muttering, said at last, “Yeah, well, I’m hungry, too, sweetheart, and I need to pee, which is something I really don’t want to try here, given what happens when ammonia hits chem-sand. So, when do you think we can get moving?”
Cerise reached down to adjust the seat, brought it back to a normal driving position. “Switch on the radio, will you? Find something with traffic reports.”
Trouble did as she was told, trying to ignore the pressure in her bladder, fiddled with the communications console until she found a local radio station. Traffic reports were already being broadcast—light traffic on the access roads, getting heavy on the flyways, no serious delays at the border tolls or the bridge tolls into the city— and Cerise nodded thoughtfully.
“I think we can chance it.”
She touched the switch that brought the runabout’s motor off standby, eased the machine into gear. The low sun glared through a thin haze of cloud, starting a headache behind her eyes; she made a face, and swung the runabout out from the shadow of the ruined building. She needed sleep, she knew, and a shower, wondered briefly if she could pass any remaining roadblocks in this state. She would simply have to, though: there weren’t any other options. Hopefully, the traffic would be heavy enough to hide one more runabout—and it should be, she thought. The locals who worked in the city, people from the Sands and Southbrook and all the other little towns along the coast, not just Seahaven, would have to leave now if they were to make the usual eight-thirty starting time. There should be plenty of traffic to obscure their presence. You hope, she added silently, and carefully did not smile. Trouble would not, in her current mood, be much amused.
At the entrance to the Plantation, Cerise slowed the car, checking the line of traffic feeding toward her. As the radio had promised, it wasn’t too heavy as yet; there were breaks in the line of runabouts and light trucks, and she slid her own runabout into a gap, matching the general speed with practiced ease.
“I wonder what they think we’re doing?” Trouble muttered.
“More like what they think we’ve been doing,” Cerise answered, her attention on the controls. “People do go to the Plantation, you know.”
“Yeah, for sex, drugs, and suicide,” Trouble answered.
“Well, we weren’t killing ourselves,” Cerise said, and to her surprise, Trouble grinned.
“And nobody much cares about the rest, yeah, I know. Except maybe the cops.”
“They shouldn’t be worrying about commuters,” Cerise said, with more confidence than she felt. “After last night, they should be too short on manpower to worry about commuters.”
“You hope,” Trouble said, and shifted uncomfortably against the seat.
“Yeah,” Cerise said, and opened the throttle as the line of runabouts picked up speed.
They crossed the causeway through the marsh in silence, only the inconsequential babble of the radio rising above the noise of the runabout’s engine. As they approached the rotary, Trouble held her breath, but the fast- tank parked outside the cop-shop stayed motionless, only the revolving blue light at the top of its carapace to remind drivers that it was manned and ready. Cerise took the runabout through the rotary at an unexpectedly decorous pace, did not pick up speed again until they were on the main road that led back to the flyway. She stopped at the first truck plaza they came to, this one just outside Southbrook proper, where they paid for the use of shower and toilets. Clean again, Cerise refused to eat there, claiming that there was a better plaza further along the flyway, and Trouble was too tired to argue. To her surprise, however, Cerise was right: the Eight-Ball Cafe, built on a median set between the two lanes of the flyway, proved to be both clean and relatively friendly. The food was good, too, as was the coffee, and Trouble gorged in silence. It was trucker food, thick and greasy sausage and fried bread, fried eggs and potatoes, unhealthy and enormously satisfying; she looked up at last, dredging the last slice of toast through the runnels of egg yolk, to find Cerise grinning at her.
“Feel better?”
“Some,” Trouble admitted, and added, with cheerful malice, “I didn’t get any sleep last night, remember?”
“Someone had to keep watch,” Cerise said, without apparent guilt.
“So now what?”
Cerise shrugged. “Kill some time, I suppose—you could always eat another breakfast—until we can head back to Seahaven.”
