Someone recognized you.
Who might that have been?
The skin by Bergers eye gave a leap. Its already taken care of, he said. We didnt want him giving your name to anyone else.
Da Vega. Well. At least it wasnt Ken.
But there was also a threat: Berger didnt want her in this refugees paradise, where the number of desperate people was higher than average and where a policorporate kidnap team could find her. If theyd already iced one person, they could put the ice on another.
Lets talk payment, Reese said. Brighter Suns, I think, can afford to pay me what Im worth.
RAMS COPS HAD beaten some woman to death during interrogation. Ken was busy at his console, putting out fact and opinion pieces, making the most of another death for the revolution. Reese paced the room, picking at the tattered wallpaper, eating Mongolian barbecue from a waxed paper container. Below the window, some drunken descendant of the Golden Horde was singing a sad song to the moon. He kept forgetting the lyrics and starting over, and the burbling ballad was getting on Reeses nerves.
Id feel better, she said, if Cheney was paying you a decent wage.
He pays what he can afford. Kens fingers sped over his keyboard. The money has to be laundered, and he has to be careful how he does it.
You dont even have a promise of a job after its all over.
Ken shrugged. Prince can always use another economist.
And you dont have protection. Ram could order you iced.
He needs a live scapegoat, not a dead martyr. He frowned as he typed. This isnt a mysterious business, you know. Ram knows our strength and most of our moves, and we know his. There arent very many hidden pieces on the board.
The Uzbek began his song again. Reese clenched her teeth. She put her hand on Kens shoulder.
Im disappearing tomorrow, she said.
He tilted his head back, looking up in surprise. His fingers stopped moving on the keys.
Whats wrong?
Nothing. I got a job.
She saw a confirmation in his eyes. Not one you can talk about, he said.
No. But its not for Ram. In case you were wondering.
He took her hand in one of his. Ill miss you.
Reese put her food carton on top of his video display. Her chopsticks jabbed the air like rabbit ear antennae.
Ive got another twelve hours before I take the plane to Beijing.
Ken turned off his console. I can send the rest out tomorrow, he said.
Reese was surprised. What about the revolution?
He shrugged and kissed the inside of her wrist. Sometimes I feel redundant. The revolution is inevitable, after all.
Its nice to know, Reese said, that the devil can quote ideology to his purpose.
Outside, the Uzbek continued his wail to the desolate stars.
THE TUG WAS called Voidrunner, and it was thirty years old at least, the padding on its bulkheads patched with silver tape, bundles of cable hanging out of access hatches. Reese had been in enough ships like it not to let the mess bother herall it meant was that the tug didnt have to impress its passengers. The air inside tasted acrid, as if the place was crammed full of sweating men, but there were only four people on board.
Berger introduced the other three to Reese, then left, waving cheerily over his shoulder. About four minutes later, Voidrunner cast off from Charter Station and began its long acceleration to its destination.
Reese watched the departure from the copilots chair in the armored docking cockpit. The captain performed the maneuvers with his eyes closed, not even looking out the bubble canopy at the silver-bright floodlit skin of Charter, reality projected into his head through his interface thread, his eyelids twitching as his eyes reflexively scanned mental indicators.
His name was Falkland. He was about fifty, an Artifact War veteran who, fifteen years before, had been doing his level best to kill Reese in the tunnels of Archangel. A chemical attack had left his motor reflexes damaged, and he wore a light silver alloy exoskeleton. Fortunately his brain and interface thread had survived the war intact. He wore a grey beard and his hair long over his collar.
Prepare for acceleration, he said, his eyes still closed. Well be at two gees for the first six hours.
Reese looked out at Earths dull grey moon, vast, taking up most of the sky. Right, she said. Got my piss bottle right here. Hard gees were tough on the bladder.
After the long burn Voidrunner settled into a constant one-gee acceleration. Falkland stayed strapped in, his eyelids still moving to some internal REM light show. Reese unbuckled her harness, stretched her relieved muscles while her spine and neck popped, and moved downship.
Falkland offered no comment.
