The Coin Giver
by
M. M. Buckner

Table of Contents

THE COIN GIVER

Previously Titled 'Neurolink'

M. M. Buckner

Copyright © 2004 by M. M. Buckner.
SKU: ERBAEN0057
Published by E-Reads. All rights reserved.

For my father and mother,
William and Margaret Buckner

Deepest gratitude goes to my life partner and spouse, Jack Lyle, who stands by me always. Heartfelt thanks also go to the many friends and colleagues who have encouraged me and critiqued my work, including in alpha order: William and Margaret Buckner, Mary Helen Clarke, Joe DeGross, Mary Bess Dunn, Laura Fowler, Phil Geusz, Mitchell Graham, Fred Grim, Cindy Kersh-ner, Jack Lyle, Bonnie Parker, Nathan Parker, William Parker, Brian Relleva, Martha Rider, Allen Steele, Carole Stice and Ava Weiner. Special thanks to my agent, Richard Curtis. And everlasting appreciation to my editor, John Morgan.

CHAPTER 1:
SHORT POSITIONS

MY father is dying.

The idea drifted through Dominic's mind like an unfamiliar scent He crossed the granite lobby of ZahlenBank, eyeing the concessionaires and thinking of his father, crushed in an accident the day before. Light blazed through the glass dome overhead and bleached the scene around him. Ticket sellers, water vendors and hologram artists cluttered the rotunda with their cheap stalls, selling unlicensed goods under the very roof of ZahlenBank. Their sweat soured the air. Protes, all of them, Dominic thought. Lazy protected employees, living off subsidies, adding nothing of value to society. My father is dying.

No one would mistake Dominic Jedes for a prote. He stood a meaty six-foot-five, wore hand-tailored suits and kept his sandy hair clipped short. For a large man, his movements were subdued, even quiet. He walked with a hushed balance as if ready to spring to the attack. Yet Dominic never lurched into violence. He was never known to raise his voice.

Just then, he stopped midstride and frowned at a prote manicurist who'd set up her table directly in front of the executive elevator. He curled his fingers till the nails bit into his palms, and he spoke in an undertone, "Clear that out of my way."

The young woman clutched her paint bottles in both hands and kicked her table half a meter to the side. Dominic didn't look at her face. Her insignia showed she worked for Scandia.Com. Yet here she was, squandering her rest period, chasing after illegal income. He stepped past her, into the elevator, and as he thumbed the ID pad, weariness overtook him. Monday. Tedium. He rubbed his eyes to wake up.

As the elevator rose through the glass framework of ZahlenBank's executive spire, Dominic peered out at the yellow Norwegian sky. All he could see was smog. Now in the year 2249, everyone lived under glass. The global greenhouse effect had turned the atmosphere steamy hot and unbreathable. Dominic glimpsed his reflection in the window.

With his square open face and sea gray eyes, he would have been striking, but lines marked his forehead, and the flesh under his chin had just started to sag. At thirty, he was beginning to look like the oldest man at the bank. He nibbed his jaw. Most of his colleagues had gotten face work, but he just couldn't bring himself to bother with it. He was beginning to feel that way about a lot of things. Nevertheless, as the elevator slowed to a stop, he straightened his collar and smoothed his hair out of habit. The door whooshed open, and he nearly tripped over his assistant, Karel Folger. The young man crawled on all fours in front of the elevator, gathering sheets of printout.

"Good morning, sir. Sorry, urn, sorry." Karel glanced up with his eager grin that showed too much pink gum above the tooth-line. "I have your brief ready for the meeting. I was just—Sorry, sir."

Dominic had a habit of puffing out his cheeks, then expelling the air all at once in an exasperated blow. Now he puffed that way, and Karel's red-rimmed eyes loomed huge in his pinched, adolescent face. A string of black hair fell across his forehead, and he combed it back with his fingernails. He reminded Dominic of his own early days at the bank. Karel had been on the job less than a month.

"I need caffie." Dominic pretended to read the brief.

"Yes, sir. Meeting starts in five, sir. Mr. Lorn wants to see you first. Should I bring your caffie there?"

The mention of Klas Lorn made Dominic scowl. What did that old sycophant want now? He said, "No, I'll be going straight to the conference room."

"Yes, sir." Karel sprinted down the corridor, and Dominic watched him collide with a security guard.

Again, a stray thought harassed Dominic's mind: My father is dying. The broad bronze door to his father's office lay directly across from the elevator. Dominic glanced at the plate on the door and felt his shoulders tighten. A couple of execs passed him in the hall. He barely noticed their greetings. More execs emerged from the elevator and hailed him. He stood like an automaton, staring at Richter Jedes' door.

"We're the best kind of partners," Richter used to say. "We think exactly alike."

Do we? Sometimes Dominic wished it were true. It would make things easier. Not long ago, he had been ZahlenBank's brightest young deal maker, following Richter's footsteps on a fast track for the presidency. Everything he knew, every feint, every gambit, every nuanced smile, he owed to his father. Richter taught him how to target clients like a heat-seeking missile, how to calculate advantages and weigh values, and when the time came for negotiation, how to choose his own ground.

Dominic glanced down the hall where his colleagues were gathering in the conference room. Most often, that was the room Dominic chose for his deals. In that room, with his handheld remote, Dominic was master. He controlled the lighting, the view-screen, the state-of-the-art holographics, even the drapes that opened to reveal a commanding view of Trondheim. He joked that the U-shaped table was his altar of ritual bloodletting. It was no accident that the chairs were deep and enfolding and difficult to move. While the clients remained chair-bound, he strolled and talked and fanned their desires. By instinct, he could sense the exact moment they began to yield. He could smell it. Like old dollar bills.

Then he would pitch his voice low and move steadily up through the U, thrusting his arguments forward, driving his point home. With a breath, a nod, a parting of lips, the clients would agree to his terms. And in that fleeting moment as he closed the deal, Dominic knew he was exactly the man his father wanted him to be.

But those days seemed like another lifetime on this wretched Monday morning. He rolled his knotted shoulders. As he stood in the corridor gazing at nothing, forgetting why he had stopped, mousy little Elsa Bremen touched his shoulder. She ducked her head and tried to appear even smaller than she was. "Karel said I might have a word with you, sir."

"What is it?"

"That submarine. We received an image this morning." Elsa opened her notebook.

Dominic yawned. "Why do you bother me with this now, Elsa?" He was about to turn away when the holographic image in her notebook caught his attention. A curious bottle-shaped vessel shimmered just above Elsa's screen. Its surface seemed to be crusted over with some kind of brown growth. Elsa moved her finger to rotate the miniature image, and Dominic saw it was mounted on belt-driven treads like a battle tank.

"That's the Benthica?" he asked.

Elsa nodded. "Recorded by satellite this morning at the bottom of the Arctic Sea."

Dominic studied it. "Two thousand protes live in that?"

"For a while." Elsa sighed.

A bleeding heart, that was his Elsa. Dominic liked her for it, and he pitied her. There she stood with her head bowed over the notebook, too shy to look at him. With all her brains, Elsa would never have broken out of junior management if he hadn't helped her. He yawned again and halfheartedly covered his mouth with his hand. "Send it to my local node."

Elsa pressed the notebook to her chest and trundled off on her short legs. Dominic watched till she rounded a corner. Then he remembered he was standing in front of his father's office. Why had he stopped here? The office would be vacant. Idly, Dominic read the engraved plate hanging on his father's door.

"Money defines value. It has no subtlety. It cannot deceive or equivocate. All transactions balance. All statements are true. Money is the immaculate computation of power."

My father, he thought again.

Richter Jedes had smashed his racing aircar in the mountains above Trondheim. He banked too steeply, trying to cut off an opponent. Still, he emailed everyone to confirm this morning's meeting. Dominic dreaded it.

Without knowing why, he entered his father's office, and' at once, his glance fell on the gray box. The NP. It rested quietly on his father's desk—harmless, inert, hardly bigger than two fists pressed together. Dominic felt an impulse to crush it. Instead, he turned his back and looked at the photographs. Richter with women. Richter with his race-car. Richter in full surface gear climbing a mountain in Asia. Richter standing with his son, seven-year-old Dominic, in the Alaskan courtroom of the World Trade Organization. That photo hung slightly off center, and the misalignment nagged at Dominic's senses. He could almost smell the dusty carpet again and hear his father scolding him to stand still.

"Where are they, Father?" Young Dominic couldn't stop fidgeting that day in Alaska. He thought Richter had brought him to meet a real live Org.

"Where are who?" Richter was testy and distracted.

"Gig and Meninx and Phil and Sanja. I want to see what they look like." Orgs were Dominic's boyhood heroes. They were the superintelligent, quasi-biochemical computer brains that ran the World Trade Organization. Incorruptible. His young mind resonated to that idea.

"You wanna see Orgs?" Richter clicked through a file.

"Uh-huh. Will they talk? I mean, like people?"

Stories about the Orgs filled the juvenile Net sites. Their semiorganic wetware had evolved in bold, mysterious directions, and they circled the Earth in stealth-clad satellites, defending free markets and preserving the rule of law. Dominic drew pictures in his notebook of colossal robotic guardians, streaming radiance.

"Fuck the Orgs," Richter said.

Seven-year-old Dominic wasn't sure what that meant. With a boy's hope, he peered around the courtroom, searching for a hint of godlike presence, but he saw only mortals shuffling among the desks like clerks in a store.

"Will they have faces," he asked, "and teeth?"

Richter grabbed Dominic's arm and shook him hard. "Orgs are the enemy, son. God dammit, the Orgs wanna break up ZahlenBank!"

That day, for the first time, Richter spoke to Dominic as if he were a grown man. "Only one bank controls the money and data in this hemisphere." Richter made a tight fist. "ZahlenBank! The WTO wants to split us into a dozen separate operating units. That's why I come here to these courtrooms every month. To fight their lawsuits. Damn the Orgs! I've been holding 'em off for decades!"

Dominic held his bream and nodded.

"Divestiture," his father growled in his face. "You know what that word means? It means death, son. The death of ZahlenBank, We'll never let that happen, will we?"

"Never," Dominic promised with a thumping heart.

In the stale air of his father's empty office, Dominic straightened the photo. Almost imperceptibly, he moved his lower jaw from side to side. Without looking again at the gray box, he squared his shoulders, walked out and marched down the hall to the conference room. He pushed through the double doors and took his place at the left of the U-shaped table. Someone—Oscar Blein—was already making a report. The normal Monday group had convened. Eleven senior directors with their assistants. Business as usual.

Karel placed a mug of hot caffie on the table for him, and only after taking a slow deliberate sip did Dominic glance at his father, the ZahlenBank Chairman and CEO. The old man's injured body dangled within a complicated steel brace at the head of the table. Their glances met.

For one surreal instant, the distance between them seemed to close, and they were alone, face-to-face. Partners again, in perfect understanding. As if no disagreements had ever separated them. Dominic stopped breathing. He felt suspended in time. As he and his father watched each other, he felt the old fear and hope—that he would win a prize he couldn't quite define. But then his father squinted and turned away, and time resumed. Dominic discovered that his heart was pounding.

Richter always piloted his own aircar in the Trondheim Sunday races. He was famous for it. Famous for many things. Even trussed up in a body brace, he still dominated the room. Everyone knew it was Richter whose vision had built ZahlenBank. The only bank in the northern hemisphere. The sole arbiter of money-data exchange. Richter built the bank's all-seeing surveillance web and engineered its enormous data-warehouse—the Ark—that captured and stored every byte of information passing through the Net. Because of Richter's foresight, ZahlenBank literally owned recorded history—by legal license. Dominic watched him with admiration.

When Klas Lorn whispered in Richter's ear, the old man flared up and shoved him away with a weak, bandaged arm.

"The surgeons can wait!" Richter bellowed. "1 need to capture this meeting for my NP. Don't you people understand!"

Blein, who had been speaking, sat down without finishing his report.

"Jesus Krishna Christ!" Richter croaked a laugh and tried to slap his chest, but when his arm fell limp in its sling, Dominic winced. Don't let these jackals see your weakness, Father.

Richter went on in a tightly controlled voice. "Relax, guys. The docs can patch my carcass later. With my NP, I'll live forever."

Klas Lorn gave him a thumbs-up and a fawning smile, which clearly annoyed the old man.

"You guys still don't get it, do ya?" He waved his bandaged arm. "I was born in 1970, and I look younger than my boy there. I've had every organ replaced at least once. But that's old news. Flesh is optional now, thanks to my NP."

This time he's going to die, Dominic thought. Does he really believe that crap about the NP? Maybe he does. After all, he invented it. The Neural Profile. A new kind of bank account for storing a person's mind. Dominic pictured the gray box perched on his father's desk. He'd heard Richter's sales pitch to investors so many times, he could repeat it by heart.

"Scientists are fools, boys. They keep trying to upload the human mind to a computer. Any idiot knows you can't translate brain matter into binary code. My way is easier and cheaper—and more profitable for the bank. We just record a person's life in real time. Document the memories as they happen, instead of trying to slice-and-dice neurons later. Hell, why not? Our cameras and scanners cover every square centimeter of this hemisphere. Video, audio, email, financial and medical history, employment records, every freakin' iota. Think of the fee we could charge!

"Boys, we're talking a complete digital record of perfect memories, better than real ones because time won't distort 'em. And we'll have designer packaging. Every customer gets their own portable safe-deposit box in brushed platinum, branded with the ZahlenBank logo. When a customer dies, we transfer their deposit into a blank AI program inside the Ark. And voila! A high-resolution copy of the customer's mind rises from the dead."

But it's just a copy, Dominic wanted to shout. The person still dies.

Yet exactly as Richter predicted, the Neural Profile became ZahlenBank's hottest product. Hordes of status-conscious executives paid the whopping fee to have their lives documented. Second by second, day after day, ZahlenBank mined their personal data from the Net, hy-percompressed it for easy storage and beamed it to their personal safe-deposit boxes, in tasteful platinum gray with the golden ZahlenBank "Z" embossed near the base—a must-have trophy suitable for display on desks or caffie tables.

As the marketing brochures pointed out, surgeries extended life only a couple of centuries at most—but the Neural Profile guaranteed life everlasting. So far, no NP account holder had died to test the theory. Richter might be the first.

Now as he shifted in his steel brace, he snickered at the Monday gathering. "I'm 279 years old, and with my NP, I'll outlive you all!"

Dominic pressed his hands on the table and took a deep breath through his nose. Father, he wanted to say, call the surgeons. Even the most perfect digital record won't save you from death. He tried to imagine that blank wall, with nothingness on the other side. Was it possible the old man didn't believe in death? He made me, Dominic thought. A flesh copy to back up the data copy. He must have doubts. Dominic tried to swallow, but his mouth had gone dry.

Across the U-shaped table, Klas Lorn whined about their ongoing wrangle with the WTO, and Dominic watched his father's face. It was a standing joke that Dominic and Richter could have been twins. They shared the same wide jaws and sea-colored eyes, although Richter had been through so many cosmetic fixes, he did look younger than his son. But now his lips were turning blue, and Dominic saw him shiver in his steel brace. Could he be in pain, Dominic wondered. Could the imbecile doctors have left my father in pain? Without realizing it, he clutched the edge of the table.

Somewhere in the background, a throat cleared. Karel Folger, Dominic's young assistant, touched his shoulder. The room had gone deathly still. Dominic glanced at his colleagues and realized it was his turn to speak.

"We can delay this till another time," he said.

"What other time?" the old man barked.

"My report can wait. I suggest—"

"Nothing can wait!" Richter's eyes widened to show angry whites all round his irises. He seemed to be straining to stay upright in the brace. A thread of spit trailed from his lower lip, and people at the table shifted to look elsewhere.

'Tell me now, boy. What about the Nord.Com foreclosure? Be quick. My NP's recording!"

He'll kill himself to update his damned Neural Profile, Dominic thought. Or has he had a premonition? Have the doctors told him he won't make it?

Dominic held his expression still. He opened his notebook and glanced around at the cynical faces of his colleagues. He no longer bothered to stand when he addressed them. He didn't care how they voted. All transactions balance. All statements are true. He couldn't even gather the energy to laugh.

Nord.Com was a routine bankruptcy worth less than three billion deutschdollars. Reading aloud from Karel's brief, he eyed the closed double doors and wondered how far away the surgeons were waiting. Nearby, he hoped. In a flat voice, he recited the list of Nord.Com's repossessed assets. He'd liquidated everything except for one rusty submarine, a raining ship that crawled along the bottom of the Arctic Sea, the Benthica.

"It's a petty cash issue," he said, "not worth the time of this board."

"Don't tell me what my time is worth!" With a violent effort, Richter hawked phlegm and spat on the floor. Klas Lorn pursed his lips, and most of the others studied their notebooks.

Dominic read on. A Tortuga-class submarine, the Benthica crawled along the seafloor chewing up rock, extracting mineral deposits and spitting out the slag. The submarine was too old for repairs and should be scrapped. But two thousand protected employees lived aboard, the miners and a large number of nonproductive dependents. Oversupply in the labor market meant their contracts weren't worth the cost of relocating them. It was all in the numbers. Whatever ZahlenBank did, the Benthica and her crew would cost money.

"So how do we turn it around?" the old man wheezed. Just then, he began to slip sideways in the brace, and he let out a little cry. Dominic half stood to call for help.

"Don't keep me waiting!" the old man wheezed from his crooked new position in the brace. "How do we turn this to our advantage?"

Dominic leaned with his knuckles on the table, staring at Richter and working his lower jaw. You fool, he wanted to shout. Let the surgeons help you. Why do you sit here concerning yourself with this trivia? What does it matter?

Then Richter spoke in a tone Dominic had not heard before. Perhaps his injuries constricted his throat. He seemed to be pleading. "Show me what you're made of, son."

Show me what you're made of? Again, the air caught in Dominic's lungs. The old man's eyes leaked tears, and his appallingly youthful head wobbled. Dominic tried to read the message in his watery eyes: Show me what you're made of?

"Spin them off," Karel whispered in Dominic's ear.

Yes, the Benthica. Spin them off. Dominic felt Karel's hand on his shoulder. He sat down and smoothed the wrinkles from his suit to calm himself. Last night with Karel and Elsa, Dominic had joked about simply handing the Benthica to the miners. Spin them off. Set the protes free, and let them fend for themselves. The solution would save ZahlenBank a couple million deutschdollars. Of course it might be a death sentence for the protes. They weren't equipped to take care of themselves. Dominic didn't mean it seriously.

But earnest Elsa had taken his words at face value. Freed protes would have no legal status, she pointed out, and no access to the markets. Without fuel and supplies, their life support would rapidly fail. On the other hand, Karel loved the idea. Karel called it an innovative experiment. Spin them off.

Now under the beseeching eyes of his father, Dominic spoke the words aloud.

"Whas 'at?" The old man slipped lower in his brace, leering and slurring his words. "Spin 'em off, d'you say?"

As Dominic explained the unprecedented idea of freeing protes and giving them a ship, the old man's smile grew wide. He positively smacked his lips. It struck Dominic then, like balm to an aching wound, that he had made his father proud.

The old man reached for the gavel, and his mouth quivered. "It'll save us two million bucks? I like it. Vote now." But his arm went limp again. He couldn't grip the gavel. With a gentle grunt, Richter Jedes fell across the U-shaped table and bled.

CHAPTER 2
PAYABLE ON DEMAND

"LET'S get something straight, son."

"Don't call me that."

"But, Dominic, you are my son. Didn't I raise you from an infant? You're my boy," said the gray box on the desk.

Dominic's nostrils flared. Despite his determination not to react, he tugged at his collar.

His father had died three weeks ago. Richter Jedes, master banker, dead from a ruptured spleen. Newscasters called it "inconceivable!" Pundits declared the end of an era. When the bank's share value slipped, the board rushed to name Dominic president. Continuity of leadership, they proclaimed. Still, the stock price wobbled.

This morning, his father's office felt hot and close. With deliberate calm, he slipped a cybernail onto his right index finger and tested its sharp stylus point with his thumb. Then he whispered a command to the Net node on his wrist. A cluster of holograms shimmered above his forearm, and he ticked through them with the cybernail, closing some, linking to others, hoping the news had changed. He was stalling. He couldn't face the gray box perched on his father's desk.

"Do you still feel some quarrel between us?" the Neural Profile asked. "We're partners, boy. We have to forget our differences."

Dominic wanted to crush the gray box in his hands. Partners? With an artificial brain masquerading as his father? A vein pulsed visibly in his forehead. He stared out the window at the smog. June. Start of the scorching season.

After his father died, Dominic had cloistered himself in his home office, spending hours in video conference, spinning positive news bytes to stock analysts and mediacasters. He slept in fits and ate too much and let Elsa camouflage the shadows under his eyes with rosy makeup. Karel fed him caffie and throat spray so he could keep talking, and slowly, the bank's stock regained its value. A business crisis he could manage, but what he couldn't control was the hollow rage that burned inside him now.

"Think what a team we'll make!" said the NP.

Dominic jammed his fists deep in his pockets and twisted the linings. For three weeks, he had not set foot in his father's office, the office the gray box had commandeered. Not until this morning.

But this morning! This morning, everything changed. Events broke in and demolished his careful damage control. One idiotic mistake. Such a trivial thing. He must have been blind not to see what it meant. All he wanted was to close his eyes and pretend it had never happened. But this morning, his blunder was flashing across the Net, and his name headlined every news page. Worse, ZahlenBank's stock price had veered from recovery to free fall. He was mortified. His only relief was that Richter hadn't lived to see it. As he stood in his father's office, the very air smelled bankrupt.

"You need my help to fix this." The NP spoke in such a perfect reproduction of Richter's voice that Dominic almost shivered. "You can't afford to turn your back on me, son. This is too big."

A grimy plume of soot gusted against the window at eye level. Dominic watched it eddy in a slow spiral and dissolve into the ochre atmosphere.

"We're execs," the NP continued. "We haven't always agreed about things, but we're duty-bound to protect the bank. It's our sacred trust. Without ZahlenBank, this shit-heap planet would fall apart."

Dominic tapped the window with his cybernail. He didn't often think about his steamy, overcrowded planet. He preferred not to dwell on the 12 billion people crowded in underground warrens to escape Earth's foul atmosphere. And he avoided noticing how they moved closer to the poles every year because global warming had turned the tropics to cauldrons. But now, images of queues came to his mind unbidden. Down in the grim lower levels of Trondheim, hundreds of thousands of protes jammed the tunnels each day, patiently waiting for rations of food, uniforms and antiviral tabs. ZahlenBank's cameras watched them and recorded their words. And nothing else held them in line but their habit of following rules.

The genie in the gray box spoke in a confiding whisper. "We're on the edge, son. Things could fall apart."

"I know," Dominic said.

"Son, it's a noble thing we do. The protes need us. Can you conceive the total fucking horror if we left them to themselves? Looting, plague, starvation—cannibalism for all we know."

Dominic leaned his forehead against the window and imagined he could feel heat seeping in from the greenhouse clouds outside. But that was an illusion. The glass was too thick.

"ZahlenBank's the heart, son. We pump the money and data through the Net. We fuel the markets, and the markets feed everyone." The NP paused for effect, exactly the way Richter would have done. "We can't let ZahlenBank collapse. We have an obligation."

"Yes, F—" Dominic almost said father.

"We have to fix your fuck-up."

Dominic's breath fogged the window. "The Benthica."

"The Benthica" echoed the NP.

The vein in Dominic's forehead throbbed again. Almost as a joke, he had suggested that spin-off. One rusty mining submarine. Two thousand protes. Cut them loose, and let them fend for themselves. Save the relocation expense. A careless joke, yet it pleased his dying father. The board cast its vote, and in the muddled days that followed, Dominic arranged the spin-off with little further thought It was a piece of minutia on a foreclosure sheet. Who could predict it would cause such an uproar?

Thirteen days ago, the Benthica vanished from their satellite scans, and for the last seventeen hours, the freed miners had been broadcasting a message inviting employees around the world to run away and join them. Their signal ricocheted back and forth through so many intermediate servers and reproduced itself in so many echoes and harmonic reiterations that no one could trace its source. But every prote in the northern hemisphere could pick it up on the Net. And the markets were panicking.

Dominic leaned against the window and ground his teeth. He should have modeled the probabilities and run a projection. He should have foreseen the incompetence of those protes. They wanted to turn the fragile order upside down.

Their invitation was nonsense. Those miners had no extra room aboard their ship to accommodate strangers, much less food or air. What's more, they didn't dare give away their location. Without coordinates, other protes would never find one small submarine hidden deep in the Arctic Sea. So far, for some inexplicable reason, ZahlenBank's own satellites couldn't find it. Still, a trickle of employees had begun to desert, and late last night the World Trade Organization filed suit against ZahlenBank for destabilizing the markets. Dominic's mistake might have given the Orgs the wedge they needed to break ZahlenBank apart.

Early this morning, as expected, the Orgs tendered a settlement offer. Their only goal, so they claimed, was to restore market order, and if ZahlenBank would cooperate, they would drop the suit. The deal was, Dominic Jedes had to personally board the ship and negotiate a secret resolution with the miners.

"We'll have to accept the WTO's offer," the NP said.

Dominic stared at the box. "Are you serious? Make a secret deal with protes? It's a charade."

"Of course it's a charade. We'll never bargain with protes. Give 'em a millimeter, they'll want a scuzzin' light-year. Just the thought of it gives me a migraine." r Dominic moved away from the window and straightened his jacket. "I can't figure the Orgs. Why the secrecy? And why do they want me personally involved?"

"You're the best damn negotiator in the world, boy!"

"I don't buy that reason." Dominic brushed at his sleeve and frowned.

"Their agenda's always the same. They wanna screw us!" said the NP. "The point is, they'll lead us to the Benthica. We have to find that ship and stop the broadcast before it sends the markets over a cliff."

Dominic scowled. "Why won't they make a public announcement? The secrecy bothers me. They expect me to travel incognito."

"Son, you're not exactly a hero with these miners. Maybe the Orgs want to protect you from attack."

Dominic thought this over, unconsciously working his jaw.

"I'll be with you every second," the NP went on. "Just play dumb and let them lead you to the Benthica. Then smash the miners' Net link and kill that broadcast. I'll send bank guards to get you out. You'll be home in a few hours."

"We'll have to arrest the miners," Dominic said thoughtfully. "Otherwise, they might find a way to start broadcasting again."

"Sure. We'll arrest the buggers."

Dominic had studied the Orgs' lawsuit backwards and forwards. What the NP said made sense. He rubbed his chin and frowned. "Arresting two thousand people will be expensive. But it's a solution. Once that broadcast ends, the Orgs have no grounds to sue us."

"Fuckin' right." The NP chuckled. "I'll handle the intel. You do the physical stuff."

Dominic closed his fists. "I see. You're the brains. I'm the muscle."

"Imagine how powerful we'll be, once this little screwup's behind us," said the gray box. "We'll lead the Orgs in circles. They're just computers. Whereas we, we've got a one-two combination. Megagenius, plus hairy human balls! Son, there's never been a partnership like ours before."

Dominic glared at the gray box and held himself very, very still. Partners? You want me to be your flesh flunky! He didn't say the words aloud. Only his jaw moved, just perceptibly, from side to side. If the NP had spoken at mat moment, Dominic might have shattered that box with his fist.

But the genie wasn't in the box anymore. No fist could hurt it now. Dominic stepped across the thick, silent carpet and hefted the gray box in his palm. It felt light. He studied the embossed trademark, Z for ZahlenBank. This box was merely packaging. Richter had designed his Neural Profile to live inside the Ark, the bank's huge data-warehouse. But surprise, Richter's NP didn't follow orders.

Seventy hours after Richter's death, the NP migrated beyond the Ark and dispersed itself throughout the Net, then hotlinked into the bank's surveillance web and started learning. An archive copy of the world wasn't good enough. It wanted the original. Now it leeched power and computational time from countless processors around the northern hemisphere, and it seemed to be everywhere at once, watching and listening to everyone. When it named itself Zahlen-Bank's chairman, the directors were too stunned to object. Its omniscience had them terrorized. But the digital genie was incomplete. Dominic realized it needed a set of arms and legs to "do the physical stuff."

He shivered with muscle tension as he set the box gently back on its pedestal. "If you're such a megagenius, why can't you find the Benthica on your own?"

"It's not that simple!" The NP sounded offended. "I'm running my best defogger code, but their signal loops back on itself more times than a tax shelter. The protes are using damned slick tech. How did they get it, I'd like to know. And why aren't they dead?"

Dominic wondered that himself. The miners hadn't received supplies for almost three weeks. Maybe they'd stashed food aboard, but as of five days ago, they should have run out of fuel. Without fuel, they couldn't synthesize air and water from the ocean fluids. Their life support should have failed yesterday at noon. Those miners shouldn't be alive, much less broadcasting a signal that even ZahlenBank couldn't trace.

"Team up with me, son. We'll settle this mess, then everything'll be back to normal."

Dominic ran a finger inside his collar. "Send a robot. I'm nobody's errand boy."

"As for the rewards," the NP continued as if it hadn't heard, "you get everything. What do I need with money? You already have my penthouse, my race cars, all my stuff. You're one of the ten richest men in the world. But you could lose it, son, if we don't handle this Benthica situation."

"Very altruistic. Not a single reward for you?" Dominic massaged the knotted muscles in his neck. "Not, for instance, total control of the bank?"

"You've turned cynical, Dominic. I'm chairman, but you're still president. You need ZahlenBank as much as I do. You're a deal maker, and the bank lets you do the one thing you love."

The NP's exact imitation of his father's tone made Dominic want to kick the desk over. But he held every muscle still. That was his own voice, too, the voice he shared with Richter. And it echoed his thoughts. He couldn't deny that he loved doing deals. That was the work his father had taught him, and once it had engaged his whole mind. Lately, though, some of the negotiations troubled him, and he'd argued with Richter. Words had been spoken that he could never take back now. His eyes felt hot, and he turned away.

The small Net node on his wrist was still glowing, and its tiny luminous icons floated a few centimeters above his forearm. On impulse, he jabbed his cybernail through the holographic matrix and opened a map. A pale blue disk hovered over the back of his hand. The Arctic Ocean. Shimmering purples, blue and aquamarines indicated varying depths, and precise red stars identified factory ships, seafarms, weather stations and floating cities, their positions tracked in real time through the Net. Where had the Benthica gone to ground? Dominic imagined the rusty old crawler lurking under a rock.

One more time, he found the ship's last known location and touched the spot with his cybernail. The map sector enlarged and offered a menu of data links. Dominic chose several. The submarine had been creeping along the continental shelf off northern Canada, mining common ores from placer deposits. It was exactly the sort of losing operation that drove its former owner Nord.Com into bankruptcy.

Elsa said the miners had lived on that vessel for four generations. They'd produced quite an extended family. Infants. Old people. That's why no other Com wanted those labor contracts. Too many expensive dependents. What were those protes thinking of, to invite empty-handed runaways to join their small ship? How did their minds work, Dominic wondered. For the twentieth time, he replayed their continuous-loop broadcast. Female voice. Net English with a mongrel American accent.

We the workers of the submarine Pressure of Light hereby dissolve all contracts with the Coms and assume independent status. Out of respect for everyone on the Net, we're broadcasting our reasons. First, we believe all human beings evolved from the same gene pool, and second, all of us are born with the same rights to move around as free agents and make our own choices. So as of today, we declare ourselves free from Com protection. We're writing a new contract to protect ourselves, and we invite anyone anywhere in the world to join us.

Dominic mused aloud, "They've renamed their ship the Pressure of Light. It sounds mystical."

"Sounds like bullshit," the NP growled. "Scuzzin' minzers should be dead by now. That broadcast will work on prote minds like a drug. We've talked about this before."

"I've never talked to you about anything," Dominic said evenly.

"Krishna Christ, the Orgs are gonna split ZahlenBank in little pieces if we don't take their deal. They've got us nailed against the wall."

Dominic didn't answer. He studied the map. The Orgs' demand for secrecy raised his suspicions, partly because they wouldn't give him time to think about it. They insisted that he leave at dawn the next day. He was supposed to meet their covert agent, a Major Qi Raoshu, on a remote beach in West Spitzbergen. The only thing missing was the cloak-and-dagger. He wasn't about to accept a deal with so little information, especially from the bank's most determined adversary. He tapped his cybernail to enlarge a holographic cross section of Canada's continental shelf.

At that moment, a light glimmered in his peripheral vision. He glanced up to see a man-sized hologram projecting from the gray box. The glow resolved into an image of his father, Richter Jedes, as handsome and fit as he appeared the morning before his racing accident. The image resembled Dominic so closely, he might have been gazing into a bright flickery mirror.

"Son, the last thing I want is to put you at risk. You're my whole life." The hologram smiled with affection and lifted its arms for an embrace. That was too much.

Dominic lurched toward the desk. He seized the gray box and hurled it against the window. The hologram sizzled and vanished, but the box merely bounced across the carpet and landed under a chair.

"I guess that was a little premature on my part," the NP said. "Forgive me, son. I won't do that again till you're ready."

"Blast you to hell! I'm not your son!"

In blind fury, Dominic charged out of the office and slammed into Ulla Mannheim, the bank's chief cashier. Ulla fell against the wall. Hastily, Dominic apologized and helped her recover her balance. Then he smoothed his hair and headed at a calmer pace toward the elevator, but Richter's voice followed him. The NP spoke through Dominic's own wrist node.

"Focus, Dominic. We set a bad precedent freeing those protes. We have to fix it. To protect ZahlenBank."

'To protect your power, you mean." Dominic spoke into his wrist node in a low, dangerous whisper. "You can never replace my father. I'll never play flunky to a digital brain."

With short, thick, surprisingly nimble fingers, Dominic unstrapped the node from his wrist, flung it to the floor and crushed it with his heel. Ulla Mannheim stared in shock. Several people poked their heads out of office doors, and a small audience gathered in the corridor. Dominic glimpsed Karel Folger and Klas Lorn. The NP transferred its voice to the office security system, and its words echoed through the halls.

"We want the same thing. To save ZahlenBank."

Dominic stepped into the elevator and commanded the doors to close. The NP continued speaking through the elevator's intercom. "You can't escape me. If you let ZahlenBank fail, you have nothing else. Believe me, son, I know."

