Heikki consulted her screen. “Sea Comet.”
“I hope it’s not an omen,” Santerese muttered. She shook herself. “If he can’t, tell him—” She stopped abruptly. “I don’t know what. The next ship is the liner?”
“Yes.”
“Tell him to catch the damn freighter.” Santerese vanished again.
Heikki grinned in spite of herself, and turned her attention to the screen. She tied herself into the Loop’s central communications system—Corsell maintained quarters and a message-service subscription on EP5 —and left Santerese’s message, then closed down her station and returned to the main room. Santerese looked up from her half-filled carryall with a preoccupied smile.
“Have you seen my breather?”
“In the far wall?” Without waiting for a response, Heikki crossed to the storage wall, and pressed the hidden catches. The mask lay with the rest of their underwater gear, and she handed it and the thin pressure suit to Santerese.
“Thanks.” Santerese fitted both items into her case, and sat back on her heels, frowning a little.
“Have you made arrangements for deep-dive stuff yet?” Heikki asked.
“I thought I would talk to Jorge personally, on my way to the Axis,” Santerese answered. “I already reserved a minibell, but for a ten-day from now. I just hope he can supply me.”
“There’s one good thing about this,” Heikki said, after a moment. “You might be able to join me on Iadara after all.”
“That’s true, isn’t it?” Santerese pushed herself to her feet and reached for the carryall. “Damn, we were going to go over the figures—”
“It’s all right,” Heikki said, and bit back a laugh. “Don’t worry about it, Marshallin, I can handle it.”
Santerese had the grace to look somewhat embarrassed. “I know, doll. Sorry.”
“I’ll contact you through the company of Pleasaunce if the bid goes through,” Heikki went on, “and we can make plans from there.”
“All right.” Santerese slung the carryall across her shoulder, and glanced around for a final time. “I think that’s everything I need. Let me know what happens with Lo-Moth.”
She started toward the suite’s main door, a small woman in a severely tailored day suit, the weight of the carryall balanced against one rounded hip. The narrow skirt, slit for walking, showed a glimpse of brown thigh. She had her hand on the latchplate when Heikki said, “Marshallin?” There was a note of laughter in her voice.
“Oh, God.” Santerese turned back, half laughing, half embarrassed. They embraced, not quickly, and Santerese said again, “Let me know about the bid.”
“I will,” Heikki answered. “Be careful.”
“You, too,” Santerese answered, and released her hold, reaching again for the latch.
Heikki stood for a moment after the door had closed behind her, trying to marshall her own thoughts. The Pleasaunce job was well under control, despite the inevitable chaos of the hurried departure; it was up to her to bring in the Lo-Moth bid. Sighing a little, she returned to the workroom, her fingers busy on the remote.
Sound returned to the media wall, the newsreader’s voice rising above the rest of the noise. Heikki listened with half an ear as she settled herself back at the workstation, and emptied that window as soon as she had heard enough to satisfy herself that the Loop was not on the verge of any major catastrophe. She replaced the newsreader’s vacuously handsome face with tables of shipping charges, and turned her attention to the screen in front of her. If she was to meet with Lo-Moth’s representative this afternoon, she would need to have a rough bid in hand.
As she had told Santerese the night before, she would want local help for this job, people who knew the back country as she could not. A guide and a local pilot, she thought, and Jock Nkosi, if he’ll take the job. Full union rates for him, of course, and three-quarters for the locals—no reason to be stingy there—plus a hazard clause to add forty percent of scale if we find evidence of sabotage. Djuro, as usual, would have his choice of union rates or a percentage of the profit.
She ran her hand across the shadowscreen, watching images flicker past on the monitor. Once she had found the file she wanted, she turned back to the keyboard, her fingers dancing across the controls. An instant later, a map of Iadara’s eastern hemisphere sprang to life on the screens, the scattered settlements traced in red, the terrain indicated by ghostly washes of color. She studied that for a moment, one finger idly tracing the most likely flight path across the shadowscreen. On the monitor, a green line appeared, moving with her hand. It crossed the thick jungle that edged the central massif: not promising terrain for a search. She eyed it a moment longer, then flattened her palm against the shadowscreen. The line vanished.
