Paolo tapped on his desk idly. He watched the clock. He ran some links on the Web without really reading the pages. He did his best to avoid thinking about what he would do in . . . two minutes and twenty-seven seconds.
He would turn his back on a friend. Tough love at its finest.
It was probably the price of being a successful boss. But it still didn't seem fair, somehow. It seemed as if every day he woke up just to knock down somebody's world.
Just three days ago he'd clobbered the tailriders looking for him in the 'castpoints. He'd tried to follow the trails of some of the losers, to see if anyone had really been ruined, to see if he could prop them up for a short while, just enough to get back on their feet. But his search had been unsuccessful—after all, tailriders wanted to keep their anonymity, too.
Today would be worse. Jeff would not be destroyed outright by the outcome. But Jeff had been a personal project of Paolo's, a whiz kid from a broken background. Sometimes Paolo treated Jeff more like his son than Fernando. Though that wasn't entirely Paolo's fault. At least when Paolo sent Jeff email, Jeff replied.
Paolo considered pouring himself a short tequila. It would help with his task, he knew. But he was sure Jeff would have already taken enough short drinks for both of them. Better if one of them kept a clear head.
Paolo considered handling the situation with a simple email. But it would be unethical, somehow, to deliver this news so impersonally. Even if he could not make the trip to Detroit to confront Jeff in person, Jeff at least deserved a face-to-face conversation.
Luis spoke, "I am connecting now," the calm computerized voice asserted.
A moment later the screen brightened. Paolo spoke softly, "Jeff."
Jeff wiped his hand across his eyes, then smiled wide. "Paolo!"
Staring at Jeff, Paolo found himself unable to go on with his prepared speech. Jeff looked a wreck. His eyes bulged feverishly from a face too drawn, too gaunt to be healthy. It took several moments for Paolo to figure out the most disturbing thing about Jeff's eyes: they didn't blink.
Jeff had become a marathon runner after joining Paolo's forecasting team, a largely successful effort to fight a weight problem he'd had since childhood. But things had changed. Now, Jeff was actually worryingly thin . . . and also soft. Paolo suddenly recognized the symptoms. Jeff didn't have an alcohol problem, Jeff was tripping on Golden Euphoria.
Paolo heard a giggle in the background, and for just a moment a lithe, naked teenage girl darted across the edge of the screen. Jeff still didn't blink. "Paolo, what can I do for you?"
Paolo shook his head. Somehow, it was easier now. "You haven't submitted your analysis of the docking bay photos from Copernicus."
Jeff nodded. "Oh, yeah, I knew I forgot something; I'll get right on it." More giggling came from behind him. "Anything else?"
"You're also bankrupt." Paolo didn't mean it literally. Between stock options and bonuses, Jeff had earned over five million Masterbucks with Paolo's team. Paolo had no idea what had become of that considerable wealth, though if Jeff were on Golden Euphoria he could assume the worst. Nonetheless, that was not the bankruptcy issued at hand.
Paolo was referring to the token economy he'd set up inside his team, for their private 'castpoint. Every forecast Jeff had made lately had gone wrong. Jeff had backed every forecast with huge stakes. His account had nose-dived into the ground.
Jeff nodded vigorously. "Yeah, I've been meaning to give you a buzz about that. It's been a really remarkable run of bad luck."
Paolo just grunted. A monkey tossing a coin would, on average, have done better than Jeff had done in the last forty-five days. Reliable forecasting might rely heavily on statistics, but luck did not enter the equation.
"I was wondering if you could, uh, give me a grub stake, like when I started." He shrugged. "Basically let me start over again."
Paolo lowered his eyes. In the silence that followed he could feel Jeff's growing awareness–it wouldn't be that easy. The taste of Jeff's first thoughts of fear upset him.
Despite everything Paolo had seen and heard and learned today, he could feel compassion driving him into a bad mistake. But Paolo had had a similar experience years before. Jeff's best chance of recovery came from the world of harsh reality, not the world of simplistic compassion. "Oh, I'm letting you start over again, all right." He took a deep breath. "You're fired, Jeff." Paolo looked at his computer's vidcam. "Luis, please record the event."
"Of course."
Jeff was still smiling in disbelief. "But you can't do that. I'm the only ceramic laminate expert you've got."
"An expert who is consistently wrong is a liability, not an asset. You've hurt our forecasts too long, too much. And right in the middle of the time when our best is barely good enough."
Jeff stared at him open-mouthed.
