Mighty Good Road Read online

  “Then you will be bidding?” Xiang asked softly.

  Heikki allowed herself a rather wry smile. “I’ll have to talk it over with Santerese, of course. But it does sound like an interesting problem.”

  Xiang returned a crooked smile. “And also a difficult one,” he said, without much hope. Heikki’s smile broadened, and Xiang sighed. “Which is, of course, what makes it interesting.”

  “Precisely,” Heikki agreed, and wished they would go away.

  Engels’ eyes narrowed as though he’d read the thought, and he leaned forward a little, as though he wanted to prolong the conversation out of sheer perversity. To Heikki’s relief, however, Xiang rose gracefully, shaking his head at Engels. “It was good to see you again, Heikki,” he said aloud. “I’m sorry to rush, but we have to catch a train.”

  “Nice talking to you,” Heikki said, to their retreating backs, and knew Engels, at least, heard the patent insincerity in her voice.

  When they were out of sight, Heikki fished her data lens out of her pocket, tilting it so that she could read the chronodisplay that flashed in the heart of the lens. She had a little more than three hours to kill before her train left for Exchange Point Seven: not enough time to do any useful research into this possible contract, and too much time to fill. She touched the pad again, ordering a second gin, and stared into space, hardly seeing the hurrying waiter.

  Trouble on Iadara—no, she amended quickly, not necessarily trouble, you can’t jump to that conclusion yet, but a problem to be solved, and on Iadara…. She had not been on that world in more than twenty years, but to her surprise the memories were still startlingly clear. She could almost taste the dank air of Lowlands, heavy with salt and the peppery smell of the perpetually encroaching clingvines, could feel the kick of a sailboard crossing the dirty bay, see the sunlight flaming from the long low roofs of the crystal sheds on the sands just outside the city line. She had learned to drive heavy-load vehicles on those sands, and flown her first aircraft over the scrubby backlands; it had been Iadara she had left to work in salvage. It would be strange to go back there now, her parents dead, her brother gone who knows where, to work for the corporations the family once had scorned.

  She shook the thought away, forcing her mind back to business. If they bid for the job, they—she—would have the advantage of knowing the planet: it would help, but not that much. They would still have to make a canny estimate, and impress whoever was doing the hiring at Lo-Moth, before they got the job. She touched the orderpad again, summoning the waiter, and when the man appeared, asked him for an intersystems messageboard. The waiter bowed and vanished, to return a moment later with board and stylus. Heikki thanked him—the Explorers’ Club did not permit gratuities—and punched in the familiar codes. After a moment’s thought, she began to write.

  M. Santerese, sal/prop, UMC RQ5JBIP19.22051, greetings. Do me a favor and check the bid listings for Lo-Moth, no numbers known, out of Precinct 10IIadara, then meet me at the Club on the far concourse. I’m on the 1805 out of EP1. Thanks, love. G. Heikki, sal/prop, UMC RQ5JBIP19.22053. She read the message through a final time, wincing a little at the transmission charge displayed in the upper corner of the screen, but there was nothing she could cut without offending her partner. She sighed, and pressed the transmission codes, watching the message fade from the screen. There was no acknowledgement, and she had expected none. She sighed again, setting the board aside, and reached for her drink instead.

