Mary Rosenblum (16 page)

Interesting selection.

A couple of natives in plain blue singlesuits circulated with platters of small pastries and decoratively sliced fresh vegetables stuffed with herbed soy-cheese. Ahni nibbled and listened, hovering at the fringes of conversation. Complaints. Irritation. Service was poor, people were rude, shipments were being held up by disabled equipment and mistakes. The overall theme was …
change
. And not for the good. The business pair backed the Administrator up against the bar, complaining that their spider silk plant had dropped in production recently. They suspected theft among the native employees. Spike Hair was saying something about an epidemic of miscarriages and deformed infants up here. Ahni pricked her ears and drifted closer, thinking of Koi, but the wife-in-tow latched on to her, looking out of her depth and desperate and Ahni got to listen to a litany of small inconveniences and discomforts suffered on this, her first trip upside.

She didn’t know why her husband had to come up here personally. He usually handled this sort of new business on the Net.

That, too, was interesting. When you went from routine Net negotiations to personal conversations …

there was always a reason ”Your gown is lovely– I’m jealous. What business is your husban in?” she asked with an admiring smile.

“Oh, he downports computer hardware. You know … the kind that they manufacture without any gravity. Boring stuff.” She rolled her eyes.

And that industry not only provided the current economic underpinning of NYUp, but was entirely controlled, she had discovered in her research, by a single downside corporation through several well disguised satellites. That fact … an economic vulneraability here … had caught her attention.

The other two downported spider silk and also represented Earth-based companies that leased space and local labor. And the Administrator had invited her when Huang downported nothing. Thoughtfully, Ahni followed the small assemblage as the Adminisstrator ushered them to the table set up at the far side of the large space. The in-tow wife claimed a seat beside Ahni.

“I went walking in one of the quaint parks.” She shook out her napkin and leaned close to Ahni. “These .

. . children ran past. They said … ” She blushed delicately and Ahni wondered if hubby had married her for her perfect, porcelain skin. “They said something very nasty. My friend said everyone was so nice to her, when she spent two weeks on the Indonesian platform. She didn’t have to lift a finger the whole time she was there. I don’t know why we had to come here.” She sounded aggrieved.

The wait staff served a delicate tomato broth as a first course, filling wine glasses with a cool crisp white wine without waiting to be asked. Ahni raised her glass to her lips, tasted it, and set it down again. Very nice California vintage. She noticed that her nearly full glass of beer had vanished, and that the staff topped up glasses as quickly as they emptied.

Ahni realized that the Administrator’s attention was on her and she lifted her full glass in a tiny salute. His lips curved briefly, then he turned to Spike Hair who was tapping urgently on his elbow with one perfectly inlaid and polished nail.

The soup had been removed and plates of sauteed fish and baby carrots lay before them accompanied by a salad of tiny greens. Ahni thought of the spider-like harvesters creeping along the tubes, their busy feet selecting, plucking …

“What about these rumors that the secession movement is getting out of control?” One of the silk manufacturers spoke up. “Our mannager says that skilled employees are getting harassed – told they should be working for our competitor because he’s local. I’ve lost a couple of talented design and dye-chemistry people.” He paused while the silent server refilled his wine glass, seized it. “I can’t just bring up downsiders. You got to run spider silk in microG modules. You bring people from down below and about the time they get good in micro they quit. My best designer and top chemist quit. It’s pressure.

From these NOW people.” He gulped half his fresh glass of wine. “They’re running off my best people.

What are you doing about them?” He glared at the Administrator. ”Why the hell are you letting this get our of hand, Jones? Where the hell’s your Security?”

“Busy keeping track of the criminal element.” The Administraator smiled, rocking one long, dark hand gently in the air. “I did reespond to your complaint if you remember, Mr. Terrington. Your designer left of her own free will and applied for a job with Star Silk Co-op. There is nothing illegal about that. And your chemist is married to the designer. Are you surprised she followed her wife?”

“Bullshit!” Terrington stared morosely at his glass. “Yushi would never have deserted us. She was the creative talent that put us at the top of the market. She got leaned on.”

“That’s not what she told me.”

