“Mary Cooper. Where is she?”
“She’s in cube fourteen, and who may I say…”
The route was obvious and I took it. The cubicles were tiny affairs screened with curtains. The numbers got larger. Twelve…thirteen…fourteen. I whipped the curtain aside.
Everything was white including the paint, the bed, and the gown Sasha wore. She stood with her back to me looking in a mirror. The sudden commotion caused her to turn. One hand clutched the front of her gown while the other started towards her gun. The second hand topped, fluttered for a moment, and fell to her side. A bandage covered her left eye. Gauze ran around her head. Tears rolled down her cheeks. My heart jumped to my mouth. “Sasha…what happened? What did they do to you?”
Her mouth moved but nothing came out. It seemed natural to move in, put my arms around her, and let her sob into my chest. She felt small and very, very fragile. Finally, after what seemed like a long time, the sobs died away. She pushed me away and wiped a hand across her mouth. “Sorry about that…it was stupid…and very weak.”
“Stupid? Weak? What the hell are you talking about?”
Her voice grew stronger as she turned and shook out her pants. “No big deal. I sold an eye, that’s all.”
The words rolled around the inside of my head like twenty-ton ball bearings. Images flashed through my mind. I imagined Sasha lying on an operating table as a doctor pried her eye out of its socket and dropped it into a basin. It made me queasy. “You did what?”
She was defensive. “We need money. I sold an eye. People sell organs all the time. It’s no big deal.”
I may be stupid, but even I tweak eventually. This was more than a schoolgirl on her way home, more than a skirmish in some corporate war, this was big. So big that teenaged girls were willing to sell their eyes to move from one place to another. I grabbed her shoulder and pulled her around. “Why, Sasha, why! Why would a girl sell an eye? And don’t give me that bullshit about taking you home. Are you running drugs? What?”
Tears welled in her remaining eye, brimmed over, and trickled down her cheek. She shook her head. “No, I’m on a mission for my mother. An important mission. That’s all I can tell you.”
I heard my voice get louder. “For your mother? What kind of mother would want her daughter to sell an eye?”
Sasha stood tall. She wiped the tears away. Her face grew hard and defiant. I saw hatred in the eye that remained. As if I were responsible somehow. “Who the hell are you to judge? My mother does what she has to do. And so do I. So shut the hell up and step aside. I’m getting dressed.”
We walked through the corridors in silence, she with her thoughts, I with mine. What she’d done was monstrous. What sort of parent, what sort of mission, could justify a thing like that? There was no way to tell, but one thing was for sure. Anyone who was willing to sacrifice herself to that extent would do the same with me. I would have to be very, very careful. Our cabin was just ahead. We slowed down.
Habits are interesting things. They can hurt you or help you, and I need all the help I can get. That’s why I make a fetish out of small things, like checking the load on my handgun every morning, and plastering a tiny piece of transparent tape across my door when I leave. These things were a struggle at first, but they’re second nature now, and I do them without conscious thought. Except when something unusual happens, that is. “Don’t touch the door. Someone’s been in our cabin.”
Sasha frowned. “How do you know?”
“I left a piece of tape across the door. It’s broken.”
“So what do we do?”
I thought about it for a moment. The wheels turned slowly but turned just the same. “You hungry?”
People came and went in both directions. Sasha watched them. “Yeah, but what does that have to do with the door?”
“Let’s order some room service.”
I placed the call from a com booth down the hall. It took fifteen minutes for the autocall to arrive, use its electronic pass key, and roll inside. I waited for a bomb to go off, for assassins to peer outside, for a thief to run down the corridor. Nothing.
Minutes passed, the autocart emerged, and the door closed. We waited for the robot to trundle away, keyed the proper code, and stepped inside. Our dinner sat steaming on a carefully set fold-down table. The rest of the place was a mess. What few belongings we had were scattered about like toys in a child’s room.
I stated the obvious. “It’s been searched.”
“Yeah,” Sasha agreed. “But by whom?”
I shrugged. “Trask is a distinct possibility, but why wait till now? My money’s on Trans-Solar. It took some time…but they caught up with us.”
Sasha didn’t agree, but she didn’t disagree either, which was almost the same. We balanced trays on our knees. Sasha took some pills as an appetizer. I envisioned her big brown eye, a strand of nerve still attached, rolling around the bottom of a kidney-shaped basin. Or worse yet, being installed in a lifer’s head. My appetite vanished and I felt an almost overwhelming need to cry. But bodyguards don’t cry, not in front of clients anyway, so I poked at the food and pretended to eat it. Not so Sasha, who had the appetite of a stevedore, and cleaned her plate with a piece of bread.
It was a simple matter to throw our dirty clothes into the knapsack, slip out the door, and meld with the crowd. The room charges would continue to mount, but that was better than checking out, which would signal our departure. Sasha set a brisk pace. I struggled to stay abreast of her and watch for tails at the same time.
“Dorlop impog asup 95601.”
“What did you say?”
“I asked where we’re headed.”
“A ship called the Red Trader leaves in two hours. She’s headed for Mars, which is not the most efficient way to get where we want to go, but some progress is better than none.”
“She’s a passenger ship?”
Sasha laughed then stopped as if something hurt. “I wish. No, she’s little more than a clapped-out freighter, and we’re members of the so-called crew.”
I frowned. “Then why sell your eye?”
Sasha spoke patiently as if to a child. “Because the jobs cost five thousand dollars apiece.”
There was nothing to say so I didn’t.
Staros-3 was shaped like the letter H, with living accommodations clustered around the center bar, and docking facilities, solar arrays, and other facilities located along the four extremities. They were variously identified as Leg One, Two, Three, and Four. The Red Trader was docked on Leg Three so we headed in that direction. I checked our tail for any sign of Trans-Solar’s goons, or Nigel Trask’s greenies, and damned near missed the black man. The same man I’d seen with Trask. He caught my eye and waved. Sasha made a grab for my arm, but it was too late. I waved back.
He was there within seconds, his eyes darting from one to the other, summing us up. He had intelligent eyes, a rather aquiline nose, and thin, expressive lips. His suit was white, or had been once, before the accumulated grime stained it gray. We stepped into an alcove to escape the traffic. “Mr. Maxon…Ms.
Casad…this will only take a moment. I know you’re in a hurry. Mr. Maxon…may we speak privately?”
I looked at Sasha. She didn’t like the situation one bit. “Speak your piece…but I’m staying here.”
The man bowed in acknowledgment. “As you wish.” He turned, blocking Sasha with his body. “My name is Philip Bey. I have a message for you. Mr. Trask wants you to know that our associates have performed some research, and the Mishimuto Corporation discharged two marines who suffered brain damage identical to yours. They experienced the same reduction in cognitive function, the same loss of memory, and had skull plates similar to your own.”