The Dreaming Void (25 page)

“Something like that.”

“So are you interested in genuine alien stuff as well?”

“Anything that is part of the Starflyer's legacy. Why, have you located another section of its ship?”

Stubsy shook his head. “ 'Fraid not, man. But one of my neighbors, she specializes in weird alien technology and other interesting little chunks. You know, the odd sample that crews on pathfinder missions pick up, stuff you never get to hear about in the unisphere, stuff ANA and the navy like to keep quiet. You want I should put you in touch, I got a unisphere code. She's very discreet. I'll vouch for her.”

“Tell her if she ever comes across any Anomine relics, I'll be happy to talk,” he said, knowing she would not. “Apart from that, I'm not interested.”

“Okay, just thought I'd ask.”

Troblum raised himself to his feet, quietly pleased that he did not need his biononics to generate a muscle reinforcement field. But then, this world had a point-eight standard gravity. “Could you call your capsule for me, please.”

“Money's in, so sure. This is another reason I like you, man. We don't have to screw around making small talk.”

“Exactly.” Troblum picked up the stable-environment case. It was heavy; he could feel a mild sweat break out on his forehead and across his shoulders as he lifted it into the crook of his arm. Hadn't Stubsy ever heard of regrav?

“Hey, man, you're the only Higher I know, so I've got to like ask you this. What's ANA's take on this whole Pilgrimage thing? Is it a bunch of crap, or are we all going to get cluster-fucked by the Void?”

“ANA: Governance put out a clear statement on the unisphere. The Pilgrimage is regrettable, but it does not believe the actions of Living Dream pose any direct physical threat to the Greater Commonwealth.”

“I accessed that, sure. Usual government bullshit then, huh? But what do you think, man? Should I be stocking up my starship and heading out?”

“Out where, exactly? If the anti-Pilgrimage faction is right, the whole galaxy is doomed.”

“You are just one giant lump of fun, aren't you? Come on, man, give it to me straight. Are we in the shit?”

“The contacts I have inside ANA aren't worried, so neither am I.”

Stubsy considered that seriously for a moment before reverting to his usual annoyingly breezy self. “Thanks, man. I owe you one.”

“Not really. But if I find a way to collect, I'll let you know.”

Troblum puzzled over Stubsy's question in the capsule on the way back to his ship. Perhaps he had been unwise to admit to contacts inside ANA, but it was a very general reference. Besides, he didn't really consider Stubsy to be some kind of agent working for Marius's opponents, of whom there were admittedly many. Of course the Starflyer had procured agents a lot more unlikely than Stubsy. But if Stubsy was an agent for some ANA faction, they were playing a long game, and from what Troblum understood, the Pilgrimage situation would be resolved sooner rather than later. Troblum shook his head and shifted the case slightly. It was an interesting theory, but he suspected he was overanalyzing events. Paranoia was healthy, but he wouldn't like to report that particular suspicion to Marius. More likely it was a genuine concern on Stubsy's part, one born of ignorance and popular prejudice. That was a lot easier to believe.

The capsule arrived back at
Mellanie's Redemption,
and Troblum carefully carried the stable-environment case into the starship. He resisted the impulse to open it for one last check but did stow it in his own sleeping cabin for the flight back to Arevalo.

The first thing Araminta knew about the failure was when a shower of sparks sizzled out of the bot's power arm, just above the wrist multisocket where tools plugged in. At the time she was on her knees beside the Juliet balcony door, trying to dismantle its seized-up actuator. The unit had not been serviced for a decade at least; when she got the casing open, every part of it was covered in grime. She wrinkled her nose in dismay and reached for the small all-function electrical tool kit she had bought from Askahar's Infinite Systems, a company that specialized in recycled equipment for the construction trade. Her u-shadow grabbed the user instructions from the kit's memory and filtered them up through her macrocellular clusters into her brain; supposedly they gave her an instinctive ability to apply the little gizmos. She couldn't even work out which one would stand a chance of cleaning away so much gunk. The cleanser utensils were intended for delicate systems with a light coating of dust, not this compost heap.

Then, as she peered closer at the actuator components, bright light flashed across them. She turned just in time to see the last cascade of sparks drizzle down on the pile of sealant sheets stacked up in the corner of the flat's lounge. Wisps of smoke began to wind upward. The bot juddered to a halt as the whole lower segment of its power arm darkened. As she watched, its pocked silvery casing tarnished rapidly from the heat inside.

“Ozzie's mother!” she yelped, and quickly started stamping on the sheets, trying to extinguish the glowing points the sparks had kindled. Her u-shadow could not get any access to the bot; it was completely dead, and now there was a definite hot-oil smell in the air. Another bot slid away and retrieved an extinguisher bulb from the kitchen. It returned and sprayed blue foam on the defunct bot's arm. Araminta groaned in dismay as the bubbling fluid scabbed over and dripped onto the floorboards, soaking in. The whole wood look was coming back in vogue; that was was why she had ordered the bot to abrade the original floorboards down to the grain. As soon as they were done, she was going to spread the sealant sheets while the rest of the room was decorated and fitted; then she would finish the boards with a veneer polish to bring out the wavy gold and rouge pattern of the native antwood.

Araminta scratched at the damp stain with her fingernail, but it did not seem too bad. She'd just have to get another bot to abrade the wood further. There were five of the versatile machines performing various tasks in the flat, all second- or thirdhand; again bought from Askahar's Infinite Systems.

Now that the immediate danger of fire was over, her u-shadow called Burt Renik, proprietor of Askahar's Infinite Systems.

“Well, there's nothing I can do,” he explained after she told him what had happened.

