Jim Baen's Universe

Science Fiction Stories

Slanted Jack

Written by Mark L. Van Name

Illustrated by Phil Renne

Nothing should have been able to ruin my lunch.

Joaquin Choy, the best chef on any planet within three jumps, had erected his restaurant, Falls, just outside Eddy, the only city on the still-developing planet Mund. He'd chosen the site because of the intense flavors of the native vegetables, the high quality of the locally raised livestock, and a setting that whipped your head around and widened your eyes.

Falls perched on camo-painted carbon-fiber struts over the center of a thousand-meter-deep gorge. You entered it via a three-meter-wide transparent walkway so soft you were sure you were strolling across high, wispy clouds. The four waterfalls that inspired its name remained visible even when you were inside, thanks to the transparent active-glass walls whose careful light balancing guaranteed a glare-free view throughout the day. The air outside filled your head with the clean scent of wood wafting downstream on light river breezes; a muted variant of the same smells pervaded the building's interior.

I occupied a corner seat, a highly desirable position given my background and line of work, that let me easily scan all new arrivals. In the clouds above me, Lobo, my intelligent battle wagon, monitored the area surrounding the restaurant so no threat could assemble without my knowledge while I ate. I'd located an exterior exit option when I first visited Choy, and both Lobo and I could reach it in under a minute. Wrapped in a blanket of security I rarely achieved in the greater world, I could relax and enjoy myself.

The setting was perfect.

Following one of my cardinal rules of fine dining—always opt for the chef's tasting menu in a topnotch restaurant—I'd forgone the conventional offerings and instead surrendered myself to Choy's judgment, asking only that he not hold back on the portion size of any course. Getting fat is never an issue for me. At almost two meters tall and over a hundred kilos, I'm large enough that I'd be able to eat quite a lot if I were a normal man, and the nano-machines that lace my cells decompose and flush any excess food I consume.

Spread in front of me were four appetizer courses, each blending chunks of a savory meat with strands of vegetables steaming on a plate of slowly changing color. Choy instructed me to taste each dish separately and then in combinations of my choice. I didn't know what any of them were, and I didn't care. They smelled divine, and I expected they would taste even better.

They did. I leaned back after the third amazing bite and closed my eyes, my taste buds coping with sensations that in over a hundred and fifty years of life they'd never experienced. I struggled to conjure superlatives equal to the flavors.

The food was perfect.

What ruined the lunch was the company, the unplanned, unwanted company.

When I opened my eyes, Slanted Jack was walking toward me from the entrance.

Slanted Jack, so named because with him nothing was ever straight, starred in one of the many acts of my life that I'd just as soon forget. The best con man and thief I've ever known, he effortlessly charmed and put at ease anyone who didn't know him. Maybe ten centimeters shorter than I, with a wide smile, eyes the blue of the heart of flame, and skin the color and sheen of polished night, Jack instantly grabbed the attention of everyone around him. While weaving his way across the room to me he paused three times to exchange pleasantries with people he was almost certainly meeting for the first time. Each person Jack addressed would know that Jack found him special, important, even compelling.

While Jack was chatting with a foursome a few tables away, I called Lobo.

"Any sign of external threat?" I said.

"Of course not," Lobo said. "You know that if I spotted anything, I'd alert you instantly. Why are you wasting time talking to me when you could be eating your magnificent meal, conversing with other patrons, and generally having a wonderful time? It's not as if you're stuck up here like I am, too high to even have the birds for company."

"It's not like I could bring you in here with me," I said, parroting his tone. "Nor, for that matter, do you eat."

"You've never heard of take-out? I may not eat, but I can be quite a pleasant dinner companion, as I'd think you'd realize after the times we've spent together."

I sighed. Every time I let myself fall into an argument with Lobo when he's in a petulant mood, I regret it. "Signing off."

