Mighty Good Road

by Melissa Scott

  “Let the people off, please,” the attendant chanted, barring the entrance with her body. Heikki schooled herself to wait, one hand already on the cash card in her belt. Finally, the last of the passengers had left the float. The queue moved forward. The attendant took Heikki’s card, snapped it through the reader, and returned it to its owner in a single smooth gesture.

  “Move to the front, please, dam-i-sers, move to the front.”

  Heikki did as she was told, edging along the row of seats until she could go no further. She was in a good position, near the middle of the car, between two window braces and just opposite the floor window’s widest point, and she felt some of her impatience ease. It had been a long time since last she’d ridden the floats through Pod One.

  The float lay steady in the platform’s arms as the last passengers filed aboard, and the attendant closed the heavy door. The seals sighed into place, and then the arms snapped back. The float lifted slowly, light as a bubble, falling upward into the open volume of the pod. There was an awed murmur from the ring of passengers, people shifting in their seats to try to see in all directions at once. Heikki smiled, suddenly overwhelmed by a strange, fierce happiness. If EP1 was all metallic grandeur, an architecture of massive columns and gleaming arches, and EP5 a severe marriage of form and function, EP7 was air and fire. The open center volume of Pod One—unique in the Loop—was broken here and there by the glittering, multicolor webs of filament and slag crystal, spun by an artist who called herself Spider. Beyond those sculptures, more lights, blue-white, pink, fire-red, acid-green, and eye-searing purple, glowed through the crystal walls that enclosed the Pod’s working levels. Above and below, at the spherical pod’s twin poles, the crystals of the light traps glared and sparked, running together into a single mass of color. The float rose faster now, the multicolored bands of metal that marked the different levels blurring into each other. There was another murmur, first time riders glancing nervously around them, and then the float swung neatly over into the down-drawing beam. Glancing back, Heikki could see the distant mouth of the projector, thought she saw the crystal glowing red-black in its depths.

  The float fell gently toward the farside platform, slowing as it came closer to the attractor. The platform’s arms swung up and out, and the float glided between them, landing against the platform with a dull thud. The seals released with a hiss, and the passengers began to get to their feet, reaching for bags and carrycases as the hatch swung open. Heikki followed them out onto the farside concourse, blinking a little in the strong light of the pole crystals.

  There were plenty of jitneys available on this side of the pod. Heikki lifted a hand to summon the nearest, and swung herself into the passenger compartment as soon as the door popped up. “Explorers’ Club,” she told the voicebox mounted on the forward wall, and ran her cash card through the sensor. The jitney’s computer beeped twice, and the door closed.

  The jitney deposited her at the entrance to the Club in record time. The cast-glass panels, patterned with a stylized representation of Loop and Precincts and the uncharted stars beyond, opened at her touch, the Censor verifying her membership. Inside, she deposited her carryall on the conveyor that led to the checkroom, and headed for the main room. The corridor lights grew dimmer as she made her way past the print and film libraries, then brightened again, blued now by the reflected light of the pole crystals, as she turned the final corner.

  Light blazed beyond the tinted glass wall, a pair of floats rising and falling through the central volume. The same light, softened only a little by its passage through the greenish glass, spilled across the dozens of tables, across faces and sober, rich suits. Heikki blinked, half blinded, and a voice at her elbow said, “Dam’ Heikki?”

  Heikki glanced down at the grey-haired man in Club livery, nodded automatically. In the same moment, a familiar voice called, “Heikki!”

  Grinning foolishly, Heikki said, “I see my party, thanks, maitre.” Still grinning, she made her way through the maze of tables toward the voice.

  Marshallin Santerese rose from her seat, her smile belying the formal gesture. “Welcome home, Heikki.”

  There was someone else at the table with her, but Heikki ignored that for the moment, reaching instead to take the smaller woman in her arms. They embraced, holding each other longer and more closely than was considered modest—but that was the

  Precincts’ prejudice, not the Loop, Heikki thought, and rested her cheek against Santerese’s braids.

