Peter Hamilton - Neutronium Alchemist - Conflict

The lawyer consulted her processor block, a show of formality. “The interest accrued on your debt over twenty-five years comes to two hundred and eighty-nine thousand fuseodollars, as approved by the court.”

Sarha’s laughter ended in a choke. Joshua had to use a neural nanonics nerve impulse override to stop himself from snarling at the lawyer. He was sure she was doing the same to stop her equally blank face from sneering. Bitch! “Of course,” he said faintly.

“And our firm’s fee for dealing with the case is twenty-three thousand fuseodollars.”

“Yes, I thought you were cheap.”

This time, she scowled.

Joshua shunted the money over. The lawyers hauled themselves away down the corridor.

“Can we afford that?” Sarha asked.

“Yes,” Joshua said. “I have an unlimited expense account for this trip. Ione’s paying.” He didn’t want to dwell on what she’d say when she saw the bill.

I wonder why Dad left in such a hurry?

Ashly patted Joshua’s shoulder. “Real chip off the old block, your dad, eh?”

“I hope he hurries up and possesses someone soon,” Joshua said through gritted teeth. “There’s a few things I’d like to talk to him about.” Then he thought about what he’d just said. Maybe not as funny and cuttingly sarcastic as he’d intended. Because Dad was there in the beyond. Suffering in the beyond. That’s if he wasn’t already . . . “Come on, let’s make a start.”

The club he wanted, according to the spaceport personnel, was the Bar KF-T; that’s where the action was. Along with the dealers, pushers, and pimps, and all the rest of the people in the know.

The trouble was, Joshua found after a straight two-hour stint of surfing the tables, they didn’t know the one piece of information he needed. The name of Alkad Mzu had not left a heavy impression on the citizens of Ayacucho.

At the end he gave up and went to sit with Ashly and Melvyn at a raised corner table. It gave him a good view over the dance floor, where some nice girls were moving in trim movements. He rolled his beer bottle between his palms, not much interested in the contents.

“It was only a long shot, Captain,” Melvyn said. “We ought to start sniffing around the astroengineering companies. Right now they’re so desperate for business that even the legitimate ones would happily consider selling her a frigate.”

“If she wants to disappear, she has to do it at the bottom of the heap,” Joshua said. “You’d think the dealers would have heard something.”

“Maybe not,” Ashly said. “There’s definitely some kind of underground league here. It can’t be the same as the usual asteroid independence movements; the Dorados are already sovereign. I got a few hints when they thought I was offering Lady Mac ’s services, plenty of talk about revenge against Omuta. Mzu could have turned to them, after all they’re her people. Unfortunately, the likes of you and I can hardly pass ourselves off as long-lost cousins of the cause.” He held up his hand, studying it dispassionately.

Joshua looked at his own skin. “Yeah, you’ve got a point. We’re not exactly obvious Kenyan-ethnic stock are we?”

“Dahybi might make the grade.”

“I doubt it.” His eyes narrowed. “Jesus, will you look at how many of those kids are wearing red handkerchiefs around their ankles.” Six or seven times that evening while he’d been scouting around teenagers had asked him to take them to Valisk.

“We could do worse than the Deadnights,” Melvyn said broodingly. “At least there aren’t any possessed here.”

“Don’t count on it.” Ashly leaned over the table, lowering his voice. “My neural nanonics suffered a couple of program load errors this evening. Not full glitches, but the diagnostics couldn’t pinpoint the cause.”

“Humm.” Joshua looked at Melvyn. “You?”

“My communications block had a five-second dropout.”

“Some of my memory cells went off-line earlier, too. I should have paid more attention. Shit. We’ve been here barely three hours, and we’ve each been close enough to one to be affected. What does that come to in percentages of the population?”

“Paranoia can be worse than real dangers,” Melvyn said.

“Sure. If they are here, they’re obviously not strong enough to mount an all-out takeover campaign. Yet. That gives us a little time.”

“So what’s out next move?” Melvyn asked.

“Other end of the spectrum, I suppose,” Joshua said. “Contact someone in government who can run discreet checks for us. Or maybe it wouldn’t be a bad idea to let slip the Lady Mac is for hire. If Mzu is here to get help, the only place it’ll come from is the nationalist community. They might even wind up trying to charter us to deploy the damn thing.”

“Too late now,” Ashly said. “We’re officially here to buy defence components for Tranquillity. And we’ve been asking too many questions.”

“Yeah. Jesus, I’m not used to thinking along these lines. I wonder if any of my fellow captains have been approached for a combat charter?”

“Only if she’s actually in this asteroid,” Ashly said. “Nothing to stop the Samaku docking at one of the others when it arrived. That’s even if she came here in the first place. We ought to be checking that.”

“I’m not an idiot,” Joshua moaned. “Sarha’s working on it.”

Sarha’s smile appeared a little frayed after the third time Mabaki bumped against her. The crowd in the Bar KF-T weren’t that excitable. She could certainly thread her way through without jostling anyone.

Mabaki waggled his eyebrows when she glanced back. “Sorry.” He grinned.

It wasn’t so much that he bumped her, as where. And how the touch tarried. She told herself a pathetic middle-aged letch was probably going to be one of the smaller tribulations they would encounter on this crazy course Joshua had set.

Just before she gave in and tried a datavise, she located Joshua standing over by the bar (where else, she asked herself). “That’s him,” she told Mabaki.

Sarha tapped Joshua on the shoulder as he was accepting a beer bottle from the barmaid. “Joshua, I found someone I think can . . .” She trailed off in confusion. It wasn’t Joshua. That she of all people could be mistaken was astonishing. But he did look remarkably similar, especially in the treacherously shimmering light thrown out by the dance floor’s holographic spray. Same broad chest to accommodate a metabolism geneered for free fall, identical prominent jaw folding back into flat cheeks. But this man’s skin was darker, though nothing like the ebony of most Dorado Kenyan-ethnics, and his glossy hair was jet-black rather than Joshua’s nondescript brown.

“I’m sorry,” she stammered.

“I’m not.” He could certainly manage the Joshua charm-grin, too. Possibly even better than Joshua.

“I was looking for someone else.”

“I hate him already.”

“Goodbye.”

“Oh, please, I’m too young for my life to end. And it will when you leave. At least have a drink with me first. He can wait.”

“No he can’t.” She began to move away. Some erratic impulse made her look back in perplexity. Damn, the likeness was extraordinary.

His smile widened. “That’s it. You’re making the right choice.”

“No. No, I’m not.”

“At least let me give you my eddress.”

“Thank you, but we’re not staying.” Sarha forced her legs to work. She just knew her face would be red. How stupidly embarrassing.

“I’m Liol,” he called out after her. “Just ask for Liol. Everybody knows me.”

I’ll bet they do, she thought, especially the girls. The crowd closed around her again, Mabaki tagging along faithfully.