Dominic punched the ID pad and muttered, "Lobby level."

"We can protect each other," the NP went on. "We can keep it all. Money's the immaculate computation of—"

"Shut up!" Dominic tugged the intercom off its bracket and slammed it against the wall. When the door slid open, a warm breeze wafted in from, the lobby, and Dominic caught the unmistakable scent of protes. Acrid sweat and cheap deodorant, junk food and bad teeth. The concessionaires were out in full force, trading their unsanctioned goods in the ZahlenBank lobby. Their heat fogged the air.

"Son, don't you wanna hear my plan?" the voice echoed from the overhead P.A. system.

Heads turned. Protes in the lobby glanced up at the speakers. "We can't talk here," Dominic hissed.

The NP spoke at full volume. "Look around you, Dominic! Are these the people you want running our world?"

"Quiet! Of course not. We can't discuss this in front of them."

The ambient crowd noise was rising, and Dominic saw people pointing at the speakers. He strode across the lobby with his head down. Of course we don't want these slackers running the world, he thought, pressing with distaste through the warm, fusty mob of prote bodies. Someone stepped on his shoe and scuffed the genuine leather. He cursed under his breath. These people had no conception of the value of things. They couldn't even grasp basic facts—like market order.

Dominic might have questioned some bank policies, but he still believed firmly in his father's creed of stable markets. The markets fed everyone. Especially now, with Earth's population stretching resources to the limit, mere was no margin for unrest. He also knew that only an enlightened class of executives, evolved through genetic breeding and groomed by education, could keep order in such an intricate, panicky marketplace. If the markets crashed, the result might be a global die-off.

As if reading Dominic's thoughts, the NP roared over the public speakers, "Without our management, protes will die."

"Fry bread, sir? Hot salty fry bread?" a man shouted in Dominic's face.

The hawker's breath stank of tooth decay, and Dominic trembled with fury. He gripped his fists to his sides and had to call up all his will to keep from shoving the man away. The markets feed everyone, he recited to himself. After a moment, he exhaled and moved on.

Outside the lobby, he summoned his aircar with a word. Protes milled up and down ZahlenBank's granite steps, flaunting their soiled uniforms and greasy hair and sullen, shifty eyes. What had possessed him to free two thousand of these ill-bred clods? He must have been dozing when he suggested that spin-off.

An adolescent boy bumped against him on the steps, and Dominic reeled back. One of the boy's eyes was missing, and the skin covering the sunken socket was smooth and unblemished, the color of cream. The sight disturbed Dominic strangely.

"Sorry, sir. Most sorry." The boy spoke with a low-class twang.

Dominic quickly looked away from the boy's face. As the herd of protes shuffled around him, he held very still and watched his aircar glide to a stop at the curb. The door sprang open, and he descended the steps, working his jaw back and forth, twisting his full lips out of shape. He knew his father was right, he'd fucked up. No, not his father. The NP. Whatever. Dominic ground his teeth. He'd grown careless. He would never measure up to his father's ideal. He might as well quit and let the NP have it all. Losing his position now could hardly make him feel worse.

On the last step, he pivoted to gaze at the monolithic facade of ZahlenBank headquarters. "Good-bye to nothing," he muttered under his breath. The dark granite edifice rose like a massive tombstone, eight hundred meters into the air. Its highest level brushed the underside of the clear dome that shielded Trondheim from the poisonous summer sky, and above the dome, obscured by smog, the needlelike executive spire pierced the very heavens.

Dominic found himself beating the car's roof with his fist. No, he couldn't do it. He couldn't walk away. Too much was at stake. His screwup had put ZahlenBank at risk. After his father spent nearly three centuries building it, Dominic couldn't let it fall. He had a duty to save it. He was an executive, born and bred.

A chime sounded the change of shift, and the noise level rose. Up and down the street, protected employees erupted from office doors, and a river of pedestrians divided around Dominic and his car. Bodies bumped against him, and thousands of plastic boots slapped the pavement with a noise like thunder. The air stank of perspiration. Dominic took out a scented handkerchief to cover his nose.

Looking up at the highest corner window, he made his decision. I'll fix my mistake, whatever I have to do. After that, I'll quit.

"Son, you're too bright to refuse my help." The NP's voice echoed through the financial district in a tone of fatherly pride. "Are we partners?"

Dominic sealed himself inside the clean quiet seclusion of his car and answered with a single nod.

CHAPTER 3
ARBITRAGE

TWENTY hours later, Dominic waited on a dead brown beach on the shore of the Arctic Ocean. Tepid surf lapped at the sand in a meringue of dingy foam. The summer sun never set here, but at this early hour, only a thin light filtered through the smog. Frayed scraps of plastic littered the sand, and a soot-gray drizzle fell. I'm not trained for this, he kept repeating to himself. I'm a banker.

He felt claustrophobic and vaguely ridiculous in the full Kevlax surface suit he wore to seal out the toxic atmosphere. Elsa had helped him put it on. The suit belonged to his father. It was a high-performance sports model, silky and light, but Dominic wasn't used to the way the helmet faceplate limited his view. He rarely wore surfsuits. He didn't own one. Every breath of recycled air roared in his helmet like a wind.

Major Qi Raoshu was late, blast the man's soul. Dominic had never liked the surface. Too much space and no people. It made him edgy. He turned in slow circles, watching the misty horizon that was way too distant.

"Status?" the NP asked. The digital genie had been checking in every few minutes, sounding as nervous as Dominic felt.

"Still nothing," Dominic whispered.

He hated the NP's imitation of his father's voice—his own voice. Each word stung him like a tongue of flame, and he ached to shut off his earplug. But he couldn't deny the value of the NP's data. The genie gave him instant access to the Ark, with its almost limitless archives of data. Whenever he asked, the NP fed him market news and information about the Benthica. Dominic had memorized the submarine's layout, and he would recognize the Net link on sight—an upright black box on a squat swiveling base, crowned by a silver disk two meters in diameter, tilted toward the heavens. As soon as he boarded the submarine, he had to find that link and disable it. Once the broadcast died, bank guards would extract him and arrest the miners. One quick in-and-out action. Two or three hours max.

"The vulnerable point's at the base," the NP said. "Destroy the electronics—"

"And the broadcast dies. I know." As he watched the beach, he changed the direction of his turns to keep from getting dizzy.

"Don't let the Orgs intimidate you," the NP said. "They're puny logic machines built by engineers, whereas you have me on your side. I'm patterned after one of the shrewdest and most inventive personalities in recent times."

"And unlike you," Dominic added, "Orgs have to obey the law."

He fiddled with his helmet controls and replayed the Orgs' email on his heads-up display. He'd practically memorized their instructions. They wanted him to sneak aboard the crawler, incognito, and make a deal. No substitutes, only Dominic Jedes could do it He doubted his bargaining skills were the real reason. Maybe the Orgs wanted payback.

Their email said Major Qi Raoshu had been working undercover for several years, living with protes and making contacts. The major would use these contacts to find the submarine, then act as guide. Dominic's role was to negotiate. Right. He had no intention of wasting time with that. He would head straight for the Net link. For the hundredth time, he wondered why the Orgs didn't just board the ship with their own police. The whole scheme filled him with suspicion.

"You're breathing too hard, son. Settle down," said the NP. "We've got you covered from every angle. Believe me, I'm not about to lose you."

Right, I'm your flesh flunky, he thought bitterly, spreading his gloved hands. He looked at his short, thick fingers, too short for a man of his height. He had his father's hands. His father's face. Even the way his hair curled at the crown came from his father. Now he clenched his jaw and held his body still, a talent his father had never learned.

"Someone's coming," the NP said. 'To your left at eight o'clock."

Dominic spun quickly and staggered in the unfamiliar surfsuit. Far down the beach, a dark, lanky figure walked toward him. He glanced nervously up at the sky. Half a score of ZahlenBank satellites were watching by metavision.

"Don't worry, boy. I'm here."

He picked up his briefcase and trudged along the high-tide line to meet the major. In the briefcase, he carried antiviral tabs and a small fortune in cash cards—enough to buy anything or anyone he needed. He also carried three hyperwave Net nodes—on his wrist, in his ear, and in his briefcase. Unlike conventional nodes, which required Net links to relay their signals, these hyperwave nodes fixed directly on overhead satellites. They could transmit even through solid steel and hundreds of meters of water. For added safety, a transponder chip was concealed under the skin of his left buttock. And with every step, his boots sank in the oozy sand.

Major Qi Raoshu was tall, he noted, as tall as himself but much thinner. He studied the major intently, and because of his limited view, he didn't see a chunk of metal jutting up right in front of him—until he tripped and nearly fell. With a clumsy skip, he caught himself and cursed under his breath, damning the surfsuit to the nether regions of hell. He hated to appear awkward in front of this unknown major. By the time they met, he was sweating from his struggle through the sandy muck. Perspiration dripped in his eyes, and he couldn't wipe them. He ground his teeth.

Major Qi wore no insignia. Dominic noted the scarred helmet, the darkened faceplate, the belt bristling with gear. A spook all right. Salt brine marbled the stranger's form-fitting surfsuit, and an L-shaped rip at the shoulder was patched with tape. Yes, the major was wiry thin, but in the skintight suit, Dominic could see the bulge of biceps, the muscular thighs, the narrow waist, and the—breasts. He looked again. In the dim light, he couldn't see well. Yes, they were small, high and quite distinct. A pair of breasts.

" 'Morning, Nick-O!" The woman clapped him on the shoulder so hard he almost lost his balance. "I'm Qi. How they hangin'? You ready for some fun?"

Dominic chinned his helmet controls for short-range radio. "You're Major Qi Raoshu?"

She laughed like a teenaged boy. "Hoo-hoo! Megasweet suit, Nick!" Then she gripped his wrist and hauled him toward the ocean. She'd already splashed in thigh deep before he pulled back and dug his boots into the sand.

"Identify yourself. I demand an explanation."

"Aw, c'mon, Nick. Surf's up. It's a preter-fine day for a swim." The woman danced and kicked at the water, as lanky and loose-limbed as an adolescent. To Dominic's astonishment, she scooped up a double gloveful of the lathery gray fluid and tossed it at him. Oily drops splattered his faceplate. She said, "That surfsuit'U keep you nice and fresh, I promise."

Dominic couldn't believe what he was hearing. "We're going to swim to the Benthica?" His nostrils curled as he glanced at the waves. He preferred water in ornamental fountains.

With another friendly hoot, she yanked him farther in. He tried to get a firm stand, but his boots slipped in the mucky foam.

"It's not far, Nick. Twenty meters at most."

Suddenly, he went under. The shore dropped off sharply, and his feet lost touch with the ground. He hugged his briefcase to his chest. The water buoyed him up and jostled him back and forth, but he couldn't see. He gulped for breath and fought the panic. He couldn't tell up from down. He'd never been submerged in water before.

"You all right, son?" the NP buzzed in his ear.

He coughed the words out. "Oh yes, splendid."

With an effort of will, he gathered his wits and tried to sense direction. It was then he realized that Major Qi still held firmly to his wrist. His radio crackled.

"Sorry I didn't brief you, Nick, but we couldn't stand around on the beach yakking. Even the newscasters have satellite scans."

"Where are you taking my son!" The NP routed its voice through the radio. "My scans show nothing in this vicinity."

"Aw, do we have to listen to that old bit-brain, Nick? I get enough of that stuff already. My boss, Gig, he's a preter-heinous nag. Are you listening, Gig?"

"Is the Benthica nearby?" Dominic asked.

In the roiling murk, he bumped into Major Qi's body. She gripped his upper arm, and all at once, they shot through the water. Turbulence nearly tore the briefcase from his arms. The major was using some kind of handheld propulsion device. Dominic clutched the briefcase handle in one hand, and with his other hand, he felt along the major's back and got a firm hold of her gear belt.

The NP sounded annoyed. "You might take two seconds to tell us your plan, Major Qi."

"The best thing about Gig is, he listens more than he talks," the major answered. "Hear this, Neural Profile. Your noise might give away our location. Button it up."

"I'm cloaked!" the NP shot back.

"Not good enough. Gig, can you reason with this old coot?" Her voice was deep for a woman, deep but still feminine, Dominic noted. He felt her body bumping against his flank.

Abruptly, the water resistance ceased, and he did a slow forward somersault. They had stopped. 'Take hold, Nick." The major guided his gloved hand to a rail. Then he sensed a pressure change and saw bubbles rushing against his faceplate. There was no time for surprise. Major Qi grabbed his upper arm and shoved him through a circular opening barely wider than his shoulders. When he felt her hand push his butt, he held the briefcase to his chest and cursed silently.

Once through the opening, his helmet immediately bashed against a wall. The major kept pushing, and he tried to move sideways, but there was no space. All he could do was fold himself up, because now she was climbing in beside him. They scrunched together like two embryos sharing the same egg sack, and his breath roared inside his helmet. He heard a thump and a clank. Another slow pressure change. And the major's boyish laugh.

"Guess your honored ancestor decided to shut up."

"He's not my ancestor." Dominic heard the shake in his voice and took a few slow breaths to calm down. "Is this the Benthica?" he asked with taut control.

Light scattered through the murky fluid, and he could see again. Slowly, the water level inside their egg-shaped coffin started dropping, and he heard air blowing in. This was an airlock. He'd used airlocks before, on his rare excursions outside the city dome. But he'd never used one underwater. Of course, a swimmer would need an airlock to enter a submarine. Dominic just hadn't given the matter any thought before now.

"Welcome to the Devi," Major Qi announced. "My personal ride. She's a fast sneaky little bitch. Stealth clad." The major kneed Dominic in the stomach as she shifted position. "Sorry 'bout the underwater parking space. I just wanted to be extra sure no one saw us. C'mon in."

A narrow overhead port slid open, and she squirmed up into the cabin, planting her boot on Dominic's thigh. He ground his teeth and kept silent.

"Give me your hand," she said, but Dominic pushed himself up without her help.

He couldn't stand. The Devi's cockpit was another egg-shaped coffin not much bigger than the airlock. Two small seats faced a console, and a ribbed overhead light tube ran the length of the low ceiling like a glowing spinal cord.

Qi took off her helmet, and the first thing Dominic noticed was her smile—wide and merry and full of square white teeth. The next thing he saw was her skin. She was dark—as dark as burnt caffie. Her features were Asian, finely drawn, and her sweaty blue-black hair stuck out at wild angles. Smirking back at him, her Far Eastern eyes were as black and glossy as two drops of ink.

He watched her strip off her gloves. She was watching him, too. Dominic rarely dealt with dark people. Zahlen-Bank employed Euro execs almost exclusively, and most of his big Com clients were of Euro descent. Sure, there were plenty of non-Euros around Trondheim, even some execs. Asians, Malays, Ethiopes, Americans. He'd seen all the variations. He'd seen them working in tech labs, med clinics, airports. He'd just never looked at them. There had never been any reason.

"Let me help you with that. You've got it cockeyed." Qi tugged his helmet release with a teasing grin. She lifted the helmet off and used the back of her hand to wipe his damp forehead. "Lose the gloves, but keep the suit on. No room to change anyway."

Then she threw her leg over the back of the pilot's seat, scrambled into place and started humming. As Dominic took his gloves off, he noticed how closely she watched him. He was used to women making eyes at him, but this was different. He climbed into the other seat, and since mere was no place to stash the briefcase, he held it in his lap. His shoulders were too broad and his feet too large for the space. He felt like canned meat.

The major placed a thin black band around her forehead and curled a. hairline wire down in front of her left eye. The apparatus was almost invisible, but Dominic recognized it as an AR wear-about. Augmented Reality. The tiny wire beamed an optical display directly onto her retina. She slipped a full ten-finger set of cybernails on, then wiggled her fingers to loosen up. The cybernails gleamed like silver claws. She flicked one through the air to activate the console's light matrix, and her fingertips flashed through the grid of tiny holographic icons, readying the craft for takeoff.

After a moment, she giggled and leaned against Dominic. She put her hand on his chest and whispered, "You can be yourself. Your honored ancestor can't get in here."

Dominic drew away and bumped his head on the ceiling. He wasn't used to someone invading his personal space uninvited.

She drummed her sharp cybernails on his chest and grinned. "Your dear old Da is locked out. This is private Org technology. Yep, there are some things even ZahlenBank doesn't know."

Her smile was so disarming, Dominic wasn't sure how to react. "Where's the Benthica?" he demanded.

"They call her Pressure of Light now."

Qi turned back to the controls and started humming again. What was this woman up to? Dominic still didn't understand the Orgs' motives, and his misgivings increased every moment. He felt his seat shudder, and the Devi rose out of the sea with a frothy crash of waves.

"Want a view?" she asked. 'Try this."

She handed him a headband similar to her own, only wider and heavier. He put it on and adjusted the eye-piece. In a blink, a 360-degree vista of the outside world superimposed itself over his real view of the cockpit. At first, the effect made him queasy. His brain wasn't used to seeing in all directions at once. He tried closing his right eye to block out the cockpit, and that helped.

The Arctic sun glowed higher in the sky, but clouds blocked much of its visible light. His eyepiece beamed images in the artificial ambers, golds and violets of metavision, the adaptive optics humans had invented to see through smog. Metavision could penetrate total darkness and the murk of oceans, but all Dominic could see were endless violet waves rolling toward a flat-line horizon. The Devi skimmed along the crests at tremendous speed, throwing up wings of salt mist in its wake.

"What's in the briefcase?" the major asked.

Dominic squinted and tried to see her through the overlay of purple waves. When he opened his right eye, the cockpit sprang into the foreground, and he noticed her silver fingertips dancing through the light matrix. She was grinning.

He said, "You lied. That was more than twenty meters."

"Huh?" The major stared ahead, evidently reading data through her eyepiece.

"You said we'd only have to swim twenty meters. It was more than that."

"Oops!" She wrinkled her nose. "I never was a good judge of distance. So, Nick, what's in the briefcase?"

"Where's the Benthica?" he returned.

She flashed a smile and kept stroking the light matrix with her cybernails and staring into infinity. He studied her profile, the high, dusky cheekbones, the delicate flat curve of the nose, so different from what he was used to.

"Freaker," she huffed. "Your honored ancestor's throwing a tantrum. Wants to talk to his boy. He's worried about you, Nick. Gig says we have to put him through."

"He's not my—Who's Gig? You mean Gig the Org?" Boyhood stories flooded back to Dominic. He remembered the mighty Gig, the WTO's secret service chief.

"Yep, my sweet old boss. Hand me that earplug you're wearing, Nick. I'll link you through my console. Your NP's about to blow a fusion capacitor."

How did she know about his earplug? She didn't wait for his response. She reached across his chest and plucked the thing out with her cybernails.

"Careful!" Dominic would have pulled back, but there was no room. "You might've cut me with those things."

She hummed a tune and prodded the earplug with her silver claws. When a white spark burst out, she frowned. "Freaker, I think it's fried. Let's try your wrist node."

"Leave my gear alone." Dominic clamped a hand over his wrist node and worked his lower jaw from side to side.

"I won't hurt it. That was an accident. C'mon, Nicky."

Dominic hated to be called Nick or Nicky or any other diminutive, but he wouldn't condescend to tell her so. She laughed and started wrestling with him, tickling him in the ribs through his silky Kevlax suit. He banged his elbow against the armrest trying to evade her.

"You—will—not—" He struggled, but she had him cornered. The woman was much stronger than she looked. Before he could stop her, she slipped one cybernail under his wristband, and a blue-white spark shot out. He jerked back and yanked the wrist node off his arm. She'd burned him. A blister was already forming.

"Aw, see what happens when you play too rough," she said.

Dominic lost control. He gripped her wrists and shook her, and the Devi promptly rolled over and dove into the ocean.

"Let me go! We're gonna crash!" she shouted.

Dominic had neglected to fasten his seat belt. When the craft inverted, he banged his head on the ceiling. He also let go of the major's wrists. Her cybernails flashed into action in the light matrix controls, and she started putting the craft through underwater spins and cartwheels, pretending she had to fight for control. But as she slung him around the cockpit like a rag doll, Dominic suspected it was all show. Finally, the craft leveled out and rose into the air, and he sank gingerly into his seat. Somehow he'd managed to bruise his hip. It felt like he'd been shot.

"Don't do that again," she said.

He glowered at her. He was furious, but with himself. He'd stooped to violence, the resort of weak minds. That was not his style. His headband had gotten twisted around backward, and he put it right. In a carefully restrained tone, he asked, "Why did you cut me off from the Net?"

"Cut you off? Nick, I'm trying to link you on. So you can speak to your dear old Dada."

He let the reflex of anger pass over him. The woman was watching him again, appraising him, he realized. He needed a cool head to figure out her game. Major Qi had seized an advantage by luring him into her own space. Now she'd increased her lead by cutting off his communications. She was trying simultaneously to deceive him, undermine his confidence and steal his information. Standard negotiation tactics. But what did she want? He needed to learn that before he could respond.

From years of practice, Dominic knew how to temper his voice with manly sincerity. "Major, I believe we've gotten off to a bad start. I'm here to help the Orgs settle this trouble. Say what you want me to do, and I'll do it. I know how to follow orders."

The major gulped and burst out laughing. "You're good. Gig warned me. Yeah, you're good."

"Honestly, Major—"

"Cut the crap, Nick. Just call me Qi."

"As for that, I prefer Dominic."

Qi's Asian eyes twinkled with mischief. "What's in the briefcase?"

Dominic opened the clasps. He assumed she already knew what the case contained. "This is my last Net node. Before you fry this one, may I ask a question?"

She rested her hand on the case, and Dominic watched her cybernails prod the leather. "Yep, ask."

"I'm here at your request. Presumably, you need my cooperation. Correct?"

She seemed to think about this. Or perhaps she was listening to Gig through an earplug of her own.

"Because if you do," he went on, "there are a few things I expect in return. Fair trade, you understand?"

Qi grinned and thumped his shoulder with her fist. "Sure, Nick-O. I never meant to damage your gear. You can infralink your node through my console. C'mon. See what Dada has to say."

She opened his case and spoke a command for infrared linkage, and his Net node came alive.

"Son! Answer me! Are you awright?"

The NP's talking head bulged out from the screen in holographic 3-D, and its eyes roved around, recording every detail of the Devi's cockpit. The head looked exactly like Richter. Dominic was repulsed.

"Where are you, son? Our scans lost you in the ocean. That craft is plain invisible." The Richteresque eyes reeled around to peer at him. "They blindsided me, boy. The deal was, you and I would stay in contact. Now I don't even know where you are. If things weren't so sensitive, I'd sue the buggers. You hear me, Gig? Lurking bastard, say something."

Qi laid her hand on the briefcase and slowly pushed it closed. "So, Nick. Excuse me. Dominic. Do you really want to stay in touch with this bit-brain?"

Dominic massaged a knot in his neck. He wanted to answer No. He despised the NP. He half despised his father for creating it. Most of all, he was angry with his father for dying. He missed the old man more than he could say.

At last, he forced himself to smile. 'Two bit-brains are better than one. You have your Gig, so let me have my NP."

She gazed at him for a long thoughtful moment, but Dominic didn't flinch. He knew how to hold his sea-colored eyes as steady as those of a painted porcelain doll. Qi turned back to her controls without comment. Reluctantly, Dominic reopened the briefcase. He was about to speak to the NP again when Qi grabbed his arm.

"Look! Something in the water," she said.

Dominic covered his right eye and concentrated on the 360-degree image beaming through his eyepiece. He still had trouble focusing on the panoramic view. As he squinted and strained, gradually a mound of rubbish emerged among the dingy waves. Barrels. In the distance, it looked like a jumble of rusting barrels lashed together with cord. Some barrels had come loose and were floating free. Billowing sheets of white plastic trailed in the water, and all manner of debris had collected around them. Dominic blinked and looked closer. For a moment, he thought he saw an old woman lift her hand and point.

CHAPTER 4
MARGIN REQUIREMENT

THE Devi circled the wreck. In the choppy waters below, Dominic saw that the barrel raft had been warped by some rogue storm into a twisted mountain of junk. Buckets and plastic bags were tied everywhere, small ones, large ones, all hanging in shreds that rose and fell with the waves. Qi maneuvered closer and adjusted their headband visors for true color, transmuting the false golds and lavenders of metavision into the dull, grimy grays of reality. The tepid ocean swelled and sluiced through the barrels, churning up geysers.

Sure enough, there were human bodies wedged among the debris. He counted six, wrapped like mummies in clear plastic sheeting, bobbing with each motion of the waves. Through his headband, they looked small and shrunken, curled up in tight, shriveled knots, and though it might have been a trick of the wind, one of them resembled an old woman lifting her hand to the sky.

"Are they dead?" Dominic asked.

"Maybe not." Qi maneuvered the Devi into a hover just above the wreck. "I'm gonna open the hatch."

"Wait, I'm not sealed!" Dominic fumbled for his helmet.

Qi hummed a snatch of melody. "You're getting all tangled up, Nick. Take off your headband first. It won't fit inside your helmet. Here, I'll activate a flat display so you can still see."

She tapped a key, and a console screen winked on, showing a two-dimensional view of the raft below. While she plucked off her cybernails and snugged her helmet into place, Dominic struggled to get his neckband seated. He'd only just sealed the gasket when she retracted the Devi's cockpit cover with a loud thump. Now the cockpit lay exposed to the atmosphere, and in seconds, a lethal oily dew covered every surface. Frantically, he tugged on his gloves, wondering how she would clean the cockpit later. She probably had an air exchanger to blow out poisonous gases, but how would she get rid of this noxious residue? This stop was turning into a real annoyance. They might have to keep their helmets and gloves sealed for the rest of the journey.

"I'm picking up heartbeats, Nick. They're alive." Qi climbed out of her seat, which caused the whole craft to list to one side. Dominic tightened his seat belt.

"Should we call for a med crew?" he asked.

"Nick, we're undercover. No one's supposed to know we're here. Get it?" Qi threw her legs over the side and dropped out of sight.

Dominic tilted his notebook so the NP could have a view of the flat-screen. "See the raft?" he whispered.

"Don't worry, boy. I see your location now." The NP's holographic head bulged out of the notebook and smacked its lips. "You lit up my scans the second Major Qi opened that cockpit. Pretty sweet stealth cladding. Get me a sample if you can. And why don't you plant your wrist node on the outside hull so I can track you when she closes that hatch."

Dominic chewed his lip. "No wrist node. She fried it."

"Huh? You let her do that? Don't think I'm criticizing, but that wasn't smart."

Dominic watched the flat-screen view of the raft. Major Qi seemed to be taking a lot of chances, leaping around on those loose barrels. When she disappeared behind the central mound of junk, it occurred to Dominic that he had no idea how to fly this high-tech little craft.

He said, "Major, are you all right?"

Her voice crackled in his helmet radio. "Get down here, Nick. I need you."

"Don't leave your seat," the NP warned. 'Tell her she's wasting time. You have a critical objective. You should be on your way."

Dominic didn't relish the idea of boarding a wreck in the middle of the ocean, but the major said she heard heartbeats. He swelled his cheeks and blew out a sigh. Then he unbuckled his seat belt.

"Don't budge from that seat, boy! Remember why you're there!"

Dominic chinned his helmet radio. "Major, do you need a first-aid kit?"

"Thanks, Nicky. I've got it with me. Bring a sack of water."

"Son, you're a fool to waste time with this. What's the point?" the NP said.

"These people need a little help. It won't take long." Dominic found the water sack in a bin under the console. When he stood up, the craft tilted like a small boat, and he clutched the steering yoke to keep his balance.

"Hurry, Nick," Qi's voice buzzed over the radio.

Dominic searched for a good place to stow his briefcase, and the NP seemed to guess his intention. "Son, don't shut me off. Take the case with you. I'm the only one you can trust."

Dominic ground his molars and felt his jaw muscle quiver. "You're watching me on satellite scan. Surely I can survive a few minutes without your advice."

When he shut the notebook and snapped the briefcase closed, the sudden quiet felt like bliss. He leaned over the Devi's flank to see what Qi was doing, and this caused the craft to tip so steeply, it nearly dumped him out. His breath rasped inside his helmet and fogged his faceplate. The helmet narrowed his view like a set of blinders. With great care, he threw his long legs over and slid down onto the barrel raft, which bobbed heavily under his weight.

'Toss me the water sack." Qi was propping the old woman in her arms.

Dominic glimpsed thin gray hair and mottled skin under the shroud of clear plastic. A cheap, disposable mask covered the old woman's nose and mouth, the kind factory workers used when they handled hazardous waste. Dominic couldn't believe that was her only defense against the atmosphere. Her lungs must be riddled with toxins.

He passed Qi the water sack, then boosted the coolant inside his suit, hoping to stop his perspiration. The storm had wadded the raft like a used handkerchief. He could barely see over the mound of scrap in the center. When a wave pitched the whole thing to and fro, he fell between two barrels and sputtered for help.

In a frenzy, he seized a lashing cord and pulled himself up. Qi paid him no attention. She was feeding the old woman a pill. He started to protest, but then he saw the others. They were not lifeless bodies. They were children. He saw their streaked brown limbs swaddled in plastic. Above their breathing masks, their wide black eyes stared at him in terror.

An aircar droned overhead, and the children ducked into hiding.

"Freaker!" Qi hissed over the radio. "Your dear old Da sent his guards!"

Dominic's breath echoed like surf inside his helmet, and he had to lean way back to peer at the sky. But there was nothing to see, only cloud cover.

Qi said, "Your bit-brain spotted us when I opened the cockpit. Freak, he's planning to arrest these people. We're undercover. Can't he grasp the concept?"

The major had to be getting updates from her Org boss, Dominic decided. She was probably wearing an earplug. He started to ask a question, but then he heard a thunderous splash and swung around on his knees. The Devi had disappeared. The ocean surface boiled gray-white where the craft had gone under.

"Wha—" He opened his mouth and stared at the roiling foam, then at Qi's dark faceplate. She was talking with the old woman. Behind her, the horizon tilted crazily, and the waves looked gargantuan. Dominic had never been at sea in a craft so small. As the immense undulating plane of ocean swelled around him, the small barge rocked wildly, and he gripped the cord to keep from tumbling.

The pitching motion was making him nauseous, so he drew a slow, deliberate breath through his nose to calm down. With an eye on the horizon, he ignored the spinning in his ears and spoke with more composure than he felt. "Major, Where's the Devi?"

"I had to sink her," Qi answered.

"Sink?" Another set of waves tossed the barge, and Dominic focused all his will on not throwing up.

"Hey, I couldn't risk your NP blowing our cover. And by the way, that transponder in your butt? I zapped it, too. Remember when we were turning those cartwheels? Just a small sting. Don't be mad."

Dominic recalled the pain in his hip. He tried to concentrate on that pain. Anything to take his mind off the unremitting motion. "You said bank guards are coming to rescue us?"

"Relax. Gig called them off. He's masking our position with a sonic noise field."

Dominic gripped the lashing cord with both hands as a fresh set of waves sent the barge tilting and creaking like a circus ride. How the hell was he going to get back home?

"This is a stroke of luck," Qi went on. 'With this raft and these children, we'll definitely look like runaway workers. It's the perfect cover. Let's take off these surfsuits, Nick."

Qi removed her helmet and threw it in the ocean. It sank out of sight. Dominic stared at her naked face, appalled. She'd exposed herself to the atmosphere! With a shrug, she shook her hair free, flashed a smile and yanked off her gloves. When she unbuckled her gear belt and threw that in the water, Dominic leaned forward and stared at the spot where it sank.

"Strip, Nicky. The miners'll never believe we're runaways if we show up wearing this technoid stuff."

He said, "You're breathing poison."

Qi laughed aloud. She stood up and tugged her suit gasket open to her crotch. Underneath the suit, she wore a gray prote uniform. It was stained and threadbare, and the sleeves and pant legs had been cut off unevenly. Dominic gaped at her dark bare arms and legs, which soon glistened with noxious dew. He sank back on his knees, horror-struck. Major Qi had sentenced herself to die.

"Do I have to come over there and undress you, Nicky?" Her voice sounded muffled and distant now that she no longer spoke by radio. With a smirk, she jammed her hands against her narrow hips. "What did you expect, a picnic? Don't be so squeamish. You have to pretend you're a worker, and this is where it starts."

"Major, this is not rational." Dominic tried to sound calm. "You want me to negotiate. Why can't I simply introduce myself? I'm Dominic Jedes from ZahlenBank. I've come to talk. Simple. Reasonable. Why wouldn't that work?"

"Why? Hoo. Maybe because half a minute after you mention your name, they'll remember you set them adrift without life support." Wind blew hair across Qi's face, and she pulled it back with her ringers. "The miners'll probably beat you senseless, Nick. That's the only hitch I can think of. So quit stalling. Off with your duds."

Dominic clung to the lashing. "It's suicide."

She laughed again and tossed her head. "You've got executive blood flowing in your veins. Designer additives, right? You can't get cancer. Now c'mon. Peel."

Dominic had always thought of himself as a bold man. He liked taking risks. But this he couldn't do. Nature kills. The lesson had been drummed into his brain since nursery school. A single whiff of atmosphere, a single drop of rain, a single grain of dust from the natural world carried enough pollution to eat away his flesh. Like every exec, he took his antibody injections once a month—conjugated monoclonals, transgenic chimeras, the whole cocktail. But that didn't guarantee protection from the deadly great outdoors. Everyone knew the prime rule of safety: Never leave a sealed environment. Never. He sat rigid, gazing at Qi's dark dew-covered arms.

"Such a baby." She tugged a flexible mask out of her pocket and placed it over her nose and mouth. Its white cone accentuated her Asian eyes and made her look vaguely extraterrestrial. With an athlete's grace, she danced across the barrels and knelt beside him. "I've got antiviral tabs. You'll be fine. Hey, workers do this all the time. You've gotta start thinking like a worker."

Dominic had been gripping the cord so hard, his fingers had locked up. The hollow eyes of the children drilled into him. They looked like ghosts.

Qi reached for his helmet.

"Don't!" Too late, he knocked her hand away—she'd already released the seal! He heard a gaseous hiss, and his breath caught. Damp atmosphere rushed into his helmet. It reeked of sulfur and burnt carbon, and his eyes stung. Then his heart jolted into action, and he choked. A fit of coughing bent him double. Qi pulled off his helmet and shoved an antiviral tab between his lips.