  “Lord, doll, it’s good to see you.” That was Santerese’s private voice, too soft to carry beyond Heikki’s shoulder. More loudly, she said, “I got the information you wanted, the bid specs and all, and I brought Malachy down to draft us a contract.”

  Reluctantly, Heikki released her, and nodded to the man still standing politely by the table, a rather amused half-smile curving his lips. The lawyer was wearing a severely cut evening suit, the short jacket molded to his still-slender form. The trousers, despite the dictates of this year’s fashion, were not full enough to disguise slim hips and elegant legs. The cord of a data lens stretched across his flat middle, and a plain gold fob marked the presence of a palmcorder in the jacket’s left-hand pocket: certainly he’d come for business.

  “You’re looking good, Malachy,” Heikki said aloud, and lowered herself into the remaining chair. “So, what did you find out, Marshallin?”

  Santerese looked up from the orderpad, then fumbled in a pocket of her own day suit. “Here are the specs,” she answered. “I don’t know if it tells you anything new.”

  “Excuse me, Malachy?” Without waiting for his answer, Heikki reached for the viewboard that lay discarded on the table, and fitted the datasquare into the port. A moment later, the screen lit, but no letters appeared on the glowing surface.

  “It’s protected,” Santerese said, unnecessarily.

  Heikki nodded, already adjusting her data lens to their private setting. Within its circle, text sprang into existence. She scanned the formal paragraphs quickly, but it contained little more than what the Twins had already told her. The LTA had gone down in bad weather, all right, just as she’d suspected—it had been one of the worst storms of the winter season, in fact, bringing down several other craft. It had been flying from the main research station at Retego Bay to Lowlands, on a course that took it near the edges of the central massif. She stared down at the board, not really looking at the glowing letters in the circle of the lens, seeing instead a wall of clouds lurching up over the wall of greenery that marked the slope of the massif, moving faster than she had ever thought clouds could move outside of a viewtape. The Firsters with her had sworn, and scrambled, one turning the scanning radar groundward, looking for a clearing, the pilot swinging south, to lay the latac parallel to the prevailing winds, the engineer hurrying to bleed gases from the envelope, ready to collapse it as soon as they could land. They had found a place at the last possible minute, and the adolescents of the crew had scrambled outside, stakes and mallets in hand. They’d tied the latac down with double chains, the rising stormwind whipping dirt and bits of leaves about their bare legs, the envelope hissing as it folded down on top of the basket. They’d made it back inside just as the first rain fell, and huddled shivering together while the rising winds lashed the grounded ship, making it shudder and tremble against its moorings. At the height of the storm, thunder sounding almost instantaneously with the lightning, the latac had lifted a little from the ground, and she’d heard the pilot whispering, hold, damn you, hold…. over and over again. When the storm ended, and the engineer began to refill the envelope, they’d gone back outside to find that three of the starforged chains had snapped.

  She looked up, shaking aside the memory, and Santerese said, “Where’d you hear about this one, anyway?”

  “The Twins,” Heikki answered, and nodded when Santerese laughed.

  “Are we bidding out of spite, doll, or is it a decent job?”

  Heikki glanced sideways, and saw Malach
y’s imperfectly concealed frown. She suppressed her own laughter—the lawyer was ‘pointer enough to be appalled by the thought of filing a bid for any but the most businesslike of reasons—and said, more seriously, “No, I know Iadara. The only thing I’m worried about is the chance of sabotage.”

  “Does sound bad, doesn’t it?” Santerese leaned back with an abstracted smile as a waiter appeared with a platter of tapas. “I think we should build a risk factor into the contract.”

  Heikki nodded, reaching for one of the little pastries.

  Malachy said, a touch of disapproval in his voice, “That sort of clause is always tricky, to write and to enforce.”

  “That’s what we pay you for, darling,” Santerese said.

  Heikki suppressed a chuckle, said indistinctly, “I think it’s warranted.” She swallowed, and added, “And I’m sure you can draft something that will stand up in court—if it has to.”

