Josef’s eyes were just about popping out of his head by this point. ‘You’re shitting me,’ he said, after a moment. ‘A GiantKiller? Those things are supposed to be only a rumour. So they really exist? And that’s what ripped up Bourdain’s pride and joy?’
‘Yeah, but not before he grabbed me and started torturing me, since he seemed to think I’d sneaked a look at his cargo and figured out what it actually was.’
‘Wait a minute.’ Josef put up a hand. ‘So you didn’t know what you were delivering. But you just said it was a GiantKiller. Who told you that-Bourdain?’
‘No.’ Dakota thought fast for a moment, but a sense of self-preservation kept her from mentioning the Shoal-member. ‘I kind of read between the lines when something started eating the asteroid. I witnessed the whole thing, after the atmosphere gave out and I managed to escape. If it is a GiantKiller, your guess is as good as mine as to what made it go off.’
‘So, what, you think it self-activated? Or someone else set it off?’
‘Why not? Think how many enemies Bourdain must have. Think how much sense that would make. I deliver the GiantKiller, and somebody else detonates it. Who gets the blame? Me. When this all blows over-if it ever does-the first thing I’ll do is find the shipping agent who acted as the go-between in all this. That’s where I’ll get some answers, I’m sure of it.’
‘This shipping agent. Anyone I know?’
‘Constantin Quill, based in-’
‘I know of him. Or at least I do now. He’s dead.’
Dakota started. ‘He-?’
‘Don’t know the circumstances, but apparently what was left of him was pretty messy. Somebody put him in the same room as a couple of half-starved Mogs. That’s not official news, but you get to hear things on the grapevine.’
‘Great.’ Dakota lowered her gaze and sighed. She then accepted a glass of the pink coffee and tasted it, feeling a warming numbness slide down her throat and into her stomach. She began to relax despite herself. ‘Nice to know the kind of future I’ve got to look forward to myself, then.’
‘If Bourdain’s responsible for Quill’s murder, then it means he’s covering his tracks. Losing the Rock is a major blow for him, but if it gets found out he was involved in acquiring illegal alien technology like a GiantKiller…’
Josef let the words trail off and fixed her with an inquisitorial gaze. ‘Okay, now you get to tell me what you want from me.’
‘I know you don’t owe me anything.’
‘You get special dispensation. We had something going, the two of us, even if it was a long time ago.’
The coffee was making it harder for Dakota to stay focused. She put down the empty glass and pushed it away with unsteady fingers. ‘You were always particularly good with contacts.’
‘Rich family, generations of businessmen. It helps.’
‘Yeah.’
‘Where do you want to go now, Dakota? Somewhere far away?’
‘The further the better. For a long, long time.’
Josef shook his head. ‘I’ll try, but it isn’t going to be easy.’
‘How so?’
‘You’re being blamed for the destruction of a minor world. A couple of thousand people are dead, and you’re the prime suspect for their mass murder. Worse, you’re a machine-head, directly implicated in the Port Gabriel massacre. How long was it before you got yourself black-market implants?’
‘Why do you care?’
‘Humour me.’
‘I survived OK for about six months after they let us all out of internment. Then they took away our Ghosts, and I wanted to die. I had new implants put in as soon as humanly possible. Pretty well immediately.’
‘How about countermeasures?’ he asked.
‘I don’t know what you mean.’
‘Sure you do.’ Josef chuckled. ‘I’m talking about methods to survive your implants being compromised.’
‘Everybody has their own way of dealing with that possibility.’
‘And what’s yours? Some means of wiping or disabling your own implants, maybe a coded message?’
‘That sounds like suicide.’
‘But better than the alternative, like losing your mind to outside control, don’t you think?’
‘I guess. And even if I did-’
‘You wouldn’t tell me? Fine. And there’s nothing else you want to tell me?’ Josef’s eyes were searching her face.
‘Perhaps…’
‘Yes?’
‘No, Josef, there’s nothing else I can think of.’
He obviously wasn’t satisfied with this answer, but she couldn’t find any real reason to burden him with the truth. Assuming he would even believe her, which struck Dakota as unlikely.
‘OK,’ he said at length. ‘I can’t help thinking I might come to regret this, but I’ll see what I can do for you.’
She tried not to look too obviously relieved.
Dakota woke from a dream-filled sleep to find that already fourteen hours had passed since her meeting with Josef.
In the meantime she’d found herself a room-cell would be a more accurate description-in an echoing warren of twenty-four hour rentals that accepted anonymous payment. She could have stayed on the Piri Reis, of course, but Mesa Verde’s docks would be Bourdain’s first port of call if he came looking for her.
When she woke, it was from a nightmare of being incarcerated in a tiny space at the centre of Bourdain’s Rock that got steadily smaller and hotter, squeezing in around her until she couldn’t breathe. The room she’d hired was too small to stand up in, and for a few moments she panted asthmatically, staring up at a ceiling that was far too close, until she got her bearings.
Her thoughts smoothed out as her implants soothed her jagged brain waves, and she began to breathe more easily. Her Ghost informed her that Josef wanted her to return to his office. Apparently he’d found something suitable for her.
The dream had felt so real she felt half-sure she’d find the door out of her rented room locked when she tried to open it. Crouching to stop her head bumping against the ridiculously low ceiling, she felt an irrational wave of relief when the door opened smoothly on to a busy public corridor.
‘My name is Gardner. David Gardner.’
Gardner stood up and nodded politely to Dakota as she entered Josef’s office. He had close-cropped hair that she suspected he’d allowed to grow grey just enough to lend him a certain air of authority, and his dress was just this side of conservative. She thought there was something cold in the way his pale, milky eyes appraised her.