jumpstart themselves into puberty. I’d smiled a bit to myself thinking about that.
Here’s another interesting thing about them. I know this thing because I go way back with Pat Jarawandi, the regional manager for Cinestellaire A.G., the outfit that imports and distributes a bunch of these—I actually got him his first job there as a sales rep. The thing is, between seventy-five and eighty-five percent of the paid views of these things locally are by Varoki, not Humans. Figure that one out.
But then Hlontaa had found the news story on his hand viewer about the surge in murders in the Quarter over the last three days.
“And what about this?” he’d asked me. “All this violence in the Human Quarter—you can’t just shrug that off, can you?”
Marfoglia looked at me coldly and nodded.
“Yes, what do you have to say about all those killings in the Quarter, Mr. Black?”
Mr. Black was my cover name—not very creative, but if you’re going to lie, keep the lie simple, so you can remember it.
I shrugged.
“Oh!” I said. “Gee, I guess I can just shrug it off, after all.”
Barraki giggled again.
“That’s what I meant by no value on life. They’re your people, and it means nothing to you,” Hlontaa said in disgust.
“None of my people fell down. Not yet, anyway.”
He looked at me in confusion, but Marfoglia knew what I meant, and the look of cold hostility momentarily left her face. Barraki didn’t really understand what had just gone on, but he knew something had, and he wasn’t giggling anymore.
Maybe Marfoglia had forgotten that those were real people back there—Big Meg and Henry, and Phil, and June—assuming she’d ever known. Or maybe she’d forgotten that this wasn’t just about making clever conversation on the train—it was about killing, and maybe about getting killed.
She didn’t know exactly what I’d had to do with the stuff in the news, since we’d kept her in the dark about the operation back there, our plans, and what I’d been doing with Phil the last couple days—but she had a few notions, and she’d figured to find out something by bringing it up, and maybe make me uncomfortable while she was at it. Instead, she was the one looking out the window and frowning. She didn’t have any more answers about me, either, and the questions were just as dark as ever, and that was fine with me. She could stew about it all the way to Akaampta, as far as I was concerned.
She’d actually started talking to me again the day before. When the kids weren’t around, she’d asked me why I’d killed all four of the men on the elevator.
“What should I have done?” I’d asked.
Take them prisoner. Disarm them.
“Yeah. Good plan. And if just one of them decides to be a hero, just one, there’s two-way gunfire and the odds are we’ve got a dead kid. But suppose I disarm them. Then what?”
Leave them behind when we take the elevator.
“And they call Kolya on their comm links and tell him we’re on the way down and which elevator we’re in.”
Oh.
Well, then take them with us.
“Sure. Eight of us packed cheek-to-jowl in one elevator, and me with the only gun. On the way down, a hero just reaches out and grabs one of the kids, and then what?”
No answer to that, of course. And the real truth is that you never get that far, because while you’re standing there at the elevator door, trying to sort all of this out in your head, weighing the upside and downside of every possible course of action, one of Kolya’s thugs just shoots you.
Now, with the Needle in sight, Hlontaa was giving Barraki and Tweezaa a science lecture on how the lasers lit the photo panels on the lift capsule, which provided power for the traction assembly, which walked the lift capsule up the Needle to orbit. Barraki had heard it all before, and Tweezaa wasn’t listening, even to the aGavoosh version, but Hlontaa kept going. Some people love to hear themselves talk. Madame
Here’s another interesting thing about them. I know this thing because I go way back with Pat Jarawandi, the regional manager for Cinestellaire A.G., the outfit that imports and distributes a bunch of these—I actually got him his first job there as a sales rep. The thing is, between seventy-five and eighty-five percent of the paid views of these things locally are by Varoki, not Humans. Figure that one out.
But then Hlontaa had found the news story on his hand viewer about the surge in murders in the Quarter over the last three days.
“And what about this?” he’d asked me. “All this violence in the Human Quarter—you can’t just shrug that off, can you?”
Marfoglia looked at me coldly and nodded.
“Yes, what do you have to say about all those killings in the Quarter, Mr. Black?”
Mr. Black was my cover name—not very creative, but if you’re going to lie, keep the lie simple, so you can remember it.
I shrugged.
“Oh!” I said. “Gee, I guess I can just shrug it off, after all.”
Barraki giggled again.
“That’s what I meant by no value on life. They’re your people, and it means nothing to you,” Hlontaa said in disgust.
“None of my people fell down. Not yet, anyway.”
He looked at me in confusion, but Marfoglia knew what I meant, and the look of cold hostility momentarily left her face. Barraki didn’t really understand what had just gone on, but he knew something had, and he wasn’t giggling anymore.
Maybe Marfoglia had forgotten that those were real people back there—Big Meg and Henry, and Phil, and June—assuming she’d ever known. Or maybe she’d forgotten that this wasn’t just about making clever conversation on the train—it was about killing, and maybe about getting killed.
She didn’t know exactly what I’d had to do with the stuff in the news, since we’d kept her in the dark about the operation back there, our plans, and what I’d been doing with Phil the last couple days—but she had a few notions, and she’d figured to find out something by bringing it up, and maybe make me uncomfortable while she was at it. Instead, she was the one looking out the window and frowning. She didn’t have any more answers about me, either, and the questions were just as dark as ever, and that was fine with me. She could stew about it all the way to Akaampta, as far as I was concerned.
She’d actually started talking to me again the day before. When the kids weren’t around, she’d asked me why I’d killed all four of the men on the elevator.
“What should I have done?” I’d asked.
Take them prisoner. Disarm them.
“Yeah. Good plan. And if just one of them decides to be a hero, just one, there’s two-way gunfire and the odds are we’ve got a dead kid. But suppose I disarm them. Then what?”
Leave them behind when we take the elevator.
“And they call Kolya on their comm links and tell him we’re on the way down and which elevator we’re in.”
Oh.
Well, then take them with us.
“Sure. Eight of us packed cheek-to-jowl in one elevator, and me with the only gun. On the way down, a hero just reaches out and grabs one of the kids, and then what?”
No answer to that, of course. And the real truth is that you never get that far, because while you’re standing there at the elevator door, trying to sort all of this out in your head, weighing the upside and downside of every possible course of action, one of Kolya’s thugs just shoots you.
Now, with the Needle in sight, Hlontaa was giving Barraki and Tweezaa a science lecture on how the lasers lit the photo panels on the lift capsule, which provided power for the traction assembly, which walked the lift capsule up the Needle to orbit. Barraki had heard it all before, and Tweezaa wasn’t listening, even to the aGavoosh version, but Hlontaa kept going. Some people love to hear themselves talk. Madame
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