Perfect. “You know, maybe I liked where I was.”
“Yes. But people are going to hire you based on those scores.”
Let’s change the subject now. “And how exactly do you go about getting hired?”
“Welcome to ProMex,” Parvi said.
It was a cross between an ancient Roman coliseum, a stock exchange, a casino, and hell’s own trade show. It was named the Proudhon Military Exchange. In terms of area, it was probably the largest nonaircraft-related structure in the city.
Walking into the massive dome, they passed aisles where hundreds of merchants sold exotic military hardware. Above them, holo screens showed gladiatorial contests being held somewhere else in the complex. Everywhere kiosks gave scrolling displays of symbols that, Parvi explained, gave values of publicly owned paramilitary organizations as well as odds on various conflicts based on current wagering.
It was a little disturbing, but not surprising, that the conflicts were not confined to Bakunin. It was more disturbing exactly how many of them there were. When he commented on it, Parvi said that, “Members of the BMU have seen action on every inhabited planet in human space.”
He almost said, not Occisis, but he remembered the chaos of the Junta and its aftermath. It was quite possible some off-planet forces were involved at some point.
She led him on a winding path across the floor to a large area clear of the arms dealers. The area was marked by a series of three-meter-high towers, all topped with the chromed spheres of Emerson field generators. Mallory didn’t need the red and yellow candy-striping on the towers to know that, while he couldn’t see it, the area was protected by an anti-personnel Emerson field.
There was one obvious entry, a round portal mounted between two of the towers. Across the top it said, “BMU Members only.” On one side of it, a small open-ended metal cylinder emerged from the skin of the portal. Parvi placed her hand in the cylinder, waited a moment, then walked through.
Well, I’m a member now—several kilograms lighter in the wallet to prove it.
Mallory put his hand inside, waited for a count of three, then walked through after Parvi.
“Genetic sequencer?” he asked.
“Genes, fingerprints, blood pressure, serotonin and adrenaline levels, toxicology—you name it . . .” She led him down a few steps to a large area sunk into the floor enough to hide it from the public area without use of a solid wall. “To answer your question, this is how you get hired.”
The floor was crowded with men and women, and to Mallory’s surprise, a few nonhumans. One of the two standout examples was the Rorschach-faced serpent-necked pseudo-avian form of a Voleran. Its eyeless, hard-beaked head bobbed above everyone, except the other nonhuman. Unlike the Voleran, the other obvious nonhuman wasn’t really “alien.” At least, its ancestors were of terrestrial origin, victims of morally questionable genetic engineers.
In the twenty-first century, man had not yet established a moral framework around the Heretical Technologies: self-replicating nanotechnology, artificial intelligences, and the genetic engineering of sapient life-forms. The last of these was the most seriously abused before mankind gained control of itself. Thousands of new species, as intelligent as man but—for the most part—less well constructed, were built to fight the wars that ravaged the planet. The weapons outlived the war, and eventually, during the dark days before the rise of the Confederacy, faced exile to the worlds past Tau Ceti.
Understandably, the survivors of that period of human history had very little to do with humanity anymore. Diplomatic communication between human governments and the Fifteen Worlds was practically nil. And even though Bakunin was technically part of the Fifteen Worlds’ sphere of influence, this was the first product of that history Mallory had seen here.
The first he had ever seen.
The creature was close to three meters tall, and if Mallory had to guess, he’d estimate mass at close to five hundred kilos, all muscle. It had a feline skull and striped fur and moved with a grace that reminded Mallory of a very well-trained martial artist. It wore only a gun belt.
“Never seen a moreau before?” Parvi asked.
Mallory realized he’d been staring and turned away from the giant cat. “No.”
“Get used to it. If you stick around Bakunin, you’ll see more.”
Hearing the tone in Parvi’s voice, Mallory turned toward her. “You sound like you don’t approve.”
Instead of answering him, she led him to one of the kiosks that dotted the floor here, on the opposite corner of the floor from the moreau.
“This ties into the closed BMU database,” she told him. “You can see live queries entered by anyone in the system, on-planet or off.”
“Off?”
“We have tach-transmit updates on an hourly basis—with a transmission delay, of course.”
“Of course.” It was disconcerting to think that a completely extra-legal entity like the BMU had outposts on other planets with enough resources to run a tach-transmitter. Mallory faced the kiosk and started running a few searches. The interface was familiar, like searching the want ads anywhere else—except the ads here were “team experienced with infiltration and underwater demolition,” “EVA-rated flight crew for Lancer-class drop ship, experience handling pulse cannon/ plasma weapon repair/maint a plus,” “IW hackers needed, good pay/benefits for low-risk industrial espionage . . .”
For the sake of his cover story, Mallory really looked though the ads searching for positions that resembled anything that might interest Staff Sergeant Fitzpatrick. He’d gather a list of contacts that he could take back to the hotel. He hoped that his search for discreet off-planet transport would bear fruit before he ran into Parvi again and she asked him about his job search. With all the positions available, the longer he went without signing on with someone, the more obvious it would be that he was looking for something more then a source of income.
He went though a series of random sorts when he caught his breath.
Parvi had been staring at the tiger moreau, but she turned to face him. “Is something wrong?”
Mallory shook his head. “No.”
He didn’t even sound convincing to himself. The deceptions he had trained for with the Marines had involved not being seen by the enemy.
“Just.” He stumbled for words as he composed himself. “It just struck me, looking at all these listings . . .” He turned to look at her and the distress on his face was honest, even if his words weren’t. “And it hit me that my old life’s over. I’m really no longer part of the Marines . . .”
Parvi nodded. “I wish I could say you’d get over that.” She turned back to look at the crowd. The tiger moreau was gone now. “Everyone on Bakunin is running from something.”
Mallory nodded, turning back to face the kiosk. It was hard not to breathe a sigh of relief that she had bought his little improvised speech.
Please God, he silently prayed, let me understand what this means.
On the display, floating near the top of the holo, was a small listing waiting for him to touch it to see greater detail. The current sort was by job location, so various place names glowed brightest, the most common—filling most of the holo—being “undisclosed location.”
Of course that made sense. If you were preparing military action, where you were sending the mercenaries was a valuable piece of intel you wouldn’t release, even to an allegedly closed database run by the BMU. After all, the members of BMU only owed loyalty to you after they were hired.