Money. An instrument invented in ancient temple complexes, to keep track of debt: counters that acquired mobility and went a-walking, weaving webs of debt into vast and intricate meshes, enslaving and directing the labor of billions in service of the obligations created by its issuance. Latterly, slow money: a framework invented to systematize the repayment of debt across interstellar distances, to provide for stable exchange of labor by light-speed transmission. Money: a shadow play projected on the walls of our minds by the dark sun of debt. In picking up my part of the Atlantis Carnet, I had laid claim to the repayment of a debt serviced by millions of now-dead people; people presumably killed by my lineage mater and her coconspirators. I found myself looking at it from outside, with newly opened eyes. What I saw looked uncommonly like a different kind of fraudulent vehicle: a Ponzi scheme sprayed across the cosmos, the victims entire solar systems, the pyramid spreading on a wave of starships.
We rose through darkness and pressure for more than a standard day. The ’scaphe stopped periodically, creaking and popping as its internal systems adapted to the slowly diminishing pressure. I could feel it in my marrow, and in my ’cytes: compressed macromolecules expanding and reconfiguring, lipid membranes unpacking, as the balance of forces holding my internal components in shape at every level shifted. They’d left me a talking box to provide an idiot’s commentary on our ascent, all facts and no insight. “Attention, Krina: Decompression stage two reached. Ascent will pause for one hour. Please connect Red Cartridge Two to your infusion port, then confirm.” I did as I was told: The idea of exploding messily (or, more likely, dying painfully as various mechazymes stopped working, irreversibly denatured by a pressure-induced phase change) did not appeal. Even when life lacks allure, death may still repel.
As for my rescuers . . .
I spent a long time staring up into the darkness, at the silhouette of the nearly invisible bathyscaphe above me, without even any monstrous deep-dwelling critters for company: The ’scaphe was big enough to frighten them all away. A solitary pilot light glowed above and around the curve of the pressure sphere, barely limning it against the abyssal night. What was going on inside it? What dreams did Rudi and his crew harbor?
Acquiring a client of such size would be a monumental coup for Rudi, who would not only reap a gigantic commission from his employer but would, in turn, be in a position to support more large customers: It was the breakthrough his institution had been seeking since its arrival in Dojima System. But was I perhaps too big a client? Big enough to tempt him to discount future business and goodwill and dive overboard into truly lawless piracy? I’d left my soul-chip backup and my spare scratch-pad chip with Ana, committing everything I needed—including my fortune in slow dollars—to the frailty of merely human memory. But I could afford no illusions. If Rudi was ruthless enough to use his slave controller, he could steal my onerous wealth—but at the cost of doing so in public, destroying forever his claim to be an honest privateer acting under letters of marque. My gamble was in guessing that Rudi, as I had come to know him over the past year, would not change markedly in the presence of great wealth: in believing that he was an intelligent rogue, clever enough to act in his long-term best interest. If he wasn’t, we were both probably doomed.
A second thought hit me then. Suppose that Rudi was indeed trustworthy. But what of his parent institution? What did I really know about the Permanent Assurance? An out-system bank and insurance agency with credentials recognized by some of the governments of Dojima System, it had expanded across interstellar space and opened up a subsidiary here. Pretty tenuous, that background. He’d supplied me with a fine portfolio of reports to read during our ascent, but I had no way of confirming their contents. Going interstellar was a daring, if not radical, business move: Few organizations ever attempted to coordinate at such range, for the only medium of internal exchange that could be used to couple their activities was slow money. Who were they, to have taken such a risky gamble in an industry as famously risk-averse as underwriting? Rudi might be trustworthy, but could I trust his bosses?
I was angsting pointlessly along these lines when, with no warning whatsoever, the retina plastered overhead lit up like a window into the heart of the sun and blared sound at me. “Krina, are you still there?”
“Quiet!” I called, shielding my eyes from the burning brightness. “You’re too loud and too bright!”
“Oops.” The retina dimmed a little. “Is this better?”
“A bit.” The speaker was not Rudi: pitch too high, intonation wrong. “Is that Marigold?”
“Yes. Rudi asked me to talk to you: He’s busy.”
“Busy with what?” I asked.
“We have a cable to the surface, to the barge we descended from. He’s talking to, to the Queen of Argos, via satellite link.” Marigold sounded troubled. “Medea is very angry. She’s demanding that we turn you over immediately.”
This might sound strange to you, but I immediately felt a flush of relief at the news. “He’s not planning to do that,” I replied with certainty.
“Well, no.” She hesitated. “But it raises problems, he says. Do you understand?”
I understood all too well. Queen Medea had clearly noticed my disappearance from under her nose despite her network of police and spies. Doubtless, she had intended to use me as bait in a trap for Ana, and she was angry that I had been snatched from it so abruptly. Word had somehow escaped that we had done the impossible: Rumor is the only information channel that travels faster than light. She’d probably guessed that Rudi was involved somehow: It wasn’t hard to see why. And now she was trying to stake her claim to the Atlantis Carnet, using the last argument of kings.
“What do you want?” I asked, carefully feeling the web of support tapes around me.
“Here’s Rudi,” said Marigold.
“Krina.” I recognized his voice instantly: The febrile tension was new. “Medea is issuing ultimata. She seems certain that I’m holding you captive, and she is demanding that I hand you over and warning of violent consequences if I do not.”
“Good.”
“Yes, that was my reaction: If she knew where we were, she wouldn’t bother with the threats.”
“What do you intend to do?” I asked.
“We have an agreement.” And indeed we did, or we had, a day earlier and twenty kilometers deeper: a 10-percent commission in return for services rendered, the establishment of a deposit account secured against shares in the Permanent Assurance, public acknowledgment of my shareholding, and . . . well, it had taken Ana and myself most of a day to hammer out the small print with Rudi.
“Of course I intend to honor it. But she’s threatening to drop depth charges on Hades-4 and launch missiles at the Five Zero if I don’t hand you over. So I was wondering if you have any suggestions about how to handle her?”
“Hm. What’s the basis of her claim?”
“Some nonsense about the Church’s having produced someone who says he was bilked out of a fortune by the annoyingly dead Mr. Trask. Perhaps Trask was implicated in more crimes than merely washing your mother’s laundry?”
“That’s possible.” I thought for a minute. “But it’s a cash instrument. Trask is long dead. If the Church produced this claimant, then they—” I stopped dead. “Oh no.”
“Oh no what?” I could picture Rudi at that moment, tongue lolling from his jaws, looking carnivorously amused as only a microgravity flying fox could.