CHAPTER 5

Beautiful Maria stepped to the shacktube door pressed the Open button. Bending low, she stepped inside.

Ubu was watching a holohype, his upper set of hands clasped behind his head. Space pirates, led by Phil Mendoza, were perpetrating rape and massacre in the air before his face. There were empty beer bottles in the trash. Carnitas lay uneaten in a cardboard container set on the floor by his rack.

“Be going for a walk,” Maria said. “Wanna come?”

Ubu’s attention drifted toward her. “Guess not,” he said.

She crouched by his side. “You ought to get out of here.”

Holographic gore exploded across the space between them. “I don’t think so,” he said. “No place to go, right?”

Maria looked at him. “It’s your shoot.”

“Don’t remind me,” he said. His attention returned to the hype.

Sadness poured through Maria’s heart. Ubu had barely moved since his arrest, barely spoken. He didn’t want to step out onto the rim, didn’t want to see anyone.

Maria turned and left the tube. Kit de Suarez, fidgeting, waited on the catwalk. “He’s not coming,” she said, and closed the shacktube door.

Kit seemed relieved. “Too bad,” he said. He put his arm around her.

“I want to help him,” she said. “He thinks it’s all his fault, and it isn’t.”

“He’ll get over it.” There was no conviction in Kit’s voice.

Maria said nothing. She was thinking hard.

*

Being under arrest had proved surprisingly painless: after Maria and Ubu had given the station their finger and retinal prints, the Procureur looked at their records, yawned, and concluded they were nonviolent. Rather than take up the resources of the tiny jail, the station put them up in a pair of shacktubes. Four times each day they were required to press their thumbprints to the scanners set in their comm units and prove they hadn’t jumped station.

Runaway was sealed, its access codes altered. Its formal condemnation by the Admiralty Court was only a matter of time.

Maxim was the only member of the crew still on the run. The station cops had pursued the cat through the ship but failed to catch him. Maxim could live for another few months on the contents of the ship’s automated food and water dispensers, but before then Runaway would almost certainly be broken up and its singularity drive sold. The cops were currently taking under advisement Maria’s offer to fetch the cat herself. Apparently they needed to know if OttoBanque considered the cat part of Runaway’s assets.

From the Angelica news service, Maria had learned how they had been detected. The Monte Carlo had put their names on the station comp on a security alert, and when Ubu reapplied for the loan with OttoBanque, the bank’s computers automatically referenced the security file, found Ubu’s name, and alerted a human supervisor. The supervisor had taken a few days before bothering to look over the loan; then when he’d seen it, he’d first checked his core programming to see if it had been tampered with, then called the cops.

Maria had the impression the bank really wanted to know how it had been done. Until they either offered money or dropped the charges, however, OttoBanque could just go on wondering. Until then Maria was sticking to her story: if she got the loan extended, it had to be some kind of glitch in the program. She hadn’t expected the application to be successful: she’d been surprised herself when it was.

Things were awaiting further definition.

“Hey. You Beautiful Maria, right? I’m Oswald.”

“Go away.”

“Hey. Just want to talk, shooter femme. Maybe I can help with your problem.”

Oswald was tall and had a supple moned body. His voice was surprisingly soft and wonderfully plausible. Maybe he’d been a shooter once, gone bankrupt on the Edge, and found himself in a new line of work.

He wasn’t particularly good at it, Maria reflected. Most of the other pimps had begun appearing within two hours of her arrest.

“Get away from me,” Maria said. She moved closer to Kit, put her arm around him as they started walking down the street. The man followed them, his white manicured hands fluttering in emphasis to his words.

“Your problem’s money, right? Gotta pay the lawyer, pay the bills. And this place is full of people with money. All you gotta do is find someone to perform the proper introductions.”

Kit turned toward him. “Leave or die,” he said.

Oswald looked skeptical. He shrugged, looked at Maria. “Talk to you another time,” he said. His eyes flicked back to Kit. “You I’ll see later, maybe.”

“Anytime.”

Maria and Kit continued their walk. “You didn’t have to do that,” Maria said. ”He would have left.”

“His threats don’t impress me,” Kit said. Belligerence crackled in his voice. “Compared to my family, the guy’s gotta be an amateur. I’d have taken him apart.”

Laughter bubbled to Maria’s lips. “Leave or die. Jesus Rice. You sounded like some guy on a hype.”

