Mary Rosenblum (17 page)

Instead, thick cables crisscrossed the space. Lots of room to fly and that’s what people were doing.

Off to her right, a woven lattice offered hand and toe holds along a string of kiosks selling squeezes of juice, tea, and water, skewered snacks, and bright nylon backpacks with small directional air jets for propulsion and steering. “For the tourists.” Noah’s lip curled. ”You got cables all over the place.”

The brightly colored cables seemed to crisscross randomly at first sight, but Ahni noticed tllat they enclosed several large spherical patches of clear air. In the one just beyond the kiosks and elevator terminal, five skinny figures darted about like thrown spears. Fascinated, Ahni anchored herself with one hand and watched the game. Sure enough … they used a ball, although it had two grip loops attached.

A stiff mesh bag hung not too far from where she drifted. One of the players grabbed the ball by a loop, her foot twined around a cable, gave the ball a two handed jerk that whipped the man gripping the other loop head over heels. He lost his grip and she was off in a second, kicking off the stiff cable and soaring straight for the bag, the others angling in on trajectories to cross hers.

She snagged a bright blue cable as she sped by, whipped around it, and shot off at an angle, feet first, toes pointed, evading her clossing pursuers neatly and earning a hoot of frustration from the clossest, who grabbed, missed, and spun out of control, grabbing for cables just out of his reach. The ball handler spun 180 degrees around another cable, but this one gave too much to her pull and sent her spiraling, close to out of control. The opposing players were on her now, yelling as they arrowed in, deflecting the ball handler’s teammates who hurtled in to run interference so that they went tumbling, grabbing for cables to kill their momentum, rebounding as they slammed into cables and one another. No helmets, Ahni noticed and winced as a player connected face first with a shoulder at full speed. Rough game.

With a whoop, Noah launched himself on a flat, shallow trajectory that would take him past the bag. The ball handler caught a caable, whipped around it, and used her momentum to shoot the ball on a perfect intersecting trajectory to Noah. He snagged it, somersaulted around another cable, spilling a lot of momentum, and spun himself feet first toward the bag.

Yelling, two of the other team hurtled toward him, certain to deflect him before he connected.

Ahni shrugged, grinned, and kicked off hard from the cable she’d anchored to. It was stiffer than she had guessed, with less give, and she rocketed forward, almost out of control but not quite. Her aim was good and the pair of interceptors weren’t watching for her. She tucked her head, hit the first one hard with her shoulder, heard his yelp as he spun, momentum transferring, caroming off her like a cue ball on a pool table. She’d imparted enough of her force that he hit his teammate. Not hard, but it deflected his trajectory and there was nothing for him to catch, to correct it. Yelling, he missed Noah by a handful of centimeters, writhing wildly as he tried to close that tiny gap.

With a howl of victory, Noah slammed the ball into the bag and rocked into a series of diminishing somersaults. The other players had spilled their momentum and rescued floundering teammates. They converged on Ahni now, radiating satisfied aggression, pleaasure, and curiosity in equal amounts.

“Cheater, NOall! You weren’t playing!”

“Neither was she!”

“Would have been if you’d waited.” Noah grinned. “And Cleo was short, so I figure she’d pick me. I told you!” Noah reached Ahni first, arrowing back to spill most of his momentum on a nearby cable and kill the rest with a resounding slap on her back that sent her tumbling, out of control. “This is Ahni. A friend of mine. Not bad for a downsider, huh?”

Ahni sensed what was coming and tucked herself into a roll, just as a pair of hands connected and shoved.

She shot away from the push, felt another, less powerful connnection that this time sent her spinning sideways. Initiation? She closed her eyes as blue and green cables spun around her and nausea spiked in her gut. Waiting to see if she panicked? Flailed? Another contact, this time from someone in motion, so that they shared the momentum and she spun off in a new direction. Her stomach protested and she squelched the sensation. How to win? She cracked her eyelids, focused on fleeting glimpses. A cable comming. If nobody hit her. , .

Fingertips brushed her, but the pusher had misjudged the traajectory. Now! She flung out her arms, back arching, her straightline path wavering, momentum faltering a hair. The cable slapped her palm and she clamped her fingers around it, readying herself for the jerk on her shoulder joint, her muscles flexing with it, taking up the shock. She whipped around, momentum spilling, and grinned. “Cool.” She laughed.

