Charles Stross - Singularity Sky

“Baseless rumors circulating on Old Earth about the Admiralty’s planned rolling series of upgrades to our naval capability caused numerous extraplanetary investment companies to sell stocks short, resulting in a plummeting exchange rate and the withdrawal of several insurance companies from the New Republic market. No announcement has yet been made by the chairman of the Royal Bank, but officials from the chamber of trade are currently drawing up charges against those companies participating in the stampede, accusing them of slander and conspiracy to establish a trade cartel using the current defense alert as a pretext.

“The four anarchists hanged at Krummhopf Prison today were attended by—” Click.

“I hate this fucking planet,” Martin whispered, sinking deeper into the porcelain bathtub. It was the only good feature of the poky little two-room dockside apartment they’d plugged him into. (The bad features, of course, included the likelihood of bugging devices.) He stared at the ceiling, two meters above him, trying to ignore the radio news.

The phone rang.

Cursing, Martin hauled himself out of the bath and, dripping, hopped into the living room. “Yes?” he demanded.

“Had a good day?” A woman’s voice; it took him a second to place it.

“Lousy,” he said with feeling. And hearing from you doesn’t make it any better , he thought: the idea of being sucked into some kind of diplomatic scam didn’t appeal. But the urge to grumble overrode minor irritation. “Their list of embargoed technology includes cranial interfaces. It’s all crappy VR immersion gloves and keyboards: everything I look at now is covered in purple tesseracts, and my fingers ache.”

“Well, it sounds like you’ve had a really good day, compared to mine. Have you had anything to eat yet?”

“Not yet.” Suddenly Martin noticed that he was starving, not to mention bored. “Why?”

“You’re going to like this,” she said lightly. “I know a reasonable restaurant on C deck, two up and three corridors over from security zone gateway five. Can I buy you dinner?” Martin thought for a moment. Normally he’d have refused, seeking some way to avoid contact with the UN diplomatic spook. But he was hungry; and not just for food. The casual invitation reminded him of home, of a place where people were able to talk freely. The lure of company drew him out, and after dressing, he followed her directions, trying not to think too deeply about it.

The visiting officers’ quarters were outside the security zone of the base, but there was still a checkpoint to pass through before he reached the airlock to the civilian sections of the station. Outside the checkpoint, he stepped into a main corridor. It curved gently to the left, following the interior of the station’s circumference: more passages opened off it, as did numerous doorways. He walked around a corner and out onto the street—“Martin!” She took his arm. “So pleased to see you!” She’d changed into a green dress with a tight bodice and long black gloves. Her shoulders and upper arms were bare, but for a ribbon around her throat, which struck him as odd; something in his customs briefing nagged at his memory. “Pretend you’re pleased to see me,” she hissed. “Pretend for the cameras. You’re taking me out to buy me dinner. And call me Ludmilla in public.”

“Certainly.” He forced a smile. “My dear! How nice to see you!” He took her arm and tried to follow her lead. “Which way?” he muttered.

“You’re doing fine for an amateur. Third establishment on the right. There’s a table in your name. I’m your companion for the night. Sorry about the cloak-and-dagger bit, but you’re being monitored by base security, and if I were officially here as me, they’d start asking you questions. It’s much more convenient if I’m a woman of easy virtue.”

Martin flushed. “I see,” he said. The penny dropped, finally: in this straitlaced culture, a woman who displayed bare skin below her chin was a bit racy, to say the least. Which meant, now he thought about it, that the hotel was full of—

“You haven’t used the hotel facilities since you arrived?” she asked, raising an eyebrow.

Martin shook his head. “I don’t believe in getting arrested in foreign jurisdictions,” he mumbled to cover his discomfort. “And the local customs here are confusing. What do you think of them?” She squeezed his arm. “No comment,” she said lightly. “Ladies here aren’t supposed to swear.” She gathered her skirts in as he opened the door for her. “Still, I doubt this social order will last many more years. They’ve had to invest a lot of energy to maintain the status quo so long.”

“You sound like you’re looking forward to its collapsing.” He held out his card to a liveried waiter, who bowed and scurried off into the restaurant.

“I am. Aren’t you?”

Martin sighed quietly. “Now that you come to mention it, I wouldn’t shed any tears. All I want to do is get this job over with and go home again.”

“I wish my life were that simple. I can’t afford to be angry: I’m supposed to help protect this civilization from the consequences of its own stupidity. It’s hard to fix social injustices when the people you’re trying to help are all dead.”

“Your table, sir,” said the waiter, reappearing and bowing deeply. Rachel emitted an airheaded giggle; Martin followed the waiter, with Rachel in tow behind him.

She kept up the bubbleheaded pose until they were seated in a private booth and had ordered the menu of the day. As soon as the waiter disappeared, she dropped it. “You want to know what’s going on, who I am, and what this is all about,” she said quietly. “You also want to know whether you should cooperate, and what’s in it for you. Right?”

He nodded, unwilling to open his mouth, wondering how much she knew of his real business.

“Good.” She stared at him soberly. “I take it you already decided not to turn me in to base security. That would have been a bad mistake, Martin; if not for you, then for a lot of other people.” He lowered his gaze, staring at the place setting in front of her. Silver cutlery, linen napkin, starched tablecloth overflowing on all sides like a waterfall. And Rachel’s breasts. Her dress made it impossible to ignore them, even though he tried not to stare: woman of easy virtue, indeed. He settled for looking her in the face. “There’s something I don’t understand going on here,” he said. “What is it?”

“All will be explained. The first thing I’m going to say is, after you hear my pitch, you can walk away unless you decide to involve yourself. I mean it; I came on heavily earlier, but really, I don’t want you around unless you’re a willing participant. Right now, they think you’re just a loudmouthed engineer. If they look too closely at me—” She paused. Her lips thinned a little. “I’m female. I’ll get precious little mercy if they trip over me by accident, but they don’t really think of women as free agents, much less defense intelligence specialists, and by this time tomorrow, I should have my diplomatic credentials sorted out and be able to go public. Anyway: about what’s going on here. Are you going to get up and walk out right now, or do you want in?”

Martin thought for a moment. What should I do ? The solution seemed obvious: “I’ll settle for some answers. And dinner. Anything’s better than being locked up in that pesthole of a base.”

“Okay.” She leaned back comfortably. “First.” She held up a gloved finger. “What’s going on? That’s actually a bit tricky to say. The UN has no jurisdiction here, but we’ve got enough clout to wreck the New Republic’s trade treaties with half their neighbors if the New Republic was, for instance, found to be breaking conventions on warfare or application of forbidden technologies.” Martin snorted. “Forbidden tech? Them?”