It was also not country to be crossed in lighter-than-air craft—as witness the accident itself, she added, with a grim smile. They would want a good scout-flyer, one of the sturdy, long-range machines that were common on Iadara, and then, if they found anything, a heavy-lift powercraft to land by the wreckage. From the look of the land, it would be a week’s search at the very least, and who knew how long to recover wreckage… , So, she thought, her fingers busy again on the keyboard, three weeks’ pay at the least, plus option, rental for the aircraft, and then maybe for a jungle crawler if we do find it, plus food and fuel…. She glanced thoughtfully at the charts on the media wall, then filled in numbers. Forty-three thousand pounds-of-account—we’ll call it K45 to be sure, she thought, and made the adjustments. I wonder, can I get poa these days, or will we have to take the local scrip, and worry about the exchanges? In the old days, everything had been calculated in a private corporate currency, with all the problems that entailed. But that was twenty years ago, she told herself. There’s no harm in asking for poa.
She looked at her figures again, head tilted slightly to one side, then touched keys, transferring the rough figures to her standard bid form. She made a few final changes, then dumped the completed bid to a datasquare, at the same time reserving a copy for herself. The diskprinter whirred softly, and extruded a neatly labeled square. Heikki left it in the bin, and ran her hand across the shadowscreen, shifting nets until she was tied into the Exchange Point’s main mail system. In the confusion, Santerese had forgotten to tell her partner where Lo-Moth was, and where they were to meet. On the whole, not surprising, Heikki thought, and keyed first her mailcode and then the codes listed for Lo-Moth’s main office.
The screen shifted to the search pattern. Heikki leaned back in her chair, fully expecting to receive the usual white-screen “engaged” signal, and a request that she leave a message. Instead, the contact lights flashed, and a dark woman, her face painted in a severe geometric mask, appeared on the screen.
“Dam’ Heikki? Could you hold one moment, please?”
“Certainly,” Heikki answered, by reflex, too taken aback by the old-fashioned courtesies to do anything more.
“Thank you,” the woman said, and vanished. The screen shifted to a started holding pattern, soft swirls of green and blue, then, almost before the pattern had fully formed, vanished again.
“I’m sorry to keep you waiting, Dam’ Heikki. How may I help you?”
Heikki studied the woman for an instant. In the twenty years she’d been in salvage, no corporation, large or small, had ever showed Heikki/Santerese this much courtesy. They must want something very badly, Heikki thought, but said aloud, “I’m calling to confirm my appointment. With Ser Mikelis.”
The woman glanced down at a lapboard. “Yes, Dam’ Heikki, I can confirm that, for fourteen hundred. Our offices are in Pod 2, business suite 273. I can have an escort waiting on your arrival, if you’d like.” It was less an offer than a command.
“That will be fine,” Heikki said, achieving a proper boredom with an effort, and cut the connection. She sat staring at the empty screen for a long moment, her coffee forgotten on the table beside her. This is not the way the corporations deal with the independents, she thought again. Th
ey had my name, my mailcode, not just the personal contact code, on their hot list, pulled it out of the automatic answering queue and gave it to a human being to deal with. And that, she added silently, is when I start to worry.
Almost without thought, she keyed Sten Djuro’s codes into the machine. She owed him warning of a possible job anyway, but, more than that, she wanted him to use his connections among the FTL community, to see what he’d heard about Lo-Moth, and Foursquare. The screen pulsed softly to itself for some minutes, but she did not cancel the contact. At last, the screen brightened a little, but no picture took shape. Djuro’s harsh familiar voice said, “What is it?”
“It’s Heikki, Sten.”
“Ah.” The screen cleared abruptly, and the ex-engineer’s lined face filled the screen. “What’s up?”
Over the little man’s shoulder, Heikki could see the single room he lived in, as bare and unfurnished as though he still lived in freefall. A slate-blue sleeping pad lay near the far wall, disarranged by his waking; there was nothing else, not even a teacup, on the spare white mats.
“We’re bidding on a job,” she said aloud. “Do you know anything about a company called Lo-Moth?”
