Realms of Light (18 page)

I holstered the HG-2 and climbed in after
them. The door was closing behind me when a Ginza floater, exactly
like the one that had accompanied the cops—in fact, it probably
was
the one that had accompanied the cops—came dropping down
toward us.

“Transparency,” I told the cab. “I want to
see this.”

The roof seemed to vanish, and there was the
Ginza floater, swooping down toward us—and then the black floaters
were moving again, as well.

But they weren’t moving toward the cab; they
were diving in to cut off the Ginza’s floater.

“Get us out of here,” I said.

“I don’t want any trouble with the casino,”
the cab protested.

“Neither do we,” I said, “but it looks as if
someone else does.” The black floaters had blocked the cop’s
approach.

I couldn’t see the Ginza floater anymore,
since the black floaters were easily twice its size and there were
two of them between us, but the cab had its external audio on, so I
could hear it. “Hu Xiao!” the Ginza floater called. “You are
charged with the destruction of casino property!”

“I don’t want any trouble with the casino,”
the cab repeated.

“And I told you, we don’t either,” I said.
“None of us is this Hu Xiao person. See for yourself.” I slid my
card in the slot.

“Thank you, Mis’ Hsing,” it said. “And these
others?”

Singh threw me a glance, then fished out his
own card and tabbed it in.

“Thank you. And the last of you?”

“That’s my father, Guohan Hsing,” I said. “He
doesn’t have his card with him, but if you’re set up for a DNA
check you can verify it.”

“I’m Guohan Hsing,” Dad agreed. “You can
check my voiceprint if you can’t do a genetic scan.”

I wasn’t any too sure his scratchy whisper
would match any old voiceprints the cab might have access to, but
apparently the cab was convinced somehow; it began rising.

“I notice the elder Mis’ Hsing is naked and
does not appear entirely well,” it said, as it cleared the lip of
the shaft. “Is medical attention desired?”

I was watching the floaters and almost didn’t
hear it; the Ginza floater was still trying to get at us, and the
black floaters were blocking it, forcing it back. “Who
are
those things?” I asked.

Then the cab’s question registered, and I
quickly added, “Thank you, but no medical attention is needed. Just
get us to the port asap.”

“The blue floater is a security unit owned by
the Ginza Casino Hotel,” the cab said, answering my question. “The
other two are refusing all requests for identification, but the
specifications match descriptions of high-level units owned by the
New York Townhouse Hotel and Gambling Hall.”

“Carlisle Hsing!” the Ginza floater called.
“You are charged with destruction of casino property and giving a
false name to security personnel!”

They’d ID’ed me. I was a bit surprised it had
taken that long, but I wasn’t really thinking about that. I was
thinking about the black floaters. They belonged to the New
York?

That meant they belonged to the Nakadas. Had
Grandfather Nakada sent them to protect me? It didn’t seem likely.
It didn’t seem like his style, and besides, everyone on Epimetheus
thought he was dead. He couldn’t just give orders and expect them
to be carried out without any explanation of his reported
demise.

But who else could have sent them? Obviously,
someone who’d been listening in—maybe through my gun, maybe through
datafeed from Seventh Heaven or the casino cops—but who would have
cared enough to send this pair?

I didn’t understand what was happening, and I
didn’t like that. I wasn’t going to take any more big risks until I
had a better idea what was running.

“The port,” I told the cab. “Hurry!”

“But the Ginza...”

“We aren’t in their jurisdiction,” I said.
“Go!”

“I’m going.”

It was; we soared up out of the shaft, and up
Sixth Street, then diagonally over the rooftops toward the
port.

“Oh, gods!” my father said.

I turned, thinking something was wrong,
thinking maybe his heart was giving out without the steady stream
of meds and fluids he’d had in the tank, but no, if anything he was
looking better than ever. He was sitting up and staring out at the
city.

Specifically, he was staring at the western
wall of the crater, where the morning sun was gradually creeping
downward from the rim, and at the higher towers, where sunlight was
gleaming from their top few floors..

“It’s the dawn,” he said. “It is, isn’t
it?”

“Not yet,” Singh told him.

