The 97th Step (8 page)

"So, Ferret. What have you got?"

Ferret produced the reader and flatscreen.

Warbler took the flatscreen first, examined it carefully, clicking it on and running a test pattern to check the graphics. After a minute, she dropped it onto the bed between them. He handed her the reader, and she clicked one of the info balls into it and performed a similar test, to assure that the unit was in good shape.

"Twenty stads for both of them," she said.

"I priced them," he said. "Thirty-five."

She smiled, a brief and amused grimace. "This ain't exactly the Tokyo Electronics Emporium, kid.

Twenty-two."

"Thirty."

"Come on. You're fresh, but even you know the lanes better than that. Twenty-four, and that's the top out."

He nodded. "Okay."

"You want a credit or hard curry?"

"Hard. I wasn't planning to open an account here."

She favored him with another smile. "You're a funny kid, you know?" She counted out four five-stad coins and four ones. He took the coins and jingled them before he put them into his pocket.

"Thanks," he said.

"Always open for biz," she said. She started to slide off the bed.

"One more thing," he said. "You seen Bill the Breaker around?"

Warbler stopped her movement. "You got a hot cube?"

He shrugged. "I just need to talk to him."

"You're out of luck, then. Last I saw him was on Farbis. I heard he was heading out toward Rim."

Ferret shrugged again, pretending disinterest. "No big deal."

"I can put you in touch with Raven," she said. "I hear she's around."

"Yeah?"

"For ten percent."

"Shit. I might go two."

"Eight."

"Four percent. You wouldn't want to take advantage of a kid, now would you?"

"Five. If you've got a hot cube, you have to move it today, otherwise it ain't worth the plastic it's made of.

I can get you to Raven in an hour."

Ferret thought about it. "All right. Five percent."

She smiled a third time. "I think you're gonna do all right in the lanes, kid."

Raven wore her jet hair cropped short, and there was a jagged scar across her cheek that pulled her mouth up in a perpetual half smile. She must have been beautiful before the scar, Ferret thought, wondering also why she didn't check into a plastic clinic and have the thing fixed. She made pretty good money, he heard. But then, maybe she had her reasons for wanting to look like she did. That was her business, and if he'd learned nothing else in the lanes, he'd learned to avoid asking questions that were too personal. Some didn't mind; others didn't like it, to the point of quick and deadly violence, and cry to the cools if you don't like, kid.

They met in a restaurant on the west side of the main terminal building, a midrange cafeteria with live servers on the line. The place was fairly crowded, but they bought only drinks, then found an empty booth and sat.

Raven said, "Warbler says you have something I might want."

Wordlessly, Ferret produced the cube and handed it to her. She glanced at it, rubbed her thumb over the gold stripe, and nodded. "How long have you had it?"

"About four hours."

She took a sip of her beer and set the plastic can down on the table. "Two thousand," she said.

Ferret blinked. Two thousand
standards
! Jesu! He barely managed to keep from blurting that out loud.

He never expected that much, not in a million years! He was all set to leap on the offer with both dotic boots, but instead, he leaned back and sipped at his own drink. It was splash, a mildly alcoholic beverage that had a slightly sour tang. He didn't know as much as he wished he knew about such things, and he automatically doubled the number.

"Four," he said.

"Let's not play," Raven said. "I'm tired, it's been a long day, and I'd just as soon catch a shuttle off this rock. So I'll give you my number and we are at the bottom line. Thirty-seven fifty. Out of which you owe Warbler how much?"

"Five percent."

"Fine. So she gets a hundred and thirty-eight stads from that, unless you want to argue over small change?"

"No. That sounds fair."

"Good." Raven pulled a purse from her belt, a flat rectangle of green plastic, and opened it. She counted out thirty-six hundred standards, in hundred-stad platinum coins, then two fives and two ones.

Ferret hastily stuffed the coins into his pockets.

Raven stuck the cube into her purse and resettled the container onto her belt. She finished her beer, then started to stand. "If you're in a port and need to do biz with me, pull out a call for Fem Black on the com.

I'll find you."

"Aren't you going to check the cube and see if it's legit?"

"No need. If it isn't, you're dead next time I see you."