I blended bits of food from three of the plates into another bite, but I couldn't take my eyes off Jack; the food's charms were dissipating faster than their aromas. Jack and I had worked together for almost a decade, and though that time was profitable, it was also consistently nerve-wracking. Jack lived by his own principles, chief among which was his life-long commitment to target only bad people. We consequently found ourselves time and again racing to make jumps off planets, always a short distance ahead of dangerous, very angry marks. By the time we split, I vowed to go straight and never work the con again.

"Jon," Jack said as he reached my table, his smile as disarming as always. "It's good to see you. It's been too long."

"What do you want, Jack?"

"May I join you?" he said, pulling out a chair.

I didn't bother to answer; it was pointless.

He nodded and sat. "Thank you."

A waiter appeared beside him, reset the table for two, and waited for Jack's order.

"I throw myself to Joaquin's mercy," Jack said. "Please tell him Jack asked only that he be gentle."

The waiter glanced at me for confirmation. Jack wasn't going to leave until he had his say, so I nodded, and the waiter hustled away.

"Joaquin truly is an artist," Jack said. "I—"

I cut him off. "What do you want?"

Jack took bits of two of my appetizers and chewed them slowly, his eyes shutting as the tastes flooded his mouth. "Amazing. Did I say he was an artist? I should have called him a magician—and I definitely should have eaten here sooner."

He opened his eyes and studied me intently. The focus of his gaze was both intense and comforting, as if he could see into your soul and was content to view only that. For years I'd watched him win the confidence of strangers with a single long look, and I'd never figured out how he managed it. I'd asked him many times, and he always told me the same thing: "Each person deserves to be the center of the universe to someone, Jon, even if only for an instant. When I focus on someone, that person is my all." He always laughed afterward, but whether in embarrassment at having said something completely honest or in jest at my gullibility is something I'll never know.

"We haven't seen each other in, what, thirty years now," he said, "and you haven't aged a day. You must give me the names of your med techs—" he paused and chuckled before continuing, "—and how you afford it. Courier work must pay far better than I imagined."

I wasn't providing private courier services when I last saw him, so he was telling me he'd done his homework. He also looked no different than before, which was to be expected: no one with money and the willingness to pay med techs needs to show age for at least the middle forty or fifty years of his life. So, he was also letting me know he had reasons to believe I'd done well since we parted. I had, but I saw no value in providing him with more information. Dealing with him had transformed the afternoon from pleasure to work, and the same dishes that had been so appealing a few minutes ago now held absolutely no interest for me.

"How did you find me?"

He arranged and slowly chewed another combination of the appetizers before answering. "Ah, Jon, that was luck, fate if you will. Though we've been apart for quite a while, I'm sure you remember how valuable it is for someone in my line of work to develop supporters among the jump-gate staff. Some of my better friends here at Mund's gate agreed to inform me when people of a certain," he looked skyward, as if searching for a phrase, "dangerous persuasion pass into the system. Traveling in a Starlon-class battle wagon earned you their attention, and they were kind enough to alert me."

I nodded and silently cursed myself. During a recent run-in with two major multiplanet conglomerates and a big chunk of the Frontier Coalition government, I'd made so many jumps in such a short period that I'd abandoned my previously standard practice of bribing jump-gate agents not to notice me. Break a habit, pay a price.

I ignored the bait about Lobo and tried to wrest control of the conversation away from him. "Jack, answer or one of us leaves: what do you want?"

He leaned back and looked into my eyes for a few seconds, then smiled and nodded. "You never could appreciate the value of civilized conversation," he said, "but your very coarseness has also always been part of your appeal—and your value. Put simply and without the context I hope you'll permit me to provide, I need your help."

Leave it to Jack to take that long to give an answer with absolutely no content.

"When we parted," I said, "I told you I was done with the con. Nothing has changed. You've ruined my lunch for no reason." I stood to go.

Jack leaned forward, held up his hand, and said, "Please, Jon, give me a little time. This isn't about me. It's about the boy."

His tone grabbed me enough that I didn't walk away, but I also didn't sit. "The boy? What boy? I can't picture you with children."

Jack laughed. "No," he said, "I have not chosen to procreate, nor do I ever expect to do so." He held up his hand, turned, and motioned to the maître d'.

