The D’neeran Factor (63 page)

Tricks of the trade. Who had told him about that one?

You couldn't miss Gian Filarete's trade. The medallion round his neck showed, prominently, the clasped-hands symbol of the Registered Friend.

Michael touched the Talk switch and then the credit plate. Making contact cost extra. He left with Gian a little later.

*   *   *

He took the boy home with him, an hour from Shore-ground by groundcar. The car could have found the way, but Michael piloted it to cover a rare, bad case of nerves. He put away the distortion device when they got in the car and when he looked into Gian's speculative eyes, he could almost
hear the boy thinking.
Good-looking. I like that. Strong, though. Mean? Or the soppy kind? All night. Weird?
There was music in the car, but it was not helpful.

The song was in a dialect fourteen hundred years old, and the voices wove a dance around one another. Gian did not like it. He was not impressed with the car, either, which was not new. Michael's stock did not go up until he offered wine and Gian saw the goblets. Gian held his carefully, stroked the crystal, became friendly. He got even more friendly when he saw where Michael lived.

They ate on a terrace overlooking a night-black lawn, and past that the heavy shapes of full-foliaged trees. The lighter darkness farther out was the sky. Beyond the trees a cliff dropped away to the sea. There was just enough light at table to show the food they ate and, dimly, their faces. Theo served the meal, and Gian took him to be a personal servant. The boy ate well, drank sparingly, and tried too hard to charm. His head was full of possibilities: standing appointments, bonuses, gifts, the mansion behind them. He had come to Valentine from Co-op less than a year before. Michael knew that, but he did not know why Gian had come. He would not have the stability that came with belonging to one of the old Valentine families for whom prostitution was an honorable business; he was not attached to a combine like Flora's, where he might have learned to move in the best society anywhere in human space. He was only pretty and cunning and young, and the shell that had begun to grow around him sooner or later would be impenetrable.

When they finished eating, he followed Michael indoors without suspicion. By day, big as it was, the house was bright and airy. Tonight the darkness weighed on it. Few interior lights were on, and they went through the shadows to a central room with no openings except the door through which
they entered. A single light floated unsupported near a chair. There was a table nearby with an odd assortment of objects on it, part of the casual litter that accompanied Michael wherever he went. The weightless globe made one sharp-edged pool of light, and shrank the universe to the man and boy within it. Gian sat in the chair and looked up at Michael expectantly. Michael stood half in shadow and studied the boy.

If there were problems, Theo would come with his kit of chemicals. But simple bribery would be better.

Michael said, “All I want from you is information.”

The practiced smile stayed in place for a minute, lost its gloss all of a sudden when the words penetrated. For Gian the expected stood on its head. Michael's manner was subtly changed. There was no threat in it, but there was sureness. The common meaning of what had gone before vanished; none of it was what Gian had thought it was.

“There was a man at the Grand Square Inn last week. Red hair. Blue eyes, very light. About my height, heavier build. I don't know what name he used with you. Whatever it was wasn't his real name.”

Gian's smile disappeared altogether. He was a long way from Carnivaltown, and this had not happened to him before. He looked around once, quickly. Michael had chosen this spot by instinct, and chosen well; Gian could not remember where the entrance lay, and the little space of light trapped him.

He said, “I don't know what you mean.”

“Sure you do. You're thinking of the Guild rule, right? Don't jaw the customers. Not to each other.”

“I'm registered,” Gian said. “I don't want whines.”

“Save the ethics for the slops. In the Guild it goes, ‘unless the price is right.'”

He had the inflection right. Gian looked at him in surprise. Michael said, “Don't get righteous. I was in the Guild five years.”

“You?”

Gian looked around again, this time speculatively, as if he saw through the dark. He had seen enough to know how Michael lived. He said, “Five years for this?”

Michael grinned in spite of himself. “I didn't get it that way. I was good. But not that good.”

The boy's face was transparent; Michael watched him reevaluate the situation. Haggling over an indiscretion that could get your registration canceled was one thing. Professional gossip was something else.

Gian said, “What's it worth?”

“You tell me.”

“I can't till I know what you want.”

“He left Valentine the day after you had him. Private ship, private business, no flight plan. I want to know if he said anything, did anything, if you noticed anything, that'd tell me where he was going next.”

“Why?” The boy was curious; almost impudent, now.

“He owes me money,” Michael lied.

“How much?”

“None of yours. You're not in for shares. Give me a flat.”

“I'll think about it,” said the boy. “Throw me in?”

“In already, infant. Can't hook me thisway.”

The patois came easily. Gian was visibly relaxing. He said, “How'd you target me?”

“Security. A favor.”

Gian nodded. Shoreground security officers were almost incorruptible—because very little was considered corrupt. The woman who had found Gian was near retiring. Not much provision was made for security personnel after they retired. As a rule not much was necessary; with a little initiative, an enterprising officer could provide well for the future. Gian understood, and took it as a matter of course.

Michael came all the way into the circle of light. He picked up an object from the table and held it out. Slender vase with graceful lines, a little darker than turquoise; it looked like glass, but it was not. The material was thin, and opaline sparks danced in its fragile skin. There was considerable value in the medium, but Michael held it so that Gian saw the bottom and the finely etched mark that referred to an embedded electronic pattern worth a great deal more.

