‘I think I’d better get back,’ she said, and turned unsteadily about. Listing slightly every few steps, she made as dignified a retreat as was possible on heels that stupid.
‘Yeah,’ Isa called after her. ‘Enjoy the party. See you around, maybe.’
‘Isa?’ I muttered.
She grinned up at me. ‘Yeah, what?’
‘Let go of me, and go put some fucking clothes back on.’
We cast off twenty minutes later, and cruised out of the harbour on a general guidance beam. Watching the fireworks from the Reach wasn’t a stunningly original idea, and we weren’t even close to the only yacht in Tadaimako harbour heading that way. For the time being, Isa kept watch from the belowdeck cockpit and let the marine traffic interface tug us along. There’d be time to break loose later, when the show started.
In the forward master cabin, Brasil and I broke out the gear. Stealth scuba suits, Anderson-rigged, courtesy of Sierra Tres and her haiduci friends, weaponry from the hundred personal arsenals on Vchira Beach. Isa’s customised software for the raid patched into the suits’ general-purpose processors, and overlaid with a scrambler-rigged comsystem she’d stolen fresh from the factory that afternoon. Like the Boubin Islander’s comatose owners, it wouldn’t be missed for a couple of days.
We stood and looked at the assembled hardware, the gleaming black of the powered-down suits, the variously scuffed and dented weapons. There was barely enough space on the mirrorwood floor for it all.
‘Just like old times, huh?’
Brasil shrugged. ‘No such thing as an old wave, Tak. Every time, it’s different. Looking back’s the biggest mistake you can make.’
Sarah.
‘Spare me the cheap fucking beach philosophy, Jack.’
I left him in the cabin and went aft to see how Isa and Sierra Tres were getting on at the con. I felt Brasil’s gaze follow me out, and the taint of my own flaring irritation stayed with me along the corridor and up the three steps into the storm cockpit.
‘Hey baby,’ said Isa, when she saw me.
‘Stop that.’
‘Suit yourself.’ She grinned unrepentantly and glanced across to where Sierra Tres was propped against the cockpit side panel. ‘You didn’t seem to mind so much earlier on.’
‘Earlier on there was a—’ I gave up. Gestured. ‘Suits are ready. Any word from the others?’
Sierra Tres shook her head slowly. Isa nodded at the comset datacoil.
‘They’re all online, look. Green glow, all the way across the board. For now, that’s all we need or want. Anything more, it just means things have fucked up. Believe me, right now, no news is good news.’
I twisted about awkwardly in the confined space.
‘Is it safe to go up on deck?’
‘Yeah, sure. This is a sweet ship, it runs weather exclusion screens from generators in the rigging, I’ve got them up on partial opaque for incoming. Anyone out there nosy enough to be looking, like your little blonde friend, say, your face is just going to be a blob in the scope.’
‘Good.’
I ducked out of the cockpit, moved to the stern and heaved myself into the seating area, then up onto the deck proper. This far north, the Reach was running light and the trimaran was almost steady on the swell. I picked my way forward to the fairweather cockpit, seated myself in one of the pilot chairs and dug out a fresh Erkezes cigar. There was a whole humicrate of them below, I figured the owners could spare more than a few. Revolutionary politics – we all have to make sacrifices. Around me, the yacht creaked a little. The sky had darkened, but Daikoku stood low over the spine of Tadaimako and painted the sea with a bluish glow. The running lights of other vessels sat about, neatly separated from each other by the traffic software. Bass lines thumped faintly across the water from the glimmering shore lights of New Kanagawa and Danchi. The party was in full swing.
Southward, Rila speared up out of the sea, distant enough to appear slim and weaponish – a dark, crooked blade, unlit but for the cluster of lights from the citadel at the top.
I looked at it and smoked in silence for a while.
He’s up there.
Or somewhere downtown, looking for you.
No, he’s there. Be realistic about this.
Alright, he’s there. And so is she. So for that matter is this Aiura, and a couple of hundred hand-picked Harlan family retainers. Worry about stuff like that when you get to the top.
A launch barge slid past in the moonlight, on its way out to a firing position further up the Reach. At the rear, the deck was piled high with tumbled packages, webbing and helium cylinders. The sawn-off forward superstructure thronged with figures at rails, waving and firing flares into the night. A sharp hooting lifted from the vessel as it passed, the Harlan birthday hymn picked out in harsh collision alert blasts.
Happy birthday, motherfucker.
‘Kovacs?’
It was Sierra Tres. She’d reached the cockpit without me noticing, which said either a lot for her stealth skills or as much for my lack of focus. I hoped it was the former.
‘You okay?’
I considered that for a moment. ‘Do I not look okay?’
She made a characteristically laconic gesture and seated herself in the other pilot chair. For quite a long time, she just looked at me.
‘So what’s going on with the kid?’ she asked finally. ‘You looking to recapture your long lost youth?’
‘No.’ I jerked a thumb southward. ‘My long lost fucking youth is out there somewhere, trying to kill me. There’s nothing going on with Isa. I’m not a fucking paedophile.’
Another long, quiet spell. The launch barge slipped away into the evening. Talking to Tres was always like this. Under normal circumstances, I’d have found it irritating, but now, caught in the calm before midnight, it was curiously restful.
‘How long do you think they had that viral stuff tagged to Natsume?’
I shrugged. ‘Hard to tell. You mean, was it long-term shadowing or a trap set specifically for us?’
‘If you like.’
I knocked ash off the cigar and stared at the ember beneath. ‘Natsume’s a legend. Granted a dimly remembered one, but I remember him. So will the copy of me the Harlans have hired. He probably also knows by now that I talked to people back in Tekitomura, and that I know they’re holding Sylvie at Rila. He knows what I’d do, given that information. A little Envoy intuition would do the rest. If he’s in tune, then yeah, maybe he had them clip some viral watchdogs to Natsume, waiting for me to show up. With the backing he’s got now, it wouldn’t be hard to write a couple of shell personalities, have them wired in with faked credentials from one of the other Renouncer monasteries.’
I drew on the cigar, felt the bite of the smoke and let it up again.
‘Then again, maybe the Harlan family had Natsume tagged from way back anyway. They’re not a forgiving lot, and him climbing Rila like that made them look stupid, even if wasn’t much more than a Quellboy poster stunt.’
Sierra was silent, staring ahead through the cockpit windscreen.
‘Comes to the same thing in the end,’ she said at last.
‘Yes, it does. They know we’re coming.’ Oddly enough, saying it made me smile. ‘They don’t know exactly when or exactly how, but they know.’
We watched the boats around us. I smoked the Erkezes down to a stub. Sierra Tres sat silent and motionless.