“Lloyd Witham,” Bob said.
“That guy who goes the VR porn?” Laz asked, a slight edge of scorn in his voice. “What’s he got to do with this?”
“He offered a prize—ten million after taxes—to the person who could prove the existence of other intelligent life in the universe,” Ray explained. “On the condition that the proof was given to him first.”
“Is this ethical?” Laz asked.
“That depends on what I intend to do with the money,” Ray said. “You know I was about to lose my funding. I was going to have to leave the station in less than a month.”
“Yeah, but with this,” Laz said, spreading his hands, “they wouldn’t just stop the funding. Why would they?”
“Because once this comes out, the world governments will step in and they’ll kick me aside like a junkyard dog.”
“Melodramatically phrased,” Bob nodded, “but probably true.”
“But if I’ve got ten million credits I get to stay here and keep tabs on what the governments are doing. This is definitely something that needs a watchdog.”
Laz and Bob looked at one another. “Well, Ray, here’s a miracle,” Laz said. “I actually agree with you about something besides the fact that Schiller isn’t really beer. So these kids overheard you telling Ray about it and now you’re afraid they’ll tell station security or maybe the media about it and you’ll lose your chance.”
“Yeah.”
“And all you want to do is ask them to not tell anyone, right?”
“Yeah.”
Laz tapped a few keys on his computer. “She’s Gina Mancuso, lodged on deck five, section thirty-eight, suite twelve thirty-eight. High school student, NE Megplex, on a tour. Don’t make me regret giving you this, Ray. If I do, so will you.”
“I won’t,” Ray promised. “I just want to keep my edge.”
“So you didn’t actually hear anyone say, ‘I’m going to blow up the station’?” security officer Loh asked.
He was a slight, slender, amber-hued man with lines in his face and white in his close-cropped cap of black hair; somehow he took less than his share of the narrow space at the hostel, despite the holstered stunner on the belt of his plain gray coverall.
“What he said was, ‘this will blow the whole station wide open,”‘ Gina insisted. “Which sounded close enough to me.”
She heard the edge of a whine in her voice and corrected it. The officer didn’t seem to be taking her very seriously, but that was no reason to sound like a brat. “And he chased us.”
Christine nodded. “Chased us for, oh, a couple of corridors. We really had to run, but then he got into a place with lots of people and stopped.”
“I’ll check it out, ladies,” Loh said, rising. “It may be a misunderstanding. At least I hope it is. Thank you for filing a report; all threats are taken seriously here.” He turned to look at them from the doorway. “But this had better not be a prank. We take that seriously, too.”
“It’s not a prank!” Gina said, almost shouting in frustration. “If it was a prank, I’d have made an anonymous call. What am I, an idiot?”
Loh smiled. “No, miss,” he said. “If you were an idiot, you wouldn’t have earned this trip. But smart people make the worst sort of fools.”
He thanked the teacher and the guide and left. At least he hoped she wasn’t an idiot. He called in a report and headed for the Torture Tattoo parlor.
“This space is illegally divided,” Loh told the tattoo parlor’s proprietor. “I’m going to have to write you a ticket.”
“The place was like this when I subleased it,” Laz said. “I can show you my contract.”
In fact, Loh could have scanned it from the Station files, and they both knew it. There would be no point in lying.
“How was I supposed to know?” the thickset artist went on, scratching idly at a design that slowly transformed itself from Nude Descending A Staircase into Holman Hunt’s The Awakening Conscience.
“This is just a ticket,” Loh replied reasonably. Something to make you sit up and pay attention, the security officer thought, like a shovel in the face in the old days on Earth. With some people you have to use visual aids. “The original leaseholder is going to find himself in big trouble.”
He finished writing and the imager at his belt purred as it printed out a hard copy, registering the ticket with security’s ROM data bank at the same instant. “Now, about this underage girl you tattooed without her parents’ permission.”
Sweat didn’t hide the designs on the artist’s skin, but it did give them a rippling sheen in the harsh bright light of the parlor’s cubicle-office.
“She had a notarized recording of her mother giving permission,” Laz said. “I took a copy.” He tapped a few keys and a holo image of a thirtysomething blonde woman hovered above the table.
“I authorize Gina to have any nonpermanent body modifications of Level III and below she wishes,” the woman said, smiling indulgently. “Subject to immediate payment from account #—”
Loh looked at the artist and raised his eyebrows. “Non-permanent?” he said. “Level III?”
“Hey, give me a break,” Laz said, shrugging and making a symphony of color run from his bald head to his toes. “Do you think I was giving the tourist girl this?”
“Could be a fake,” Loh said, nodding toward the holograph that repeated its message.
“It’s notarized,” Laz pointed out. “Our beloved Station Security comp can check the encryption. Query groundside if you want.”
Loh nodded. “Could you make me a copy for our files?” he asked. “Notarization and all?”
“Sure,” Laz said wearily. “I never would have done it if it hadn’t been notarized. What am I, an idiot?”
Loh smiled politely. “I seem to be hearing that phrase a lot lately. Of course you aren’t—but if nobody was an idiot, what would we need Security for?”
On the other side of the illegally divided space, Loh confronted Bob. The place sold small machine parts and consisted of a front counter and, visible through a doorway, rows of storage shelves.
“There’s been a report of a very alarming conversation taking place here today,” the security officer said.
“Oh, yeah?” Bob said. “Alarming, huh? What was it about?”
“Something about blowing the station wide open.”
Bob widened his eyes and gave a choked little laugh.
“Hey, somebody has big ears. A buddy of mine came over to share some hot gossip, and I used the expression, this will blow the station wide open. Nothing to do with actually blowing anything up.”
“What was this piece of gossip?” Loh asked, in his best Dubious Official Tone.
Bob looked uncomfortable and shifted Ms feet. “I’d really rather not say. It’s kind of personal and I don’t feel comfortable talking about it.”
“I see. Well, perhaps your friend will feel more comfortable talking about it to me.”
Loh was writing out a ticket as he spoke and Bob kept shifting nervous glances between the officer’s face and his pad. After a moment, the pad spit out a ticket and Loh held it out to the storekeeper.
Bob backed away. “What’s that for?”
“It’s a ticket for the illegal division of a commercial space.”
“Just because I don’t want to repeat gossip? You can’t do that.”
“No,” Loh said, allowing himself to look surprised. “The ticket is for having an illegally divided commercial space. For not telling me how to find your Mend, you might be charged with… oh, obstruction… assault on a constable—”