Gian looked at it appreciatively. “One of a kind. You got more?”

“Sure. Some better than others. But ones, yes.”

“I got a couple.”

“What you got?”

“Sisty Whitemore from Earth, you heard of her? She does ones for walls. Programs a robo, that's what you get, the robo does it all. Got a big bonus once, flashed it all on that. You got a Whitemore?”

“Downstairs. Show you later.”

“The robo self-destructs.”

“Yeah. You have to jet it out fast.”

Gian took the vase and held it lovingly. A work like this, like Sisty Whitemore's multidimensional walls, like anybody's work of art, could be reproduced down to the last molecule. Most were. Those that were not, that were certified as one-of-a-kinds, were prized.

“You want it?” Michael said.

“Sure. Sure I do.”

“You know how to get it.”

Gian made up his mind. “He was going by the name of Pallin.”

“Just that night. Just with you.”

“So it doesn't mate. All right. Didn't say much. Just told me what he wanted. You know how some are? Better than the talky kind, though. But no repeat for this one. Too rough. Don't mind if I flap him. He made a call.”

“Who to?”

“Don't know. Didn't hear a name, couldn't see the face. He thought I was asleep. I didn't hear much,” Gian said apologetically.

“Anything about where he's headed?”

“Yeah. He said—” Gian thought about it, caressing the blue vase. “He said, ‘When we get to the Rose we'll start the countdown.'”

“The what?”

“The Rose. Like the flower.”

“Sure?”

“As tomorrow.”

“What else?”

“That's all.”

Gian got anxious. It wasn't much. He held the vase harder, wondering if Michael would take it away from him. But Michael was only thoughtful. “Have to do,” he said.

He showed Gian around and called an autocab for him. At the last a streak of conscience pricked Gian. He said, “I could stay. You paid for the night.”

“Never mind. Go on back. Take that pretty home.”

“You don't like boys?”

“Not especially.”

“Is it good being rich?”

“Very good.”

“I guess you get anything you want.” Gian said with greed.
Nothing like,
Michael thought, but he did not say so to Gian.

I&S patiently turned over pebbles. All the project personnel had been investigated before; now they were screened again. Toward the end Vickery said to Jameson. “It's just what you'd expect if there was nothing to it. We're talking about an impossibility to begin with, you know.”

Gil Figueiredo, who had been in charge of security for the aliens since Rubee's first incomprehensible call touched the edge of human space, sat in front of Vickery's desk. Jameson stood at the outer edge of the room and looked at the river going on its peaceful way. Vickery's office was on the lowest level of the fifty-story administration complex. The other forty-nine were heavy as a mountain overhead. You could walk through their passages for days and never find the place where you had started.

“We're missing something.” Jameson said. “Is there, anywhere, another source for the program?”

“No,” Vickery and Figueiredo said together.

“There's the
Bird
herself. She's been studied.”

“Only the Inspace engineering,” Figueiredo said.

“Could anyone have gotten into the navigation computers that way, without breaking the seals?”

“No,” Figueiredo said positively.

Jameson stared across the water, where trees dreamed in the summer heat. The nights had gotten cooler, and the mass of green was softened by hints of gold. He said, “What I'd really like to do is get Kristofik under probe.”

Vickery said, “You've got him on the brain,” but Figueiredo laughed out loud and said, “That's been the dearest wish of some people at I&S for fifteen years.”

Jameson's tenure on the Coordinating Commission had given him a certain disregard for the law. He said, “There ought to be a way to do it.”

“Oh, it could be
done.
He doesn't bother with personal security on Valentine. But we've never tried it because even if we probed him there, we couldn't get him back to the Polity without creating a hell of an incident. If we couldn't transport him for trial, there's no point starting it. You remember his name didn't surface for something like five years after the
Pavonis Queen
robbery, when he was already established on Valentine. There were talks then, and Valentine shut us down. And that was fifteen years ago. He's an important citizen now.”

“He is also back on Valentine where he belongs,” Jameson said. “Perhaps we've gone wrong there instead. Perhaps he's not the man we should be looking at.”

Figueiredo said impatiently, “You saw the reports on the other names. He's the only one left.”

“It's too neat.”

“All we have to deal with is known factors. That's what the known factors give us.”

Jameson almost heard Hanna's laughter. Figueiredo could not know what it was like to specialize in the unknown. Figueiredo added, “Don't forget the
Golden Girl.
It fits.”

“What is that?” Vickery said a little wearily.

“Kristofik bought a yacht a few months ago. Dru class, beautiful thing. Six staterooms, two lounges, gymnasium, staff quarters. He refitted it and named it the
Golden Girl.
The color's not really gold, though—more like brass.”

“Appropriate,” Jameson murmured, but Figueiredo went on, “He provisioned it for a long, long voyage. He hasn't taken one yet. But there are indications he's planning to leave Valentine again and be away some time. He's turned over his business interests almost entirely to his head manager, Kareem Mar-Kize, for one thing.”

“The
Golden Girl
is not armed,” Jameson said quietly, but Vickery was more interested now.

“Is he in financial trouble?”

“No. And that's where it doesn't fit,” Figueiredo admitted. “He just keeps getting richer. He might be crazy enough to want the cargo for himself, though. From what we know of him, he'd appreciate it.”