Partnership (8 page)

green, mild climate, lots of nice scenery that stays put.

Shemali means North Wind."

polyon groaned appreciatively. "I know. Unlike some of us, I did read up on my destination. The place is called North Wind because that's what you get for thirteen months out of the year."

"Thirteen months you have in the year? Oh — I get it! Longer rotation period, right?" Darnell beamed with pride at his own cleverness.

"Shorter, as it happens," Polyon said. His voice sounded remarkably hollow. "Shemali has a year of three hundred days, divided into ten months for convenience. I was being sarcastic about the feet that there is no good season."

"Never mind," Alpha told him almost kindly, "it's better than Angalia. Actually the full name is Angalia! with an exclamation point atthe end. Itmeans Watch out!"

"Dare I ask what that means?" Blaize inquired.

"It means," Alpha told him, "that the scenery — unlike that of Bahati—doesn't stay put."

Blaize and Polyon stared at one another, briefly companions in misery.

Polyon was the first to recover himself. "Oh, well,"

he said, turning back to the game screen, "you see the value of information, Darnell — and the fact that it isn't always in the Galactic Datasource. And some of the information that isn't — ah — publicly available —

is the most valuable of all." With delicate gestures he 58

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nudged the joyball while the fingers of his left hand tapped out codes to enlarge and strengthen Thingberry's magical net. "You need to think of ways to trade for that kind of information. For instance your shipping company — such as it is — could offer discreet transport for parcels that don't get on the cargo list, or that go by a slightly misleading name—in some cases, disinformation or the lack of information is as valuable as actual data."

"Who'd want that?" Darnell objected. "And who cares, anyway? Can't we just play the game?"

Polyon favored him with a dazzling smile. "Dear boy, this is the game — and a far more rewarding one than SPACED OUT. Why, I can think of any number of people who might want a — suitably discreet — cargo carrier service. Myself, for starters."

"Why you?"

"Let's just say that not all the metachips going off Shemali are going to be in the SUM rationing board's records," Polyon said.

"So? What's it worth to me to oblige you?"

"I could pay you back with Net contacts. I can work the Net like no hacker since the days of the first virus breeders. It's an unsecured hedron to me. How soon could you rebuild OG Shipping if you knew ahead of time about every big contract about to be let in Vega subspace ... and what your opponents' sealed bids were?"

DarnelFs pout vanished to be replaced by a look of stunned calculation. "I could be rich again in five years!"

"But not, I fancy, as rich as I could be from selling metachips," Polyon murmured. Thingberry's web glistened on the screen above him, strings of jeweled fight looping and floating above the play icons on the surface of Asteroid 66. "What would you say to a friendly wager? The five of us to meet and compare notes, once a year — to see how we're each doing at making lemonade out of the lemons of assignments PARTNERSHIP 59

our dear families have landed us with? Winner to take a twenty-five percent share in each of the losers'

operations — business, goods, or cold credits?"

*

evaluation?" DarneU asked.

"Five years — that's the end of most of our tours of duty, isn't it?"

"You know it is," said Alpha quickly. "Standard tour.

And," she went on under Polyon's firm gaze, " I think it's a fliarvelous idea. I've got my own plans, you know."

"What?" Darnell demanded.

Alpha gave him a slow, lazy smile. "Wouldn't you like to know?"

"I'm sure we would all like to know," Polyon put in.

Adeft twist of the joyball set Thingberry's jeweled web spinning over the top half of the display screen. "Will you enlighten them, Alpha, or shall I — er — con-tribute my own scraps of information?" He crooked his finger, beckoning to her, and she moved closer to his control chair.

"Nothing much," Alpha said. "But . . . Summerlands is a double clinic. One side for the paying customers —

mostly VIPs — and one side for charity cases, to improve their SUM rating. I've got some ideas for an improve-ment on Blissto — something we can give addicts in controlled doses. They won't get locked into a cycle of craving and ever-increasing hits of street drugs."

"Hey, / like Blissto," Darnell protested, "and I don't get into that cycle."