"Suck on that, Nick. It'll help for a while." Her voice sounded like a distant echo as she chattered on. "A lot of workers build up resistance to the toxins. Years of exposure and all that. Seems to run in families. Maybe it's a genetic thing."

He was too stunned to fight her. His muscles had stopped working. All he could do was imagine the unseen toxins whirling around him, invading his lungs, penetrating his skin. Soon he would begin to die. Vaguely, he became aware that Qi was wiping his cheek with her thumb. Was he crying? When she placed a filtering mask over his nose and mouth, he felt the elastic band snap across the back of his head. A moment later, he realized she was prying his fingers loose from the cord, so he let go.

Like the hollow-eyed children, he watched Qi in mute shock as she stripped off his surfsuit and ripped it with her knife to make sure it would sink. Then he watched her toss the knife after it. She might have kept the knife, he thought. When she was done, he hunched in his silk underwear on a rusty dented barrel, clasping his knees to his chest and shivering in the warm, stinking wind. Dominic Jedes wasn't one to cower, but at the moment, all other options seemed beyond his reach.

For a long while, he sat on the barrel hugging his knees in blank, mindless shock. Clouds were turning colors on the northern horizon. Brick red and liver brown and furious white gold. The sun had reached its lowest point in the sky. It must be midnight, he realized.

Hours had passed, and he wasn't dead yet. Perhaps those additives in his blood really worked as advertised. He blinked and rolled his shoulders, and he actually felt a little better. His expensive silk underwear had dried and matted to his skin. He recalled with irony the dozens of fresh pairs folded neatly in his closet in Trondheim. Not to mention the handsome trousers and jackets and patent leather shoes. At this hour, he should be dressing for dinner. Here he was, ZahlenBank's savviest dealer—and he'd fallen into (his woman's ambush like a junior clerk. She'd taken everything from him, and he'd let her. He had to laugh at himself. President of ZahlenBank, one of the ten richest men on the planet, and he couldn't even order a cup of caffie.

Except for his silk shirt and trunks, he'd lost everything. He was barefoot. Qi had thrown his boots overboard. He'd lost his last Net node when the Devi sank, so he had no way to contact the NP. No way to receive the digital genie's guidance. He felt crippled. Blast the NP! He hated to admit his dependence on that prying, nagging, artificial brain, but there it was. Still, one thing he knew. The NP would not be idle. The genie would find a way to rescue its flesh flunky. That gave Dominic some hope.

Then he remembered Qi's words after the Devi went down. "Gig's cloaking our position," she said. That meant she was still in contact with her Org master. If she was wearing an earplug, maybe he could steal it.

The raft rode up a swell and crashed down the other side. Dominic drew a deep breath and watched the horizon. Like a piece of flotsam, a memory drifted through his consciousness: The summer solstice should be occurring about now. At least his nausea had passed. He squared his shoulders. Yes, he'd lost his wits temporarily, but now he was thinking again. He still had his banker's cunning. Fear had shut him down, but he wouldn't let that happen again.

"You are a seafarmer?"

He glanced in the direction of the voice. It was the old woman. She spoke English with an American accent as thick as syrup. She was sitting up now, resting her back against an overturned bucket. She'd pushed her plasticene veil back from her face, and her gray hair hung in limp coils that swung around her shoulders with each rocking motion of the raft. Her mask sat askew on her wrinkled brown face. Two tiny children squatted beside her.

"You farm?" she repeated the question.

"I'm a banker," he said.

"Eh?"

He could barely see her black eyes peering out of the web of wrinkles. Only protes showed age like that. She was a dependent, too old to work. Dominic felt a surge of irritation. If not for Com charity, this woman would never have reached her ripe, withered age. Yet she'd deserted her Com. She didn't have enough human gratitude to stay where she belonged. Dominic spoke through his teeth, "You're a runaway."

The woman nodded. "My name is Juanita Inez. These are my grandchildren. They're free."

Stolen property, he would have said. You've doomed them to early graves. But Dominic knew better than to reason with an uneducated prote. He heard a scuffle on the other side of the raft, and he rose on wobbly knees to see over the mound of junk. At the far end, Qi and the two older children struggled to lift a three-meter length of pole. Dominic recognized they were trying to stand the pole upright to make a mast. Now he understood the white plastic sheet he'd seen trailing in the water. It was a sail. Slowly, he crawled over the wave-tossed barrels to help Qi. Orange paint chipped off and stuck to his palms as he went, and when a jagged piece of metal scraped his bare knee, he cursed aloud.

A small brown foot stepped on his hand, and he glanced up at the fierce, sullen face of a child. The boy wore no mask. He was naked, with arms like sticks, a round belly and a nose caked with mucus. Dominic couldn't guess his age. The boy balanced with feet wide apart on the barrels and swayed like an athlete in perfect tune with the waves. For one long second, he deliberately leaned all his weight on Dominic's hand. Then he raced away over the barrels toward his brothers with the mast.

The boy's weight wasn't much. Dominic hardly felt it. What he felt was the insult. He wiped the boy's footprint off his hand and stood up straight, then swung his arms madly at the sky and fell backward. Cautiously, he got his legs straightened out for another try. This time when he stood, he spread his feet wide, as the boy had done, and flexed his knees to take the impact of the rolling deck. He tried a few steps, then paused. His workouts at the gym hadn't gone for nothing. He could do this. Another careful step. Another. When he reached the far end of the raft, he was able to hold the mast in place while Qi secured it with guy lines.

The little boy never stopped scowling at him. It took them an hour to rig the plastic sail. When he sat down to wipe sweat from his eyes, the boy sat beside him and tugged his sleeve. In pantomime, the boy bunched up his little brown fingers, poked something imaginary into his mouth and pretended to chew.

"I don't have food," Dominic said.

The boy dropped his chin with an air of disgust and went back to his grandmother.

Later, when the children were out of earshot, Qi whispered to him through her breathing mask. "You told them you're a banker?" She giggled and patted the barrel beside her, inviting him to sit. "Workers think a banker is a machine that dispenses coins."

"Do you have any food?" Dominic squatted a couple of barrel lengths away and watched Qi warily. She shook her head no. "What about water? You gave the old woman our only water sack. She'll drink it in one gulp. We need to ration it."

"Calm down. It's not a problem." Qi dangled her bare feet over the edge and kicked at the fetid ocean. She seemed completely at ease.

Dominic adjusted his mask. He was hungry and thirsty and tired, while this skinny dark spy girl seemed as fresh as ever. He wondered how old she was. Late twenties? Maybe she took energy tabs, but that didn't explain her total lack of fear. He envied her that. She seemed to be enjoying herself.

"Mmm. I love this view. We're below the smog layer, so we can see a long way. Look."

She pointed north, where the clouds were brightening to fiery crimson. The sun was already rising again. A whole day had passed since he left the beach in West Spitzbergen. Barely forty hours ago, Dominic had been sitting in his office in Trondheim. He recalled that now with astonishment.

"You sleepy? Put your head in my lap," Qi said.

"I'd prefer answers. You control this situation, I'll concede that much. But you still need something from me. If you expect my help, you'd better be more forthcoming."

Qi dipped up a handful of grayish sea fluid. She studied it for a moment as if searching for life-forms. Then she flung it away. Behind her, the improvised sail flapped steadily. They were running with the wind, due west.

"I watched you rig that sail," he said. "You set us on course for somewhere. Are we moving toward the Benthica?"

"The Pressure of Light," she answered. "I can't tell you anything, Dominic. Be patient. You'll know soon enough—"

"That's not acceptable!" he shouted.

In response to his shout, the sullen little boy popped up over the mound of barrels and glared at him. Dominic glared back. Then the boy made a face, and Dominic clenched his jaw. Sweat prickled under his face mask and made his nose itch. He continued more quietly, "Major, I know we're undercover, but you can't expect me to pretend I'm a prote. I haven't the least notion how prptes behave. I'm not trained for espionage. They'll see through me at once."

"Like clients see through you at ZahlenBank? You're as clear as water, aren't you, Nicky?"

Dominic rolled his head to stretch his neck muscles. He looked at her sideways. When she smiled, he noticed how her mocking black eyes crinkled almost shut.

She said, 'Tell them you're a banker if you like. It doesn't matter. They'll hear your educated accent and your college vocabulary, and they'll trust anything you say. Only the smartest workers go to college. They'll respect you."

Dominic frowned. "Protected employees do not attend college."

"Sure they do. Who do you think runs the production lines? Who keeps the equipment working? Who takes care of the sick? You think some aristo exec would stoop to that kind of work?" Qi laughed. "You've been locked up inside too long, Nick-O."

"Where's the Benthica?" he asked.

"Dominic, Dominic. So many questions. Look at the sunrise. Isn't it beautiful? Have you ever seen dawn with your naked eyes?"

"How long before we arrive?"

Qi rocked back and let out her boyish hoot. Then she hopped up and dove at him bodily. She tumbled him over and started wrestling him on top of the barrels, bruising his shoulders, knocking his mask sideways and tickling him under the arms. "Ask one more question, and you go for a swim, Nick-O!"

Her playfulness ended abruptly. She sat up listening, while Dominic struggled to get his mask back on. "Shhh," she whispered.

Then Dominic heard it, too. A sucking liquid noise. Far away, but growing louder. "What is it?" He sat up, cocking his ear. The noise was echoing out of the west, and they seemed to be heading straight for it. He said, "It sounds like the edge of the world."

CHAPTER 5
FLOATING EXCHANGE

THEY sailed steadily westward toward the booming roar, shading their eyes and squinting into the horizon. In the distance, a slate gray object projected from the ocean, and Dominic saw it gleam intermittently between swells. The roar gradually resolved into a loud pulse of churning waters, and the closer they approached, the larger the object grew. By the time they came within half a kilometer, the din was deafening, and the structure loomed up like a colossal black wall blocking half the sky.

The noise drove Dominic to cover his ears. He stared dumbfounded. The ship was so enormous, it could have held a city. Its gargantuan rust-streaked hull was shaped like a drum, squat and cylindrical with a flat top, and there were no portals or openings. Just below the waterline, a ring of slime-crusted machinery circled the drum, slurping up water and rapidly spewing it out again. This action caused the ring to revolve briskly around the hull, creating a dangerous wake of boils and whirlpools. Their little raft was sailing straight for it.

When Qi hauled the sail down, Dominic sprang forward to help. At last, he recognized the strange craft. It was a factory ship. He'd seen them in holographs on the Net. These titanic vessels lumbered at the edge of swift ocean currents and generated power from hydrodynamic differentials. At the ship's core whirled a thick column of turbines, and inside its huge hold, robots and protected employees manned the revolving rings of production lines powered by the turbines. Such a ship could manufacture anything from cars to caffie pots. But the factory ship wasn't alone.

Clustered in its shadow, just beyond reach of its treacherous wake, Dominic saw a mat of floating debris, and as they glided closer, the flotsam resolved into the outlines of fragile little boats. Junkers they were, cobbled together from polyfoam crates, PVC tubing, plastic jugs and billboard panels. Beer logos and snippets of advertising copy slanted across their sails in a bright linguistic patchwork. Dominic even saw a hazardous-waste tank lodged among the trash. There must have been fifteen or twenty of these boats, each with its crew of men, women and children, exposed to the atmosphere, worn-out, beaten down and clinging—like animals, he thought.

"Runaway protes," he said aloud.

Qi couldn't have heard him over the din. When she finished tying down the sail, she stood and shouted, "This is our rendezvous."

It took Dominic about a second to grasp that the protes were sheltering in the factory's infrared shadow to hide from satellite scans. A fairly clever idea. He wondered who thought of it. At the top of his voice, he yelled, "What Com owns this factory? Are the executives complicit in this?"

Qi put her mouth close to his ear. "Don't get your shorts in a wad, Nick. There's only one exec on board, and he stays zonked twenty-four/seven on Mellow Yellows. That exec doesn't even know we exist."

Dominic assumed the Benthica was hiding directly below. He studied the ship for markings. If only he could get a fix on the location. But Major Qi had made sure he couldn't do that. "You've known the submarine's coordinates all along," he shouted.

She drew away and eyed him with a smirk. Then her long fingers circled the back of his neck, and she pulled him close again so she could speak in his ear. "What would you do with the coordinates, Nick? Let your bit-brain send his guards?"

Dominic jerked away from her, angry that she'd already guessed his intentions. "Whose side are you on?" he said. His throat felt raw from shouting, and the roar made his head ache. He yelled, "This situation is destabilizing the markets, and we're here to shut it down. Am I right or wrong? Tell me now."

She shook her head and put her mouth to his ear again. "How close are we to the ship's boil line? I don't want those current mills to suck us in."

Dominic glanced at the water. Their raft was drifting a good hundred meters from the factory's booming wake, safe for now. He shouted, "You're changing the subject."

He felt a sharp tug at the back of his waistband. The naked boy was standing beside him, balancing on the raft's edge and pointing into the water. Beneath them, the ocean suddenly lifted in a mighty swell, and Dominic grabbed the boy to keep him from falling overboard. All around, water welled up and doused them with filthy spray as a decrepit metal sphere popped up beside their raft like a toy balloon. It was a bathysphere, old and dented, a submersible shuttle craft of the type used for short runs to and from an undersea facility. Dominic saw plainly where the Benthica logo had been scraped off.

"Our taxi has arrived," Qi shouted over the roar. "Benito, help your grandmother."

The boy squirmed out of Dominic's arms and scampered over the barrels.

. "This is what we've been waiting for, Nick." Qi indicated the bathysphere with a nod, as a man with a sunburned face and short, hairy arms emerged from the hatch and lowered a ladder to the waterline. In one of the other boats, two women started paddling toward him with their hands.

Qi leaned against Dominic and draped an arm over his shoulder. He could feel her thigh rubbing his. She touched her mouth to his ear. "Since you ask, I don't know the Pressure's position. I only know this rendezvous point. From here on, we're entering unknown territory." She took Dominic's hand and laced her long, dark, graceful fingers through his short, thick, pink ones. "I can't tell you what to expect, Nick. My bit-brain master limits my info. Trust me. We're going to need each other."

Dominic smiled grimly, recalling the NP had used those very words. He would have said something sarcastic, but he was tired of straining his throat. So he turned away and watched the little boy, Benito, help his grandmother to crawl over the barrels.

One by one, the tattered fleet of boats transferred their passengers to the bathysphere. The pilot shuttled eight full loads of people down below the gray waves before Dominic's turn came. Without his wrist node, it was hard to measure time in the perpetual Arctic day. Usually he stayed live-linked to the Ark and got market news every ninety seconds. Now he wasn't even sure of the date. He tried to time the first shuttle run by counting seconds, but he was bone weary, and the factory ship's racket numbed his senses.

He spread his short fingers and checked for skin rash, the first symptom of toxic exposure. Nothing yet. Then he lay on his back and gazed at the clotted smog. Was the NP watching? Even metavision had limits. Without that transponder in his hip beaming up his identification, he'd be just one more heat signature lost in the infrared blur of this factory ship. He squeezed his eyes shut. Never had he felt so cut off in his life.

He awoke with Benito sitting on his chest. When he moved, the boy grunted and dove into the water. The grandmother was already climbing the bathysphere's ladder a couple of meters away. More boats had joined the little fleet—over fifty vessels. And the northern horizon glowed liverish red again. Another midnight had come around.

Qi sat beside him and kicked at the water. "Ready, Nick?"

"You didn't bother to ask me that before."

Above the breathing mask, her eyes narrowed to merry slits. "It's a rhetorical question."

Dominic made a running leap to reach the bathysphere— it was either that or swim through the foul, oily ocean. He banged into the ladder and scraped his shins and bit back the oath he wanted to yell. Inside, the shuttle's tiny cabin stank of prote. The moment he entered, he could smell their wretched breath and body dirt through his mask. Even the toxic atmosphere had smelled fresher than this. Fifteen people, counting the pilot, were packed into a space meant for six. When the hatch clanked shut, the noise of the factory ship abated, and Dominic sensed a faint humid breeze. An air exchanger was laboring to blow filtered air into the cabin and displace the toxic atmosphere. But the smell didn't improve. A green indicator light flashed overhead, and the pilot said it was okay to remove face masks. Dominic kept his on.

If there had ever been seats in this crude little craft, someone had ripped them out. The passengers sat in each other's laps on the bare metal floor. Dominic would have preferred to stand, but the pilot ordered him down, so he squeezed in next to the old woman, Juanita Inez. Benito sat on his other side, scowling as usual, with arms crossed defiantly over his narrow young chest. A tiny girl climbed into Dominic's lap. The girl's nakedness embarrassed him, so he took off his silk undershirt and helped her put it on. It swallowed her small body, but she toyed with the sleeves and seemed very proud of it. Before he could stop her, the little girl squirmed onto his shoulders, locked her ankles under his chin and clenched his hair with her sticky little fists. From the other side of the cabin, Qi winked and blew him a kiss.

"Thank you," Juanita said, touching her granddaughter's new silk shirt. "Our clothing fell apart. It wasn't made for the surface."

She drew the clear plasticene a little tighter around her body like a shawl, and Dominic wished he had more to give her. It wasn't seemly, a woman of her age with nothing to cover herself. Most of the other protes were naked, too, or nearly so. What kind of clothing did they wear that disintegrated so easily? Their commissaries must be run by swindlers. His silk underwear was holding up just fine.

As the shuttle bobbed downward, the cabin temperature began to rise, and he decided nakedness might be an advantage. The shuttle's cooling unit evidently wasn't sized for this load. In no time, the air grew suffocatingly hot, and everyone sweated. More than once, Dominic wiped salty drops out of his eyes, and finally, he took off the hot face mask. The cut on his knee throbbed.

Despite everything, the protes kept talking. They wouldn't shut up. In their gutter accents and awful grammar, they told jokes and congratulated each other and passed around a bottle of sour-smelling wine. They imagined this stinking little bathysphere was their salvation. Damp, musky flesh pressed in on Dominic from every side. He hated this closeness. If only they would stop talking!

He closed his eyes and fought down his disgust. This was taking longer than he'd planned, but soon he would board the Benthica. Only now, thanks to the major, he couldn't call the bank guards to get him out. Well, hadn't his father schooled him to be resourceful?

First priority, find and disable the miner's Net link. Second, get back to the surface and hail the NP. He'd memorized the submarine's layout, so he knew the Net link was housed on the bridge. He could use any heavy object to smash the vulnerable electronics. Stewing in his own sweat, he imagined scenes of hand-to-hand combat with a desperate mob, and he was suddenly glad the major had insisted on disguise.

Escape—how could he manage that? Again he thought of stealing Qi's earplug to call the NP. Or maybe—a new inspiration struck him—maybe he could hijack this very bathysphere and get back to the surface. Medical attention. Decent air. A very long, very sanitizing bath. Yes, hijack this shuttle craft. That's what he'd do.

He began to feel optimistic, but the little girl on his shoulders kept yanking his hair and making his eyes water. He could tell the shuttle was going deep because his eardrums ached, so he held his nose and blew hard to equalize the pressure in his middle ears. Next, an infant started crying. That was just one too many sounds.

Dominic reached through the crowd and tapped the young mother's shoulder. "Give it something to chew. Make it swallow," he said. "Haven't you got something to give it?"

When the young woman shook her head in confusion, Dominic raised his voice to be get everyone's attention. "Who has some food or water for this baby?"

For a moment, the other passengers stared at him without speaking. The infant began to scream.

"Speak up. This baby needs to swallow to clear its ears."

The grandmother, Juanita, was the first to react. From the folds of her plasticene shawl, she drew out Qi's water sack—still two-thirds full. A moment later, other people brought forth treasures. A bit of moldy bread. Some kelp juice. A tube of nutrient paste. Someone offered half a bag of hard caramel candy. The mother gave her baby a little water, and the crying subsided. Dominic smiled with sardonic pride. At least he'd achieved one objective.

The bathysphere plowed interminably on, sometimes dropping, sometimes rising, and Dominic guessed the pilot was hugging the contours of the seafloor to avoid detection. Apparently, the Benthica had not been hiding under the factory ship. When the little girl slid off his shoulders, sound asleep, he handed her over to her grandmother and stood up to stretch. He craned to see over the pilot's shoulder, hoping the console gauges would yield some clue to their location. The pilot must have noticed his interest because he stepped aside so Dominic could see everything. The gauges were all in Spanic though, a language Dominic had never bothered to learn.

"You're an educated man, yes? I hear it in your voice. What is your training?" The pilot's face was creased and pitted with black grit, and three of his front teeth were missing. He garbled his words with the same syrupy American drawl the old woman used.

Dominic hesitated. Should he say he was a banker and let the man think he dispensed coins for a living? In the periphery, he saw Qi smirk. Some of the others were looking his way. He had to say something. "I'm a negotiator."

"Ah." The pilot wrinkled his forehead and nodded sagely, though Dominic doubted he understood the term. "Whatever your training, you are welcome here. We need many skills. Many. My name is Estaban."

The pilot stuck out his hand to shake, and Dominic felt obliged to introduce himself. But he had no lie ready. Major Qi should have prepared him. What kind of covert agent was she? Thinking his hesitation might raise distrust, he shook hands and improvised. "I'm Nick. I came with those people there."

When he pointed to the old woman and the grandchildren, the boy Benito flashed him an angry glare that radiated the pure antagonism of the innocent. Dominic knew the boy had caught his lie, and for an instant, he felt a curious pang of guilt. But the boy said nothing, and the moment passed.

"See, here she is." Estaban pointed with pride to a blurry round screen in the center of his console, and Dominic stepped over the seated bodies for a closer look.

On the screen, in the false colors of metavision, an extraordinary image was coming into focus. Dominic had to study it for several minutes before it made sense. Below them, where the seafloor flattened to a broad, sloping plane, lay a mountain range of garbage. Peak after peak, the mountains stretched as far as he could see in every direction. Estaban moved his control yoke, and the shuttle banked and dove between two ridges. Its running lights flickered against the mountainsides, revealing twisted girders, crushed vehicles and abandoned machinery. Methane bubbles rose in sluggish columns. Shreds of plastic and fabriglass blew in the current like flags.

This was a solid-waste site, Dominic realized, probably the dumping grounds for some coastal city. As the bathysphere wound through the V-shaped valley, Dominic studied the cliffs of cast-off debris with amazement. So much of it. He'd never realized how large these dump sites could be. The shuttle cruised just meters above the junk, and he noticed that Estaban showed real piloting skill following its jagged contours. They rounded a bend, dropped into a deeper gorge, and there behind a cone-shaped mound of rock crouched a familiar bottle-shaped vessel. The Benthica!

This close, the submarine looked larger than Dominic had expected. Its belt-driven treads were mired so deep in bottom debris, it couldn't possibly move. He studied its shape, looking for the bridge. Yes, there on the forward section, at the very top, he saw the lookout dome. That's where the Net link would be.

Then he observed something more astonishing. Other ships also loomed in the rubble. Dominic had to squint to make sure he was seeing accurately. At least six other vessels lay scattered close to the crawler. They were wrecks, all of them. Their hulls were rusted, gashed and riddled with holes, and they lay at odd angles just as they'd fallen. One old barge stood on end with its bow buried twenty meters deep.

As the bathysphere descended, Dominic began to make out small figures in diving suits swimming through the wreckage. Blue-white flashes sparked around them, and it took Dominic a moment to realize the divers were using underwater welding torches. He motioned Qi to join him. Estaban was clearly enjoying his reaction.

"The Pressure of Light," Estaban announced.

At those words, a hush fell over the cabin. The passengers all turned to look at the pilot, and even though they couldn't see Estaban's little screen, they stared reverently in that direction. Dominic watched the divers moving among the wrecked ships. When he sensed Qi standing beside him, he traced their outlines with his finger. "Did you know about this?"

She shook her head and studied the screen in frank wonder.

"All this metal. How could satellite scans miss this?" he asked.

"It's the will of God," the pilot Estaban declared with a broad smile.

Behind Estaban's back, Qi shrugged and shook her head again. Her surprise seemed genuine, but Dominic knew better than to trust her. He remembered the sonic noise field. "Gig's cloaking our position," she had said earlier. Could the Orgs generate a sonic field large enough to hide all this? Who knew what those quasi-biochemical computers might dream up in their spare time?

Dominic leaned on his knuckles and peered at the sunken ships. The divers' suits looked like relics from the twentieth century. Old-fashioned air tanks hung in external harnesses on their backs, and they used fins to kick through the water. Evidently, they had no internal recycling systems because every time they exhaled, tiny bubbles of air rose above them in wavering fountains. Inefficient resource use, he noted.

Then he took a closer survey of the cone-shaped mound next to the submarine. The mound wasn't made of junk. It looked like a fresh pile of rock and mud. All at once, he recognized what it was—mine tailings thrown up by an underwater drilling rig. The miners must be digging a tunnel under the trash. What next?

As he studied the tailings, three divers passed right across the bathysphere's screen, giving him a close-up view. They were hauling a cargo net filled with jagged sheets of steel. Now he understood what the welders were doing. They were cannibalizing some of the wrecks to patch the others. The miners were building a town!

But these derelict hulls were rusted and damaged beyond repair. Didn't they see that? Why else would the ships have been junked? He couldn't believe the immensity— and utter futility—of their enterprise. Protes. What could you expect?

The screen blurred as they neared the Benthica. When the shuttle jolted hard, passengers tumbled into each other, and one beat late, Estaban said, "Take hold!" They had docked with the submarine. Estaban opened the hatch and climbed through, and the passengers began helping each other out. Dominic held Qi behind. "We need to talk," he whispered.

"This isn't the time."

She moved around him toward the hatch, but he grabbed her arm, and in his anger, he sprayed saliva when he spoke. "Gig's sonic field is hiding them."

She glanced at the thick fingers circling her biceps. "Maybe no one thought to look in the junk pile. It could be that simple."

"Ask him!" Dominic hissed. "I know about your ear-Plug"

"Actually. . ." Qi tilted her head to one side and pointed to a tiny, perfectly square bruise behind her earlobe, just a shade darker, than her skin. Dominic saw the dusky smooth curve of her throat before he noticed the bruise. Not an earplug. It was a surgical implant. How was he going to steal that?

She said, "Gig tells me only what he wants me to know."

"You've been hiding these protes all along. Why?" he barked in her face. "I thought the WTO wanted these people silenced. You have to explain this to me now."

All the passengers had climbed through the hatch, but Benito's head reappeared in the portal. The boy watched them with narrow, distrustful eyes.

Qi said, "C'mon, Nick. We'll talk later."

Dominic blocked her way and gripped both her arms. "Why are the Orgs hiding these protes?"

"Freaker, keep your voice down! I don't know anything. Do you think I asked for this preter-lame assignment?"

With a move that seemed easy, Qi freed her arms and flung him backward. He'd forgotten how strong she was. He just managed not to fall.

"This is how Gig does things. Neither of us has a choice." She rubbed her arms where he'd gripped her, and her black eyes blazed. Then, with a show of exaggerated cheer, she turned to the boy. "Lead the way, Benito."

Inside Dominic's jaw, a small bone popped against its cartilage. He pushed out of the bathysphere like a newborn— red and furious and somewhat deformed. The first person he saw inside the submarine was a barefoot old man wearing nothing but a pair of stained trousers, and waving a spoon. The man said, 'Welcome, friend. You want soup?"

CHAPTER 6
BEARER BOND

DOMINIC sneezed three times in a row. Before he could push himself up off the grimy deck and stand, he sneezed again.

"Bless you, friend." The old soup man patted his back. "Sounds like you've caught a cold."

A cold? Inconceivable. A whole pharmacy of designer antibodies coursed through Dominic's executive blood. Whether that protected him from toxic pollution he couldn't say, but he certainly felt safe from a common cold. His left eye itched, and he rubbed it with his knuckle. The low cavernous room in which he stood was crammed with half-naked people. Scattered sodium lights cast gloomy shadows, and condensation dripped from the steel ceiling. The air reeked of urine. I'm in hell, he thought.

He studied the docking port from which he'd just emerged. Its round hatch opened like an oven door, and thousands of fingerprints smudged the steel wall around it. He memorized the surroundings so he could find this docking port again. If things went wrong, the bathysphere might be his only escape.

Major Qi was not in sight, but he noticed the old grandmother, Juanita, and her dirty-faced brats. Someone had given her a garment shaped like a sack. As she slipped it over her bare shoulders, he averted his eyes, but in every direction, he saw nakedness. People's clothing fell away in shreds and soggy tatters. They covered themselves with their arms and clumped together and waited—like herd beasts, he thought. They'd run from their shepherds, and now they didn't know what to do next. He could almost pity them—if only they didn't smell so bad.

'Taste, please! It's very good!" The half-blind old man was trying to force a plastic cup of soup into Dominic's hands. "I'm Tooksook, the greeter. If you have questions, ask me, ask me."

Hours had passed since Dominic's last meal, and he was ravenous. The cup felt warm in his hand, but the soup looked questionable. When he swirled the thin gray liquid, dubious brown particles stirred up from the bottom. He sniffed it. Cloyingly sweet.

"Please, please." The old man pantomimed drinking. His long yellow fingernails curled at the ends, and he grinned like a half-wit. "It's my own recipe. Hot soup. Good for the soul."

Dominic frowned at the protes in dirty aprons who were ladling the gray brew into mismatched containers. The whole operation looked unclean, so he dumped his soup on the floor.

The old man stepped back and jammed a knuckle in his mouth. His overgrown eyebrows trembled as he stared at the puddle of soup. Then he gazed up through his milky cataracts with a look so tragic, Dominic almost laughed.

But this was no time for humor. Dominic had a Net link to find. Pressure was building in his sinus cavities, and he wanted this trip to be over. Without another word, he tossed his empty cup to a worker, turned his back on the soup man and strode through the crowd, calling Qi's name. From behind a steel column, the little boy, Benito, shot him a hostile scowl.

"Do you know where my friend went?" he asked the boy.

Benito slipped around the column and hid.

Splendid, Dominic thought. I've been abandoned.

The submarine deck stretched away like a flat, dark mouth. Peering over the tops of people's heads, Dominic could see skeletal columns and beams where walls had been removed. The miners must have gutted this deck to make room for new arrivals. The ceiling was so low, he could reach up and touch it with his hand, and he had to duck under light fixtures. The low ceiling made him uneasy.

"Major Qi!" he called aloud. "Answer, blast you!"

He scanned the crowd, massaging his temples and searching for an official in charge. But this place had no leaders. Everyone looked alike—filthy, ragged and ignorant. Negotiating with this unwashed mob would be preposterous.

He had memorized the Benthica's layout, so now he oriented himself toward what he presumed was the bow. Surely he would find the access stairs to the bridge. To his right, workers were throwing up a new partition wall, so using that as a landmark, he set a course straight across the deck, through the thickest part of the noisy, milling crowd. Since he stood taller and broader than any prote, he could make his own path.

Overhead, the sodium lights popped and sputtered, drizzling a thin light. As he worked his way forward, he ran into a clutter of tables and chairs, every seat occupied by a dozing prote. People curled on the floor, slumped against the chair legs, and some even slept on the tables. Slumbering bodies covered every available surface. It annoyed Dominic to have to detour off his straight course because of these sluggards. But then he glimpsed a middle-aged woman bathing the blistered, peeling shoulders of a beautiful young girl. Skin rash! He saw a man with a fiery red face and a boy with swollen hands. These people were sick! He spun away fast and collided immediately with the old soup man.

"Good, good, I was looking for you. We need a strong back. Come, please. This way. Come, come."

Dominic exploded, "I'm not a laborer!"

He spoke much louder than he intended, and people glanced their way. When he saw the soup man's startled expression, he felt a qualm. He hadn't meant to shout at this simpleminded old fellow. He suppressed an urge to sneeze. When he craned his neck to get his bearings again, he saw three new partition walls. Which one was his landmark?

"Where's the bow?" he asked the old man.

"It isn't far. This way. This way."

The soup man clapped his hands like a delighted child and led off through the crowd, and they soon wound up back at the bathysphere dock where newcomers were lining up for soup. Dominic grabbed handfuls of his silk shorts and twisted the fabric. He was furious. He started to say something, but the old man spoke first.

"Look what Estaban brought us. Isn't it wonderful? A gift from heaven, a gift" The man fluttered his long yellow fingers at a crate Estaban was unloading from the bathysphere.

Fuming, Dominic eyed Estaban's thick muscular arms and calculated what he'd have to do to hijack the bathysphere. He had never knocked anyone unconscious before, and he wondered how it was done.

"Can you lift this?" Tooksook said. "Put it on the table, yes? And open it, please?"

Dominic started to object, but the old man was already straining to lift the heavy crate by himself, so Dominic felt obliged to help. Since they didn't have tools, he used a soup spoon to pry the lid off. The crate contained nutrient bars, chocolate-flavored, the kind that tasted like glue. Tooksook spread his fingers on his cheeks and gazed at them, and Dominic wondered how much the old fellow could really see through the milky film covering his eyes.

After a moment, the old man touched Dominic's arm. "Can you count?"

"Of course." Dominic pulled away.

"Thought so, thought so. You're an educated man. I knew it as soon as you spoke. Count and tell me how we can divide this food to feed all these people?"

Dominic would have laughed if he'd been in a better mood. "That's impossible."

"No, no, no. Not impossible. It's a matter of division." The old man pawed through the bars as if seeking a hidden treasure. "You've been to school, friend. You know how to count and divide. Tell me how many pieces to cut from each bar. Everyone gets a treat tonight. Everyone."

Dominic decided to humor the old fellow. He scanned the top layer. "I'd say this crate contains about 150 bars. How many people on board?"

The soup man picked at a scab on his ear, rolled his eyes toward the ceiling and ran a pink tongue around his lips. "Five thousand four hundred and sixty-eight. Now that you're here."

Dominic thought the fellow must be dreaming. A few days ago, there were only two thousand. "How do you know mat, old man?"

"I'm Tooksook, the greeter. Call me Tooksook. I see everyone."

"That many people wouldn't fit on this ship."