The man walked over to our table, reached behind himself, and gently urged a boy to step in front of him.

"This boy," Jack said. "Manu Chang."

Chang stared at me with the wide, unblinking eyes of scared youth. With shoulders slightly wider than his hips and a fair amount of hair on his neck, he appeared to be somewhere between ten and twelve, not yet inhabiting a man's body but beginning the transformation into one. His broad mouth hung open a centimeter, as if he were about to speak. He wore his fine black hair short, not quite a buzz cut but close. Aside from the copper hue of his skin nothing about him struck me as remarkable, and even that skin tone would be common enough in any large city. He stood still, neither speaking nor moving, and I felt instantly bad for him, stuck as he was in an adult situation beyond his ability to understand.

"Are you hungry, Manu?" I said as I sat.

He nodded but didn't speak.

"Then please eat with us." The maître d' was, predictably, ahead of me: two waiters appeared, hustled the boy into a chair, and composed a plate of food for him from the remains of the appetizers and two new dishes they brought. After I took a bite of mine and Jack did the same, Manu followed suit.

I turned my attention back to Jack. I realized he was almost certainly manipulating me, because he knows no other way to interact with others. I also knew the odds of my later regretting this question were high, but I was curious. "Why do you want my help?"

Though I was certain that inside he was smiling, all Jack permitted his face to show were concern for the boy and appreciation at my interest. "My answer will make sense only if I give you some context," he said, "so I have to ask you to grant me a few minutes to explain."

"Go ahead," I said, "but, Jack, don't play me." As I heard my own words, which I meant and delivered seriously, I realized how well he'd hooked me. I was speaking nonsensically: Jack isn't capable of saying anything to anyone without having some angles at play.

He leaned conspiratorially closer and lowered his voice. "I know you're aware of Pinkelponker," he said. "Everyone is."

"Yeah, of course I've heard of it," I said. "It's quarantined."

Pinkelponker. The name shook me more than Jack's appearance. I did my best to hide my reaction from him. I was born there, and I lived there with my sister, Jennie, an empathic healer, until the government took her away and forced her to heal only those people it deemed important.

Pinkelponker occupies three unique niches in human history. It's the only planet successfully colonized by one of Earth's pre-jump-gate generation ships, though the ship crashed and stranded the entire population until humanity discovered the series of jump gates that led to the single-aperture gate near Pinkelponker. It's the only place where radical human mutations not only survived but also developed trans-human talents, such as my sister's healing abilities. And, it's the only planet humans have ever colonized that is now forbidden territory. It exists under a continuous quarantine and blockade, thanks to a nanotech disaster that led to the abandonment of all research into embedding nano-machines in humans.

What no one knows is that the rogue nano-machine cloud that led to the planet's forced isolation came into existence as part of my escape from Aggro, the research prison that orbited Pinkelponker. More importantly, to the best of my knowledge no one alive knows that I'm living proof that nano-machines can safely exist in humans—and I want it to stay that way. Any group that learned the truth about me would want to turn me into a research animal. I'll never let that happen again.

I realized I wasn't paying attention and forced myself to concentrate on what Jack was saying. Fortunately, he didn't seem to have noticed that I'd lost focus for a moment.

". . . hasn't been open to travel in over a century and a quarter," he said. "If you haven't spent much time in this sector of space, you wouldn't have any reason to keep up with it, though obviously even you know about the quarantine."

"Who doesn't?" I said as casually as I could manage. Jack held my attention now, because I realized that far more relevant than my past was a disturbing question: was he telling me all this because he'd learned more about my background than I ever wanted anyone to know?

"It's tough to avoid," he said, his head nodding, "particularly for those of us who always need to plot the best routes off any world they're visiting." He smiled and lowered his voice further, speaking low enough now that without thinking I leaned forward to hear him better. "But have you heard the legends?"

"What legends?" I said. Playing dumb and letting Jack talk seemed the wisest option.

