Bitter Angels (13 page)

“You’d have to buy me and pay rent on me. And if you didn’t, it’d all pile onto my mother.”

“Maybe it’s time I did.”

“You with him now?”

She shook her head. “No. Now I’m just alone.”

Except she wasn’t alone. Amerand stepped up, and, standing between light and shadow, she chose light.

Since then, she’d gone over the scene a hundred times. She should have taken Kapa’s hand. She should have turned him in for spite and for the bounty. She could even have told Amerand what Kapa had said before he got there. But he hadn’t asked, and she’d gotten so used to hiding things from him she couldn’t make herself speak.

She shut the screen off because leaving it on made the numbers on her debt account click up even higher.

Once, Kapa had been the one who made her safe, but he’d been gone too long. Now seeing him for the pirate he’d become terrified her. There had to be another way out.

But in the pit of her heart, she knew there was no legal way. There never would be. She’d have to run for it, and her best chance for making that run hadn’t been back for a month.

“I’m so sorry,” whispered Emiliya to the memory of her mother’s hopes. Mother, Kim, Parisch, Geri. Maybe there were more by now. Mother somehow always managed to be unlucky, or careless. Or maybe she thought her general-degreed daughter could free two or three more while she was at it.

But the anger was born of guilt and frustration and it did nothing to warm her. What her mother did was one thing, but the kids…her brothers and her sisters…It wasn’t their fault. They didn’t deserve indenture. They didn’t deserve to lose that last sliver of hope.

Except none of them ever had names attached. They were just “some tech,” “this one doctor,” “this guy”…

Piata’s guy had a name. Brahm Rajandur.

She hesitated—it would cost. “What the hell.” She flipped open the screen again, lighting it up and starting the meter. She entered the name and sat back.

In recognition of his outstanding service in the advancement of Moontwo’s medical team, Brahm Rajandur is effectively and officially cleared of all public debts owing the Governing Board and Public Finance Committee of Moontwo as of 11:21:30:14:09,

Emiliya was on her feet so quickly she barely remembered to slap the screen down to shut it off. She was out the
door and sprinting down the narrow dormitory hallway to hammer on Piata’s door.

Piata slid the door open. He was grinning.

“Gotcha.”

She was panting and had to swallow before she could speak. “What is this? Is this a fake?”

Piata shook his head. “It’s for real.”

“How? What? Did he discover a better cure for ugly? What?”

Piata’s tarnished-gold eyes flicked right, then left. “Come on in.” He stepped back, giving her room. “We don’t need to share this with the whole world.”

The light panels were all on and Emiliya blinked in the simulated sunshine as Piata slid the door shut. Piata’s room was a match for hers in size and furnishings, but he’d splashed out for some active screens. The walls showed scenes of Dazzle in its heyday, just as if he had a window onto a street.

“Have a seat.” He nodded toward the bed. She sat stiffly on the edge. Piata leaned back against the desk and folded his arms, grinning at her. “And it’s okay to talk. As far as the ears know, I’m spending the evening with a good vid.” He nodded toward the shining street scene on his wall.

“You talk,” she said, trying to sound much cooler than she felt. “You’re the one who’s so in the know.”

Piata nodded. “I’ve been trying to keep an eye out for…
extras. Stuff I can do, or get, that might just help my balance with the Clerks and the Administrators.”

“And in the course of so doing,” Piata went on, “I’ve gotten hold of the criteria the cell-masters are looking for in the saints.”

“Criteria?”

“Yes. You don’t think all this scanning you’re going to be doing is for smuggled goods, do you?”

“I thought it was just for data.” Everything was about data. Every person, every living thing Hospital got its collective hands on, was scrutinized to see if it could yield some new scrap of information that might become valuable. A bunch of healthy specimens from the rich and well-cared-for Solaris worlds would be too good to waste. She’d heard rumors that the marketing wing was setting a “Solaris Standard” for health treatments.

But Piata shook his head. “They’re looking for some very specific stuff. And when they find it, they’ll want the body it’s in for analysis and replication.” He met her gaze. “And we figure they will be more than willing to compensate whoever brings that body in.”

Emiliya pulled back. “You are not talking about kidnapping a saint.”

“Are you out of your mind?” she exclaimed. “Even the Blood Family wouldn’t risk cutting up a saint. The Solarans take worlds
apart
for that kind of crap.”

Piata leaned forward. “Look at me, Emiliya. Do you think I’m joking you now?”

She looked. She looked for a long time. “What
exactly
do you want from me?”

“I just want to know if you find a match to a set of criteria and which of them it is. That’s all.”

“Then what?”

“Then you’re part of the team, and we all get our debts cleared and go positive.”

Getting caught was the end of it. Even having this conversation, even thinking the thoughts that filled her mind was dangerous.

