Donald Moffitt - The Jupiter Theft

His seat companion was a priest, a large jolly woman with close-cropped hair, wearing a gray cassock with a government badge and serial number pinned below one shoulder. “Your first visit to Houston?” she asked.

“Yes, Parent,” Jameson said, remembering his manners. His own family had been nominal members of the Church of the Reborn—his father, he suspected, for career purposes, though all registered religions were theoretically equal in the eyes of the government. “How could you tell?”

The priest laughed. “You had that eager look. It always shows. I hope Houston won’t disappoint you.”

“I’m sure it won’t. I’m a small-town boy myself. I’m looking forward to my choice of theaters; concerts, the holo pageants…”

“And some earthier amusements too, I don’t doubt,” the priest said, a twinkle in her eye. “You look like a healthy young man. I won’t preach at you—the Good Lord knows that clergypersons have a stuffy enough reputation as it is—but take my advice and stay away from Privatetown. You’ll have plenty of fun without slumming—and it could be dangerous.”

“Thanks for the advice, Parent,” Jameson said, grinning. “I’ll bear that in mind.”

“You young people.” The priest sighed. “Well, remember to keep a tight grip on your bankchip.”

She went back to reading her breviary, an old-fashioned LED model with start-and-stop scanning, and Jameson amused himself by studying his fellow passengers. They were mostly civil-service bankers and brokers, wearing conservative candy-stripe or polka-dot suits, with a sprinkling of Partnership entrepreneurs, noses buried in the evening business faxes. Farther up, in an aisle seat, was a rich Privie in a gaudy ruffled suit with enormous puff sleeves, talking too loudly to his seatmate, a clerkish little man in olive drab who kept trying to shrink away from him. Jameson reminded himself that he wasn’t prejudiced. Two Indian businessmen were seated across the way, probably on their way to the Federal Tower to sell IndiaBurma technology or buy American rice or soycorn.

At the Greater Houston terminal, Jameson said good-bye to the priest and let himself be swept along by the crowd to the bustling upper level. He followed a blinking floor pattern to the cab stand. Ignoring the swarms of scruffy-looking hustlers who clamored at him, he chose a reliable-looking flywheel trike and rapped on the driver’s compartment at the rear. The driver looked him over from inside his Lexiglass pod, nodded, and pressed the latch release. Jameson stepped quickly inside the front bubble and lowered the canopy over himself—but not before he had had to throw a scattering of bucks at the urchins who were pursuing him.

“The MacDonald Towers,” he said.

The driver engaged the superflywheel, and the three-wheeler pulled out into traffic. Through a gap on the far side of one of Houston’s celebrated people plazas he caught a glimpse of the Federal Tower. Seen from ground level, it was a stupendous brown obelisk rising into the sky, its mirror side curving impossibly outward.

Then the streets became less fashionable. The driver speeded up and kept to the middle of the roadway as they passed dank alleys where sullen men in faded, once-gaudy clothing loitered and illegal lean-tos made of discarded sheets of plastic or cardboard sheltered whole families in a space large enough for only a couple of mattresses and a few cooking utensils. There were women here who would sell themselves, for a bowl of snow rice, and men who would slit your throat for a newbuck. The sidewalks were swarming with them—hordes of noisy, shabby people who jostled one another, bargained at makeshift stalls that sold cast-off junk—all managing to exist somehow on little more than the Federal subsidy. Flies buzzed around a ramshackle butcher’s stall festooned with the carcasses of what looked like—Jameson strained to see—skinned rats; he told himself they must be beef hamsters.

A potbellied child with broomstick arms and legs darted out in front of the cab. The driver cursed, braked, and managed to swerve around him.

“Bad place to get caught,” he told Jameson through the battered speaker. “Driver I know ran over a kid near here. Accident—the kid ran outa nowhere. But the crowd dragged him outa his cab and beat him to death, while the fed on the beat looked the other way. Left the passenger alone, though. Somebody even got him another cab.”

“That’s comforting,” Jameson said.

“Yeah. I dint wanna take the long way round. Wheel’s running down. Gotta recharge it after this trip.”

“You must be having a good day, then,” Jameson said. The kind of vacuum-sealed fiber composite flywheels used in small taxicabs generally stored enough energy for two or three hundred miles of city driving.

“Not bad,” the driver said noncommittally.

Jameson knew he was in for it. When a fare got taken to a luxury complex like the MacDonald Towers, he got taken by the cabbie, too. But Jameson had decided to splurge on his last vacation before leaving Earth for the next year and a half.

The Towers were built on a tooth of land projecting into Galveston Bay. The old Lyndon B. Johnson Space Center had once stood here, before it was dismantled at the turn of the century. Now it was a parklike preserve that occupied a half-mile strip along the shore. Farther inland was a smudge in the sky that indicated residential and industrial areas, but over the water the sky was clear and blue.

He could see the harlequin splendor of the Towers now—candied minarets that looked like something out of a fairytale. The late-afternoon sunlight sparkled on intricate balconies, hanging shrubs, and the soaring fantasy-arches that branched from each of the four bases to recurve and join in the center of the glittering complex.

The three-wheeler pulled into a wide circular drive, between two pillboxes joined by an overhead portcullis. The driver flashed something, and a bored Marine guard nodded him through. Jameson caught sight of a few listless beggars loitering hopefully outside the gate; and then they were bumping along past green lawns and fountains and massed floral displays. The fare came to a hundred dollars even. Jameson thumbed an added twenty-percent tip into his credit-transfer chip and inserted it briefly in the slot. The driver had to manually transmit the transaction to the dispatching computer by radio, but after a moment there was a beep and the passenger canopy unlatched.

“You’re welcome,” Jameson said, and climbed out of the pod. Instantly he was assailed by a dozen ragged, dirty urchins competing for his attention and his zipbag. How they managed to sneak onto the grounds was a mystery. Before the hefty Marine doorman was able to shoo them away—using the butt of his submachine gun rather too freely, Jameson thought—his left shoe had been shined, a deft little hand had explored the inside of the wrong pocket for his bankchip, and an enterprising eight-year-old had offered his virgin sister.

“This way, sir,” the doorman said, and Jameson followed him into the lobby.

The lobby was a four-acre parkland of winding mosaic paths, impossibly brilliant flower beds, gaudy pavilions where people sat and watched the passing scene. There was a lake in the center with tiny barges, each holding a low mushroom table and four chairs. Waitresses in swimsuits pushed floating trays of drinks to the patrons. People in holiday clothes strolled along the geometric walks, past peppermint kiosks. Around the vast perimeter was an arched arcade with cafés and theaters and shops.

Jameson was too tired to make plans. All he wanted was a hot shower, a change of clothing chosen from his room vid, a few drinks, and an early dinner at one of the restaurants up top. Then a fresh start in the morning—maybe shark fishing in the bay, or some skiing at the hotel’s indoor fluoroslope.