Paolo felt himself losing control. "Shiva's coming, goddammit! How could you do this to me, to say nothing of yourself, now of all times!" Paolo looked away and focused on breathing. Finally he felt enough control to continue. "Ditch the drugs, Jeff. Get yourself together. And call me in a year. You promise to call, right?" Paolo was still looking away from the screen.
The moments passed. Paolo turned to look at his ex-employee, ex-protegé, ex-friend once more. An ugly expression now darkened Jeff's face. He leaped up; the camera wobbled a bit as it tracked him. "I'll take you to court, damn you!"
Paolo felt himself turn to stone. "Even in your country, Jeff, the courts would hand this straight back to the arbiters. The Sowell rulebook specified in our contract is quite clear. Check out the Personal Responsibility clause. You can leave me any time . . . and I and my team can leave you. We are leaving." He looked away. "Close this connection, please." The window folded on a face now red with rage.
Paolo noticed with a sense of distance that his own hands were shaking. It had gone as badly as his worst fears. Jeff's response was to lash out.
Fortunately, Paolo had already taken the appropriate precautions—Jeff's capabilities to use the team brand had already been revoked. He could no longer access the private 'castpoint. Paolo had learned the importance of defensive preparations from a similar, bitter experience a few years earlier. Another young team member had begun to wallow in his sudden success. The kid had gotten to the point where he couldn't forecast the current time, much less a Shivan countermissile. Paolo had tried compassion that time; the kid hadn't pulled out of it until Paolo dropped him cold.
Paolo realized there was one last way Jeff could cause him grief. "Luis?" he called out.
"Yes?"
"Put the courtesy filters on Jeff's brands, would you?"
"Filters activated."
"Thanks." He had this feeling he was still forgetting something. But it was time to get on with business. Many difficult problems awaited him, though they would be a joy in comparison with the task he had just performed.
The Dealer stood straight and proud, staring out the glass wall of Cafe Deco, down upon the city of Hong Kong. Off to the right, he could see the Peak Tram glide away from the Galleria beneath the restaurant. The tram was a curiosity now—most people came to the Peak Galleria by air—but for a handful of people like himself the tram still had practical application. Fortunately, dressed in a black double-breasted suit, he had looked like just another tourist taking the tram, journeying through history for the sake of the amusement.
Now, claiming his reservation at the cafe, he stepped into his proper element. Soon he would be the tourist he seemed to be, someone who took tram rides only for their historical flavor. Soon he would take his chance in the big leagues.
The future seemed so clear now that he had won the contract for the custom skytruck.
It seemed only proper that he celebrate in the proper style. So he had bought the suit, and he had come to this exotic place, in this most impressive of cities, for dinner. For just a moment he regretted the missing element of this evening of success—the beautiful, charming woman he should have on his arm—but that was for another day. After he'd made the bucks he could pick and choose, and find the woman of his dreams. Yes, next time the right woman would accompany him as well.
Tomorrow he would have a great deal of work to do. He would have to order all the components for the skytruck. And he would have to start the laborious job of putting it all together. It would not be a difficult assembly project—he'd selected components that, for the most part, fit together with standard connections—but there could be no doubt but that this was serious work. It was also careful, meticulous work, a kind of work that he was good at but did not enjoy, at least when it was part of a job.
His eyes widened as he realized the correct solution. How embarrassing not to have thought of it sooner! He was, after all, the Dealer.
He would put up a contract on the Web for an integrator, someone who, for peanuts, would put the truck together for him! It would be best if he got someone in Nepal, to reduce costs of transport once it was built . . . on second thought, it should be someone here in Guangdong, someone he could supervise, so he could do his own quality control. He didn't know anyone offhand—let's face it, almost everyone he knew was a crook, he wouldn't trust them as far as he could throw them with something like this, with his reputation at stake—but he was sure he could get a half dozen offers from the right kind of craftsmen once he posted the contract in Wan Feng Emarket. The Dealer would do almost no work at all and skim the bulk of the profits. At last, he'd turned his design insight into a Deal.
His right hand reached unconsciously for his palmtop, to browse the Emarket to find the best place for his posting. He closed his hand and forced himself to relax. Tonight was for celebration, not work.
The piano in the darkened background of the restaurant produced a mellow, soothing rhythm. He heard the swish of a long dress to his right, and he turned. The hostess smiled at him. She was wearing a metallic blue cheong-sam as long as it was tight, with a slit running to her thigh that alternately displayed and concealed the curves of her left leg. She was dressed as elegantly as he. When he looked into her eyes, he could see that she recognized him for what he was—a man on the move, someone who was making his own way, but making it with speed, and sure confidence. Her eyes looked into his so warmly, his own temperature rose. "Your table is ready," she said in a lilting voice that broke his heart.
