Cormac quickly stepped out into the alley, but whoever had come through the back of the shop after him was not visible. Moving as swiftly and as silently as he could, he returned to that back door, scanned around, and noted a way through the ruins to his left. Yes, had it been him he would have taken a circuitous route to where he had detected the bug. Cormac moved down that way, checking all possible ambush points as he went, then there: the shadow of one wall on the ground before him with something moving along it. He dropped into a crouch, aimed upwards and fired at a half-seen shape.
Just clipped by the blast of neurotoxin pellets, the figure fell, swearing, and landed in an unsteady squat while groping for something under his coat. Cormac fired at the wall beside the figure, not wanting to take the neurotoxin dose up to lethal levels. As the pellets fragmented, their contents turning into a choking gas, he charged forwards to slam a thrust-kick into the man's chest. The man hit the wall behind and bounced back, whereupon Cormac side-fisted his temple and he went down like a sack of sand.
The one they had sent to follow Cormac was young, looked no older than Cormac himself, his face unlined and scattered with freckles, his hair ginger. He had been good, fast and dangerous, but not lethal. Apparently this youth was a recruit like himself, but one undergoing espionage training. The possibility of Cormac being involved in Carl's treachery had been downgraded in importance, it being decided that he should merely be watched. He was not considered sufficiently important or dangerous for a real agent to expend valuable time upon.
Cormac quickly sprayed an impermeable covering over his hands, stooped by the man, and began searching him, for this had to look like a robbery and he needed plausible deniability. All the money went into his own pockets, along with other items of value like identification and a small palm-top. A gold finger-ring and gold earring he left, since no local would steal such items where they had been digging that metal out of the ground in industrial quantities ever since the colony was established. Not here, where it had not been uncommon to use gold simply as anti-corrosion plating on other metals. He paused over the thin-gun the youth had been trying to draw. He liked the heft of the narrow, easily concealed weapon. It was an agent's weapon or equally the kind used by others about nefarious deeds. It went into his pocket too, along with some spare clips. Later, when the mission was over, he would return these items, but for now veracity was all. He considered shifting the man into a recovery position—people had been known to choke on their own vomit after a stun, but that would show any watchers that he was concerned; so leaving the man where he lay, he moved off.
Now he needed to get to The Engine Room, since that was the brief instruction given him by the voice that replied when he used the com-code obtained from a secret file concealed in Carl's palm-top amidst his weapons-adjustment programs. Whoever Cormac met there would reveal himself—or herself, since the voice had been electronically disguised—as Samara.
At the end of the alley he ducked into yet another alley, which in turn led to a square, where mounds of rubble had been bulldozed to one side and adapted blue grass was sprouting once again, though patchily, since the acid fogs stunted its growth. A statue had been hauled upright again, a scaffold built round it and repairs commenced, though no one was working on it now—perhaps the exigencies of building new homes and infrastructure being more important than the image of some long-dead dignitary.
Locating himself by the position of the still-standing clock tower, Cormac headed for a wide boulevard lined with red-leaf lime trees bearing more dead limbs than live, turned left at a scummed-over pond and caught sight of the polluted harbour at the bottom of the hill; the smell rising from there reminding him of the interior of the Prador ship. Fortunately the oceans weren't dead here, but a substantial proportion of the sea life had been killed so sometimes the shores stood feet deep in rotting detritus.
He walked down to the harbour, which unlike the city above had not taken any direct hits, but which had taken the brunt of tsunamis generated elsewhere on this world. To his left a thousand-foot-long cargo ship lay on its side, houses and warehouses crushed underneath it. Holes had been cut into its hull to provide accommodation inside, and spelt out on the blades of the two sets of twinned screws were the words "The Engine Room." He headed for the low door sliced through the rear of the hull, mounted steps leading inside over a huge drive shaft, and arrived in the Escheresque engine room where new floors and stairways had been built in level without displacing the old. Removing his fog mask he headed straight for the bar, which was set over a very retro generator of the kind not normally seen outside a museum. Glancing round, he understood how wealthy the society here had once been, for this ship had been someone's privately owned and lovingly restored and maintained antique.
Behind the bar a man clad in greasy overalls, with a large improbable beard bound with copper wire, said, "What can I get you, matey?" Maybe he was the owner of this ship.
"I'll have a large espresso and a brandy." One to counter the other being his theory, since he needed to stay alert here.
The espresso came from a machine that actually used real ground beans and the making of it was a lengthy process. The brandy came from an old pottery bottle. The price reflected both these sources.
"Thank you," Cormac paid without quibbling, since Olkennon had given him a generous budget. "I'm looking for someone called Samara—can you help?"
The bearded barman laughed, then repeated the words, "Looking for Samara."
"If you could explain?" Cormac enquired politely.
"Someone's played a joke on you. If you're 'looking for Samara. You're searching in vain. It comes from just after the bombing. A guy had lost his mind and was looking for Samara. He had no other details—couldn't remember—and there were thousands called Samara here in the city." He looked contemplative for a moment. "Lot of them changed their names since."
Cormac nodded his thanks and turned away to head for a nearby bench table. It did not surprise him that his contact had not given a real name or method of identification. Doubtless he was being watched in here, as he had been watched since the moment he entered the old city. He placed his drinks down on the compacted-fibre surface of the table, shed his fog robe and stretched his back before sitting so any watchers would be able to see he was wearing ECS fatigues. The barman saw, for he frowned and looked quickly away.
The espresso was good, the brandy better, but Cormac sat with deliberate fidgety impatience and scanned his surroundings. He spotted a man clad in similar robes to his own sitting at the far side of the room. He hadn't been there a few minutes ago and he had no drink before him—sloppy, and easily spotted.
As Cormac finished his coffee, three individuals entered the place and headed directly to where he sat. The two men were heavily built—the archetypal thugs employed by many criminal organisations. They either possessed boosted musculature and reinforced bones, or had serious steroid habits and spent most of their lives pumping iron. They wore a mixture of the kind of fatigues on sale anywhere and local clothing, in this case consisting of long, heavy coats and the kind of hats worn by gangsters portrayed on ancient celluloid film. The other figure was a woman in a leather tabard-like garment split up the sides of her legs to reveal black trousers and heavy trekking boots. Her face was made-up: heavy on the blue lip gloss and face powder to cover a rash of pocked scars. Her hair was black and coiled on top of her head.