“Piata, I’ve got family back there. The idea was I’d be able to buy them out.”

“So, you give the positive balance to them.” He spread his hands. “What do I care? There’ll be plenty to go around.”

Her own hands gripped her forearms, nails digging into cloth. It took every ounce of will she had to suppress the eagerness rising in her. She could go positive. She could save them after all. And she wouldn’t have to crawl to Kapa or to Amerand, didn’t have to go into yet another kind of debt…

“I can’t risk it,” she said out loud to Piata.

“Go back to your room and take a look at the announcement about Rajandur. Take a good, long look.” Piata leaned forward, and his voice dropped into a seductive murmur. “They want a saint. They can’t just take one themselves. The saints will balk a little, you know? Maybe even pack
themselves up and head back home. Out of reach. If we do it, if we make it look like a kidnapping for ransom, or a robbery gone wrong, then
their
hands are clean and we’ve got the most precious commodity in the system. We will be rich, we will be free, and we will most definitely
be gone
.”

“Why me?”

“Because you’re heading up the scan team and in a lovely confluence of events, your boyfriend’s their babysitter.”

“He’s not my boyfriend.”

If she was free and out among the black-sky worlds, she could bring him out with her. They’d be free together. Free to be together. And she wouldn’t have to be grateful to him, or dependent on him. They’d look out for each other because they wanted to, not because they had to. It’d be what she wanted to have with Kapa, before he vanished and left her stranded.

Free. Black-sky free.

Piata shrugged. “He’s your friend, and their babysitter. You’re going to be able to get closer than any of us.” His sly grin turned positively feral.

Emiliya sat there, hearing the sound of her own harsh breathing, feeling the hammering of her heart. She heard what Piata was offering. She saw the picture he was drawing, and it was beautiful, especially when she added her own details.

But Emiliya was a daughter of Oblivion and there were things that would not leave her. Running the tunnels she learned that the best thing to have was something somebody else wanted. It gave you power, and a way to make them pay.

But the other thing she’d learned was that the worst
thing to have was something somebody else wanted. They’d kill you for it.

Emiliya looked up at Piata and saw him in a whole new light.

“I’m in,” she said.

In our case, the tin cans were roomy and designed to be comfortable for bored or nervous passengers. The acceleration was gentle, to give us time to adapt to the lighter gravity we were heading for. With all the personnel we were carrying, there were plenty of people to talk to and get to know, which meant you didn’t have to make yourself jittery playing XPs or spending too much time with the same couple of people.

Plenty to keep me distracted from the fact that I had waited until after we left to finally send a message to David. It was short.
I’ll be back
, I said.
I promise
. It was all I could do.

Once, the faster-than-light part of this process had been handled by massive gates. A ship could jump out to anywhere at all, but it could only get back to its point of origin if there was a gate to jump back through. This meant the worlds nearest the gates saw a lot of traffic—and a lot of money.

Jasper and Felice Erasmus had built their little empire around the gate system. That empire was brought down by the basic fact that human beings can never leave well enough
alone. Understanding improved. New power sources were developed and the size of power cells shrank. The internal drive became reality and the need for the gate network—and gate port worlds—vanished.

Despite the comfort of my surroundings and the available distractions, I had far too much time to ruminate on my last, and very unofficial, meeting with Misao.

I had been on my way back from a run, short of breath and slightly sweaty. Spring was making its first slushy inroads into Chicago airspace and I’d been out to see the ice breaking up on the lake. At first, I hadn’t recognized the man who turned toward me from where he had been standing at the entrance to the Palmer House garden. For a second, I even had the wild hope it might be David, but when I saw who it really was, I pulled up short and stood there, wordless.

“Walk with me,” Misao said.

I obeyed, too startled to do anything else. I fell into step beside him as he turned west up the Owens Street walkway.

He didn’t seem to have any destination in mind. We just strolled through the chilly wind toward the glorious pink-and-gold sunset. A few kids ran past on one side. I hunched my shoulders, the sweat cooling my skin down to the point of goose pimples, and wished he’d suggest we go back to the Palmer House, or just tell me what the hell was going on. Misao was only wearing a thin, open coat and hadn’t seemed to feel the cold. He just walked with a measured pace, his eyes straight ahead.

We reached the escalator for the El station. I stopped, rather awkwardly. “I think this is your exit,” I said, gesturing toward the rising stairs.

Misao faced me and I saw a strange sharpness in his green eyes.

I had no answer. I didn’t recognize the angry, diminished man in front of me.

“We’ve missed something and we’re still missing it,” he went on. “You’re being sent in blind, and I can’t do a thing about it.”

He didn’t want anyone at HQ to hear us, I had realized belatedly. He didn’t want anyone to hear
him
.