  Salatha gin was an Iadaran drink: the taste brought back more memories, less pleasant ones. Iadara was a divided world, split like almost every Precinct world between the first settlers—who had to be generalists, jacks-of-all-trades, simply to survive the first years—and the second wave of specialists, come to exploit the particular resources discovered by the first wave. In Iadara’s case, the second wave had been crysticulturalists, corporate employees importing a corporate, ‘pointer, ethos completely foreign to the Firsters’ ways of thought. Heikki had come to Iadara just turned fourteen, newly admitted to the ranks of the almost-adult; her mother had worked as a consultant for Lo-Moth itself. Ten years a consultant, Heikki thought, an unconscious echo of her father’s constant complaint, ten years a consultant to one firm, and then offering contract work, begging her to take it, but she never gave in, never gave any of us that security. They had settled in Lowlands, the largest—the only—city, a hot, dirty place cooled only fitfully by the wind off the too-distant fields or by the seasonal storms. It filled every tenth-day with workers from the crystal fields—neo-barbs, many of them, another local grievance, that off-worlders could be hired so cheaply—a tide of people that ebbed and flowed with the rhythm of the growing stones, black sheep, too many of them, shipped off to sinecures where they could do no harm. They tended their putative business when they felt like it, or when they had to, and spent most of their lives in the clubs and private houses inside the charmed circle that was Lowlands’ inner range. The fourteen-year-old Heikki had taken a long look at them and theirs, and with the cold certainty of the adolescent had thrown in her lot with the Firsters. She had eaten their food and learned to drink their liquor, learned their lisping dialect, accepted corporate scorn and parental reproof, and never been one of them. These days, she had to admit the folly of the attempt, but she did not—entirely—regret it.

  Cold thoughts make hot choices: the Iadaran proverb made her grimace, and push her drink away unfinished. She touched the orderpad a final time, calling up and verifying the list of charges, and stood slowly, the carryall a sudden weight on her shoulder. Maybe we shouldn’t bid on the job after all, she thought, but the outrageousness of that idea steadied her. If half of what Xiang had said was true, it would be an interesting problem, and interesting problems usually brought healthy fees.

  She walked a little further down the concourse, barely seeing the brightly-dressed crowd, and turned after a few moments into the bow of an observation bubble. It was filled with tourists, perhaps half of them ‘pointers, the rest planetsiders, all exclaiming and hanging back from the front of the bubble, where floor and walls alike were made of clear armorglass. Heikki ignored them, and made her way silently through the crowd until she could rest her hands against the cool surface of the glass. The bubble did not look out into space—not even the architects of Exchange Point Four, the most structurally ambitious of the stations, would have dared so to compromise an exchange point’s integrity—but onto the immensity of the Main Concourse. Directly opposite, several hundred meters away, the concourse wall ran with color: the most imposing lightfall in the Loop, responding instantly to every sound made on the concourse below, the noises translated to light that blended in a display more gorgeous than the most active aurorae.

  Heikki stared into the lightfall, letting her mind go blank. The solid wall cut off the sounds from below, but she had been on EP1 often enough to guess at some of it. The rippling background light, yellow and oranges spiked now and then with blossoms of acid green, was the sound of human voices, the ‘pointer linguaform spiced now and again with pitched languages and the drug-deepened voices of FTLships’ crews. Another, more brightly colored pattern, deeper greens and blues with a flush of lavender, moved in counterpoint across the lighter background: music, Heikki thought, and craned her neck until she found the musicians, a group of four seated just outside an expensive-looking restaurant.

  The lightfall was a famous landmark, the one thing every visitor, even those who had only an hour or two between trains, had to say she’d seen. It was also, Heikki thought, one of the very few famous sights that lived up to its reputation. She edged back a little, letting others get between her and the open wall, watching the crowd as well as the spilling light. They were much the same as any group of travellers, the subtly-shaded, soberly-tailored clothing and brilliant facepaint of ‘pointer fashion mixing with the looser, lighter styles that prevailed planetside. There were even a pair of neo-barbs, their elaborate crystal-and-copper jewelry at odds with their coarse hom
espun trousers and fraying tunics. They were cleaner and younger than most of their kind, but the rest of the crowd gave them a wide berth. They edged forward together to stare wordlessly at the technological marvel, then left as silently as they had appeared.

  Heikki followed them a few minutes later, retracing her steps along the crowded upper corridor, then down the secondary stairs that led to the slidewalk and the station arch. It was still a little more than an hour before the train could leave—it took several hours for power to build up again in the cells, and for the crystals to return to the resting state—and she hesitated for a moment at the end of the slidewalk, wondering if she really wanted to spend that time shut into the train’s tiny capsule. She shrugged to herself, and reached into her belt for the disk that was her ticket. There was nothing else to do, unless she wanted another drink, and there wasn’t time for that. Sighing, she resettled the carryall, and shouldered through the crowd to the accessway that led to platform three.

