We’d have to do something about his language.
“This interesting little device represents your conditional freedom,” I said, and tossed it into his lap, casual. “The decision is yours. If you agree to wear it and give me some help, you won’t have to spend the next seven years of your sentence in this little box. Well, let’s call it six years, because they tell me your behavior has been exemplary. They’ll knock a few months off, count on it.”
El Ex-Afortunado lifted his hands—then stopped, halfway to his neck. “I knew it was a trick. Pozzies never play square.” He dropped the collar like a kid who’s tired of a toy and pushed it my way with one foot, scornful. “Might as well leave, pozzie. I’m doing okay here. I got room to exercise, I got enough books to read and enough tapes to watch to last me three lifetimes, all the virtual sex I could want, and—”
“And nobody to share it with and nobody to talk to. No streets, no freedom, no real life.” I cut him short, triumphant, and picked up the collar without offering it to him a second time. “So don’t tell me you’re not interested, because I’m not going to believe you.”
“Hmm, maybe,” he admitted, reluctantly. “Come on and spit it out, pig. Tell me what you want from me. You gotta have something pretty heavy on your hands or you wouldn’t be taking a chance with a superdangerous Gaussical like me.”
I didn’t set him straight about how dangerous he was—not yet. I told him the whole story in broad strokes, even about the stash of energy crystals that Makrow 34 might have hidden somewhere in the asteroid belt.
When I was done, Vasily let out a short but infectiously lighthearted laugh.
“I get it. Cute little assignment your bosses dumped on you, pozzie. Interesting. Maybe I even know somebody knows something about this Makrow guy. Ain’t too many Cetians out in the asteroid belt. Ain’t supposed to be any at all, right? One thing I’m not clear on: you want me to help you find a needle in a haystack, then grab it without getting stabbed?” He was using my own metaphor. I guess humans have a limited number of analogies in Standard Anglo-Hispano. I nodded, glad to see how well we understood each other. “But all you offer me is to spring me from this force-field cage so as I can spend the rest of my life with an electronic dog collar.”
“Plus we erase your record. You get a clean slate,” I added, suspecting he was going to turn me down. But I wasn’t about to give up.
“A clean slate.” Vasily cleared his throat loudly and spat on the immaculate pseudo-wood floor of the cell. The nanocomponents built into the phony parquet began bustling around the little puddle of sputum, absorbing it with the efficiency you’d expect from alien tech. He looked on with a hatred bordering on tenderness. “Oh, pardon my manners. I just can’t get used to this air conditioning,” he said snidely. “Besides, the little bugs are fun to watch.”
I summarized our situation: “In other words, you want more.” We were off to a good start—and he still hadn’t found out that Makrow 34 was a freak just like him, except a thousand times worse. “All right. We might be able to negotiate the collar. A portion of the time, anyway.”
“Give it a break, machine-boy. I’m locked up here, sure, but I’m alive. You ain’t told me what’s so special about this Cetian, but he’s gotta be real, real dangerous.” If I had a genuine throat, I would have gulped. “Don’t tell me there ain’t nothing special about him, either. I ain’t so dumb as I look. Damned if I’ll jump out of the frying pan so as I land in the fire. I don’t know the strength of my own Gaussical power—I was just starting to test it when they nabbed me. In fact, I only learned what it was called right here in this cell, and that there were others like me. You know how the aliens don’t just control human access to their technology but to information, too. The illegal Web is barely a drop in the ocean compared with what they censor from us. Look here, tinman, I’m gonna ask you one question. Yes or no, that’s all. Don’t try pulling one over on me.” His green eyes stared straight into my fake pupils. “If there’s anything kept me alive out there, it was my old friend, intuition. Right now she’s whispering into my ear that this Makrow 34 guy must be more than a match for me, Gaussically speaking. ’Cause he’s gotta be a fucking Gaussical to make you come here looking for me, am I right?”
I nodded, astonished by the soundness of his reasoning. You could tell Vasily had spent a lot of the past three years educating himself. I doubt he’d have been quite so articulate when he first landed in prison. Or so logical.
Fuck it. I told him everything, with all the gory details.
“I knew it.” He half-smiled, shaking his head emphatically. “In that case, sorry, my answer’s still no. I’m no match for a freak like that. If I coulda took care of you pozzies like you say he did, I wouldn’t even be here.”
“But he had help,” I objected, trying to win him over. “I’ll be with you.”
“Oh, right. I forgot about that detail. Best reason for me to refuse. Like the Cetian’s not bad enough already, you want me to take on a Colossaur too? I never liked the things—half gorilla, half armored tank. No thanks. Plus the human, on top of it all. I don’t want to get within a thousand miles of any human crazy enough to shoot at a pozzie and to survive three seconds fighting hand-to-hand with a Colossaur. Even if it was staged.”
I looked down.
