‘Tanya,’ I said gently. ‘It wasn’t Hand that sold us out to the Wedge. Roespinoedji’s getting the deal of the millennium, and he knows it. He’s solid on this one, believe me.’
‘Well. You’re the Envoy.’
The café was pretty much as I remembered it, a forlorn-looking herd of moulded chairs and tables gathered in the shade cast by the massive stanchions and struts of the dighead frame. A holomenu fluoresced weakly overhead, and a muted Lapinee playlist seeped into the air from speakers hung on the structure. Martian artefacts stood about the place in no particular pattern that I could discern. We were the only customers.
A terminally bored waiter sloped out of hiding somewhere and stood at our table, looking resentful. I glanced up at the menu then back at Wardani. She shook her head.
‘Just water,’ she said. ‘And cigarettes, if you’ve got them.’
‘Site Sevens or Will to Victory?’
She grimaced. ‘Site Sevens.’
The waiter looked at me, obviously hoping I wasn’t going to spoil his day and order some food.
‘Got coffee?’
He nodded.
‘Bring me some. Black, with whisky in it.’
He trudged away. I raised an eyebrow at Wardani behind his back.
‘Leave him alone. Can’t be much fun working here.’
‘Could be worse. He could be a conscript. Besides,’ I gestured around me at the artefacts, ‘look at the decor. What more could you want?’
A wan smile.
‘Takeshi.’ She hunched forward over the table. ‘When you get the virtual gear installed. I, uh, I’m not going with you.’
I nodded. Been expecting this.
‘I’m sorry.’
‘What are you apologising to me for?’
‘You, uh. You’ve done a lot for me in the last couple of months. You got me out of the camp—’
‘We pulled you out of the camp because we needed you. Remember.’
‘I was angry when I said that. Not with you, but—’
‘Yeah, with me. Me, Schneider, the whole fucking world in a uniform.’ I shrugged. ‘I don’t blame you. And you were right. We got you out because we needed you. You don’t owe me anything.’
She studied her hands where they lay in her lap.
‘You helped put me back together again, Takeshi. I didn’t want to admit it to myself at the time, but that Envoy recovery shit works. I’m getting better. Slowly, but it’s off that base.’
‘That’s good.’ I hesitated, then made myself say it. ‘Fact remains, I did it because I needed you. Part of the rescue package; there was no point in getting you out of the camp if we left half your soul behind.’
Her mouth twitched. ‘Soul?’
‘Sorry, figure of speech. Too much time hanging around Hand. Look, I’ve got no problem with you bailing out. I’m kind of curious to know why, is all.’
The waiter toiled back into view at that point, and we quietened. He laid out the drinks and the cigarettes. Tanya Wardani slit the pack and offered me one across the table. I shook my head.
‘I’m quitting. Those things’ll kill you.’
She laughed almost silently and fed herself one from the pack. Smoke curled up as she touched the ignition patch. The waiter left. I sipped at my whisky coffee and was pleasantly surprised. Wardani plumed smoke up into the dighead frame space.
‘Why am I staying?’
‘Why are you staying?’
She looked at the table top. ‘I can’t leave now, Takeshi. Sooner or later, what we found out there is going to get into the public domain. They’ll open the gate again. Or take an IP cruiser out there. Or both.’
‘Yeah, sooner or later. But right now there’s a war in the way.’
‘I can wait.’
‘Why not wait on Latimer? It’s a lot safer there.’
‘I can’t. You said yourself, transit time in the ’Chandra has got to be eleven years, minimum. That’s full acceleration, without any course correction Ameli might have to do. Who knows what’s going to have happened back here in the next eleven years?’
‘The war might have ended, for one thing.’
‘The war might be over next year, Takeshi. Then Roespinoedji’s going to move on his investment, and when that happens, I want to be here.’
‘Ten minutes ago you couldn’t trust him any more than Hand. Now you want to work for him?’
‘We, uh,’ she looked at her hands again. ‘We talked about it this morning. He’s willing to hide me until things have calmed down. Get me a new sleeve.’ She smiled a little sheepishly. ‘Guild Masters are thin on the ground since the war kicked in. I guess I’m part of his investment.’
‘Guess so.’ Even while the words were coming out of my mouth, I couldn’t work out why I was trying so hard to talk her out of this. ‘You know that won’t help much if the Wedge come looking for you, don’t you.’
‘Is that likely?’
‘It could ha—’ I sighed. ‘No, not really. Carrera’s probably backed up somewhere in a sneak station, but it’ll be a while before they realise that he’s dead. While longer before they sort the authorisation to sleeve the back-up copy. And even if he does get out to Dangrek, there’s nobody left to tell him what happened there.’
She shivered and looked away.
‘It had to be done, Tanya. We had to cover our traces. You of all people should know that.’
‘What?’ Her eyes flicked back in my direction.
‘I said. You of all people should know that.’ I kept her gaze. ‘It’s what you did last time around. Isn’t it.’
She looked away again, convulsively. Smoke curled up off her cigarette and was snatched away by the breeze. I leaned into the silence between us.
‘It doesn’t much matter now. You don’t have the skills to sink us between here and Latimer, and once we’re there you’ll never see me again. Would. Never have seen me again. And now you’re not coming with us. But like I said, I’m curious.’
She moved her arm as if it wasn’t connected to her, drew on the cigarette, exhaled mechanically. Her eyes were fixed on something I couldn’t see from where I was sitting.
‘How long have you known?’
‘Known?’ I thought about it. ‘Honestly, I think I’ve known from the day we pulled you out of the camp. Nothing I could lock down, but I knew there was a problem. Someone tried to bust you out before we came. The camp commandant let that slip, in between fits of drooling.’
‘Sounds unusually animated, for him.’ She drew more smoke, hissed it out between her teeth.
‘Yeah, well. Then of course there were your friends down on the rec deck at Mandrake. Now that one I really should have spotted on the launch pad. I mean, it’s only the oldest whore’s trick in the book. Lead the mark up a darkened alley by his dick, and hand him over to your pimp.’
She flinched. I forced a grin.
‘Sorry. Figure of speech. I just feel kind of stupid. Tell me, was that gun-to-your-head stuff just tinsel, or were they serious?’
‘I don’t know.’ She shook her head. ‘They were revolutionary guard cadres. Kemp’s hard men. They took out Deng when he came sniffing around after them. Really dead, stack torched and body sold off for spares. They told me that while we were waiting for you. Maybe to scare me, I don’t know. They probably would have shot me sooner than let me go again.’
‘Yeah, they convinced the fuck out of me as well. But you still called them in, didn’t you?’
‘Yes,’ she said it to herself, as if discovering the truth for the first time. ‘I did.’
‘Care to tell me why?’
She made a tiny motion, something that might have been her head shaking, or just a shiver.