arrival. “You’ve come back to look at the Heyerdal again? I’ll be at your dispo
sal momentarily.” He pulled a knickknack off the shelf above his desk and began wrapping it in hand-printed rice paper. “I know you’ll enjoy this,” he told Li as he tied the package with a length of green ribbon. “It’s really quite an exceptional little piece. One of my personal favorites.” He smiled. “Consider it a symbol of my good intentions. And… other things.”

  Li took the package without having actually seen what was in it, let herself be propelled to the counter, swiped her palm across the portable scanner Korchow held up. She wondered how he explained the absence of a credit implant to his clients. Probably faked allergies or religious objections.

  “How can I reach you?” she asked.

  Korchow smiled a bland, guiltless shopkeeper’s smile. “I’ll put you on the mailing list,” he said—and Li felt his hand in the small of her back, politely but firmly propelling her out into the street.

  When she turned the corner, she stopped, looked back to make sure she couldn’t be seen from the shop, and unraveled the elaborately folded rice paper. Korchow had sold her a generation-ship-era figurine, molded in plastic. It had once been brightly colored, but the paint had flaked and faded, leaving the figure’s skin—or were those scales?—mottled.

  It was a woman, or rather a caricature of one. Long hair cascaded over her bare shoulders, and her breasts were only hinted at. Instead of legs, she had a silver tail with fins and scales. A mermaid. Half one thing, half the other, at home in neither world.

  Li felt the ridges of raised lettering on the base of the figurine. She turned it over and read MADE IN CHINA, in block letters, and, immediately below it, DISNEY ®.

  She rewrapped the figurine carefully, returned it to the bag, and unfolded the credit slip Korchow had tucked into the wrapping.

  “Son of a bitch!” she said when she read the figure at the bottom of the printout.

  It was for four times her monthly salary. And it was a credit, not a debit. A transfer into an account Li had never opened, in a Freetown bank she had never heard of. It looked like Korchow had decided to pay in advance… and leave Li to do the explaining if anyone put the pieces together.