“I only bought it from you two days ago!”

“Yes, but why did you buy it?”

“Excuse me! You recommended it.”

“Yes, the Candel 8038; it's got the kind of power level you wanted for heavy-duty attachments. But you came to me rather than a licensed dealer.”

“What are you talking about? I couldn't afford a new model. The unisphere evaluation library said it was dependable.”

“Exactly. And I sell a lot of refurbished units because of that. But the one you bought had a manufacturer's decade warranty that expired over a decade ago. Now, with all the goodwill in Ozzie's universe, I have to tell you that you get what you pay for. I have some newer models in stock if you need a replacement.”

Araminta wished she had the ability to trojan a sensorium package past his u-shadow filters, one that would produce the painburst he would get from a good smack on the nose. “Will you take part exchange?”

“I could make you an offer on any components I can salvage, but I'd have to bring the bot into the workshop to analyze what's left. I can come out, oh … middle of next week, and there would have to be a collection charge.”

“For Ozzie's sake, you sold me a dud.”

“I sold you what you wanted. Look, I'm only offering to salvage parts as a goodwill gesture. I'm running a business; I want return customers.”

“Well, you've lost this one.” She ended the call and told her u-shadow never to accept a call from Burt Renik again. “Bloody hell!” Her u-shadow quickly revised her refurbishment schedule, adding an extra three days to the expected completion date. That assumed she would not buy a replacement for the 8038. It was a correct assumption. The budget was not working out as she'd originally planned. Not that she was overspending, but stripping out all the old fittings and démodé decorations was taking a lot longer than her first estimate.

Araminta sat back on the floor and glared at the ruined bot.
I'm not going to cry. I'm not that pathetic.

The loss of the 8038 was a blow, though. She'd just have to trust that the remaining bots would hold out. Her u-shadow began to run diagnostic checks on them while she tried to detach the abrader mat from the 8038's foam-clogged multisocket. The attachment was expensive and, unlike the bot, brand-new. Her mood was not helped by the current state of the flat. She had been working on it for five days solid now, stripping it down to the bare walls and gutting the ancient domestic equipment. The place looked terrible. Every surface was covered in fine particles, with sawdust enhancing the dilapidated appearance. Sounds echoed around the empty rooms. After tidying things today, she could start the refurbishment stage. She was sure that would refire her enthusiasm. There had been times over the last week when she had had moments of pure panic, wondering how she could have been so stupid as to have gambled everything on this ancient cruddy flat.

The abrader attachment came free, and she pulled it out. With her u-shadow controlling them directly, two of the remaining bots hauled their broken sibling out of the flat and dumped it in the commercial refuse casket parked outside. She winced every time it bumped on the stairs, but the other occupants were out; they'd never know how the dents got there.

With the abrader plugged into another bot—a Braklef 34B only eight years old—she turned her attention back to the balcony door actuator. She knew that if she started moping over the broken bot, she'd just wind up feeling sorry for herself and never get anything done. She could not afford that.

The simplest thing, she decided, was to break the actuator down and clean the grime off manually; after that she could use the specialist tools to get the systems up to the required standard. Her other toolbox, the larger one, had a set of power keys. She set to with more determination than she had any right to without resorting to aerosols.

As she worked, her u-shadow skimmed the news, local and intersolar, and summarized topics she was interested in, feeding them to her in a quiet neural drizzle. Now that she had bought the flat, she had canceled the daily review of city property. It would be too distracting, especially if something really good appeared on the market. Debbina, the firstborn daughter of the billionaire Sheldonite Likan, had been arrested once again for lewd conduct in a public place. Hansel Industries, one of Ellezelin's top companies, was discussing opening a manufacturing district just outside Colwyn; the details were accompanied by economic projections. She could not help scanning the effect on property prices.

As far as intersolar political news was concerned, the only item was the new Senate motion introduced by Marian Kantil, Earth's Senator, that Living Dream desist from reckless action in respect to its Pilgrimage. Ellezelin's Senator responded to the motion by walking out. He was followed by the Senators from Tari, Idlib, Lirno, Quhood, and Agra—the Free Trade Zone planets. Araminta was not surprised to find that Viotia's Senator had abstained from the vote, as had seven other External worlds, all on the fringe of the zone and with large populations of Living Dream followers. The report went on to show the huge manufacturing yard on the edge of Greater Makkathran, where the Pilgrimage ships would be assembled. Araminta stopped cleaning the actuator to watch. An armada of civic construction machinery was laying down the field, flattening fifteen square miles of countryside to get it ready for its cladding of concrete. The Pilgrimage fleet was to be made up of twelve cylindrical vessels, each a mile long and capable of carrying two million pilgrims in suspension. Already Living Dream was talking about them being merely the “first wave.”

Araminta shook her head in mild disbelief that so many people could be so stupid and switched to local reports of business and celebrities.

Two hours later Cressida arrived. She frowned down at the prints her shiny leather pumps with their diamond-encrusted straps made in the thick layer of dirt coating the hall floor. Her cashmere fur dress contracted around her to save her skin from exposure to the dusty air. One hand was raised to cover her mouth, with gold-and-purple nail-print friezes flowing in slow motion.

Araminta smiled up uncertainly at her cousin. She suddenly was very self-conscious standing there in her filthy overalls, hair wound up and tucked into a cap, hands streaked with black grease.

“There's a dead bot in your casket,” Cressida said. She sounded annoyed.

“I know,” Araminta sighed. “Price of buying cheap.”

“It's one of yours?” Cressida's eyebrows lifted. “Do you want me to call the supplier and have it replaced?”