"Psychics, Jon, not grifters working marks but real psychics. Pinkelponker was a high-radiation planet, a fact that should simply have led to a lot of deaths. Something about that world was special, though, because instead the radiation led to useful human mutations—something humanity has never seen anywhere else. The legends tell of the existence of all types of psychics, from telekinetics to healers to seers."

Jack sat back, his expression expectant, waiting for me. I've seen him use this technique to draw in marks, and I wasn't about to play. As I now feared Jack might know, I hadn't come to Mund simply for Choy's cooking, as amazing as it was reputed to be. Mund was one of the worlds with a jump aperture to Drayus, the only planet with an aperture to Pinkelponker—a blockaded aperture, one no human had successfully passed through in a hundred and thirty years, but an aperture nonetheless. I visited this sector of space periodically, each time wondering how I could get back to Pinkelponker and see if Jennie still lived—and each time realizing with a gut-wrenching sense of failure that there was no way I could reach her, no chance I could save her.

I could only lose by giving away any of this knowledge about my past, so I waited. Manu chewed quietly. I eyed the food but couldn't make myself eat.

After a minute or so, Jack realized he'd have to keep going on his own. He leaned closer again and, his eyes shining brightly, said, "Can you imagine it, Jon? In all the colonized planets, not one psychic—until Pinkelponker."

Jack was as dogged as he was slippery, so I knew he'd never give up. I had to move him along. "You said it, Jack: legends. Those are just legends."

He smiled again, satisfied now that I was playing the role he wanted me to fill. "Yes, they're legends, but not all legends are false or exaggerated. In the less than a decade between the discovery of Pinkelponker's jump gate and the permanent quarantine of that whole area after the nanotech disaster, some people from that planet naturally visited other worlds. Some of those visitors never went home. And," he said, leaning back, "a very few of those who stayed away were psychics." He put his right hand gently on the boy's back. "Like Manu's grandmother. Though she died, and though her only son didn't inherit her powers, her grandson did.

"Manu did. He's proof that the legends were true, Jon. He's a seer."

I stared at the boy, who continued to eat as if we weren't there. I already knew the legends were true, because I was proof of it. I was born retarded, but Jennie not only fixed me, she made me somehow able to communicate on machine frequencies, see in the IR range, and control the nano-machines the Aggro scientists later injected into me. She'd told me that others with special powers existed, but she'd never provided specifics, and I've never met any of them. Though Jack's story of Pinkelponker natives visiting other planets seemed reasonable enough—the wealthy of all worlds move around readily—I'd never heard it before. More importantly, with Jack I couldn't trust anything to be the whole story. I needed to keep him talking and hope I could lure him into giving me more of the truth than he'd planned.

"I don't buy it, Jack," I said. "If the boy could see the future, he'd already be famous or rich—or the hidden property of some conglomerate. He sure wouldn't be with you."

Jack shook his head. "Wrong on all counts, Jon." He held up his right hand and ticked off the points on his long, elegant fingers. "First, his powers don't work reliably. I told you: he's two generations away from the planet. He sees the future, but in visions whose subjects he can't control. He doesn't even know when they'll hit him. Second, his parents, though not well off, aren't stupid, so they've kept him hidden. Third, and this leads me to why I'm here, the visions damage him. In fact, without the right treatments to suppress them, and without continuing those treatments indefinitely, well," he looked at the boy with what appeared to be genuine fondness and then stared at me, choosing his words carefully, "his body won't be able to pay the bill his mind will incur."

"You don't need me to go to a med tech," I said.

"Normal med techs can't provide these treatments," Jack said, "and those few that do offer them charge a great deal more than his parents can afford. The whole situation is also complicated by our need to keep Manu's abilities quiet."

"You said he's with you, so why not just pay the bill yourself?"

"Alas, Jon," he said with a wistful smile, "my own funds are inadequate to the task."

"So you want to borrow the money from me?" I said. Jack and I had covered this ground before, after the second time I was stupid enough to grant him a loan, and he knew I'd vowed never to do it again.

