Mainline

"Christian's well-articulated, cleverly constructed plot hurtles along at a blistering pace.... A debut of splendid promise."

—Kirkus Reviews
(starred)

"Intricately drawn characters . .. solid plotting ... all the ingredients of a science fiction thriller."

—Library Journal

"Manuscripts that rise from the 'slush pile' to hardcover publication are rare indeed. Deborah Christian's
Mainline
is one such, and it's easy to see why it caught the slush reader's jaded eye ... the novel impresses."

—Feminist Bookstore News

"[Christian] manages to pack a lot of action into an intelligent and thoughtful package."

—Publishers Weekly

"Mainline
is gripping, inventive and eventful, all the things a good sf thriller should be."

—Interzone

"Here is someone who tells a story crisply and enables her readers to live with her characters through even the most extravagant happenings."

—Vector

"Engrossing and fascinating . ..
Mainline
offers the best of fantasy and sf, much like Zelazny himself, blending and merging both genres and taking them on to new levels of superior fiction."

—Pirate Writings

NOTE: If you purchased this book without a cover you should be aware that this book is stolen property. It was reported as "unsold and destroyed" to the publisher, and neither the author nor the publisher has received any payment for this "stripped book."

This is a work of fiction. All the characters and events portrayed in this book are either products of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously.

All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book, or portions thereof, in any form.

Cover art by Bruce Jensen

A Tor Book

Published by Tom Doherty Associates, Inc.

175 Fifth Avenue

New York, NY 10010

Tor Books on the World Wide Web:

http://www.tor.com

Tor® is a registered trademark of Tom Doherty Associates, Inc.

ISBN: 0-812-54908-2

Library of Congress Card Catalog Number: 95-53747

First edition: June 1996

First mass market edition: August 1997

Printed in the United States of America

A first novel can be an especially uphill battle to write and sell

and get into print. That you hold this book in print in your hands,

is something you and I both owe to these people:

Helen Hakeem Christian, my mother, for all her love and support.

Tina Olivas Estrada, former partner, who enabled this work with love and many personal sacrifices.

Mary Walker McCants Wilton, extraordinary teacher and school administrator in Long Beach, California, who nurtured my talents at a critical juncture.

Don Miller and Chris Christian, my brother and sister, for timely aid.

Rene Ellen Feinstein, my friend and patron of the arts, who did more to help in the completion of this book than anyone will ever know.

Leta Rank and Lynn Flewelling, fellow writers, who helped midwife the process.

Kathleen O'Shea, for helping me maintain my sanity.

Nicola Griffith, David Drake, and Walter Jon Williams, for helping out a newcomer.

Stephen de las Heras, my editor and kindred spirit, for sharing the mania with me and making it happen.

Julia Cameron, whose book,
The Artist's Way,
went far to help make this book a reality.

My love and thanks to you all.

The ghost-ray was
a rumor, a myth discounted by the Unmodified of Obai Shelf. The sea-children had their tales, though, of the Sea Father of R'debh, who lived phantom-like in the depths. A creature who rode the currents, a giant ghost the color of silt-sifted water, fading from sight only to reappear nearby, or later, or never. Their tales did not say what the ghost-ray's purpose was. He did not speak to them. But now and then a child was found stunned, who awakened with strange wisdom and a head full of visions.

Niva was two months pregnant, a daughter's bio-alteration already under way in her womb, when she swam to the deepwater pump station, her work assignment. It was as far out on the shelf and down as an unaltered human dared go.

Niva did not know exactly what she met. A presence was suddenly before her, massive, invisible, yet tangible. A backwash of current swirled past her, wings that couldn't be seen brushed over her. She felt the electrical potential in the water tingle around her skin like a caress—electrical potential, and something different. Something more.

She was found adrift, unconscious, deeper than she should have ventured. Sea-children pulled her to a rest dome. Like the children, she was different for a time, full of dreams and half-remembered visions, living on the verge of a great revelation, only to have it slip away like a receding wave before its meaning could be grasped.

Her daughter was born Unmodified, like her air-breathing parents. Niva did no swimming during her next pregnancy.

""
A
choice of realities once foregone is gone forever."

It was an
old capital, sure, but who would live there if they had a choice? Almost 50 outside, and the sweat streamed off the few unprotected backstreeters where they wilted in the meager shade. Geoplast and steeloy and covered slidewalk to Old Town kept the rich in cool comfort. But the sideways were in the open, for those who trod the back paths and the poor who had no alternative. Outside there was no climate control, no cool—just the clinging blanket Lyndir called air and the heat, washing over from above, radiating from below.

Reva paused in the angled shadow of a vidvert panel and studied the off-main walkways of Port Oswin. Right then she lived the Timeline where the shade was thickest behind the panel, the Line where no one looked her way, and those who did were too drone to see anything out of the ordinary. It was reflex, a tiny balance, like riding a powerband in a wide margin. Easy. Not tired yet, nowhere near tired, she waited for him, for Number 12. It was break-time in the city for the next two hours. The ways were deserted, mostly, but Number 12 would be out any minute, wasting his time, squandering his money, hot on the trail of his newest Betman, an underwriter of rigged races, another warren rat in the exterior maze of Port Oswin.

