Flight of the Vajra (38 page)

By the time they were done talking, Enid and
Cioran were having a competition to see who could keep the most incredulous
look on their face the longest. Cioran lost: he burst into laughter.

“
Blackmail
?” He crimped the flooring in
front of him into a staircase and sat down on the top step. “Cosmos alive! ...
I’ve heard a lot of silly theories thrown around about why I do what I do but
that one’s . . . There should be an award. The
Ludic
Awards,
there we go. This year’s Ludic for Silliest Theory of Cioran’s Excesses goes to
the bunch of you, shared jointly, for assuming I had to come up with cash in a
huff because someone had . . . oh, what, pictures of me dressed properly
for a formal occasion? What
is
it exactly that someone could blackmail
me
with?”

“Funny, we were wondering the same thing,” I said.
“But let’s face it: you’ve got a massive loan you can barely pay off, and which
you tried to pay off by way of a firm not known for its business ethics.
Because if you really do want to work for her—” I tilted my head at Angharad,
to my left. “—this might be worth talking about in detail. So: details?”

Cioran lifted his rear and slowly slid down the
steps one at a time:
bump, bump, bump
. I used to play that game when I
was five, too, I thought. But neither of us was five now, and all it did was
make me want to plug into the console they were using and flatten the stairs
out under him so he landed square on his ass at the bottom. Too bad he had the
console locked for exclusive use, but I side-banded to Enid and asked her if
she could give me access.

“Do you know the term ‘Dutch payout?” Cioran said.
“No checking CL for answers! Native gray matter only.”

Enid stuck her hand in the air. “That’s when you end
up with debts that weren’t yours to begin with.”

“
Pwing!
Give the girl her bonus points;
redeemable at any authorized Shapes dealer. —See, a few years ago, I dropped in
on my old mentor Ludmilla to see how she was doing. ‘Oh, I’m fine, I’m fine,’
she says. Then she gets me behind closed doors with the cognac in one hand and
a handkerchief in the other. ‘Actually . . . not so fine,” she says,
“I’ve dug myself quite a hole,’ and she goes on to tell me this sob story about
her credit-worthiness that I can’t make head or tail of. ‘Slowly, and from the
top,’ I tell her, and only
then
does it all come out.

“See, when I was there, I found out firsthand how
she was in the habit of being rather free with her money, although always at
her discretion: you couldn’t simply walk up to her, pat her on the back, and
expect her to cough a billfold into your lap. You had to be in with her, but
one thing Ludmilla kept fairly close to the chest was that it was easier to get
in than you might think—and once you were in, you were in for life.

“In the years after I left, her inner circle
puffed itself up quite a bit. My ego prefers to believe she was making up for
not having me so close at hand anymore—and that she was discovering for herself
how any ten other people don’t add up to any one of me. I pitied her for being
so despondent, but all the same, I had to venture out on my own—and I’d seen
firsthand how she used such connections to simply make people all the more
dependent on her. ‘Without you,’ she’d say, ‘this place will be
hollowed
out.
’ Or sometimes it was in danger of becoming ‘
a crypt of the spirit.
’
For all I knew she spent five minutes every morning thinking up new lines in
that vogue, just to be used on that day only . . . But really, I
hadn’t
minded
being dependent on her. Not while we had each other’s
company to savor. Once someone’s gone, they’re gone. It was only the
breaking-away part that was painful; it’s only the
leaving
part of
leaving that actually hurts.”

“It always is,” I said. “So she let herself get
bled dry and you took out the loan for her sake?”