Ferret felt a rush of fear ice his belly. "Uh, look," Ferret began, "we've done the deal and all. Can I ask you something?"

"I suppose."

"How much can you make off that cube?"

"If I start now, maybe six or eight thousand stads. A little in curry, some luxury items I can move, like that."

"Is it risky?"

She laughed. "You looking to get into the biz, kid?"

"Maybe. It doesn't hurt to know things."

"Risky enough. I've been lucky. Two out of three hot cubers do locktime. They get careless."

"Thanks for the information."

"No charge, kid." She started to walk away. "You still with Wall Eye?"

Ferret was very much aware of the weight of the three thousand stads in his pocket. "Not anymore," he said.

Not anymore.

Eight

"I CAN UNDERSTAND why you might not like sex with men," Shar said.

Ferret shook his head. "It wasn't so much the acts as the reasons for them. I was bought, I didn't have a choice. It was my only coin. Later, I met a boy my age, and we got along okay. For a time. We were together, but out of choice. Nobody was selling anything, nobody had to, that was the difference. But that came to a bad end, too. Not because of the sex, but for… other reasons."

"Another story?"

Ferret took a deep breath and let it out. "Might as well, since I'm baring my soul."

But the com chimed at that moment, interrupting the intended revelation.

Shar said, "Yes?"

From the com came the voice of Stoll, somewhat tinny for the small speaker that reproduced it. "If you two are done with your sweaty athletic endeavors, Ferret and I have work to do."

"Work?" Ferret said. "I just got here!"

"Sorry, m'boy, but biz waits for nobody. We're talking six months."

Ferret sat up and stared at the com. It was preset to a nopix transmission, but he wished he could see Stoll's face, to know if he was serious. Six months meant just that: his half of the profits on the venture, whatever it was, would buy him six months on Vishnu. At an average cost of nineteen thousand standards a month to stay on the pleasure world, six months was nothing to hiss at. That meant the total score for the caper had to run close to half a million, taking out Stoll's cut, the finder's fee, and assorted bribes and expenses. Not a small bit of
biz
.

"You wouldn't be trying to damp my drive, now would you Shanti?"

"If only I could," Stoll said. "But in this case, no, the biz is legit.
If
we can manage to stir ourselves from Shar's passionate embrace and move our ass to get to it."

Shar laughed. "Is that 'we' a hint of latent desire, Shanti? Would you like to join us next time?"

"Alas, dear one, you tempt me. But no. My own passions lie in another plane, as you well know."

Ferret chuckled. Indeed. Food was Stoll's mistress. He had a particular bent: while he was as plebeian as the next man in his drinking habits, he never ate the same item prepared the same way twice. Every meal the fat man consumed was different, a new experience each time. Which accounted for his bulk. If he liked something, he ate much of it at a sitting, knowing he would never have it again. Ferret had once seen him consume two kilos of
kipande cha nyama
, meat from dwarf cattle found only on Bibi Arusi's Green Moon. These were exceedingly rare animals, raised by hand, and fed nothing but highest quality honeyed grain and vintage smoked eel wine. The cost of that single meal had been worth two weeks' stay on Vishnu, ten thousand standards, counting the bribe for illegal importation. Stoll lived to eat, and he allowed no other desires to interfere.

"I bet I could make you skip a meal," Shar said.

"Have you nothing better to do than bedevil an old man, child? What a horrible thought!"

Ferret and Shar smiled at each other. Ferret continued to look at her as he said, "I am on my way, Lord Glutton. I'll see you in fifteen minutes."

Shar frowned at him and shook her head.

"I meant thirty minutes," Ferret amended hastily.

She smiled at him, and it was a thing of joy.

"Or maybe forty-five minutes," Ferret said.

From the com, Stoll said, "Ah, you young people. No sense of tomorrow." Ferret could almost see him shaking his head in mock dismay. But five seconds later, Stoll had left his mind completely.

As Ferret took the pedway to Stoll's cube, he felt almost unbearably happy. Stoll and Shar were his friends, the kind who would come at his call to help him bury a body, no questions asked. And Shar loved him in a way he had never expected to be loved, something that amazed him still at least once daily.