"Good," Alpha told him. "You're not an addictive personality. Some people aren't that lucky. You've seen Blissed-Out cases? Big enough doses, over a long enough period of time, until their nervous systems look like shredded wheat? My version won't do that. We'll be able to take Blissed-Out cases out of the hospital and send them out to do useful work as long as they stay on their meds. And I'm the one who did all the preliminary 60

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design work on this drug. Actually, it was a side-effect of my work on — well, there's no need to discuss all the boring details of my research," she concluded with a sidelong glance at Polyon. "What matters is that I've got the formulas and all the lab notes on hedra."

"But won't Central Meds hold the patent, if you did the work there?"

"When—and if— it's patented," Alpha agreed.

"And you can't sell it until it's passed the trials and been patented — so it's no good to you!"

Alpha's eyes met Polyon's over Darnell's head.

"Quite true," she agreed gravely, "but I think I may find a way to profit from the situation anyway."

"What about you, Fassa?" Polyon asked. The girl had been very quiet since her jab about the slave names of the Nyota system. "You going to take this boondocks construction company Daddy handed you lying down?" His tone invested the question with a wealth of obscene possibilities.

"Double profit on every job," Fassa announced calmly. "I've got a degree in accounting. I can fix the books in ways an auditor will never catch."

Darnell whistled appreciatively. "But if you are caught — "

Fassa coiled herself on the other side of Polyon's chair in a series of languorous, sinuous movements that drew all eyes to her. "I think," she said dreamily,

"that I can distract any auditors who may think about checking the books. Or any building inspectors who need to sign off on materials quality." Her slow, dreamy smile promised a world of secret delights.

"There's a lot of money in construction ... if you go about it the right way."

The four of them made a tight grouping now: Polyon in the control chair, Darnell standing behind him, Fassa and Alpha seated on either side of him.

Four pairs of eyes gazed expectantly at Blaize.

"Well," he said, swallowed, and started over again.

«*^h — PTA doesn't offer quite as much scope for creativity as the rest of your outfits, does it now?"

"You're with us or against us," said Polyon. "Which is it to be, little cousin?"

"Ah —neutrality?"

"Not good enough." Polyon glanced around at the other three. "He's heard our plans. If he doesn't join us, he could have some idea of informing...."

Alpha leaned forward, smiling sweetly. Her teeth looked long and very white against her dark skin. "Oh, you wouldn't do that, would you, Blaize dear?"

"I wouldn't even think about it," Darnell put in, tapping one pudgy fist against his open palm.

Fassa licked her lips and smiled like a child anticipat-ing a treat. "This could be interesting" she murmured to no one in particular.

Blaize glanced around the circle of faces, then looked towards Nancia's titanium column. She kept her silence.

Nothing had actually happened yet; if these brats attempted violence, she could stop it in seconds with a flood of sleepgas. And Blaize knew that as well as she did. Nancia saw no reason to give up her anonymity just to reassure him. He'd been brave enough when he was picking on Polyon alone; why, for heaven's sake, couldn't he stand up to the rest of them?

"But then, Blaize never did have the guts to do something as decisive as telling" Polyon dismissed his cousin with a brief nod. "We'll let him think it over...

all the way to Angalia. It'll be a long couple of weeks, little cousin, with nobody to talk to. And a much longer five years on Angalia. Hope you enjoy life among the veggie-heads. 1 shouldn't think anybody else in the Nyota system will have much to do with you." He swiveled to face the SPACED OUT display, and the other three turned with him.

"Oh — don't leap to assumptions so fast. I'm with 62

AnmeMcCaffrey & Margaret Ball

you, definitely with," Blaize babbled. "There are possibilities — I just haven't had time to think them over yet The coryrium mine, for instance — it hasn't been properly developed — maybe I could get a part interest in that. And PTA makes regular food drops to Angalia, who's to say how much of the food gets distributed to the natives and how much gets transshipped to some place that can pay for it..." He spread his hands and shrugged jerkily. "I'll think of something. You'll see. I'll do as well as any of you!"