He hadn't forgotten: he waved his hands quickly and shook his head. "No, no, of course not. I'm simply helping Manu and his parents get the money. I've arranged a way, but it has," he paused, giving the impression of searching for words I'm sure he'd already rehearsed, "an element of risk."

I motioned him to continue and looked at Manu. The boy ate slowly and methodically, without pause, with the kind of determined focus common among those who never know how long it'll be until their next meal.

"Pinkelponker is, as you might imagine, the object of considerable interest to certain mystic groups, as well as to many historians. One particular Pinkelponker fanatic, an extremely wealthy man named Manute Dougat, has set up a Pinkelponker research center and museum—almost a temple, really—near the ocean on the northern edge of downtown Eddy. Dougat's interviewed every Pinkelponker survivor and survivor descendant he's ever found. He claims to make all the recordings available in his institute, though," Jack paused and stared off into space for a moment, "I suspect he's the sort who's held back anything of any serious potential value. What matters most is that he pays for the interviews. I've contacted him about Manu, and he's offered to pay enough—just for an interview, no more—to keep the boy in treatments for a very long time."

"So what's the problem?" I said. "It sounds like you've found a way to get the money you need."

"I don't trust Dougat, Jon. He's rich, which immediately makes him suspect. Worse, you can hear the fervor in his voice when he talks about Pinkelponker, and fanatics always scare me. When I told him about Manu's visions, he sounded as if he were a Gatist with a chance to be the first to learn the secret of the jump gates. He's not faking his interest, either. You know I've spent a lot of my life cultivating desire in marks and spotting when they were hooked; well, Dougat wants Manu badly, Jon, badly enough that I'm worried he might try to take the boy."

"You're asking me to provide protection?" I said.

"You and that battle wagon of yours," Jack said quietly. "If I'm wrong about Dougat, this will cost you only a little time. If I'm right, though, then I'll feel a lot better with you beside me. You know I'm no good at violence, and, as I recall, you are."

Despite myself, I nodded. I don't like violence; at least the part of me under my conscious control doesn't like it, but the anger that's more tightly bound into me than the nano-machines emerges all too readily. I tell myself I do everything reasonably possible to avoid fights, but all too often the jobs I take end up in conflict.

"You've already learned I'm a private courier," I said. "If you and the boy want to go somewhere, and if you have the fare, I'll treat you as a package and take you to your destination under my care. I'm no bodyguard, though"—I had no reason to assume Jack knew of the five years I'd spent being exactly that—"so I can't help you with the meeting."

"One day, Jon," he said, "just one day. That's all I need you for. We meet Dougat tomorrow at the Institute. I wanted a safe, public place, but he wouldn't go anywhere he couldn't control the security. We compromised on meeting in the open, on the grounds in front of his main building, where anyone passing by could see us. All I'm asking is that you come with us, watch our backs, and if things turn bad, take us out of there. That's it."

I knew Jack wouldn't drop it until I'd found a way to say no that he understood, so I cut to the easiest escape route. "How much do you propose to pay me for this?" I said.

"Nothing."

No answer he could have given would have surprised me more. Jack always came ready to any bargaining table. I fought to keep the surprise from showing on my face. It was the first thing he'd said that made me wonder if he might actually be straight for once.

"I don't have any money to pay you," he continued, "and I won't make any from this meeting; everything Dougat pays goes to Manu. I'm doing it for him, and I'm asking you to do the same. With all the dicey business we've worked, wouldn't you like to simply do some good now and again?"

The spark of trust Jack had created winked out as I realized there was no way he was doing something for nothing. "Why are you involved in all this, Jack? Skip the pitch and just tell me."

Jack looked at Manu for a few seconds. "I really am out to help Manu. His dad's a friend, and I feel bad for the boy." He straightened and a pained expression flickered on his face for an instant. "And, Earth's greatest export has once again led me to a debt I must repay, this time to Manu's father."

