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"Ellie . . ." It was Wyn's turn to flush as she realized that she had never known her shipmate's last name, "I would like you to meet Mr. Daniel Carmichael, who manages . . ."
What was the proper way to introduce people in their line of work. Apart, of course, from the obvious. Aha! What had Ellie called her business when they'd met back on Luna?
". . . an escort service at Hell's-A'-Comm'."
She glared at Ellie, willing her to hold out her hand first. The lady always indicated whether she wished to shake hands.
Ellie shook her head, then Carmichael's hand. Only then did she start to grin.
"Thank you, Ms. Baker," Carmichael intoned, his voice hollow with laughter.
"Boston, you never told me your name was Baker," Ellie said. "One of those Bakers? And you let me . . . hoo-eee! I'm surprised you even spoke to me."
Wyn shrugged. Both Ellie and Carmichael watched her with growing amusement.
"Is that how you learned to keep a straight face? You ought to come to work with us . . . make you the standup comic."
Wyn smiled at her. So few words, and it was all arranged. I ought not to approve, she thought. But there is Hell's-A'-Comin', and the brothels are real; and no question, the women in them will do better with Ellie to look out for them.
"Or I could play the piano in the parlor," she said slyly.
"Got a keyboard instead," Carmichael said. His face reddened as he lost the struggle against a great shout of laughter. "Sure you won't reconsider?"
Wyn smiled. "I'll take my chances."
"Ya know, Boston, you can be a real asshole sometimes," Ellie said.
"I'll be fine," Wyn assured her with more confidence than she felt. "You'll make so much money up at the mines you probably won't even recognize me next time you see me. Or want to talk to me."
"You'll still be respectable. Still Boston," Ellie said and hugged her. The next instant, she was all business. "Where's those papers?" she demanded. "Isn't there someplace I got to sign? You want it in blood or what?"
More keystrokes, and the contract whirred out from a slot in the console. Tongue between her teeth, Ellie signed and handed the papers over to Carmichael.
"Ms. Baker, I thank you," he said. Then he hesitated. "Here's for luck. The way you're thinking, you'll need all the luck you can get on Haven." He lifted the slide with its glowing gem, a tiny replica of Haven's giant moon, from about his neck and threw it over Wyn's. "Will you get a move on it, Ellie? We open for business at 20:00, and we need to find you a decent dress."
Ellie followed her new employer out the door. ". . . gave away a fortune, and you ought to see the stuff she's still got hidden in that green thing she carries . . . ."
Silence. The tiny room seemed suddenly cold, echoing. Wyn was relieved when the guard escorted her back to the holding pen. Quickly, she stuffed her new lucky charm into the green bag. At some point, she might be able to sell or trade it. And there was no sense in being a walking target.
There were no windows in the pen. It smelled like every other pen in which Wyn had been deposited with a grunted "wait here." It shouldn't, Wyn thought. This was an alien world; somehow, she had expected it would look and feel different. She wanted out, to fight for whatever future Haven might offer her; she wouldn't get that future sitting here.
"Ms. Baker?" Not a guard this time, but a man dressed almost drably, in what Wyn was suddenly sure was "solid citizen" clothing. Once again, she trotted down the hall to the interview cubicles.
"Ms. Baker, I am Thomas Bronson." He waited for her to acknowledge his family name and to take the hand that he-a vast concession-held out to her.
"How do you do?"
"I assume that your trip here was rather trying."
Wyn inclined her head and nodded again when Bronson waved her to a seat. A Bronson of Ke
"The governor alerted me when your file crossed his desk. Yours was marked for two reasons: politics and high intellect."
"The charges against me were false," Wyn said levelly. "All of them except terminal folly." And you can't file an appeal back on Earth for that.
"Most unwise to launch a frontal attack against entrenched authority." He steepled his fingers. Recognizing the tone of Official Pronouncement from many di
"I would not do it again," she said.
"So you have learned from the experience?"
"A very great deal, sir," she said. She had learned to study those in power, to figure out their weaknesses and survive by playing upon them. She had been a trusting fool, and then she had been helpless. She would not willingly be helpless again.
"It is your knowledge of Earth that I could find useful . . . ."
"My knowledge of Earth?" Wyn allowed herself to smile. "Mr. Bronson, I left Earth more than a year ago on what I fully expected to be a one-way trip. And I think neither of our families would say I knew much about the real world when I lived on it."
"Still," he said. "Your family's contacts. Your education, the way you speak."
She glanced at his hands. He wore a wedding band. That told her: outpost mentality.
"Do you have children, Mr. Bronson? School-aged children perhaps? And the local schools-are they adequate to those children's needs?"
Years of faculty/parent conferences and student advising made him easy to read. Shipped out from Earth or maybe born here: an early marriage to a local woman unable to keep pace with his ambition or supply their children with whatever polish he thought they ought to have.
He'd bought her contract for politics. But teaching them could be her insurance policy once he'd mined out her few Earth names and networks.
His face lit. "I have taken up your contract." Wyn inclined her head. "Please think of it merely as an employment contract. My children, of course: and we could use an executive assistant, discreet, cultivated."
In short, a major domo, their resident status symbol from Earth.
You won't get a better offer, she heard Ellie's voice.
No doubt, he would pump her for details of Earth politics, out of date as they were. No doubt, he would mine what co
Maybe, just maybe, I can strike back.
The idea did not provide the angry pleasure it once had. She had learned something, after all. If Bronson was a power here and relied on her, she too would have power of a sort, even a chance to shape a place that was not already hopelessly corrupt.
Even her tie to Ellie and Carmichael at the mines might be worth something. Exiles made what choices they had to: anything to cease being "the weak." Anything they could stomach. Ellie's and Carmichael's work might be cleaner than the game she was offered.
She thought she could manage. Life on board a BuReloc ship toughened her to the point where she thought that maybe, just maybe her ancestors-who had not been pampered aristocrats-might not find her a weakling. She was well up to this game, she thought. In fact, even if Bronson could produce passage back to Earth, she thought she would spurn it in favor of the promise she saw for her on Haven. She would not always be "the weak," fated to suffer what she must.
It was not often a person got a second chance. Hers sat across from her, folding up the contract of her indenture and tucking it into his jacket.