“Well, you see they use real malt for one thing, and age it in genuine wood barrels shipped all the way up from Earth. That gives it a—”
“Silence,” the old man hissed. “I ask why… you have… brought it to me.”
“Sorry.” Marchey took a sip of his drink, smacked his lips. “I wanted you to help me celebrate going all the way off the wagon.”
A slow blink as that information was absorbed and processed. “Why have you decided… to become… a worthless drunk again?”
“A talent like mine is a terrible thing to waste,” he answered with a chuckle.
Fist stared up at him. “You amuse… only yourself. Or are you afraid… to tell me?”
Marchey shrugged, his grin turning into a grimace. “Maybe. I don’t know.” He jerked his chin in Fist’s direction. “You’re so goddamned smart, why don’t you tell me?”
“Everything,” Fist whispered, “is falling apart.”
Marchey hung his head. “Yeah, you’re right. Jon Halen can’t crack any of your files, and I can’t crack you. Sal Bophanza called last night. He’s on the run. MedArm is trying to take over the Institute and start making more of us. They’re up to other stuff I can’t even begin to figure out. Angel has started acting strange, it’s probably my fault, and there’s not one damn thing I can do about it.”
He blinked, took a long slug of his drink. “I can’t stand being back on the circuit, at least not sober. I’m sick of not knowing what the hell’s going on, and I’m tired of beating my head against a brick wall worrying about it.”
An expansive shrug. “So fuck it! I give up! I’ve been a drunk before. It’s not a bad life. It makes everything so much simpler and easier to take. I figure if you can’t cure the disease, you might as well medicate the symptoms.”
He pointed at the siptube. “You could use a dose yourself, old man. You’ve already got one foot in a body bag and the other on a banana peel. So why don’t you join me? Misery loves company.”
Fist ignored the offer. “You are only besieged… not defeated. Surrender is… premature. There might be… a way out… of your strait.”
Marchey chuckled and held up his glass. “Sure is. This is it.” He took another sip. “And it tastes good, too.”
“No,” the old man grated with an impatient shake of his head. “Every dark cloud… has a silver lining.”
Marchey guffawed. “Right. Let’s see. ‘It’s always darkest just before the dawn.’ ”
Fist’s eyes blazed with anger. “Don’t be… a simpleton! Pay attention… to me! Every dark cloud has… a silver lining!” He gasped for breath, winded. “That’s im… portant!”
“And all you need is love,” Marchey returned agreeably, reaching down to pat one bony cheek. “Maybe you’d rather drink alone. I know I do. Less distraction that way.” He saluted Fist with his glass, then turned to leave.
“I’ll be back to check on you in a little while,” he called over his shoulder. “You better enjoy yourself while you can, you miserable old sack of pus. Time’s running out.”
“Remember… what I said!” Fist wheezed, coming as close to a shout as his ruined lungs would allow. “Dark… cloud! Silver… lining! It’s im…portant!”
Marchey was on his way to the commboard even as the clinic door slid shut behind him. He dropped into the chair before it, letting out a pent-up sigh of relief.
Jon Halen was already on-line waiting for him, looking apprehensive. He let out his own sigh of relief when he saw that Marchey had survived his visit to Fist’s lair.
“Well, Doc,” he said, “how’d it go?”
Good question. Fist would have smelled a lie even faster than he’d picked up on the scent of whiskey, so he’d had to walk the thin outer edge of the truth, and it had taken total concentration. He felt like he’d just walked a molecule-thin tightrope over a pit full of poisonous snakes, but was pretty sure he’d pulled it off. The trip left his whole body feeling clammy with sweat.
“We’ll know soon enough. Try this phrase on Fist’s files: Every dark cloud has a silver lining.”
“Fist said that?” Jon asked doubtfully.
“More than once.” He held up his silver hands. “It might just open the locked files on the Bergmann program.”
“Well, let’s give her a whirl.” Jon looked offcam and began trying it as a passphrase. Marchey waited, listening to the painfully slow clack…clack of keys from Jon’s end. The residual tension from trying to run a bluff on Fist made him feel edgy and impatient. Jon seemed to be taking forever. He reminded himself that the man had not only to work a keyboard, he was doing it with only half of one hand.
“Holeeeee shit,” Jon breathed, looking off-screen in wide-eyed amazement. “We just cracked us open a hundred and sixty-some megs of hard data.” He peered more closely at what was before him, nodding to himself. “You were right, Doc. It seems to be all about the Bergmann Program.”
Marchey slumped back in his chair. His guess that Fist would give him something useful—something to keep him playing—if he thought that his playmate was giving up had been right on the money. The gamble had paid off. The problem was, that didn’t necessarily mean the file contained good news. More likely it was bad. It had only been given up because Fist was sure its contents would make him want to stay involved. There was even a chance that Fist had seen through his bluff and had planned to give him this all along.
There was only one way to find out. “Transmit it to me, would you?”
Jon nodded absently. “Already workin’ on it.” He turned his attention back to Marchey. “There. I’ll wade through it, too, just in case there’s any passphrases to other locked files in it.”
“We can hope, but the old monster doesn’t give away anything for free.”
“ ’Cept trouble. How’d you get this out of him? Torture?”
Marchey shook his head. “I just told him what the situation looks like from where I stand, and convinced him that I was about to give up.” That part hadn’t taken much acting ability. If anything, it was too close to the truth for comfort.
“But you aren’t going to give up, are you?”
“Not yet, anyway.” Not that he felt anything like optimism. If your past predicts your future then he was doomed to failure.
Doomed.
That word had tolled in his mind for two days now. No hour went by that it didn’t knell. He glanced up at the empty scotch bottle he’d brought from Ananke.
Every time he looked at it he thought of her, but he hadn’t made himself put it out of sight.
“By the way,” he said, trying for nonchalance and sounding unconvincing even to himself, “how is Angel doing?”
His insides tightened at the pained look that appeared on Jon’s face. For a fleeting moment he wished he hadn’t asked.
“Not so hot,” Jon said slowly. “She’s been workin’ herself like some sorta machine. Goin’ at it twenty— thirty hours at a knock. She’s eatin’ just enough of that manna stuff to keep body ’n’ soul together. She holes up in her room ever so often, to sleep I guess, and works straight out the resta the time. And—”
He hesitated, obviously trying to decide how much more to say.
Jon’s reluctance to lay more troubles on Marchey’s doorstep was appreciated, but it only made him dread hearing what was yet unsaid all the more.
“Tell me all of it,” he said quietly. “I have to know.”
“All right. Do you ’member Danny Hong?”
Marchey was unlikely ever to forget.
That last time he’d seen him the boy had touched him deeply. Beyond that, he might well be where he was now because of Danny. Seeing him in the lockbay back when he first arrived on Ananke had been the moment when he had truly begun at least trying to look at what was around him, and trying to do something about it. It had nearly gotten him killed back then.