Mary Rosenblum (6 page)

“All right, let’s get it over with.” He swung himself casually up onto the podium. “Don’t want to make you all start throwing stuff. Costs to clean up, after, so we’ll just cut to the yelling.”

“Well, hey, I’ll start.” A small man, round-faced, with native muscles, waved. People around him withdrew politely, giving him floor. “What the hell joke is this Security tariff all about?” Arms crossed on his chest he stared up defiantly. “Security for who? Who is Earth keeping us secure from? We’re the ones in the Arrival Hall scanning the scum that comes up here. They let anybody get on the damn Elevators. I mean, my sister, she had these two guys just walk out of her shop the other day, ate a full lunch, didn’t pay. And for that, she’s gotta pay extra next time she boosts realmilk cheese up here?”

“So how come she can’t use soy like the rest of us?” The juice seller spoke up, her half-empty jug sloshing as the crowd gave her pace. “If she wants downsider cheese, fine, let her pay their ‘security’

skim. Me, I like the local stuff. She too good for it?”

“She’s on the skinlevel, got to feed the customers what they want.”

“Maybe the customers should learn to like something different. Or stay home.”

The crowd cheered at this and the man flushed. “You sell what you want, you … “

“You’ve both got a point.” Laif’s drawl cut through the rising voices and the crowd hushed expectantly.

“Yeah, we need to buy upside when we can, but on the other hand, the downsiders bring their credit up here with them. If they want a little Earthside cheese on their local salad, hey,” he spread his hands, winked. “I’d rather boost a little realmilk feta up here than see them bringing their picnic lunches and leaving trash instead of credit.” He paused as laughter and applause, along with a few whistles of disapproval, rippled through the crowd. “But I came here tonight to bitch about the new security tariff right along with the rest of you.” He leaned forward now, the emerald flashing, his smile fading. “That caught me blindside, made me feel like a fool, I can tell you. I’ve been screamming about it all afternoon.

We do our own security up here, and it’s a whole lot more effective than anything the North American Alliance puts on the ground, at least if you go by the crime stats.”

“So why didn’t you just tell ‘em no?” Dane unfolded his legs, rising to his feet on the table, looking over the upturning faces beeow to fix his stare on the Admin. “Tell ‘em we don’t have to pay for what we don’t use.”

”It’s more complicated than that. Don’t try to oversimplify things for your own purposes, Nilsson. You’re good at that and we all know it.” Laif faced as the crowd’moved back to reflect the line of tension between the men. “I walk a damn fine line between telling the Alliance downstairs what they can’t do and kissing butts. I don’t know about you, Nilsson, but I hate kissing butts.”

Nervous laughter skittered through the crowd.

“But I do a hell of a lot more of it than I want to do. If they yank me out of here, the next Admin is gonna dance to their tune, you better believe it. I’ve pissed off too many people down there. They won’t make the same mistake twice. They’ll put somebody in here who not only likes to kiss butts, but takes orders, too.”

“And we appreciate the butts you kiss, believe me.” Dane’s earnest tone brought more laughter. “But we need to talk about this new tariff. I don’t know about you, but a bunch of folk I’ve talked to, the ones who still have to boost stuff up here, are really hurting. We’re on a thin enough margin already. What does the NAA want? Is it out to bankrupt us all, repo the can?”

Cheers erupted, some whistles, but not that many. The crowd buzzed, anger and agreement sweeping his senses like a hot wind. He blinked into the Con for a few seconds, did a quick surf. Yep, it mimicked the townplaza tone pretty closely. Little less enthusiasm from the skinside merchants who depended on downside traffic, more from the service level folk who had local businesses on the side, like the juice seller.

“Yeah, they probably wouldn’t mind if they could repo this place.” Laif raised his voice. “We’re a pain in the butt up here. They’d love to do away with the lifetime leases they handed out back when nobody wanted to live long-term up here. Then they could stick a bunch of nice obedient tenant-farmers up here, like New Singapore has.” His face grew grim as the crowd quieted. “But I don’t plan to go along with that. I’ve been pressuring them to let us impose that tariff on the refined metals and spider silk they’re so hungry for down there?collect on all that stuff going down the Ellevators. Told ‘em it’s to pay for more rock jocks out scouring the skies for falling stones that might mess up the cities down there.” He waited for the applause and clapping to fade. “They’re listening. Falling rocks scare ‘em.”

