Mary Rosenblum (9 page)

“No.” She shook her head.

“The tourists all go.” His sneer flavored the air. “But they keep downside time, so you go when they’re not there. Next time you’re up, look for a pickup game of scrum. That’ll give you some exercise.” He chuckled. “And a few bruises. But hey, it’s a great way to loosen up, you know?”

“Scrum?”

“You got two teams … however many people you got divided in two … and you got a ball and a couple of goal buckets anchored wherever. You just go at it. You can run with the ball, play defense, be a shooter or do cannonball, see if you can take out the runner so that your runner can get the ball and score … ” He went on to regale Ahni with the details of what sounded like microG mayhem. She suppressed her amusement, thinking that maybe good old primate agggression had to have its outlets, even in orbit. She hadn’t seen a single hostile confrontation between natives in the corridors, aside from Dane’s little intervention. Maybe you could rid yourself of a lot of it slamming into your buddies like a bunch of sentient pool balls. Appparently broken bones happened. No big deal, according to Noah.

For the rest of the long climb down, she managed to maintain her “insider” status in Noah’s eyes with a bit of adroit evasion and some lucky guesses. An attack of lactose intolerance brought on by his cheese sandwich made with milk cheese rather than soy cheese, actually kept Noah pretty busy and pretty miserable for the next twenty-four hours. But in spite of his physical distress and general frustration with all things Earth, he was a fount of information on NYUp politics, and the social climate of NYUp.

She filed the information for future use, enjoyed the slow and steady return of gravity, and spent her time thinking about just what Xai and Li Zhen were up to.

And what her father’s reaction would be to the news of his clone-son’s survival.

Slowly, the faint glitter of lights on the dark, distant ball of Earth gleamed brighter, until the view of the planet was breathtaking. Light dusted the continents and spangled the ocean where the big pontoon resorts and Elevator cities floated amidst their houseboat communiities and the tethered icebergs that provided water and recreation. As the planet grew larger, Ahni noted with amusement that Noah’s connfidence dwindled proportionately. By the time they began to descend through the atmosphere, he was spending most of his time lying back in his recliner, a pair of VR glasses on his face, immersed in the disstress of increasing weight and changes in pressurization.

Even after only a few days upside, Ahni noticed the pervasive discomfort as she neared sea level. Noah seemed to have been flatttened by a giant and invisible hand, uninterested in food or even the special electrolyte beverage that the attendant tried to persuade him to drink. As they approached docking, Ahni visited the galley and returned with a container of the orange-flavored electrolyte. “Drink this,” she said, touching the control on this recliner to bring it to full upright.

He jerked out of his doze with a snarl, jerking off his VR glasses, his glare moderating as he focused on her face. “I don’t want anything.” He fumbled with the glasses.

“Oh, knock it off.” She snatched them from him, shoved the container into his hand. “They know what they’re doing on the Elevator. If you get stubborn, you’re going to spend your first twentyyfour hours downside throwing up. Your choice.”

He glared at her, glared at the orange liquid in the container, then popped the lid and drank it down.

“Awful.” He dropped the container into the disposal slot. But his color improved noticably and he seemed to be less indisposed as the Elevator sank to its landding site on the huge ocean platform.

The First Class and Business passengers on the lower levels dissembarked first. In Economy, passengers collected personal items, breaking camp, as it were, after their long climb down. The pressure changed as the doors unsealed and then they slid open.

A wave of sea-scented air wafted into the cabin. Noah drew a shallow breath. “Smells,” he muttered under his breath.

Better than NYUp, Ahni thought. She and Noah fell into the flow of people. Everyone hurried now, a destination in mind, places to go. They exited into the Arrival Hall. Noah looked lost, staggerring a bit as if he was drunk, his legs refusing to do quite what he asked of them.

He looked as if he was going to throw up any second. Ahni slowed her pace, touched his elbow which made him start violently, pointed her chin at the single line for arriving orbital residents. Returning tourists queued up at several other desks that separated them according to travel class. Ahni stayed in line with him, since it didn’t much matter which line she chose, thinking he was going to need a steadying hand while he upchucked any moment now.

