Final Days

There was just enough loup-garou still left circulating through Saul’s bloodstream to ratchet up his fight-or- flight responses, but he felt his nerves settle a bit as the whisky slithered down his throat. It had a pleasant, slightly honeyed texture.

‘Sometimes,’ said Tanner, refilling his own glass before raising it, as if in salute, ‘I wonder how it ever got to the point where good honest criminals were forced to print their own money.’

‘At least it’s real money,’ muttered Hsingyun, finally picking up his glass and taking a sip. ‘And not just numbers encoded on some fucking computer’s memory.’

‘Ah,’ Tanner nodded, ‘that’s why I came here, to Kepler.’

‘For black-market cash?’ asked Saul.

‘That and freedom, too. Back there,’ he said, waving one hand towards the opposite wall, as if the entire planet Earth were lurking just on the other side of it, ‘there’s none. Back there it’s all invisible credit. But that,’ he gestured with his glass at Saul’s briefcase, ‘that’s real, tangible. You can hold it in your hands. Walk around the street stalls back in the city, you’ll see that stuff getting used. People here trust it more than they ever did UP-linked credit.’

Saul nodded. The cash in the briefcase had been printed on black-market presses that had been impounded long ago by the ASI. They had been obliged to print their own or they’d never have been able to pay the network of informants they maintained throughout a dozen worlds. Tanner was right, of course: back on nd Luna, where the only legal currency had a purely virtual existence, you couldn’t do anything without leaving a trail of information behind you. The underground economy had no choice but to develop its own secret banking and credit system, replete with its very own currency.

Tanner paused, as if about to say something, then withdrew a slim device, placing it against his ear and nodding after a few moments. A telephone, Saul realized with a shock; the kind normally relegated to museums. Tanner really was serious, it seemed, about leaving the old world behind.

‘Verdict’s in,’ said Tanner, returning the device to his pocket. ‘Your arbitration unit is good, and your money is real.’

Saul nodded, fingering the lid of his briefcase as if to close it again. ‘Then we can get started on working out schedules and delivery dates. That means—’

‘Not quite.’ Tanner nudged the gun closer to Saul. ‘Pick it up,’ he said.

Saul stood absolutely stock-still. He could see Hsingyun and Jacob to his left, around the other side of the table, while the remaining street soldier had moved to stand by the wall directly behind Tanner. Kwan stood to Saul’s right, and nobody was paying any attention to the TriView.

‘Why the hell should I?’ asked Saul.

Tanner glanced over his shoulder at the street soldier, and said something to him in rapid Mandarin. The man stepped up behind Jacob, grabbing him by both arms just above the elbow, while Kwan crossed the room in a couple of steps, and pulled one arm right back before punching Jacob hard in the stomach.

Jacob crumpled, wheezing. The street soldier and Kwan took a shoulder each and quickly manoeuvred him into one of the chairs by the table. Saul watched, rooted to the spot, as Kwan pulled plastic restraints from a pocket before expertly securing Jacob’s hands and feet to the chair.

‘Ben,’ Jacob’s voice was cracking, ‘I don’t know why you’re—’

‘Shut up,’ snarled Tanner.

Jacob tried to say something else, but Kwan punched him in the jaw before he could get it out. Jacob’s head snapped back, and he fell silent, although Saul could see he was still just about conscious. A thin trickle of blood emerged from one corner of his mouth.

The seconds seemed to trickle by at an infinitely slow pace. Hsingyun appeared unperturbed by the sudden violence. His eyes met Saul’s, who realized in that moment that they had been compromised since long before he had even arrived on Kepler.

A second weapon had appeared in Tanner’s hand, a Koch flechette pistol. He levelled it at Saul’s chest, and waggled its barrel towards the table.

‘Now pick up the gun, Mr Lassen,’ he said, using Saul’s false identity.

Saul took a deep breath and slowly laid one hand across the pykrete gun’s bulbous coolant chamber, without picking it up. He realized, with a sinking feeling, that the wooden panels on the far wall were rippling gently. That meant the psycho-actives were starting to kick in, and were clearly much more powerful than Jacob had claimed. Everything felt slightly unreal, as if at one remove.

‘Why,’ he asked Tanner, ‘are you doing this?’

‘You say your name is Lassen,’ Tanner replied, then nodded towards Jacob, ‘but I have it on good authority that Mr Cowles here is in fact employed by the ASI. And if he’s ASI, that means you probably are, too. In fact, everything we know about you comes through Cowles, or whatever his fucking name is. That means, if you want to prove yourself, by which I mean, show me you’re legitimate and serious about doing business with the Tian Di Hui, and not just some undercover cocksucker, then you’re going to have to walk the extra mile. Kill Cowles and I’ll believe you really are who you say you are.’

‘If that’s what you think, why not just kill me instead?’ asked Saul, struggling to keep his tone even. ‘Why hand me a gun?’

‘The Tian Di Hui have rules when it comes to dealing with new clients,’ explained Tanner, the barrel of his Koch dipping until it pointed at Saul’s crotch. Saul did his best to ignore the unpleasant tingling suddenly radiating through his loins. ‘We like to know if they’re genuinely committed to a working relationship with us. Now – let’s suppose my information isn’t correct, and you really are who you say you are. Even if that’s the case, the Tian Di Hui will only deal with one person at a time. That means either we deal with Cowles here,’ Tanner nodded over his shoulder towards Jacob, ‘or we deal with you.’ He shook his head slowly. ‘But not both.’

‘So you want me to kill him?’ said Saul. The gun felt solid and heavy beneath his fingers as it rested on the polished wood.

‘If you don’t,’ said Tanner, ‘we very definitely will kill you.’