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cockpit rolls open. It's a four-seater, with twin controls. Martinus turns to
Aiah and helps her into one of the front seats, then takes the other himself.
Aiah's never flown before, and nervousness stirs in her blood. She looks down
at the sandwich in her hand and wonders what to do with it  her appetite is
long gone. She puts it in her lap and fumbles with the crash webbing, and
Martinus reaches over and fits the clasps with quick, efficient movements of
his enormous hands. Aiah sees heavy slabs of callus over his knuckles and
realizes he's spent a lot of time practicing to hit people  or maybe, she
thinks, it wasn't all practice.
Fear crawls like a spider through her belly. Maybe she won't come back from
this. But no, she thinks, if they wanted her dead they could have ...
Martinus dons a headset and begins moving through a checklist written in wax
crayon on slick, erasable plastic. A starter ratchets, coughing like some
exotic animal, then turbines whine. Martinus peers out to watch the turbines
gymbal, then checks control surfaces. He frowns diligently at the checklist as
he jacks wires in and out of sockets to reconfigure the car's computer to its
new destination. He gets a series of amber go-lights across the instrument
panel, then reaches for the controls.
Suddenly the air is alive with plasm. Aiah can feel the hair on her arms stir.
The turbines howl, and then the car is airborne, moving on a stream of plasm
to its destination. Aiah's stomach is left behind; the smell of the cooking
grease on her fish sandwich suddenly revolts her. The turbine noise fades.
Aiah remembers to look out of the cockpit and sees the city far below, the
long gray roofs going on forever, all the way to the horizon, their monotony
occasionally broken by the skyscraper complexes, Mage Towers or Loeno or the
area around Bursary Street, rising toward the aerocar like foreshortened
claws. It's a bit frightening to see that far, to see a distant horizon
unblocked by a frowning office building or the brick wall of an apartment.
And then she's descending, tall buildings reaching up toward her. Directly
below is the flat concrete surface of a pad marked with a large target symbol,
and Martinus uses the turbines to do some fine maneuvering, one eye fixed to
the padded rim of a thing like a bombsight that lets him view the landing park
below. The sharp wind buffets the car, making Martinus frown, but he lands
with supreme gentleness, and then taxies the car to a parking area and shuts
down the turbines.
His eyes scan the sky. 'No one following,' he says.
The landing pad is built atop a parking structure meant to service the office
buildings that surround it. Aiah follows Martinus into an elevator that takes
them below ground. She still carries her sandwich, she can't seem to find a
place to get rid of it. They step out of the elevator and wait for a long
moment, and then a large car pulls up, a stretched-out Elton painted a subdued
gray. The car's design is purely functional, with no ornamentation at all, and
that's more impressive than all the chrome in the world; it suggests luxury
and ease and pampered living, economic security so all-encompassing it
eliminates the need for display. The windows are opaque and marked with a fine
crosshatching of bronze wire: armor against plasm attack. The Elton's turbine
sings softly. Martinus opens a rear door and waits for Aiah to enter.
Sorya sits in back, her penetrating green eyes fixed on Aiah. Her blonde hair
is tucked up under a knit cap, and she's wearing overalls over a gray sweater.
The overalls are black and shiny and tailored, with silver buttons, and
they're belted fashionably at Sorya's slim waist. Aiah wonders if there are
boutiques for such things.
'Hello,' she says, and sits by the other woman. The door closes behind her
with a firm metal thunk that makes Aiah think the car might be armored.
'Sorry to interrupt your meal,' Sorya says, and looks at the sandwich. Aiah
feels her cheeks flush. The car has a trash container and Aiah drops the
sandwich in it, drops the silvered metal lid.
'Any trouble?' Sorya asks.
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'Should there have been?'
Martinus gets in next to the driver. There is a soft singing sound from the
two big contra-rotating flywheels in the built-up area behind the front seat,
and the car smoothly pulls away.
'Certain formalities,' Sorya says. 'Sorry.'
Aiah sits stiffly while Sorya searches her, pale competent hands probing her
body for batteries, recorders, antennae. She manages to avoid twitching as
Sorya clinically explores her crotch. Sorya finishes the job, then settles
back in her seat.
'You'll have to give us directions to your glory hole,' Sorya says.
'Ah.' A chauffeured Authority worker, Aiah thinks, now that's inconspicuous.
'Let me think. Just head in the direction of Terminal.'
Saturday first shift, she thinks. Around midbreak. Lots of people on the
streets. She wasn't going to be able to sneak Sorya through the old apartment
building. They would have to use the tunnels, and she didn't dare use the
nearest access, not with the possibility of being recognized by one of the men
who'd attacked her.
'Will Constantine be joining us?' she asks.
Sorya looks at her. 'Constantine is far too fastidious to do his own dirty
work, ne? I hope you're not disappointed.'
Aiah shakes her head. 'In fact, I'm relieved.' Amusement twitches the corners
of Sorya's mouth. 'Why?'
'Because if he were with us, there's no way I could hide him.'
Sorya's laugh trills out. 'Very good,' she said. 'You are perceptive.'
'It will be hard enough hiding you.'
Sorya's brows arch. 'How so?'
'You're beautiful, which means people will notice you no matter what. You're
dressed better than anyone we'll meet today  certainly better than anyone
I've ever seen go down a manhole. And Mr Martinus is not inconspicuous,
either.'
Sorya judges this. 'Perhaps you have done this sort of thing before.'
'No. But I'm learning.' Aiah looks at her. 'And at least you didn't bring the
panther.' Aiah looks out over Martinus's broad shoulder, sees a wide avenue
moving smoothly past, office blocks half-deserted on a Saturday, pastel neon
adverts scribed across empty black windows. 'Another thing,' she says.
'Do you have climbing gear? Safety lines, harnesses, carabiners?'
'Will we need them?'
'Only if we want to do this safely. I don't want to return you to
Constantine in a damaged condition.'
Sorya seems amused. 'Tell us what we need, and we'll buy it on the way.'
Sorya carries a checktube charged with a significant amount of cash, because
even when Aiah gets extravagant with her requests the gear is purchased
quietly, without complaint, the checktube plugged into the cash register,
little gears singing. The purchases set Aiah's mind running in fiscal
channels.
'Don't think,' she says after she returns to the car, 'that you've purchased
this source for the money I found in my pocket yesterday.' In fact it had
amounted to five thousand dalders, all in untraceable coin, enough to clear
Aiah's debts and still have plenty left for the bank.
'Take it up with Constantine,' Sorya says.
i'm taking it up with his representative,' Aiah says. 'You know my price. No
amount of interfering with my head will change that.'
'That,' Sorya says, 'was not my idea.' [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]