Mary Rosenblum - Horizons

“I think it might be more than that,” Dane said slowly. “Huang family doesn’t have any interests up here. I checked. I’ll keep all my ears open.” He pushed himself away from the Administrator. “And I’ve got a list of favors I need from you. A couple of subsidized loans, some jobs, and a couple of ‘get out of jail free’

cards.”

“Not too many, I hope.” Laif sighed. “All I need is a corruption charge from some whistle-blower.”

“No more than usual.” Dane sailed a data sphere his way.

“Will do.” Laif snagged it. “Now I’d better find Koi and apollogize.”

“Yeah, you’d better apologize.” Koi stuck his head through the wall of leaves. “You know, a six-month-old baby gets around better than you.”

“I believe it.” Laif gave Koi a lopsided smile. “Okay, I was an asshole and didn’t think about what I was saying. Didn’t mean it either, was still kind of fried from getting my butt whipped at that townplaza this afternoon. But you stuck it to me proper, so how about it we call it a tie? Or a truce, anyway?”

“Tie? I won. You looked pretty stupid with tomato all over your face.”

Dane swallowed a chuckle, turned it into a cough.

“Okay, fine.” Laif sent Dane a sizzling glance. “I cede the game, kid. And you’re not only better at me in microG– way better–you’re better in the Con, too. So please find out who scammed that fish farm purchase for me, will you, so that I can airlock the bastard?” Laif held out a hand. “Don’t throw me this time, okay? I might break someething of Dane’s.”

“You might.” Koi grabbed his wrist, vaulted past Laif’s head, rebounded from the far wall and came to a perfect halt at eye level and upside down in front of the Admin. “That was a dirty trick,” Koi said. “I’ll find out who did it.”

“Thanks,” Laif said and nodded. “You’re impressive, kid. If this is how we’re gonna evolve, I guess it could be a lot worse.”

HANDRAILS LINED THE CORRIDOR BEYOND THE LOCK IN the Pan Malaysian Elevator.

Ahni blessed them as she pulled herself confidently along, trying hard to look as if she belonged there.

Painted a soft and boring green, lacking the protective resilient carrpeting that lined the tourist areas, the corridor clearly handled service traffic. At the end of the corridor she halted herself, and drifting, dropped briefly into Pause, calling up the specs for this Ellevator.

She located the service lock where Dane had let her off, traced a route to the travel plaza, the main arrival and departure areas where the climbers docked. Most of the retail trade clustered around the travel plaza. She wondered how long it would take Xai’s dogs to check this Elevator once they realized they had lost her trail on NYUp? The door in front of her wasn’t locked from this side and opened to the touch of her palm.

A dense plush carpet in a soft blue-lined floor and walls contrasting with a pale, carpeted ceiling. If tourists bounced off the walls, they wouldn’t even bruise. The Elevator interiors were still founded on the right angle, unlike the upper levels of the platforms, and a part of Ahni’s mind found the corners where wall met floor comforting. The corridor was moderately busy, full of tourists still awkward in microG.

Few even glanced at her.

Ahni found she blended nicely into the mostly Indonesian and Indo-Pakistani crowd, her tawny skin and black crop a bonus. A dress shop offering microG-spun spider silk caught her eye. Ahni stepped into the shop, nodded to the shopkeeper’s smiling bow, waved away her offer of assistance and browsed quickly down the display of scarves, sheathes, singlets, sari-suits, and even full saris. She chose a full sari in a shimmering salmon embroidered with gold, and found a creamy undershirt to match it. The shopkeeper was nearly beside herself with delight as she floated gracefully to a high shelf to retrieve a packaged model. Ahni could certainly understand her enthusiasm as the shopkeeper totaled the purchases. Tourist prices, she thought sourly, but the spider silk was lovely, shimmerring in the light, finer than real silk to the touch. “Don’t wrap it,” she told the woman as she started to fold the sari. “I think I’ll wear it right now.”

“Oh, what a marvelous idea!” the woman gushed. “You’ll look lovely in it and it’s quite secure in microG

with the hidden closures. Are you headed to a Platform?”

“Dragon Home.” Ahni nodded and palmed the milky oval of the reader set into the counter. It chimed completion of her purrchase as the woman scooped the sari and shirt into her arms.”We have a fitting room here.”

Ahni followed her into a curtained alcove lined with mirrors and hangers for garments. She stripped awkwardly, even with the woman’s deft hand to keep her from drifting, pulled the shirt on over her head, and let the woman wrap the sari around her. Hissing softly to herself, the shopkeeper tucked and arranged the drape of the fabric to her satisfaction, fastening it into place so that it wouldn’t float too freely. “You can open the fasteners when you reach Dragon Home,” she said as she pushed herself away to eye Ahni critically. “It looks even better on you than I expected.”

It looked lovely, Ahni thought absently. She stretched her senses, searching for a hunter’s cold purpose, felt only the white noise of a crowded travel plaza–weariness, expectation, nausea in microG, and annoyance. The woman continued to gush compliments, hands clasped, her smile as bright as the ruby fiberlight inlay on her forehead, shaped to resemble a caste mark. Ahni studied her reflection briefly. The sari would confuse her pursuers briefly. She bought a scarf on the way out, pinned it into her hair, sloppily so that it drifted across her face. Waved away the shopkeeper’s clucking attempt to fix it. Many Moslem women wore decorative head scarves and it added to the distraction. The shopkeeper graciously packed her discarded singlesuit into a shopping bag with the shop’s logo prominently glowing in fiberlight script, handed it to her with a bow.

Leaving the woman reciting blessings on her health and future, Ahni proceeded down the corridor, senses alert, feeling less conspicuous. She passed a string of offices, a flower seller’s shop, a small tea and coffee bar featuring Turkish pastries, and exited into the main travel plaza, her senses alert.

Passengers emerged from an arriving climber, while others waited to board for the trip down, or purchased tickets from the many kiosk screens scattered at all levels about the room. Ahni made her way to the nearest screen, her body language hesitant and awkward, a tourist, unfamiliar in microG. She touched in her ticket purchase, using an anonymous cash card. She received her Economy Class ticket and struggled across the crowded plaza along the guiding handrails, pausing to bend over a small, wide-eyed child and smile, a doting auntie to any onlooker, a tourist on her way home from a first time in Near Earth, bringing souvenirs for those at home.

Ahni let hurrying families haul themselves along the handrails past her, scolding their playful children, slowing her down, getting in her way, leaving this timid auntie confused and blinking as the shimmering holo clocks blinked closer to departure time, a look of helplessness and mild dismay on her face. She hesitated, pretending to rearrange a fold of her sari. Almost time… A couple of hurryying latecomers scurried through the gate and entered the car.

Now.

Lifting her head, she pulled herself forward, ignoring the uniiformed attendant who pushed off to stop her. He raised his voice, his irritation hidden behind a polite face, thinking her deaf, or stupid and she gave him the confused, obedient expression he expected, used his instant relaxation to duck around him, grab the bar, and fire herself through the entry port. The closing doors hissed, halted, opened for her, then closed again, right in the face of the pursuing attendant.