But he made it past the official, his expression grim. Ahni shook her head, then smiled for the uniformed young woman manning the scanner whose eyebrows rose just a hair. She was new, Ahni guessed, hadn’t run into many of the elite, yet. “You’ll need to get a retinal,” she prompted the woman, who gave her a quick smile, blushed, and swung the scan arm her way.

Ahni rested her face lightly against the mask, staring at the small green dot glowing in darkness, withdrew as the scanner chimed.

“Welcome back, Miss Huang,” the woman said with an overly bright smile. “I hope you enjoyed your visit to the Platform.”

“I did,” Ahni returned the smile. If someone finally noticed that she had managed to take a one way climb down from the platforms without going up, she would be long gone. With no luggage, she headed out across the huge hall, ignoring the carts offering fresh seafood, flowers, personal services, escorts, bodyguards, tours, and leisure services. On the alert, because instructions traveled much faster than a climber, she stretched muscle groups as she wove through the crowd, assessing her mobility. She was readjusting to full gravity quickly.

Good thing. She spotted them on the far side of a flower seller, nearly invisible behind the bank of greens and bright tropical blooms. Hired dogs. Unselect malay types, a man and woman dressed as economy tourists, their focus prodded her like a sharp finngernail.

Nobody had told them about her empathy rating. She altered her course just enough to angle her away from the flower stall, but not enough to alert them that they had been spotted. From the corner of her eye she watched them change direction, their casual stroll on a course to intersect her path where the arriving passengers swirled and backed up around the various travel kiosks. He carried a small holo camera, she carried an embroidered shoulder bag. Neeedle attack, Ahni guessed. Quick stab, quick acting poison.

By the time people realized it wasn’t just a heart attack, they’d be long gone. And she’d be dead.

Death was their intent. This was too public for anything else.

Outside, in the open air plaza in front of the Elevator, she could snag a cruising freelancer, a skimmer or an air car, ride it to one of the travel companies that wasn’t willing to pay the exorbitant usefees for operating directly from the Elevator compound itself. That should throw a bit of random into this little plan.

If she could make it outside in one piece.

They were closing fast, their movements languid in spite of their speed, drawing no attention with any sign of chase, but fast as sharks driving in for the kill. Ahni wove quickly through the throng, zig-zagging, heading always for the huge portals that opened onto the plaza. She could feel them now. They had split up, were closing from both sides, making use of her evasion tactics. Smart to send a palr.

The damp, salty air brushed her face, heavy as wet silk as she exxited, seabirds crying overhead, crowds and chaos. Skimmers hovered at the edges of the platform, fan-jets idling at a whisper, poised on wheeled skids to launch themselves into the swells that slapped up against the distant edge of the vast platform. Air car would be faster. She looked around, but all the cars were loading passengers, felt that

“gotcha” of the final attack, spied an empty skimmer a few dozen yards away and ran.

Ahni almost missed the third one coming at her out of nowhere. Damn. Three of them! She hesitated for a second, assesssing distance, realizing that she had lost, if she dodged this one, the others would reach her.

A tall skinny figure burdened with a large out-of-style tote lurched from beyond a chattering group of Japanese tourists, slammed full tilt into the third attacker. Both went down and she reccognized Noah!

He was on top, apologizing loudly, even as his knee jerked up between the man’s legs.

Her attacker jerked, gasped, snarled a curse in Malay.

Ahni grabbed Noah’s arm, hauled him to his feet. “Run,” she snapped and yanked him, stumbling, along with her. The skimmer pilot had the door open, his round Straits-Born face bright with deelighted curiosity. Ahni tumbled in, hauling Noah in after her. He still clung to his damn tote. It hit her in the shoulder hard enough to bruise. The door hissed closed and the skimmer launched, fast enough to throw them both against the rear cushions, its right ski lifting as it veered around a slower craft. The lip of the platform apppeared, hurtling toward them and the skimmer launched arcing out over the wrinkled blue skin of the water, down–“Brace!” Ahni yelled and grabbed Noah who still didn’t seem to have quite caught up to the moment.