Djuro shook his head.
“They’re a crysticulture firm, based on Iadara, Sixth Precinct. It’s a typical crysticulture world, hot, humid, and a lot of sand.” Heikki took a quick breath, pushing away the too-vivid memories. “Anyway, they lost an LTA there a couple of months ago, and they’re taking bids to find it.”
“No locator, no beacon?” Djuro asked. The wrinkles tightened around his yellowish eyes, an expression that could be either humor or suspicion. Heikki shook her head, and had the satisfaction of seeing the ex-engineer frown. “Wait a minute, didn’t somebody default on that one, a precinct firm, a week or so back?”
“That’s right.” Heikki smiled. “See if you can find out anything about that, would you? Official or unofficial, I don’t care. I’m meeting a man named Mikelis at fourteen hundred, and I’d like to know a little more before I talk to him. It sounds like an interesting job.”
“That’s one way of putting it,” Djuro said, rather sourly. “All right, Heikki, I’ll ask around.”
“Thanks,” Heikki said, and cut the connection. Left to herself, she studied the various menus for a moment, her hand sliding easily across the shadowscreen, then selected the Exchange Point’s business library. At this hour, there would be a dozen librarians on duty, and the surcharges would be correspondingly high—but with luck, she thought, the information I want should be available with ordinary callcodes. At the idiot prompts, she keyed in requests for Lo-Moth’s shareholder reports and precis for the past three years, and then, after a moment’s hesitation, called up the more expensive FortuneNet yearly report. As the screen began to fill, she shunted the information to the hardcopier, and leaned back in her chair to consider her next move.
She had friends in the corporations, people for whom she’d worked, people with whom she’d studied, years ago, people she’d done favors over the years. The question was, was this the time to call those in? No, she decided slowly, not yet. I can find out enough on my own. She shut down the workstation and most of the media wall, and reached for the sheaf of paper lying in the copier’s basket.
By the time she had finished reading, the media wall’s remaining window displayed the time as 1242. Heikki sighed, and set aside the last of the closely printed pages. She had learned nothing world-shattering from the morning’s work: Lo-Moth was reasonably respected by its peers, made a steady though not spectacular profit for its shareholders, and had only the usual difficulties with its workers. In truth, the only oddity was that the company was able to maintain an office suite in the point’s exclusive Pod 2, and that was explained by the fact that Lo-Moth’s major shareholder— their holdings amounted to a controlling interest in the company—was the Loop conglomerate Tremoth Astrando.
1243 now, and the appointment was for 1400: it would take her most of the hour just to reach Pod 2. She swore softly, and left the workroom, to begin pulling clothes from the wall units with practiced haste. She dressed quickly, skirt, sleeveless tunic, multi-pocketed belt, a long scarf wound like a turban over her unruly hair, bright gold rings in ears and nose, then shrugged on the tailored jacket with the spiral collar that was the badge of business on the Loop. She caught up her data lens and tucked it into the slim outer pocket of the belt. She clipped its cord into the powercell concealed in yet another pocket, and saw the red test light glow briefly in the heart of the lens. As she slid her feet into the brightly painted station slippers, she heard the suite’s private door sigh open.
“Heikki?”
Djuro’s voice: Heikki let herself relax, her hand moving away from the latch of the compartment where she kept her blaster, to pick up the c-plastic knife she habitually carried in a thigh sheath. Even corporate security generally failed to pick up the special plastic, and she did not like to travel completely unarmed. “What’s up?” she called, and moved out into the main room. “I don’t have a lot of time, Sten—” Her voice faded, seeing the expression on the little man’s face. “What’s up?” she said again.
Djuro grimaced. “I don’t entirely know, Heikki. I did what you asked, and I’m getting answers I don’t like.”
“Oh?” Heikki stopped in the act of tucking the datasquare containing the bid figures into her belt. “What sort of answers?”
“They say—and I grant you it’s ‘pointer gossip—that FourSquare was paid a lot of money to break the contract.” Djuro shrugged, his expression bleak. “I heard that from Tabith Fang, and Jiri, and Thurloe. I’d’ve called you, but I wasn’t sure I wanted to put that kind of talk on the net.”
