“We got word from Lo-Moth,” Heikki said, and could not keep the pride from her voice. “We’ve got the contract, if we want it. I’ve got Malachy looking over the terms now.”
“Didn’t they do what you wanted?” Djuro asked.
“It’s practically our contract, copied onto their format,” Heikki answered. “That’s why I want Malachy to look at it. Do you know where Jock’s staying these days, or if he’s taken another job?”
“No, he’s still looking,” Djuro answered, and swung the camera back toward himself. Heikki blinked, dizzied by the sudden movement, and saw the little man fasten the last clasp of his jacket. “He’s staying on the hostel level here, but I don’t think he’ll be there now. He’s probably at Victoria’s.”
“We can track him down there,” Heikki answered. “Meet me—unless you have other plans.”
Djuro shook his head silently.
“It’ll take me about an hour to get there,” Heikki went on.
“I’ll be there,” Djuro answered, and cut the connection.
It would take somewhat less than an hour to reach Dock Seven, and Victoria’s, but there was a certain code of dress observed in the dock pods that could not be broken with impunity. To ignore it was to proclaim oneself an outsider, fair game; to follow it was to state quickly and clearly who and what one was. Heikki kicked off the station slippers she was wearing, rummaged in a wall bin until she found the tall arroyo-leather boots she usually wore planetside, and worked the clinging leather up over her knees. She left the two front slits of her skirt unbuttoned, freeing the sheath at the top of each boot, and transferred her knife from the thigh sheath to the boottop. Then she reached into a second bin for the jacket she kept for venturing into the docks. It had the standard ‘pointer collar, left side higher than the right, an electronics pad sewn into the stiffened material, but it was tailored more sharply, broad in the shoulders and nipped in at the waist, and the fabric was visibly expensive, an unpatterned blue-black tree-wool. She shrugged it on, feeling automatically for the electronics in collar and cuffs, then went back into the bedroom for her blaster. She slid a fresh cartridge into the charging chamber—half-power, a stun cartridge, all anyone ever carried on any space station— and slipped it into the top of the right boot. It was not that she expected to need it—in all her twenty-five years in salvage, she had never yet had to use it, or the thin-bladed knife she carried in the left boot, on any Exchange Point—but it was a part of the uniform, part of the romance of salvage. She grinned, too aware of the ironies in that view to do more than enjoy them, and started for the door.
She took the stairs to the connecting level and walked the length of the tube to the minitrain station. The other passengers, recognizing the clothes, gave her a wide berth until the Docks change-station, and then she was swallowed in a crowd of similarly dressed men and women. The corridors connecting the dock pods were brightly lit, high-ceilinged tunnels with padding on the floors and halfway up the slightly curving walls. People moved quickly along the center of the corridor, the harsh light flaming from exotic Precinct clothing and flamboyant spacer dress, but here and there eddies formed in the relative shadow of the padded walls. Once it was a group of neo-barbs, mostly women this time, clustered about the platform of the sonic drill that was their sole means of support; then it was a trio of spacers, standing close together, heads turned into their collars as they talked. Light flashed from biolume bracelets as they gestured.
A slidewalk ran down the center of the tunnel that led to Docks Five through Nine. It was crowded, knots of men and women in spacers’ bright clothes leaning against the groaning grab bars, while other people, carefully suppressing any immodest language, pushed past them to hurry down the moving strip. Heikki hesitated for a moment, then, with some reluctance, stepped up onto the walk. By the time the slidewalk had carried her the three hundred meters to the entrance to Dock Five, a number of adolescents—‘pointers, mostly, out for a spree in the frowned-upon dockside clubs—had stepped up onto the walk, and Heikki advanced her left leg a little, letting the skirt fall back to expose the knife tucked into the cuff of the boot. The nearest ‘pointer hesitated, and there was a little swirl of movement as the group rearranged themselves, giving her a wider berth. Heikki allowed herself a cold smile, and looked away. Most of the trouble in the docks was caused by touring ‘pointers; the real dockside crime tended to be silent, nonviolent, and deadly only when it had to be.
The slidewalk ran out between Docks Six and Seven. Heikki walked the last fifty meters to the entrance to Dock Seven, disdaining the slidewalk’s continuation, and turned into the dock corridor. Behind her, the gang of adolescents stopped dead, glancing first at the brightly lit directory board, and then at the glittering signs that lined the head of the corridor. I hope to hell they’re not going to Victoria’s, she thought—but Victoria will know how to deal with them, if they are. The thought was more than a little satisfying, and she was smiling when she stepped through the mirrored door.
It was very dim in the main room, especially after the brightness of the tunnels, but she made her way to the bar with the ease of long habit. It was not particularly crowded yet, and Victoria himself was manning the bar. He stepped forward as Heikki came into the wedge of light in front of the bar, his generously painted mouth curving up into a genuine smile of welcome.
“Heikki. Where’ve you been, dear, and where’s the Marshallin?”
“Pleasaunce,” Heikki answered, and seated herself comfortably on the nearest stool. “And I’m just back from Callithea.”
“Another one of your archeological specials, or routine business?” Victoria asked, and leaned heavily against the bar. He was a big man, despite the corsets and padding that provided the shape beneath the satin and sequined evening gown, and his heavy makeup could not entirely hide the lines at the corners of his eyes and bracketing the sensual mouth. He looked like a dowager who resolutely refused to give up the habits of her youth—and it was, Heikki thought, a fair summation. “Salatha gin?”
“Please.” Heikki accepted the drink as it appeared seemingly from nowhere, and shrugged when Victoria waved away the proffered cashcard. “That can’t do your business much good.”
“Oh, the next drink’s on you, dear, never fret.” His eyes narrowed as the door opened again, and the group of adolescents Heikki had noticed on the slidewalk came in, clustering together and murmuring into their collars at the strangeness of it all. Victoria sighed, and shook his head. “Excuse me,” he said, and ran his fingers across the touchplate embedded in his enormous bracelet. Heikki grinned, and swung around on her stool to watch. A moment later, a short-haired woman in a black leather bodice and trousers that fit like a second skin slouched forward to meet them, her white-painted face set in a forbidding scowl. A heavy chain swung menacingly at her waist.
“Yeah, help you?” she growled, with patent insincerity. The adolescents exchanged glances, and said something too soft for Heikki to hear: Then, as abruptly as they’d appeared, the group retreated. As the door swung shut behind them, the leather-clad woman grinned, the expression transforming her almost elfin face, and came over to the bar, pulling her orderpad out of her waistband by its chain.
“Was that all right, boss?” she asked. “And I need a bottle of joie-de-vivre for upstairs, while I’m here.”
Victoria nodded, touching buttons on the bar, and a moment later the frosted bottle rose through the serving hatch, steaming gently in the sudden warmth. “Neatly done.”
The woman smiled again, and disappeared, balancing the bottle easily in one hand.