"Poker," I said, laughing. "A gambling debt?" Jack had always loved the game, and we'd played it both for pleasure and on the hustle, straight up and bent. I enjoyed it well enough, but I rarely sought it, and I could always walk away. For him, poker held a stronger attraction, one he frequently lost the will to fight.

"It was as sure a hand as I've ever seen, Jon," he said, the excitement in his voice a force at the small table. Manu started at Jack's tone but resumed eating when everything appeared to be okay. "Seven stud, three beautiful eights to greet me, the next card the fourth, and a world of opportunity spread before me. He caught the final two tens on the last two cards—cards he never should have paid to see. Unbelievable luck. A better player would have folded long before. I put everything into that pot. It was mine." He paused for a few seconds, and when he continued he was back under control. "Honestly, Jon, I was willing to help Manu before that hand, but yes, losing it guaranteed my participation."

"Your debt is not my problem, Jack."

"I realize that, and I wouldn't be asking you if I had an alternative. Unfortunately, I don't. Dougat is the only option Manu's father has found, I'm committed to help, and I don't trust Dougat. I'll go it alone if I must, and I'm confident I'll walk away from the meeting, because I hold no interest for the man, but I fear—" he glanced down at Manu and then spoke quickly—"that I'll exit alone."

That Jack was in a bind was never news—he'd be in trouble as long as he lived—and my days of obligation to him were long over. I felt bad for the boy, worse than Jack could know because my inability to save Jennie has left me a soft touch for children in trouble, but I learned long ago that I can't save them all. Worse, recent experience had taught me that trying to rescue even one of them could lead to the kind of trouble I was lucky to survive. If I wanted to avoid more danger, I not only needed to steer clear of Jack, I had to leave Mund soon, because I had to assume the same gate staff he'd bribed would be alerting others to my presence. Anyone willing to sell information for the sorts of fees Jack could afford would surely try to boost their profits by reselling that same data.

The only reasonable choice was to walk away now and leave the planet.

As much as I fought it, however, I knew I wouldn't make that choice.

The problem was the Pinkelponker connection. Dougat's research center might provide information I could use. If Manu really were a seer, he might be a source of useful data. I also had to determine whether Jack knew about or even suspected my ties to the planet, and, if he did, just what he'd learned.

Finally, I had to admit that because so many of the jobs I've taken have led to so much damage, the prospect of doing something genuinely good always appealed to me.

I stared into Jack's eyes and tried to read him. He held my gaze, too good a salesman to look away or push harder when he knew the hook was in deep. Even as I looked at him I remembered how utterly pointless it was to search for the truth in his face. Jack excelled at close-up cons because at some level he always believed what he was selling, and so to marks he always appeared honest. The only way I could glean more information was to accrete it slowly by spending time with him.

When I glanced at Manu, I found him watching me expectantly, hopefully, as if he'd understood everything we'd discussed. Perhaps he had; Jack hadn't tried very hard to obscure the topic.

I took a long, slow, deep breath, and then looked back at Jack. "I'll help you," I said, "for the boy's sake."

"Thank you, Jon," he said.

"Thank you, sir," Manu said, his voice wavering but clear. "I'm sorry for any trouble we're causing you."

Either Jack had coached the kid well, or the boy meant it. I decided to hope the sentiment was genuine.

"You're welcome," I said to Manu.

Jack caught the snub, of course, but he wisely chose to ignore it.

I now had a job to do and not enough prep time to do it right. We had to get to work. "Jack, you said the meeting was tomorrow, so our mission clock is much shorter than I'd like. Lay it out for me."

****

The Pinkelponker Research Institute sprawled across the built-up northern border of Eddy like a fever dream. No signs warned that when you passed the last of the rows of permacrete corporate headquarters buildings you should expect something very different indeed. No lights, labels, tapestries, recordings, or welcome displays offered to explain it to you. In the middle of a five-hundred-meter-wide lot the gleaming black ziggurat simply commanded your eye to focus on the miniature of Pinkelponker that revolved slowly in the air a few meters above the building's summit.