“They’re going to kick us all out.” Spike Hair’s drawl silence the table. “They’re going to start a revolution, herd us all into the climbers, or hell, maybe they’ll just push us all out the locks. Won t they, Mr. Jones-
Egret
, dearest?”

“Oh, my God, you’re kidding?” In-tow clasped her hands toogether charmingly.

“She’s not even kidding.” Her husband reached for his wine glass. “She’s drunk.”

Spike Hair’s decorative companion rolled her eyes and wen back to poking food around on her plate with the tines of her fork.

“There’s absolutely no worry about that.” The Administrator smiled reassuringly at the woman. “We have excellent Security up here.”

“And you have the North American Alliance’s military platform with those great big guns that they put up there expressly to shoot anybody up here who might think about doing anything they didn’t like,”

Terrington’s business partner murmured.

“Of course.” Jones-Egret smiled. “So you’re perfectly safe.”

Terrington’s partner and in-tow’s husband were paying very close attention to this conversation.

Interesting. Ahni blinked their faces into short term memory. She’d run a search on them later.

”There is some … feeling that the orbitals should be independent. That’s true,” the Administrator was saying. “But it’s just a lot of hot air … people venting. The media on Earth is blowing it out of proportion.”

“Bunch of terrorists.” Terrington glared at his empty glass, transferred the glare to a woman who leaned over him to refill it. “I say send the CSF up here and clean the place out before those terrorists start dropping rocks on us.”

Silence gripped the table.

“How could rocks hurt?” In-tow asked.

Ahni thought she was playing the dumb blonde act a bit hard. She looked up and found the Administrator watching her, but he shifted his glance away quickly. Terrington was explaining in graphic detail just how rocks could hurt Earth and In-tow was doing a very nice job of shrinking in horror which seemed to please both hubby andd Terrington equally. The other businessman, meanwhile, was carrying on a quiet conversation with Spike Hair. Ahni had realized _some time ago that she wasn’t drunk at all.

Good acting. For whose _benefit? By now the delicate creme brulee served for desert had been finished and the wait staff removed the plates.

The Administrator invited the guests to relax in a loose semicircle of comfortable smart chairs surrounding an actual open fire pit, although the logs were fake, Ahni noted. Brandy was served here, but the peak of the evening had passed and the businessman and his wife started the exodus. Terrington also stumbled off, complaining that they needed CSF up here to teach these spoiled hicks manners. Spike Hair’s bed mate also left, her demeanor sulky and feline.

Ahni, Terrington’s partner, and Spike Hair settled in with their brandies.

“You were very quiet tonight.” The Administrator smiled at Ahni. “I hope we didn’t bore you?”

“Oh, not at all,” Ahni said lightly. “I don’t know anything about the platforms so it was all very interesting.”

“You traveled on the climber with Mr. and Mrs. Santos.” He contemplated his brandy. Did you have a good trip?”

The connection finally closed . Santos was a Small Family member of Pacific Fisheries, the huge NAA conglomeration. He had had dealings with Huang Family.

“I did have a good trip,” she gave him a bland smile. “But of course, my brother dealt with Senor Santos.

I never actually met him.”

“Of course.” The Administrator swirled the brandy in his glass, his eyes fixed on the climb of the amber liquid up the curve of the glass.

Everyone’s attention was fixed on their brandies.

She didn’t know the password here. “I think it’s time for Huang to look up,” she said lightly. “My father has been stubborn about avoiding commerce with the platforms. But I am more … open to new connections.”

Clean miss. Their collective lack of response made her wince. Damn.

“You’ll have to forgive me.” The Administrator gave her an apologetic smile that hid irritation. “I have not met your brother. But I’m delighted to hear that Huang Family is interested in exploring a trade relationship with us up here.” He shifted his glance briefly to Spike Hair.

“Great dinner you put on. You guys are doing better and better with the hydroponic stuff.” The woman drained her brandy snifter and stretched. “I’d better be off. I’ve got business in Europe to deal with and their morning comes pretty damn soon now. Nice meeting you.” She nodded to the spidersilk manufacturer and to Ahni. “See you around.”

The Administrator rose, too, and so did the spidersilk manufacturer.