Polyon nodded again. His fist closed over the joyball and Thingberry's jeweled web spiraled down to enclose Asteroidland, trapping the others' play icons in a tissue of glittering strands. "Done, then. Five of us together. Here, we'd better each have a record." He drew a handful of minihedra from the pocket of his Academy grays and dropped them into the datareader. One by one, Alpha, Fassa, Darnell and Blaize identified themselves by hand and retina print and spoke aloud the terms and conditions of the wager they'd agreed to. Polyon retrieved the minihedra after the recording was over and handed one faceted black polyhedron to each of them, keeping the last for himself "Better store them someplace safe," he suggested.

Fassa clipped her minihedron inside a silver wire cage that hung from her charm bracelet among tinkling bells and glittering bits of carved prismawood.

She alone seemed in no particular hurry to escape Polyon's influence; while the others jostled to reach the exit door, Fassa fiddled with her charm bracelet and tried out the shining black minihedron in various places, as if her only concern was to see where it would show to best advantage.

As Alpha, Darnell and Blaize left the central cabin, Nancia wondered whether Polyon's quick actions and mesmerizing personality had made them forget that he alone, of the five, had not recorded his intentions PARTNERSHIP

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on the minihedra. Or were they simply afraid to challenge him?

that it mattered. She had the entire scene recorded. From several angles.

"You'll see," Blaize repeated over his shoulder as he left. TH do better than any of you."

"Small time, little man," Alpha sneered on her way down the corridor, "small-time plans for a small person. You'll be the loser, but who cares? Somebody has to lose."

"She's wrong, you know," Polyon commented to Fassa. "Four of you have to lose. There'll be only one winner in this game." And he too left, twiddling his black minihedron between two fingers and humming quietly to himself.

Fassa

The gleaming black surfaces of the minihedron flashed in the central cabin lights as Fassa turned her arm this way and diat, admiring the effect of the stark blackness against the jumble of silver and prismawood trinkets. The hedron was as black as Fassa's own sleek hair and tip-tilted eyes, an admirable contrast to the whiteness of her creamed and pampered skin. In its hard glossy perfection she saw a miniature of herself. . . beautiful, impenetrable . . .

A shell full of dangerous secrets,

Fassa stared at the mirror-smooth surfaces of the minihedron and saw her face reflected and distorted in half a dozen directions at once, a shattered self looking out, trapped in the black mirrors that distorted her lovely features to a mask of pain and a silent scream.

No! That's not me — that can't be me. She dropped her arm; the jingling silver bells on the bracelet tinkled a single discordant peal. Pushing off from the strange titanium column that wasted so much cabin space, Fassa floated into a corner between display screens and a 64

Anne McCaffrey &? Margaret BaU

storage locker. "Blank screens," she ordered the ship.

The dazzling display of SPACED OUT graphics faded away, to be replaced by a black emptiness like the surfaces of the minihedron. Fassa stared into the flat screen, lips parted, until the reflection of her own beauty reassured her. Yes, she was still as lovely as she'd always believed. The distorted reflections from the minihedron had been an illusion like the dreams that troubled her sleep, dreams in which her lovely face and perfect body peeled away to reveal the shrunken, miserable creature underneath.

Reassured, she stroked the charm bracelet with two fingers until she touched the sharp faceted surface of the minihedron. I keep my secrets, avid you keep yours, little sister. As long as she had the shield of her perfect beauty between herself and the world, Fassa felt safe.

Nobody could see beyond that to the worthless thing inside. Very few tried; they were all too mesmerized by the outer facade. Men were rutting fools, and they deserved no better than to have their own folly turned back on them. If she could use their desire for her to enrich herself, so much the better. Gods knew her beauty had cost her too much in the pastl Mama, mama, make him stop, wailed a child's voice from the recesses of her mind. Fassa laughed sourly at the memory of that folly. How old had she been then?

Eight, nine? Young enough to think her mother could stand up to a man like Faul del Parma y Polo, could make him give up anything he really wanted — like his daughter. Mama had closed her eyes and turned her head away. She didn't want to know what Faul was doing to their lovely little girl.

Ugly little girl. Dirty little girl, whispered another of the voices.

All the same, it had been Mama who stopped it, in a way. Too late, but still — her spectacular and public suicide had ended Paul's private games with his PARTNERSHIP