Hot Sky at Midnight

of the cross, a lateral trembling and bucking of the middlemost pair of the six blue spheres that made up Juanito’s apparent body. “You and Olmo are friends! You call him up just like that and he talks to you. And so I am really fucked.”

“Yes. You really are,” said Farkas. “Todo jodido, isn’t that the phrase?”

“Si,” Juanito said ruefully. “Estoy jodido, completely. Completely.” He turned away and looked into the distance. A thin chuckle came from Wu. Good for him, Farkas thought. He is capable of being amused by Juanito’s distress. That meant he had stopped caring about his own predicament. Farkas liked the idea that the person who had so casually and gratuitously transformed his life beyond repair, long ago, was fundamentally indifferent to circumstances, an impassive technician, a pure force of nature.

Within moments Farkas saw two shapes moving purposefully toward him from the direction in which Juanito was looking: a red tetrahedron on spiny little legs and a pair of upright emerald columns joined by three parallel golden bars. They had to be the local Guardia Civil patrol, Farkas knew. Olmo was quick. Of course, K-M paid Olmo very well for his cooperation. And Valparaiso Nuevo was a very efficient police state, and the Guardia probably had outstanding communications techniques.

“Mr.—Farkas?” The tetrahedron speaking. A little hitch in the voice, a kind of verbal flinch. Farkas knew what that was: the first sight of the eyelessness, the blank forehead, often did that to people. “Colonel Olmo sent us. Two men, he said, we were supposed to get.” He sounded confused.

“I wasn’t that specific with him. Two people is all that I indicated. A boy and an old woman, as it happens,” said Farkas. “These two.”

“Yes, sir. Glad to be of service, sir.”

“Olmo made it clear to you that you aren’t supposed to hurt them, right? I don’t want you to hurt them. Just put them in storage until the procedures for their deportation are completed. Is that understood?”

“Yes, sir. Of course, sir.”

Farkas watched them lead Juanito and Wu away.

Now that he was no longer obliged to be guarding two prisoners at once, Farkas allowed himself to relax. He sat back, stared around the cobbled plaza.

An odd emptiness came upon him.

His mission had been satisfactorily completed, yes, and with striking ease. But it was strange, having had Wu in his possession after all these years of imagining what he would do to him if he ever caught him, and doing nothing at all.

Disguised as a woman, an old dowdy woman. Well, well, well.

It would have been easy enough, back there in the musty slaggy confines of the habitat shell, to have put his thumbs on Wu’s eyeballs and pushed. But of course Farkas knew that doing that would not thereby give him the normal vision that had been denied him before his birth. He wasn’t even sure that he wanted normal vision, anyway, not any more; but paying Wu back would have brought him a certain degree of pleasure.

But it was also necessary to consider that that one little moment of gory self-indulgence would have destroyed his career, and his career was a very fine one, extremely rewarding in a number of ways. It wouldn’t have been worth it.

And the boy—

Farkas felt no remorse about that. The boy would suffer: good. He was a treacherous little bastard who had behaved exactly as Farkas had expected him to, peddling his loyalties to the highest bidder, just as his father had done before him, apparently; and he needed a lesson. He would get one, a good one. Farkas brushed him from his mind and signaled to the waiter.

He asked for a small carafe of red wine, and sat patiently sipping it, waiting for Olmo.

It wasn’t a long wait.

“Victor?”

Olmo was hovering by his shoulder. By the color he was radiating, he seemed very tense.

“I see you, Emilio. Sit down. You want some wine?”

“I never drink.” Olmo arranged himself ponderously at the table, sitting at a ninety-degree angle from Farkas. It was the first time they had actually met: all their previous dealings had been by scrambled data-link. Olmo was shorter than Farkas expected him to be, but very stocky. The upper cube of the two that made up his body was wider than the lower one in a way that indicated broad shoulders and powerful forearms. When he was sitting down Olmo seemed to be quite tall, a massive presence.

Farkas imagined him at some earlier phase of his career sweatily working over the enemies of the Generalissimo in a basement room with a pliant strip of hemp: rising to his present eminence on this world from the humble ranks of the official torturers. Did El Supremo torture his enemies? Farkas wondered. Of course. All petty tyrants did. He would ask Olmo about it some time or other; but not now.

Farkas took a thoughtful sip of his wine. Local product, he supposed. Not bad at all.

He said, into an awkwardness that he was certain was caused by Olmo’s discomfort over the realities of his physical appearance, “You arouse my curiosity, Emilio. Something so delicate that you won’t even risk telling me about it by scrambler?”

“Indeed. I think I will have some water. It will look more casual to those who are watching us, and I know that they are, if I am drinking something too.”

“Whatever you say.” Farkas beckoned to the waiter.

Olmo hunched forward, cupping his glass in his hand. In a very quiet voice, more than a whisper but less than a normal conversational tone, he said, “This is strictly hearsay. The reliability of the source is questionable and the content of the rumor is so surprising that I am extremely skeptical. But I want to check it with you nonetheless. We did not, of course, have this discussion, if anyone asks.”

“Of course,” said Farkas impatiently.

“Bueno. So, then, this is the news. The possible news. Word has reached me, by, as I say, highly irregular and somewhat untrustworthy sources, that a group of criminals based in South California is getting ready to launch an insurrection against the existing authority here on Valparaiso Nuevo.”

“Southern California,” Farkas said.

“What?”

“Southern California. That’s what they call it. You said South California.”

“Ah.”

“An insurrection.”

“They intend to invade this world and overthrow the Generalissimo by force. Then they intend to establish their own government here, and round up all the fugitives who have taken sanctuary. And then they will sell them, for many billions of Capbloc dollars, to the various agencies and forces on Earth who would like to have them back.”

“Really?” Farkas said. It was a fascinating idea. Crazy, but fascinating. “Someone actually plans to do this?”

“I have no idea. But it is something that perhaps could be done, and it would be very lucrative if it was managed in the right way.”

“Yes. No doubt it would.” Valparaiso Nuevo was an absolute treasure trove, a gold mine of expensively wanted fugitives. But Callaghan had to have it well defended, and himself also. Especially himself. They didn’t call him the Defender for nothing. The only way to overthrow him would be to blow the whole place up. “I see why you called it a delicate matter,” Farkas said. “But why are you telling me this, Emilio?”

“For one thing, if there is a threat against the life of the Generalissimo, it is my responsibility to take preventive action.”

“I understand that. Still, why bring me in? Do you think I can lead you to the conspirators?”

“Perhaps.”

“For God’s sake, Emilio. I thought you were an intelligent man.”

“Intelligent enough, I think.”

“If I were involved with this thing, would I be likely to want to tell you word one about it?”

“That depends,” said Olmo. “Let us look at some other factors. I have not only the Generalissimo’s security to be concerned with, but also my own.”