Dominic stooped till he was eye to eye with the soup man. From long practice, he knew how to read a face, although he'd never seen a face as old and wizened as Tooksook's. The man had an American look, with his mongrel mix of large flat nose, prominent cheekbones and canted eyes—eyes that might have been any color before the cataracts hazed them over. Except for the long wispy eyebrows, Tooksook was perfectly hairless. Also guileless, Dominic decided. Probably senile.

His sinuses were pounding now, and his throat was beginning to feel raw. He rubbed his stinging left eye. "How about a trade, Tooksook? I'll help you with the chocolate bars if you'll guide me to the ship's Net link. Do we have a deal?"

Tooksook stroked his cheek with a fingernail and smiled foolishly.

"You'll take me to the bridge?" Dominic watched the soup man's eyes. "Where the ship sends its broadcast, understand?"

Tooksook kept smiling and stroking his cheek. He selected a chocolate bar from the crate and pressed it into Dominic's hand. Without thinking, Dominic tore the bar from its plastic wrapper and devoured it in three bites. The soup man watched his lips till he'd swallowed the last mouthful and brushed the crumbs away. Then Tooksook kept watching Dominic's mouth, as if he expected the chocolate bar to reappear. Innocent old guy. Dominic couldn't help but smile.

"Very well, Tooksook. I'll do the math on your chocolate bars. Five thousand people, you said?"

"Five thousand four hundred and sixty-eight. Now that you're here." The old man's grin revealed an almost toothless pair of gums.

Dominic actually laughed. "I don't have my calculator. Let's just round off, shall we?" He sneezed twice, then did a rough reckoning. The simple math made his head hurt. "If you cut each bar into thirty-eight pieces, everyone gets a treat. Can you do that?"

"Each bar, thirty-eight pieces. You'll need our sharpest knife," said Tooksook.

"Not me. Find someone else to do your kitchen work." Dominic grabbed another chocolate bar from the crate and stuck it in his waistband for later. "What deck is this? No idea. Right, just point me to the stairway. You know. The stairs. The way up to the bridge."

He couldn't make the witless old fellow understand. After taking another quick survey for Major Qi, he decided to forget her. He would do a methodical perimeter search on his own. His memory of the ship's layout didn't match what he was seeing. Not only had most of the original walls been removed. He counted three separate squads of protes erecting new walls and shoring up the wide ceiling span with improvised supports. Hadn't they calculated stress loads before they ripped out the original walls? No wonder he'd gotten turned around. Worse, he was starting to feel achy all over. He'd never been ill before, and the unfamiliar sensations annoyed him. Surely if he circled the deck's perimeter, he was bound to find the access stairs.

Children wailed and jabbered. He wasn't used to their earsplitting squeals, and they made him nervous. Children never appeared in Trondheim's financial district. Executives kept their young decently out of sight. As he shoved his way through the crowd, he saw people holding hands and leaning against each other. So much fleshy contact dismayed him. When a woman stuck her bare nipple into a child's mouth, his stomach turned. What civilized person would do such a thing? It was bestial.

They don't know any better, he reminded himself. Then a momentous sneeze burst through his head, and his nostrils sprayed moisture. He was appalled. He had no handkerchief—not even a shirttail, since he'd given his shirt to the little girl. He bent double, trying to wipe his nose with the hem of his shorts, and when that didn't work, he used the back of his hand. A vision passed through his mind of white linen handkerchiefs pressed neatly in a drawer. How did protes live this way?

Resolutely, he moved clockwise along the wall, looking for an opening, a stairway, anything. But he didn't even pass a window. Nothing but solid steel. The crowd thickened, and in his congested state, he felt time clicking by. Bodies bumped against him and got in his way. Over five thousand people? He could almost believe it. As he massaged his irritated left eye, he wondered how news of so many runaways would affect the markets. Before the hour was out, he had to kill that broadcast. When he rested his forehead against the wall, though, the headache closed around his skull like a pair of forceps.

"Achew! Achew!" The sneezing spasm left him dizzy, and he wiped his nose with his hand. Forget the linen handkerchief, just give me a scrap of cloth, he thought "Achew!"

Nearby, a woman was gently working a plastic comb through her hair, and Dominic got an idea. "Pardon me," he said as he took the comb from her hand. Using its plastic teeth, he punched a hole through the hem of his silk shorts, then sawed at the fabric till it began to tear. The silk was tough, but he managed to rip a small squarish piece from the bottom of the right leg. A handkerchief! He patted his face as clean as possible and felt like a civilized man again.

Then he remembered the comb. He'd broken a third of its teeth, but it would still do well enough for this prote woman. He handed it back with a ceremonious bow. "Thank you, madam. You've saved my sanity."

The woman mutely accepted the comb in her upturned hands, and Dominic saw her face. Hollow. Deeply shadowed. Worse than gaunt. Though she'd covered herself with a plastic sheet, her collarbones stood out in stark relief from her frail throat. He looked away. Then he dropped his extra chocolate bar in her lap and moved on quickly before she could react.

That burning itch kept worrying his left eye. He dabbed it with his new handkerchief and moved around the wall, trying not to touch the greasy, sweating steel again. No door. No window. Not even a service panel. There must be an exit, he thought, or am I well and truly damned?

Overhead, the lights flickered pale pink as the electrical current slowed to a trickle'. People flowed past him with faces so much alike, they could have been one person, endlessly reflected in a chain of mirrors. He turned in circles and ground a fist in his stinging left eye socket. This was taking too much time. He felt incompetent. The blasted headache was slowing him down! Why did he keep falling short of his father's expectations? He had Richter's genes. What was he lacking? His father called him soft-headed, and maybe it was true. Right now, his brain felt like mush.

In a hazy funk, he stumbled into a chair, and the sight of a child with skin rash brought him up short. The sick people again! He'd wandered in a circle and doubled back to the very last place he wanted to be. Just the sight of the little boy's blistered arms made him queasy.

"Push!" someone shouted.

Behind a table, a young woman lay on her back with her knees in the air. Drops of sweat trickled down her skin, and she let out a low shuddering moan. A young man gently stroked her forehead and blew cool air against her cheek, while a middle-aged women knelt between her legs. By all the principles of logic, what was that old witch doing? Pawing at the girl's privates?

"Push!" the witch said. "He's coming."

Dominic saw blood on the floor. In terrible fascination, he watched the girl's vulva stretch like a dark purple mouth and spit out a white ball, sticky with blood. The witch grasped the ball and yanked, and then a whole child slithered out, steaming red and white, trailing its cord. It shrieked, and Dominic reeled away.

"Barbara, you did it," he heard the young man say. "We have a son."

At that, Dominic paused and looked back. Natural childbirth. Painful, degrading, sometimes lethal. He knew protes still practiced it, ignoring safer alternatives. As he watched the young father kiss the bloody infant, a cold shiver whipped through his chest.

The lights buzzed and popped, then went out completely. Total darkness. For a moment, a frightening hush fell as unseen pumps and blowers cut off. The only sound was nervous breathing. Seconds passed. Ten centimeters from Dominic's head, a sodium bulb flashed like lightning, and he flinched away. A second later, the light level rose to a pale flicker again, and he nearly stumbled over someone on the floor.

He had to strain to see the group of people kneeling in a circle. When he heard the soft murmurs of a chant, he grew curious. Inside their ring lay a wad of old plastic sheeting. He edged closer. Was it a primitive ritual? The object didn't resemble any religious artifact he knew. As his eyes adjusted to the gloom, he made out the rigid human form. It was a corpse! These people were worshipping a dead body. They should be calling a disposal team.

He bent for a closer look. Only once before had he seen a corpse, and now the sight of his father came back to him. The steel brace. The bruised skin. The hideous indignity of a body separated from its mind. That day in the conference room, his father's blood had pooled on the U-shaped table, and the wide-open eyes stared up at him, no longer beseeching anything. All Dominic could do was cry out helplessly, "Someone, please! Close his eyes!"

But he wasn't in the conference room now. Furiously, he tore away from the ring of mourners and grabbed for a column, which turned out to be a tall dark Ethiope man in a poncho.

"Whoa, friend. You don't look so good," the Ethiope said.

He caught Dominic under the armpits and helped him walk. As they wound through the crowd, an awful jerking spasm seized Dominic's left eye, and he couldn't make it stop. After what seemed like a death march through the milling throng, he and the Ethiope came face-to-face with old Tooksook. He was back at the bathysphere dock again! He began to feel trapped in some repeating time-loop nightmare. The soup urns still steamed, and a fresh line of haggard newcomers waited just as patiently as ever to be served. Tooksook dropped his ladle and touched Dominic's face.

"Fever. He didn't take soup. Put him here."

Dominic saw bare feet shuffling to make room as the tall man in the poncho lowered him to the floor. Tooksook ladled hot broth into his mouth.

"Swallow," said the soup man. "Mmm-mmm good."

The brew tasted sweet, and when he swallowed, it seemed to numb the pain in his throat. He knew it was unsanitary. He knew he should spit it out. But he was confused and tired, and he wanted comfort. His left eye throbbed brutally. He took another mouthful, and its warmth soothed his throat. One by one, his muscles relaxed, and his spine settled into the deck. Foreign accents babbled around him like music. He felt himself drifting.

Lovely white sparks shimmered across his field of view, and he heard a strange lulling wind. Was he dreaming, or was that noise coming from inside his eye? It swelled louder, then rose to an agonizing high-pitched screech. He couldn't move or speak. Was he asleep? Why couldn't he move? Mercifully, the sound sank to a low bass rumble. Then with startling abruptness, it transformed into a human voice.

"Hello, son."

"Father?" Dominic tried to reason. Were his eyes still closed? Wasn't his father dead? In his dreamy daze, that voice sounded so familiar. "Who are you?"

Veins of radiance shot across his vision. "Don't speak aloud, son. They may be listening. I'm in your optic nerve."

SOMETIME later, Dominic came awake coughing. How long had he slept? He rolled over and coughed steadily until he could breathe again. Then he pressed his thumbs against the aching place above his left eyebrow. His skin felt hot, and his left eye burned like gaseous plasma.

It took a moment to locate himself. He lay on the bare steel deck with his head propped against a crate that had once held chocolate bars. He couldn't begin to guess how much time had passed. Time lost meaning in this place because nothing changed. Above him, the apron-draped workers steadily filled plastic cups of soup, and the hands reaching for it made a spectrum of flesh tones from blanched yellow to deep cola brown. He glanced at his own pale skin. Dirt streaked his chest, and his hands and feet were grubby. He lifted his shoulder and discreetly sniffed his armpit. Disgusting! He smelled as bad as the protes. Gingerly, he touched the swollen flesh around his left eye. It felt glazed.

"Morning, son. I'm still here." The voice in his eye erupted as raw color.

Dominic froze.

"It's me, boy. Like I said, I'm in your optic nerve."

"NP?" Dominic tried to moisten his lips. "How?"

The voice snickered loud enough to vibrate Dominic's teeth. "Self-assembling nanoquans. I hid among the little mites in your eyelashes. Even the damned Orgs couldn't detect that!"

Dominic almost lost his grip on the floor. Nanoquans? He knew that term. Nanoquans were microscopic computer elements, part code, part artificial life-form, smart enough to replicate and link together as a quantum computer a hundred molecules in size. But—in his eye? His mind wavered around the concept. The NP hid itself in his eyelashes? This had to be some hallucination brought on by fever. He tried to stand.

"Don't worry, son. You may see a few lights, nothing catastrophic. I had to sink a tap in your optic nerve for power."

Dominic shook his head hard to clear the sound away. People moved by, faceless, fuzzy, like a bleary gray frieze carved in fog. He sneezed and wiped his nose, and for a moment, the lights dimmed almost to blackness again, then flickered and brightened.

"Was that a power failure? Son, I need an update. I've been outta touch."

You're delirious, Dominic told himself. There are no nanoquans in your eye. His brain seemed to slosh back and forth inside his skull. Maybe he'd picked up some infection from that vile soup.

With hands stretched out to feel the way, he stumbled toward what he hoped was the nearest wall. But the shocking image of nanoquans stayed with him. Infinitesimal robots, he could almost feel them itching through his optical nerve like a column of soldiers in tiny hobnailed boots. He tripped over a crate, and bright flashes shot through his left temple. As the walls spun in slow circles, he covered his swollen eye and fought for composure.

"Move your hand. I want a view," said the voice in his eye.

"You can see?" Dominic spoke in reflex, but he still didn't believe the voice was real.

"I scan and record everything you look at," the voice answered. "So turn around. Give me a 360."

Dominic tried to swallow, but his mouth was too dry. "I'm not hearing this."

"Actually, you're half right. You only think you hear me. I'm sending electrical pulses straight to your brain."

Dominic went rigid. The growl seemed to oscillate through his skull.

"Son, I'm a thousand cubic nanometers of pure standalone intelligence, and my resident memory holds all the pertinent Benthica files. I'll be with you every minute, just like I promised. Think of me as your internal guidance system."

"Leave me alone!" Dominic said.

"Keep your voice down. I told you, somebody might hear. That bastard Gig, for instance."

Dominic shouted at the top of his voice, "GET OUT OF MY HEAD!"

"Quiet! It's a temporary fix. When our business is over, my little quans'll disintegrate like they were never there."

Dominic wanted to tear his eye out. That voice, that perfect imitation of his father, it was too real to ignore. Even the snickering laugh sounded just like Richter. "If you're really there, call the guards and get me out of this place!"

"It's not that simple," the NP said. "I'm not my whole self. I'm a partial backup. You know, an agent program. Sorry to say, I'm not linked to the Net."

Tears streamed from Dominic's left eye as he tried to make sense of the words. "Partial backup? You can't call the guards?"

"You got it, son. But rest assured, my greater self is searching for you everywhere."

"You're not linked to the Net?"

Pinpoints of white light flashed briefly across his retina as the voice laughed. "Yeah, but you know me. I always plan for contingencies. Just find the Net link, and I'll transmit our location. After that, you'll smash it, and we're home free."

"Guide me there now," Dominic said in a low, dangerous whisper. He felt nauseous. The NP had actually planted a copy of itself in his eye. It was grotesque.

"Okay, son. Orient me. What deck are we on? Port or starboard? Bow or stern? Give me a point of reference."

"You can't tell the bow from the stern? What good are you? I didn't agree to this—monstrous invasion. This is— illegal."

"Son, don't speak aloud. Just form the words in the back of your throat. You know, articulate subvocally. I can sense your muscle movements. I'll hear you, but other people won't."

Dominic curled his fingernails into his palms. "As soon as we get back to Trondheim, I'll have you surgically removed."

"Sure, son. First, find the Net Link."

Dominic literally gripped his short hair by the roots. When he let go, he felt better. He chewed the inside of his cheek and tried to think. A nano-sized NP was living in his eye. Right. He had to stay very severely composed in order to deal with this new information. He drew a deep, calming breath, then stood up and stretched till his vertebrae popped. Next, he scrubbed his face with his bare hands. Finally, he smoothed his hair, brushed dirt from his silk shorts, and knotted the drawstring tighter around his empty stomach. He was ready. He could do this.

"Talk to me, son. My only interface is live chat."

"Don't start the father-son business." Dominic shouldered his way to the wall.

"I dote on you, boy. I remember every day of your life. Who knows you better than me?"

Ignoring the voice, Dominic studied the solid steel. He was more desperate than ever to find the way out, but all he encountered were welded seams and layers of thick gray paint. Still no opening.

Not far away, he noticed women sorting a pile of rags. It was almost comical how much pleasure that sight brought him. He had to smile at the irony as he reached his long arm between their bodies and clutched a few pieces, whatever was closest. He got fraying orange polyester, a strip of white plasticene and one square meter of textrose, stained an uneven dirty gray. First, he used the polyester to thoroughly blow and wipe his nose. Then he tore the other rags with his teeth, ripped them into strips, and sat on the deck to wind them around his bare feet. His new footwear made a poor fit, but it was better than nothing.

"Richter left us here for a reason," the NP ranted.

'To make ZahlenBank richer." Dominic got up and started moving clockwise around the wall again.

'To keep the markets alive, boy. The markets feed everyone."

Dominic sidestepped along the wall, sliding his hands over the steel to search for hidden switches or concealed sliding panels. He didn't want to think about his father just then. He didn't want to remember their last bitter year, the tedious quarrels over deals. Money. Always how much money. Every argument seemed so crucial. Now, what did it matter? The only thing he cared about was finding that stairway up to the bridge.

"According to my sensors, that's an exterior wall you're fondling," the genie announced. "Nothing on the other side but ocean. You won't find a door."

Dominic pressed his aching temples. "You're saying the perimeter search is futile."

"Big news. What is this, your third time around?"

Dominic stood on tiptoes to see across the dim, muggy deck. He could make out several new partition walls, but if this deck had a stairway, it was invisible. Protes squeezed against him on every side, and when he elbowed their bodies away, they ricocheted right back. The heat. The stink. What was he doing in this place?

'To hell with it. I'll hijack that bathysphere and get out," he said.

"You can't leave!" The NP's voice radiated through his eye like a solar flare. "You have to find the Net link!"

Dominic tried to shove his way back toward the bathysphere dock, but the crowd had a natural spiraling current that pulled him along with its own gravity. He tried to fight it, but the mob had grown too thick. Its circling tide carried him around like a piece of lightweight flotsam. Finally, he gave up resisting, and in no time, the crowd's random orbit brought him to the brink of a wide stairwell opening down into the floor. This was so unexpected, he almost tripped and fell in. How had he missed the opening before? Bewildered, he peered down into the lighted steel shaft, where a young woman sat on the stairs, humming a tune and braiding her blue-black hair.

She glanced up and winked. "Hi ya, Nick-O."

CHAPTER 7
COST OF LIVING

"YOU finally showed up. I've been waiting all morning." Qi lounged on the steep, ladderlike stairs with one ankle crossed over the other, flashing her merry smile. With her hair pulled back in a short untidy braid, the dark, slanting planes of her cheeks stood out, and Dominic thought she looked more alien than ever.

"Who is this person?" the NP demanded. "My files need an update."

Beside Qi sat two uniformed protes, and they were laughing together as if they'd just shared a joke.

Dominic bellowed, "Major, you deserted me!"

Her two friends glanced up. One was a pasty, red-haired man of Euro descent. He stared just past Dominic's head and wouldn't make eye contact. The other was a small, sallow Asian woman with stooped shoulders and a sad, plain face. She was not especially remarkable—yet something about her eyes caught Dominic's attention. She seemed familiar. Had he met her before? He couldn't look away from her. Qi whispered a few words, and the two protes hurried away down the ladder.

Then Qi climbed up a couple rungs to meet him. "Nick-O, remember our cover story. Better not call me major."

He scowled. "Who was that Asian woman? I've seen her before."

"Ane Zaki? She was born on this ship. Maybe you saw her photo in a file."

Ane Zaki. He turned the name over in his mind. After a moment, he said, "I'm not in the habit of studying prote files," just as the NP said, "I don't clutter my memory with prote files."

Qi pinched his arm and shushed him. "Don't say 'prote'! These people consider it a slur. I mean it, Nick. Don't use that word again."

With some difficulty, he shook off her grip. "I demand to see the captain. Take me to the bridge."

Almost simultaneously, the NP said, "The Net link should be on the bridge."

Dominic clenched his teeth, then tried making silent words with his throat muscles. The subvocalizing was easier than he expected. "NP, we need a better working arrangement."

"Anything, son. I'm here to help."

Dominic bit the inside of his cheek. Then he drew a calming breath and subvocalized, "You'll be more helpful if you speak only when I ask a specific question. Agreed?"

"If you think that's best." The NP sounded miffed.

Dominic spoke aloud to Major Qi. "I'm here to negotiate, and you're here to guide, correct? So guide me to the bridge."

"Put this on." Qi tossed him a smelly pullover tee shirt laced with holes.

He held the thing at arm's length. "You expect me to wear this."

"C'mon, Nicky. Unbend. You need a shirt to meet the captain."

"I didn't realize the Benthica had a dress code." He held the rag at arm's length.

Qi raised an eyebrow. "The Pressure of Light. Remember that."

She seemed less playful now, and that suited Dominic fine. With only a slight widening of nostrils, he pulled on the grubby shirt. It was too small, and it bound under his armpits, so he flexed his muscles and ripped a few more holes.

Counter to all logic, Qi said the captain was stationed belowdecks, so they had to go down, not up. Another annoying delay. But the captain would be a key information source, and with better information, Dominic could finish his job much faster. So he backed down the ladder, holding the grimy rungs with both hands.

The vertical steel shaft smelled of fungus and paint. Two ladders ran down it, and the space between them was so narrow that Dominic couldn't help but rub against protes on the other ladder. At each deck, a catwalk attached the ladders to a bulkhead door. Two landings down, Qi stopped at one of the catwalks and led him through the bulkhead into a passage so congested, they had to walk sideways. He glimpsed a man shaving pale stripes in a woman's eyebrows and a young girl making music by rubbing the rims of glass jars. Juveniles were scratching designs in the wall paint, but he didn't have time to see much because Qi moved fast. She took three left turns, then a right—he memorized the route. No way was he going to forget how to find that bathysphere. It was still his surest hope of escape.

'Tell me about this captain," he said, following on her heels. "Does he have authority to negotiate?"

"She will give us five minutes, as a favor. Her name's Gervasia. I figured you would wanna meet her."

Dominic subvocalized, "NP, do you have anything on Captain Gervasia?"

"She's not the captain. She's a prote. Like I said before, I didn't clutter my memory with prote files. I'm nano-sized. I can't exactly store the entire Ark inside your eye."

An old couple was bending over a smoking brazier, toasting a piece of seaweed, and Dominic started to say something. Open fire shouldn't be allowed on a submarine. But what was the use? This ship had no execs to enforce order.

Qi's braid swung between her shoulder blades as she walked. He spoke to her back. "Your Org bosses didn't give me much of a briefing. What are the miners' demands?"

"Nick, I don't know anything more than you."

"Right. Splendid arrangement."

Dominic kept himself in shape at his gym—every exec did—but he wasn't used to walking in shoes made of rags, stepping over sleeping bodies and climbing down ladders. His sinus pain was clearing up, but he still had a nasal drip, and he'd lost the silk scrap he called a handkerchief.

"Major, I need an antiviral tab," he said.

"Just Qi. Get it straight, Nick." She fished the tab from a pocket in her uniform. "This is the last one I have. You decide when to take it." She put it in his palm and curled his fingers around it. Dominic immediately popped it into his mouth.

They found the captain sitting alone in a cramped workstation, dictating an entry into her log. Her desk faced a broad round window looking out on the seafloor, but the view was blocked by a solid wall of underwater debris pressing against the glass from outside. When the captain glanced up, Dominic drew a quick breath. Captain Gervasia was stunning. A willowy blonde with round blue eyes, just the feminine type he preferred. Unconsciously, he straightened his shoulders and thrust his chest out. The woman frowned.

"You asked to see me. I can't believe anyone asked to see me. I'm the captain, you understand? The captain of a ship that doesn't go anywhere. Never will go anywhere. We're sunk to our eyelids in a garbage dump. See here, look at these controls. I'm a genius with these controls. I can put this tub through a needle's eye. I can stand it on its nose and spin a pirouette." She slapped the controls with her palm. "They're frozen. Locked down till the next ice age. So what did you want to see me about?"

Her complaint caught Dominic by surprise, but he decided the arrogant tone suited a captain. When he tried to see what she was writing, she immediately blanked her screen and glared at him. She intrigued him.

The major spoke up. "Captain Gervasia, my name is Qi, and this is my friend, Nick. We're new."

"New. Everyone's new. The whole world is new. What am I supposed to do about it?"

Dominic didn't like her self-important whine. Still, he sat on the edge of her desk and crossed his arms to show off his biceps. "Gervasia. That's a lovely name. Belgian, isn't it?"

It was Gervasia's turn to show surprise. "You've heard of Belgium?"

"Who could forget that beautiful coastline? My people came from Holland." He tilted his head with a wistful, faraway air.

Qi snorted, literally snorted through her nose. Sometimes Dominic didn't know what to make of the major's mood shifts.

"That's my boy! Pour on the charm," said the NP. "Schmooze this bogus captain and make her talk about the Net link."

"My family lived in Brussels," Gervasia said, "before it sank in the English Sea. The floods took everything good in Euro. Only trash floats to the top." She leaned back in her chair and rested her knee against the desk. Her downy face would have been perfect, except for the glum way she stuck out her lower lip.

Dominic slid closer. Dare he take her hand? She might be offended if he moved too fast. "I know how you feel, Gervasia. People like us, we appreciate the past."

"My town is fifty meters underwater now," she said.

"It's a tragedy." Dominic lowered his eyes with a grief so sincere, he almost believed it himself.

Gervasia lifted her proud chin and nodded.

Very slightly, he leaned toward her, angling his face so his wide, sea-colored eyes caught the light. His hand crept along the desk and stopped just short of her fingertips. "Gervasia. Is that the name of a flower?"

Qi plunked herself between them and sat on his hand. When he jerked back, she grinned wickedly. Then she turned to Gervasia. "Captain, we saw divers with welding torches. What are you building?"

Gervasia's exquisite mouth twisted out of shape. "Paradise in a pile of trash. It's the council's ego. They're erecting a monument to their stupidity. I tell them we need to run, and they sink us so deep we'll never move again. We're a target. Dead in the water. Who listens to me?""

Dominic motioned Qi out of his way, but she ignored him and stayed put. He craned around her and spoke to Gervasia. "This council, they sound like amateurs."

Gervasia threw her head back. "Our gallant governing body. You should run for office."

"Get her to talk about the Net link," the NP purred.

Dominic's jaw muscle quivered. The NP was proving a supreme annoyance. He had to consciously relax and breathe through his nose. Then he squeezed Qi's upper arm, hard enough to make his point, and glibly shoved her away.

"At least your broadcast can't be traced, Gervasia. That signal disguise is ingenious. I have a communications background myself. Maybe you could show me the Net link."

"Oh hallelujah, our marvelous Net link." Gervasia tilted her chair back on two legs and rocked. "The council moves it every day, as if that makes any difference."

At that moment, the lights switched off, and more alarming, the air exchangers shut down. Darkness. Total silence. Dominic felt a jolt of hard fear. He whispered, "Did life support just go off-line?" Before anyone could answer, the power sputtered back on.

"Brownout." Gervasia shrugged. "Second one tonight."

Dominic realized he had a death grip on Gervasia's hand. Slowly, he relaxed his hold. "Sorry."

She arched one eyebrow and smiled.

"She's fallin' for you, boy." The NP snickered. "Ask for a private tour of the Net link."

Qi stomped Dominic's foot and shouldered between them again. "Gervasia, you must be running out of fuel. What does your council say about that?"

Gervasia rocked her chair forward, slumped over the desk and stuck out her lip. "They believe in manna from heaven."

"A man from heaven?" Dominic frowned. "I don't understand the phrase."

She gave him a glum look. "It's some old legend about breakfast cereal drifting down from the sky."

Prote legends were always absurd. Dominic never wasted time with them. He poked Qi in the ribs and made her move out of his way again. Then he took Gervasia's hand. She was clearly upset. She kept working her mouth back and forth in a chewing motion, which was not very attractive.

"Nick—is that your name?" she asked.

He nodded.

"Nick, the truth is, I don't know what to do. We're running out of everything. So many new people arrive every hour. We didn't expect this. We don't have a plan."

"You could stop the broadcast," he said on impulse.

She gazed at her cabin's single window, its view blocked by underwater trash. "That's not up to me."

Dominic gently stroked the back of her hand and studied the shape of her mouth. Why did she have to move her lower lip that way? She should look in a mirror.

Abruptly, she gripped his forearm. "Help us, Nick."

He blinked and tried to calculate an answer.

She leaned toward him. "You look strong'. Maybe you could help the mining crews in the tunnels."

Dominic almost laughed. That was one request he hadn't expected.

"But you're educated, too," she went on. "I hear the way you talk. Do you know anything about medicine? Or engineering? Whatever you can do, we need you. So much is at stake. Find your place, Nick, and help us. Will you do it? Promise me."

Gervasia's lovely blue eyes searched his face, and he had no choice but to answer, "Yes. I will."

She gave his forearm another firm squeeze and let go. Then she dropped her chin and gazed dejectedly at her computer screen. She was captain of a catastrophe, he thought to himself. As he glanced around her dusty, cluttered workstation, he realized she used to be master here, before the council locked down her controls and buried her. Now her seafaring skills were wasted, while this amateur council gave her impossible tasks. No wonder her beautiful lips twisted out of shape.

Just as he was reflecting on her plight, the NP said, "She's ripe for a bribe."

"Quiet," he subvocalized. Gervasia's situation absorbed him. He asked her, "Why don't you leave?"

She grunted. "Desert the cause? Don't think I haven't fantasized."

"You could go where your work is valued," he said. "Any well-managed Com—"

"Com!" She glanced up sharply, and her beautiful eyebrows gathered in angry knots. "I've had enough of being valued."

"Forgive me, I—"

Gervasia pounded the arm of her chair. "First Nord.Com. Then ZahlenBank. No Com slaver puts a price tag on me again!" Red blotches colored her cheeks as she swiveled her chair away.

Dominic bit his lip. Faux pas. He shouldn't have mentioned a Com. Dealing with protes was trickier than he expected. He stood behind her chair, rested his hands on her shoulders, and with his short thick fingers, began to knead the muscles in her neck. She sniffed. He wondered what she meant by this "price tag" nonsense. With her skills, she could transfer to a prosperous Com and earn high wages. She didn't have to settle for this. "Really, why do you stay?" he asked with genuine curiosity.

After a while, she said, "It's my duty."

"But you're not bound by duty. Protes transfer all the time," he said without thinking.

Gervasia whirled her chair so fast, she nearly threw Dominic off balance. "What did you call me?"

He stepped back and stammered something incoherent.

"I think you'd better leave," she said.

Qi said, "Thank you, Captain. We're going." She grabbed Dominic's and moved toward the passage.

The digital genie rumbled inside his eye, "Don't forget the Net link! Ask her where it is!"

Dominic shook off Qi's hand and turned back. "Forgive me, Captain. I honestly didn't mean to insult you. I only meant—"

"Offer her a kickback," the NP said.

The genie's intrusions infuriated him. With some reluctance, he asked, "Can you at least tell me where I can find the Net link?"

Gervasia arched one eyebrow. "Why do you want the Net link?"

But before he could speak, she rose from her chair. "You look familiar. Have I seen your face on the Net?"

Qi jerked him out into the passage and shoved him ahead of her.

"Come back," Gervasia called. "What's your name?"

"Move!" Qi pushed him forward and followed on his heels. "You handled that beautifully. Preter-smooth negotiator, you are. I see why Gig wanted you on this mission."

"The woman's bribable," the NP said. "Go back. She's disgruntled. We can buy her."

Qi raced ahead, while Dominic followed sullenly, and people in the corridor drew out of their way. They retraced their steps back to the stairwell, but instead of the ladder leading up, they found a squad of workers erecting a new partition wall.

"Sorry, this way's closed," one of the women said. "Floor fell through from above. Too much weight, I guess. You have to detour."

"Which way?" Qi asked.

"Which way to the Net link?" said Dominic.

The woman was grappling with a heavy steel panel and didn't have time to talk. One of the other workers grunted, "Go around."

Their only choice was to follow the traffic in the corridor. After wandering for several minutes, they found another ladder shaft, but it went down, not up.

Dominic stopped someone' in the corridor and asked, "Which way up to the bridge?"

The man released Dominic's hold on his arm and pointed down the ladder shaft. "This is the only way, man."

When Qi started down the ladder, all Dominic could do was follow. In his eye, the NP complained that they should be climbing, not descending, the Net link would be on the highest deck.

"Enough!" Dominic subvocalized. "Be quiet and let me think."

If anything, this ladder shaft was even more crowded. People stood on the rungs talking, and Dominic had to squeeze by. One landing down, they ducked through a bulkhead and wandered what seemed like half a kilometer through passages crammed full of protes. A left turn, two rights, another left, he tried to memorize the way, but he kept bumping his elbows on the narrow bulkhead openings. He dreaded losing track of that bathysphere.

"I trust you're recording this route?" he subvocalized.

"Every millimeter," said the voice in his eye, "but it's useless without a reference point. Ask someone what deck this is."

About then, Qi stopped to rest. Dominic slumped to the floor beside her and sneezed. Since he'd lost his scrap of silk, he had to wipe his nose with his filthy shirttail. Qi slid down beside him.

"Gervasia," she mimicked. "What a lovely name. Hoo-hoo, we like Gervasia, don't we?" Her mischievous mood had returned.

He sat up and smoothed his short stiff hair. "Are you jealous?"

"Jealous over a coin machine?" She shoved him playfully, but rather hard.

His scraped knee was bothering him, so he examined the black crusty scab. Somehow he'd knocked it loose chasing the major. The rags around his feet had begun to unravel, so he retied them. Then he checked his hands and arms for skin rash. No sign of it. Good.

"Ask what deck this is," the NP said again.

"Major, where are we in the ship exactly?" he asked.

Qi shrugged. "It all looks the same to me."

"That's just splendid," said the genie. "Ask someone else."

Farther down the passage, a trio of old men were sharing a pipe and stinking up the air with their ersatz marijuana. In the other direction, a woman was weaving a mesh bag out of plastic cord while two small children played at her feet. A younger woman was braiding beads into her hair. He saw nests built out of crates and rags. People lived here. They seemed to be well settled in.

Qi went on mocking him. "Pretty Gervasia, is that a flower name?"

Dominic drew a little closer to her and whispered, "The truth is, I pity Gervasia. A captain on a ship that won't move. That's sad." He spread his fingers and marveled at his chipped, blackened fingernails. "This whole situation is misguided. These protes need their execs to put things in order."

"Their Com slavers, you mean?"

"No, I don't mean slavers." Dominic shifted to face her. "I mean skilled execs trained in resource management. You know what I mean."

"Do I?"

Dominic scowled. "Protected employees are certainly not slaves. They have lifetime job security, subsidized food and housing. That's what the agitators demanded. Management made killer concessions to keep the workers happy, and every prote signs a contract at age thirteen. Nobody's forced to sign."