"Thank you," he replied, and followed her to a table that had a view almost as excellent as the one he'd commanded standing by the glass.
He ordered champagne, a ridiculous homily to his success, particularly with the outrageous prices charged here. He didn't even like champagne. But by now he'd risen beyond mere happiness. He'd been happy when he entered the restaurant. When he'd figured out the last piece of the skytruck contract, how to turn it into a real Deal, his feelings had expanded into a glowing sense of elation.
He sat back in his chair, savoring this time. He was back at the top of his game. He'd never run a better scam.
"I'd like a chocolate malt, please," CJ said to the cashier behind the counter of Centuries Restaurant. The cashier no longer stared in astonishment at the request. CJ had been getting a chocolate malt for her breakfast meeting with the team since the beginning of the Month of Shiva.
CJ heard Axel's voice grow loud with anger in the corner booth where everyone was assembled. She accepted her malt from the cashier and turned to the voice.
The tall back of the booth gave the table privacy, which now meant that the Angels couldn't see her as she approached, quietly, as if she were sneaking up on a minitank.
"It sure took you long enough to get me the duodec," Axel was saying, presumably to Lars since he carried the bulk of the explosives along with everything else.
"It sure took you long enough to plant it," Lars retorted. "And being perfectly honest, you were sloppy."
"What?! Me, sloppy?" CJ watched Axel rise to his feet; his back was to her, however, so he still didn't know she was there.
"That is correct, Axel. You. Sloppy. One word." Lars rose to his feet as well, to stand at the opposite end of the table. CJ froze as Lars' eyes fell upon her. Then she moved smoothly into a smile, and skipped to the edge of the table so everyone could see her.
Her eyes danced as she said, "You guys leaving already? I just got here." She pointed at the clock. "And I'm on time, too!"
She looked around the table. Lars and Axel struggled to mask their anger, but their clenched fists gave them away. Roni was calmly eating his rye toast slathered with strawberries. In Israel, he'd told her, everyone is blunt all the time. It must have sounded like home to him.
Akira, motionless except for his eyes, was rapidly shifting his glance back and forth between the combatants. CJ suspected he was deciding just which one to cripple if a fight started, and exactly how to cripple them to minimize the damage while assuring order was restored. He could do it, too—no one doubted that of all of them, Akira was the best at hand-to-hand fighting. If he decided to stop the fight, someone would find himself in spectacular pain for five minutes. After the five minutes passed, however, the world's finest doctors would find no indication that any harm had ever been done. Rubber hoses could learn from Akira.
Axel gave her the lopsided grin that CJ always thought was a leer. "We, ah, were just having a disagreement. Nothing serious." He sat awkwardly back down, though he was still too angry, CJ observed, to begin eating right away.
Lars cleared his throat. "Yes, a minor disagreement. Which I shall shove down his throat in due course." He sat down with a glare that faded quickly into a twinkle of laughter.
CJ rolled her lips. "I see. Well, I'm so glad everyone's having a good time." She hooked her foot around the leg of a chair at an empty table and twirled it into place by the big Swede. She sat down and took a slurp of her malt. "Lars, you weren't ragging on Axel about the problem we had getting through the missile bay door in yesterday's sim, were you?"
Lars' blue eyes were all innocence. "Only after Axel sought out the compliment."
CJ raised an eyebrow. "Axel, you wouldn't criticize your teammate, would you?" She looked at Axel with a face that mirrored Lars' innocence.
A tough kid from the south side of Chicago glared back at her. For the most part, Axel had buried his past, but in moments of stress, the kid was still there. CJ wondered if the assault on Shiva would bring the kid out again. Perhaps not; perhaps it was the training and the waiting, and the training and the waiting, that stripped him of his armor.
CJ changed the topic. "I spotted a twitch yesterday," she said.
Axel laughed, not pleasantly. "One of Morgan's, right? I'd've thought you'd have found out everything about Morgan by now."
Roni put down his toast and stared at Axel like he was a loathsome but interesting insect. Apparently, that kind of innuendo didn't fit his sense of forthrightness. "Listen to the Boss Lady and learn, Axel." It didn't quite sound like a threat.
CJ clucked her tongue. "Recognize that sound?"
The whole team fell silent as they tried to figure it out. It was a guessing game, to see who could recognize a mannerism first, and whose mannerism it was.