  “God forbid,” Santerese murmured, and grimaced as the table’s monitor flashed. The fine for invoking a recognizable deity was only five poa; she acknowledged it with a sigh, pressing the button beside the orderpad, and went on, “There’s only one problem with the job, though, doll. I’m promised to Pleasaunce at the end of the week.”

  “Pleasaunce?” Heikki frowned.

  “PAMCo, Pleasaunce Automatic Mining Company— the seamine that went aground,” Santerese said,

  “I didn’t know that had come through.”

  “Oh, yes.” Santerese smiled. “The owners did some looking at what it was going to cost them, doing it themselves. Even with the shipping, I can get it off for less, and save the cargo. Pleasaunce is pretty low-tech,”

  “When do you leave?” Heikki asked.

  “The end of the week.” Santerese shrugged. “It should take a week to a ten-day, so I could join you on Iadara, if necessary.”

  Malachy cleared his throat reprovingly. “This contract,” he began, and Santerese broke in hastily.

  “It’s just the standard form, darling, with the hazard clause added. Nothing more.”

  “Surely that’s quite enough,” Malachy answered. He pushed himself to his feet, and the women rose with him. “I’ll have the form sent to you in the morning.”

  “Thank you,” Heikki said, but the lawyer was already on his way. She reseated herself, shrugging, and reached for another pastry.

  “I’ve set up an appointment for you tomorrow,” Santerese said. “Charged them for a full consultation, too.”

  “They paid that?” Heikki stopped in mid-gesture, her hand frozen above the platter. She made herself continue the movement, took and ate another of the cooling pastries.

  Santerese nodded, her smile no longer amused. “That’s right, doll. And they didn’t even ask about haggling.”

  “No one pays full price,” Heikki said. “Not when they’re putting it out to bid.”

  “Lo-Moth is.”

  There was a moment of silence. Heikki stared at the half-emptied plate, wondering if she’d made a mistake after all. We don’t have to put in a bid, she thought, but 1 as good as told the Twins we were going to. I don’t want to back down to them—though we could make it an unreasonable offer, 1 suppose, something Lo-Moth couldn’t accept.

  “Jock Nkosi’s back on station,” Santerese said suddenly, and Heikki looked up.

  “Is he, now? He’d be a help. And I’ll want Sten, Marshallin.”

  Santerese lifted an eyebrow. “I could use his help too, you know.”

  “Not on Pleasaunce,” Heikki answered, and Santerese laughed.

  “All right.”

  Heikki smiled back, but the expression faded quickly. “I’ll want local help, too, a pilot and a local guide, and hire for a heavy-duty aircraft—not an LTA. Did the sheet give any idea of a budget?”

  “No.” Santerese shook her head, black braids swinging. “Doll, the man I spoke with—Mikelis, his name was—didn’t seem to care.”

  Heikki swallowed a curse. It sounds like trouble, she thought, but then, trouble’s usually profitable—and besides, I told the Twins we were bidding. “When’s the appointment?” she said aloud.

  “Fourteenth hour,” Santerese answered.

  “Well.” Heikki pushed aside her glass. “I might as well hear what the man has to say.”

  “It couldn’t hurt,” Santerese agreed. She was smiling, and, after a moment, Heikki returned the smile.

  “I’m beat, Marshallin. Shall we go home?”

  CHAPTER 2

  Heikki dragged herself awake, aware at first only that something had changed. Santerese was gone. Not long gone, she thought—the sheets were still hollowed beside her—and then heard the sound of voices from the outer rooms. One was Santerese’s business voice, her expressive range flattened to something closer to ‘pointer taste. Heikki swore under her breath, and pushed herself out from under the covers, reaching for the wrap and the remote that lay on the chair beside the big bed. Precinct prudery, she thought, with a mental shrug, but tugged the wrap closed anyway and stepped out into the business rooms.

  The lights were on in the suite’s main room, but the status cube was empty; in the tiny kitchen, the coffee-maker clicked quietly to itself. Heikki nodded to herself, and went on into the workroom. The media wall was blaring, multiple windows displaying half a dozen news-and-information channels. Santerese, headphones clamped to her ears, gestured vaguely toward the remote lying just out of reach on the other workstation.