”What do we use as a lever next time, Admin?” Dane crossed his arms, his body language challenging, despite the smile on his face. “And the time after that? It’s gotta stop some day. If we ever want to start expanding on our own, we gotta stop hemorrhaging raw materials and credit down there!”

Cheers bigtime, solid enthusiasm, only a couple of whistles, but then the ones who didn’t want independence for the orbitals mostly didn’t show up in person at the townplazas.
It’s in your court, Laif
, Dane thought.
We need a good slam here.

“Jeeze, Nilsson, I don’t know what game plan I’m going to run until I know what the game is.” Laif shook his head tolerantly, but anger flashed in his dark eyes, bright as the emerald. “Why don’t you get yourself appointed to my job for awhile. See how well
you
walk this tightrope, huh?”

“I’d rather stand down here and ask the questions.”
Not good enough
, Dane thought.
Come on, Laif.

Cancel that percentage we’re seeing.

“I got a question for you, Admin.” A small taut man appeared as the crowd gave him space. “Why walk that tightrope of yours, huh? You’re right. It’s gotta be a tough job. Gets you a paycheck, sure. But that doesn’t seem like a whole lot of payoff for a tough job.” The crowd fell silent. The man was a stranger, small and mixedeuro with a narrow face and a fanatic’s eyes. Fringer? Dane watched him, senses alert.

One of the extremes who were ready to go to war with the planet? Dane didn’t recognize him from the NOW meett:ngs. New here?

”We pay the tariffs on stuff we haul up and they make sure we have to haul it up, so it’s a sweet deal.”

He turned his back on the Admin, his voice rising, body swaying with the cadence of his words. “Only way out, I see, is to tell the heavyweights the rules instead of saying ‘yessir’ and standing around in crowds like this, blowing air. Wow, our Administrator might get us some credit on a few pounds of metal going downside. Who cares? They own us and they know it!” He turned and pointed at Laif -the rude gesture eliciting a murmur of disapproval. “I think you’re getting paid to help ‘em own us.”

The crowd erupted again. Some whistles, too much applause, the anger back, just like that. Damn.

“Now hold on.” Laif strode to the edge of the podium, his anger radiating, real this time. “You walk in here and accuse me of being on their downsider team, then you better be ready to back it up,” he boomed. “You want to do that?”

“You bet, mister Administrator.” The small fringer stood alonein a wide space now and the crowd fell instantly silent. “What about those investments you made this week? Downsider companies. I’ve been watching for that sort of sneaky backdoor type of deal, and hey ho, Mister On Our Side, I sure found it.

You bought a nice slice of a pretty profitable sea farm off China. Profits go into a downside bank, and they’re nice profits. Retirement fund? Pretty sweet deal, boss man. Don’t want all your eggs up here in the basket with us, huh? They sure must pay you a good salary if you can buy something that pricey.”

Shouts of outrage, applause, and whistles filled the plaza. Laif was saying something, yelling. Dane hopped lightly down from his

perch, merging with the throng, nodding, shrugging, agreeing, shaking his head as he worked his way toward the fringer. He caught a

hard thread of a cold, calculating satisfaction as he neared the site where he’d seen the man last, but if the emotion belonged to the agitator, he couldn’t tell, couldn’t spot him in the surging crowd.

“Do you believe him?” A woman stepped front of him, her chest heaving with anger, her euro-latino face pale. “Laif ‘s on our side, he wouldn’t sell out.”

“Why say it if it’s not true?” A smaller mixed afroamerican-asian man pushed between them. “We can check and—” his gaze went vacant as he checked the Con—”Oh, gods, it is true. It’s all over the Con.

He bought the shares, he’s selling us out, can you believe it?”

Danefroze just for an instant. Bad. He glanced toward the

podium, but Laif was no longer there, was down on the floor, gesticulating, not losing his cool but danm busy right now. They weren’t giving him much space, either. The afro—asian wasn’t the only one who had checked the Con

Dane made his way through the crowd,watching for the agitator. He wasgoo d. He was a stranger.

