Nightside City

"I have an important message," I said. "For Yoshio Nakada. About his great-granddaughter Sayuri."

The sca

"Ask Mis' Vo," I said. Old Vijay Vo was still the manager of the New York. "He'll know whether Mis' Nakada will want to hear about this."

I waited, and after a moment the door opened. A floater hung inside, blocking my way. "Leave the gun," it said.

I gave it the HG-2, and it gave me a receipt and let me pass. A line of golden flitterbugs formed an arrow and led the way.

The manager's office was done in dark red plush; the ceiling shimmered with red and gold field effects. Vo sat behind his desk. I stood.

"You ought to know who I am," I told Vo.

"I do, Mis' Hsing," he said.

"And you know I've been investigating Sayuri Nakada.

He nodded.

"Well, I think that Yoshio Nakada will be very interested in what I found out, and I want to talk to him. You must have a line to him here."

"We have a line to his office, yes. You can't just tell me, and trust me to act accordingly?"

I shook my head. "I'm sorry, Mis' Vo," I said. "But this is a matter of vital interest to Nakada Enterprises and the Nakada family, and I hope to earn a fat fee out of it. I don't know you. I don't know how you stand in relation to either Yoshio or Sayuri. I know nothing at all against you, but no, I can't, at present, trust you."

He leaned back and watched me thoughtfully for a few seconds.

"All right," he said. He was a man of decision; I appreciated that. I'd also expected it, from what I'd heard of him.

"You understand the com delay, don't you?" he asked me.

I nodded. "How much is it at present?"

"About twelve minutes each way, a little over twenty-three round-trip. Prometheus isn't too far away just now."

That might not seem to far to him, since he was used to it, but I realized I was about to start the slowest conversation of my life. You can't put a message on a Wheeler drive unless you put it on a ship, and you can't hold a conversation by ship. I was limited to light speed.

I nodded again. "All right," I said.

He turned me over to the flitterbugs again, and they led me out of his office and into the New York's holy of holies, or of holos anyway, a bare little room with holos on all six sides.

One of Vo's assistants was there. She jacked in for a minute to put me through.

I'd expected them to keep the line open full-time, but I suppose the power bill would have been ridiculous.

She unplugged. "You'll get his office, but probably not the old man himself. It's all yours."

She turned and left me alone-but I didn't doubt that Vo was listening somewhere. I didn't mind; as long as I got through to Yoshio Nakada's people on Prometheus I figured I was all set.

The holo signalled that I was transmitting, and I began talking.

I wanted to get as much in each message as possible- to keep those twenty-three minute delays to a minimum.

"My name is Carlisle Hsing," I said. "I'm a free-lance private investigator here in Nightside City. I recently had a case that led me, unexpectedly, to investigate Sayuri Nakada. I believe the information I acquired may be of great interest to her family and her financial backers. The client who originally hired me for the job has refused to pay my bill, so that I feel justified in offering the information for sale on the open market. My asking price is five hundred thousand credits. If you accept this, I'll include an account showing that more than ninety percent of that is to cover legitimate expenses incurred in the investigation. The rest is mostly needed to pay my fare from Nightside City to Prometheus, since I believe my life is in danger here. I also ask for protection once I'm there, if it's necessary. This information may lead to several felony prosecutions. It may also remind you of certain episodes in Sayuri Nakada's life prior to her departure from Prometheus. And I hope very much that it will prevent a large waste of money, and consequent damage to the Nakada reputation. End of message."

Then I sat, and I waited.

Twenty-three minutes later the wall in front of me vanished, and I had a view of an office on Prometheus, done in slick white and chrome. A window showed me a rich blue sky, and I realized I was calling the dayside there- but that didn't mean much. The day on Prometheus doesn't burn the skin from your back or the sight from your eyes. It doesn't last forever. It's nine hours of pleasant warmth and light.

A handsome woman looked at me from that office, listening to the words I'd spoken, and then said, "Please wait here, Mis' Hsing; I don't have the authority to act on this, but I'll get someone who does."

I won't drag you through it step by step. I was locked in that little holoroom for eleven hours, time enough to see the sky outside that window darken and sprinkle itself with stars and even a small moon. I spoke to four different people. I never did speak to Yoshio himself; I only got as far as an aide named Ziyang Subbha. He approved my request, not even dickering very seriously about the price. He authorized a draft against the New York for 492,500 credits.

I plugged my tab into the transmitter and sent it all, everything I had, everything that had happened since Zar Pickens beeped from my doorstep, everything I've just told you, with all the documentation.

Then I got my draft, put it on my card, got my gun back, and went home. I packed up everything I wanted; there wasn't much. I paid all my bills, including everything I owed Mishima-though with his memory wiped he might never know what it was all about. I hesitated over the price of the wrecked cab, and then put half of it in the account of the Q.Q.T. cab that had coded my card for a tip, and kept the other half for myself. I thought about stopping at Lui's Tavern for some good-byes, but decided not to bother; I admitted to myself that I'd never really been much more than another face in the crowd there. I thought about calling a few programs that knew me well, but decided against that, too-software doesn't miss people the way humans do, and it gets used to the way all we humans are constantly moving about, in and out of contact. I left a message for 'Chan, but I didn't send it directly; I put it on delay, to be delivered after twenty-four hours. I didn't want to have any family arguments about what I was doing.

There wasn't anybody else I wanted to call, so I didn't. I shut down every system in the place and got my bags.

And then I headed for the port.

I didn't know for sure what would happen in the city, but I could guess. Sayuri would be spanked and sent home. Orchid and Rigmus and the rest would be sent for reconstruction. Mishima would carry on, looking for the big break, probably wondering what the hell he had gotten messed up in during his lost time. The Nakada family had the money and power to see to all of that.

Nightside City would go on for a while. The miners would come in and gamble away the pay they spent their lives earning. The tourists would come and gawk and gamble. The city itself would go on. And in time, right on schedule, the sun would rise. The long night would be over, and the city would die.

One thing I did know for sure.

I wouldn't be there to see it.