Qi pursed her lips as if tasting something sour. The way she looked at him, he began to wonder if he needed to wipe his nose again.

"Major, why are you picking an argument with me? You're an exec yourself," he said.

She tugged the rubber band off of her short braid and shook her hair free. Dominic watched her and waited, but she didn't answer his question. She seemed thoughtful. As she twiddled the rubber band between her fingers, he examined the sweep of her ebony cheek. Usually he could read people, but this exotic spook had him mystified.

"Nicky, tell me why you keep asking about that Net link," she said. "You're here to negotiate, or has our mission changed?"

Impulsively, he invented a righteous-sounding lie. "I don't know your agenda, Major Qi, but mine is to bring these employees back under Com protection. I intend to find them jobs."

"Aren't you the one who set them free?"

Dominic opened his mouth, but Qi kept talking. "Play noble if you like. You don't care if they suffocate in the dark, as long as they do it quietly. You're here because they're making noise."

Dominic restrained his urge to argue. He could defend the value of stable markets for hours, but at the moment, the thought of it wearied him beyond words. "I made a mistake," he said. "I'm here to fix it."

"What mistake, Nick?"

Why did she insist on mocking him? Every news page on the Net had reported his stupid blunder, and the WTO lawsuit accused him by name. Did she enjoy rubbing salt in his wound? He didn't understand her at all. Without another word, she lay down on the floor, closed her eyes and—to his utter consternation—fell asleep.

"That broadcast is still going out, or did you forget." The NP's words made a gnashing sound deep inside his eye. "Every minute it lasts, the markets get more nervous, and the Orgs' case against our bank gets stronger. How long are you gonna sit there?"

"My guide is resting," Dominic subvocalized. "It's a physical thing. Not in your database."

Qi's chest rose and fell in rhythmic breathing. She didn't deserve to sleep that well. Leaning over her, he delicately drew a strand of hair away from her ear. There was her implant. It made a purple square just under her dark satiny skin. If he could get her implant, he could link to the Net and give ZahlenBank his location. But how could he remove it—with his fingernails? Maybe he could hold her down and bite it out. The idea appealed to him.

"Her implant won't help," the genie's voice intruded. "I've already scanned it. The chip's hard-coded to that bastard Gig. You have to find the ship's Net link."

Dominic pinched the bridge of his nose. If only he had relocated the miners in the first place instead of giving them this ship! He should have bribed some Pac-Rim operation to take the crew and dependents. ZahlenBank would have lost a couple million deutschdollars. What was that— a month's salary? He should have paid it out of his own pocket! He hunched over and held his head between his hands. Even now he could still see his father's look of approval when he suggested the spin-off. The last proud look his father would ever give him.

His stomach growled. He tugged at the ragged shirt Qi had given him and tore off a scrap to wipe his dripping nose. Gervasia said they moved the Net link every day. What if he couldn't find it? Maybe persuading the miners to give themselves up would be easier. Could he do that? Negotiate with illiterate protes?

"I'll be damned if I'll bargain with protes," the NP said, as if reading Dominic's mind.

"Why rule out options?" Dominic said. "Maybe I could talk them into—"

"Son, where did you get that soft-headed streak? You didn't inherit it from me!"

Dominic suppressed his impulse to react. When Qi rolled onto her side, he noticed how her hip curved up from the graceful saddle of her waist. What am I doing here, he asked himself. I'm a banker!

Sometime later, she nudged him awake. When he sat up and rubbed his eyes, she leaned against him and laced her fingers through his. He felt as if he'd been drugged.

"Nick, do me a favor. Look at that wall, and tell me if you see black spots in your vision."

He blinked in bewilderment, then looked at the wall. "Spots, no. But. . ."

"Tunnel vision?" she asked.

"Now that you mention it, yes."

"Me too. This air doesn't have enough oxygen."

"Good God!" Dominic sprang to his feet. He staggered with weakness, and that frightened him more. "Let's get out of here!"

"Where do you suggest we go?" Qi asked calmly.

He spoke on impulse. "Back to the bathysphere."

"Hoo-hoo. The bathysphere. You expect that little shuttle can rescue five thousand people?"

Dominic hauled Qi to her feet. "It's not a joke, Major. We could die."

She said, "I think you're getting the picture, Nick."

CHAPTER 8
SUPPLY AND DEMAND

"UP. We have to climb," said Dominic.

"Nope, down. Trust me, Nick."

"She's a bloody liar!" the NP shrieked inside his eye.

Qi was already descending a ladder in yet another crowded steel tube, and Dominic could see her blue-black hair swinging through the rungs below. He thought of the bathysphere, docked at least five decks above his head, and the Net link located somewhere above that. But he had no idea how to find a ladder leading up.

"The Net link has to be on the bridge!" he shouted over the hubbub.

"What's your obsession with the Net link?" she called back. "We have to see why the oxygen's out of kilter."

"This is a distraction," Dominic and the NP said in unison.

Then Dominic subvocalized, "I've had enough of this echo effect."

"Okay, okay, consider me muted," the NP said.

Qi had already disappeared in the shadowy press of bodies. This tube held three ladders, with barely enough room for people to squirm past each other. As Dominic started down, someone kneed him in the back. He didn't relish being left alone among all these protes. "Major, wait for me!"

Thick curls of paint crumbled off the metal rungs and stuck to his hands. When he swung out to let some rowdy juveniles pass, his bare leg brushed against the wet, corroded wall. "Delightful," he said through clenched teeth. Everything looked grainy, like a low-resolution video.

"Your tunnel vision's getting worse," the NP said.

"Thanks for the news flash."

"Be snide if you like. I'm sampling the air, and I read a 12 percent oxygen deficit. This spy girl's delaying you on purpose. What can a banker do about the oxygen level?"

"I assume you have her profile in that famous quantronic memory of yours."

The NP chuckled. "If you ask me, her file's been doctored. Parents allegedly dead. She signed up with the Orgs at age nine, and the WTO locked her file on grounds of security. Ha!"

"Thin." Dominic thought about this information as he climbed down the ladder. "She joined the Orgs when she was nine?"

"Ask someone for directions to the upper deck," the NP said. "Don't follow her down. She's tricking you."

Dominic glanced up the ladder shaft, and for an instant, he thought he saw someone watching him. A dwarfish face with beady black eyes. He squinted for a better view, but the face vanished in the crowd. Had he imagined it? Mucus streamed from his nose, and he began to cough. On top of everything, his head cold was the crowning insult. His foot slipped off the rung, and he plummeted, but fortunately, the landing was just below.

Qi helped steady him. "You okay?"

"Splendid."

He pressed one hand against the ladder and peered into the shadows above. No dwarfish face. No one in the crowd paid him any special attention. It must have been his nerves. Another coughing jag seized him, and he bent over.

Qi had given him that last antiviral tab maybe an hour ago, but its effect was already wearing off. He wanted a drink of water. Or a nice hot cup of caffie with thick foamy creamer and a dusting of spice. And a scone, yes, with bitter black choco chips. How long had they been on this hellish submarine? He'd completely lost track of time.

Slowly the lights flickered back to normal, and as soon as Dominic got his cough under control, he laid his hands on Qi's shoulders and looked her in the eyes. "Let's remember why we're here, Major. The miners' broadcast disturbs the markets, so we have to stop it. Because the markets feed everyone."

He felt odd echoing the NP's words. After a beat, he continued, "We don't have time to deal with the ship's infrastructure. Now be a good girl and help me find that Net link."

"For the last time, don't call me major." Qi wet her fingers in her mouth and scrubbed his chin. "Yuck, Nick-O, you're a mess. Be reasonable. We need time to figure out the politics here so we can negotiate. That's our mission, right? To negotiate?" She leaned her weight against him and grinned. "Am I right?"

When Dominic didn't answer, she went on. "The sensible thing is to boost the oxygen level if we can—so we'll survive long enough to accomplish our mission. Now be a good boy and nod if you agree."

"Forget her, Dominic. I'll guide you to that Net link. Climb that ladder, boy."

Dominic ground his molars with an audible crunch. The idea of a pint-sized computer ordering him around made him want to smash his fist through a wall. He was no flunky. He was Dominic Jedes, president of ZahlenBank. He would decide when to break with Major Qi, and this wasn't the time. He wanted to figure out her game.

Qi grinned wider. "I see we're in perfect accord."

The ship's respirator was two levels farther down the ladder, and Dominic gripped the flaking metal rungs till his breath came in shallow gasps and his knees felt ready to buckle. Worse, he could barely see. Either the lights were actually dimmer, or oxygen deprivation was clouding his vision. The walls were sweating, yet he found himself shaking with cold. The good news was, his nose was so clogged that he couldn't smell.

Negotiation. His mind still churned over the idea. Why did the Orgs want him to negotiate instead of simply seizing the ship? Qi could have led an army of cops here the first day. The Orgs could have arrested these rebels, and the markets wouldn't have skipped a beat. Instead, they seemed to be shielding the miners and making the crisis worse. What was their angle?

"You can bet they have an angle," the NP said. "It's some new plot to split up ZahlenBank."

Dominic gripped the ladder in his fists. "Your blasted nanoquans are reading my thoughts!"

"That would be a sweet trick." The NP laughed. "No, son, I'm not psychic. We just think alike. That's what makes us ideal partners."

We don't think alike, Dominic wanted to roar. I'm human, and you're a set of algorithms. When he tried to sub-vocalize, phlegm clotted his throat, and he coughed.

"You okay?" Qi called out.

He backed doggedly down the ladder and said, "Are we there yet?"

Qi kept descending, and Dominic followed. Once again, he sensed someone watching him, and he caught a pair of eyes shining in the dim light above him, a thin face vanishing in the crowd. But it might have been his headache. His cold was merciless.

"Over five thousand runaways," he subvocalized. "How did they escape our surveillance?"

"They had help," said the NP. "The Orgs are using them to get at us."

Dominic agreed, but he refused to second any idea from the genie. He wiped sweat from his forehead. Maybe the Orgs wanted him to die on this submarine—their weird sense of justice.

"You can still back-trace my route to that bathysphere?" he subvocalized.

"You keep harping on that. Trust me, son, you won't need the bathysphere."

A moment later, a swarm of insects flew into Dominic's face, and when he tried to bat them away, they weren't there. Just imaginary black spots in his vision.

"Steady, boy. The oxygen's dropped to a 14 percent deficit."

Dominic hugged the ladder and drew several deep breaths to clear his head. His heart thumped violently. He didn't want to suffocate in this stinking metal coffin. Finally, he said, 'Take me back to the bathysphere. Once the air goes bad, that broadcast won't last long."

Light strobed through his eye. "Long enough to screw us! Every second that message goes out, more evidence piles up against ZahlenBank. Do you want the Orgs to win?'

Dominic scrubbed his left eye with his fist. The flash left a bright orange afterimage on his retina.

The NP continued, "I'll lay odds those prote leaders have a private stash of air, and they'll hole up and keep broadcasting till they've totally fucked us."

"Why aren't they already dead?" Dominic asked. "You're the genius. Give me some answers."

The NP's voice dropped a level. "My greater self probably knows by now. I'm an abridged version, remember?"

Again, Dominic silently cursed the major for destroying all his Net nodes. This genie in his eye was useless. Perhaps the markets had already crashed. He'd give a fortune for a market report.

"I'd give a billion bucks for a market report," the NP said.

Far below, Qi's laughter echoed like distant, lively music. "Nick, I think we're there."

He sneezed and rubbed his nose on his grimy shirttail. On the landing below, Qi was strong-arming the door lever, and when it popped open, he heard the waffling whir of the submarine's respirator pumps. At least the electricity was still on. Qi made a funny face and beckoned him with a sweep of her arm. His curiosity was aroused. Might as well find out why she'd brought him here. He jumped heavily down to the landing and followed her in.

Dominic had a vague theoretical notion about how a ship's respirator worked. He knew electricity was involved. Pumps sucked murky ocean fluid into a reservoir, where it was sterilized with ozone. Then by some electrochemical process, the fluid was made to decompose into its various components, breathable oxygen, heavy and light minerals, organic compounds, toxic waste and a limited amount of pure H2O. The ship probably used most of these materials one way or another. As for the oxygen, it was added to freshen up the recycled air supply. Most respirator systems also included microfilters and caustic soda chambers to clear the air of infectious agents and carbon dioxide— when the equipment worked properly.

The respiration process was energy-intensive, and as Dominic studied the tangle of pipes and cables and shuddering pumps, his curiosity mounted. The miners hadn't received fuel in weeks. No wonder they were experiencing brownouts. He couldn't conceive how they kept the respirator working at all.

Just then he swayed, and the room went black again. He sagged against a column and hugged it with both arms and pressed his forehead to the wet steel.

"Dominic!" The NP sounded frantic. "This isn't a power outage. You're losing consciousness. Fight it, boy. My own dear boy, fight it!"

Dominic didn't want to faint. He could hear the major bounding ahead with her usual lanky energy, and he didn't want to appear weak in front of her. So he bent over and put his head between his knees and waited for the dizziness to pass.

"Deep, slow breaths," the NP urged.

Slowly, his vision returned. When he could stand again, he staggered closer to the machinery and pretended to be studying the layout. The pipes were rusty, and fluids pooled on the floor under dripping leaks. He rubbed his bleary eyes with his knuckles. The sheathing on the electrical cables had cracked and deteriorated, leaving long stretches of bare copper wire. This tech was worse than obsolete.

"Qi, I expected you earlier. Is that the banker? Tell him not to touch anything."

Dominic squinted to see who had spoken. Red hair. Freckles. He recognized the pasty face. The man standing beside Qi was one of the two uniformed protes she'd been talking to earlier. Dominic wondered if that small Asian woman was there, too, the one who'd seemed so familiar. He stumbled forward, and the nearer he came, the uglier the red-haired man appeared. His frizzy mane was cut square above (he ears like a hedge, and sickly freckles spotted his cheeks. For a mouth, he had a straight white slit with no sign of lip. The oddest thing, though, was the glass-and-steel contraption he wore balanced on his nose.

Spectacles, Dominic recalled the archaic word. The man had made himself a pair of spectacles to correct his vision. The two glass lenses were so etched with scars, they obscured his eyes, and the wire framework showed many twists and kinks. Still, the apparatus clung to the man's face as if it belonged there.

Dominic's mind was fuzzy. He stared at the spectacles and subvocalized, "Why didn't this man have vision surgery?"

"Not covered by prote medical plans," the NP answered.

"Right," he said aloud. For the first time, it struck Dominic that a large fraction of workers must have poor eyesight. No wonder so many of them couldn't read. He'd always puzzled over that.

"We've talked about this before," the NP went on. "You know our system can't afford med care for 12 billion people. We have to concentrate resources where they'll do the most good."

"Among the execs," Dominic finished the sentence. He pictured Tooksook's milky corneas and thought about the simple procedure to remove cataracts.

"Don't go soft, boy," the NP warned.

About then, Dominic's knees buckled, and he sat down— whomp!—on the scummy steel deck.

"Nick, you're green." Qi hurried over and knelt beside him. She grabbed his ears and turned his face toward the overhead light tubes. "Millard, he's gonna faint again. You have to do something."

The red-haired Millard twirled an old-fashioned writing instrument between his fingers and seemed to weigh the evidence. "Oh, very well."

Millard crossed to a control board in short, mincing steps, and Dominic saw him adjust a dial. After that,' the room went very black.

"Nicky. Nick-O."

He came awake with a gasp. Qi had snapped a vial of ammonium carbonate under his nose. He was still in the respirator room, still sitting on the floor—in a puddle, he noticed, of nasty blue oil. The red-haired Millard still stood at the control board twirling his pen and playing with dials. Only a minute could have passed.

"This is imprudent." Millard tapped his writing instrument viciously against his pant leg. "I've said it once. I won't repeat myself."

"Yes, Millard. I hear you." Qi bathed Dominic's face with a damp gauze pad. It felt like heaven. Dominic didn't think to ask where she'd found it. When she offered him a sack of water, he seized it and gulped. She said, "Do you feel better? There's more oxygen in the air now. Take a deep breath."

As she helped him stand, he tottered and clutched her arm before finding his balance. The room had grown lighter, and he could see more clearly. He sneezed twice and gestured for the gauze pad, which Qi promptly handed over.

She said, "Nick, I'd like you to meet Millard, the ship's engineer."

The red-haired man minced forward and stopped. He tilted his head to one side and stared at the floor, refusing to make eye contact. Abruptly, he nodded. "I was rationing the oxygen. It had to be done."

"Millard, show Nick your calculations."

The man pivoted and minced back to his control board. He jabbed his writing instrument at a small screen. "Black and white," he said.

Dominic finished wiping his nose and moved closer. On the screen, he saw a chart with two lines. The white line barely slanted upward while the black line curved up steeply. Millard jabbed at the point where the lines intersected. "It's all in the numbers."

'Tell Nick what the lines mean," Qi coaxed.

"Obviously, white is oxygen supply. That's flat" Millard tapped his pen rapidly against the screen's glass. He wouldn't look at Dominic or at Qi. Only the screen held his attention. "They can't expect more unless they give me another pump. I've enlarged the reservoir five times, haven't I? And didn't I bring the Dominic Jedes' respirator back online?"

"The what?" Dominic felt light-headed again. "What did you say?"

"You see what they're asking." Millard tapped a key, and a schematic drawing appeared on the little screen. "That! That!" He jabbed his pen at the drawing.

Dominic recognized a cutaway view of the Benthica, mired in a moraine of junk, and below it, a maze of tunnels under the seafloor. He was astounded by their number and depth. The miners had been busy. Some of the passages led below the junk heap to a cutaway view of another ship. It must be one of the wrecks he'd seen the divers repairing.

"They keep enlarging the volume, don't they?" said Millard. "Digging more habitat. Bringing in more people. And they all want to breathe. Demand, that's the black line. Demand. They think I can snap my fingers and make more air." As he talked, Millard became increasingly agitated. He still wouldn't make eye contact, but his pen tapped a steady beat on the console.

"You said Dominic Jedes," Dominic prompted.

"The ship. The Dominic Jedes." Millard pointed to the other ship in the schematic. "That respirator was a lump of rust, but I brought it back online, didn't I? I can't work miracles though." He pointed to the chart with the intersecting lines. "Here's where demand will exceed supply. The numbers bear me out."

"How did the ship get that name, the Dominic Jedes?" Dominic asked.

"Name? Irrelevant. They named it for the asshole who tried to kill us. That's the kind of decision they call important. Names. Words. I need another pump."

Dominic was stunned. For a moment, he couldn't find his voice. Finally, he asked, "Who are 'they'?"

"They. The council." Millard held his pen very close to his nose and twisted the barrel to retract the ballpoint tip.

Qi had been wandering through the machinery. "Millard," she said, "how long do we have?"

"Five days. Three. It's a moving target." The man rocked back and forth over his screen.

"I know you mean well," Qi said, "but you can't ration the oxygen. It makes people sick."

"Sick or dead. Subtle distinction." He clipped his pen smartly to the neck of his shirt and stared at the floor. "Quibble if you like. My numbers don't lie."

Dominic was still reeling. They named a ship after the asshole who tried to kill them? What kind of joke was that? Prote minds, who could understand how they reasoned?

"You need more than a pump," Qi said. "What about fuel to generate electricity?"

"And that's another story, isn't it?" Millard hit a few keys and scrolled through several screens. He stooped over the console, consumed by the flickering images. He appeared to have forgotten their presence.

Qi asked, "What kind of fuel does the ship use, Millard?"

The engineer rocked back and forth on his heels. He seemed very tense. "Ane Zaki runs the power plant. I need a pump."

Dominic watched the man hunch over his figures, his face pale blue in the reflected glow of the screen. Was he literally unable to focus on anything beyond his narrow computations? Behind Millard's back, Qi signaled and pointed silently toward the door. Together, they tiptoed away through the machinery, leaving the engineer tapping his control board. Dominic glanced back once and saw him rocking on his heels, mumbling over his blue computer screen. The sight gave Dominic a shiver.

"Ane Zaki's the electrician," Qi whispered, outside on the landing. "We need to ask her about fuel."

"Is that the Asian woman I saw you with before?"

"Yep, that was Anzie."

Again, Dominic recalled the small, sad woman standing beside Qi in the passage. In another setting, he would have liked to meet her again—to find out why she made him feel such bittersweet deja vu. But instead, he swung up onto the ladder and started climbing. "Major, you saw that chart. We have to finish our business and get out of here."

"That's my boy!" said the NP.

"Ow!" Dominic cut his thumb on a jagged piece of metal. He stuck it in his mouth to stop the pain, and when Qi grabbed his ankle, he was too polite to kick her hand away.

"Nicky, let's rethink." She yanked him back to the landing, and he landed with a thud.

"That spy girl is strong," commented the NP.

Dominic stood to his full height and casually drew the shard of paint from his bleeding thumb. Then he noticed an inflammation between the first and second fingers of his right hand. He must have chafed himself on the ladder rungs. Examining the reddened area, he said, "Where does your Org boss advise me to go now?"

"The inscrutable Gig." Qi prodded the implant behind her ear. "Gig doesn't advise. He listens. Every time I take a pee. Every freakin' fart. He loves it. Isn't that right, you old pervert?"

Dominic couldn't restrain a smile. Sometimes the major's directness startled him. "I don't suppose you'd let me borrow your implant?"

'To call your dear old Dada? Honestly, Nick. Why do you want that bit-brain prying into your life?"

"Brazen bitch," the NP sputtered.

Dominic smiled again. Since he couldn't think of an honest reason, he didn't answer. Qi sat on the landing and hugged her knees to her chest, while Dominic peered up the ladder. At least he knew the air would last another five days, or possibly just three. For all Millard's focus on numbers, he was rather imprecise. Only when Qi slumped against Dominic's legs did he noticed the circles under her eyes, a shade deeper than her ebony complexion.

"So," he said, "even the invincible major needs a rest."

"Nicky, what will happen here, you know, when those black-and-white lines cross?" she asked.

Something in her voice touched him. He sat down and let her lean against his shoulder. "If I were in charge, I'd evacuate everyone to the surface. That's what any trained exec would do. If they really have over five thousand people here, with only a few days of oxygen left, they should begin now." He pictured the dented little bathysphere making constant surface runs for five solid days. It was already too late to get everyone out, but he didn't say that.

"And if they don't do that?" she whispered.

"Well. . ." Dominic remembered the NP's words: looting, plague, starvation, cannibalism. He thrust those images from his mind. "If Millard's careful, he might stretch the oxygen. Maybe he can shut off nonessential areas."

"Which areas are nonessential?" she asked.

Dominic paused. Every square meter he'd seen in this place was packed with humanity. He leaned forward to examine the red place between his fingers.

"What happens when the oxygen runs out?' she persisted.

"Why are you asking me? You know what'll happen. Weakness. Blurred vision. Then loss of consciousness. The youngest and oldest first."

Qi rested her chin in her hands. "Then what?"

"You want me to say the words? They'll die. Most of them. But not that lunatic council. They'll keep the last good air for themselves, and they'll keep inviting more simpleminded fools to come down here and die. Something deranged, that's what I expect."

"You believe that?" She began toying with her big toe, rubbing the dirt off with her thumb. For a while, it seemed to absorb her. Then she said, "There's no other way?"

Dominic puffed his cheeks and blew a quiet breath as he contemplated the woman beside him. Her blue-black hair hung across her cheek, shielding her eyes. Though she looked completely different, she reminded him of Elsa, the way she tried to play on his conscience. Clearly, she'd been living with protes so long, she'd begun to identify with them. He watched her fiddling with her long, slender, grimy toes, and he smiled.

"Have it your way, Qi. We'll contact a foundry in Canada and order a pump for your engineer friend. We'll have it shipped special delivery, how about that?"

Qi punched his shoulder with her fist. "Preter-superb idea, Nick. What about fuel?"

Dominic cavalierly waved a hand. "We'll hail a supertanker. Charge it to ZahlenBank. Problem solved."

"Totally rip! I knew you'd come up with the solution." Qi hopped to her feet. "Let's go talk to Ane Zaki. Hey, don't look at me like that."

Qi tried to pull him up, but he resisted with a laugh. "I was joking. Surely you recognize a joke."

"C'mon, Nick. Let's find out what grade of fuel Ane Zaki needs. It'll give us bargaining strength when we go before the council."

Dominic let Qi's words sink in. "So that's it. The Orgs want me to buy the miners off. Trade fuel and supplies for silence."

"Sounds great," she said.

"Fuck the Orgs!" the NP ranted. "That's their angle. They wanna bleed us dry. It's extortion!"

At last, Dominic understood the Orgs' agenda. They wanted ZahlenBank to pay—literally to pay—for his mistake. Fuel and supplies for silence. It would probably cost the bank a fortune. Still, it was only money. If he handled the negotiation right, he could whittle down the cost.

Bright white pain exploded in his eye. "No payoff! Don't even entertain the thought, Dominic. It's a trick to weaken our position."

Dominic clutched the side of his face. "You're reading my thoughts!"

"No, I just know how soft-headed you can be. Never forget the Orgs want to break up ZahlenBank. That's behind everything they do."

"Stop it," he said. Fiery pain radiated through his left temple.

"Stop what, Nick?" Qi bent over him. "Something in your eye? Let me look."

Light vibrated through his skull, and the NP's voice continued to screech, "The minute we start bargaining with protes, we lose control forever."

"Nicky, what's wrong?" Qi gently pounded his back.

The searing light was making him weep. Again, he considered gouging out his eye with his fingernails. He clenched his teeth and waited for the worst of it to pass. Then he straightened up, blinked the moisture away and focused on Qi's face. Concern lined her exotic features.

"I'm all right. Grit in my eye. It's nothing."

She touched his cheek. "So we'll ask Ane Zaki about the fuel?"

The NP's voice clanged inside his temple. "You don't need to know about their damned fuel. Trust me. I'm your dad."

Dominic felt a rush of loathing. His face twisted as he subvocalized deep in his throat, "My father is dead!" He ground his fist savagely into his eye socket. Then he grasped the ladder and nodded to Qi. "Lead the way, Major. I'm right behind you."

CHAPTER 9
LIQUIDITY

HE came awake with a shout. He'd been dreaming about a coin machine, a maniacal coin machine that was trying to kill him. It shot copper coins out of its dispenser like bullets. They drilled through his chest, and when he put his hand to his heart, there was blood everywhere. Or. . . was it water? Salty, fetid water. It was dripping on his chest, drumming against his skin, soaking his shirt. He was lying in a puddle. What the hell?

He'd fallen asleep on a landing between two ladders.

He sat up and winced and crawled away from the dripping water. In the dimness, a crew of half-dressed old men with bald heads and knobby joints padded up a nearby ladder, grunting droll insults at each other. When one of them stopped to scratch his genitals, he noticed Dominic and winked. Dominic hastily turned away.

Every muscle in his body felt like solidified concrete. He ran his tongue around his fuzzy, sour mouth. How long had he slept? The water dripped like a ticking clock. He peered down the ladder tube and tried to remember. Oh yes, he'd been following Major Qi. The ladders seemed to go down forever, like links in a chain to the bottom of the world.

He tugged at his short hair as if that would clear his mind. The miners' colony was running out of oxygen. So why was he following Qi down, in the opposite direction from his only hope of survival? Something about finding information so he could bargain with the council. Bargain with protes? The idea was absurd. He lumbered to his feet as memories cascaded back. Then he recalled the NP's nuclear fireworks in his eye. The genie had tried to coerce him!

To hell with them all. Everyone was pulling his strings. The major, the Orgs, the NP. Here he was, Dominic Jedes, president of ZahlenBank, and he was letting people jerk him around like a dummy. He ripped his filthy wet shirt off and threw it against the wall. Then he took a deep breath and collected himself.

"How long did I sleep?" he said aloud.

"These little time-outs of yours are driving me nuts, boy. I realize you need rest, but—"

"I do the physical stuff, remember?"

He stretched his aching joints and leaned against the wall to urinate. A few passersby frowned, but he didn't care. The chafed red skin between his fingers was burning, but he couldn't see it well in the dim light. This shaft looked different from the others. The walls had a rougher texture, and the lights flickered like gas jets.

"You recorded our route?" he subvocalized.

"Your girlfriend led us down almost a hundred meters before you stopped to nap."

Dominic remembered everything now, how they had descended and searched for the electrician named Ane Zaki until he grew so weary he could hardly lift his feet. Qi claimed she was lost. She said the decks had been rearranged. Often the ladders led to blind stops and locked hatches, and they had to retrace their steps and detour through teeming corridors. When they asked for directions, the people always pointed down.

Now he remembered the footsteps. He thought he'd heard footsteps following, but when he looked, all he saw were crowds of noisy workers. How could he have singled out a particular set of footsteps? He was imagining things.

The deeper they went, the more dilapidated the ladders had become. In places, the metal rungs dangled from the framework on loose plastic cord. And the walls grew leprous with corrosion. Repaired patches stood out stark and new, and clear fluids streamed down, feeding wooly gray fungus. The smell defied description.

"We're not in the Benthica anymore," he said aloud, not bothering to conceal his words from the passing horde. "Submarines don't have that many decks."

"Smart guess, son. We're in the mines they've dug under the seafloor."

Dominic leaned down the ladder tube, cupped his hands around his mouth and bellowed, "Major Qi!" His voice echoed, and several people glanced up, but no one answered.

"She tricked you again. Remember who she works for. You should have listened to your old man."

"All right, genie, guide me back to the bathysphere."

"That's too far behind us. The Net link's our way home."

"Show me the way back!"

"Not a chance," the NP said.

Dominic shook the ladder till it rattled. He was trapped. Stupidly, he'd let Major Qi lure him into a maze, then desert him—again. When he stood face-to-face with her, he had a tendency to forget what a liar she was. Now his throat tightened with nervous strain. "The Orgs want me to die here."

"Don't get claustro. Keep your eye on the goal. That broadcast is still going out, and you're the one who can stop it"

"Who's extorting whom?" Dominic gave the ladder one last shake.

Taking orders from the NP revolted him, but he could no longer see any options. He felt desperate and light-headed. As he glanced around, the ladder shaft seemed to close in like a hot, airless tomb. This wasn't how he was supposed to die. An urge to claw his way out jolted through his mind, and he steadied himself with an act of pure will. "How long before the air goes bad?"

"Interesting you should ask. I set my chronometer when your prote engineer said three to five days. Assuming it's three, we have forty-eight hours, seven minutes and nineteen seconds left."

Two days! But he had no idea how to find his way out! Stay calm, he warned himself. Two days would be plenty of time. He took a deep breath and pressed his toes against the wall to stretch the cramping muscles. Then he hunted around the landing and found the wet, wadded tee shirt he'd thrown away earlier. Even a rag could be valuable in this place.

"Son, I understand we have issues. Don't do this because I ask you. Do it because it's the honorable thing."

"Now you're annoying me." He took off his silk shorts and wrung them out. He didn't care what the passing prates saw. With a false air of composure, he drew them back on and said, "Here's the deal. You guide me to the link immediately, got it? Then you call the rescue team. But don't speak another word unless I ask a question." He gave the damp tee shirt a quick flap, then pulled it over his head. "And when this is over, you disappear. Agreed?"

Dominic waited. Finally, the NP said, "Yeah, yeah, agreed. Start climbing."

After one last spine-popping stretch, Dominic began plodding up the ladder. A battalion of young women passed him, carrying bundles on their backs, and one of them caught his attention. She had mousy brown hair and a shy way of hugging her elbows close to her body that reminded him of Elsa Bremen. Sweet Elsa, so quiet and competent at the bank, hardly a word to say for herself. Dominic actually missed her. When the young woman on the ladder spoke a few timid words, he paused to listen, and the more she spoke, the more her accent reminded him of the miners' broadcast. Maybe she was the one who recorded it. That broadcast was just the sort of naive dream a mild-hearted young woman would compose. Someone like Elsa—or like this girl. He could almost hear her speaking the words.

"As of today, we declare ourselves free from Com protection, and we're writing a new contract to protect ourselves."

Yes, and he could also hear what his father would have said.

"Freedom's a sucker bet." That was Richter's line.

Dominic remembered the first time his father explained to him about freedom. He was ten. He'd just graduated from prep school, and to celebrate, his father took him to a mountain lodge above Hammerfest, overlooking the Barents Sea. That's where Richter told him about snow. The whiteness of it. How it used to cover the ground like a blank page.

"You could leave footprints, draw pictures, write your name with a stick. Anyone could. One big empty white snowfield. Now, it's all trampled mud. Son, you have to recognize we're at the tail end of things. We don't have enough resources to let people choose for themselves. No one's free to be original anymore."

Dominic stopped to massage his foot, which had begun to bleed through the rags. He undid the knots and retied them, thinking about snow and freedom. And who wouldn't want to believe that innocent dream?

When he reached the top of the shaft and climbed through the hatch, he saw two women frantically stuffing clothes into a plastic sack. They barely glanced at him, so he ignored them and marched along, opening doors, looking for another shaft leading up.

Spooky. Except for the two women, this section appeared deserted. Debris littered the floor. Rags. Cooking utensils. Dominic even found a full water sack. The occupants must have left in a hurry. The sight of the water inspired him with a parching thirst, so he hefted the sack and squeezed a long, thin stream into his mouth. Then he drizzled it over his head and let it drip down his chest and arms. He squirted more into his mouth, and with a laugh, sprayed a stream under his armpits and began to scrub himself. It felt marvelous. He hadn't showered in—how many days?

The next moment, two things happened. First, a door swung open down the corridor, and second, a wall of water rushed toward him. It swept him off his feet and tumbled him in a backflip. As soon as he found the floor, he pushed toward the ceiling, seeking air. He thought he heard the NP say, "Sweet Krishna Christ!"

Pockets of air were trapped just under the ceiling, and he sucked rasping breaths. Then he remembered the women. Had they made it out? He swam back toward them as a loud, gurgling noise reverberated through the corridor, and almost as swiftly as the flood had appeared, it ebbed away.

"Freak, Freak, FREAK!" A young man in outlandish garb stepped through the shattered door and began slogging through the water, which was now knee deep and draining fast. He was dark and small, probably American, and he seemed very angry. He wore a green, patterned scarf knotted around his head and a pair of spectacles like Mil-lard's, only the glass lenses were amber. He also wore a skirt. It hung down below his knees, and it was covered with pockets and loops holding an enormous number of tools. It looked like an overgrown carpenter's belt.