  The ticket machine whirred gently to itself as she inserted the disk, and then the padded barrier swung back. The disk did not reappear. Heikki sighed again, and touched the button that would route the costs to her tax file, then stepped through the opening. A moment later, the barrier fell back into place with a dull thud.

  The platform was crowded, men and women—predominatly ‘pointers—milling back and forth between the string of capsules and the dozens of vendors, mechanical and human, that were crammed into the arches against the stationside wall. Most were tape-and-game dispensers, but Heikki counted four different newsservice kiosks and at least three preprinted bookstores, as well as a brightly lit Instapress. All were busy: the actual act of travelling between Exchange Points might be virtually instantaneous, but the preparations for each translation could take several hours while the crystals relaxed, the capacitors regenerated, and cargo and passengers were moved on and off the train. A multi-Point trip, one between two stations not directly connected, could take six or seven hours; if one were travelling from the Loop—from any of the Exchange Points—into its parent planetary system, the trip could take days. Even with the new generation of FSL taxis, “fast sub light” remained something of an oxymoron. It was no wonder that the multi-system businesses tended to concentrate management and sales functions in the Loop, and leave only production facilities planetside. That shift of power was the real reason for the Retroceders’ popularity, Heikki thought, and it’s not that unreasonable. Of course they, the planetsiders, want back the power they lost— but you can’t reverse four generations of change.

  Lights flashed overhead, and a chime sounded, signalling that the capsules were open for boarding. There was a general rush for the train. Heikki lifted her eyebrows as an acrimonious voice rose over the general noise of voices—it belonged to a thin woman in a planetsider’s loose robe and the Retroceders’ tripleR pin, haranguing strangers in an unfamiliar linguaform—and chose a capsule as far from the stranger as possible. The door swung open under her touch, and she slung the carryall into the empty compartment. The capsule rocked a little as she climbed aboard, settling under her weight, then steadied as she shut the door behind her. With any luck, she thought, lowering herself into the forward-facing seat, she wouldn’t have to share the capsule.

  Automatically, she tucked the carryall into the space beside the seat, suddenly aware of the way the capsule swayed in the light lifting field. The high-bowed boats that crisscrossed Lowlands’ silty harbor moved just like that at anchor…. She pushed the thought away, and reached back into the carryall for a workboard. Scowling to herself, she began to scribble down the information Xiang and Engels had given her, making notes for Santerese. After a moment, she leaned back, studying the faintly glowing screen. The locator beam failed, she thought, and then the crash beacon. The odds against that being accidental—she cut off that thought with a frown. No, it was still possible that it was merely an accident—planetsiders, especially in the Precincts, were notorious for running without working safeties, just to save a few poa—but still, a double failure like that sounded unpleasantly like deliberate sabotage. She and Santerese had dealt with a couple of jobs that turned out to be sabotage, and neither had been easy.

  The sound of a chime put an end to those thoughts. Automatically, she returned the board to its place in the padded carryall, then drew the safety webbing across her body. She settled herself more comfortably against the cushions, feeling a familiar tension tightening her muscles, and willed herself to relax. Santerese claimed blithely that she was never worried before a train ride; Heikki, who had seen her partner go pale each time the trains lurched into motion, was only half grateful for the lie. Sten Djuro, the firm’s third member, claimed that the first trip through the open warp left its print in every fiber of the body, and that the tension one felt wasn’t fear, but a sort of physical memory of passage through the unreality of the warp. Well, he should know, Heikki thought—Djuro had been an engineer-crewman on FTLships before he left that for the asteroids and then for salvage, and knew more about the theories of the Papaefthmyiou-Devise Engine than either of the others—but the explanation wasn’t particularly helpful.