The crew compartment smelled of fresh paint. Reese saw the tugs engineer, a tiny man named Chung, working on a bulkhead fire alarm. His head was bobbing to music he was feeding to his aural nerves. Chung was so into the technophilic Destinarian movement he was turning himself slice by slice into a machine. His eyes were clear implants that showed the interior silver circuitry; his ears were replaced by featureless black boxes, and there were other boxes of obscure purpose jacked into his hairless scalp. His teeth were metal, and liquid crystal jewelry, powered by nerve circuitry, shone in ever-changing patterns on his cheeks and on the backs of his hands. He hadnt said anything when Berger introduced him, just looked at Reese for a moment, then turned back to his engines.
Now he said something. His voice was hoarse, as if he wasnt used to using it. Hes downship. In Cargo B.
His back was to Reese, and she had been moving quietly. His head still bobbed to inaudible music. He hadnt even turned his head to speak. Thanks, she said. Nice implants.
The best. I built em myself.
Arent you supposed to be monitoring the burn?
He pointed at one of his boxes. I am.
Nice.
She always found she had common ground with control freaks.
Vickers was in Cargo B, as Chung had promised. He was Reeses armorer, hired by Berger for the sole purpose of maintaining the combat suit that Reese was to wear on Cuervo. Vickers was young, about eighteen, and thin. His dark hair was cut short; he had a stammer and severe acne. He was dressed in oil-spattered coveralls. When Reese walked in, Vickers was peeling the suits components out of their foam packing. She helped him lay the suit on the deck. Vickers grinned.
W-wolf 17, he said. His voice was American Southern. My favorite. Youre gonna kick some ass with this. Its so good it can p-practically do the job by itself.
The suit was black, long-armed, anthropoid. The helmet, horned by radio antennae, was fused seamlessly to the shoulders. Inside, Reeses arms, legs, and body would fit into a complex web that would hold her tightly: the suit would amplify and strengthen her every move. It wasnt entirely natural movementshed have to get used to having a lot more momentum in free fall than she normally did.
F-fuckin great machine, Vickers said. Reese didnt answer.
The Wolfs dark viewplate gleamed in the cool cabin light. There was a clean functionality to its design that made it even more fearfulnothing in its look gave the impression that it was anything but a tool for efficient murder. The white Wolf trademark shone on the matte-black body of the suit. Reese fought a memory charged with fearWolf made most of the cyberdrones shed encountered on Archangel. The combat suit, free of its packing, had a smell shed hoped shed never scent again.
I want to look at the manual, she said. And the schematics. If her life was going to depend on this monster, she wanted to know everything there was to know about it.
He looked at her approvingly. Ive got them on thread in m-my cabin. The suits standard, except for some c-custom thread woven into the t-target-acquisition unit. Berger knows who youre going to b-be gunning for, and he put in some specific target-identification routines. Youre gonna be h-hot.
Thats the plan, Reese said. The smell of the Wolf, oil and plastic webbing and cold laminate armor, rose in her nostrils. She repressed a shiver.
Vickers was still admiring the Wolf. One wicked son of a bitch, he said. When talking to machines, he lost his stammer.
REESE AND THE Wolf moved as one in the void. Amber-colored target-acquisition data glowed on the interior of the black faceplate. Below them the asteroid glittered as flecks of mica and nickel reflected the relentless sun.
No way theyre not gonna know youre coming, Berger had told her. Not with your ships torch coming at them. We stabilized the rocks spin, so you can try landing on the blind side, but theyre smart enough to have put detectors out there, so we cant count on surprise. What were going to have to do is armor you so heavily that no matter what they try to do to you, they cant get through.
Great, she thought. Now the rocks little techs, human and alien, were probably standing by the airlocks with whatever weapons theyd been able to assemble in the last weeks, just waiting for something to try booming in. All she could do was hope they werent ready for the Wolf.