When the young man saw Dominic, his features broke into a sunny smile that dimpled both his cheeks. "Hullo, mate. Sorry for the dousin'. My new sealant didn't work." His skirt clanked softly as he waded through the water, now ankle deep.

Dominic pointed with his thumb. "I saw women back there."

"Females? Then it's Penderowski to the rescue."

In high spirits, the young man sloshed down the corridor. Dominic followed, but they couldn't find the women. The water was flushing down the ladder shaft. Apparently, Dominic had left the hatch open.

"I had a friend on that ladder!" He hurried to the hatch, but the young man got there first. Together they squeezed their heads and shoulders through the opening and peered down into the shadows.

The young man shrugged. "Your friend got a good wash, mate. A smallish douse, it was. Folks in the tunnels is used to them."

"But what happened?" Dominic and the young man drew out of the hatch together and got to their feet.

"Aye? We're running out of sealant, so I tried a little recipe of my own. Wrong mix, I guess." The young man adjusted his head scarf. 'Too freakin' bad the females is gone. Nice ones, were they?"

"I really didn't notice. You think they're all right?"

The young man shrugged again. He didn't seem concerned. The ladder shaft echoed a hollow dripping sound, and Dominic puffed out his cheeks. He didn't know why he should worry about the major. A little bath might do her good.

"Right. How do I find the upper deck?" he asked.

"Say, we haven't introduced ourselves. I'm Penderowski, the ship's maintenance jack." The young man stuck out his hand with a frank smile.

Dominic shook hands. "I'm in a hurry."

Penderowski's palm was callused and hard, but his face was smooth. Behind his amber spectacles, he couldn't have been more than twenty years old. With a knowing nod, he gestured for Dominic to follow. They walked side by side down the dripping corridor in the direction of the ruined door.

"I don't meet many newcomers, 'specially educated ones. They always vacate the sections I work in. Aye, people run when they hear Penderowski's coming. Makes a fellow think he ain't loved." The young man chuckled generously at his own wit. "Leaks is like lions to these folks. See a bit of a drip, and they think the whole ocean's coming into bed with them. So they clear out quick and call Penderowski."

"I need to reach the upper deck," Dominic said again.

"Well now, which upper deck did you mean? There's the Pressure, she has her upper deck. And there's the Zygote and the Tao-te Ching. But for those you'd need gills, as they're only half patched and still belong to the sea. Then there's the Dominic Jedes, he has his upper deck. And if you'll pardon my saying so, you're in the wrong part of the world to reach any of them in a hurry."

Dominic stopped dead. "You don't know where I'm going? Then why am I following you?"

The young man winked. "That is a conundrum." Then he passed through the ruined door.

After a moment, Dominic cursed and followed.

"Here's where the seam gave way." In the dark tunnel, Penderowski used a handheld laser torch to point overhead at a thick bead of metallic glue where the corridor's wall and ceiling joined. Dominic had taken for granted that all the passages were made of steel, but now he noticed these walls had been laser-blasted through natural stone and sealed with spray-on fabriglass, the type used in mines. He hadn't given the walls much thought, but now he studied them with interest.

Penderowski grabbed the silvery bead of sealant and jerked hard. It didn't budge. "After my own recipe failed, I patched this leak with Kevlax, you see? Kevlax is miracle stuff. Works underwater. Sets up instantly. Bonds to anything. Only trouble is, I'm down to my last hundred liters. Bit of a spot we're in. I've tried every substitute I can dream up. Are you a chemist at all?"

"I'm a negotiator."

"Ah." Penderowski looked at him with large wondering eyes, magnified by the amber spectacles. Then he sat on the floor and began to strap a pair of very odd devices to his legs. They looked like short crutches that extended below his feet, and each one had a boot sole at the end. "Say, could you give me a hand with a bit of work?"

"I really don't have time." Dominic watched him curiously.

When the straps were secure, Penderowski shoved himself upright with amazing agility and tottered a few steps on the leg extenders before finding his balance. The devices made him a meter taller than before so he could reach the ceiling with ease, and with the strange skirt and headgear, he looked like a street performer. He rested his elbow against the ceiling and grinned. "You like my stilts? My own design. Take a look at this."

He pointed his torch beam at a hairline crack in the ceiling. As Dominic watched, Penderowski's dark finger slid along the crack till it intersected another, then divided and branched. The maintenance jack panned his light around, and Dominic realized the entire stone ceiling was veined with tiny cracks.

"Pressure fractures," Penderowski said. "I have this notion how to fix 'em, but it's a two-man job. You came at the right time, mate. See that compressor there on the floor? If you could just hand me the spray nozzle and shove the hose along as I move. Ya see, I've mixed a bit of Kevlax with some spray-on fabriglass, and I want to coat this whole section while the cracks is still small."

Dominic frowned at the rusty, barrel-shaped compressor with its loose coil of hose. "Fabriglass, that's toxic. I'm not going to stand here and breathe that stuff. You miners wear protective suits, right?"

Penderowski's cheeks dimpled. "Suits, is it? I saw a picture of a protective suit once, on the Net. Don't worry about the toxins. They won't distress us for years and years. Though I do wear my turban to keep my hair nice in case a female happens by." Penderowski winked and touched his green scarf. When he spoke next, his voice cracked like a nervous adolescent's. "Look at us now. Two mates enjoying a chat, sharing a bit of work. Would you consider stayin' on?"

Presumptuous juvenile. Dominic couldn't believe the young man's lax attitude about toxins. Did all protes value their lives so cheaply? He studied Penderowski with interest. "How long have you had this job?"

Dazzling rainbows burst across his eye with a worrisome prickling itch. "Enough chitchat. Find that link," the NP said. "Okay, so I spoke. I broke our agreement. What are you gonna do, quit?"

The genie had called Dominic's bluff. The rainbows half blinded him, and he spun away and rubbed his eye.

"Is somethin' wrong, mate?" Penderowski asked.

The colors strobed in time to the NP's words. "You won't quit. You'll do the honorable thing. I know you, son. I bred you."

Dominic realized he'd stopped breathing. He sucked a quick breath and once again imagined plucking his eye out with his fingernails.

"Forty-six hours, twenty minutes, eight seconds," the NP continued. "Do you wanna leave this hell hole or not?"

Dominic balled his fist and scrubbed his eye. He loathed taking orders like a flunky, but the truth was, he had no leverage against the NP. As he fumed, a pair of amber lenses peered up at him, glinting reflections and magnifying an anxious gaze. Penderowski had removed his stilts, and now he stood on tiptoe to see into Dominic's face.

"Is it some trouble with your eye, friend?"

Dominic brushed away a stray tear and calculated. Then with practiced skill, he arranged his face into a smile and put a hand on the young man's shoulder. "You want more Kevlax? I can get it."

"How's that?" Penderowski stepped closer.

Dominic leaned down and spoke in a confidential tone. "I'm bringing your council a secret offer of trade. Fuel and supplies, whatever you need. The council's meeting me at the Net link. I have to get there at once. Can you tell me where it is?"

"Brilliant, son! Lie like the devil! Why did I ever doubt you?" said the NP.

Penderowski poked a long finger under his head scarf and scratched. "Supplies? Is it true, mate? What about medicine? My folks died of cancer. There's a lot of cancer here."

Dominic nodded. "I can get transgenic T-cells."

"Excellent!" the NP crowed.

Penderowski's cheeks creased with dimples. "The Net link, is it? Now where did they put it today? Oh aye, I remember. It's on the Dominic Jedes."

Dominic's smile went taut. "The ship named for the man who tried to kill you."

"Kill us? No, mate. He set us free."

Penderowski gave complicated directions. Dominic had to go down a little farther through the mines before he could start up again into the ship that bore his name. He visualized the path as the young man described it. The NP would record everything, but he trusted the digital genie about as much as a cancer virus.

Penderowski even apologized because he couldn't show the way personally. There were too many leaks in the tunnels, and he had to stay and repair them. "But can you find the Dominic's bridge on your own? There's no fights in some of the sections." In the end, the young man pressed his laser torch into Dominic's hand.

"What a dunce," the NP said. "Long live the gullibility of protes!"

As Dominic accepted the torch, he felt a reluctance he couldn't explain. The torch was an old model with a cracked case. Duct tape held the battery housing together. It was a piece of trash, and yet Dominic recognized its value. "You don't have another light"

The young man thumped his chest. "Me need a light in my own tunnels? Penderowski can feel the way. You take it, mate. Be off and get those supplies. And please hurry, aye?" He pointed meaningfully at the ceiling.

Dominic padded through the dark, dripping tunnel, glancing up now and then at the pressure fractures and wondering where the next leak would break through. Soon he reached a small portal to the left, covered with a hinged steel door, just as Penderowski had described. He felt a little ashamed—more than a little. Getting those directions had been too easy. When he dealt with execs, they expected deception, but this young prote believed every word he said. The torch burned in his hand. He flashed the beam back the way he had come, but he couldn't see Penderowski. "Thank you!" he called out. There was no answer.

"Nice work, boy," the NP said.

Dominic groaned and fled along the passage. As he splashed through a long section of unlighted tunnel, his torch beam sparkled on dripping walls and pools of standing water, and he thought about the hairline cracks widening over his head. Above that layer of stone, the weight of the entire Arctic Ocean bore down, and every moment, he imagined it "coming into bed" with him. There were so many ways for these protes to die.

He kept picturing the silly green turban Penderowski wore to keep his hair nice in case a woman wandered by. Right now, the young man would be stumbling around in the dark, alone, wrestling with the heavy coil of compressor hose to seal those leaks. But Dominic didn't have time to help, and he certainly didn't want to breathe toxic fabriglass. Penderowski's torch beam danced along the dark floor, showing him the way. "Damn!" he said aloud. His sole thought was to find the Net link and leave this hellish place. He'd had enough of bargaining with hopeful fools.

When he finally found the floor hatch Penderowski had described, he cranked it open and saw a deep, narrow well. Gouts of water bled from its stone walls and dripped down the rungs of the deserted ladder. There were no lights. He could see only a little way down. By all the principles of reason, how had he, the president of ZahlenBank, come to be crawling in this cave?

He rolled his shoulders, then knelt to retie his loose foot rags. A second later, he heard a noise.

He flicked off the torch. Silence. Was someone following? And there it was again. A small splash. A muffled footstep. Dominic remained absolutely still. He hardly breathed. Was his imagination deceiving him again? A faint light gleamed far behind in the corridor, but everything else lay in pitch blackness. The steps came closer. Soft now. Closer still. Dominic could sense the physical presence. When he knew the stranger was standing right beside him, he lunged.

His shoulder butted into a warm belly, and they fell headlong together against the stone floor. The stranger shrieked and punched Dominic in the left eye.

"Fuck! I felt that!" the NP yelled.

Dominic flinched and rolled away. He heard the stranger scramble to the far side of the passage, then he remembered the torch in his hand and flicked it on. There was Benito, Juanita's little boy.

Dominic said, "What the hell?"

Benito curled up in a knot and covered his head with his scrawny arms as if he expected blows. He was wearing a pair of enormous striped shorts, tied under his small round belly with a length of cord.

"Have you been following me?" Dominic grabbed the boy's elbow and shook him. Benito offered no resistance. He said nothing. When Dominic let go, he curled up again. Exasperated, Dominic swelled his cheeks and blew so hard, his lips fluttered. Then he sank back on his heels. The soft tissue below his left eye was already swelling where the boy had punched him. He was going to have a serious bruise. With a frown, he played the torch beam over Benito's thin brown body.

"For a little guy, you hit hard," he said. Then the comedy of the scene registered, and he let out a laugh. It felt good, like a muscle release. He realized his sinuses were clearing. That ridiculous cold was finally running its course.

"Benito, sit up," he said. 'Tell me what you're doing here. I won't hurt you."

Benito uncovered his face and squinted into the torch beam. He looked sullen.

Dominic laid the torch down. Its white beam cut across the floor and bent up the far wall, and by the reflected glow, he finished tightening the rags on his feet. "I don't have any food, Benito. You'd better go back to Tooksook if you're hungry."

The boy said nothing. His eyes glittered in the shadows.

Dominic stood and arched his back, and two vertebrae popped. He peered down the deserted ladder shaft again. When he glanced at the small figure on the floor, clenched as tight as a fist, something inside him softened. "I can't find my way back, so I don't suppose you can either. Eh, Benito?"

"Send the brat away. You don't need baggage," the NP said.

When Dominic approached, the boy hissed and kicked.

"I'm not going to hurt you, I promise."

Dominic scooped the boy up, half expecting another punch in the eye, but Benito lay still. He seemed almost weightless. Just as Dominic stooped to pick up the laser torch, the boy twisted and locked his small arms around Dominic's neck and buried his head against the dirty tee shirt. He made no sound, but Dominic could feel him trembling.

"Benito, stop it. You're too old for this behavior. There's nothing to be afraid of."

The instant he spoke, he felt the mockery. His father had instructed him with those exact words when he was a boy. Richter Jedes hadn't approved of fear, and young Dominic had done his best to appear brave. He lived to please his father. But even in his sheltered young life, he knew there was much to be afraid of. Now, for this boy in this place— he couldn't even imagine. With awkward movements, he disengaged the boy's arms and lowered him through the hatch onto the top rungs of the ladder.

"It's all right, Benito. We'll go together."

CHAPTER 10
DEBENTURES

DOMINIC switched on Penderowski's laser torch and carried it in his teeth. Its beam danced crazily over the dark stone wall as he descended. They'd been climbing down only a short while when the shaft went palpably silent. The air quit moving, and small vibrations that had been singing unnoticed in metal pipes came to a stop. Dominic gripped the ladder and listened. Another power failure. Life support had shut down. Benito continued shuffling down the rungs below, until Dominic whispered, "Wait."

When the ladder stopped shimmying, the only sound was the boy's breathing and his own. He counted seconds. A minute passed. The other blackouts hadn't lasted this long. Sweat beaded on his forehead and ran down his neck. "Let's keep going, Benito."

The sound of the boy's quick, light movement comforted him. He puffed out his cheeks and blew hard, then reseated the torch between his jaws, grasped a rung and lowered himself down through the silence.

Without warning, a thunderous explosion blew out a section of the shaft wall above them. "Jesus Krishna Christ!" the NP yelled. Lurid sparks flared above. Then bloodred flames. And dust. A thick cloud of dust billowed down the shaft. Backlit by fire, the dust cloud glowed orange, and rock chips rained down like missiles, slicing Dominic's shoulders and back. The boy yelped. Then shouts echoed overhead, and the drumming of many feet jolted the ladder. Dominic sensed an army was coming down the ladder right on top of him.

"Benito! Hold tight!" he yelled.

As the ladder shook violently, he swung down and covered the boy with his own body to shield him from the falling rock. Then he flashed the laser torch to search for a landing below.

"We'll climb down to that catwalk—you see? Hurry. We'll let these people go by us. You stay between me and the ladder."

The army was descending fast. Lurid dust silhouetted their jostling limbs, and their mingled shouts grew louder. When Dominic shot his torch beam up, all he could see were boot soles. He grabbed the boy and tried to slide down the ladder one-handed, but he slipped and nearly lost his hold.

Then the ladder shook with a new, heavier weight below, and a different noise erupted as dozens of white laser beams sliced up through the shaft. When Dominic looked down, he saw sweaty devilish faces shining in the orange light, and the beams were shooting straight out of their foreheads! Finally, he grasped that they were wearing helmets with headlamps.

"Damn me, it's the miners!" The NP chuckled. "I was beginning to think they didn't exist."

The miners below were climbing up fast, while the miners above were climbing down with equal speed. Dominic was trapped in the middle. Just as the two groups converged, he clutched Benito to his chest and leaped onto the catwalk. The miners followed right behind, shoving him against the steel door like a piece of rubbish bashed into shore by the tide. Miners soon mobbed the catwalk, and three of them elbowed him aside to get the door open. Among the shouting, Dominic distinguished phrases. "Cave-in!" "Tons of rock." "Three people trapped!"

When the door fell open, the crowd pushed Dominic through, and his only course was to stay on his feet and run. Benito clung like Velcro. After a chaotic race in semi-darkness, the army constricted through another small portal, and Dominic bloodied his left shoulder on the door flange as they shoved him ahead. Then he was climbing another ladder, ramming his head into the boots of the miner above because the miner below was ramming into him. Benito's fingers dug into his flesh.

They entered a tunnel where the dust was so thick, Dominic thought he might choke to death. A few miners wore plastic face masks, but most breathed through rags tied over their mouths and noses. As soon as the space widened out, Dominic flattened himself against a wall and placed Benito on the floor between his knees. Then he tugged off his tee shirt and ripped it in two. "Here, breathe through this." Benito didn't seem to understand, so Dominic quickly tied one cloth over his own nose and mouth, then did the same with the other rag for the boy. The improvised breathing masks helped a little.

Someone shoved a work tool into his hand, and after a moment, he recognized it as a bucket. It was large and full of rock chips, heavy as lead. Farther along the tunnel, the miners were digging like fiends at a pile of rubble and forming a bucket line to transfer the rock. "Move it!" shouted a short, bandy-legged man wearing a red bandana.

"Let's get the fuck outta here," the NP advised. "I'm scanning that support structure, and it's not stable."

"I don't exactly have a choice." Dominic adjusted the cloth over his nose, then bent to whisper in Benito's ear. "Stay against the wall."

Someone handed him a second bucket weighted down with rock, so he stepped up and handed both buckets to the next person in line. "Keep the rhythm," the miner said. Dominic noticed she was a stout, dark, muscular woman with gray hair. Other miners quickly queued along the wall, and the buckets passed from hand to hand.

'This is prote work," the NP said. "You should refuse."

Dominic didn't bother to reply. The buckets kept coming, mounded high with rock and dust. Each one weighed thirty kilos at least, and the bucket handles cut into his soft hands like wire. His arms were soon beyond aching. His muscles trembled. When he staggered and dropped a bucket, the woman beside him kicked it away and elbowed him to grab the next one. Then she started singing.

She sang in a strong steady rhythm to the swinging buckets, and her lyrics were guttural grunts in some American patois Dominic didn't recognize. Soon the whole line picked up the tune.

"Crude," the NP said. "You want me to translate?"

By that point, Dominic didn't have enough energy to subvocalize, much less speak aloud. More buckets. More. Would they never stop coming? Was this how miners spent their days? Dominic trained in the executive gym, but he'd never exerted himself like this. Sweat ran down his back, and his heart beat like a piston. When the skin on his fingers flayed off, he hardly felt the pain. He would never have believed himself capable of such labor. After a while, he began to grunt aloud to the woman's song. The pounding heart rate was affecting his brain. He felt inebriated, almost jolly.

"You're overexerting, son," the NP said.

At that moment, a shout louder than all the others rang through the mine, and a ray of light filtered through the rubble blockage. As one, the miners dropped what they were doing and rushed forward to dig with their hands. Dominic tripped headlong over his bucket, and in the melee, someone stepped on his back. If he hadn't curled up and rolled toward the wall, he might have been trampled. Benito was still huddled there, sucking his little hand. Dominic hadn't even gotten his bearings before the boy crawled into his lap.

"Huah!" the miners cheered. They were celebrating. He could see them raising their fists in the dusty air.

Now they were leading the survivors out. Dominic rested against the wall with the boy in his arms and watched the strange procession. At its head sauntered a round-faced man with curly hair and a broad, burly chest. Pale dust covered him like a coat of paint, and he strutted with his chin thrust forward as if proud of the blood coursing down his cheek. Right behind him came the short, bandy-legged man in the red bandana, grinning and sweat-soaked. Next came two others in torn gray uniforms layered with dust. One cradled a broken arm. After them followed the whole united array of miners, men and women, filthy, sweating, euphoric, their headlamps shooting beams through the thick air. They numbered only a dozen, Dominic was surprised to find.

"You comin', doggo? Chief's buying drinks all around." The brawny woman from the bucket line stood frowning at him with her hands on her hips. Her face was broad and flat and heavily lined. She had quick dark eyes and leathery brown skin, and her gray hair was chopped very short. "Hey, you ain't no digger."

Dominic lumbered to his feet and sagged against the wall. His muscles were already beginning to lock up. Benito scrambled for a perch on his shoulders. He said, "I suppose we're lost."

"New people." The woman looked him over. "Humph. You did yer share. Come get yer drink. They ain't many free drinks, these days."

Dominic hadn't lied about being lost. He considered asking this woman how to find the Net link, but the firm set of her jaw told him she might not be as gullible as Penderowski. He decided to wait for a better chance. Meanwhile, her offer of a drink made his throat quiver.

On stumbling legs, he followed her down a ladder to a lower deck. Benito stayed close as they picked their way along a half-finished corridor already clogged with settlers and finally entered a wide hall with a sign over the door marked, "Mess." Scores of rough tables and chairs filled the plain, utilitarian room, which seemed to have been hewn by hand from solid rock. When Dominic looked closer, he noticed the furniture was made of hammered sheet metal. And someone had carved a scene in one of the rock walls, something historic, a line of jagged palm trees with a cone-shaped mountain in the background spewing smoke. There were strange birds with long sweeping tails, and luscious fruit hanging in the palm trees, and primitive nudes of both sexes lying on the beach. The image was bawdy, but Dominic found the draftsmanship rather good.

As more miners filtered in, the bandy-legged man wiped his dirty hands on his red bandana and started dispensing warm ale from a hose nozzle. Though Dominic could barely hold the plastic cup between his chafed, bleeding hands, he gulped it down like water and got a refill for Benito.

Soon, the hall was packed, and people were shoving tables against the walls to make more room. A woman with only one leg scrambled onto a tabletop and began picking a tune on a curious three-stringed instrument. A skinny juvenile boy joined her with a musical pipe, and they launched into a lively dance tune. Several people starting beating a background rhythm on overturned buckets. It was the strangest music Dominic had ever heard. All around him, the miners made rude jokes and threw chairs and howled and punched each other. Beer flowed freely, and when the cups ran out, they drank foamy ale from their helmets.

Then someone blew a shrill whistle, and Benito clambered up Dominic's back. The barrel-chested man they'd rescued was standing on a table in the center of the hall, and the celebrating miners bunched around him, lifting then-cups. Dominic staggered over and joined them. Everyone wanted to get close to the barrel-chested man. They yelled toasts and called him "Chief." Then he hollered loudest of all.

"Boys, it's good to be alive!" He lifted his enormous cup and drank heavily. His Adam's apple bobbed up and down, and beer streamed down his jaw. Everyone cheered.

"There I was," he went on. "I'd just finished drillin' the cross-cut, and everything was lookin' fine, when right above my head, I see a lateral fault in the strata. Krishna Christ, if she didn't drop right down in my lap. Haw haw haw!"

The chief upended his cup again and chugged a pint of ale in one go. Several miners offered their own full cups to replace his empty one.

He smacked his lips. "If I hadn't dug through that wall with my freakin' fingernails, Liu and Dalesco would still be suckin' rocks." He took the nearest cup with a self-satisfied grin. "How long did it take me to dig out, huh? Anybody time it?"

"Five minutes, Chief. If that," someone said.

"Haw, haw!" His thick hair hung in sweaty ringlets over his forehead, and curly lashes fringed his brown eyes. A handsome cleft bisected his heavy chin, and his whole massive head glistened. Dominic couldn't guess his lineage. American bloodlines were always confused. At that moment, the chief noticed Dominic staring at him.

"Who the sweet Jesus are you?"

"A volunteer," Dominic said. "I assisted with your rescue." Calmly, Dominic sipped his ale, then handed what was left to Benito, who was sitting on his shoulders.

The chief wiped his gashed cheek with the back of his hand. "You a freakin' college man?"

Dominic noted the animosity. "I'm a negotiator."

"College man. Half-ass worker, half-ass boss. That makes you one complete asshole." The chief winked at his audience, and they howled at his joke. "So what the sweet Jesus you doin' down here in the slime 'assisting with my rescue'?" He mimicked Dominic's pure Net English accent.

"Back away, son. They have you outnumbered," the NP urged.

Dominic pushed through the crowd and stepped closer. "You invited me."

"Sereb, he helped with the buckets," the brawny woman said.

"Keep out of it, Djuju. I like to hear him talk. Go on, college. Tell me when I invited you."

Dominic quoted from the miners broadcast, raising his voice so everyone could hear. "All human beings evolved from the same gene pool, so we have the same rights to move around as free agents and make our own choices." Then he pointed a finger at the chief. "Aren't those your words?"

The chief jumped down from the chair, and the miners parted to make a path. For a stocky man, he moved with surprising grace. He stepped close, and though he stood a head shorter, he seemed to face Dominic eye to eye. "You're the banker."

Dominic froze. The man must have recognized his face from the Net.

"Run for it!" the NP said. "They'll slaughter you!"

They were standing so close, Dominic could count the pores on the chief's round nose. He couldn't run anywhere. The miners closed in behind him, and in any case, he'd spent his last reserve of energy. It took all his will just to stay on his feet. Abruptly, the chief's face crinkled in a mass of smile lines.

"Boys, meet the banker. This sorry-ass used to hand out coins for a living. Can you believe it? Like a machine. The execs sent him to college so he could count change."

The miners roared with laughter again, and Benito tightened his grip. Dominic held himself rigid. Normally, insolence from a prote would have incensed him, but now he merely waited through the insults and focused on remaining upright, not giving in to fatigue.

When the chief slapped him on the back, he nearly toppled forward. "Boys, get this sorry-ass another beer. Yer among friends now, banker."

Cups of beer sloshed at him from many directions, and someone gave him a helmet brimming with foam. From sheer thirst, he leaned back to drain it, and Benito grabbed his ears to keep from falling. Then the barrel-chested man thumped him in the chest.

"Call me Sereb. I'm crew chief. Is that yer son?"

"We met by accident," Dominic said without thinking.

Instead of listening to the answer, Sereb seized Dominic's hand and turned it palm up. Deep angry cuts lacerated all ten fingers, and the patch of redness between his fingers had spread. "Look at that. Pitiful. Big man like you with hands like a baby. That's what comes of countin' coins all yer life."

Sereb held Dominic's bleeding palm high for everyone to see, and Dominic gazed dully at the miners' sweaty grins.

"No more of that shit. From now on, you'll have respectable work." Sereb dropped Dominic's hand, spun on his heels and waded away through the crowd. "See the banker drinks his fill tonight, boys. Say, where's them fiddle-players? I wanna dance."

Later, Dominic remembered finding a chair and trying to sit in it. The rest of the evening would forever be a blank.

He woke up with Benito sitting on his chest, tugging at a clean white bandage wrapped snugly around his little brown hand. When Dominic's vision cleared, he saw a drop of blood seeping through Benito's bandage, and he tried to recall how the boy had hurt his hand. In the next moment, he elbowed the boy away, rolled on his side and vomited. There was so little in his stomach, the spasms seemed to rip his viscera out. Then his brain quaked inside his skull.

"Son, you got a mother-bitch hangover." The NP chuckled. "Sometimes I miss physical sensation. Then again, sometimes I don't."

Dominic realized both his own hands were swathed and padded in white gauze. His fingers were bound together, and when he flexed them, he gasped aloud. Oh yes, the bucket handles. He wondered who had given him med care. With a grunt, he sat up and held his white paws in his lap. Something hard poked his thigh, so he lifted his leg. It was Penderowski's torch.

"You wanna know how long you slept?" the NP asked.

"Just tell me how soon the oxygen runs out." Dominic pushed the torch away.

"Twenty-one hours, zero minutes, eight seconds and counting, unless that prote engineer starts dicking with the oxy mix."

Less than a day! Dominic bolted up. He must be over a hundred meters deep below the seafloor. He had to start climbing! Then he swayed and fell and swallowed hard to keep from vomiting again.

Light tubes banded the ceiling like glaring white ribbons. He was still in the room called "Mess." The tables and chairs had been put back in neat rows, and other than a few wet stains on the stone floor, no evidence remained of the beer party. Except for himself and the boy, the room appeared empty. His first impulse was to run into the corridor and search for any ladder leading up, but each time he moved, he felt as if a jackhammer were trying to tear its way out of his skull.

"Benito," he whispered hoarsely, "is there any water?"

"Faucet in the ceiling," a female voice said.

Dominic wedged his elbow into a chair seat and pushed himself up where he could see who spoke. On the tabletop beside him sat the brawny miner woman called Djuju. Her legs were crossed in lotus fashion, and she held a strange artifact, which at first he couldn't identify. Then he recalled an image from a history site. That thing she held was a book. He'd browsed video about books. They were readonly, plain-text datafiles made of plant fiber. Fragile, impermanent, of no practical use—yet prized by collectors and therefore valuable. Dominic was surprised to find such a rarity here, but even more bizarre, Djuju actually seemed to be reading it.

With a sigh, she clapped the book shut and stowed it in the bosom of her uniform. "Okay, coin man. You got a name?"

"Nick," he said. "And this is Benito."

"Me and yer son are old friends. Sereb told me to look out for you today. You'll be on my crew."

"I can't," said Dominic, just as the NP whispered, 'Tell her you can't."

He tottered to his feet and searched the ceiling for the faucet. When he twisted the valve open, a thin stream trickled into his mouth. It tasted warm and vaguely sour, and he drank for a long time. "Benito, you want some?" he asked.

"Stop playing nursemaid to the brat!" the NP's barked. "Ask this prote for directions."

"Shut up," Dominic subvocalized.

"That soft-headed streak, I swear I don't know where you got it." White sparks burst across Dominic's eye, and he blinked.

Djuju watched him. She slung one muscular leg over the table's edge and kicked her boot rhythmically against the chair. Her glance was dry and appraising. She seemed to be waiting for him to explain himself.

Dominic smiled, and in a smooth tone, he said, "I have urgent business on the Dominic Jedes. How about a barter? If you'll give me directions to the bridge, then I'll—I'll—" But his mind was still fogged by alcohol.

"Tell her the brat will stay and work," said the NP.

"The boy will stay and work." Even as Dominic repeated the phrase, the words jarred him. When Benito shot him a questioning frown, he had to look away.

Djuju sniffed. "You want breakfast?"

Before he could answer, the NP said, "Give her the con job. You do it so well."

An ache shot up Dominic's back, and he realized his muscles were knotted with tension. He rolled his shoulders and almost in a monotone, he recited the lie he'd used with Penderowski. "Djuju, your colony's running out of air. I'm bringing an offer of trade. Respirator equipment, fuel and supplies. I have to meet your council on the Dominic Jedes' bridge."

Would it work this time? She lifted her chin and studied him. "This trade, what do we give in return?"

Penderowski hadn't asked that question. Dominic forced his mind to work. "Debenture bonds."

Djuju narrowed her eyes. Her boot stopped swinging.

"I'm offering a straight loan package," Dominic continued, hoping to confuse her with jargon. "You'll pay prime plus two for a standard term, with a balloon option. You won't find a better deal."

"Money," she said.

"Yes, money." Dominic didn't know if he'd given the right answer or the wrong one.

"Humph." Djuju got down from the table and put her hands on her hips. Her eyes narrowed, and for a long moment, she studied Dominic's face. Then she picked up Penderowski's torch. 'Take yer flashlight. You'll need it. And take yer son, too. Mines ain't no place for children."

She led them back through the unfinished corridor, to the ladder he'd been descending before the tunnel caved in. The directions she gave matched Penderowski's to the letter. He still had to descend a little farther before he could start climbing up toward the Dominic Jedes, but she said he could easily reach the bridge in a couple of hours.

"Another sucker," the NP gloated.

Right, Dominic thought, another trusting fool. He peered down the ladder shaft. When he turned to thank Djuju, she was gone. Only the boy stood there, puffing out his brown little cheeks and fluttering air through his lips. Dominic ruffled the boy's hair.

"Nineteen hours, fifty-two minutes and counting," the NP said testily. "Dump the kid. He's slowing you down."

"Right, Benito. Let's go."

Dominic told himself he was bringing the boy along as an act of defiance. He had little enough margin to defy the NP, but he would make the most of it. The truth, though, was different. From the moment he'd offered to trade the boy, he'd been picturing Benito working in the mines, bending under a heavy load of rocks. He couldn't get that image out of his mind.

The bandages restricted his hands like oversized mittens, so he loosened them and worked his fingers free. Then he stuck the torch between his teeth and followed the boy down the ladder. They descended six levels without stopping to rest, and just as Djuju had promised, they found a solid steel loading dock with a heavy reinforced door. Pale light gleamed through a spy hole, but Dominic couldn't see in. The lens was made to look outward. His muscles were still weary, and it took him several tries to crank the lever open.

When the hatch seal released, a horrible, sweet, rotten smell nearly knocked him over. Had he counted the levels wrong? He must have stumbled into the mortuary! His first impulse was to close the door fast, but before he could react, Benito dashed between his legs and ran through.

"Splendid," he said aloud. "Benito, come back here!" Then he had no choice but to go and look for the boy.

CHAPTER 11
CONSUMABLES

THE sweet rotten stench made Dominic gag. He held his nostrils and shielded his eyes from the harsh light. Penderowski's torch was no longer necessary. Scores of bare fluorescent tubes crisscrossed the ceiling in a vast grid-work that hung just at eye level, flooding every object below with a deathly greenish glare, while leaving the space above in obscurity. The light tubes intersected in two-meter squares, and Dominic had to stoop to walk under them.

"This can't be right. That miner gave you the wrong directions," the NP said. "Turn around and go back."

Dominic couldn't see Benito anywhere. As his eyes adjusted, he noticed scars on the stone floor where partition walls had been ripped out to expand the space. Scraps of metal paneling still clung to bare support beams, and a disconnected duct was left to dangle in the breeze. The breeze. Yes, Dominic felt a distinct movement of air drying the sweat on his skin, and he heard slowly revolving rotor fans in the distance.

Then he saw the coffins. Hundreds of them. Row upon row of deep metal boxes, unlidded, steaming with gaseous decay. They stretched to the farthest walls in perfect alignment like chips on a board. But they were huge, much longer and wider than the dimensions of a human body. Were these coffins meant for mass burial? He dreaded to look inside, but a morbid curiosity drew him to the nearest one. It stood on a platform, waist high, and he ducked under the light grid to see it.