Akira spoke. "Axel, you are correct that this is a Morgan mannerism. I haven't quite figured out when and why he does it, however."
CJ looked into the eyes of each member of the team, silently asking the question. They all shook their heads. "No one knows? Well, watch for it. When Morgan clucks his tongue, he's making a hard decision, the kind of decision where you can't know the right answer till it's too late."
Lars and Akira sank back into the cushions of the booth, memorizing the snippet for future reference. Axel looked off in the distance, and finally resumed eating. Roni just smiled at her. "A good thing to remember," he commented.
A few moments later, Axel spoke again. "That was a good catch, CJ." Axel was back to normal.
But a few minutes later CJ realized he wasn't quite back to normal. And neither was anyone else. They all stopped eating before finishing their breakfasts. As one pair of eyes after another turned on her, she waved her hands. "If you guys are done, get out of here. You're all packed for tomorrow, right?"
A wave of tension passed around the room, and CJ knew what the problem was. She shooed them off. "Go, go. I'm going to take my time."
They rose as a team, and straggled out as individuals. CJ stared at the bottom of her chocolate malt. Normally, she pointed the straw into the corners of the cup, to suck out the last drops. Today she just put the cup back on the table and rose to leave.
Even with her stomach full, she had butterflies. She understood Axel's anxious desire to lash out. In the morning they would board a roton that would take them to the Argo. There was little chance they would ever come back.
Jessica watched carefully as Granma grabbed spices out of the cupboard and sprinkled them, with hardly a hint of care or order, onto the steaming vegetables. "I wish you'd let me videotape your cooking," Jessica told her. "I'm telling you, we could get rich selling the video on the Web." Jessica believed they would, too, though she was uncertain which reason would drive people to buy the video: would they want to learn how to make the remarkable dishes like Granma made, or would they want the entertainment, because Granma was such a stitch when doing combat with zucchinis?
Granma grunted. "You don't need a videotape, girl. I gave you the recipe five years ago." Lemon pepper made a high-speed assault on the T-bones as they grilled.
"But, Granma, you don't follow the recipes yourself. What good are they? The only real way to capture your genius for posterity is videotape." Jessica stepped out of the way as Granma whipped past to claim the butter from the refrigerator.
"You still wouldn't eat right," Granma asserted.
Jessica threw up her hands. "You're probably right." She took three steps and threw herself onto the sofa, conveniently located next to the kitchen in the tight little studio apartment. "Since you won't let me help, I'm going to sit back and relax."
"'Bout time," Granma grunted. "Now, while you're sitting there, why don't you just pop open that palmtop of yours and do some quick currency exchange. I don't want you to be stranded, penniless, the way I was the last time."
How could she get her grandmother to stop living in the past? Somehow she had to stop the woman from telling once again the story of how, after the Entitlement Crash, Granma had moved what little money she still had into untraceable electronic securities, and hadn't looked back since. Jessica smacked her forehead with her hand. "Granma, I have a confession to make."
Granma stopped in her tracks and stared at her. "You didn't let that blasted boyfriend get you pregnant, did you?"
Jessica clenched her fists to avoid screaming. "No! 'Course not. I'm talking about the money." She sat up. "I don't really have any money in Swiss francs, Granma. Most of my money really is in Masterbucks. I just keep some money in dollars for the supermarket and stuff." This statement was almost true: Jessica kept half her money in Masterbucks and half in dollars. Jessica didn't trust the corporate currencies any more than the governments. They were both controlled by the same simple equation: if the currency owners corrupted their money, with inflation or massive debt, everybody'd move to safer currencies as fast as you could count—probably faster. A debt scare had finished off the Samsung baht a few years earlier, leaving only four major currencies in the world. The surviving currency owners probably wouldn't forget the consequences soon, but why take chances?
"Well, I'm glad you're smarter than I was. Or your silly father." Granma shut off the burners. "Voila! Dinner is served."
"Thank heavens. You fill this place with such good aromas, Granma, my stomach is growling at me." Jessica jumped up from the couch and started setting the table.
Granma dished the plates, and they sat down. "Well," Granma confessed, "They seem to be treating you fairly well, anyway, even if it is the government. This place is nice, but not so nice that you're soaking us taxpayers."
Jessica almost choked. "You, pay taxes? Since when?"
Granma smiled; her dentures were pearly white. "I've been working a bit in the electronic markets. Not much, but every once in a while something comes up that calls for my talents with legacy SQL databases." She grumped. "And you can't avoid taxes when you work in such a public forum." The marketplaces paid a small percentage of all transactions to the governments where the market operators resided.