The hissing of her circulating air was very loud in the small space of the helmet. Reese could feel sweat gathering under the Wolfs padded harness. The rocks short horizon scrolled below her feet. Attitudinal jets made brief adjustments, keeping Reese close to the surface. The Wolfs suit monitors were projected, through her interface stud, in a complex multi-dimensional weave, bright columns glowing in the optical centers of her brain. She watched the little green indicators, paying little attention as long as they stayed green.
The target rolled over the near horizon in an instanta silver-bright pattern of solar collectors, transmission aerials, dishes pointed at different parts of the skyIn the middle squatted the gleaming bulk of the freighter that had been sent to retrieve the base personnel, its docking tube still connected to the big cargo airlock.
Reese had a number of choices for gaining entry: there were two personnel airlocks, or she could go through one of the freighter locks and then through the docking tube. There were nine personnel on station, five humans and four Powers.
They can brew explosives with the stuff theyve got on station, Berger had told her. But they cant put anything too big around the airlock, or theyd decompress the whole habitatand they dont have enough stored air to repressurize. They cant set off anything too big inside, or theyd wreck their work. Its too small a place for them to plan anything major. We figure theyll depend on small explosives, and maybe gas.
The base rolled closer. Reese felt her limbs moving easily in the webbing, the hum of awareness in her nerves and blood. A concrete certainty of her capabilities. All the things she had been unable to live without.
Coolant flow had increased, the suit baking in the sun. The webbing around her body was chafing her. She thought of explosive, of gas, the way the poison clouds had drifted through the tunnels on Archangel, contaminating everything, forcing her to live inside her suit for days, not even able to take a shit without risking burns on her assat least this was going to be quick, however it went.
Reese decided to go in through one of the small personnel airlocksthe brains inside the rock might have decided the cargo ship was expendable and packed its joints with homemade explosive. She maneuvered the Wolf in a slow somersault and dropped feet-first onto the Velcro strip by Airlock Two. Berger wanted her to get in without decompressing the place if she couldthere was stuff inside he didnt want messed up. Reese bent and punched the emergency entrance button, and to her surprise she began to feel a faint humming through her feet and the hatch began to roll upshed planned to open the hatch manually.
How naïve were these people? she wondered. Or was there some surprise in the airlock, waiting for her?
Youre gonna c-carry that stuff? Vickers had asked in surprise, as he noticed the pistol snugged under the armpit and the long knife strapped to her leg.
I dont want to depend entirely on the Wolf, shed said. If it gets immobilized somehow, I want to be able to surprise whoever did it.
Thered been an amused grin on Vickers face. They immobilize the Wolf, they sure as hell can immobilize you.
Adjust the webbing anyway, shed said. Because battle machinery always went wrong sooner or later, because if the mission directive didnt give her backup, shed just have to be her own. Because she just didnt like the Wolf, its streamlined design, its purposeful intent. Because even to someone accustomed to violence, the thing was obscene.
Reese knelt by the airlock, pulled a videocamera from her belt, and held it over the airlock, scanning downand fought back a wave of bile surging into her throat, because the lock was full of dead men.
Mental indicators shifted as, with a push of her mind, she ordered her attitudinal jets to separate the Wolf from the Velcro parking strip, then drop into the lock. The dead swam in slow motion as she dropped among them. Her heart crashed in her chest.
The crew of the freighter, she thought. The rebels had put them in here, not having anyplace else. Their skins were grey, the tongues protruding and black. Some kind of poison, she thought.
Welcome to Cuervo Gold, she said, and laughed. Nerves.
She hit the button to cycle the airlock, found it refused to work. Incurious dead eyes gazed at her as she cranked the outer door shut manually, then planted thermocharges on the inner door locks. She drifted up to the top of the airlock again, the Wolfs horns scratching the outer door. The dead men rose with her, bumping gently against the Wolfs arms and legs.
Reese curled her legs under her, protecting the Wolfs more vulnerable head and back. Adrenaline was beating a long tattoo in her pulse.
A vulture smile crossed her face. Her nerves sang a mad little song. Heres where I take it up the ass, she thought, and pulsed through her wetware the radio code to set off the detonators.