“Not . . . quite. Up until shortly
before I showed up she’d been solvent, if strained. Then one of her new
comrades in romance sold her on the idea of financing an expedition of sorts.
It was a lot of money, and on short notice. A salvage job. A ship whose
entanglement engines had conked, whose hull had been compromised; some whispers
of sabotage were in the air. Ship and cargo had been the subject of a nasty under-the-table
fight. One company, Berletan, was claiming ownership of the cargo; another,
Vynangard Limited, the ship
and
the cargo. All very below-the belt since
the ship in question was, as rumor had it, a shadow flight. No designation, no
manifest, no official crew roster, nothing. Word had it that after a number of
black eyes and bent arms, they both finally agreed on one thing: the ship was
to be brought back and held in escrow by a third party who’d be sworn to
secrecy while they continued their fight in court. So they were looking for
contractors to do the job on the sly, as a way to keep each other’s noses out
of the dirt. Oh, by the way—did I mention the hulk was stranded near Trungpa?”

“Trungpa went nova three years ago,” Ioné said.
“Or rather, it went into an early red-giant phase, which is sometimes called
‘nova’ by the astronomically illiterate.”

Cioran winked and shot two vertically-stacked fingers
at her. “You see why they realized speed was of the essence. The star was
already bloating up a bit by then, and the ship was in the path of the projected
nova wavefront. A week’s difference could have meant either salvage or no
salvage. The fellow crying into Ludmilla’s lap—he worked for the company that
claimed ownership of the cargo. He was willing to burn a hole in his own pocket
to dust the competition. And ‘competition’ in this case meant the other salvage
coordinators from his own company, not just that rival outfit. There was a
massive commission to be claimed, apparently.”

I leaned out far enough to fall off my perch. “The
commission
was bigger than
that
loan? What was
on
that
ship?”

“Well, remember those whispers of sabotage? Proof
of that could mean not only criminal charges but a major civil payout. IPS only
aids in salvage when it’s in a star system that has at least one planet that’s
signatory, and Trungpa was—well, the middle of nowhere. And after it had gone
nova, it would be doubly the middle of nowhere, since it would be just about
inaccessible via entanglement jump. Anyhoo, Ludmilla decided she could cash in
some stock she’d been holding and stake his salvage. Not what she wanted to do
with that money, but believe me, she’s always been a pushover for someone she
feels close to. Well.” He stood up on the bottom-most step he’d created. “She
cashes the stock, stakes his salvage, he kisses her on both cheeks
. . . and he’s never seen again. And there’s no word anywhere in the
financial news after that about a suit involving salvage from Trungpa. And then
one of her creditors—the personal variety—decides this would be a fine time to
call in
his
debts.”

“So you went and covered her losses.”

“I still had a decent credit rating by then, and
plenty of people who were willing to help me get the money from people more
than willing to loan it. One thing I’ve found: if you borrow from
anyone
,
borrow
from people who make it their business to be borrowed from.
They tolerate being ripped off—or what they
perceive
as being ripped
off—far more readily than your friends would. It’s their business. Especially
when you’re talking about an amount where you run the risk of losing track of
how many zeroes were in the total.” He raised up one leg, dangled one foot out
over the side of the steps. “And
that’s
how I spent my summer vacation
the year Trungpa went nova.”

“And you’ve been struggling to pay it all off ever
since.”

“Well—the ‘struggling’ part of it really only came
into play in the last year or so.” A bridge began to extend itself from the top
of the stairs out to the lip of the ledge we all sat on. “See, I’ve always been
stubborn about doing things my way. Never once have I denied that. People
narrow their eyes at me about my debts, much like
you’re doing right now
,
but really—who is it hurting except me?” He put one foot in front of the other
across the bridge, tottering slightly as if he were walking a tightrope—or a
plank, I thought—and in this way inched towards us. “Of course, I have to
accept this also comes with a certain degree of risk on
my
part. Such as
when my account is finally referred to collections, and they send over an agent
to examine my assets. That’ll most likely result in me having any future
earnings garnished . . . assuming they can prove I actually
make
anything. Bank deposit isn’t the only way to be paid in this cosm.”

“No,” I said, “but it sure is the most
convenient.”

I finally patched into the room’s CL console, as
it had come unlocked at some point during his talk, and gave the bridge a good
yank like I was twisting a length of ribbon. Cioran yelped and fell—all of a
whole whopping meter, mind you—into the pit below. Enid shot me a furious look—
so
that’s what I get for trusting you?—
but stood back and let things happen
all the same.