“You do this to all the new kids on the block?’”

The skinny rope-and-bone girl who had headed for the basket laughed with her, diamond inlays glinting in her teeth. “Next game, she’s on my team!”

“I brought her here, Cleo. She’s mine,” Noah drifted up beside her, grinning, totally pleased with himself.

“Okay, beer is on me. Tell Jacques at the stand.” He winked at Ahni, offered her a hand. “Nice save.

You sure you never saw scrum before?”

“Sure I have.” Ahni grinned and grabbed his wrist. “It’s called ‘pool’ downside. And we’re not the balls.”

Noah laughed, planted his foot against the cable, swung her into a sharp arc and launched her.

Ahni had the presence of mind to let go of his wrist and look ahead to see where she was going. Right toward the kiosks, with the rest of the scrum players in a loose scatter around her. She had a moment or two to watch a couple of them deftly grab cables, spinning around them to increase momentum, then arrowing off precisely toward the next cable, zig-zagging feet-first toward their goal. She tried it, did a sloppy launch on the first one, barely had enough momenntum to reach the next cable, did better there, and managed to reach the kiosk under her own power, if not as neatly or as quickly as the rest. From the corner of her eye, she caught a glimpse of a couple of young kids playing tag … maybe ten years old.

They darted like fish and looked sort of like Koi.

“Your downside shows,” the diamond-toothed Cleo said when Ahni caught the guiding cables that fenced the kiosks. “But you do okay for all that.”

“Ah, she needs practice, is all.” A skinny man with a fuzz of bright red hair and freckles handed her a squeeze.

Ahni looked for the kids, but they had vanished. She stuck the spout of the squeeze in her mouth.

“Good,” she said, swallowing rich, bitter beer.

“Friend of ours makes it, sells it here.” The redheaded man poked his chin toward one of the kiosks.

“I’m Paul.” He gripped her wrist.

“Ahni.” One by one they introduced tllemselves, gripped her wrist. Cleo, Noah’s scrum-addict girlfriend, worked the Con, too, along with Illie, the other girl, a near albino with lavender eyes. Paul made and sold fruit wine locally, the other two players, Jose and Von, worked in Security, one in Customs and the other on patrol. They carried their beers to one of several loose hammocks of netting strung around the kiosks, perched there, one ankle woven through the mesh, orienting in the same direction.

“We’re here every day,” Cleo told Ahni. “Just hop on up. You gonna be here for awhile?”

“1 don’t know how long I’ll be around.” Ahni grinned. “But I’ll be back. That was fun.”

“Good way to do some bump and bang, you know?” Illie spoke up, her voice a rich, jazz-singer alto that didn’t go with her snowwqueen color. “Get rid of it when you’re about ready to hit someone.”

“Some of these creeps heating up the Con oughta come up here more,” Von wiped sweat from his ebony face with the front of his singlesuit. “Energy level is getting hot, down at the skin.”

“That stuff’s not all for real.” Noah sucked the last drops from his squeeze. “Some of it’s ghosts. Whole bunch all of a sudden.” He shrugged. “Some wise ass dicking around.”

“Ghosts?” Ahni finished her own beer.

“People hacking a fake persona, pretending to be real in the Can. You can do it, but the system catches you eventually. Too hard to create really solid ghosts. Keyboard patterns, word use, syntax–they all give you away eventually, and your real name starts showing up. We’ve got a couple of real virtuosos playing hide and seek in there, though.”

“So who cares?” Cleo made a face, flashing her diamonds. “You know the type–got to prove they can get around the game–they got a bigger dick than you do. Kids and hormones. Doesn’t have anything to do with people getting ticked off skinside.”

“Well, we’re sure having a lot more trouble with the tourists.” Von stuffed his squeeze into a recycle slot on the side of the closest kiosk. “Everybody’s touchy and I don’t know how many complaints we got just this last week. From silly stuff to a couple of actual fights – like punches, right there in public space.

Heavies don’t have any manners.” Shaking his head, he waggled his fingers. “I’m off. On shift in a couple of hours. Stuff to do.” With a precise thrust of his foot against the webbing of the hammock, he arrowed away toward the elevator.

“I think you just got sort of a compliment.” Illie winked at Ahni. “He forgot you’re a downsider.”