  Heikki grinned and reached for it, fingers moving on the touchface. The sound faded until the newsreader in one corner mouthed inaudible information, the stock numbers in the window behind streamed past in eerie silence. Other windows displayed multicolored tables: arrivals and departures from the Station Axis, shipping schedules for the FTL port, local and mean times and the ambient temperatures for pod and Point. Heikki took in the information with a glance, and settled herself at the workstation opposite her partner, careful to stay out of the cameras’ range.

  Santerese smiled a greeting, her eyes barely moving from the screen in front of her. Pleasaunce, she mouthed, and Heikki nodded.

  “Coffee?” she asked, quietly.

  Santerese covered the mike again. “Yes, please.”

  Heikki grinned, and went out into the kitchen. When she returned a moment later, carrying the steaming mugs, Santerese was busy at her keyboard.

  “—makes a difference, certainly. It will require some specialized equipment, and you will have to pay the shipping and the tech costs—” She broke off, listening to a voice in her headphones, and shook her head. “I’m sorry, you knew your situation when you decided to wait. There’s no way I can do it, otherwise.” She listened again, and sighed. “Very well, I’ll hold.” She touched buttons on her board, and leaned back in her chair, shaking her head. “The mine’s slid off the shelf it was lying on—which is what I was afraid it would do all along, damn it.”

  Heikki gave her a sympathetic glance, and slid the second mug across the table. “Is it serious?”

  “No, not really.” Santerese took a sip of her coffee, staring at the images crowding her screen. “Not if it doesn’t fall any further, that is. It means a rush job after all, and some deep-dive equipment, with staff. I was hoping to get away without it, that’s all. Do me a favor, doll, see if there are any ships leaving for Pleasaunce from anywhere this side of the Loop.”

  “Sure,” Heikki said, and switched on her own workscreen. She tied herself into the Lloyds/West shipping net, and began punching inquiries; while the screen cleared and filled, she said, “What happened?”

  “Tidal shift—” Santerese began, and broke off, reaching for her keyboard again, reopening the audio channel. “This is Santerese.” She listened for a few moments longer, then nodded. “As I told Fost, the consulting fee will still be applied, but there will be additional charges. I copied that to you already, it should be on your screen. Good. Well, I’m finding that out right now. Please hold.” She cut the sound again, and looked at Heikki. />
  Heikki said, “I show a single freighter leaving today from EP5, scheduled to arrive on Pleasaunce a little after planetary midnight on 225. The next ship is the mailship you were planning to take.”

  “Thanks,” Santerese said, and touched keys. “There is a ship leaving today—what time, Heikki?”

  “Leaves from Dock 15 at 1750.”

  “Which I can catch with some difficulty,” Santerese continued smoothly. “It will reach Pleasaunce Port in six days; I assume it’s another seven or eight hours’ flight to the wreck site? Yes. So there you have it.” There was another long silence, and then Santerese nodded a final time. “Very well. I will copy my schedule to you as soon as I’ve confirmed it. Goodbye. Idiot,” she added, to the fading screen, and reached for her coffee. “Is there really a cabin, Heikki?”

  “I’m afraid so,” Heikki answered, and reached for her own mug. They had both travelled by FTL freight before.

  Santerese swore.

  “And I’ve already reserved it,” Heikki said mildly.

  “You don’t love me at all,” Santerese muttered. “Christ, what about the trains?”

  “Also already reserved,” Heikki said. She glanced at her own screen, then touched the keys that would transfer the information to Santerese’s station. “You’ve got six hours to get yourself together.”

  “Four,” Santerese corrected. “I’ll need a couple of hours on EP5 to file the shipping papers. Why do I do this to myself?”

  “Because you love it,” Heikki answered, but the other woman was already gone. “And we can always use the money.” There was no response from the outer room, and she raised her voice. “Can I contact anyone?”

  Santerese’s head reappeared in the doorway. “See if you can get hold of Corsell—leave a message if you can’t—tell him what happened, and to try and catch the freighter—what’s its name?”