offices are in Pod 2, business suite 273. I can have an escort waiting on your arrival, if you’d like.” It was less an offer than a command.
“That will be fine,” Heikki said, achieving a proper boredom with an effort, and cut the connection. She sat staring at the empty screen for a long moment, her coffee forgotten on the table beside her. This is not the way the corporations deal with the independents, she thought again. They had my name, my mailcode, not just the personal contact code, on their hot list, pulled it out of the automatic answering queue and gave it to a human being to deal with. And that, she added silently, is when I start to worry.
Almost without thought, she keyed Sten Djuro’s codes into the machine. She owed him warning of a possible job anyway, but, more than that, she wanted him to use his connections among the FTL community, to see what he’d heard about Lo-Moth, and Foursquare. The screen pulsed softly to itself for some minutes, but she did not cancel the contact. At last, the screen brightened a little, but no picture took shape. Djuro’s harsh familiar voice said, “What is it?”
“It’s Heikki, Sten.”
“Ah.” The screen cleared abruptly, and the ex-engineer’s lined face filled the screen. “What’s up?”
Over the little man’s shoulder, Heikki could see the single room he lived in, as bare and unfurnished as though he still lived in freefall. A slate-blue sleeping pad lay near the far wall, disarranged by his waking; there was nothing else, not even a teacup, on the spare white mats.
“We’re bidding on a job,” she said aloud. “Do you know anything about a company called Lo-Moth?”
Djuro shook his head.
“They’re a crysticulture firm, based on Iadara, Sixth Precinct. It’s a typical crysticulture world, hot, humid, and a lot of sand.” Heikki took a quick breath, pushing away the too-vivid memories. “Anyway, they lost an LTA there a couple of months ago, and they’re taking bids to find it.”
“No locator, no beacon?” Djuro asked. The wrinkles tightened around his yellowish eyes, an expression that could be either humor or suspicion. Heikki shook her head, and had the satisfaction of seeing the ex-engineer frown. “Wait a minute, didn’t somebody default on that one, a precinct firm, a week or so back?”
“That’s right.” Heikki smiled. “See if you can find out anything about that, would you? Official or unofficial, I don’t care. I’m meeting a man named Mikelis at fourteen hundred, and I’d like to know a little more before I talk to him. It sounds like an interesting job.”
“That’s one way of putting it,” Djuro said, rather sourly. “All right, Heikki, I’ll ask around.”
“Thanks,” Heikki said, and cut the connection. Left to herself, she studied the various menus for a moment, her hand sliding easily across the shadowscreen, then selected the Exchange Point’s business library. At this hour, there would be a dozen librarians on duty, and the surcharges would be correspondingly high—but with luck, she thought, the information I want should be available with ordinary callcodes. At the idiot prompts, she keyed in requests for Lo-Moth’s shareholder reports and precis for the past three years, and then, after a moment’s hesitation, called up the more expensive FortuneNet yearly report. As the screen began to fill, she shunted the information to the hardcopier, and leaned back in her chair to consider her next move.
She had friends in the corporations, people for whom she’d worked, people with whom she’d studied, years ago, people she’d done favors over the years. The question was, was this the time to call those in? No, she decided slowly, not yet. I can find out enough on my own. She shut down the workstation and most of the media wall, and reached for the sheaf of paper lying in the copier’s basket.
By the time she had finished reading, the media wall’s remaining window displayed the time as 1242. Heikki sighed, and set aside the last of the closely printed pages. She had learned nothing world-shattering from the morning’s work: Lo-Moth was reasonably respected by its peers, made a steady though not spectacular profit for its shareholders, and had only the usual difficulties with its workers. In truth, the only oddity was that the company was able to maintain an office suite in the point’s exclusive Pod 2, and that was explained by the fact that Lo- Moth’s major shareholder— their holdings amounted to a controlling interest in the company—was the Loop conglomerate Tremoth Astrando.