Trouble refused the offer of food, and Cerise paid their bill without complaint. After that, they found themselves in the deserted game room, and spent ten in citiscrip learning the Super-Lyrior table. Once they’d figured out the rules— imperfectly explained on the casing display and in the single help screen—they spent another five in citiscrip before they’d mastered the system, and embarked on a series of free games that lasted until the manager, free of the breakfast rush, arrived to suggest they move on. It was past nine by then; Cerise accepted the order meekly enough, and Trouble followed her back out onto the paving. The lot was all but empty now, a couple of big rigs parked to one side, windows opaqued to let the drivers sleep; the sun, finally free of the early morning fog, was startlingly warm. In the distance, on the western horizon, the trees glowed red and orange against the sky. Trouble glanced back once, looking east, and saw the sea like a wide blue line beyond the housetops. From here it looked pristine, the pale rim of the beach bleached by distance, and she looked away again, made uncomfortable by the knowledge that it was all illusion.
It was not a difficult journey to Seahaven after all. Cerise got them back onto the flyway without incident—it was a left entrance and a long ramp that wasn’t always long enough, from the look of the dark stains on the concrete barriers where the ramp ended—and then dawdled in the slow lane, driving on manual just a few kilometers above the local minimum, until they reached the Seahaven turnoff. She switched to grid control then— no use annoying the local authorities or drawing attention to themselves before they had to—and let the grid take them back down to Eastman House.
They arrived a little after ten, turned the runabout over to the man on duty at the door—Cerise hesitated, just a little, but knew better than to do anything out of the ordinary— and made their way into the lobby. Trouble caught her breath, recognizing the man slumped on one of the low couches under the disapproving eyes of the staff, glanced instinctively backwards to see Bennet Levy emerging from the bellman’s cubicle beside the door.
“Cerise,” she said, and Cerise said, loudly, “Hello, Mabry.”
A big man, broad-shouldered and heavy-bodied, with a mass of greying, disreputable curls, turned away from the main desk and smiled, showing teeth. “Hello, Cerise. And this must be your—former partner.”
“Christ,” Levy said, not quite under his breath, and Starling, who had levered himself up off the low couch with unexpected grace, said gently, “I’m sorry, Vess, this is Treasury business.”
“I’m afraid not,” Mabry said. “I have authority in this country to make arrests, and I’m taking Ms.— Trouble—into custody as a material witness.” He eyed the Treasury agent shrewdly, added, “I’m sorry, John, but you’re chasing the wrong one.”
“You’ve made a deal,” Starling said, and Mabry nodded. Trouble, watching, couldn’t quite read the Treasury agent’s expression, thought for a moment she almost saw relief mingling with the chagrin.
“That’s right. And you can take it up with your superiors if you have any questions,” Mabry said. The words could have been hostile, but his relaxed tone and easy stance robbed them of much of the offense.
“You know we’ll have to, Vess,” Starling said.
“I know. But can we call a truce until you’ve settled it?”
“And you know I can’t do that, either.” Starling sighed, looked past Trouble to his partner. It was a speaking look, and Trouble barely restrained herself from turning to see Levy’s expression. “Give me your word you won’t leave the hotel until I’ve got my bosses’ reading, and I’ll let you get breakfast.”
“Done,” Mabry said, and, as Starling stared at him expectantly, added, “You have my word.”
It was all, in the end, unexpectedly civilized. Starling vanished into one of the shielded communications cubicles to call his superiors, while Levy, his face set into a stony mask of disapproval, followed them upstairs to Mabry’s room. There, Mabry ordered breakfast for them all, over Cerise’s polite and Trouble’s more definite protests, and they sat in silence, eating and drinking the near-infinite pots of coffee until at last Starling reappeared.
“Is it all arranged?” Mabry asked, and Starling shrugged.
“My bosses would appreciate some help with the eventual prosecutions—you understand, they don’t want to cause you trouble over jurisdictions, but this has been a stateside problem as well…”