“I’m beginning to see,” I said, “why you said
things like ‘I don’t even ask for compensation.’ It’s because you know if we
dug around, we’d find out you would be one of the last people we’d want to give
money to. Even if you were earning it. Maybe even especially if you were
earning it. It’s easier to fake being broke for whoever’s looking when you
really
are
broke, isn’t it?”

Cioran lay on his side, head propped under one
bent arm as if posing for a fashion layout. “I have never understood why my
credit history or finances needed to be the business of anyone who was willing
to compensate me for my work.”

“Maybe it’s ‘cos they’d rather not worry if you
were going to suddenly hit them up for an advance. Or wonder if whether or not your
productivity was going to be trashed because you suddenly had to run from a
collection agent.” I squatted down to face him a little more closely (I didn’t
feel like climbing down into the pit with him) and realized I’d been doing a
lot of talking on Angharad’s behalf that she might well want to do on her own.
I shot a look back at her—at all three of them, actually—but they seemed
content that I was handling so much of this.

Cioran shrugged. “You really shouldn’t be this
critical. I’m offering you something that has no pricetag on it to begin with.
And I’m offering it to you for nothing more than the price of enjoying the pleasure
of your company for a week!”

“What were you going to do on Bridgehead, cash in
a favor? Or maybe make a run for the border?”

He was still rattling on: “—And yet you come in
here, twisting my arm about my finances—”

“I accept your offer,” Angharad said.

Cioran sat up fast enough to sprain something—yes,
even something in his body.

“I accept your offer, but I must attach a few
stipulations,” Angharad went on. I gave the part of the platform she was
standing on a little tweak and it began to descend to Cioran’s level, so she
could speak her piece that much more directly to his face.

“I’m listening,” Cioran said, sitting straight up
now. Enid slid down into the depression where Cioran sat, and slowly walked
closer as though she were stalking him.

“First—you will allow all of your outstanding
debts to be transferred to us, which we will pay off in a timely fashion
according to the original terms of the loan, via pre-deduction from the remuneration
for your services.” Angharad touched down in the bottom of the little valley
and took a single step, then knelt down, to place herself knee-to-knee with
Cioran. “In the event our working relationship is discontinued, by either of
us, your debts will be immediately reassigned back to you.”

“That’s rather stiff.” Cioran was still trying to
smile, and mostly succeeding.

“Second—you will accept payment from us for your
services, commensurate with the level of expertise that you provide. Your
official title will be ‘Cultural Liaison.’ Your term of employment will be
open-ended and subject to renewal at least once per solar month.”

“Oh-hoh.” This time Cioran sounded much less
enthusiastic.

“I have an idea for a third stipulation,” Ioné
called out from above. “You’re to be encouraged to continue with your other
cultural activities during your time of employment with us, but on the
conditions that for the time being you agree to a CL tap—” Cioran looked like
he’d been force-fed a lemon wedge. “—and that a negotiable percentage of the revenue
generated will go towards directly paying down your existing debt load. I’d
recommend that as a partial amendment to the first stipulation.”

Kallhander raised his eyebrows at her. “Good
idea.”

“Thank you.”

Cioran’s laugh was a single, sharp burst that
echoed off the ceiling. “So that’s your counter-offer, then? You’ll only let me
on board as long as I pull my weights, plural, and not track the mud of my
financial issues all over your nice clean floors? And make me wear a collar?”
He made walking motions with his fingers. “Any reason why I should take my
chances with you instead of the collections agents? They’ll garnish my income
anyway, you know.”

“Yeah,” I said, “but do you really think they’re
going to offer you better terms? They’re going to offer you the choice between
a bad credit rating and none at all. Not much of an offer. Besides, I thought
you
wanted
this job.”

Enid took another step and put a hand on Cioran’s
shoulder. “Come on,” she said in a sad—no,
disappointed
—voice. “Just let
someone else help you for a change, already.”

That sounded pretty familiar, I thought.