I had decided to be generous.
We sat sipping our way through a cup of coffee each as the auction progressed. At the lot before the tiles we sauntered out. As soon as this was sold we moved into Darkander’s view. The short bald-headed man who was reputed to be a multimillionaire flicked a glance in my direction and tried to start the bidding at five hundred. I caught hold of Jane’s arm before she could raise it. The figure Darkander suggested dropped in fifties until it was fifty, then started to rise again in twenty fives. Jane began to bid and as she did so I looked to see who she was bidding against.
When the figure reached four twenty-five I nudged her.
“Drop it.”
“Why?”
“You’re out of your league here and that’s about all they’re worth.”
The bidding continued to the figure of five seventy-five.
“See the fat little guy over there…” Jane nodded. “He’s the agent for the Ganymede runcible AI. It probably wants to give its containment sphere that old-world look.”
The mollusc shell was next but no one made a bid. It went into the next lot which appeared to be a collection of all sorts of junk, but I’d seen a really old digital watch lying in there and not expected a chance at it. I swore to myself for not going for the shell straight away.
I just wasn’t paying attention. On this next lot the bidding was tried at fifty then dropped to ten.
No one went for it so I gave Darkander the nod. “Going once,” he told me. “Going twice.” I couldn’t believe it. I saw the runcible agent glance at me suspiciously and begin to raise his hand. He was too late. The hammer went down. “Sold to Mr Chel.” I managed to keep a straight face.
“Good?” Jane asked.
“Yes, very good… I think.”
The Thrakework sculpture went to the woman in black. She’d always had a taste for the macabre. I bid against her a couple of times, but when I saw that wild look come into her eyes I gave up. I knew her of old.
There was half an hour before the Golem was to come up for auction, so with a nod to the lady — she didn’t see, she was fumbling with her death’s head charm and staring at the sculpture with a horrible avidity — I went to authorize the credit transfer for my buy, and leaving Jane to her own devices, took the boxes out to my Ford AGV.
The mollusc shell was interesting. I noted that the box it came in had the same shipment marks, stamps, and tape, as the packing strewn about the Golem. This told me no more than that they’d come from the same world. I wanted some hint as to value. I did not relish the prospect of initiating a computer search to identify this shell. Life, in its unbelievable abundance in the fifth of the galaxy thus far explored, had often used this sensible method of self-preservation. There were probably more types of shell than excuses for taxation. I put the shell aside and opened the other box.
Most of the contents of this box I could justify the price paid with resale through my shop, but no more. The digital watch was a dog. The case and the strap, which I thought to be ceramal greyed with age, turned out to be one of the later matt ceramals. There was nothing inside the case. I swore and was about to sling the box to the front of the van compartment when something caught my eye.
It was a bracelet set with jewels. The jewels were manufactured diamonds and therefore of little value. It was cheap costume jewelry, yet something gave me pause. Something wrong with it… I glanced back into the auction room and saw that it would soon be the Golem’s turn. I’d have to find out later. In a rather distracted mood I returned, after another scanning, to Jane’s side in the auction room, and bid two hundred over the odds for the Golem. Only as Jane and I were leaving did I notice the desperate gaze of a late arrival.
Chaplin Grable is the kind of man you learn to avoid at Darkander’s, the kind of man who’ll sidle up beside you and start asking the kind of questions you really don’t want to answer if you’re after anything in particular. Then, he’ll give you his jaundiced opinion on various objects in the warehouse, and sidle away. After he’s gone you feel the immediate urge to check your pockets, your credit rating, then go home for a shower. That day he stuck to me like a piece of dog shit on an instep.
“Look, all I want is a copy, downloaded copy, it’s easy money.”
I glanced towards Jane who was then involved in bidding for an arty looking mobile made from genuine fossil-fuel-based plastic, if the label was to be believed. I felt a certain relief that she was not at my side then.
“How much?”
“Four hundred, that’s fair. I’ll use all my own stuff. It’s easy — “
I was curious.
“A thousand.”
“Oh come on, for that piece of junk? I only want it for the Historical Society. Six hundred.”
“Funny, I thought I said a thousand.”
“Seven fifty. That’s it, easy, final offer, no more, capiche capoot.”
“Not interested.”
Of course I was, very interested, but if there was good money to be made here I intended to make it, not to pass it on to this slime bag.
“Okay okay, a thousand, done, a thousand.”
“Go away,” I told him. Then I saw something in his expression I didn’t like at all, something incongruous. I turned away and headed for my AGV with the android walking along behind me.
“A thousand is a lot,” it said.
“It is.”
I inspected it contemplatively. But for the loss of the syntheflesh covering of one side of its face and one arm it might well have been human. Many of its kind had since been accepted as such. It was just an unfair quirk of the law that defined this one as a machine and later models as sentient creatures.
“What’s your name?” I asked it.
“Paul G6B33.”
“Why do you think he’s interested in your memory, Paul?”
“I do not know. I have no long term memory other than Cybercorp contract and base program.”
Grable had obviously loused. There was nothing of value in this android’s mind. I should have sold him a copy. Too late now.
“Get in the back of the AGV, Paul.”
My android obeyed me.
The Tenkian autogun followed with its impeller humming like an AC transformer and its turret turning with martinet vigilance. A couple of lice came out from the rocks behind but it did not fire. They did not come into the shifting perimeter. They stayed to feed on the remains of their fellows, their mandibles clacking with relish.
I had a hell of a time with the crate. I slipped once and grazed my knee, then sat on a wet rock, swearing, with water soaking into the bum of my trousers. I could open the crate and maybe its contents would follow me as obediently as Paul G6B33, if its power pack wasn’t down.
Finally I abandoned it in a suitable crevice weighed down with crusted rocks, then I moved on.
The world-tide is coming with the rise of Scylla’s binary companion and I have to prepare myself.
I don’t like to think about how.
After taking the precaution of dropping Jane off at her residence — I didn’t want her with me where I was going next — I took Paul straight to a prospective buyer. There was the usual jam up at the atmosphere lock and it took two hours before we were out of the city dome and cruising into the outlands. Paul had remained silent until we were speeding towards the distinctly curved horizon over the landscape of yellow ice-cliffs and weirdly phosphorescent mists.