Heikki nodded. “Probably smart. Do you think it’s true, then?”
“I don’t know,” Djuro answered. “Fang doesn’t get this kind of thing wrong, but Thurloe—he’s a gossip, and Jiri’s just crazy. I don’t know. I’ll keep asking, if you want.”
“Yeah, I do, thanks.”
“Heikki.”
The woman paused, her hand on the doorplate, looked back over her shoulder with a lifted eyebrow.
“If it’s true, there’s serious trouble,” Djuro went on. “I don’t think we should bid.”
“I agree,” Heikki said, and kept her voice deliberately mild. “If it’s true. But I want to hear what Lo-Moth has to say. For God’s sake, Sten, it’s a preliminary meeting.”
Djuro shook his head. “You’re the boss, Heikki,” he said, not happily.
“That’s right,” Heikki answered, with a nonchalance that would have pleased Santerese, and pushed open the door of the suite.
She rode the spiralling stairs up to the corridor level, where Pod 19 joined the Exchange Point’s support lattice. About a hundred meters from the stairhead, a roving jitney slowed invitingly. Heikki hesitated for an instant, balancing expense against time, then lifted her hand. The jitney slid to a stop, and she levered herself into the cramped compartment. “Pod 2, suite 273,” she said to the computer box, and to her surprise there was a clicking noise from the machine.
“Pod 2 is traffic-restricted,” the voicebox informed her, its artificial tones without inflection. “Transport is provided to the main level entrances only.”
Heikki’s eyebrows rose. “Then take me to the second level entrance.”
“Acknowledged.” Lights flashed across the voicebox’s black surface, letters and numbers moving too fast for a human eye to read, and the jitney pulled smoothly out into the center of the corridor. Heikki leaned back against the cushions, trying to erase her sudden worry. Sten’s contacts don’t necessarily know what’s going on, she told herself, he said as much himself, but the words seemed to ring hollow in her mind.
The jitney made its way down the corridor, then through a connector tunnel, this one lined with holo-panels displaying a simulated starfield, and finally out into the brilliance of the Ten-Twenty Connector. It was crowded there. The jitney was stopped fo
r several minutes, beeping futilely, in front of an interactive theater, before the press of people eased, and the machine was able to proceed. It was a relief when the jitney reached the descender and was able to swing off into the maze of express corridors. Light flooded the tubes from strips set into ceiling and floor, a dizzying brilliance. Heikki shielded her eyes, wincing, until the sensors kicked in and the jitney’s windscreens darkened.
They grew light again as the machine slowed and turned onto a short spiral ramp that led down into a pool of cool light. It diffused from the flat ceiling and the pale, ice-green walls, glowed in the business plaques that were projected at ten-meter intervals along the corridor. The windscreens faded, more quickly than they’d gone dark, and Heikki caught her breath. Heikki/Santerese did not generally deal with the top-rank corporations; this was a class above what she knew.
The corridor widened at last into a wide turnaround, the central island filled with enormous and expensive plantlife. Heikki’s eyebrows rose as she recognized Terran palms and Aliot flowering groundvines among the profusion, and she hastily schooled her face to its most neutral expression. The jitney swung around the island then, and slid to a halt in front of a marble-pillared door. It could be trompe-l’oeil, of course, Heikki thought, as she slid her paycard through the sensor and levered herself out of the cramped compartment, or at least cast stone built up from powders, but somehow she didn’t really believe it. It took an effort of will to keep from tapping the pillar like a yokel as she passed it, to see what it was really made of.
The open lobby was as filled with greenery as the island, and surprisingly crowded, though the clustered plants did much to absorb the sounds of conversation. Heikki allowed herself a single slow glance, her eyes sweeping across the room, then started toward the central podium. Most of the people were of the secretarial classes, data clerks and system monitors, marked by their too-fashionable clothes and the badges that clasped their collars. There were a few executives, however, the richness of their impeccably tailored coats and trousers visible even at a distance, and a single programmer stared disgustedly into his data lens, his face turned deliberately and offensively into the high side of his collar.
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