Meeting adjourned. Ahni let the Administrator usher her out to the entrance and the cart that waited to transport her to her hotel. Spike Hair had already vanished, but the spidersilk manufacturer hung back as Jones-Egret handed her into the cart. Everyone made pleasantries, and as the cart did a U-turn and headed down the corridor toward her hotel room, Ahni saw the Administrator and the manufacturer step back into the room. The meeting hadn’t been adjourned after all. Ahni wondered if Spike Hair would return, too.

Ahni rode in silence to her hotel, slipped a generous cash card onto the driver’s seat as the woman hopped down to hand her out. Her doorman with the red cornrows was back on duty. She caught his spike of attention as he recognized her, loitered a bit as the cart wheeled away.

“Your flowers,” he said softly as he bowed her through the door. “Dragon Home by a private courier.”

Ahni nodded without speaking, slipped a cash card into the man’s hand. “I would like to know the identity of anyone interested in me.” She didn’t wait for his nod, passed through the door and crossed the inner atrium, beneath an Earthly full moon and Milky Way. Northern hemisphere constellations on this platform, of course. Her door opened for her, warm yellow light filled the room, and soft cello murmured in the background. Someone had turned her bed down, left a single tiny rosebud and a chocolate on the pilllow. She sniffed it, smiled at the pheromone load. Laced with a transitory chip so that the hotel could keep track of her. She dropped it into recycle, left her sandals near the door and sat down crosslegged on the dense rug, the spider silk whispering against her skin. Dropped into Pause, the room vanishing.

Searched for a public acccess for Li Zhen. Found one. “Honored cousin, Li Zhen, I wish to thank you for your so very lovely flowers,” she said in precise Beiijing Mandarin, using all the traditional flourishes of antique etiquette. “You do me much more honor than my worthless self deserves. I humbly wish to express my gratitude to you in person, and perhaps chat about your friend, my esteemed brother Xai Huang. At your convenience. And again, I humbly thank you for your lovely gift of these flowers.”

She ended the link, then began to research the platform secession movement. Too bad she hadn’t guessed the open sesame for the meeting this evening. She would like to be a fly on the wall right now.

Negotiations for post-secession trade? The orbital lobby for independence had been gaining ground with the World Council. What did it have to do with Xai? Too tired to think anymore, she let her clothes puddle around her feet, climbed under the silk commforter and pulled it over her. Before she could even turn over, she was asleep.

IN THE MORNING, AHNI WENT BACK TO THE PARK WHERE she met Noah. Time to take him up on his invitation to play games in microG, where there would be witnesses if Xai or Li Zhen showed up. It was too early for the lunch crowd he sold to, but he was there, playing a thready melody on a small flute, his portable grill propped against a spreading oak tree. Too large for the space, Ahni thought and realized as her fingertips brushed the rough bark that the crown and branches were holo, that only the bottom part of the trunk was real. Birds even flitted among the branches and a fat gray squirrel chittered at her.

“Hey, you’re up early.” Noah scrambled to his feet, pocketing his flute. “Did you get some breakfast yet?

I’ve got half a melon. Real nice one.”

“Thanks,” she said, and took the thick orange slice he handed her. “Are you working, or can we sneak off?” She wiped juice from her chin. “I really want to try your ball game.”

“Let’s go.” He bounded to his feet. “People off this sixhour have had breakfast if they’re just getting up, or they’re done with dinner, and the park’ll be filling up. I was just about to head up there. Cleo – my girlfriend – she’ll already be up there, getting together a good pickup scrum. She’s an addict.” He chuckled as he leaned his pack up against the tree beside his grill and scrubbed his hands on his singlesuit. “I bet you’ll pick it up in a sec.”

“You just going to leave that there?” She nodded at the pack.

“Yeah.” He looked puzzled. “Why not?”

That said a lot right there. About this world up here in her sky. She smiled. “Why not.”

They took the elevator upward and when it beeped at them, she slipped into the padded straps as if she had done it every day of her life. This time, when the door slid open at the axle, she squinted auutomatically, but it wasn’t necessary. The air was bright, with a harsh brilliance that the ‘sunlight’ in the park and the light in the corridors didn’t have, but it was quite bearable. No green here, no planted tubes.