Ciceron’s voice changed subtly, and Heikki swore to herself. She’d missed it, whatever it was, and he knew she knew less than he did now. She kept her face expressionless, and said, “I need a pilot, one with back-country experience, and a lot of it—someone reliable. And I need a guide, also reliable, preferably someone who knows the massif well.”
“What would you mean by reliable?” Ciceron did not reach for his workboard, but steepled his fingers above the desktop. There was amusement in his voice that did not reach his eyes.
“I want people outside Lo-Moth politics.” Heikki’s tone added, of course.
“So you do think it’s sabotage.”
“I don’t know yet,” Heikki answered, and then, because that was no answer at all, said, “I’m not ruling out any possibilities.” She waited then, and when Ciceron said nothing, added, carefully casual, “Is that the local talk, sabotage?”
Ciceron’s mouth twisted as though he’d bitten into something unexpectedly bitter. “That’s the talk, certainly. But Lo-Moth blames the crew, and the crewfolk blame the company.”
“Do they now,” Heikki said, almost to herself. That was a possibility she had not fully considered, and one that did not, at first glance, make a good deal of sense.
After all, the crystal matrix was—potentially—the company’s ticket to the first ranks…. Even as she articulated that thought, however, she began to see other scenarios, rivalries within Lo-Moth’s ranks, between departments and between parents and subsidiaries. It was plausible enough, but she put the thought away as something to be tested later, and turned her attention back to the little man behind the desk. “Would you recommend anybody?”
Ciceron nodded. “For the guide, yes, without reservation. There’s a woman named Alexieva, licensed surveyor, who has her own company outside the Limit.” He held up his hand, forestalling Heikki’s question. “She was part of the team that did the ordinance survey, the reliable one. She was a section chief, I think. But there’s not a lot of survey work these days, so she does some guide work. She’s good. Or anyone she recommends, of course, but she’s the only one I really know is good.”
Heikki nodded back. “Contact code?” she asked, and Ciceron slid a card across the table. Heikki took the featureless square of plastic, feeling the familiar roughness of the data ridges, and tucked it into the pocket with her lens. “Now, what about a pilot?”
Ciceron hesitated. “The best pilots are Firsters,” he said after a moment, his voice completely without expression.
“I do the hiring,” Heikki said, and when he did not respond said, “It’s in my contract, I have a free hand.”
“Ah.” Ciceron’s expression did not change, but his voice was fractionally warmer. “The best pilot—” He stressed the word. “—is a kid called Sebasten-Januarias.”
“What’s wrong with him?”
Ciceron smiled thinly. “One. He’s very young. Two. He’s a Firster—real Firster, trouble to the core when it comes to Lo-Moth. Three…. No, three’s just a part of one. He’s very young.”
Heikki’s eyebrows rose. “All this, and you’d still recommend him? He must be one hell of a pilot.”
“He’s the best I know. If you weren’t working for Lo-Moth I’d recommend him without reservation.”
“I’ll bear that in mind,” Heikki said. “Do you have any other names?”
“Pell Elauro,” Ciceron answered promptly, “and Liljana Kerry.” He reached into his desk again before Heikki could ask, and produced two more cards. Heikki accepted them, and lifted an eyebrow.
“Don’t you have one for the Firster, Sebastian—”
“Sebasten-Januarias,” Ciceron corrected her. “No. He works out of a bar called the Last Shift. By the airfield—”
“I know it,” Heikki said, and was rewarded by a look of surprise from Ciceron.
“Not many off-worlders do.”
Heikki allowed herself a genuine, if somewhat crooked, grin. “I grew up here, Ser Ciceron. I’ll try Sebasten-Januarias first, thanks—if he’s the best.”
“He is.” Ciceron nodded twice as if in punctuation.
“He is.”
“Good enough,” Heikki said, but made no move to go. “I’m also going to need some meteorological analysis done, confidentially. Lo-Moth will be doing most of the sim and scan work, but I’d like an independent verification. Can you handle that for me?”
Somewhat to her surprise, Ciceron neither smiled nor frowned at the possibility of work. “Yes.” He nodded to the cloud chamber blocking the media wall. “As you can see, I’ve got the equipment.”
“Are you interested?” Heikki asked bluntly. “If you’re not, I’m sure you can recommend someone who has the time.”
“It’s not that.” Ciceron shook his head as though coming out of a dream. “No, I can handle the work—I’d be glad to handle the work.”
“Rates?”
Ciceron reached into his desk again, withdrew a slightly larger card that shimmered faintly, light sparking as well from the metal threads woven through its surface. “Everything you need is on this.”
I’m missing something, Heikki thought, and bit her lower lip in frustration. I’m missing something, political or professional, and I don’t know what it is. She put that knowledge aside with an effort, filing questions to be asked later, of other people, and took the card. “I appreciate your help, Ser Ciceron.”
Ciceron bowed slightly, an antique gesture Heikki had not seen in years. “My pleasure, Dam’ Heikki.”
Heikki made her way back to the fastcat quickly enough, but sat in the cab without touching the controls, fingering instead the cards tucked into her pocket. She didn’t really want to go into First Town in search of Sebasten-Januarias, though she knew perfectly well that that was the easiest way to find any Firster. After a moment’s thought, she pulled out Alexieva’s card, and adjusted the data lens to the standard setting. Letters sprang into existence within the thin plastic, giving the woman’s full name—Incarnacion Alexieva Cirilly, with the middle name, the business name, underlined—and beneath that the various contact codes. The office address was for a quarter on the opposite side of the city: she would almost have to go by the port, and the Last Shift, to get there. Heikki sat for a moment longer, eyeing the ‘cat’s communications panel, and wondered if she could call Alexieva first. She frowned at her own weakness then, and tucked card and lens back into her pocket and punched on the engine. There was no point in talking to Alexieva until she knew whether or not she would be asking the surveyor to work with a Firster. Better to deal with Sebasten-Januarias first and get it over with, especially if it meant meeting someone she knew. And besides, she did want to see First Town again after all these years, in spite of all the people she might meet, who might remember— She slammed the ‘cat into gear, focusing on the act of driving, and swung the machine out onto the road, heading for First Town.
First Town hadn’t changed much, in the years since she had left Iadara. The roads were still rutted, drifted with the fine dust; the tall, thin houses still stood almost bare on their tracts of land, their stark white paint either faded into the bleached silver-brown of the wood itself, or violently new and bright, never anything in between. There were crawlers in the yards, or the occasional ‘cat, sometimes stripped to the frame with tallgrass springing through the empty engine well. Faded clothing hung on frames outside, bleaching in the sun; an equally faded woman leaned from her third-floor window, calling to the pack of children in the dust below. A fruit tree stood beside one smaller house, incongruously green and blossoming behind its protective cage. Its owner scowled as he sprayed the dust from its leaves, daring it to die.
Closer to the airfield, the buildings stood further apart, but the space between them was filled not with gardens or children’s playgrounds, but with rusted machines and heaped wires, or nothing at all but the dust and the ubiquitous sere grass. A group of Firsters, most of them so muffled in headscarf and loose sun-cheating coat, four meters of sunblocking fabric pleated into a gaudy patchwork yoke, as to be indistinguishable by age or sex, sat on the broad steps of one house, passing a stoneware falk from hand to hand. So afaq is still common here, Heikki thought, and shifted her leg so that she could reach the slim blaster tucked into the top of her high boot beside her knife. The group did not move as the ‘cat slid past, but in the mirror she saw one of them throw a stone after her, not purposefully, but with an old and pointless despair.