"Come on, Granma, I know enough history—you taught me enough history—to know that the taxes today are only a fraction of the taxes before the Crash. You can't fool me. For someone who lived through that, what we pay now must seem like a relief." Jessica chewed another heavenly bite of steak—how did Granma bring out such flavor!?–before continuing, "Besides, most of the money goes to Earth Defense, and even you have to admit that that is a good cause."
Granma almost choked. "Government and taxation is the most evil thing on Earth."
"Come on, Granma, even you can see Shiva is worse, even more evil than the government."
Granma stopped eating for a moment and pondered the question. "Maybe," she replied, not entirely convinced.
Paolo watched the webcast idly. The reporter was showing the preparations underway for the next step in defense from Shiva. Tomorrow, the Angel Two team would climb on board a roton and lift off to orbit. Ninety-four percent odds said they would never come back. Paolo thought he detected just the barest hint of tension in the reporter's face—his smile was too wide, too fixed, even for a reporter. The reporter knew as well as anyone that this Angel team was the last chance to stop Shiva before it started vaporizing cities.
The news report moved from the launch site to cover a vast assemblage of people milling about by a large lake. He recognized Lake Mead when the skycam brushed passed the Hoover Dam. The place had a carnival-like appearance—so many wild styles of clothing, so many people with their arms in the air, rocking as they sang their chants of prayer and anticipation.
But after watching for a few moments, Paolo discerned the deeper truth. The brightly enthusiastic folk might be the ones attracting the attention, but lots of the others were huddled together in the miserable clusters around which the jubilant ones wove their chaotic Dance. Only the truest of believers chanted; the others knew, just as well as Paolo himself knew, that unless the Angels getting ready to lift off succeeded, in eleven days their religion would be put through the severest test a set of beliefs could encounter. And if their religion were wrong, nothing could save them.
Yes, the moment of truth was coming, and everyone knew it, even if they could not admit it even to themselves.
He at least had something he could do about. He turned back to his analysis of his team's preparations and predictions.
Later, the wallscreen chimed softly with the arrival of new mail. At first Paolo ignored it, intent on deciphering the meaning of the latest, and most bizarre, forecast made by Crockett II, the newest and most experimental of his team's genetic programs. Crockett figured the Gate was located one hundred kilometers down-axis from the center of the sphere, roughly where all sensible assessments of the ship said the primary fusion engines had to be. Either Crockett had uncovered a change in Shiva structure of devastating importance . . . or it was going to take a lot of debugging to find the problem.
As part of the testing, Paolo wiped Crockett's knowledge of Shiva V, and fed the program with comparable data for Shiva III. When Crockett made the same prediction for Shiva III, that the Gate was down-axis, Paolo knew for certain that debugging would be the order of the day. It was just as well; getting Angels from the docking bay to the ship center was hard enough, getting them all the way to the engine area was unthinkable.
Having reached a stopping point, Paolo turned his attention to the earlier chime. "Luis," Paolo said to his computer, "show me the new mail."
Luis opened a small window. "One message from Jeff, requiring filtering," the computer explained. "I have returned a recommendation that Jeff word his request more carefully." Paolo looked in the small window to see what parts of Jeff's email had survived the courtesy filter. He was not really surprised to see that only the sender's name and date of transmission had made it; even the subject line must have been a blaze of pure rage, for Luis had excised that along with the entire body of the message. Paolo just shook his head. You'd think people would figure out, in this day and age, that flaming on the Web served no purpose at all: people just filtered you out, shutting their eyes to you with a perfection not possible in other mediums. For all intents and purposes, angry and rude people had simply ceased to exist on the Web.
Despite this, it must have given Jeff a lot of satisfaction to scream digitally at him, even though Jeff had to know, if he thought about it for even a second, that he was shouting in an empty closet.
Luis spoke again. "You also have some unsolicited mail."
"Great! Show me." Paolo kept a 75-cent fee on his mailbox for information from unknown brands; anyone in the world could get his attention briefly by paying the fee. Seventy-five cents was high enough to prevent the kind of random spam he'd heard was common before the Crash, but low enough so that if someone were really sure they had something interesting for him, they could get the message through. And of course, if the message really was interesting, he returned the fee. Advertisers had gotten very smart about figuring out which things he really would be interested in seeing. So on those rare days when Paolo got unsolicited mail, it usually meant he had a treat in store.
