‘What about we spike this ahead of time?’ wondered Jadwiga. ‘Find Kovacs’ holdout buddies in the beachhead and shut them down before they can transmit out.’
‘Probably too late, Jad.’ Lazlo shook his head. ‘We’ve been in a couple of hours. Anybody who wants to knows about it by now.’
Gathering momentum. I stayed silent and watched it roll the way I wanted. Kiyoka weighed in, frowning.
‘Anyway, we got no way to find these fuckers. Millsport accents and hard faces are plankton standard around here. At a minimum, we’d need to case the beachhead datastack and,’ she indicated Sylvie’s foetal form, ‘we’re in no position to do that.’
‘Even with Sylvie online, we’d be pushed,’ said Lazlo gloomily. ‘Way Kurumaya feels about us right now, he’ll jump if we clean our teeth at the wrong voltage. I suppose that thing’s intrusion-proofed. ’
He nodded at the personal space resonance scrambler perched on the chair. Kiyoka nodded back, slightly wearily I thought.
‘State of the art, Las. Really. Picked it up in Reiko’s Straight-to-Street before we shipped out. Micky, the point is, we’re under virtual lockdown here. You say this Kovacs is coming for us, what do you suggest we do?’
Here we go.
‘I suggest I get out of here tonight on the Daikoku Dawn, and I suggest I take Sylvie with me.’
Quiet rocked the room. I tracked glances, gauged emotion, estimated where this was going.
Orr rolled his head on his neck, like a freak fighter warming up.
‘You,’ he said deliberately, ‘can go fuck yourself.’
‘Orr—’ said Kiyoka.
‘No fucking way, Ki. No fucking way does he take her anywhere. Not on my watch.’
Jadwiga looked at me narrowly. ‘What about the rest of us, Micky? What are we supposed to do when Kovacs turns up looking for blood?’
‘Hide.’ I told her. ‘Pull some favours, get yourselves out of sight either somewhere in the beachhead or out in the Uncleared with someone else’s crew if you can persuade them. Shit, you could even get Kurumaya to arrest you, if you trust him to keep you locked up safe.’
‘Hey, fuckhead, we can do all of that without handing Sylvie over to y—’
‘Can you, Orr?’ I locked gazes with the giant. ‘Can you? Can you wade back out into the Uncleared with Sylvie the way she is now? Who’s going to carry her out there? What crew? What crew can afford the dead weight?’
‘He’s right, Orr.’ Lazlo shrugged. ‘Even Oishii isn’t going to go back out there with that on his back.’
Orr looked around him, eyes flickering cornered.
‘We can hide her here, in the—’
‘Orr, you’re not listening to me. Kovacs will tear this place apart to get to us. I know him.’
‘Kurumaya—’
‘Forget it. He’ll go through Kurumaya like angelfire, if that’s what it takes. Orr, there’s only one single thing that’ll stop him, and that’s knowing that Sylvie and I are gone. Because then he won’t have time to piss about looking for the rest of you. When we arrive in Tek’to, we make sure the news gets back to Kurumaya and by the time Kovacs is here, it’ll be common knowledge around the beachhead that we skipped. That’ll be enough to kick him out of here on the next ’loader.’
More quiet, this time like something counting down. I watched them buy in, one by one.
‘Makes sense, Orr.’ Kiyoka clapped the giant on the shoulder. ‘It isn’t pretty, but it scans.’
‘At least this way, the skipper’s out of the firing line.’
Orr shook himself. ‘I don’t fucking believe you people. Can’t you see he’s trying to scare you all?’
‘Yeah, he’s succeeding in scaring me,’ snapped Lazlo. ‘Sylvie’s down. If the yakuza are hiring Envoy assassins, we’re severely outclassed.’
‘We need to keep her safe, Orr.’ Jadwiga was staring at the floor as if digging a tunnel might be a good next move. ‘And we can’t do it here.’
‘Then I’m going too.’
‘I’m afraid that isn’t going to be possible,’ I said quietly. ‘I figure Lazlo can get us in one of the life-raft launchers, the way he came aboard in Tek’to. But with the hardware you’re carrying, the power source, penetrate the hull unauthorised, you’re going to set off every leakage alarm the Daikoku Dawn has.’
It was inspired guesswork, a blind leap off the rapid scaffolding of Envoy intuition, but it seemed to hit home. The Slipins looked back and forth at each other, and finally Lazlo nodded.
‘He’s right, Orr. No way can I get you up that chute quietly.’
The ordnance giant stared at me for what seemed like a long time. Finally, he looked away, at the woman on the bed.
‘If you hurt her in any way at all—’
I sighed. ‘The best way I know to hurt her, Orr, is to leave her here. Which I don’t plan to do. So save the attitude for Kovacs.’
‘Yeah,’ said Jadwiga grimly. ‘And this is a promise. As soon as Sylvie’s back on line, we take that motherfucker and we—’
‘Admirable,’ I agreed. ‘But a little premature. Plan your revenge later, okay? Right now let’s just all concentrate on surviving.’
Of course, it wasn’t quite as easy as that.
When pressed, Lazlo admitted that security around the ’loader ramps at Kompcho was lax verging on laughable. At the Drava beachhead, with mimint assault a constant fear, the dockside would be sewn up tight with electronic intrusion countermeasures.
‘So,’ I tried for patient calm. ‘You’ve never actually done this life-raft chute thing in Drava?’
‘Well, yeah, once.’ Lazlo scratched his ear. ‘But I had some jamming help from Suki Bajuk.’
Jadwiga snorted. ‘That little trollop.’
‘Hey, jealous. She’s a fucking good command deCom. Even whiffed off her head, she greased the entry codes like—’
‘Not all she greased that weekend, from what I hear.’
‘Man, just because she isn’t—’
‘Is she here?’ I asked loudly. ‘Now, in the beachhead?’
Lazlo went back to scratching his ear. ‘Dunno. We could check, I guess, but—’
‘It’ll take forever,’ predicted Kiyoka. ‘And anyway, she may not be up for another code greasing, if she finds out what this is about. Helping you get your kicks is one thing, Las. Bucking Kurumaya’s lockdown might not appeal so much, you know what I mean?’
‘She doesn’t have to know,’ said Jadwiga.
‘Don’t be a bitch, Jad. I’m not putting Suki in the firing line without—’
I cleared my throat. ‘What about Oishii?’
They all looked round at me. Orr’s brow furrowed. ‘Maybe. He and Sylvie go back to the early days. Hired on as sprogs together.’
Jadwiga grinned. ‘Sure he’ll do it. If Micky asks him.’
‘What?’
There were grins appearing on everyone’s mouths now, it seemed. Welcome release to the building tension. Kiyoka sniggered behind a hand pressed to her nose. Lazlo looked elaborately at the ceiling. Stifled snorts of hilarity. Only Orr was too angry to join in the fun.
‘Didn’t you notice over the last couple of days, Micky?’ Jadwiga, playing this one until it creaked. ‘Oishii likes you. I mean, he really likes you.’
I looked around the cramped room at my companions, and tried to match Orr for deadpan lack of amusement. Mostly, I was irritated at myself. I hadn’t noticed, or at least hadn’t identified the attraction for what – Jadwiga said – it was. For an Envoy, that was a serious failure to perceive exploitable benefit.
Ex-Envoy.
Yeah, thanks.
‘That’s good,’ I said evenly. ‘I’d better go talk to him, then.’