Neurolink (42 page)

Dominic didn’t really care. He buckled himself into the seat and watched the pilot ready the craft for flight. Through the window, he could see the old bathysphere tilting in the waves. Juanita was leaning out of the hatch and struggling to haul up the ladder. Inside his comfortable cabin, a musical chime signaled imminent liftoff, and he heard the engines powering up.

“Wait,” he said.

“Wait for what?” said the NP.

“Something I have to do without you.” Dominic was already unbuckling. “I need you to log out.”

“We don’t have time!” the NP railed. “The meeting!”

“Give me five minutes. The sooner you log out the sooner I’ll be back.”

“More sentimental crap. I know I’m gonna regret this. Okay, five minutes.”

Dominic felt the drain as the NP withdrew. Then he rushed through the airlock and wrenched open the car’s exterior door. “Juanita!” He dove into the ocean and swam for the bathysphere. “Juanita!” he called, spitting gray foam. “Juanita, let the ladder down.”

The descent to the hospital deck on the
Pressure of Light
took only a few minutes, but it seemed to go on forever. Once inside the ship, he sprinted through the corridors, checking every ward, asking everyone he met if they’d seen Qi Raoshu. He found her feeding tea to an old woman propped up on a cot. The instant she saw him, she sprang to her feet and reared back as if she meant to hurl the cup at him. The old woman gaped.

“Qi,” he said. Then he couldn’t go on.

“Don’t talk to me.” She knelt again and began pouring tea down the old woman’s chin and neck till the woman coughed and pushed her away.

“Qi,” he said again.

“You’ve got that thing in your eye.” She dabbed roughly at the woman’s chin with a washcloth. “I won’t have it spying on me.”

“It’s gone, I swear.” Dominic knelt beside her. “Wait for me. I’ll come back in one year.”

She smoothed the woman’s blanket with both hands as if she meant to iron out every wrinkle. “You’re gonna play Siamese brains with your dear old Da. Who knows what you’ll be like after a year.”

“My father is dead. It’s just me now. No one else is here. Look at me.” He tried to touch her, but she jerked away. “Please, Major. I need you.”

She swung around and started beating him with her fists. “I’m not your preter-vicious major! I never have been!”

“Yes, you are.” He caught her in his arms and held her. “You are my preter-vicious major. Say it, Qi. Say you’ll wait.”

She sobbed into his shoulder and bit him. “You’re a scheming liar and a thief, and you’ll promise anything.” Then she kissed him. “Conceited, selfish, underhanded.” She kissed him again, hard on the mouth, and. she hugged him as if she meant to crack him open. “Plus you’re lazy,” she said.

“Don’t forget greedy.” He nuzzled her neck. “And lustful.”

“And way too pale.”

Glancing over Qi’s shoulder, Dominic saw the old woman give him a thumbs-up.

Much, much later, back in the ZahlenBank car, he borrowed the pilot’s headband and adjusted the wire in front of his right eye.

With a jolt, the NP surged back into his head. “We missed the meeting! I can’t believe I let you do that!”

“So we make the Orgs cool their heels.” Dominic calmly rebuckled his seat belt. “The deal isn’t going to evaporate because we got hung up in traffic.”

“Traffic! Krishna Christ, boy!”

As the car lifted off, Dominic watched the fleet of medical vans disappear in the smog. Then he switched to metavision and continued to watch till they dwindled away behind him to infinitesimal particles and finally vanished in the dazzling purple waves.

One year, he promised.

Aloud he said, “That name you picked out, tell me again?”

“Änderungen,” the NP said proudly.

“So how about a trade? I’ll call you Änderungen if you’ll call me Dominic. No more ‘son’ or ‘boy’ or anything like that. We’re partners, not relatives.”

“Sure, sure. You wanna be called Dominic. I can do that.”

“Splendid.” Dominic put the headband away and opened his notebook. “Let’s go over that Org settlement again, point by point, to make sure they don’t trick us.”

The NP chuckled. “Hell, I like the way you think. We’re two sides of a coin, you and me.”

“A coin with two heads.” Dominic stroked his beard and smiled at his interesting life. Such a deal.