But when this message popped up, it just about burned his eyes out. You BASTARD! The first line shrieked at him, and got worse from there. Paolo closed his eyes with a sigh. Jeff had clearly sent this email, using an anonymous identity. "Luis, close it for me." Jeff had been so angry that he was willing to pay Paolo for the right to send hate mail.
For just a moment, Paolo considered letting Jeff continue to send email at seventy-five cents a pop, just out of morbid curiosity to see how long it would last. But he didn't want the hassle. On the other hand . . . "Luis, set the unsolicited mail fee to seventy-five Masterbucks, please."
"The new setting is in effect."
Well, Paolo thought, he'd indulge his morbid curiosity, but for higher stakes. If Jeff were willing to pay seventy-five bucks per message, perhaps Paolo was giving him a real therapeutic benefit by letting him blow off steam.
"Luis, keep the fee there for thirty days." That should be enough time for Jeff to lose interest.
Another sound interrupted Paolo's stream of thought. This time his palmtop tinkled for him, a sound easily interpreted as a computer sharing a private bit of humor. Paolo smiled, for the sound made him think of Sofia; time to phone home.
He turned from his screen; through his window he could see dusk fall over the lands of the house of Ossa. Stars began to twinkle. Yes, it was time. " Luis, where is Sofia?"
An unusual pause preceded the answer. "Perhaps she is in her Zen room."
"Ah." The Zen room was disconnected from the house computers, consequently Luis could only guess.
Paolo headed out the door humming quietly. Twelve years earlier, during the WebEveryWhere initiative, his beloved Sofia had railed at him for never calling her from his forsaken remote sites. He'd been exhausted at the time of the argument–he'd just gotten back from the damned jungle–but he'd had enough wits left to offer the obvious solution. He'd pulled out his palmtop and set a recurring alarm to tell him to call his overwrought spouse every day. The alarm had had no expiration date. So even after Paolo had finished that project and returned home, it continued to go off at the specified moment. Indeed, even though he had discarded that old palmtop and changed machines and software half a dozen times, the reminder had survived every upgrade.
The digital information had remained intact, but its human interpretation had changed ever so slightly. After all, Paolo worked at home now. Merely calling her would have been silly when his presence offered so many better opportunities.
Paolo slowed to a creep as he came to the Zen room. The door hung ajar, telling him the situation—his entrance was permitted, though only for important matters. Paolo decided that their daily phone call was important enough. He eased the door open.
The light of the Zen room, set to simulate candlelight, flickered with crimson and orange pulses that cast darting shadows. Sweet burning incense hung in the air. Paolo sang softly, "Sofia. It's time for me to call you."
She turned to him from the touchscreen on her desk. "Of course," she replied, though her voice seemed a bit tense. He took her head in his hands and kissed her–this was the new meaning of his twilight alarm.
Sofia returned the kiss, but it was brief, too brief for a true Sofia kiss. Then she turned away. Paolo exhaled slowly just beneath her ear. Normally his breath would have come back warm and moist, rich with the scent of Sofia's perfume. Somehow, though, this time the breath seemed cold and dry. Paolo stood up slowly. His voice barely rose above a whisper. "What's wrong?"
"Nothing," Sofia said unconvincingly, her eyes fixed on her touchscreen.
Paolo looked over her shoulder to see the focus of her attention. The touchscreen was the color of green felt, with playing cards arrayed around the table. One hand lay open, with aces and diamonds and clubs, but no spades. "Engaged in a game of bridge, I see," he continued, feeling stupid.
"Yes." Sofia's voice sounded irritated. "You're winning."
Paolo opened his mouth, then closed it again. "I am, am I? I didn't even know I was playing."
"Well, I named one of the computer positions Paolo," she explained. "You aren't playing very well, but you're still winning." Sofia's nostrils flared. "And you're winning because Mercedes can't make an intelligent bid to save her soul. I swear she's on your side, even though she's supposed to be my partner."
Remembering that this room was unwired, Paolo knew Mercedes was not playing a hand in this game any more than he was. He thought he'd try something lighthearted. "Sofia! Be glad that Mercedes and I aren't really playing. Neither of us is up to playing your kind of game, you know." Sofia held a Life Master card.
"Umph." The last of the cards flipped into the center. Scores automatically adjusted on the screen. Paolo could see Sofia's little hand clench into a fist.
Paolo spoke very gently, exactly the way a person of good sense would speak to an angry baby gorilla. "Uh, sweetest Sofia, could you rename those players so that Mercedes and I are not involved? Please?"
"What difference would that make?" she asked, eyes still fixed on the screen as the computer dealt another hand.