“I figured.” Ahni made a face. “I’d better go, too.” She disposed of her own squeeze. “Thanks for the intro. Next game I’ll buy.” She pushed off and headed for the elevator, looking vainly for the kids she had seen earlier.

HER CORNROWED DOORMAN was on duty and watching for her. “A private courier from Dragon Home is waiting for you,” he told her. “Would you like me to inform him that you are back?”

“Urgent?” Ahni raised her eyebrows.

“Didn’t say so.” The man shook his head. “The hotel would have contacted you if it had been a bonded, urgent message.”

Probably not. Ahni hid her smile. Since she hadn’t eaten that very enticing chocolate on her pillow.

“Fifteen minutes,” she said, because she could smell herself after that brief stint of aerial soccer and she wasn’t about to greet a messenger from Dragon Home stinking of sweat. Hurrying now, she crossed the atrium to her room, the door opening to greet her. The faint film of scented powder – right where an intruder would be sure to step into it – was unmarred. The other articles she had left in precarious and strategic locations hadn’t been disturbed either. Good. She stripped out of her singleesuit, wincing at a host of small aches.

Rough sport. She stood under the multiple shower jets finding the beginnings of tomorrow’s bruises as she quickly washed. Great way to work off aggression in a closed little society like this one. Dry, she hesitated, then selected a long, elegant pant dress with a fitted bodice and a high collar, a handwoven silk brocade in a rich forest green with delicate gold thread embroidery. Very Chinese. Very imposing.

This was the time to look the part of The Huang’s daughter. “Send the courier,” she told the room.

He’s on his way, Miss Huang.

A handful of seconds later, the door flickered and seemed to vanish, revealing a small, compact man with a Cantonese face standing in front of the door. “Huang Ahni,” he said in English, “I am here to offer you an invitation from Li Zhen to join him for tea.” The Courier Union glyph glimmered on his right cheek, a bolt of scarlet lightning in a pearlescent circle that guaranteed safety.

“Open,” she said, and the image vanished as the door slid open. “I accept with pleasure.”

The Courier bowed again and ushered her to one of the small rental carts available for tourist use. He touched the screen to life, selected a destination, and climbed in beside her.

“I have a shuttle docked here,” he told her as the cart took off, threading the crowded corridor at a rapid pace, its sensors whipping it neatly around strolling tourists and hurrying service personnel. He wore a loose, full length jumpsuit, and she eyed it, searching for the cutting edge weaponry that each Courier was required to carry. It was well hidden. He guessed her interest and his internal smile glimmered like quicksilver for an instant. He had the skinny, ropy body and gravity-thick bones of a long-term resident born downside.

They entered a small docking facility that required a vitals pass and a retinal scan before an inner lock admitted them. He led her along a corridor to a numbered door, palmed it open to reveal a small craft stuffed into a closet sized space that barely fit it. It looked like an old fashioned bathtub with a top, Ahni thought. Ugly. The top folded up like wings, to reveal two recliners inside with space behind for minimal cargo. At the Courier’s nod she climbed down into the craft and pulled the webbing harness across her.

It tightened and lights glowed as the hatch winged closed. “I’d like to see out,” Ahni said mildly.

The Courier nodded. Instantly the upper hull vanished, leaving Ahni with the disquieting feeling that she was indeed sitting in a bathtub. At that moment, the dock port irised open and the little shuttle zoomed backward into the void.

Eerie to move and feel no wind, no rush of passage. Not te mention that they were floating in vacuum that would wring them to dry husks in an instant. Ahni drew a deep breath, damping the rush of adrenaline into her bloodstream, using a moment of Pause to control her reaction. Caught that quicksilver glimmer of a smile as the Courier whipped the little craft around and booted it away from the huge hulking curve of NYUp’s outer hull.

Damn, that thing was big. Acceleration pushed her into her seat with its invisible palm.

And then … Earth came into view. Huge. Blue and white. So close that she stiffened, prepared to fall down to it, clutched by its steel arms of gravity. Draw a slow breath. Another. Better. Aware of the Courier watching her, gauging her reaction. “What … did you do before you were a Courier?” She managed the voice of calm if not internal tranquility.

“I was an asteroid miner. Got tired of the belt. I have family on Dragon Home.”

“What’s it like out there?”

“The Belt? Alone.”

Alone, not
lonely
. Ahni nodded slowly. “Did you mine metals?”