She spotted him. Coolsuit on high—no condensation on the polychrome, a radiant chill as he walked by. She could see it in his walk: he thought he owned the backways, as long as his plastic paid the way. No cares, and not aware; not aware of those who stepped out of his way, and not aware he was being watched. Reva tailed him, nearby, not a safe distance back. But any distance is safe, she thought. I live between the Lines. Nothing's safer than that.

She hunted a bit, felt for the moment, waited for it, walking up to it with each step down the sideway. Then it happened: an intersection, and he paused to get his bearings. On Mainline, it was a heartbeat of indecision, and he went his way to the Betman. One Line over, he paused a minute longer, reconsidering the wager, then continued on. Two Lines over, he forgot the address; he wasted a minute dredging it from his mind, then checked his nailplate for directions.

The other Lines were unimportant. Reva took the second one off Mainline, and the other possibilities faded into nothingness as she chose her future and shifted down to Realtime. She stepped behind the gambler as he curled his fingers to read the nailplate. With one motion she unplugged the powerpack of his coolsuit, plugged in the supercharger, stood back. He turned to her, eyes wide in surprise, then rolling up in shock.

Her client was right. He froze solid in ten seconds.

Reva left on a Line that took her unnoticed through the gathering crowd.

Chorb. Waterworld. Imperial
starship yard and Marine training base.

Reva stayed inside the starport terminal. Kirk, her contact there, stood reluctantly by her side, squinting longingly at the beckoning holosigns and feelie shops outside. She turned to him, curled a red-lipped sneer. "Seen one Startown, you seen 'em all. Vomit in the gutters, overworked cleanbots, security mechos scanning every corner."

"Whadjya 'spect?" he drawled. The hoppers were wearing off. Reva studied him, her hazel eyes amber-tinged, their hard highlights riveting his attention.

She didn't know him, really, but his problem was unmistakable. "You hit the shops too much," she criticized. "Euphorics, sensie-feelies, holorounds—they just rip your last cred from you, or maybe your last unvouchered organ. How many of those you got left?"

"Whut?"

"Unvouchered organs."

"Zthata question?"

Reva spat, accurately, and the toe of Kirk's boot was hidden beneath mucus. "The more you pay, the more it's worth."

Kirk stared at his boot toe. "Whatzat mean?"

"Shit."

Flunkies could stew whatever synapses they wanted, but she wasn't there to chat with the brain-burned. Kirk gave her the code for the call she had to make, and he was the intro to the courier. Nothing more. She scoped the terminal for the Cardman. No one looked

likely, and she glanced again at her companion. His eyes unfocused as a vert for hoppers snagged his limited attention span.

She sighed, impatient for the Cardman to show up. She had one rule: people serious about using her services paid in kind, with genetic samples, retina prints, and other irreplaceables. Goods that could pay her way no matter what Line served her for Mainline. Reva had learned that lesson the first time she took a credit chit in payment. By time the hit was done, she was living a Timeline where there were no credits in the man's bank to cover his chit. When they paid in kind, it didn't turn worthless in a week's worth of heartbeats. Not usually.

A page blared distinct over the terminal interlink, echoing down broad hallways between boarding calls and arrival announcements.

"Kamisku Benulu, please authorize credcheck on Plancomm seven-niner. Credcheck on Plancomm seven-niner, please."

Metallic speaker tones, female voice.... The code name registered, and Reva looked for a house comm. A global credit check happened rarely enough, and this could only be the prearranged signal. But there was always room for error.

"Konib'nichwa," Reva spoke Ganandi to the vidunit. "Benulu gesko."

"Code green, please," came the response, then the ear-scritching rasp of disconnect.

Reva stepped to the public com booth, punched in the "green" vidcode for moneymarket transactions and the special access code Kirk had given her.

The screen flared to life but carried no video. The voice was distorted. As, she knew, was hers.

"A member of the Economic Council on Selmun III," a man's voice said dispassionately. "Her name is Alia Lanzig. She holds proxies and a controlling interest, and uses them.

"Your first target is her uncle, Albek Murs. He inherits her seat if she goes first, and he could do even more harm in that position than she has. After Murs is gone, get her. Any questions?"

"No," replied Reva.

"Good. Dossiers follow. Is your downlink ready?"

The voice was disembodied, factual, but the mention of Selmun III had distanced Reva already. "Oh ... yes, of course," she said.

"Dumping now," came the response.

The download began.

Reva was ten,
living in the Obai Shelf dome with her parents and younger brother on R'debh. It was not yet Selmun III to her, nor was there much more to her world than the domes, the aqua-farms, and the ocean. Her brother Calin dropped through the water-lock with a wave and a laugh. A taunting laugh, for he needed no breathing gill and was always ready for school before Reva was.

She sealed her bodysuit and settled the breather over her face, a cripple arranging her prosthetics. Her schoolmates never let her forget that she was different. Reva the misfit. Reva the freak, the throwback in whom the R'debhi genetic mutation had worked no changes. Not so much as vestigial webs on fingers or toes for Reva. No nictitating eye membrane, no pressure-venting eardrum. Most telling of all, no gill-adaptation necessary for an unhindered life beneath the sea.