Charles Sheffield - The Spheres of Heaven

“My name’s Jack Eckart.”

“Never heard of you.” The Salamander rose and was leaving the cubicle in one lithe movement.

“Wait a minute.” Danny had to make an instant decision. “I’m using that name at the moment, but it’s not the one he knew me by. If he talked of me at all, it would be as Dapper Dan, or Danny Casement.”

The Salamander had turned and was back in the cubicle. “I’ve heard of Dan Casement. But anybody could say that was his name. Give me proof.”

“What kind of proof? I don’t have any identification on me.”

The wide, thin-lipped mouth opened, to show a multiple array of sharp triangular teeth. “If you’re really Diamond Dan Casement, you have something else. Show me a sample.”

Alice Tannenbaum had laid claim to the last wrapped stone, but Danny always allowed for emergencies. He removed his jacket. It took a couple of minutes to work the quarter-carat specimen out from the lining of his coat. He didn’t want to touch the Salamander, so he laid the stone on the table in front of them. “There you are. Take a look. It’s genuine.”

“I don’t care if it’s genuine or not. The fact that you have it with you is the important thing. What’s your question?”

“What was Bun doing, and what happened to him?”

“I can answer the first, but not the second. You ever hear of Flare-out?”

“Never.”

“It’s one of the big games on Salamander Row — there’s a betting board right here at the Fireside. Solar flares can happen any time, so the managers of the Nexus run a pool on flare times and sizes. Now, computer models can’t make a perfect prediction, but they can increase the odds. Of course, they rely on good inputs. You follow?”

“I do.” Danny had run his own gambling operations; he knew the importance of inside information.

“Now, the managers don’t want anybody beating the odds. So they make a law. The law says, it’s all right to have any computer model you like, but the input data stays locked up. A gambling group didn’t think that was fair — to them.”

“Who were they?”

“You don’t want to know. Do you?”

Danny looked into those deep-set, lifeless eyes. “You’re right. I don’t want to know. Definitely I don’t want to know.”

“So this group wanted to put a tap on the input data in a way that would never be noticed. People here tried and tried, and they couldn’t do it. Not until somebody you and I both know came along, and he was smart enough to crack all the ciphers. The inputs rolled in smooth and regular and everything was fine. Until somebody talked. You don’t need to know who he was, either” — Danny noted the past tense — “but one day the group was in big legal trouble. And so was your friend. Bun could have stayed and maybe bluffed it through and been all right, but although he was smart he was nervous.

“He ran. Borrowed a ship, left the Nexus, dropped into a low skimmer orbit intending to ride past and off to the outer system. But he never made it. The drive misfired and he went right into the Sun. Sent messages once he realized what was happening. Said good-bye to everybody. Salamander’s finish. End of story.”

Danny recalled the outsized solar disk, flaming outside the port. It was an awful prospect and a terrible way to die; but something was missing.

“You said you could answer one of my questions and not the other. But now you’re saying he’s dead.”

“Smart Danny.” The Sally gave a dry laugh like a chesty wheeze. “Logically, our friend is dead. But Bun was smart, too. I’ve wondered for the past few months. Suppose he wasn’t on that ship? If anyone could rig a skimmer’s communication system so it seemed he was there when he wasn’t, the Bun was the man for that.”

It was wishful thinking, playing the wrong side of the odds. The Sally didn’t seem to realize what was involved. There would have had to be more than the faking of a death. There would have to be an escape plan, a total disappearance, an opportunity elsewhere.

“If he’s not dead, then where do you think he might be?”

“I can’t begin to guess.” The Salamander was standing up. “But I know he’s nowhere on the Nexus.”

Danny stood up, too. “As far as paying you is concerned, I’ll be glad—”

“Forget it. And forget we talked. I’m not doing this for you, and I’m not doing it for me. I’m doing it for him. I liked Bun, as much as you can like a human. If he’s not dead, and if you ever do see him again, say hello from me.”

“I don’t know your name.”

“You’re right.” The silver countenance was split by another sword-toothed smile. “You don’t know my name. You also don’t need to know it, and you don’t want to know it. You’ll have to go with a description. Now get out of here. Do you want the rest of that drink?”

Danny shook his head. As the Sally lifted the black beaker and downed the contents in one long gulp, Danny turned and walked the length of the room. He could see little after the brightly lit cubicle, but he felt sure that the faces were all turned his way. Fireside Elsie nodded at him when he was close to the exit. She did not speak. Alice — how long had she been waiting? — stood just outside.

“Oh, dear.” She took his arm and the smile faded from her face. “It’s bad news, I can tell just by looking at you.”

“It seems that way.”

“Then it’s my job to do what I can to cheer you up. You found out about your friend. Is he here?”

Danny shook his head. Bun was not here, he was dead, a puff of incandescent gases on the surface of the Sun.

“So what do you want to do, Jack?”

He had done what he came to do, all that he could do. Now he wanted to collapse into bed with Alice. But he could not suggest that.

“I’d like to go some place where I can get a cold drink. I don’t think I was actually poisoned in there, but somebody wandered down my throat holding a lighted torch.”

“You were permitted to drink in the Fireside? Then you were honored. It’s for Sallies only. But I know just the place for us. Come on.”

Alice did indeed know just the place, cool and intimate and soothing. It had been a very long day. Sitting across from her, watching her bright eyes and the pink tongue that licked sugar from the side of her glass, Danny felt himself beginning to relax. If only he could get Bun out of his mind … they had not seen each other for years, but the idea of Bun diving to his death in the Sun … He felt Alice’s hand on his cheek. “Don’t think about it, whatever it is. There’s nothing you could have done. Unwind, Jack.”

Unwind . He was trying.

He peered at Alice, across the table from him, with weary eyes. Quite a woman. A fine woman, rich and classy and sexy. He felt almost sorry that he had set her up with a phony mining investment.

The second place she took him to was dark, close to free-fall, and so ringing with Colchester brass that speech was impossible. He didn’t recall ordering anything, but a bright blue potion mysteriously appeared in front of him. He and Alice sat in companionable silence, swaying together to the music.

Unwind .

There must have been a third place. He did not remember going to it, but suddenly it was darker yet. There was again a gravity field. He and Alice leaned close, speaking in whispers. And then they were sitting side by side, not talking at all but with Alice’s thigh pressed against his.

Unwind.

Was he unwound? Yes, he thought so. Now he could suggest what he had wanted to suggest to Alice in the first place.

Danny did not so much wake as wander slowly up toward consciousness through pink clouds of bliss. He was lying naked on soft cushions in a low-gravity setting, and never in his life had he felt so rested and full of well-being.