Lawrence Watt-Evans: Realms of Light

“Perkins,” I said. “Got it. I knew someonenamed Pickens once, wondered if you were any relation.”

“No, Mis’, it’s not the same name at all.” Heseemed a little uneasy about something, wouldn’t keep his eyes onme, but it didn’t look serious. Maybe he just wasn’t used topassengers.

Or maybe I’m uglier than I thought.

At least he wasn’t family to Zar Pickens, whowelshed on me back on Epimetheus; I wouldn’t want anyone who sharedancestors with that human gritware to be piloting any ship I wason.

Whatever, I didn’t need to make himuncomfortable, so I looked out the window, and he went away.

Yes, window. Nakada’s yacht had big, fancywindows in the lounge, not just vid or holo. I could watchrealtime, direct and live, as we came in across the nightside andheaded for the field in Nightside City.

There wasn’t much to see. Just a lot ofdarkness, and a seething mass of silver-gray clouds in a giganticring at the storm line. If you get out further and look straightdown at the midnight pole the planet must look like a practicetarget, with the pale slushcap at the pole, and then the dark stonearound it, and then the circle of clouds where everythingprecipitates out of the upper-level air currents, and then darkstone again, and finally the bright line of the dayside at theedge. I suppose there would be occasional pixels of light at thevarious settlements, too.

I never saw it from that angle, though; wecame in low so it was just black and grey, no details anywhereuntil the lights of Nightside City sparkled on the horizon, and aninstant later the light of day spread across behind the city in along, widening arc like a cadcam construction, hot and golden.

I don’t like daylight, so I didn’t look anymore after that. I let Perkins, or maybe the ship, take us intoport, and when we were down I hit the ground. I wanted to movefast. The old familiar gravity made me feel light on my feet, readyto run.

One thing about the Wheeler Drive-it’s sofast that I hadn’t had time to plan much on the way. I’d taken insome data on Nakada’s immediate family, but that was about it. Icame out of the port without any very clear idea of just what I wasgoing to do.

I could eat and sleep on the ship, if Iwanted to-I’d made sure that was understood. I didn’t have to worryabout finding somewhere to park myself.

All I had to do was find ’Chan and my fatherand get them out of there, and if I happened to learn anythingabout the conspiracy against Grandfather Nakada while the programwas running, that was fine and smooth. I was supposed toinvestigate the conspiracy, sure, but all I really intended to dowas take a quick look, because the odds were way the hell up therethat the important stuff was back on Prometheus. As far as I wasconcerned, I’d just come for my family.

So where to start?

My father was in a Seventh Heaven dreamtanksomewhere in Trap Under. ’Chan was at the Ginza, working for IRC.Neither one was all that easy to pull loose.

But ’Chan would be faster-all I had to dothere was convince him to make a run to the ship, and get himoff-planet before IRC stopped us. Once we were off Epimetheus,Nakada could debug whatever IRC might want to do.

My father I had to find first. Andgetting him aboard the ship would be easier without ’Chan trailingalong.

That meant starting in Trap Under. Do thehard part first. I waved, and a cab zipped up, door opening.

I got in, and the cab asked, “Where to,Mis’?”

I didn’t have an answer for that right thereand ready to run.

Most of Trap Under isn’t exactly open to thepublic; they don’t want the tourists wandering in, getting in theway. The tourists are supposed to stay up top, where everyone canskim off their money, not get down there in the maintenancecorridors. I couldn’t just walk in.

The obvious way into the Seventh Heavendreamtank was through the Seventh Heaven sales office in Trap Over,wherever it was, but that didn’t look as if it was going to worktoo well-if it were that easy, Nakada could have done it and atleast presented me with half the deal. Sure, Nakada was acompetitor and I was family-but I wasn’t legally family anymore, not since my parents did the dump on me more than twentyyears back, and competitors on Epimetheus weren’t all armed camps.Doing a favor for Grandfather Nakada wasn’t unthinkable.

So I wasn’t going to be able to do this theeasy way. I’d have to get into Trap Under somehow, and either scamor bribe or threaten my way to my father.

I tried to remember where the dreamtank was.I’d never visited it-there’s no point in visiting dreamers-but I’dhad a pretty good map of Nightside City in my head once.

And I’d lost it. Oh, I still had my naturalmemory, but I hadn’t kept it up, hadn’t thought about Trap Under ina year or so, and the old artificial-memory back-up had gottenfried when I took a little unscheduled vacation on the dayside,courtesy of the walking gritware who’d been conning SayuriNakada.

But the dreamtanks were mostly right underthe casinos, to make it easy for big-time losers to cash outpermanently; I remembered that much. And maybe I could beep ’Chan,let him know I was back on Epimetheus for the moment.

So maybe I wasn’t going to start with myfather after all. Maybe my brother did come first.

“The Ginza,” I said. “Service entrance.”

The cab didn’t bother to answer, it justzipped up into traffic, headed for Trap Over. I sat back, thinking,and hoping the cab didn’t decide to get chatty.

I hadn’t really planned anything out; I hadwanted to see the situation first-hand before I hit enter. Now Ihad to decide what I would run at the Ginza. I looked out thewindow, hoping for inspiration, but just saw twenty-meter ads fornude dancing at the Jade Club.

There was something oddly comforting aboutthose glimmering holographic ecdysiasts glowing against the darksky. I couldn’t have told you just how they were any different fromsome of the ads in Alderstadt or American City, but they were. Theymeant I was home .

It was a home I could never live in again, Iknew that, but it was still home.

Once we were in the Trap I spotted the Ginza,with its distinctive bronze-green tower and dragon banners, but thecab didn’t head for the fancy overhang; I’d told it the serviceentrance, so it looped around and dived down through the traffic,almost hitting a knot of giggling pedestrians as it veered into atunnel mouth and jigged its way down.

When the cab finally settled to the plasticflooring I still hadn’t debugged anything, but I paid the fare anda fat tip-it was Nakada’s money, not mine, and the cab hadn’tbothered me-and I got out.

The Ginza’s service entrance was one levelbelow the streets-technically, the top level of Trap Under. For allI knew, my father might have been just the other side of a wall,though it was more likely he was somewhere deep down, a hundredmeters or more below anywhere open to the public.

I still hadn’t come up with anything but theobvious, so I walked up to the door and told it, “I’m here to seeone of your employees, Sebastian Hsing. It’s family business.”

“You know you aren’t welcome here, Mis’Hsing.”

I should have realized it would recognize me.I’d known from my treatment back on Prometheus that IRC stillhadn’t forgiven me for my moment of folly a few years back, whenI’d given a welsher a chance to get away from them, and of coursethey’d keep everything in the system up to date. Their softwarewasn’t inclined to be helpful where I was concerned.

“I’m not here to play or solicit customers,”I said. “I just need to talk to my brother. It’s a privatematter.”

“Is he expecting you?”

“No,” I admitted. “I haven’t been able toreach him by com.”