“Yeah. Guess I did.” He joined in the laughter. “First time I’ve ever done that.”

“Lucky it was somebody like Oswald.”

Kit laughed again. “Yeah. Guess it was.” He looked at her, the laughter fading from his face. “I’m worried about you,” he said.

“I’ll be okay.”

“You may go to jail.”

“Probably not, the lawyer says. They have no evidence against me. I’ll probably just get deported down to the planet as an undesirable.”

“That’s bad enough.”

“Ubu’s the bossrider. It’ll go harder with him.”

“Water falls right out of the air down there.”

She looked at him. “I’ll watch out for the water, Kit,” she said.

He shrugged, accepted the reproach. “I’m still worried, though. I wish you could come with us when we clear station tomorrow.”

“I’m under arrest.”

“We come back.” Hopefully. “We stop in Angel every six months or so.”

“Maybe I’ll see you then.” Maria tossed her head. “Let’s get lunch.”

“Right.”

They had spiced lamb in garlic sauce, wrapped in chapatis. Under the table, Kit kicked off his sandals and ran his bare feet up Maria’s legs. Maria grinned and wiped juice from her lips.

“How long before Abrazo leaves?”

“San Pablo shot in yesterday with our shipment. They’re only three days out. We’ll jump station as soon as we transfer cargo from the Pablo.”

“What kind of shipment? You never said.”

Kit hesitated, then offered an embarrassed grin. “Reflex,” he said. “Marco’s been drilling me all my life never to say anything about the business.”

Maria shrugged. “I don’t really care about the shipment, Kit. I was just making conversation.”

“It’s a new ore crusher.” Stubbornly. “Made by Seven Systems for the Biagra-Exeter operation on the big asteroid they’ve shifted to Cold Harbor.” Maria smiled at the defiance in Kit’s words. Perhaps he’d never broken one of Marco’s taboos so openly before.”

“Thank you, Kit,” Maria said. “I’ll give you ten percent when I sell the information.”

Kit looked startled, then grinned.

Maria raised her glass of lemonade to her lips. Sadness drifted through her as she thought about what she might have to do, how Kit might be used. She didn’t want to hurt him.

But he was necessary.

“I’m worried about my cat.” It was better, Maria thought, if the idea came from Kit. “But they’ve got a guard on the tube.”

*

Angelica’s rim, its brightness and noise, faded below them. They were in one of the station’s smaller spokes now. Maria’s voice echoed in the conveyor’s confining metal tube. “I hope Maxim’s okay. The cops couldn’t catch him.”

Painted numbers were flaking away on the interior of the tube. The metal gave a series of popping noises as it adjusted to heat stresses. Kit had his arms around her from behind, standing close on the small platform. “He’ll be all right. He gets food and water.”

“They’re going to condemn the ship and tear it apart.”

“All we have to do is find the right person to ask.”

The hub’s fifth level drifted past, then the fourth. Runaway was on the third level: they stepped out of the conveyor, drifted slowly to the metal deck, touched down. The sound of the docks, metal and horns and hammering, blossomed around them.

Maria looked for Runaway, saw the big matte-black station cargo doors crossed by yellow plastic ribbons— police seals— that looked as if they’d been taken by mistake from somebody’s birthday party. There were more seals on the personnel lock, and before it a lanky uniformed woman who sat on a folding chair and turned the plastic facsimile pages of a magazine.

An unexpected sorrow pulsed through Maria’s heart. Runaway waited behind those locks, the ship powered down now, controls dark, life-support silent, the centrifuge locked down. She had a vision of Maxim padding through the empty corridors, Pasco’s sad ghost walking alongside. Nonsense, she thought, they’d probably shut the computer down with everything else. For some reason that thought increased her sadness. Tears stung her eyes.

Kit touched her arm. “You okay?”

Maria shook her head and fought off the sadness. She pointed at the guard. “Damn,” she lied. “I’ve met that one. She wouldn’t let me in yesterday.”

“I’ll ask her.”

“No good.” She frowned. “If I had access to a vac suit I’d be able to get in through an outside airlock.”

“Haven’t they changed the codes?”

“There are trapdoors in our system. I could beat any new codes easy.”

“I see.” Suddenly his tones changed. “Oh. It’s Marco.”