“Soon, though,” I said. “That’s why I’m
getting you out. I expect Seventh Heaven to declare bankruptcy the
minute that light hits the streets of Trap Over. Maybe they won’t
just leave all the dreamers to rot in their tanks, but I didn’t
want to take the risk.”

“How long was I in there?” Dad asked.

I glared at him. “I was sixteen, almost
seventeen, when you went in,” I said. “Look at me now.”

“It’s
horrible
,” he said. “So
bright!”

I almost laughed. I’d spent a year on
Prometheus. I’d even been stranded on the Epimethean dayside once.
To me, Nightside City was still an island of comforting darkness,
even if the sky was no longer black. “What, none of your dreams
were out in the sun?” I asked.

“Some of them were, yes, but those weren’t
real
. I always knew that. And they weren’t in Nightside
City, in my
home
.”

“Your home is about to get hit with hard
ultraviolet,” I said. “The temperature’s already climbed at least
ten degrees, and it hasn’t rained since you bought your dream. You
knew that was coming.”

“I... I knew it, but I didn’t
believe
it.”

I snorted. “So you ran and hid in a
dreamworld where you wouldn’t have to see it,” I said. “You know,
when I pulled you out, I wasn’t sure whether you would wake up or
not, but I’m glad you did, so you could see this.”

“I don’t like it,” he said. “I want to go
back.”

“Too late for that,” Singh muttered.

“No, it isn’t,” I said. “I could drop the two
of you, you could tell the authorities I had you at gunpoint the
whole time and you never wanted to cooperate, and you could take
Mis’ Hsing here back to his happy fantasy life in the tank.”

Singh looked at me. “And what do
you
do?”

“I get back to the port and head for
Prometheus, and hope my rich friends there can buy my way out of
this mess.”

“And what about those?” He pointed.

I followed his finger to where the two big
black floaters were following us at a frighteningly small distance,
maybe ten meters behind our cab. “Oh,” I said.

I didn’t know who sent those two, which meant
I didn’t know what they would or wouldn’t interfere with. They
might not let me dump anyone, or flee anywhere.

There was no sign of the Ginza cop floater,
though. That was something. I wondered whether the black ones had
disabled it somehow, or whether it had realized it was outmatched
and backed down, or whether it had been called back by the casino
management.

Any of those was possible.

Who
had
sent the black floaters? Were
they helping me, or just keeping me for themselves?

I didn’t think Yoshio had sent them. If he
had, wouldn’t they have told me? But if he hadn’t, who had? Was
someone from the New York tracking me? If so, was it at Vo’s
direction, or without his knowledge?

Or was someone keeping an eye on the Seventh
Heaven dreamtanks?

Nakada floaters, according to the cab. And it
was presumably a Nakada who had used the back door into Seventh
Heaven’s data. If someone
was
keeping an eye on them, it was
a Nakada, or at any rate someone with access to the clan’s inner
workings.

And someone with access to the clan’s inner
workings had tried to kill Grandfather Nakada. Someone had made
copies of the old man’s ITEOD files, including back-ups of a dozen
high-ranking Nakadas.

I didn’t think Vo had anything to do with
it.

It might all be coincidence. It might be
unrelated intrigues or corporate espionage. I didn’t think that was
the way to bet it. It looked to me as if it was all part of the
same conspiracy, and the only coincidence—if it
was
a
coincidence, and not somehow connected—was that the dream company
involved happened to be the same one that had my father tucked away
in their tanks.

Dreams—someone was monitoring the top dream
company on Epimetheus, and someone had tried to kill Yoshio Nakada
by tampering with his dream enhancer. Another link.

But it wasn’t about me or my father at all,
then, and I could still try to grab my brother.

“Wait a minute,” I told the cab. “Can you get
back to the Ginza without attracting any unwanted attention?”

“What?” Singh said. “I thought we were
heading for this ship of yours, to get the hell off
Epimetheus!”

“There’s another passenger,” I said. “Someone
else I want to bring.”

“Where are you planning to
put
her?”
Singh demanded. “This thing’s full!”

It didn’t look that full to me; yes, there
were three of us on the main seat, but there was a luggage
compartment in the rear, and I suspected a second seat could be
folded up. “Cab, how many passengers are you licensed for?”

“Six, mis’.”

“Then can you get back to the Ginza?”