Might be a smart idea to invite him to the next little get together of NOW, get a handle on where he came from, what he was up to. He blinked into the Con. Yeah, a few hundred people had found the new purchase made by Laif or at least by someone with credit registered to Laif Jones Egret and hidden just enough to make it believable. If you didn’t think about it too hard.

Dane skipped across a half dozen Con threads, dropping cormmentsinto the raging torrent of words.

Dumb move for someone as smart as Laif. Pretty easy to really hide your tracks. Stupid to leave
the evidence just sitting there, waiting for some fool to stumble over.
Dane skipped here and there, using the various solid personas that Noah had hacked up for him, slick enough to fool even Con security. Bit by bit, his planted questions began to ripple through the outcry.

Without warning, his implanted link buzzed, tickling the skinon his shoulder. An alarm. He blinked his link open. Someone was trying to get past the security lock on Elevator 3B.

Which wouldn’t be a big concern except that Koi lay locked into the med-unit in the core, and 3B was the closest elevator to the core. Which suggested that someone was after Koi.

Good luck, Laif,Dane thought as he headed fast for the corridors and the nearest elevator bay.
You’re
on your own.
As he reached the corridor he felt someone’s pointed attention on him, but when he looked around, the corridor was empty.

Damn.

This had the feel of a very well-planned set-up.

Dane pushed himself into a skimming run, taking the long flatstrid es that lowG allowed. He took the closest service elevator, thumbed in manual control and sent the bare unit up at max speed. He shot out of the door as it opened, pulling goggles from his belt clip, even as he soared through the aisles of ‘ponic tubes. A couple of Koi’s people flanked him, worrying.
Hide,
he told them silently.
Just in case.
They vanished instantly. He slowed as he neared the control room, checking his link. According to his security system, the intruder hadn’t managed to disable the lock on 3B yet. Dane kolled hismo mentum on the side of the control center, slung himself intothe lock and eyeballed the inner door open. He glanced at Koi’s glazed and dreaming face, then opened the main control field,one toe tucked under the grab bar in front oh the main console as the icons blinked to life.

Nothing. Dane stared for a long moment at the security readout, then shut down the field, pried loose an access panel in the conntrol wall, and slid his hand in behind a tangle of wires. Removed a small lethal-grade stunner. For a moment he stared down at the palm-sized gray oblong, then he slipped it into his singlesuit, and grim faced, let himself out through the lock.

Salad vegetables surrounded Elevator 3B, spirals of red, green, and yellow lettuces and leafy plants, herbs, tomato vines trained around the ‘ponic tubes. Dane slowed, drifting to a halt at the elevator entry, eyeballed the control scanner and paused, his eyes on the door.

If Li Zhen opened the door?

Dane slipped the stunner from his suit, thumbed the control to non-lethal. Killed the security lock. Then he pushed off, drifting away from the light, fading into the leafy vines of a tomato’s sprawl where the heavy crop of orange, ripening fruit would camouflage his NYUp uniform. The elevator whispered to a stop. Dane drew a slow breath, relaxed his muscles, stunner aimed at the door.

It sighed open.

The empty compartment yawned at him.

With a shrug, Dane pushed over to the elevator and sent the car back down. Frowning, he headed back to the control center to up the security levels for all access points. It would be a nuisance beecause he’d have to okay every shipment going down, but that was his only option right now.

Thoughtfully, Dane kicked his way back to the control center. There, he reset security, okayed the shipments scheduled to go out in the next shift, then turned to Koi. He touched the boy’s face and for an instant, Koi’s glazed stare sharpened into focus. He tried to smile.

“You’re just about finished here,” Dane murmured. “I think I’m going to let you out a little early. You can finish the job on your own, okay?” The fractures were 90 percent solid and the organ damage had already finished healing. He’d be okay kicking around and a whole lot safer than he was tied down here.

Dane overrode the med-unit’s program and ended the healing protocol.

Drifting, he watched Koi’s eyes brighten as the unit sent drugs down The microtubing implanted in his veins, banishing the heavy soporifics that kept him immobile for the enhanced healing, shutting off the stimulation protocol that kept muscles and tissues healthy and toned while healing progressed. Koi blinked as the microtubes and catheters withdrew and the unit opened to release him. He moved a shoulder and drifted upward with perfect control. Yawned and stretched, without drifting a hair.

“Did she come back?” Koi’s cloudy eyes glowed with memory. “The pretty one?”