"Please, just humor me," Paolo said.
"After this game," Sofia compromised.
"Thank you, love. I'll leave you to your, ah, game."
"Umph," was her sole reply.
Paolo escaped from the room as quietly as he could. He was not as quiet as a cat, but he did his best.
When he reached the hallway he exhaled loudly and gasped for breath. He could feel a cold gray anger spreading through his mind. Why did Sofia have to be going crazy now, when things were getting so scary anyway? Then he closed his eyes and worked the anger, kneading it with his own understanding. Why shouldn't Sofia be a little crazy too? The last battle was nearly upon them, and all they could do was wait and play bridge. Sofia had as much right to a little anxiety as the newscaster, or the people featured on the newscast. By the time he was done going over it in his mind, the mix of anger and understanding had leavened into a soft compassion. He felt like himself again. He wondered how many times he'd lose it before the final hour. As for Sofia, he just hoped she didn't kill anything. Since he was the closest, he'd inevitably be the target.
"I can get out of this chair perfectly well on my own," Morgan snapped at CJ. He lifted himself, switched one handhold to the reclining lounge chair on his deck, swung himself around, and rolled onto his back. He took a deep breath.
"At least let me pour you a drink," CJ replied. She knelt next to the pitcher and glasses sitting on a tray on the deck. Morgan watched her, feeling his mood swing like a giant pendulum coming loose from its hinge. In eleven days he would cause the death of the woman now offering him a strawberry margarita. And she knew it!
He raised his hand and accepted the drink.
CJ pirouetted and fell into the lounge chair with him. He did not understand how she managed to not spill her own drink, nor how she managed to snuggle into such a small space with him without jostling him enough to make him spill his. She was a genius of physical agility! His heartbeat steadied again. Perhaps she would not die after all.
She pressed upon him, mapping herself to his contours. Her neck twisted. She looked up and gasped. "The stars really are a lot closer here."
Morgan smiled invisibly in the darkness. He relaxed into CJ's warmth. "I often think that if I could just reach up a little farther, stand on my toes, I could touch them." Morgan's ranch lay at six thousand feet altitude, on the edge of the Colorado Plateau, with nothing but the crisp clean Arizona sky above. For anyone raised in a city the night sky sparkled, a festival of resplendent fireworks that never waned. A story came to his lips unbidden. "You see the band of haze crossing there?" He swept his hand in an arc. He could feel CJ nod her head against his shoulder. "The first time Elisabeth saw it, she apologized to her guests for the cloudiness of the sky that evening. She had just come from L.A., of course, and hadn't quite gotten used to Arizona." He chuckled. "She had to apologize again a few minutes later when she realized that the haze wasn't clouds at all. That band of soft light is the Milky Way."
Morgan could feel CJ's cheeks widen in a smile. "That's a funny story," she said.
He looked down at her. Her eyes were closed; the miracle of the stars was not in tune with her mood. But he suspected that listening to him talk, about anything at all, would make her happy.
"We bought this place from a software guy," he said.
"A software guy on a ranch in Arizona?" she asked.
"Yep. It's not really that unusual these days—I mean, you can do software in the middle of a jungle—but the guy we bought it from wasn't the guy who built the first house here. That was over fifty years ago, and that was a software guy too." Morgan ran his fingers through CJ's hair. It was too short to be a girl's hair, in Morgan's opinion, but too soft and fine to be a boy's. "That guy who built the first house had been a VP in a big software company back in the Valley. He'd gotten burned out, and built a house here for the solitude. He was weary to death of dealing with people." Morgan paused. "Here there wasn't anybody but coyotes to bother him. Well, maybe his wife made him clean corrals, but what's a few horse apples compared to flame wars?"
"So you came here for the solitude, too," CJ guessed.
Morgan shook his head. "In fact, no. The guy the VP sold it to, and the guy after that, were both burnouts too. But Elisabeth and I actually bought this place for her bird experiments. We broke with tradition." He laughed harshly. "And then the first Shiva came and blew away Beijing while Elisabeth was attending a seminar there." Silence hung there for a moment. He shrugged. "Now I'm following the tradition, too."
CJ burrowed deeper into his side. "They all recovered, didn't they?"
"What do you mean?"
"I mean all those other people, they recovered, and went on with their lives, right?"
"Yes, but—"
CJ put her right index finger on his lips. "Shh. You will, too." Her finger brushed delicately across the lines of his face. "When I come back."
The silence hung heavy for a moment. Morgan said thickly, "Of course."
