“Passengers are invited to remain in their seats for the duration of path injection maneuvering. Your seat is equipped to protect you from the consequences of local vertical variances. Eep! Please do not damage company assets willfully as these items are chargeable to your account. When the ‘thrust’ light is extinguished you may release your safety belt and walk around the ship. You are on A deck. B deck, C deck, and D deck are the other passenger decks on this flight. F deck provides a choice of entertainment arcades and the food court—”
“Enough.” Wednesday’s stomach lurched; she looked up in time to see the stylized thrust light in the ceiling flash urgently. Loops of safety webbing crawled out from the sides of her chair, wrapping around her securely as the gravity failed. “Oh, shit. Uh, how many other people are on this flight?”
“The manifest for this flight shows a total of forty-six passengers! You are one of five lucky Sybarite-class travelers! Below you in space, comfort, privacy, and our estimate are six Comfort class business passengers! The remainder are making use of our Basic-class package in common—”
“Shut up.” Wednesday squeezed her eyes shut tiredly. “I’m trying to think. I should be thinking.” Memories of lessons, way back in her early teens when Herman had first tempted her with strange adventure games. Playing at spy versus spy? She wouldn’t put anything beyond him: clearly Herman wasn’t simply a pet invisible friend, and equally clearly he had fingers in a lot of pies. All that stuff about evasion and tailing, how to locate surveillance nets and make use of blind spots, how to break relational integrity by finding camera overlaps and spoofing just one of them so the system interpolated an error … Wear the black hat. I’m chasing me, Wednesday. Just killed — her train of thought faltered for a moment, teetering on the edge — and now I’m after her. Who, how, where, what? “Can you stop listening until I call your name, ticket?”
“Madam is now in full privacy! All speech commands will be ignored until you unlock your suite. Call for ‘Wendigo’ when you want to discontinue privacy.”
“Uh-huh.” She glanced at the itinerary; it curled up, gripping the end of her recliner, and mimed mammalian sleep. “Hmm. At least two bad guys. If I’m lucky they think I was in the apartment when they, when they—” Don’t think about that. “If not, what will they do? Worst case: they’re covering the transit ferries so there’s one aboard right now. Or they’ve got friends waiting for me at the other end. I can’t evade that. But if they’re limited to following me, then, then…”
She sighed. Shit. The prospect of spending nearly seventeen hours trapped in the recliner was already beginning to seem like hell. There was a quiet chime, and the thrust light went out. “Oh.” It seemed to be taunting her. “Maybe they didn’t cover the port. Maybe.” She stared at it for another minute, then reached for the quick release on her safety belts and picked up her itinerary, stuffing it into a jacket pocket. “Wendigo. Open the door. There’s a manual outside? Okay, close the door and go back to full privacy mode as soon as I’ve gone.”
Outside the door of her room she found herself in a narrow circular corridor, with cabin doors spaced around the circumference and a twisting circular staircase leading down to the other decks. The ship hummed quietly beneath her as she took the steps six at a time, floating effortlessly down. The two lower passenger decks looked like open-plan seating, rows of recliners bolted side by side. As she passed she saw that most of them were empty. Business must be down, she decided.
The food court turned out to be a cramped circle of tables in the middle of a ring of food fabs programmed for different cuisines, a belt of arms waiting overhead to take orders. Wednesday found a small table at the edge and tapped it for the menu. She was just beginning to figure out her way around it when somebody sat down opposite her.
“Hi.” She looked up, startled. He smiled shyly at her. Wow! Two meters tall, he had blue eyes, blond hair that looked so real it had to be a family heirloom — tied back in a ponytail — diamond earrings, not too much muscle or makeup, skin like — “I couldn’t help noticing you. Are you traveling alone?”
“Maybe not.” She found herself smiling right back. “I’m Wednesday.”
“Leo. May I … ?”
“Sure.” She watched him sit down, graceful in the low-gee environment. “I was about to do lunch. Are you hungry?”
“I could be.” Beat. He grinned. “Food, too.”
Oh. Wednesday watched him, beginning to have second thoughts about the idea of a full stomach. He was gorgeous, and he was focused right at her. Where were you at Sammy’s party? “Where are you traveling?” she asked aloud.
“Oh, I’m on vacation. Going to stay with my uncle.” He shrugged. “Can I interest you in a drink?”
“What, you want to get me drunk and drag me off to my cabin?” She tapped on the tabletop for a bowl of miso soup and a hand roll. “Hmm. What kind of drink did you have in mind?”
“Something exquisite and bubbly, I guess. To fit in with the company.” He leaned forward, close enough for her to inhale the faint scent of his skin: “If you’re interested?”
“I think so.” She waited a second, then leaned back, watching him with narrowed eyes. “Are you going to order anything?”
“Mm-hmm.” She watched him as he scrolled the tabletop, jabbing at the wine submenu and ordering a plate of spiced noodles — coordinated and confident, she thought — and a bottle of something that was not only exquisite and bubbly, but also expensive. “Do you often go to stay with your uncle?” she asked, feeling idiotic, a conversational casualty in progress. “I don’t mean to pry or anything—”
“Not really.” The waitron was back, bearing a bottle with an intricate pressure-relief cork and a pair of fluted glasses. He took them and raised an eyebrow at her. “It’s not like there are more than two flights a day between Magna and Noctis, is it?” He poured carefully, and handed her a nearly full glass. “To your very good … taste?”
Wednesday took a gulp of sparkling wine to hide her turmoil. Everything about Leo was right, and he was an eminently eligible choice for a friendly fuck to while away the journey — except that he was too right. Too polished, too witty, too includable. He was the sort of fashion accessory the “in” crowd always had on display. Why pick on her for an evening’s dalliance? She glanced around. There was a double handful of other passengers in the food hall, mostly in groups, but there were one or two singles of indeterminate age: well, maybe he was telling the truth. “To my very good luck — in meeting you,” she said, and knocked back the rest of her glass. “I was really afraid today was going to be a dead loss.”
The food arrived, and Wednesday managed to drink her soup without taking her eyes off him. Lust confused her. What is it about him? she wondered. “Are you traveling in Comfort or Syb?” she asked.
“Cattle class.” He frowned momentarily. “All I get is a seat, a curtain, and a boring neck massage. Why?”
“Oh, nothing,” she said innocently. My place or yours? was a no-brainer. In fact -
Her earlobe began to vibrate.
“ ’Scuse me a moment.” She tapped the table for privacy, then yet more privacy: everything around her went distant and fuzzy, like being inside a velvet-lined black hole. “Yeah?” she demanded.