Heikki leaned back in her chair, her dislike of the Twins fading in the face of an interesting problem. “Crashed in the interior? And a research cargo—so it probably went down in the ‘wayback. The weather’s very bad there, there’s a central massif that sets up a bad storm pattern during the planetary autumn. The storms have been known to—” She caught herself before the monitor could respond, substituted a more modest word. “—interfere with beam transmissions before now. But of course, that wouldn’t explain the beacon. I take it no one’s walked out?”
Engels shook his head silently. Xiang said, “I understand they don’t expect anyone to do so.”
“They wouldn’t,” Heikki said, and allowed herself a grin. “There’s an indigenous primate, nasty job, semi-bipedal and tool-using—probably well on its way to intelligence. They’re fairly territorial, the orcs, and they find humans a pleasant addition to their diet.”
“Don’t try to scare us, Heikki,” Engels said.
Heikki spread her hands, opening her eyes wide in innocence. “Oath-true, Eng. The Firsters—the first settlers—were just lucky they landed in the Lowlands. The orcs don’t come down there.”
Engels frowned, and Xiang touched his shoulder. The blond man settled back in his chair, lips closed tight over whatever it was he had been going to say.
“Still,” Heikki went on, the mockery fading from her voice, “orcs and bad weather—that shouldn’t be enough to make pros break contract. Who is FourSquare, anyway?”
Xiang shrugged. “I don’t know the company, myself. They were—still are, I suppose—licensed in all the proper ways, so….”
Heikki nodded thoughtfully, as much to herself as to the Twins. Something had gone very wrong on Iadara, that much was obvious—something political, possibly; companies had been paid to break contract before now; maybe something technical that wasn’t being reported for fear of scaring off other companies that might bid for the job. Almost without wishing it, she found herself adding up the costs of the job, framing an acceptable bid.
“Then you will be bidding?” Xiang asked softly.
Heikki allowed herself a rather wry smile. “I’ll have to talk it over with Santerese, of course. But it does sound like an interesting problem.”
Xiang returned a crooked smile. “And also a difficult one,” he said, without much hope. Heikki’s smile broadened, and Xiang sighed. “Which is, of course, what makes it interesting.”
“Precisely,” Heikki agreed, and wished they would go away.
Engels’ eyes narrowed as though he’d read the thought, and he leaned forward a little, as though he wanted to prolong the conversation out of sheer perversity. To Heikki’s relief, however, Xiang rose gracefully, shaking his head at Engels. “It was good to see you again, Heikki,” he said aloud. “I’m sorry to rush, but we have to catch a train.”
“Nice talking to you,” Heikki said, to their retreating backs, and knew Engels, at least, heard the patent insincerity in her voice.
When they were out of sight, Heikki fished her data lens out of her pocket, tilting it so that she could read the chronodisplay that flashed in the heart of the lens. She had a little more than three hours to kill before her train left for Exchange Point Seven: not enough time to do any useful research into this possible contract, and too much time to fill. She touched the pad again, ordering a second gin, and stared into space, hardly seeing the hurrying waiter.
Trouble on Iadara—no, she amended quickly, not necessarily trouble, you can’t jump to that conclusion yet, but a problem to be solved, and on Iadara…. She had not been on that world in more than twenty years, but to her surprise the memories were still startlingly clear. She could almost taste the dank air of Lowlands, heavy with salt and the peppery smell of the perpetually encroaching clingvines, could feel the kick of a sailboard crossing the dirty bay, see the sunlight flaming from the long low roofs of the crystal sheds on the sands just outside the city line. She had learned to drive heavy-load vehicles on those sands, and flown her first aircraft over the scrubby backlands; it had been Iadara she had left to work in salvage. It would be strange to go back there now, her parents dead, her brother gone who knows where, to work for the corporations the family once had scorned.
She shook the thought away, forcing her mind back to business. If they bid for the job, they—she—would have the advantage of knowing the planet: it would help, but not that much. They would still have to make a canny estimate, and impress whoever was doing the hiring at Lo-Moth, before they got the job. She touched the orderpad again, summoning the waiter, and when the man appeared, asked him for an intersystems messageboard. The waiter bowed and vanished, to return a moment later with board and stylus. Heikki thanked him—the Explorers’ Club did not permit gratuities—and punched in the familiar codes. After a moment’s thought, she began to write.
M. Santerese, sal/prop, UMC RQ5JBIP19.22051, greetings. Do me a favor and check the bid listings for Lo-Moth, no numbers known, out of Precinct 10IIadara, then meet me at the Club on the far concourse. I’m on the 1805 out of EP1. Thanks, love. G. Heikki, sal/prop, UMC RQ5JBIP19.22053. She read the message through a final time, wincing a little at the transmission charge displayed in the upper corner of the screen, but there was nothing she could cut without offending her partner. She sighed, and pressed the transmission codes, watching the message fade from the screen. There was no acknowledgement, and she had expected none. She sighed again, setting the board aside, and reached for her drink instead.
Salatha gin was an Iadaran drink: the taste brought back more memories, less pleasant ones. Iadara was a divided world, split like almost every Precinct world between the first settlers—who had to be generalists, jacks-of-all-trades, simply to survive the first years—and the second wave of specialists, come to exploit the particular resources discovered by the first wave. In Iadara’s case, the second wave had been crysticulturalists, corporate employees importing a corporate, ‘pointer, ethos completely foreign to the Firsters’ ways of thought. Heikki had come to Iadara just turned fourteen, newly admitted to the ranks of the almost-adult; her mother had worked as a consultant for Lo-Moth itself. Ten years a consultant, Heikki thought, an unconscious echo of her father’s constant complaint, ten years a consultant to one firm, and then offering contract work, begging her to take it, but she never gave in, never gave any of us that security. They had settled in Lowlands, the largest—the only—city, a hot, dirty place cooled only fitfully by the wind off the too-distant fields or by the seasonal storms. It filled every tenth-day with workers from the crystal fields—neo-barbs, many of them, another local grievance, that off-worlders could be hired so cheaply—a tide of people that ebbed and flowed with the rhythm of the growing stones, black sheep, too many of them, shipped off to sinecures where they could do no harm. They tended their putative business when they felt like it, or when they had to, and spent most of their lives in the clubs and private houses inside the charmed circle that was Lowlands’ inner range. The fourteen-year-old Heikki had taken a long look at them and theirs, and with the cold certainty of the adolescent had thrown in her lot with the Firsters. She had eaten their food and learned to drink their liquor, learned their lisping dialect, accepted corporate scorn and parental reproof, and never been one of them. These days, she had to admit the folly of the attempt, but she did not—entirely—regret it.