A perfect lawn the muted green of shallow seawater surrounded the building. Circular flower beds rich in soft browns, glowing yellows, and deepwater blues burst from the grass at apparently random locations all over the lot. Only when you viewed them from the air, as I had when Lobo and I had made our first recon pass after my lunch with Jack, did you realize that each grouping of plants effortlessly evoked an image of one of the many volcanic islands that were the only land masses on my birth planet. The ziggurat itself looked nothing like any of the individual islands I'd seen, yet its rounded edges and graceful ascent reminded me of home, made me ache for it.

I'd taken Lobo to a docking facility on the west side of town and hopped a cab from there. I'd changed cabs twice on the chance anyone had tracked me from the restaurant, but neither Lobo nor I spotted anyone following me. The last cab took me down the street that bordered the Institute on the ocean side, a wide avenue jammed with hover transports, cabs, and personal vehicles all rushing to and fro in the service of Eddy's growing economy. The length of the crossing signal made it clear that city planners valued vehicles and commerce far more than pedestrians.

When I finally made it to the Institute's ocean-side entrance, I found the overall effect far more entrancing than anything I'd anticipated from my aerial surveillance. I felt as if someone had sampled my memories and recombined them, managing in the process to create a setting that in no way resembled home but that at the same time rewarded every glance with the sense that, yes, this feels like Pinkelponker. Working in the grain fields under the bright sun, the constant ocean breeze cooling me, Jennie due to come to visit when her day was done—I drifted back involuntarily, my memories summoned by Dougat's artful evocation.

I shut my eyes and forced myself to focus on the job. It was a site I had to analyze, nothing more. Jack's task was to keep Manu hidden until the meeting. Mine was to make sure we all got out safely if anything went wrong. To do that, I had to learn as much about this place as possible in the few hours available.

When I looked again, I did so professionally. None of the scattered plantings rose high enough or were dense enough that you could hide in them. That was good news for possible threats, but bad news should we need to take cover. I couldn't spot any lawn-care, gardening, or tourist appliances, and when I tuned my hearing to the frequencies such machines use, I caught nothing.

"Lobo," I said over our comm link, "have your scans turned up anything?"

"No," he said. "If there are weapons outside the building, they're not giving off any IR signatures I can trace. I can find no evidence of sensor activity on the grounds. I can't recall a more electromagnetically neutral setting this close to a city."

"Any luck penetrating the building?"

"No. It's extremely well shielded. It's transmitting and receiving on a variety of frequencies, of course, but everything is either encrypted or just the usual public data feeds."

"Anything significant between here and his warehouse?" Dougat operated a shipping and receiving center on the south end of the city.

"Encrypted bursts of the size you'd expect for inventory and sensor management. That place reeks of machine security, but it's not as shielded and currently reads IR-neutral. Best estimate is that no people are there."

Good; the security we found here might be all we had to worry about.

The air was cooling as night approached, but Eddy was still warm enough that the slight breeze from the ocean felt fine against my skin. I'd stood in one place longer than I felt a normal tourist would, so I walked slowly toward the building.

"One data point you might find useful," Lobo said, "is that in the last fifteen minutes over two dozen humans have entered the building on the far side and twenty have left."

"Shift change. How many look like security?"

"All were wearing comm links, so that's impossible to gauge. Based on the building's total lack of visible external sensors or weapons, however, I suggest we assume most are hostiles."

"Even if they're all security, they're not hostiles," I said. "At least not yet. They become problems only if Dougat chooses not to play this straight."

"You're indulging in distracting games," Lobo said, "induced by your emotions. You've chosen to involve us, an involvement that matters only if Dougat attempts to kidnap Chang. If he does, he and his staff become hostiles. If he doesn't, we're spectators. The only reasonable option, therefore, is to treat them all as hostiles for the duration of our participation."

Though I'm glad Lobo is mine, his lack of tolerance for ambiguity frequently leads to conversations that are far more cold-blooded than I prefer. "By that logic," I said, "to maximize our probability of success we should simply kill them all now."

