None of these issues seemed to concern the urban planners who designed Proudhon—
Proudhon the spaceport and Proudhon the city not only coexisted, but interpenetrated, two metallic neon-outlined animals in the midst of devouring each other. Landing strips became causeways, high-rises became conn towers, and through it all, weaving between the buildings, the ever-present spaceport traffic dodging not only itself, but also aircraft never meant to leave the atmosphere—everything from aircars to luxury tach-ships vied for its own chunk of the air above Proudhon.
Over everything, a cluster of twelve floodlit white sky-scrapers were the only sign of architectural order. Mallory suspected that those were the headquarters of the Proudhon Spaceport Development Corporation.
He had reserved space in a hotel only a few klicks from the concourse. There didn’t seem to be a need to go farther afield before he got his bearings here. Bakunin was only a means to an end anyway. It was possible that he could make all the arrangements he needed without leaving his hotel room.
The Hotel Friedman was a retrofitted luxury liner that had grounded and never taken off again. He had only skimmed the description, but it apparently had been outbound from Waldgrave nearly two hundred years ago and suffered mutiny by the ill-treated and underpaid crewmen. During the height of the Confederacy, leaving Bakunin again would invite capture and repatriation of the ship, as well as possible death penalties for the crew members stupid enough to try and fly it away. Instead, the crew sold it to a speculator who then bought the pad it landed on and went into the hotel business.
The reservation chit the kiosk had produced let him into the hotel. His room/cabin wasn’t one of the more expensive suites. Like everything else he did, he chose a room based on how likely the selection was to attract attention. He made a point of selecting something in the middle range.
Once in his room, he decided he probably could have saved a few grams of currency and gotten the cheapest room they had.
The Friedman must have dated from a truly decadent episode of Confederacy history, and the current owners had made an extensive effort to preserve the two-hundred-year-old opulence. Walking into the cabin was like walking into a page in a history book; a history book written from the point of view of a post-revolutionary Waldgrave historian who had a point to make about fascistic capitalist excesses.
Every surface in the cabin was detailed in carved hardwoods that age and oxidation had only made richer. All the visible hardware was detailed in engraved brass. And, most lavish—especially when Mallory reflected that this was designed as a cabin in a ship that had to enter and leave a gravity well—was the size. It was really more a suite than a cabin, with three separate rooms. There weren’t any windows, but a large holo unit could be programmed to show recorded views of just about any planet in human space, as well as a few that only existed in some artist’s imagination.
Mallory set down his duffel bag, found a setting on the holo that actually showed the real-time view of Proudhon outside the skin of the hotel/ship and sank into the leather couch that dominated the living room.
CHAPTER SIX
Geas
A soul’s value tends to appreciate considerably after it is sold.
No price is too high to pay for the privilege of owning yourself.
Nickolai had
To Nickolai’s new eyes, the man looked weak and pathetic even for one of the Fallen. He was thin, with twiglike limbs and a long narrow face. His hairless skin was aged, wrinkled, and dry. What hair he had was white and as thin as the rest of him. He smelled of the end of life. However, as close as this man might have been to death, for Nickolai he just wasn’t close enough.
They sat in a room in a Godwin club that sold privacy like Nickolai’s old employer sold exhibitionism. The room was sealed to vibration, light, and EM-transmission. Nickolai knew the screens were active because he had felt a