“I don’t know, mis’,” it said. “Those two
floaters are following me, and I’m on the navigation grid; if
anyone wants to find us, they can.”

“I thought you were in a hurry!” Singh
protested.

“My brother’s in the Ginza,” I said.

“Sebastian?” Dad croaked. He was slumped
against the side of the passenger compartment, staring out through
the transparent bubble at the glittering ads that filled the
streets of Trap Over.

“Yes, Sebastian,” I told him. “He’s a
croupier.”

Dad lifted his head from the plastic. “I’d
like to see him,” he said.

Just then Singh’s com buzzed. He tapped it
for speaker.

“Minish Singh,” he said.

“Singh,” it replied, in a woman’s voice,
“what the hell is going on?”

“Damned if I know,” Singh said.

“That woman you’re with has been identified
as a private investigator named Carlisle Hsing, except Hsing is
supposed to be off-planet, on Prometheus. Do you have any idea who
she really is?”

“She gave her name as Hu Xiao,” Singh said,
throwing me a questioning look.

“She’s not Hu Xiao—at least, not the court
officer Hu Xiao.”

“Then I don’t know any more than you do.”

“She’s listening to this, isn’t she?”

“Yes, mis’.”

For a moment no one spoke; then the cab
asked, “Am I supposed to be going to the port or the Ginza?”

“The Ginza,” I told it. Then I told Singh’s
com, “I’m Carlisle Hsing. My brother Sebastian can identify me.
He’s a croupier at the Ginza.”

“I’m assistant director of security for the
Ginza, Mis’. I know Sebastian Hsing.”

“Then you can arrange for him to talk to
me.”

“I could, yes, but why should I?”

“Because I asked nicely?”

She sighed. “Mis’ Hsing, what do you think
you’re doing? According to the records you’ve occasionally cut a
few corners, but you’ve basically stayed clean. Now you’ve shot a
floater and kidnaped an attendant and someone from a dreamtank, not
to mention trespassing, avoiding arrest, impersonating an
officer—what is this?”

“It’s a misunderstanding.”

“It’s one hell of a misunderstanding.”

“Let me talk to my brother, face to face, and
I’ll explain. We’re on our way back to straighten this out.”

She didn’t answer right away. Then she said,
“I’ll need to check with the floor manager.”

“You do that,” I said. “Oh, but one question
first.”

“What?”

“That floater I shot, the stealthed one—what
kind was it?”

“What do you mean, what kind?”

“Was it sentient?”

“Not really. Semi-autonomous.”

“Thank you.” I leaned back on the seat, and
only when I did that did I realize I’d been hunched forward. Now I
could relax a little. “You go ask whoever you need to ask.”

I had assumed it was just a dumb tracker when
I first shot it, but then I’d had second thoughts. It was good to
know I had been right the first time. Legally it probably didn’t
make any difference, but it mattered to
me
whether I’d
killed something self-aware.

For the most part I was making this up as I
went, as I usually did, but I decided it was time to do a little
advance planning, for once. I ran my fingers over my wrist and sent
a little message to the
Ukiba
—four words, “add a hot lunch.”
I was fairly certain Yoshio-
kun
would punctuate that
properly, even if Perkins didn’t—add “a” to “hot lunch,” and have a
hot launch ready to go when we got back to the ship.

“Privacy,” I told the cab, once the message
showed as sent and received.

The view of the surrounding city vanished
instantly as the cab went opaque, and my symbiote flashed an alarm
that all external input and net access had been cut off.

“Thanks,” I said. “Tab yourself a fat tip for
this—double the fare, if you want.” I might as well enjoy my
expense account while I could.

“Thank you, mis’,” it replied. “It’s very
exciting!”

“I thought you didn’t want any trouble,” I
said, amused.

“It seems as if I have it whether I want it
or not, so I might as well enjoy it.”

I grimaced. I wished that attitude was more
common.

Then I turned my attention to Singh and my
father. “Listen,” I said, “they think I kidnaped you two, but I
really
am
going to kidnap my brother ’Chan. He’s got an
implant that’ll shut down his legs if he leaves the Ginza, so we’ll
need to carry him. Once he’s off-planet we can get the implant out,
but first we need to get him onto the ship. Dad, I know you’re in
no shape to do anything, but Singh, can you help me with this?”