Lobo ignored my sarcasm. "That would be sensible from an efficiency perspective," he said, "but it would remove Dougat's ability to pay and thus compromise the overall mission."

Before I could decide whether I wanted to know if he was also being sarcastic, I reached the ziggurat's entrance.

"Signing off until I exit," I said.

The atmosphere inside was a perfected version of what I'd felt outside: a bit warmer, a little more humid, with light breezes of unknown origin wafting gently across you no matter where you stood. Perpetual daylight brightened the space. Cloudscapes played across the ceiling. The faint sounds of distant surf breaking and wind moving through grasses tickled the edges of perception. Once again, I had only to shut my eyes to transport myself to the Pinkelponker of my childhood. Either Dougat or someone on his design team had visited my home world, or their research was impeccable.

The center of the space was a single large open area broken by tables, two-meter-high displays, and small conversation areas. The island theme continued here, with each cluster of displays centered on a topic such as early history, agriculture, speculation on the exact cause and final outcome of the disaster, mineral and gem samples, and so on. A few dozen people stood and sat at various spots around the interior, some clearly serious students, many only tourists. Even the most studiously focused of the visitors would close their eyes from time to time as the interior effects worked on them.

The exceptions, of course, were the security personnel. You can costume security staff appropriately, and you can train them to circulate well and even to act interested in the exhibits, but you can't make them appear under the spell of the place they're guarding. Even the most magical of settings loses its allure after you've worked in it for a few weeks. I counted fifteen men and women on active patrol. I had to assume at least a few more were monitoring displays and weapons scanners, occupying rooms I couldn't see, and generally staying out of my view.

I kept in character as a tourist, staying long enough at the historical displays to appear interested but not so long as to look like a student of the planet. I'd learned almost nothing of the world's history growing up there, so I found the background on the generation ship and the later discovery of the jump gate to be genuinely interesting. Docent holograms snapped alert when I lingered at any exhibit, and I let a few of them natter at me. At a display on the various religions of Pinkelponker—growing up there I never saw a place of worship, and the closest I came to prayer was the occasional desperate hope for Jennie to come visit me or for my chores to be over—a docent asked if by chance I belonged to any organization that viewed the planet as sacred. I hadn't even realized such groups existed; I obviously had a lot to learn about how some people viewed my home.

A large display in the right rear corner of the space offered the only discussion of the legends Jack had cited. Dougat might be as personally interested in the stories of Pinkelponker psychics as Jack had said, but the man wasn't letting his interest shape the Institute's exhibits.

Like the other tourists I spotted, I made sure to invest a large chunk of my time gawking at the cases highlighting jagged mineral samples and large, unrefined jewels. Though I frequently stood alone at one of the historicals, I always had company at the mineral and jewel displays. For reasons I've never understood, standing near items of great monetary value, even things you'll never get to touch or own, is a compelling experience for many people. As best I could tell, the larger samples here, like the big jewels in any museum on any planet, illustrated the power of natural forces applied slowly over long periods of time to create artifacts of great beauty. The waterfalls outside Choy's restaurant and the grooves they'd cut into the cliffs there made the same point and were, to me, more striking and more beautiful, but for most they lacked the powerful allure of gems.

I was intrigued to learn that Pinkelponker had been extremely rich in jewels and that the business of exporting them to other worlds had constituted a major source of revenue for the government. All I'd seen of Pinkelponker was a pair of islands: the one where I lived until the government took away Jennie, and the one where they tossed me until my failed escape attempt led them to sell Benny and me to the Aggro scientists for nanotech experimentation. The gleaming government centers sparkling in sun-drenched images and the stories of gem-fueled wealth led me to wonder, not for the first time, at the amazingly different ways that residents of a single planet can view their world.

The rearmost of the exhibits ended at a long wall that extended across the back of the building and rose to the ceiling. Offices, storage, and loading docks probably filled the remainder of the interior space. As I exited I counted off the distance from that wall; knowing the size of the staff and private space behind it might prove useful. I hoped everything would go smoothly and this scouting would prove to have been a waste,