“So have a lot of other people,” I told her. “Saul Lyndrach, for example. Have you tried to buy him?”
For a fleeting moment, a shadow crossed her face. No matter how human or superhuman she seemed, I couldn’t be sure that I’d read the expression correctly, but it seemed to me like anxious suspicion. She was worried that I might know more than I seemed to know. She was worried that I might have more with which to negotiate than was apparent, even now.
I wished, fervently, than I had. “Amara Guur doesn’t have the situation under control, does he?” I said. “Framing me was a hasty move, urged on him by panic. There’s a loose cannon rolling around his deck, isn’t there? You don’t have Saul on the payroll, do you? Whatever he found and you’re trying to steal, it’s still out of reach. You want me because I’m a friend of Saul’s, don’t you? That’s what makes me so much more valuable than any other freelance scavenger.”
Every word we exchanged was being recorded, of course. My trial was over, but that didn’t mean the Tetrax weren’t still taking an interest in the case.
“We are prepared to offer you a two-year contract,” she said, doggedly following her script. “It will not pay off more than a fraction of your debt, but the rate of repayment is considerably greater than you would earn by any other means of employment. There are risks involved, of course; we shall be going a long way from Skychain City, and descending further into the levels than anyone has contrived to do before—but I believe that prospect will interest you, and it is clearly in everyone’s interest that you sign the contract.”
“Except,” I said, “that once I’m out in the cold, my life won’t be worth a spoonful of nitrogen.”
“On the contrary,” she said. “It is very much in our interests that you should remain alive, healthy, and cooperative. We have no intention of allowing you to come to harm.”
“Do I get a percentage of the profits?” I asked.
“That might be negotiable,” she confirmed. “May I take it that you are agreeable in principle, subject to the outcome of such negotiations?”
“That depends,” I said. “I might get other offers. Now that you’ve put yours on record, the competition might decide to match it, or go one better. It’s Myrlin, isn’t it? The wild card, I mean. The factor that threw off all your calculations. Whether you have Saul or not, you don’t have him—and you don’t know how much he knows.”
“Please try to concentrate on the matter in hand, Mr. Rousseau,” she said, seemingly unruffled by my stab in the dark. “May I take it that, in the absence of any other offers, you are prepared to negotiate the details of this one? I’m sure the court would be happy to know that you intend to discharge your obligation conscientiously.”
I remembered that Myrlin was supposed to be a giant. Even if he hadn’t been, he’d have had a problem blending into the background of a place like Skychain City. If Myrlin was out of Amara Guur’s reach, he must surely have found some influential friends of his own. Or had I miscalculated the situation? Was it something else that had gone awry, derailing Amara Guur’s original plan? Who had tipped him off that Saul had found something valuable? Balidar? Someone at the C.R.E.? Who would have known, given that Saul hadn’t given me more than the merest hint?
“I’ll be happy to give your offer serious consideration,” I lied. “But you’ll forgive me if I wait the full seventy-two hours before making a decision. I have to consider all the alternatives.”
“You only have one, Mr. Rousseau,” the Kythnan said. “Do you really want to spend half a lifetime asleep, while your body and brain are rented to anyone and everyone who cares to pay the standard fee?”
“I’d have job security,” I pointed out. “And the Tetrax would want me alive and healthy too. Lifetimes are increasing all the while—by the time I got my mind back, we might all have the biotech to live forever. There are a thousand races working on the problem, and we all have the same DNA.”
“That would be a reckless gamble, Mr. Rousseau,” she said. “Accidents happen, even in a gel-tank.”
Her tone was casual, but I knew a threat when I heard one. I hoped that the people listening in were similarly sensitive.
“Maybe I’m beaten,” I conceded, “but I’m not quite ready to lie down yet. You have my permission to talk to my lawyer about that percentage of the profits, and any other safeguards he cares to incorporate. His name’s 238-Zenatta. But I’m not going to sign anything until I’ve had every last hour of my three days grace, and I’m not going to give up hoping for a miracle.”
“Thank you,” she said—and she smiled. It was one hell of a smile, but I wasn’t fooled for an instant.
CHAPTER EIGHT
When the Kythnan had gone, I kicked the glass wall in frustration, but all that achieved was to make my big toe ache.
“I hope you got all that,” I said to the empty air. “If she’s telling the truth, your expectation of getting down into the lower levels in your own time and on your own terms is under threat. I only hope you care enough to try to figure out what the hell is going on—and to do something about it before my time runs out.”
I was confident of the first part of that hope. The Tetrax had to care enough about what Saul Lyndrach might have found to worry about Amara Guur getting his hands on it—but I was all too well aware that it wasn’t at all the same thing as caring what might happen to me. If the Tetrax concluded that the sensible thing to do was to let Amara Guur do their spadework for them, they probably wouldn’t be in the least interested in subverting his plans—which meant that from my point of view, they might as easily be reckoned deadly enemies as potential allies.
I really did need a miracle.
I tried to call Saul Lyndrach, and wasn’t overly surprised when I failed.
Then I phoned 74-Scarion at Immigration Control and asked whether he had any information on Myrlin’s whereabouts. 74-Scarion admitted some slight concern, but assured me that the newcomer’s disappearance was a minor matter—a mere technicality, unworthy of serious investigation. I didn’t know whether to believe him or not.
Then I rang Aleksandr Sovorov, and said: “You’ve got to get me out of this, Alex. There’s no one else I can turn to.”
“I’m sorry, Rousseau,” he said, “but I don’t see the necessity.”
He didn’t know that he was quoting Voltaire, but that didn’t make me feel any less ignominious a beggar.
“I didn’t do it, Alex,” I told him.
“Actually,” he admitted, “I never thought you had. But if you couldn’t prove it to the court, I don’t see what I can do.”
“Come on, Alex. The C.R.E. must be interested in the fact that Amara Guur’s planning a looting expedition. He thinks he knows a way into the lower levels.”
“Rousseau,” he said, obviously forgetting the fact that I’d instructed him to call me mister as well as the fact that he’d earlier felt free to call me Michael, “everybody thinks he knows a way into the lower levels. Do you know how many people come to us with tales like Lyndrach’s?”
“No,” I said, feeling some slight relief at having made progress enough with the mystery to be certain that Saul had gone to the C.R.E. with whatever he’d found, “but I do know what happens when their applications get booted into touch by your stupid committees. Somebody believed him, Alex—or thought his claim was worth taking seriously enough to rat him out to the vormyran mafia.”
“We can’t investigate every silly rumor that comes our way,” he said. “The sillier they sound, the less inclined we are to take them seriously.”
“Exactly