"Get away from there!" A tall, buxom Euro woman came marching down an aisle between the coffins. At every third step, she bobbed her head to pass under a light tube, as if from years of practice. In her right hand, she carried a long-handled rake, and her expression was grim. "Who said you could come in here? This place is off-limits! Get out, you filthy prote!"

"Prote? I'm not—Who are you?"

Dominic stood to his full height between the light tubes and strained to see the woman's face. Then he noticed her uniform. Instead of the faded gray coverall of a protected employee, she wore the smart dress blues of an exec. Dominic squinted in the harsh light. Yes, there was the braided insignia, the Nord.Com logo.

"An exec," Dominic said. "Incredible. You're still here."

He ducked under the grid and hurried to meet her. Before he could stand upright again, the woman swung her rake and knocked him sharply in the jaw. He staggered off balance and dropped his laser torch.

"Get out, you stupid oaf! You'll contaminate the food!"

She swiped at him again, but this time, Dominic grabbed the rake before she could hit him. Crouching low, he twisted it out of her hands and turned it against her. "Madam, I'm not your enemy. Listen to me. I'm—"

"You're covered in dirt! Can't you see this is a sterile environment? Food has to be kept sanitary. Sanitary! Do you even know the word? These are biochem vats. These yeasty bugs make our food. They're extremely sensitive. Oh, you're too stupid to grasp the simplest concepts!"

The woman snatched at the rake, but Dominic dodged behind a coffin. Her cheeks darkened. "Ill-bred slacker! I work around the clock to maintain these vats. You can't possibly appreciate the fragile balance. I'm the only one with the training!"

She darted around the vat, and under the bright light, Dominic noticed a rash covering her cheeks. Her graying blonde hair looked greasy, and her hands were chapped. He'd never met an exec with such poor grooming habits. Worse, she seemed on the point of tears.

"Put down that rake! You're getting smutty prote germs all over the handle."

"Madam, I—"

She lunged toward him, and he circled farther around the vat. His jaw was starting to smart where she hit him, and he was losing patience. It didn't help when the woman shook her fists and screeched at him. "See this uniform? I know what's best! You're supposed to do what I say!"

Then she reached across the vat and caught the rake tines. They cut her hands. "You're ruining the food!" She was crying now, though she shook the rake like a madwoman. When Dominic managed to loosen her fingers from the tines, she sank down against the vat and covered her face.

At that moment, Benito reappeared. His mouth and cheeks were smeared with lumpy, brownish goo. Globs of it slid down his bare chest and spotted the enonnous striped shorts that ballooned around his knees. He glanced from one adult to the other and casually licked his fingers. The woman started bawling.

Dominic didn't know what to do. The woman knocked the back of her head against the metal vat, again and again. Her howls echoed like a bad audio feed. He explored the inside of his aching jaw with his tongue and watched her. He had never encountered hysteria before. Execs didn't yield to such displays.

He set the rake down, out of her reach, picked up the torch he'd dropped and stuck it in his waistband, just at the small of his back. Eventually, the woman stopped weeping. She leaned against the vat and scowled at him. Before either of them could react, Benito stepped on the woman's shoulder and scrambled up onto the lip of the vat. He hung on the brink, half in and half out, kicking his little legs in the air, and Dominic moved closer to see what he was doing.

The vat was filled with pudding. Or something viscous and beige that resembled pudding. Oozy yellow-brown ridges marbled its surface, and it rose and fell as if breathing. Here and there, bubbles broke and spouted small gouts of steam.

"Protein-glucose base," the NP said. "Staple of the prote diet—and very weird stuff."

"How so?" Dominic bent over the vat for a closer inspection.

" 'Cause it's alive! It's made from a single, two-hundred-year-old, transgenic yeast cell."

Benito was stuffing his cheeks with both hands, and despite the revolting saccharine smell, Dominic felt a pang of appetite.

"Are you saying this stuff is two centuries old?" he sub-vocalized.

"Yeah, back when I was young, Agra.Com got hold of the patent and just kept replicating the DNA and letting it swell up. Now it's like some huge cluster organism that just won't die. You find little pieces of it everywhere."

Dominic half suspected the NP was joking. He looked around for a utensil, a spoon or dipper, but there was nothing. He examined his black, grimy fingers. After hesitating a moment, he wiped them on his equally grimy shorts, then leaned beside the boy and scooped up a handful. The stuff felt slithery and warm. He swallowed it fast and scooped up more.

"How can you stomach that stuff?" the NP said.

Dominic ignored him and slurped more brown goo. This pudding was not bad. Really not bad. He devoured one mournful after another, hardly bothering to chew. At some point, he became aware that the woman was watching. She was still sitting on the floor near his feet, and he realized he and Benito must look like a pair of animals gorging at a trough. But the thought didn't stop him. He was hungry.

Finally, he stood to his full height, studied his gooey hands, and with only the briefest hesitation, wiped them on the side of the vat. The woman glowered. He leaned against the vat and crossed his arms—and inadvertently let out a little burp.

"Where did you get the exec uniform?" he asked.

"It's mine." The woman drew her knees and elbows tight to her body.

"You're not an executive."

"I am!" She eyed him with contempt. "Glutton! I work myself to exhaustion to feed you protes. The resources I've had to stretch to feed thousands of extra mouths. I'm a better exec than those Nord.Com fools who drove us bankrupt."

"You're right, son. I just scanned her retina, and she's not in the executive database. How did you guess?" the NP asked.

Benito was trying to flop down from the vat, so Dominic helped him to the floor. "You work here all alone?" he asked the woman.

"I can do it." She rapped her knuckle against the vat, and it rang like a muffled gong. "You and your filthy child just poisoned my yeasty bugs. I'll have to dump this whole batch and start over. That's wasted resources. Not to mention backbreaking work. I should have a crew of laborers answering to me. But the protes on this ship are too good to take orders now. They want to sit on councils and vote resolutions and pretend they know what they're doing. Ha!" The woman got up and straightened her uniform. "I'm right in the middle of a crucial quality check. Don't let me find you here when I get back."

As she marched away, Dominic followed her with his eyes. A prote impersonating an exec. Why would she do that? Protes resented execs, didn't they? He watched her wandering among the rows of warm, simmering vats, and it occurred to him that this would be a safe place to leave Benito. Plenty of food. It was certainly healthier than the mines.

"Leave the brat here," said the NP. "He'll be well fed."

The NP's order grated him raw, so he didn't answer. The woman was brushing a bit of lint from her uniform. She seemed so proud of those dress blues. Odd behavior for a. prote, he thought.

"You agree about the boy, I can tell," said the NP. "We always think alike, son. Why did we ever argue?"

"You're the one with the perfect recall," Dominic answered bitterly.

As he watched the woman straighten her collar and smooth her hair, he wondered again why she would deliberately identify with people she disliked. She must be acting under some compulsive devotion to authority.

"You always started those fights. I do recall that," the NP said.

"Shut up." Dominic didn't want to think about the arguments with his father. The woman stooped over one of her vats and sniffed the steam. Then she stuck her finger in the pudding and tasted it. Was that her crucial quality check?

"Hell, I used to be soft like you, but I outgrew it," said the NP.

"Outgrew it? Two days ago, you didn't exist!" The vein on Dominic's forehead throbbed visibly. His father used to speak to him exactly like that.

"Awright, I just came online, but I remember everything," the genie said.

"Don't," Dominic whispered dangerously. Only when Benito jerked away from him did he realize he's spoken aloud.

He squatted and wiped the boy's chin with his tee shirt, determined to keep his cool. But despite his best efforts, the memories stalked him. Arguments with his father. Insults on both sides. Words he could never retract.

Money. That was the root of every argument. Like the Kirgiz deal. That was the latest. Kirgiz.Com wanted to trade reclaimed nuclear waste to Australia in exchange for hydroponic vegetables. The Aussies were using ancient moldy seed to clone cauliflower and rutabaga. This deal would be the first North-South enterprise since the equator turned too hot for ocean crossings.

Dominic assigned Elsa Bremen to handle the due diligence, and when Elsa said the deal was sound, he knew he had a winner. This would be ZahlenBank's chance to play a truly global role. He could already hear the news bytes: "Hands Across the Equator." "ZahlenBank Sparks Reunification."

Of course, Dominic knew the South was full of lawless thieves and bad managers. Australian business practices harked back to the twentieth century, and their banking system was abysmal. But those weren't the reasons why his father hated the deal.

"What happened to your brain?" Richter was so livid, he sprayed saliva in Dominic's face. "Did you even look at this contract? With these terms, we'll make pennies on the deutschdollar. Pennies! I didn't build ZahlenBank into a world power so we could scratch and scrape for pennies!"

"You had vision once," Dominic shouted right back. "You're getting old. Your eyes are going bad."

"I see well enough to read a balance sheet."

"Splendid. Hole up and count your money. I used to be proud of you."

The deal fell through, and to this day, no northern Com had ever formed a joint venture with the South. But what did the Kirgiz deal matter now? All Dominic remembered was that they'd wounded each other over pennies.

He watched the woman marching erectly among the vats, dipping a finger in each one and tasting. In the dress blue uniform, she looked like a field marshal inspecting her troops.

"Benito, you like this place?" he said. "The pudding's yummy."

Benito grinned.

"Right." He ruffled the boy's hair. The woman had wandered quite a distance, so he called out to her, "This boy will work in exchange for food."

"That thieving vermin!" The woman waved them off. "I told you to leave. No one can do this but me."

"Naomi. Naomi. What are you saying, sweet girl?"

Dominic spun to see where the strange voice had come from. At the far end of the bright, shadowy room, a pale shape wavered like a reflection in water. Dominic bent under the fluorescent grid to see a frail little man shuffling among the vats, feeling the rims with his outspread fingers. He was so short, he didn't have to stoop to walk. Slowly, he advanced toward them. He wore no shirt, and every rib in his torso cast a shadow. He was bald and hairless, except for wispy white eyebrows that hung over his eyes like thatch.

"Tooksook!"

"Nick, it's you," the old man said. "Good, good, I've been looking for you. What happened to your eye?"

Dominic remembered the black eye Benito had given him, but before he could answer, the woman spoke.

"Friends of yours, Tooky? Humph." She kept stroking and smoothing her loose, stringy hair.

Tooksook greeted her with a kiss, then shambled up and touched Dominic's cheek.

"Ow!" Dominic drew back. The eye was tender, and his left jaw stung from that whack from the woman's rake. His face must make quite a rainbow, he thought wryly.

"Bad luck, bad luck. But it'll heal. Hello, Benito."

The boy ran and clutched Tooksook around the waist.

"Let's see, there was something for you. Yes, yes, I remember." The old man fished an object out of his trouser pocket and gave it to the boy. It was a yellow pencil. The boy gripped the object in both hands, and Tooksook smiled so broadly, his single front tooth seemed ready to wobble loose. "Find something to write on, Benito. The floor will do. Lick the lead to make it work better. Yes, lick it."

The boy dashed back to Dominic and held up the pencil like a trophy. Dominic had never seen the boy so delighted. Benito waited till Dominic bent and made a close examination of the pencil. Then he stuck the lead point in his small mouth and darted away between the vats.

Tooksook chuckled. He pressed the blond woman's hand and blatantly batted his eyelashes at her. His bald head just reached her shoulder. "Naomi, sweet girl, this is Nick. The coin giver. The one I told you about. He's been to school. He'll know how to make your bugs breed faster."

"This prote?" The woman rolled her eyes.

"I know nothing about food production," Dominic said.

Tooksook merely nodded and kept talking. "Naomi is our goddess. Oh yes, dear girl. Don't be shy. Naomi tends our garden. She feeds trash to her yeast bugs, and they bear divine fruit. It's the most sublime occupation. Yes, yes, the most sublime. And Nick, now that you're here—"

"No, Tooksook, listen to me. The boy can stay and work, but I have urgent business."

"Humph. Everybody has urgent business." Naomi jerked her hand free of Tooksook's grasp and started knotting her hair.

Her sour attitude set Dominic on edge. 'Tooksook, if you have over five thousand people here, why can't someone help with these vats?"

Tooksook opened his mouth, but Naomi interrupted. "Protes, ha! They wouldn't be any help to me." She smoothed her blue uniform and peered into the vat where Dominic and the boy had eaten. Her nostrils curled. "I have enough to do without tripping over stupid protes!"

"What arrogance! You're unbelievable," Dominic said.

Tooksook fluttered his hands at them. "Children, please. Let's decide how we'll feed our guests. You've been to school, Nick. You understand Naomi's magic food. I knew the moment I saw you, that you would—"

"Are you deaf, old man? I don't know anything about food vats!"

Tooksook blinked and crammed a knuckle in his mouth. Dominic hadn't meant to startle the old guy. He puffed a breath between his teeth. "I'm sorry, Tooksook."

"Con him, son. Get directions to the link. You have eighteen hours, thirty-three minutes and counting."

Con him, right. The NP reasoned just like Richter— everything was a con. His anger and regret were still as mixed up as ever. The very day of Richter's accident, Dominic had called him a crook. But he hadn't meant it. That morning, they'd argued over that Lindt.Com loan. His father's refusal to approve that loan had driven Lindt.Com out of business, and ZahlenBank had scooped up the assets for pocket change. Richter called it sound practice, and Dominic called it larceny. Now he clenched his teeth as if he could bite back the word.

"Con him, son," the NP said again. "You're doing it to save ZahlenBank."

Dominic drew a deep breath and put an arm around Tooksook's shoulders. He felt the man's bones protruding through his thin flesh. "Tooksook, your colony is running out of air. I can get what you need. Oxygen, fuel, supplies and food enough for everyone." His lies flowed smoothly after so much practice. He swallowed and rushed the next line. "I have to meet your council on the Dominic Jedes' bridge."

"That's my boy!" the NP gloated.

Tooksook tilted his head up and gazed into Dominic's eyes. "Is that why you've come, Nick? Truly?"

The old man's long eyebrows trembled, and Dominic had to exercise all his will to hold himself steady. The only sound was the scratch of Benito's pencil on the damp floor. Dominic bit his lip. He didn't mean to raise false hopes, not for gentle old Tooksook. The soup man balanced on his tiptoes, waiting for an answer, and Dominic looked back and forth from one milk white eye to the other.

After all, he wasn't lying. If he silenced that ludicrous broadcast and put these protes under arrest, in a way, he would be making good on his promise. These people would have dependable life support again. Oxygen, food— everything they needed.

Dominic threw his head back and scowled at the ceiling. He'd accused his father of rationalizing, but it seemed he'd inherited the gift. The harsh fluorescent light grid hurt his eyes, so he shut them. Benito's pencil scraped, and Dominic didn't have to look to know the boy was drawing pictures of heroes. The heavy sweet reek of the vats hung in the air like nerve gas.

Naomi snapped her fingers. "Fuel, he says. Food, he says. The college grad thinks he can solve all our problems." She had moved several squares away, and now she stood at a workbench scrubbing her rake with a ball of steel wool. 'Take him to the council, Tooky. Why not? Just get him out of my vat room. And take his smutty child, too. This is not day care."

Dominic exploded. "Madam, I've had enough of your attitude."

"No, Nick." Tooksook pawed at his arm.

"You're not an exec. Anyone can see that." Dominic shrugged the old man off and moved toward Naomi. He grabbed her rake and tossed it aside. When she backed up-, her head bumped the light grid, and the whole framework shivered.

"So you've had a little training," Dominic went on. "That doesn't give you the right to treat me like scum. You don't even know who I am."

Naomi bumped the light grid again, and the shadows danced crazily. She clutched at the bare tubes over her head.

Tooksook slipped between them. "Nick, please. The dear girl is fragile."

But Dominic's anger had gained too much momentum. He leaned over the woman and barked, "You're a fraud!"

Naomi couldn't back away from him. The vats held her trapped. She crossed her arms over her breasts and slid her hands nervously up and down her sleeves.

Tooksook tried to intervene again. "Please, Nick. Can't you see? Our dear Naomi needs her little dream."

Naomi began to pluck and tear at her uniform. She scratched at the braided insignia with her fingernail. "You want my uniform? Take it!" She ripped open the collar and fumbled with the zipper. Her eyes seemed not to focus. After a struggle, she got the zipper open and pulled one shoulder free. Dominic glimpsed a pale, wrinkled breast before Tooksook turned her away. "My uniform," she repeated in an edgy voice.

"Of course it's yours, sweet girl. No one wants to take away your uniform. Nick made a mistake. But we forgive him, don't we? Yes, yes, we forgive him. Nick's come to save us."

Tooksook managed to get Naomi's uniform zipped up again. Then he found her rake and pressed her fingers around the handle. "Dear girl. We can't do without you. You feed us all. That's right, use your rake. Sweet Naomi. That's it."

Softly, fondly, Tooksook coaxed her down the aisle of vats. With dull mortification, Dominic watched them go. He'd resorted to violence again. Violence against a mentally ill prote woman who had managed to grow enough food to sustain over five thousand people. And the worst he could say about her was, she treated him like scum.

"Eighteen hours, ten minutes, fourteen seconds," the NP whined.

Dominic didn't want to, but he found himself thinking about Penderowski again and wishing he hadn't taken that light. Maybe it was the accumulation of fatigue. He pressed his knuckles on the vat rim, and from nowhere, another memory assaulted him, a day when he was seventeen years old, fresh out of college, wearing the smart dress blues of a junior trader, riding up the executive elevator with his father. It was his first day at the Bank, and his father spent the morning proudly showing him around and explaining the job. Dominic hung on every word.

"Protes are children, son. Our duty is to protect them. Think of the marketplace as one big fragile ecosystem that feeds us all. We execs have to watch over it and keep it safe. That's our trust, and ZahlenBank's the heart of it."

Surely, there was a time when his father believed those words.

Dominic felt a tug at his waistband and looked down. Benito wanted to show him something. Vacantly, he let himself be led through the vats, and there on the floor under a glowing fluorescent tube, he found Benito's sketch of a tall stick figure with a square head and enormous feet. In one hand, the figure held a laser torch streaming radiance. Dominic couldn't mistake the portrait. He patted the boy's shoulder and said nothing.

Benito tugged at him again and held up the yellow pencil. Dominic saw the lead had broken. It was a stubby, old-fashioned mechanical device with a button to extend or retract the graphite point. Dominic clicked it a few times to extrude more lead, then handed it back to the boy.

"Zzzh!" The boy grinned and dropped to the floor to start drawing again. Dominic realized that was the first happy sound he'd heard Benito make.

Behind him, Tooksook said, "Nick, you should hurry, yes? The council's expecting you. Come, come, I'll show you the way."

"Naomi?" Dominic asked.

"Naomi's lying down. She's very tired."

"I didn't mean to—"

"Of course you didn't." The old man squeezed his arm. "Benito, come along. Yes, bring your pencil. We're going to find the Dominic Jedes."

Dominic offered Tooksook the laser torch, but he said he wouldn't need it. They wound through the vats toward the spot where Tooksook had first appeared, and there in the ceiling was an open hatch.

Tooksook pointed at it and beamed. "Up you go. Straight up to the bridge."

CHAPTER 12
MERCANTILE

DOMINIC pulled himself up through the ceiling hatch and smacked his head hard against a rock roof. Before he could say a word, Tooksook slid the hatch shut, leaving them in darkness. Dominic couldn't stand. The ceiling was too low. He had to creep along the corridor and feel with his knuckles. He rubbed the bruised place on his head, another colorful lump for his collection. Straight up, the old man said. Splendid.

He switched on the laser torch. The place smelled of fungus and fresh cement, and the torch beam glistened along sweating, chiseled walls. The tunnel slanted upward at a slight incline. Steps were notched into the rock, and a short way ahead, the stairway curved out of sight. When Benito disappeared around the corner, Dominic puffed a sigh. "Right, Benito. You lead." He hunched over like a skulking primate and followed.

Around the first bend, the tunnel widened and veered downward. Someone had strung a row of electric bulbs, and in the weak light, Dominic made out shrouded forms suspended along the walls. Hammocks. Six people were sleeping here. He heard snoring. Then he saw a young woman sitting cross-legged on the floor, rocking back and forth and fanning herself with a broken plate. As she watched him pass, her intense blue eyes reflected the lights.

Farther along, he found Benito squatting with four or five naked children, discussing something on the floor. Dominic bent over and directed his torch beam to see what they found so interesting. In the bright light, the nest of gutterbugs erupted like a living volcano, and shiny black insects skittered in all directions. Dominic jerked back in disgust.

"Benito, let's keep moving." He had to drag the boy away. The children were squealing and racing to catch the bugs.

"Blow me if this tunnel leads up!" the NP groused. "That old geezer doesn't know up from upside down."

Dominic couldn't argue. As the tunnel slanted farther down, he felt the beginnings of panic. He was as lost as ever, and time was running short. Should he go back or forward? He had no idea how to find his way out!

"This is what the Orgs wanted," he muttered under his breath.

"Your heart's racing, son. I'm gonna synthesize a little something to calm you."

"Damn you to hell! You leave my body chemistry alone."

"I'm concerned for your health. Why don't you trust me?"

Dominic plodded on without speaking. His father must have had good intentions when he created the NP, but the result was obnoxious. His father couldn't possibly have meant things to turn out this way. Dominic stubbed his toe and cursed. This passage had more twists than a—a gutterbug trail, he thought with black humor. The stone steps led ever downward, and in every feasible space, people had set up living quarters. He saw cargo webbing strung up as hammocks and shipping crates transformed into a dozen different styles of table, shelf and chair. If nothing else, these protes were clever at building things.

Soon the tunnel widened and branched in three directions, and Dominic found himself in the middle of a factory. People of all ages were picking through damp piles of rubbish and making things by hand. He paused to watch one man transform an archaic cell phone into a musical instrument. In another area, he saw women sewing clothes.

"You're dawdling," the NP said.

"What's the point of rushing?" Dominic said. "I don't know which way to go."

"Keep to the left," the NP said.

"You're guessing."

Dominic sniffed the ripe air of a nearby latrine, and his bowels sent him a message he'd been trying to ignore. Naomi's pudding weighed in his belly like concrete. Benito didn't hesitate to get in line for a stall, and reluctantly Dominic followed.

"How deep are we?" he subvocalized.

"Approximately 174 meters below the seafloor, if you don't mind my rounding off."

"And how much time is left?"

"You still have over seventeen hours. Don't give up, son. I'll get you through this."

"Oh, right. You've been an immense help so far."

Later, as Dominic and Benito were leaving the latrine, a woman waved to get their attention. She had some kind of pump container slung over her shoulder in a harness, and a long spray nozzle snaked from the top of it. "Hold out your hands," she ordered.

The woman spritzed them up to the elbow with a fine, liquid mist. "Carbolic acid and water," she said. "Sling it off quick, or it'll burn ya."

She was right. Dominic and Benito began slinging their hands like mad to stop the sting. Benito even hopped up and down.

The NP grunted. "That's what I call primitive."

Given their resources, Dominic was impressed that they even made the attempt. Aloud, he asked the woman where he could find water to drink.

She motioned with her head. "Along that way." She was already spritzing her next group of customers.

The corridor in this section rumbled with foot traffic, and at one point, he had to press flat against the wall to let a heavy cart roll by. Two men struggled to pull it, while a woman and a child pushed from behind. Its wobbly load of electronic scrap still dripped seawater—fresh salvage from the underwater junk piles.

At that moment, Benito came running toward him through the crowd. Dominic hadn't even noticed when the boy slipped away. Benito carried his yellow pencil clamped between his teeth, the way Dominic often carried his laser torch, and the striped shorts ballooned around his legs like a clown's pantaloons. He ran right in front of the overloaded cart, and just as he ducked under the wheel, a bulky metal case slipped off the load and fell. The boy dodged it by a hairsbreadth.

"You little idiot!" Dominic scooped him up. "You could've been killed. Watch where you're going."

Benito took the pencil out of his mouth and clasped his arms around Dominic's neck. "Little idiot," Dominic muttered again as he walked on through the dense pedestrian traffic, carrying the boy against his chest.

"Let the brat take his chances. I call it population control." The NP's growl made a wheel of tiny sparks around Dominic's peripheral vision. "Just tell me why you're hauling this kid around."

"You wouldn't understand," Dominic subvocalized. "Bit-brains lack human feeling."

The NP cackled. "Since when are you such a paragon of human feeling? You're just like me, hard-nosed and clearsighted, because that's what it takes to run ZahlenBank. That's one thing we always agreed about."

Dominic didn't answer. By now, he was so dehydrated, all he could think about was finding water. They moved with the thickening traffic to the brink of an enormous pit that could only be a natural underground formation. Jury-rigged metal stairs spiraled down its inner walls, loaded with people, and the noise of so many voices and thumping feet reverberated in a steady roar. Dominic could see no other way to go.

"Can you gauge the depth of this pit?" he subvocalized to the NP.

"Hey, I'm a nanoquantronic array the size of a pinhead. You're asking a lot," the genie said. "Okay, yell something really loud, and I'll time the echo."

"Ahoy!" Dominic shouted down the pit. His voice barely registered above the crowd noise.

"Just over 15.4776 meters. Close enough for you?"

"Splendid." Dominic shook the metal rail, remembering Tooksook's instructions to go straight up. - The makeshift staircase looked severely overburdened. He checked the bolts attaching it to the stone wall, and they seemed undersized for the weight they were supporting. He wouldn't even consider taking this route if he weren't so thirsty. When he stepped onto the first tread, it gave under his weight, and he could feel the rail vibrate with the heavy tramp of the crowd. Benito jumped down and scampered ahead, darting through people's legs. Dominic took another cautious step down, peering over the rail into the dimness below. He couldn't see the bottom.

"Going down, friend?" Someone behind him wanted to pass, so he had no choice but to enter the stream of traffic.

The deeper he descended, the denser the noise grew, as if sound itself were condensing under its own weight. Movement on the stairs was sluggish. When he finally hopped off the last shuddering tread, he drew a relieved breath, then choked and started coughing. The air at the bottom of the pit was rank. He caught the familiar smell of braziers. People were cooking food, and smoke roiled through the flickering light of handheld lanterns. The odor was almost tactile. Human sweat, fried spore-bread, ozone.

Someone stepped on his foot and apologized, and someone else jostled his elbow. People jammed the area near the bottom of the stairs, all hurrying in different directions. He moved aside.

"This is the deepest level we've found yet," the NP informed him. "I'm detecting three atmospheres of pressure."

"It's some kind of junction," Dominic said. Above people's heads, he could make out the tops of several tall, arched openings on the other side of the pit. Pedestrians flooded in and out, carrying bundles and dragging carts. After studying the pit closer, he realized tunnels radiated from it in every direction, but which one led to the Dominic Jedes?

"Which way?" he asked the NP. With the deafening noise, he no longer troubled to keep his voice down.

The NP's laughter throbbed through his temple. "Admit it, son. You need me."

"Which way?" Dominic shouted again.

"Okay, okay. Checking compass memory. We want the passage directly across from this one."

"You're sure?"

"No, I'm not sure. If you want certainty, get me better source data."

Dominic studied the packed floor of the pit. He'd have to cross right through the center to reach that tunnel. Where was Benito? He'd lost sight of the boy. He circled back to the rickety staircase and climbed up for a better view.

"What the hell are you doing?" the NP said. "You're looking for that brat."

Dominic cupped his hands around his mouth and shouted, "Benito, where are you?"

He was squinting through the smoky air, searching for the boy, when he noticed the raised platform at the center of the pit. Something odd was going on there. He couldn't see well, but it looked as if half a dozen protes in bright-colored jackets were standing on the platform, pointing into the crowd and writing on handheld slates. Around the platform, people below stood three meters deep and waved white cards in the air. Were they taking bets? Was it an auction? The scene entranced Dominic. He barely noticed when Benito shinned up his back and took a perch on his shoulders.

"Yeah, I'm curious, too," the NP said. "Let's investigate."

As Dominic eased his way toward the platform, he realized the hall was much wider than he'd first imagined. Several race-car stadiums would fit inside this cavern. The thickest traffic clumped around the tunnel openings and staircase. Elsewhere, people stood in knots, talking and handing objects back and forth. What was going on? Dominic edged toward one of the smaller groups to eavesdrop. Three men and a woman were studying an object a fourth man held in his open palm. It was a small plastic mirror, the industrial type used in laser torches and holo displays.

"I can deliver a thousand of these by Tuesday," the man was saying. "My brother's a diver. He found a barge full of these things."

"Sorry, we don't need mirrors. Have you talked to anyone with antibiotics?"

"No, but if you meet anyone who needs mirrors, I'll be here."

The group drifted apart, and Dominic moved to another group. Three prim juvenile girls sat on the floor, counting out bundles of copper wire from a large basket. The wire had been done up in neat skeins like knitting yarn, and the girls laid them out in even rows. Several men and women bent over and touched the wire. One women hefted a bundle as if to judge its weight. Then she laid down a pair of scissors in its place. —

"Deal," one of the girls said, grinning. The scissors disappeared into the girl's basket, and the woman walked away with her wire.

"This is a market," Dominic said.

The girls glanced up at him, and one of them giggled. He moved away.

"How cute," said the NP. "The protes have built themselves a little emporium. Find out what's happening on that platform, son. It's bound to be good for a laugh."

Dominic shifted Benito to a more comfortable position and marched toward the platform. "They rely on word of mouth," he said. "That leaves so much to chance. And it's straight barter. One item for another. They have no medium of exchange."

"No money," the NP said.

"How do they calculate value? It's random guesswork."

"This is a perfect demonstration of why we don't want protes running the world."

"Right," Dominic said, but his mind was elsewhere. He could think of a dozen simple changes to make this trading floor more efficient. The challenge engaged his mind, and he forgot his thirst and walked about, glancing at the wares people were exchanging. Window glass. Lidded containers. Spools of waterlogged thread. He suspected each item had been painstakingly mined from the underwater junk heaps.

His brain churned ideas. They could hang a large board listing goods for sale and goods wanted, in alpha order for quick reference. And they could paint a numbered grid on the floor so people could find each other. And they would certainly have to establish a currency. Metal coins stamped with numbers, some logical way to define value, and some way to keep track of it. What they really needed was a bank.

As he worked closer toward the raised platform, he watched the people in the bright jackets writing on their slates, and he noticed the audience straining to hear their shouts over the echoing noise.

"Divers? Any scuba divers? We need anyone who can swim." A woman in a cobalt blue coat waved her arm over the crowd like a conductor's baton, but no one answered. She frowned at her slate and chewed a thumbnail. Dominic saw that her slate was not the usual electronic tablet, but a wafer-thin piece of dull black metal. And her fingers were dusty with chalk. She was writing by hand.

"Okay," the woman said, "any young people willing to learn to swim?"

Arms shot up all around. People were waving white cards, shouting for the woman's attention. Dominic saw the cards were marked with names. O'Toole. Duong. Almirez. Vrtiak.

"You, Vrtiak, how many?" the woman shouted.

Vrtiak's broad smile showed the gaps of many missing teeth. "Four. All women. Ages fourteen, seventeen, twenty-nine, forty-one."

"I'll take 'em. Report to deck nine." The woman wrote something on her slate. "You, Duong, how many?"

"Six boys, two girls," Duong answered. "And me. I'm sixty-six. I can learn."

Dominic watched people slapping the man named Vrtiak on the back as he eased out of the crowd. "This is a labor market," Dominic whispered.

The NP laughed. "They're trading work contracts. Can you believe it?"

Vrtiak was heading toward one of the tunnels, so Dominic followed and grabbed his shoulder. "Excuse me. I'm new here. Can you tell me how things work?"

The man looked Dominic up and down, and winked at Benito, who had clenched his little arms around Dominic's forehead. Vrtiak was pale-skinned, muscular and balding. He flashed his gap-toothed smile. "You've been to college, eh? I hear it in your voice."

"Tell me," Dominic said, "did you just sell your daughters' labor contracts?"

The man's smile vanished, and his pasty face grew dark. "Sell my daughters? You think I'm a devil? How can you use that aristo talk here?"

"But I thought—" Dominic didn't get to finish. The man shoved him away and stomped off.

Frowning, Dominic moved back toward the platform. Prote behavior continued to baffle him. He saw a small white-haired man standing a little apart, counting on his fingers. In his hand was a card with the name, Duong, printed in block letters. Dominic tried again.

"Hello, sir. I'm new here. This thing with the white cards, what's going on?"

Duong grinned shyly. He smoothed his card and showed it to Dominic, then waved at the people onstage. "This is the matching hall," he said in a thick American accent. "You come here with something you need or something to give, and with luck, you find a match."

"So you 'gave' your family's work contacts, is that right?" Dominic chose his words with caution. He didn't want to blunder again.

"No contracts. No, we just work."

"But who pays you? The council?"

"Payment, no no. You're thinking in the old way. We live here. We do what needs to be done, that's all."

"Utopian bullshit," the NP grunted.

Dominic thanked the man and turned away. Again, his mind was filling up with ideas. The matching hall. Fascinating concept. He was witnessing the emergence of a nascent market—only instead of information packets traveling on carrier waves, these people were milling around like molecules in Brownian motion, knocking into each other and chaotically making deals. The poetry of it appealed to his imagination. 'This might work," he said aloud.

"Socialism fell on its ass two centuries ago," the NP said. "It's stupid."

"It's simpleminded, I agree. But for a small group, this manual exchange is the spontaneous first stage of commerce. Naturally, it will evolve. Values will mass together and create imbalances. Eventually, they'll see the need for private wealth and centralized accounting. But for now, with so much to be done in such a short time—"

"Dominic, you sound like you wanna see these lunatics win!"

He barely heard the NP. He was watching the people on the platform call out job openings and write on their slates. "The matching hall," he said to himself, "of course."

Colored lights exploded across his retina. "Remember which side you're on! These protes wanna destroy Zahlen-Bank."

"No, the Orgs want that," Dominic said. "They're using these protes as game pieces."

"Game pieces? They're fucking runaways. Son, your mind's turning to mush!"

Dominic didn't bother to answer. Benito was fidgeting, so he set the boy down on the stone floor. "Stay close, Benito. Come when I call."