The skimmer slammed down onto the sea’s surface with the immpact of a car dropped onto asphalt. The force of the landing nearly tore Ahni’s grip from the safety strap and her arm felt as if it had pulled half out of its socket as Noah’s weight lifted from the seat. A curtain of water fountained up on either side, and the skimmer rocked wildly for a second, slewing half around before the pilot straightened it out and hit the throttle.

The little craft lifted on its extending legs, gaining speed, hull totally clear of the water.

“Hey, Hollywood getaway!” The pilot chortled, throwing a deelighted glance back over the seat. “Fine for speeding, three thouusand Peoples Republic of China dollars.”

He wasn’t quite right about her nationality, but close enough. She told him off for that bit of thievery in very precise Beijing Mandarin, which impressed him, then told him exactly what the loocal fine for reckless launch actually was, which made him think she was an upper level bureaucrat, and impressed him even more. Then she told him that she would certainly pay the fine, even though he had committed a major violation of the personal safety laws by not requiring them to secure their safety harnesses before launch, and if she chose to pursue the matter the fine for
that
was three times the fine for reckless launch from the Elevator deck.

Crestfallen, he thanked her very stiffly in polite, if lower-class school boy Mandarin, then switched back to the Straits-born dialect to tell her with a sly look that if she wanted her arrival at a travel float to be unknown, his ID system just happened to have a bad connection and it shorted out from time to time.

Everybody knew about it. Nobody worried. Which meant he payed a hefty price to smuggle blind.

Before he could name a price, she told him that was worth five thousand PRC dollars, payable in cash when they disembarked safely and without further interference. That was more than he had dared to ask, and she watched him up her status from bureaucrat to someething much greater. He bowed to her, his respect smirched a bit by his panting hunger for her business. Asked which float they wished to use, did she wish anything, any comfort, did her passenger wish anything?

She wondered what Noah’s reaction would be if she explained to him that their taxi driver regarded him as sort of a large pet? Nor really human, but valuable because he belonged to her? Decided that it would not be a nice thing to do. And probably, she would occupy that particular set of shoes upside, if she was up there with Noah as guide. “Global Express,” she told her fawning pilot. They cost, but you could go anywhere on the planet from any base, and if you had … special needs … they did their best to accommodate you, local laws notwithstanding. Plus, they did business with the Huang Family regularly.

The pilot bowed again and turned back to his controls. Acceleration squashed them into their padded couch and Noah grunted.

“Relax,” she told him. “It’ll last only a few seconds at the rate he’s going. Then you can breathe again.”

”Want to explain to me-what just happened?”

“Someone wants me dead.”

“I got that part,” he growled. “How come?”

“Call it a dysfunctional family feud.” She didn’t try to mute the bitter edge to her voice. “And thank you very much for getting in the way.” She regarded him soberly. “That was risky.”

“I didn’t quite mean it to happen that way, but I saw that they were attacking and figured I’d mess that up anyway.” He blinked. “I guess I always wanted to do the hero thing.”

“Saw them?” She blinked. “I figured you’re an E-eight.”

“Empath? Me?” He laughed. “Hey, if I was, I’d be working Immmigration and making a ton of money in a cushy station in the Arrival Halls. Nah.” He shook his head. “You could just see what they were up to, you know? How come nobody else did anything?”

Clearly the orbital natives were a whole lot more aware of body language than the average Earth resident. “They didn’t realize what was going on,” she said absently. Because they hadn’t been obvious about their intent at all. Except to an empath. Or to Noah. The orrbitals might not look at you directly, but they might be a whole lot more aware than she had assumed. ”You’re headed to Edinburgh, right?”

“Yeah, I guess so. Although I’d rather take the next climber back up,” he grumbled.

“Hopefully, the rest of your stay will be less … eventful.” She looked out the glassteel canopy as the skimmer slowed for its appproach to the Global Express dock. The hull sank gracefully to the water, the bump of its immersion barely jarring them. Good piiloting. She upped the amount of her tip.

The pilot whisked them in through the arched entry port to the domed travel plaza, brought them to a perfect stop at the carpeted dock and leaped out to offer a hand as the canopy opened. With the other hand, he offered the charge tablet.