Maria turned and saw Marco and one of the younger de Suarezes leaving the Bahía, moving toward their conveyor. Marco’s deep yellow eyes were already fixed on Maria and Kit. He bounced once, landed, came to a stop in front of Maria. The other de Suarez followed, flexing his shoulder muscles. Maria could sense the tension in Kit’s body, the masklike quality of his expression.

“Bossrider,” Beautiful Maria said. “Shooter.”

“Bossrider,” said Kit. “Elder Brother.” He turned to Maria. “This is Ridge, my cousin.”

“Nice,” said Ridge, looking at her. This was not, Maria decided, short for “Nice to meet you.”

“Heard of your trouble,” Marco said, not bothering with formal politeness. “Too bad you got to pay for your pop’s mistakes.”

Maria fidgeted with the brace on her wrist as she looked down at the shorter man. “It’s something everyone does,” she said. Marco’s eyes hardened.

“Some people overcome it. The rest just learn how to fail.” Marco turned to Kit and pointed at him with the horned middle finger of his right hand. “See you at eighteen hundred.”

“I didn’t know I had duty,” Kit said.

Marco scowled at him. “Do now. Beats hanging around with losers.”

“Bossrider,” Kit said.

Marco bounced toward the conveyor. Ridge looked at Maria again, then turned to Kit.

“Hope you’re not paying much,” he said. “Members of that family should be going cheap about now.”

Kit looked at him. “I’m not paying anything at all,” he said.

Ridge laughed and clapped him on the shoulder. Kit staggered. “Good boy,” he said. “You’ll have to tell me all about it.” He turned to Maria, laughed again, and jumped high over Maria’s head on his way to the conveyor.

Kit stood still, his jaw working. He turned to Maria. “Sorry,” he said.

Maria took his arm. “Is he always like that?”

“Just about. Ever since he started taking the hormones.” He frowned. “He’s the bossrider’s favorite. He’s learned all Marco’s lessons.” He thought for a moment. “That was a lesson we just had, by the way. The proper way to deal with losers.”

“I suppose I’ll have to get used to it.”

Kit took a long breath. Maria sensed resolution in him. “I’ll help you,” he said.

“Help me how?”

“Help you get aboard Runaway. I’ll take you over tonight, if you like. Third shift.”

Beautiful Maria leaned toward him and kissed his cheek. “Thank you,” she said. She had forgotten that she’d been aiming him at this.

Maria was glad Kit wasn’t just doing this for her any more, that his defiance now had a personal dimension. She didn’t seem to be using him now, not as much as once it had.

*

A pair of soldiers were making love. Outside their window, an entire world was dying in bursts of red and yellow fire.

The hype possessed at least the possibility of being erotic, poetic. It was neither; it was both incompetent and numbing. Ubu didn’t mind. He wanted to be numb.

He watched the hype for hours at a time. People were shot, stabbed, blasted out of airlocks. Hurried acts of sex appeared between ships being decompressed or exploded or riddled with shrapnel. An apocalypse occurred every fifteen minutes. Whole galaxies spiraled down in flames.

It all passed across Ubu’s vision without making much of an impression. At least he didn’t have to worry about Pasco showing up, not here on this holograph projector that was filled with nothing but pointless excursions into violence, motion, and rut.

For the first time in his life Ubu had nothing to do, nothing to learn, nothing to worry about. The future was in the hands of the Procureur and the judge.

Bright blades flashed across a dark vacuum. In absolute silence a man died, his vac suit ruptured along with his abdomen. Air vented, turned to sugar-crystal. There were bright close-ups of intestines just in case anyone desired details. Ubu looked at the room’s chronometer. It was almost time to press his thumb to the scanner again and let justice know it was being done.

His door hissed open. Maria came in, approached him.

Sadness chimed through him. He knew that soon they might be separated, that he’d never see her again, and that he should be spending time with her. But he couldn’t face it, couldn’t face the reminders of pain and sorrow, the reproaches that would remain unspoken but that he knew were deserved.

“Hi,” Ubu said. “Thought you were with that de Suarez.”

“Marco assigned him duty. Didn’t want him hanging out with losers.”

The swords were shining in the vacuum again. Clashing in immaculate silence. Ubu watched them. Maria watched him for a moment, then spoke.

“Ubu,” she said. “I’ve got a plan.”