‘Jesus!’ he heard Eliza exclaim, followed by a muttered prayer from Farad.
Stone raised one hand towards them, and then slumped forward soundlessly.
Without thinking, Jeff stepped forward and began to navigate his way towards him.
TWO
Kepler Colony, Sphere Administrated Development Zone, 15 January 2235
A few hours after emerging from the Copernicus–Kepler gate, moving lightly in the .85 gravity, Saul Dumont stepped out from the lobby of the Heping Plaza Hotel and soon found himself in the heart of one of New Kaiohsung’s busy night markets. He navigated his way through dense crowds of shoppers, the air thick with the smell of barbecuing meat and cho dou fu. Their breath frosted where it emerged from ten thousand throats, while the street vendors were stained with orange light wherever they clustered under the tall municipal heating units rising above their heads.
Saul tilted his head back to catch a glimpse of Kepler’s moon, its fractured outline floating cool and serene far above clustered high-rises and jerkily kinetic video advertisements. He brought his gaze back down, ignoring the occasional stares of passers-by, most of whom were immigrants from China, Korea and other Pan-Asian Congress nations. Saul’s clothes and ebony skin, by contrast, screamed Western Coalition.
It wasn’t long before he found his way to a quiet alleyway where he spotted Jacob Maks sitting in the window of a shui-jiao dian, forking steamed dumplings into his mouth with a pair of chopsticks. A TriView screen, bolted at an angle between the ceiling and rear wall of the eatery, ran news items piped through the local Array from back home.
Jacob looked up, in the middle of chewing a mouthful of peppered meat and cabbage, and started when he saw Saul enter. The new arrival pulledown the hood of his parka, and placed his briefcase on the floor next to Jacob’s table.
Jacob gestured with his chopsticks to the empty seat across from him, the motion quick and birdlike. ‘You want something? I’ll buy.’
‘First,’ Saul replied, his tone even and careful, ‘tell me why we aren’t meeting at the hotel like we were supposed to, Jacob, or I might not be able to resist the urge to break both of your arms.’
Jacob’s hands never remained still, constantly twirling the chopsticks between his fingers or fiddling with the edge of his paper plate. ‘I can always tell when you’re pissed at me, Saul,’ he replied, with a nervous twitch of the mouth.
Saul took the seat opposite, slow and easy as always. Jacob watched him cautiously, as if trying to assess whether he might follow through on his threat.
‘You left me sitting there waiting in the lobby of the Heping for over an hour before you got in contact,’ Saul persisted. ‘I had no idea what was going on. You’re supposed to keep me informed of any last-minute changes, so what the hell happened?’
Jacob cleared his throat. ‘Look,’ he said, putting the chopsticks down, ‘this was a very last-minute change of plan. I couldn’t call you without compromising myself. But, now you’re here, you should know that we aren’t meeting Hsiu-Chuan at the warehouse any more.’
‘No?’ Saul cocked his head, the movement typically slow and deliberate. ‘Why not?’
‘Apparently his security people didn’t think it was secure enough, so they picked another location. Not a damn thing I could do about it. We’re just lucky he didn’t pull out altogether.’ He leaned to one side and looked down at Saul’s briefcase. ‘Is that the bait?’
Saul nodded fractionally. ‘What about Hsingyun? Do you trust him?’
Jacob had the courtesy to look offended. ‘Of course I don’t, but he’s a street soldier looking for a fast promotion, and he’s got too much to gain from helping us to want to screw us over. And remember, he’s still the only real link we have connecting Hsiu-Chuan with the Tian Di Hui.’ The Tian Di Hui, of which Hsingyun was a member, were a loose network of separatist groups that railed against the Western Coalition’s monopoly on the wormhole gates.
‘A pretty tenuous link at that, don’t you think? One seven-second segment of footage showing Hsingyun and Hsiu-Chuan talking together, and that’s it.’
Jacob smiled. ‘Still more than enough to merit us being here, right?’
‘I guess,’ Saul sighed, leaning back. ‘It looks like most of what he’s been telling you checks out anyway.’
‘Who did you talk to? Narendra?’
Saul nodded. ‘I got back from Sophia just this morning. Narendra put out some feelers and, from what he’s heard, the Tian Di Hui are moving on something. Could be big.’ He shrugged. ‘Hard to say just what. But according to Narendra, Hsiu-Chuan is involved, whatever it is.’
Jacob shook his head and chuckled. ‘And you just asked me if I trust Hsingyun? I could ask you the same about Narendra.’
‘And I’d give you the same answer.’
Jacob sighed and sat back. ‘All right, touché. Look, as far as Hsingyun goes, as long as I pour enough booze down his throat, he’s been happy to tell me pretty much anything I want to know. Which, if you’ll remember, is how I managed to set this all up in the first place.’
‘How worried should we be about the last-minute change of venue?’
Jacob shrugged. ‘My gut tells me they’re just being cautious. It took a lot to get someone like Hsiu-Chuan to even entertain the idea of doing business with a couple of strangers.’ He drummed his fingers on the table top and gestured at the unfinished plate of dumplings, a plastic bowl full of chopsticks next to it. ‘Eat something,’ he said. ‘It’s going to be a long night.’
Saul shook his head. ‘Not hungry.’
Jacob sighed. ‘Try not to look so worried.’
‘We really need,’ warned Saul, ‘to not screw this up.’
‘Yes, I know that,’ Jacob snapped, failing to hide his irritation.
Saul nodded, far from mollified. There had been talk about pulling Jacob out of the investigation once it seemed to be going nowhere. Then all of a sudden, like a magician pulling a rabbit out of a hat, he’d come up with Hsingyun: someone who could finally get them close to Hsiu-Chuan.
The details, long since memorized, span through Saul’s mind like an endless loop. Shih Hsiu-Chuan was a rising star in the Pan-Asian Congress of Pacific Sphere States, popular for his aggressive stance in favour of full independence for the colonies administrated by the Sphere Congress and also the establishment of their own, dedicated network of wormhole gates. There had never been any solid evidence of a direct link between member-nations of the Sphere and the Tian Di Hui – nothing good enough to stand up in the international courts, at any rate – but showing that Hsiu-Chuan had been present at a Tian Di Hui-moderated meeting could change the whole distribution of influence between the power blocs for ever.
‘I want to make sure we’ve got everything straight,’ Saul said, as Jacob finished his meal and pushed his plate to one side. ‘As far as Hsingyun or anyone else is concerned, I’m—’
‘Donald Lassen,’ Jacob interrupted, wiping his mouth with a tissue. ‘You’re an Earth-side broker for a private financial concern with a hefty reputation in the Western Coalition’s underground economy. Your employers moved into the lucrative realm of biotech fencing after the global financial situation took a turn for the worse a few years back. You’re ambitious, and you’re willing to trade an illegally cloned black-box arbitration device, with a solid-gold record in market speculation, in return for becoming the Tian Di Hui’s newest bulk distributor of illicit off-world materials. Have I got it all?’