Jakov had a point, and Chien-Chu knew it, so the entrepreneur went for the best deal he thought he could get. The key was to buy time and hope that word of Nankool’s fate would somehow fi?lter in. Then, if the president was dead, the cyborg would throw his support behind Jakov and try to exert infl?uence on whatever decisions the politician made. “Thirty days,” Chien-Chu said soberly. “Let’s give the intelligence-gathering process thirty days. Then, if there’s no word of the president’s fate, I will support your plan.”
The vice president would have preferred fi?fteen days, or no days, but didn’t want to dicker in front of his staff. That would not only appear unseemly but smack of desperation. Besides, assuming that Chien-Chu kept his word, the expresident’s support would virtually guarantee a speedy confi?rmation process. “Thirty days it is then,” Jakov allowed. “In the meantime, it’s absolutely imperative to keep the lid on. Is everyone agreed?”
There was a chorus of assent, but Wilmot knew her sponsor was likely to blame her for the way the meeting had gone, since she was the one who had put the idea forward. But Nankool was dead, Wilmot felt sure of that, and the day of succession would come. And when it did, ChienChu, his stuck-up niece, and the rest of Nankool’s toadies were going to pay. The thought pleased the assistant undersecretary so much that she was smiling as the meeting came to an end.
PLANET EARTH, THE CONFEDERACY OF SENTIENT BEINGS
Having surrendered the rental car to the traffi?c control system, Santana took his hands off the steering wheel and pushed the seat away from the dashboard. It was early afternoon, the Vanderveen estate was behind him, and he was happy to be free of it. Not that Charles and Margaret Vanderveen hadn’t been kind to him. They had. But what all of them had in common was Christine, and without her there to bind the three of them together, dinner had been stiff and awkward.
Diplomat Charles Vanderveen had taken the opportunity to tell his wife about the importance of the hypercom, Santana’s role in capturing the all-important prototype, and his recent promotion, all intended to build the offi?cer up. A kindness Santana wouldn’t forget.
But when dessert was served, and Santana announced his intention to leave the following morning, neither one of the Vanderveens objected. And now, as the car carried the legionnaire south into the San Diego-Tijuana metroplex, Santana was looking for a way to kill some time. Fortunately, there was a ship lifting for Adobe in two days. That would allow him to save some leave and rejoin the 1st Cavalry Regiment (1st REC) earlier than planned. Now that he was a captain, Colonel Kobbi would almost certainly give him a company to command. And, after the casualties suffered on Savas, it would be necessary to create it from scratch. It was a task the offi?cer looked forward to and dreaded at the same time.
The vehicle’s interior lights came on as the sprawling city blocked the sun, and the car entered the maze of subsurface highways and roads that fed the teeming beast above. A hab so large that the westernmost portion of it fl?oated on the surface of the Pacifi?c Ocean. But Santana couldn’t afford the pleasures available to people like the Vanderveens, not on a captain’s salary, and felt his ears pop as the car spiraled down toward the Military Entertainment Zone (MEZ), where his credits would stretch further.
An hour later Santana had checked into a clean but nofrills hotel, stashed his luggage in his room, and was out on the street. Not a normal street, since the “sky” consisted of a video mosaic, but a long passageway lined by garish casinos, sex emporiums, tattoo parlors, cheap eateries, discount stores, and recruiting offi?ces.
Nor was Santana alone. Because hundreds of sailors, marines, and legionnaires fl?owed around him as they searched the subterranean environment for something new to see, taste, or feel. Most were bio bods, but there were cyborgs, too, all of whom wore utilitarian spiderlike bodies rather than war forms. Ex-criminals for the most part, who had chosen a sort of half-life over no life, and served a very real need. Especially during a period when the Confederacy was literally fi?ghting for its life. Even if people on planets like Earth seemed unaware of that fact as they continued to lead their comfortable lives.
The legionnaire was dressed in nondescript civvies, but the denizens of the MEZ knew Santana for what he was, and it wasn’t long before hustlers, whores, and con men began to call out from doorways, sidle up to tug at his sleeve, and pitch him via holos that exploded into a million motes of light as he passed through them. Most were little more than human sediment who, lacking the initiative to do something better with their lives, lived at the bottom of the MEZ cesspool. But there were some, like the one-armed wretch who sat with her back to a wall and had a brain box clutched between her bony knees, who fell into a different category. Men, women, and borgs who had been used by society only to be tossed away when their bodies refused to accept a transplant, or they became addicted to painkillers, or their minds crumbled under the strain of what they had seen and done. Santana paused in front of the emaciated woman, saw the 2nd REP’s triangular insignia that had been tattooed onto her stump, and nodded politely. “When were you discharged?”
The ex-legionnaire knew an offi?cer when she saw one, even if he was in civvies, and sat up straighter. “They put me dirtside three years ago, sir. . . . As for Quimby here,”
the vet said, as she tapped the brain box with a broken fi?ngernail. “Well, he’s been out for the better part of fi?ve years. Ever since his quad took a direct hit, his life support went down, and he suffered some brain damage. A civvie was using him as a shoeshine stand when I came along. So I saved the money to buy him. He’s overdue for a tune-up though—so a credit or two would help.”
Santana knew she could be lying but gave her a fi?ftycredit debit card anyway. “Take Quimby in now. Before you buy any booze.”
The woman grinned toothlessly as she accepted the piece of plastic. “Sir, yes, sir!”
Santana nodded, and was just about to leave, when a raspy voice issued forth from the beat-up brain box. Though not normally equipped with any sort of speaking apparatus, Quimby’s brain box had been modifi?ed for that purpose. And while far from functional, the creature within could still think and feel. “I’m sorry, sir,” Quimby said apologetically. “But there were just too many of them—and we lost Norley.”
Santana felt a lump form in the back of his throat.
“That’s okay, soldier,” he said kindly. “You did what you could. That’s all any of us can do.”
The crowd swallowed the offi?cer after that, the woman stood, and lifted Quimby off the sidewalk. “Come on, old buddy,” she said. “Once we get those toxins fl?ushed out of your system, we’ll charge your power supply and go out for a beer.”
“There were just too many of them,” Quimby insisted plaintively. “I ran out of ammunition.”
“Yeah,” the woman said soothingly, as she carried the cyborg down the hall. “But it’s like the man said. . . . You did everything you could.”
It was hunger, rather than a desire to see a fi?ght, that drew Santana to the Blue Moon Bar and Fight Club. A wellknown dive in which the patrons were free to eat, drink, and beat each other senseless. The interior of the club was about a third full when Santana entered. That meant there were plenty of seats to choose from. Especially among the outer ring of tables that circled the blood-splattered platform at the center of the room. It squatted below a crescent-shaped neon moon that threw a bluish glare down onto a pair of medics as they tugged an unconscious body out from under the lowest side-rope. That left the twelve-foot-by-twelvefoot square temporarily empty as those fortunate enough to survive the previous round took a much-deserved break. Santana chose a table well back from the platform, eyed the menu on the tabletop screen, and ordered a steak by placing an index fi?nger on top of the cut he wanted. A waitress appeared a few moments later. She was naked with the exception of a thong and a pair of high-heeled shoes. Most of her income came from tips generated by allowing patrons to paw her body. And even though the waitress did the best she could to produce a pouty comehither smile, there was no hiding the weariness that she felt. “So, soldier,” the woman said for what might have been the millionth time. “What will it be? A beer? A drink? Or me?” Her saline-fi?lled breasts rose slightly as her hands came up to cup them.