Nightside City

But I was scared all the same that I had screwed up badly, and that I was going to pay for it.

I was right, too, but I didn't find that out right away.

The cab dropped me at my door, and I stepped out into the wind and looked around, just in case.

It looked clear. I didn't have anything with me that would scan much outside the visible, but it looked clear. The wind stung my eyes, and I blinked and opened the door.

Upstairs in my office I noticed that the window was still black, and I cleared it. If something came at me that way I wanted to see it-not that I expected any approach that obvious.

I also didn't mind looking out at the city again, seeing the flickering of the Trap and a swarm of meteors that drew golden clawmarks across the deep blue of the sky, hearing the hum of the traffic and the howl of the wind.

I got myself paté and crackers and a Coke III and I sat down at my desk and tried to think of what I could do with my two hours that could possibly be of use.

The obvious item was to run up a file on Doc Lee, so I touched keys.

His name was Mahendra Dhuc Lee, he was just over a hundred in Terran years, he'd been born on Prometheus, and he was assistant director of research in physical planetology, with a degree from Prometheus and a doctorate from Earth-I'd never heard of either university, so I won't name names. There was more, but it was dull as dirt; like most scientists, he'd never done anything but science and office politics, and either one is boring as hell to outsiders. He appeared to be good at both. Whether it was because he was good enough at both to offend people, or whether there was truth in it, I couldn't be sure, but there was a rumor that he'd been less than completely honest in some of his work-adjusting results to please backers, borrowing other people's work, the usual array of scientific misbehavior.

It looked to me as if he was someone who thought a lot of himself and always had, despite any evidence to the contrary. I figured that he'd gone into science not because he was good at it, or enjoyed it, but because he'd bought the line about science being the key to the future, the field for someone who wanted to really accomplish something.

Of course, he should have gone into polyspatial physics or something, then, instead of planetology; I'd bet that he picked planetology just because it had been his best subject.

I couldn't prove my guess, though, because his educational records weren't open.

I had another guess to make, which was that whatever he was working on for Nakada was intended to be his big score, his way of making his name and fortune, just the way it was for Nakada. Except he didn't have family and money supplying him with second chances; if he crashed on this one, that might be it for him.

I called for anything on his most recent work, but came up blank. I had his basic biography, but details wouldn't come, just the outline.

That much, and a whole string of tedious interviews, were on the public records, available to anybody who asked. I wanted more than that, but I hesitated to go after it. I didn't know what security I might hit. I didn't know what might come after me. I didn't want to plug into the com when there might be somebody at my door any minute; it's hard to maneuver quickly with a wire fastened to the side of your head.

I put it aside and I finished my meal and I waited, and about fifteen minutes before the two hours would have been up I got a message beep.

I tapped keys, and Doc Lee's face came up on the screen.

"We've talked it over," he said, "and we've decided to trust you. We'll give you the full schematics for the whole project. In exchange, we want your word, with legal penalties attached, that you won't put any of this on the net until either full dawn or a halt in the city's sunward rotation, whichever comes first."

I stared at him. I couldn't believe it. Nothing had gone wrong after all. It seemed too good to be true.

"And no trespassing or assault charges?" I asked.

"No charges, either way," he said.

"All right," I said. "You've got a deal." I smiled at him to show that everything was ru

"Here it comes, then," he said, and the screen filled with gobbledygook.

I tried to scan it, but it was moving too quickly, and I couldn't follow it.

"Wait a minute," I said. "Let me patch in some analysis. I can't read this that fast."

"If you'll jack on line," he told me, "we can feed everything right in with all the interpretation, and you can go through it and see if you have any questions."

I should have stopped to consider that, but I didn't. The cold little worm of disbelief was too deeply buried in all that warmth. I just nodded and jacked in and said, "Ready."

You've seen it coming, haven't you? Yeah, you're right. I got horsed. A classic Trojan horse.

I got the initial feed, good hard data on Epimetheus, Nightside City, all their various motions, the vectors needed to stop the city-and then I hit the neural breaker that cut my body out of the circuit and left me hooked into the system with no way to move my hand and unplug.

They left the sensory input alone; nothing went but motor control. The bastards knew just what they were doing.

I'd always known that ru

That sudden cooperation had been too good to be true, all right. Something that seems too good to be true is a pretty sure sign of a con, and I've always known that. I'd fallen right into it, all the same, because I had wanted it to be true.

I sat there like that, staring at the gigo on the screen, for maybe ten minutes; then the door buzzed as somebody ran an override on it. It opened, and the muscle came in.

Big and little, just the way the squatters had described them, and yes, the little one was Paulie Orchid. He was smiling and rubbing his palms together.

The big one was some guy I had never seen before, huge and middling ugly, with a face like a potato that had flunked the port health check, and dirty blond hair that had been hacked off short and left for dead. He looked worried, and when he stepped closer I heard his stomach growl. He had a coil of cable in one hand.

Orchid took the cable, then bent down and kissed my cheek. I'd have spat at him if I'd been able to move.

"Hello, Carlie," he said. "Didn't I tell you to mind your own business?" He smiled. "No answer? Feeling shy? Here, give me your hand."

He reached down and picked my right hand off the keyboard, and I felt my stomach heave. On top of the emotional sine curve I'd been riding, from terror to the relief of Lee's lies and then back into terror when I got horsed, just seeing these two in my office was enough to make me sick. Having that piece of grit touch me and move me around like a toy was too much. Antiperistalsis is not under the control of the voluntary nervous system; I threw my lunch up on his arm.

He jumped back, and I saw the big one smother a smile.

Orchid must have known the smile was there, though, because without looking he said, "Shut up, Bobo." He snarled it, more than said it; it sounded like bad brakes on a matatu. "Damn, now we have to clean this up." He slapped me across the face but pulled it at the last instant-I guess he didn't want to leave a permanent mark, though I don't know why he'd worry about that. It still hurt like hell.

"I'd been thinking of having a bit of fun with you, while you're out of service," he said. "Something to make this more enjoyable for both of us. But you-you've spoiled my appetite for that." He grimaced. "I didn't think anything could do that."