Майкл Суэнвик - Tales of Old Earth [A collection of short-stories]

It made me sad to think on it.

And that’s all there is to tell. Except for one last thing.

I got a postcard, just the other day, from Chicago. It was kind of battered and worn like it’d been kicking around in the mails a long time. No return address. Just a picture of a Bar-B-Qhut which, however, I don’t expect would be any too difficult for a determined individual to locate. And the message:

If one boundary is so ill-protected, then how

difficult can the other be? I have a scheme

going that should reap great profit with only

moderate risk. Interested?

P.S. Bring your uniform.

So it seems I’m going to Heaven. And why not?

I’ve surely seen my share of Hell.

This is a story they tell in the Communes: That one evening the Lady Nakashima paused atop the Rialto to admire the view, her cloak billowing as if in a breeze, and was accosted by a drunken German.

Holographic dragons curled in the air over the gondolas and vaporetti, winking in and out of existence as unseen technicians tuned their projectors for some minor festival. A bison, the lions of Saint Mark, the author of the Commedia . The Lady Nakashima let them fade from her consciousness. She had much to think about. ZeissOptik had filed a logo-infringement suit against one of Nakashima Commune’s subsidiaries. An instability in the currency markets was holding up a planned expansion into Brazilian farm biologicals. Just that afternoon Household had discovered Yoshio, her youngest, accessing Malaysian cockfighting magazines. Something would have to be done and quickly to nip this unhealthy appetite in the bud. She also had a business dinner to plan.

“ Fuorisola witch!” A heavy-set man gripped her arm. “I’ve found you at last.”

“You mistake me.”

Her voice was as cool and emotionless as the smooth white mask all corporate chiefs wore in public to thwart kidnappers. But the man would not let go of her, would not listen. “Betrayed!” he sobbed. “How could I have been so stupid? What a fool I was to believe you!” His breath stank of Scotch and grappa.

Four hundred eighty six gigaK of interactivity were woven into the Lady Nakashima’s cloak. She was not afraid of the man’s obvious strength. “In what way have you been betrayed?” Her mask relayed sub-vocalized commands to her security forces along with an image of his red face and close-cropped head.

He is the engineer Gerhardt Betelheimer, they told her, a defector from Green Hamburg, sponsored for citizenship by the Ritter Commune.

“I have lost family, friends, and homeland, all for the love of you.”

“Who do you think I am?”

“Bitch! I know you all right.”

“I am not she.”

He carried a fragmentation pistol; her mask showed his hand, thrust deep within his overcoat, clutching it convulsively. Her political section said he had been recruited by the Lady Christiaana, her ally and sometimes rival in many enterprises. Security directed her to keep him talking. “Were you not well paid?” she asked.

Betelheimer shook his head bullishly. “I never wanted money.”

“Everybody wants money.”

The rhythm of the passing crowds changed ever so slightly as her people eased into position. Maria Delgado had often boasted that her antiterrorist unit was the best on the continent. Now she was proving it. The day-officer urged the Lady Nakashima to draw free of her accoster; her cloak was too subtle a defense to protect her from his crude weapon.

She stood her ground. “If not money,” she insisted, “then what is it you want? A position, perhaps? The chance to employ your talents to the fullest?”

Betelheimer stared stupidly at her. His heart rate, perspiration, and mental indices soared. A squat woman with a thin, greasy mustache paused nearby and reached casually into her shopping bag. The Lady Nakashima silently warned her away. “All I ever asked of you was one night. Not even that—an hour! I traded all I had for a taste of something you never meant to give.” He began to pull the gun from his pocket. “Now you can watch me die!”

An artist by the canal took down his canvas and folded the easel, pointing it casually toward the bridge; three schoolgirls ran laughing through the crowd, silver glints in their hands; an enormously fat African nobody could ever have felt threatened by lumbered up smiling.

Stand clear! the day-officer cried.

But the Lady Nakashima did not stand clear, but rather stilled the German’s hand, saying, “I will keep my word.”

He looked at her long and hard. “Not fucking likely,” he said at last.

“Release me,” she commanded. “Take my arm as a gentleman would. There is a pensione not far from here which we maintain for visiting dignitaries. I will take you there.”

His hand slowly unclenched. He rocked on his heels with doubt and suspicion. But his instant of resolution had passed. There was nothing for him to do but go along.

The Lady Nakashima led him away from the Grand Canal and through the narrow calles and sottoportegas of San Polo. Night was falling. For all the people in the streets, she could hear the wind over the rooftops and the chirping of sparrows. One by one the church bells began to chime. She crossed herself.

Betelheimer snorted derisively.

“I am constantly amazed by you Continentals,” she said with a touch of asperity. “When your pious, horrified-by-profit representatives come here to negotiate contracts, the first thing they do is visit the casinos. They bet more money than they can afford to lose, and they indulge in drugs they would never tolerate in their own territories. They hire prostitutes of the basest sort. It never occurs to one of you to attend Mass.”

Political reported that Betelheimer had been involved in power-plant design. He had defected a month ago, leaving behind a wiped laboratory core and many angry colleagues. The Lady Christiaana had completed a tour of vassal corporations in the German Green States and Denmark shortly before. Her people had filed seven related patents since. Industrial espionage with seduction was deemed all but certain.

How valuable are these patents? she asked.

The question was kicked over to Jean-Luc Chicouenne in Marketing Analysis. So-so, he said with a Gallic curl of the lips that she could hear in his voice. A few technical flourishes. A useful twist or two.

“I don’t give a damn about your Papist superstitions,” the German said.

“The more fool you, then.”

Espionage was considered sharp practice among the fuorisoli but nothing more, a minor vice that everyone dabbled in from time to time. And the Lady Christiaana was notorious for her flirtations. Most likely she had turned Gerhardt Betelheimer out of simple boredom.

They entered a courtyard where a Noguchi fountain, acquired at enormous cost from a bankrupt government collective in Duluth, sent sweet water laughing into the air. Sixth-generation filtration systems were the single greatest contribution the new era had given the city and as a result fountains were popular endowments. Down a calle no wider than a doorway was the home of one of the Commune’s junior vice-presidents. His family had been removed, she was told. The rooms had been swept and secured. She was to go up the stairs and to the left. Her people had arranged fresh sheets and flowers.

“I want you naked,” Betelheimer growled. He was only dimly visible in the gloom. The springs groaned when he fell onto the bed. He pulled off his clothes quickly, angrily, throwing his boots noisily across the room. The Lady Nakashima undressed more slowly, more deliberately.

“May I retain my mask?”

“I don’t give a shit if I never see your face again.”