Sure, she was beautiful, but anybody with enough money could buy surgical beauty; it was what shined from within that counted. Were she to turn haggish-looking tomorrow, it wouldn't matter. Shar lived behind the face, and while it was the face and body that had first called to him, it was the woman beneath who kept him in thrall. He sometimes felt that if Shar were given a featureless body, a lump of protoplasm, it would naturally grow beautiful to match her inner self. He could not begin to understand why she favored him as she did. He was but a thief, not all that clever or rich. She had tried to tell him that she felt an essential connection, but he didn't understand what she meant. Something to do with his soul and hers, she said, and he didn't question it too closely for fear of spoiling it.

A group of chattering tourists zipped by on the opposite walkway, pointing and snapping holograms with their cameras. Probably they had saved for years to enjoy a few days on Vishnu, while he lived here almost permanently. That was something to be thankful for, too. To be with the galaxy's most perfect woman, on the galaxy's most perfect world, was something most men could only dream of. And here he was, a self-educated farm boy from nowhere, who had the dream as reality. True, he was a thief and smuggler, a dangerous occupation, but he did not harm anybody by being such. He stole from those who could afford it, or insurance companies who covered them; he smuggled items forbidden by arcane and foolish laws, never dealing in addictive drugs, weapons, or slavery. One might even say he performed an essential service—keeping cools and Confed patrols in business, and supplying illegal—but not particularly immoral—items to fulfill people's desires. It was a rationalization with which he could live.

The exit to Stoll's cube loomed, and Ferret crosstracked to the slower outer belt of the pedway. The morning sun shined warmly, and he took a deep breath of the city's clean air as he regained the dead sidewalk bordering the pedway. If God existed. Ferret figured He had decided to allow this particular sinner some measure of joy. Ferret figured he was way ahead, even after the hard years on Cibule. Only a few men found Paradise while still alive.

"So," Ferret said, "what is this enriching biz you have for us?"

Stoll was eating a midmorning snack, some kind of candied fruit, looked like. Any curiosity Ferret had about what the meal might be, he kept to himself. Stoll would wax on about his food for hours, telling Ferret everything he wanted to know about it, and a lot more he could care less about. Stoll knew his meals like a good mother knew her children.

The fat man held up one hand, a signal for his partner to wait a moment. Ferret smiled. He knew better than to interrupt Stoll while eating, but he did it anyway, to mildly annoy him. It was part of the long-running game they played, and both of them enjoyed it.

There was a story about Stoll, something that had happened before he and Ferret had met. Supposedly, a restaurant in which Stoll was eating had caught fire, but the man had refused to leave until he'd finished his meal. With the place burning down all around him, and frantic firefighters spraying disox foam hither and yon, Stoll had calmly finished his dinner. Singed, but satisfied, Stoll had approached the payment computer to settle his tab, but the computer had been melted into slag by the fire, along with most of the restaurant. It was probably apocryphal, but it was a good story, and Ferret wouldn't put it past his partner.

The younger man looked around the inside of Stoll's cube while the other finished his snack. The cube was spare, almost stark in its lack of decoration. A table, four chairs, and a couch occupied the circular central room. There were three spokes, short hallways, leading from the center wheel to a bedroom, fresher, and, of course, a kitchen. Stoll was not above preparing his own meals, and was an excellent cook, especially considering he never made the same dish twice. Not a particularly good way to get culinary practice. The other rooms were no better appointed than the center room; Stoll spent his money on one thing, and had for most of his life.

"Wonderful stuff," Stoll said.

Ferret glanced at him. "Don't tell me. I don't want to know."

A shadow of annoyance crossed Stoll's face, and Ferret could not stop the smile. Stoll caught him in it.

"You're joking. How can you joke about such things?"

"I am sorry," Ferret said, his voice grave. "I don't know what came over me. Tell me about the snack."

This too was part of the game. A partner should enjoy his partner's passions, even if he ragged him about them.

Stoll lit up, a fat and happy human lamp. "Blue Chungwa, from Earth, actually. It's a citrus fruit, crossbred up from kumquats and lime, originally. This particular batch came from clone stock grown on Flamind—that's one of the Hothouse Islands on Aqua, in the Sto System. Amazing places, the Islands.