CJ's finger worked its way back to his left ear, tickling him. Blast it, the woman made it hard to stay focused on important things. But another part of his mind had to ask, was death really the important thing? Or was life? Somehow, his values had gotten twisted.
CJ spoke. "You know why I want you so badly, don't you?" Her voice had an edge of wicked laughter.
"Because you're infatuated with an old guy everybody thinks is a big hero."
She chuckled. "That too. But that's not what I was getting at. I want you to personally care, desperately, about getting me back. Maybe that will make the difference."
"I . . . wish it could be that simple." He breathed a deep sigh that turned into a sob before finishing. "You know, if you come back, it won't help me a bit."
CJ laughed at that, a low, wicked laugh that the goblins of the night could not help but hear and dance to. She nibbled his ear. "We'll see about that."
Morgan shook his head. "You don't understand. One of the reasons for getting someone out alive is so they can take my place." His voice choked. "But," he continued softly, "if I get you out, it won't help me, because I'd do anything to prevent you from living the way I do, dreaming of sandstone corridors smeared with blood and smelling of death."
"Love, we'll cross that bridge when we come to it."
"Oh, God, no," he moaned, closing his eyes tight. He turned his face to her and, guided by the warmth of her breath, brought his mouth down upon hers. The glittering stars watched in silence.
The Dealer walked along the pier, staring at the blazeboats resting quietly in the water. His dinner repast had been excellent. The champagne had been silly. Not as silly, however, as the champagne had made him, he feared. Still, he was enjoying he state he now found himself in, just a little bit out of control. He burped quietly—considered good manners in the old days of China; now he was glad there was no one near enough to hear or see.
The blazeboats were the latest rage among the young rich of Hong Kong, among the foolish children of the people who had earned the wealth in the first place. Now, in his elevated state of mind, the Dealer understood the roots of true wealth.
Expertise was the key, he realized. Karl Marx had almost gotten it right with his labor theory of value. But it wasn't quite the labor that counted, it was the cleverness—the expertise that put it all together—that made the difference. The Dealer's latest scam on the truck put it all in perspective for him. His expertise had been the secret weapon he'd used to pull off the deal.
Expertise. He'd read about expertise somewhere else recently, he recalled.
He strode along the edge of the water, trying to place the reference. He saw a slender, striking woman, barely visible from this distance despite metallic moonglow scattered from her silver dress; she laughed, and then he saw, just barely, the fellow in a black suit who accompanied her.
Expertise. The thought nagged him: where had he seen something important about it just days ago?
He came to the end of the dock and turned back up the street into the city. The skyscrapers rose everywhere. He looked up and saw, several stories in the air on one of the newest behemoths, a modest sign: Wan Feng Emarket and 'Castpoint.
Then he remembered. Reggie Oxenford had talked about expertise, that's where he'd read about it. The Dealer sort of remembered what Reggie had said:
Use your expertise to buy forecasts. Make a profit. Make a big profit. What could be more noble, more honorable, more just, than doing well by doing good?
What a delightful little silver lining. Doing a good deed as well as getting rich. Kam Yin almost laughed. Reggie had nailed another reason for the Dealer's feeling of triumph, one that the Dealer hadn't even thought about till now.
In getting this military cargo up to the top of Everest, whatever it was, the Dealer was not only making a profit, he was making a contribution to his whole planet. The cops wouldn't be chasing him for this one. What a relief!
But wait! The Dealer stopped, dazed, as he realized that Reggie had answered another question for him. The key to the 'castpoints was using your expertise. Forget the old-fashioned scams he'd been trying. The real money was in the knowledge, the quick insight. He was sure he could become a major contributor to the next assault on Shiva V. He didn't know exactly how his expertise could make a difference, but at this moment that seemed a minor detail. He would go to Fort Powell, immediately in the morning, to study the equipment the Angels used, to lard his cleverness with the knowledge he would need to be a true expert.
The Dealer had wandered back to the populated section of town. Clusters of people milled around everywhere. But now he didn't care about his audience; as he realized how to suck money out of the EDA 'castpoints, he gave a little whoop and threw his arms in the air.
His exultant whoop ended abruptly. Suddenly he felt sober, and not quite so proud as he had a moment earlier. His arms fell to his sides even as he continued to stare into the sky.
A bright ball of light hung in the heavens, a light that had not been there a month earlier. He recognized the newborn planet: Shiva V approached with a determination almost as unwavering as his own.
"I am ready," he whispered defiantly. "Come to me, and join your ancestors in oblivion."