  Overhead, red lights flashed on the ceiling board, and the chime sounded again, deeper and more insistent this time: last call, and clear the platform. The roving vendors would be retreating to the shelter of the arches as the vacuum shields slid into place—not much use in the case of catastrophic failure, and everyone knew it, but regulations still required them. Outside the capsule’s bubble window, the light turned blood red as the platform was sealed. The PDE was running up to power, the full power necessary to move the train’s mass through the permanently open warp. Heikki could feel the capsule wobble as the field’s grip weakened. Ahead of the train, the barriers that sealed off the warp would be folding back, a gap too empty to be real replacing the comfortable grey of the massive doors; beyond that, the crystals that created and held the warp would be crackling, sparks snapping between them and out into the unreality of the warp. And at the heart of it all, the twinned central crystals, one on EP1 and one on EP5, would be glowing blue-white with the power they had absorbed from the cells, ready to unleash it, to fling the train capsule by capsule across the gap between stars.

  Then the train lurched into motion, each capsule jerking forward separately. In the same instant, the shutters came down over the capsule’s windows. Heikki swore softly, half in exhilaration, and flattened herself against the yielding cushions. The capsule bucked once, crossing the “threshold,” and then she hung for an interminable moment outside all reality. Then the capsule was through, reality returning to body and mind, and the shutter lifted to show the familiar platform of Exchange Point Five’s Station Axis.

  Overhead, the lights faded from red to normal-white as the capsule slowed in the clutching gravity field. Heikki touched the tractor, and waited while the safety netting reeled itself back into the housing. She stretched then, and leaned forward to look out the now-unshuttered window. She could just see the notice board and its flashing message: This train is proceeding to EP7. Transfer to platform 2 will begin in 15 minutes. She sighed, and reached for her workboard again, calling up the newsservice article on the lunar waste dump. She read it through twice more, paying solemn attention to each word, before the train was finally shunted onto the station’s second track, positioned in front of the warp that led to EP7.

  There were no vendors on the platform outside her window. Heikki frowned, and then remembered that Exchange Point 5 restricted them to the outer station. Instead, a double row of dark red rubiglass pillars stretched along the platform’s face, casting weird shadows across the last hurrying travellers. It was a severe and somber architecture—typical of EP5, Heikki thought. For some reason, it and EP6, the other major FTLport, where most goods were brought into the Loop from the Precinct worlds that fed them, seemed to favor an aggressively functionalist design.

  The warning sounded, and a few moments later the platform lighting went
from white to red. The pillars glowed eerily in the changed color, and then the shutters closed and the train lurched into motion. Translation came almost at once, jolting away breath and thought, and then the capsule was through the warp, and sliding up to the platform on EP7. Heikki reached sideways a little stiffly and pressed the release. The safeties retracted into their housings, while in the same moment the door folded back, letting in the bright lights and the noise of home. She seized her carryall and levered herself out onto the platform, balancing herself almost absentmindedly against the rocking of the capsule, enjoying the familiar chaos of a newly-arrived train.

  As a resident, she was entitled passage through the priority gate. The duty officer barely gave her a glance as he scanned carryall and papers, then waved her through the dissolving barrier field. “Thanks,” Heikki said, to his unresponsive face, and headed down the length of tunnel that connected the Axis to the main body of the Exchange Point. There would be jitneys available on the concourse.

  There was a queue at the jitney stand, of course, and it was obvious that the ten jitneys pulling to a stop in a neat line would not be enough for half of the waiting crowd. Heikki swore to herself, and pulled the lens from her pocket. The chronodisplay read 1829: she could take a float, or be late. She swore again, silently this time, and joined the queue at the float platform. It was shorter—the floats were expensive, and only carried passengers across the open inner volume of Pod One—but even so she was still ten people away from the head of the line when the attendant shook her head.

  “Sorry, full up. The next float will be along in five standard minutes.”

  Heikki grimaced, and bit her tongue to keep from saying something immodest. To her surprise, however, it was only a few minutes before the next float swam gently up out of the lower levels, and into the platform’s grabbing arms.