1243 now, and the appointment was for 1400: it would take her most of the hour just to reach Pod 2. She swore softly, and left the workroom, to begin pulling clothes from the wall units with practiced haste. She dressed quickly, skirt, sleeveless tunic, multi-pocketed belt, a long scarf wound like a turban over her unruly hair, bright gold rings in ears and nose, then shrugged on the tailored jacket with the spiral collar that was the badge of business on the Loop. She caught up her data lens and tucked it into the slim outer pocket of the belt. She clipped its cord into the powercell concealed in yet another pocket, and saw the red test light glow briefly in the heart of the lens. As she slid her feet into the brightly painted station slippers, she heard the suite’s private door sigh open.
“Heikki?”
Djuro’s voice: Heikki let herself relax, her hand moving away from the latch of the compartment where she kept her blaster, to pick up the c-plastic knife she habitually carried in a thigh sheath. Even corporate security generally failed to pick up the special plastic, and she did not like to travel completely unarmed. “What’s up?” she called, and moved out into the main room. “I don’t have a lot of time, Sten—” Her voice faded, seeing the expression on the little man’s face. “What’s up?” she said again.
Djuro grimaced. “I don’t entirely know, Heikki. I did what you asked, and I’m getting answers I don’t like.”
“Oh?” Heikki stopped in the act of tucking the datasquare containing the bid figures into her belt. “What sort of answers?”
“They say—and I grant you it’s ‘pointer gossip—that FourSquare was paid a lot of money to break the contract.” Djuro shrugged, his expression bleak. “I heard that from Tabith Fang, and Jiri, and Thurloe. I’d’ve called you, but I wasn’t sure I wanted to put that kind of talk on the net.”
Heikki nodded. “Probably smart. Do you think it’s true, then?”
“I don’t know,” Djuro answered. “Fang doesn’t get this kind of thing wrong, but Thurloe—he’s a gossip, and Jiri’s just crazy. I don’t know. I’ll keep asking, if you want.”
“Yeah, I do, thanks.”
“Heikki.”
The woman paused, her hand on the doorplate, looked back over her shoulder with a lifted eyebrow.
“If it’s true, there’s serious trouble,” Djuro went on. “I don’t think we should bid.”
“I agree,” Heikki said, and kept her voice deliberately mild. “If it’s true. But I want to hear what Lo-Moth has to say. For God’s sake, Sten, it’s a preliminary meeting.”
Djuro shook his head. “You’re the boss, Heikki,” he said, not happily.
“That’s right,” Heikki answered, with a nonchalance that would have pleased Santerese, and pushed open the door of the suite.
She rode the spiralling stairs up to the corridor level, where Pod 19 joined the Exchange Point’s support lattice. About a hundred meters from the stairhead, a roving jitney slowed invitingly. Heikki hesitated for an instant, balancing expense against time, then lifted her hand. The jitney slid to a stop, and she levered herself into the cramped compartment. “Pod 2, suite 273,” she said to the computer box, and to her surprise there was a clicking noise from the machine.
“Pod 2 is traffic-restricted,” the voicebox informed her, its artificial tones without inflection. “Transport is provided to the main level entrances only.”
Heikki’s eyebrows rose. “Then take me to the second level entrance.”
“Acknowledged.” Lights flashed across the voicebox’s black surface, letters and numbers moving too fast for a human eye to read, and the jitney pulled smoothly out into the center of the corridor. Heikki leaned back against the cushions, trying to erase her sudden worry. Sten’s contacts don’t necessarily know what’s going on, she told herself, he said as much himself, but the words seemed to ring hollow in her mind.
The jitney made its way down the corridor, then through a connector tunnel, this one lined with holo-panels displaying a simulated starfield, and finally out into the brilliance of the Ten-Twenty Connector. It was crowded there. The jitney was stopped for several minutes, beeping futilely, in front of an interactive theater, before the press of people eased, and the machine was able to proceed. It was a relief when the jitney reached the descender and was able to swing off into the maze of express corridors. Light flooded the tubes from strips set into ceiling and floor, a dizzying brilliance. Heikki shielded her eyes, wincing, until the sensors kicked in and the jitney’s windscreens darkened.