Benito immediately dashed off to watch a young man painting pictures on scraps of sheet metal. Dominic observed from a distance as the painter sketched a quick caricature of the boy with a few brushstrokes. At once, Benito squatted on the floor and began to draw with his pencil, but the young man gave him a piece of metal instead.

"Let the kid go. He's found his mentor," said the NP. "We have barely seventeen hours, and our tunnel's straight ahead."

Dominic still didn't answer. He watched Benito and the painter exchange drawings and solemnly admire each other's work. Turning around, he saw the same exchange enacted in a dozen more scenes, people trading handmade items and raw materials in plain barter. Without the expertise of bankers or attorneys or regulatory agencies, this matching hall had bloomed like a beautiful life-form. Too bad ZahlenBank's surveillance web didn't reach into this place. This would make a rich data source for the Ark. Dominic knew this embryonic marketplace would continue to grow in a multitude of unforeseeable directions, and he wished he had the time to stay and witness it, perhaps offer a suggestion here and there, a gentle tweak.

"You look lost," someone said.

A trim, middle-aged man with iron-colored hair was standing at his side. The man wore a neat mustache, and he stood with a stiff, military bearing. Like most protes, he was shorter than Dominic. "Maybe you're lost in thought," he said with a quick smile. "What happened to your eye? You got a real shiner there."

Dominic touched the swollen tissue where Benito had hit him earlier. He'd almost forgotten the black eye, not to mention the whack on his jaw and the lump on his head. His face roust be several shades of purple by now.

"I'm Massoud. Ship's bursar. I think I know who you are."

"You're in charge here?" Dominic shook the bursar's outstretched hand. "I have some questions."

"You're the coin dispenser. Nick. Am I right?" Massoud pinched his mustache and rocked on his heels. His eyebrows rose and fell three times in quick succession. He seemed to pulsate with energy. "You like coins? I've got a ton of 'em. I've got all the copper scrip Nord.Com left behind."

"Coins? Excellent. Why aren't they in circulation?"

"You're joking." Massoud thumped him in the arm hard enough to leave a bruise, and Dominic tried not to flinch. "You of all people should know why. Because every one of them carries a miserable ZahlenBank logo."

With some effort, Dominic kept himself from reacting.

Massoud made a rude gesture. "As soon as we build a furnace, we'll melt 'em down and make toilet bowls."

"Fucking prote," said the NP.

Dominic clamped his jaw and held himself very still, thinking how glad he was to be traveling incognito.

Massoud smiled roguishly. "Step into my office, Nick. We'll talk."

The NP sputtered sparks. "Seventeen hours, zero minutes, six seconds. Forget this jerk. Son, you've got other business."

"You're not even sure which way we should go," Dominic subvocalized. "I want to hear about this market."

"Do I have to remind you what'll happen if you fail? It won't just be the ruin of ZahlenBank, son."

"I'm not your son." Dominic ignored the splinters of light chasing each other across his left eye.

Massoud led him to a tall narrow tent made of green plastic tarps wrapped around three stacked sections of metal scaffolding. With rapid gestures, Massoud ushered him inside and pointed to a strip of cloth on the floor— apparently a place to sit. Dominic moved in cautiously. Overhead, caches of strange objects dangled in plastic bags tied with string and bungee cords. Massoud's office looked like the inner workings of some bizarre plastic grandfather clock. Scattered on the floor were warped and rusted appliances, apparently rescued from the junk heaps. Dominic sat down, and was startled to see an old flat-screen computer flashing a Japanese animation. He noticed a bedroll stuffed in one corner.

"You sleep here?"

"I like to be close to the action." Massoud folded himself into the remaining floor space and gestured again. Apparently, he couldn't talk without waving his hands. "Nick, you're an educated man. So am I. Nord.Com trained me as an accountant."

Dominic leaned forward. "Then you know the practical uses of currency."

"They taught you that old scam?" Massoud fished something out of his pocket and stuck it between his teeth. He kept talking with the object in his mouth, and a gleam of spit appeared at the corner of his lip. "That's the old way. We're in a revolution, Nick."

Dominic studied the curious object between Massoud's teeth. "Some of the old ways make sense," he said. "Standard valuations. A medium of exchange. You can't just toss out—"

"Whoa. Hold up, Nick. You're getting way too serious." Massoud took out a small pouch and opened the zipper. The pouch was stuffed with matted gray-green fibers. He took a pinch between his fingers and rubbed the twiggy bits together. "You were trained to dispense coins. Naturally, that's what you believe in. I bet they taught you the money game."

Dominic frowned. "I studied economic game theory, if that's what you mean."

Massoud took the object out of his mouth, and Dominic finally recognized it—an old-fashioned clay pipe. The bowl was charred from use, and the stem had been chewed to splinters. Massoud grinned. "The money game, yeah. Basically, it's a fight between two guys, each trying to take the most coins for himself and leave the least behind for the other guy. Is that about right?"

"Competitors try to maximize earnings. It's a primary game rule."

"My point is, we don't do that anymore. We let the pattern develop organically."

Pinwheels of light flared on Dominic's retina as the NP said, "Why are you talking to this imbecile? You can't possibly expect a literate discussion."

When Massoud finished stuffing the bowl with matted fibers, he clicked a plastic lighter, and Dominic watched the flame dive into the pipe bowl as Massoud sucked at the stem.

"Granted, your matching hall works now," Dominic said, "but eventually, you'll need a formal management structure to maintain balance. You'll have to start a bank."

Massoud's eyes darted up at him. The fibers in the pipe caught fire, and blue smoke leaked from Massoud's nostrils. He spoke tensely, as if trying not to exhale. "Maybe ZahlenBank'll locate a branch office here—if we ask nice."

Dominic recognized the odor. Ersatz marijuana. This man was getting high on pot. When he offered the pipe, Dominic took it in reflex and studied the chewed mouthpiece.

The NP gasped. "Don't put that in your mouth!"

Dominic sniffed it, then took a drag and exhaled with a cough. The weed burned his throat. It wasn't the silky blend he'd sometimes sampled at exec dinner parties. When he spoke, his voice was hoarse. "Do you have any water?"

Massoud leaned to his left and searched through a pile of objects, knocking some aside. He found a half-full water sack and bounced it in his hand like a flaccid ball. Dominic eyed it.

Massoud said, "What if I tell you this water costs five million deutschdollars? And the only way you can earn that much is by working for me your whole miserable life?"

"I'd say that's disproportionate."

"You mean outta whack, right? But look, I got the water."

"I'll find water elsewhere."

Massoud smiled and jerked at his mustache. "What if I cut a deal with the waterworks so I own it all?"

Dominic handed the pipe back to Massoud. "I understand. You mink the markets victimized you. But still, the concept of money . . ."

Just then, Dominic noticed a bright, beautiful droplet of color to his right, and he turned to see what it was. A small faceted crystal hung on a string in Massoud's tent, and as it twirled slowly in the air current, its glassy faces shimmered blue-green, crimson and amber. Dominic stared.

"Fine weed, huh?" Massoud laughed and sucked another drag of the ersatz pot. Blue smoke eddied out of his mouth when he said, "Somebody found a bale of this stuff last night in the dump. It's got a salty aftertaste, but it's mellow."

Massoud tossed the water sack, and Dominic turned just in time to catch it between his knees. "See? No coins. The water's free," Massoud said. He leaned back against a stack of what looked like microwave ovens and crossed his wiry arms over his chest.

Dominic lost his train of thought. He felt light-headed. When he squeezed a stream of water into his mouth, it tasted like sweet wine. He drank for a long time, then laid the water sack on the floor and vaguely noticed Massoud jerking it up to close the nozzle. He saw a wet spill, dark gray on pale gray, spreading like an organic form across the floor. All the objects in the tent flared with luminous auras, like holographic halos. Perhaps he was dreaming all of this. He touched something that looked like a stuffed black mouse with big ears and white, gloves. He sensed that he and this mouse were exactly where they belonged. A place for everything, everything in its place. He fell off the crate.

"Ow!" His forehead smacked against the corner of a metal strongbox. The left side again, directly above his swelling black eye.

"You did that on purpose!" the NP said.

When Dominic rubbed the wound, it felt like a metal spike driving through his temporal lobe. "I was going to say something vital," he wheezed.

Massoud slapped his knee. "Coin guy, you need to relax."

CHAPTER 13
USURY

A moment later—or so it seemed—Dominic came awake sputtering and choking. Benito was squirting a stream of droplets in his face from the water sack. He sat up in alarm, and his brain wobbled in his skull like a wet sponge.

His voice made a croaking sound. "What's my status?"

"Now you're asking," said the NP. "You ignored me before, but after you poison your brain with that toxic marijuana, you ask me for help."

"I took one experimental toke."

"You were out nearly an hour!"

Benito watched with big brown eyes as Dominic touched the new gash on his temple. His legs were tangled in a thin blanket on the floor of Massoud's tent, but the wiry little bursar was gone. He accepted the water sack from Benito and rinsed out his mouth. "Just tell me how much time is left," he said.

"Nine hours, eleven minutes, forget the seconds. You were hallucinating about a monster coin machine. That reefer had to be tainted. I can't believe you inhaled it."

Dominic kicked off the blanket and pushed himself up to his knees. The left side of his head throbbed, and he fought down the urge to wretch. "Benito, stick close," he said.

Blue smoke hung in layers over the crowd in the matching hall, and the aroma seemed sweeter man before. Dominic saw a lot of people smiling. "That bale of marijuana must be in play," he said aloud.

Edging through the clumps of traders, he and the boy made their way to the tunnel which, according to the NP's best guess, led to the Dominic Jedes. Near its mouth stood a caffie-colored boy with a pushcart full of water sacks glistening like hazy diamonds. Dominic felt in his waistband for Penderowski's torch.

"How many sacks for this torch?" he asked.

The boy fingered the torch, then shook his dark head. "Keep it. The water's free."

Dominic grabbed a sack and handed it to Benito, then stuffed two more into his waistband.

The NP whined like a repeating loop, "Enough delays. We have to find that link."

We have to get out of here, or we'll die, Dominic thought. When he looked back over his shoulder, a fresh group of protes was climbing up on the center stage, donning the colorful coats and hauling up a load of new slates covered with chalk marks. Their movements were quick and purposeful. Were the Orgs really cynical enough to play these people like pawns? How serious they looked, with their rosters of job postings and their urgent mission to accomplish great deeds. He actually admired them.

Silence fell around the platform as someone on stage shouted an employment opportunity. Then a throng of hands shot up, waving white cards, offering their families to work. These laborers had run away from good safe jobs. They gave up secure air supplies, crossed a poisonous ocean, gambled the lives of their children on nothing more than a promise, and now all they wanted was to find work again. The desire to work must run in their veins. Dominic shook his head and smiled as he absorbed the wild tangled vitality of the matching hall. And he couldn't help thinking again, what they really needed was a bank.

The water sacks he'd stuffed into his waistband kept slipping down because his shorts had gotten looser. He'd lost weight. When he slapped his belly, it pleased him to feel hard flesh. He tightened the drawstring around his waist, adjusted the sacks and lodged Penderowski's torch between them. Then he herded Benito into the tunnel.

Pedestrian traffic was dense, and not far along, they met an oncoming cart loaded with a rickety unbalanced stack of crates. A woman walked beside the cart, holding them in place while her partner jerked the entire load along the uneven stone floor. Dominic immediately scooped Benito up and stepped into a side passage to avoid a mishap.

"What do you want?" someone said behind his back.

Dominic turned to see who had addressed him. "I'm in a hurry. Urgent business," he said. He intended to wait there only long enough to let the cart pass, but the sights in the small stone room derailed him. He had entered a science lab. At least mat's what it looked like at first He saw old-fashioned crucibles and gas jets and specimen jars—and children. The lab was full of children! Three work counters divided the space into sections, and the youngsters sat squashed together on the countertops, with straight backs and hands clasped in their laps, as grim as soldiers. Older adolescents stood against the walls, and toddlers sat cross-legged on the stone floor.

"Students, I mean to have order in this classroom!"

The teacher stood in front of an improvised blackboard at the far end of the room. She was short and chubby, with plump arms and a double chin, and she wore a billowing smock over her prote uniform. Her hand still held a chunk of white chalk, poised to write.

"Damn me. It's a school." The NP snickered.

"You've brought your boy to the right place." The teacher stuck out her chin and pointed her chalk at Benito. "Your son'll learn the truth here."

What good luck, thought Dominic. A school. He'd been looking for the right place to settle Benito. Yes, he could leave the boy here with good conscience. He set Benito on his feet, brushed the dirt from his striped shorts and smoothed his hair.

"His name's Benito. He's very bright, although he doesn't say much. I think he experienced some trauma."

"Humph! And I'd like to know who hasn't!" The teacher arched her eyebrows and wrote "Beeno" on the board.

"Wonderful. He's enrolled. Let's get going," the NP said.

"Your son can sit on the floor," said the teacher.

"You don't mind that, do you, Benito?"

The teacher shrugged and began strutting in front of the blackboard, gripping her chalk and continuing her interrupted lecture. Her round shoulders were drawn up in a permanent hunch, and her eyes protruded in an unhealthy way. He thought it must be the strain of trying to see in the darkness. Why didn't she arrange a better light source?

As his eyes adjusted to the gloom, he looked closer at the lab equipment. The gas jets weren't connected to anything, and most of the test tubes and beakers were cracked. The equipment must have been salvaged from the Benthica's assay lab. What a pathetic classroom, he thought. Still, he tugged the boy's arms loose from around his neck and gave him a gentle push toward the other children. Benito sucked his pencil and wouldn't budge.

"Go on, Benito. The more you learn, the greater your worth." Dominic bit his lip. Those were his father's words. How spontaneously he repeated them. But of course, he had never doubted the value of knowledge. He knelt beside the boy, and while the teacher continued her lesson, he whispered, "You'll learn chemistry, Benito. Molecules. Bonded pairs. That's how the world is put together."

He squinted at the dim classroom walls, hoping to find a Periodic Table of Elements that he could explain, to help Benito get a head start in class. But all he saw was a slogan scrawled on the blackboard. The chalky handwriting was hard to read, but he finally made it out: "Exectives eet ther yung."

"What's this?" Dominic stood and pointed at the slogan.

"How many times are you gonna disrupt my class?" The teacher jammed one fist against her paunchy hip. "Executives eat their young. It's why they live so long."

"That's nonsense," said Dominic.

"Who cares?" said the NP. "Let's go."

The pudgy teacher bent forward at the waist. "They grow fetuses in tanks and eat 'em to stay young. And they have white blood, like milk. And their brains pick up radioactive waves from the moon. Yes, it's all documented facts."

Dominic raised his voice. "That's crazy!"

"You call me a liar? In front of my class?" White blotches mottled the teacher's cheeks, and her bulging eyes radiated passion. She gripped her chalk like a weapon. "This school teaches the truth. If you can deny any of my points, I'd like to hear it."

Lightning burst across Dominic's retina as the NP said, "Are you gonna waste time debating a prote?"

"Let me tell you a story," the teacher said in a commanding tone. "Students, listen up. You'll be tested on this."

"Who cares what a prote writes on a chalkboard?" the NP said, but Dominic was too angry to answer.

The teacher walked slowly among the children, and they followed her with their eyes. "Once upon a time, I had a daughter. She was about your son's age. That's right, just as sweet and innocent as your own child."

Dominic didn't want to hear what happened to this woman's daughter. Some horrific industrial accident, no doubt, which this bereft woman chose to blame on the hapless exec in charge. The mean glint in her eye told Dominic the whole story.

"I'm sorry your daughter died, but—"

"She didn't die!" The teacher gripped her chalk so hard, it broke in two pieces and fell to the floor. "They took my daughter and trained her in triage! She's alive, working in a Copenhagen clinic." The woman raised her chalky fist as if she wanted to split the world in two. Children scattered out of her way as she took another step forward. "My daughter does triage!"

"Triage?" Dominic was nonplussed. He couldn't remember what that word meant.

The NP supplied a definition. "It's our criteria for rationing medical care. We allocate resources to patients who get the most benefit."

Dominic asked the teacher, "What's your problem with triage? It's a necessary skill."

"It's perverted." The teacher stomped her foot.

"We can't provide unlimited medical care to billions of people. We need criteria for rationing." Dominic crossed his arms. He knew this line of reasoning well.

The teacher's eyes seemed to swell even larger. She lowered her head like a charging animal. "Med care goes to execs first, workers last, dependents never. That's the triage they taught my daughter."

"But—"

"They taught you, too. I can tell." The teacher's nostrils curled, and her voice deepened to an ominous undertone. "My daughter learned their values. Do you know how execs define values?"

"Cost versus benefit," Dominic answered automatically. Then for the first time, he faltered backward.

But the teacher had stopped moving toward him. Her plump body sagged against the countertop. "The execs perverted my daughter. That's why I teach the truth. Whether the damned council likes it or not!"

Dominic read the words on the blackboard and ground his teeth. This wasn't what children should learn. They should study atoms and molecules. This teacher wanted to indoctrinate them in malice. He tried to recalled his own early education. What had he studied? Market systems. Return on capital. Cost-benefit analysis.

Values, yes. How slippery that word could be. He'd been trained to think of values as logical numbers based on the calculus of supply and demand. Over long evenings at his desk, his father had taught him how to compute their shifting relativities, given any set of variables. He knew that in his father's system, medical triage was as clear as quantum mechanics. But here among the runaways, values became hazy and laden with intangibles. Protes resented the clear-cut definitions of price, and they assigned worth on an entirely different plan, call it sentiment or subjectivity, some insubstantial system without edges. Yet he sensed that, in a manner he failed to grasp, these people defined value as a constant.

Benito's fingernails cut into his kneecap and jolted him back to the present. The boy had hidden behind Dominic's legs, and some of the other children were shouting insults and pelting the boy with rock chips.

"Stop this foolishness." The teacher marched over, gripped Benito's forearm and yanked him free. When his yellow pencil clattered across the floor, the teacher pounced on it "Excellent. I can use this."

Benito struggled in the teacher's grip and let out a strangled cry. "Hn!"

"That pencil belongs to Benito," Dominic said.

The woman nodded. "Your son'll be fine with us. You said you had urgent business."

"Urgent's the word," the NP said.

"Give back the pencil," Dominic said aloud.

"Forget the damn brat!" As the NP's fireworks exploded, Dominic pressed the heel of his hand into his eye socket.

"Something in your eye?" The teacher sneered.

Dominic blinked, and one big salty tear rolled down his cheek. "Give Benito his pencil, or I'll take it by force."

"Is that so?" The woman stuck out her jaw, and her flabby chin wobbled. "This pencil is a resource, and I need it. I teach a roomful of young minds, whereas this child, what does he do? You talk about rationing criteria. Okay, use it."

Dominic pictured grabbing the woman and shaking her upside down until the pencil fell from her pocket. But that seemed vulgar, and besides, the children were watching. He didn't want to set an example of violence. Their "young minds" were already imbibing enough crackpot ideas.

"I'll make you a deal," he said to the teacher. "That yellow pencil means a lot to the boy. I'll give you two writing implements in trade for that one."

'Two for one? I don't believe you." The teacher's eyelids closed to slits over her large globular eyes. "Where are these two writing implements?"

Dominic smiled and opened his hands. "It stands to reason, as a teacher, you need a supply of writing implements. How long will one pencil last? Why not have two instead?"

The teacher poked her nose in the air as if she could sniff out Dominic's scam. "Show me."

"It's obvious your mind is full of ideas." Dominic gestured at the children. "You need to record your vision for posterity. Writing's the way to do that."

"I don't trust you," the teacher said, but she was listening.

Dominic felt a rush of the old pleasure in pursuit of a deal. He gazed at the teacher with affection, as a predator might gaze at its next meal. "Maybe your ideas will change the world someday. These students, they're just the beginning. Think of what you could do if you write down all your thoughts."

The teacher squinted up at him. She was much shorter than Dominic, and her fleshy head lolled back between her hunched, rounded shoulders. She was wavering. Dominic played his favorite gambit—he turned to leave.

"If you won't trade, I have to go," he said, disappearing through the door.

"Wait." The teacher pulled the yellow pencil out of her pocket and studied it.

Dominic paused in the doorway, pretending to ignore the pencil, but from the corner of his eye, he observed her indecision. Benito struggled again to break free from her grip, but Dominic gave him a discreet hand signal to quiet down.

'Two for one," Dominic said again, very softly.

The teacher glanced at her students. Her lips parted, ever so slightly, and her heavy shoulders rose and fell. When she exhaled, Dominic knew the deal was done.

"Okay, I'll buy," she said. "Here's your ratty pencil. Where's my two?"

In one motion, Dominic seized the pencil from the teacher's hand and bent to the floor to sweep up the two broken pieces of chalk she'd dropped earlier. As he tossed them in her direction, he grabbed Benito and sprinted out the door.

"You cheated me!"

Dominic paused in the corridor and laughed. "All transactions balance." Then he clasped the boy in the crook of his elbow and charged through the crowd.

"Stop that thief!" the woman called out behind him.

People turned to gawk as Dominic rushed headlong through the crowded tunnel. In his haste, he slammed into a woman who fell to her knees. Her belly was distended in pregnancy, and she carried a toddler strapped in a backpack. When Dominic offered to help her up, she started weeping.

"Thief!" the teacher continued to yell in the background.

Someone pointed at Dominic. "That's him. He stole something from that mother."

"He stole her child!"

"He's a kidnapper!"

Aghast, Dominic spun around. Everyone was staring at him. A circle widened around the weeping mother and Dominic, who still gripped Benito firmly in his arm.

"Drop the brat," the NP said. "You don't always like my advice, but take it now."

"Hn!" Benito's eyes were wide with fear. He scrambled up to grip Dominic's neck.

An object struck Dominic's shoulder. It was a stone. Another hit his back. Then another. Dominic turned to face the stones. "I didn't steal anything! This boy, he doesn't belong to her. He's . . ."

When Dominic hesitated, more stones flew, and when one of them ricocheted off the floor and struck the woman's leg, she shrieked.

"Stop it, you stupid fool!" Dominic pushed through the crowd toward the teacher, who was throwing stones.

Then several people laid hands on him, and someone tried to wrest Benito away. Dominic lost control. He swung and fought, blindly hammering his meaty fists at anyone who came near. He heard the brutal wet impacts of flesh against flesh, the ugly grants, the screams. Finally, he broke through the crowd and fled up the passage, sweat burning his eyes, no longer caring who got in his way.

"Stop that man! He's a thief!" the teacher yelled.

"Drop the kid and run!" the NP shouted.

Dominic ran full out, gripping Benito to his chest. He ran until he was gasping for air. Because he was taller and healthier than his pursuers, he eventually outran them. Their cries echoed and faded, and still he kept running. Then his long legs began to buckle, and when he spotted a dark niche in the wall, he slipped in to hide.

Benito's face was red and wrinkled. At first, Dominic didn't realize the boy was quietly crying. He held him tight and stroked his bony little shoulders. "It's all right. It's all right," he repeated, over and over, as he slowly recovered his breath.

What had just happened? Those people accused him of theft, but he wasn't to blame. He only took back what belonged to the boy. It was that teacher! He hadn't intended to knock anyone down. Hardly ten minutes earlier, he'd been thinking how much he admired these protes. But that teacher!

Dominic drew farther back into the dark crevice and waited for his heart to stop pounding. Would they have stoned him to death? For taking a pencil? These protes were more dangerous than he realized. Again, he silently blessed the major's insistence on disguise.

"Did you hear me, son? We gotta shut this place down. Surely, you see why."

"Yes," Dominic said. He could still picture the pregnant young woman, weeping on her hands and knees, and the people circling around, pointing. The episode left him rattled.

He leaned out of the crevice and looked both ways. No furious posse of vigilantes. Only a stream of haggard passersby. He wriggled out of the hiding place and started up the corridor, carrying the exhausted boy in his arms.

They passed a shelter where an old man was stir-frying hardened cubes of Naomi's pudding in a wok. He watched juvenile girls painting filigree patterns on their feet. The sight of a mother suckling her infant no longer disturbed him.

He trudged on, fighting fatigue and trying to ignore the blisters rubbing under his foot rags. How long had he been walking? Time in this place seemed to stretch and wrinkle by rules Einstein never imagined. At some point, the boy wanted to walk on his own, and as they climbed four levels up a winding stone stairs lighted with candles, Dominic chanted a mantra, "Up. Up. Up."

When they dead-ended at a metal door, he leaned against the lever and pushed. He was beyond guessing what might be on the other side. The door opened into a large bright space with high ceilings and a bitter oily fragrance. Mechanical thrumming swelled through the air, and the dense ranks of fuel cells gleamed like polished cylindrical mirrors. Someone popped out from behind a cylinder, and Dominic saw the swing of blue-black hair.

She said, "Freaker, Nick-O. What happened to your eye?"

CHAPTER 14
DRAIN ON RESERVES

THERE stood the major. Cocky and smirking as usual— curse her lying heart—she examined his bruises and giggled.

Tired as he was, Dominic was incensed and would have said something rude. But then he noticed the woman standing beside her, a small, stooped woman with a plain face and calm, intelligent eyes. It was the little Asian woman he'd seen talking to Qi and the red-haired engineer in the stairwell that first day.

Behind her, the colossal power plant whispered through its cycles, and dozens of workers moved with frantic haste, yet around this woman, a peaceful stillness reigned. A benevolent half smile played at her lips as if she had all the time in the world to welcome her new guests. Again, Dominic couldn't help but feel there was something familiar about her. Something sweet and bitter at once. He even remembered her name. Ane Zaki.

"You're the electrician?" he asked.

The woman bowed. "Hai. And you are the coin giver. Is this your son?"

Dominic blinked. Benito was clinging to his leg, making it impossible to walk, so he lifted the boy in his arms. "My son? No, he's . . ."

Right then, Benito did something which surprised Dominic very much. He gave Ane Zaki his treasured yellow pencil. Ane Zaki's face glowed as she accepted the gift, and Benito made his happy noise. "Zzzh."

She examined the pencil and discovered with a gentle laugh how to make the lead retract. "How clever! Thank you, child. You have a generous spirit."

"Zzzh," Benito gurgled.

Then she offered it back to the boy. "But you will need this to make pictures. Keep it for me, yes?"

Her pale face gleamed with faint moisture. Luminous, thought Dominic. She reminded him of someone, but he couldn't think who. He couldn't look away from her.

"Please come, coin giver. You will perhaps want refreshment," she said.

The NP snarled, and sparks danced across Dominic's vision. "The son I knew would never waste time like this! You have less than eight hours of air left. What if you pass out before you find the link?"

Dominic ignored the sparks. "Call me Nick," he said to Ane Zaki. Qi smirked.

The tiny woman couldn't have been more than forty years old, yet she walked with a slow, dragging step, and her uniform hung loose on her bent body. When a worker approached with a bow and an urgent whispered question, Ane Zaki touched her forehead and squeezed her eyes shut, then gave a brief answer that sent the worker rushing away. She smiled. "Forgive the interruption, please."

She led them through the power plant to an alcove in the back, little more than a closet. Dominic glimpsed a sleeping hammock neatly stowed away on a hook, a basket of folded clothing, and a low stool made, of course, from a crate. Along one narrow shelf, thumb-sized bits of trash had been arranged in a precise row. When Dominic leaned to see them better, he realized they were tiny tissue sculptures of winged animals, each one as finished as a poem. He was still examining them when Ane Zaki touched his arm and handed him a steaming towel. A precious gift. He held the cloth to his face and smelled its clean warmth.

"The broadcast, remember? Market crash? Lawsuit? Divestiture?" The NP shot bright lights through Dominic's skull.

But fatigue had transported Dominic into a waking trance that verged on stupor. As he pressed the cloth to his eyes, he felt himself drifting loose from everything. In fact, he felt serene.

He watched Ane Zaki's hands. Slender and white, her hands opened and moved like blossoms. She unfolded another hot towel and washed Benito's mouth and nose. The boy screwed up his lips and held still. When Dominic cleaned his own face, he was chagrined to find a thick stubble of whiskers covering his chin and cheeks. By the time he'd rinsed his hands, the towel was gray with dirt. He longed to scrub the rest of his body, but he was too self-conscious to do that in front of Ane Zaki. She smiled as she took the filthy towel, and Dominic felt light at heart. She asked if he would accept salve for his bruises.

"Yes, Ane Zaki. I wouldn't mind a little salve."

"Yes, Ane Zaki," Qi mimicked. She gave his chin hairs a playful yank. "Hoo-hoo. Aren't we cooperative."

"Salve!" the NP scoffed.

Ane Zaki made him sit on the stool, and when she smiled, Dominic felt as if she'd singled him out for a special kindness. Qi paced outside the alcove. She seemed irritated, and Dominic vaguely wondered why. As Ane Zaki dabbed his cheek with cool green ointment, he caught her scent. Why had he thought her plain? She was angelic. All at once, he remembered whom she reminded him of.

Dominic hadn't known women in his childhood—he'd grown up among men. But once, as a boy, he had seen a woman's photo in his father's office. Richter kept photos of many women, like a collection of souvenirs, but this one was different. Not glamorous, not glittering with gems. This woman was plain. Why did Richter keep this picture among so many fashionable beauties? Dominic thought he knew.

While his father wasn't looking, the child Dominic stood on tiptoes, stretched his short round arms and took the photo off the shelf. He studied her face. She had soft, curling brown hair and mild gray eyes that seemed to speak to him. While Richter paced in front of the window and haggled in his video conference, the young boy cradled the picture against his cheek? He imagined telling this woman what he had learned at school. He imagined how she would smell. As soon as his father was free, Dominic stepped forward and asked with a boy's hope, "Is this my mother?"

Richter laughed, one short, hard syllable. Dominic could still hear it echoing. "You don't have a mother. You grew in a tank."

Dominic remembered how he dropped the picture and ran, and how his father rushed after him. Richter tired to comfort him with words. "I made you outta my own flesh. It's you and me, boy. We don't need anybody else."

Dominic never saw the photo of the plain woman again, though for years afterward, he dreamed of her gentle face. Even when he knew she could not possibly be his mother, he still dreamed of her.

"I'll make you a little energy shot," the NP said. "You're tired, and you're getting stupid."

Dominic barely heard. Beyond the alcove, workers moved steadily through the power plant, and he saw two children coming their way. The girl in front carried a steaming teapot by its handle, stooping and holding her arms out straight to keep it from bumping her leg. A smaller girl brought tiny cups and a rolled mat. When they saw Ane Zaki, they bowed and spread the tea things on the floor.

Ane Zaki lowered herself carefully to the mat and invited the others to join her. Benito immediately curled in her lap. She laughed and stroked the boy's hair, and Dominic found himself wishing he were small enough to sit in her lap, too. He nudged Qi aside and squeezed into the narrow space next to Ane Zaki, though he had to sit with his knees drawn up to his chin.

"Comfy?" Qi stepped on his foot.

Benito kept flashing his yellow pencil for Ane Zaki to admire.

"Ah. Will you draw me a picture?" she said. "Please, draw here on the mat where I will always keep it."

Benito wet the pencil point in his mouth, then began to scribble, and Dominic found himself wishing he had a treasure to give Ane Zaki. On impulse, he drew the laser torch from his waistband, but men he didn't know what to do with it. Ane Zaki didn't need a broken laser torch. He put it away and drained the tiny teacup in one sip.

Qi punched him in the ribs. "You wanna ask about fuel?"

"Forget the fuel. You don't need to ask these bitches anything," the NP said.

Ane Zaki took the cup from his hand. "Nick, this tea will restore your strength. May I show you my power plant?"

"Yes please, Ane Zaki."

"Yes please, Ane Zaki. Hoo-hoo!" Qi sounded annoyed.

Benito wanted Ane Zaki to carry him, but she was clearly not strong enough, so Dominic hoisted the boy onto his shoulders and offered Ane Zaki his arm. Qi stalked ahead, jerking her elbows as if she were jabbing her way through a hostile army. Dominic watched her. He would never learn to read the major's moods.

The floors of Ane Zaki's power plant were spotless, much cleaner than Naomi's supposedly "sterile" vat room. Recessed light tubes illuminated every corner with a soft indirect glow, and as the group strolled through the ranks of fuel cells, each cylinder gleamed as if polished by hand.

Ane Zaki spoke with obvious pride. "These are solid oxide fuel cells, old technology but still very reliable. You hear how quiet the stacks are? That noise comes from our fans. And the air smells fresh, doesn't it? Our cells don't pollute. They even reuse their own carbon monoxide." She paused and lovingly patted the flank of a cylinder. "They're so elegant. No exotic catalysts. No hot liquid electrolyte to pump. They're designed to run on ordinary synthetic petrol." Here, she lay a finger across her lips and fluttered her eyelids. "Of course, we've made modifications."

As they walked on, Dominic felt every movement of her hand on his arm, like a precious, fluttering bird.

"The equipment comes from both the Pressure of Light and the Jedes," she said. We integrated the two systems and hardened this cavern to withstand natural catastrophes. We mean to be permanent, Nick."

Another young worker ran up to Ane Zaki, bowed in obvious distress and blurted, "Stack ten is depleted, Obasan. What should we do?"

Ane Zaki drew the worker a few steps away and spoke too softly for Dominic to overhear. The worker nodded and raced off, and he glanced back at Qi, who had fallen behind. She was humming a tune and sparring with her reflection in one of the polished cylinders. Apparently, she meant to ignore him. Crazy spook.

Ane Zaki made a remark about the exuberance of youth, but her eyes glittered with strain. "Our Nord.Com execs chose the cheapest grades of fuel," she said. "We cautioned them about impurities, but they wouldn't hear us." Her step faltered, and Dominic gave her his arm again. "Thank you," she said.

He bent to keep his elbow at the proper height for her, and Benito clung tighter to his neck. He said, "The cheap fuel caused problems?"

"Yes, Nick. Impurities shortened the working life of our fuel cells." Ane Zaki bowed her head. "Some years ago, we adapted some of. the cells and began distilling our own clean alcohol. In secret, naturally."

Dominic loosened Benito's grip on his ear. "How did you do that?"

"Ah. When a thing is necessary, one finds there are ways." She touched her mouth and tittered softly as if she'd made a little joke. "We began with a small distillery hidden in the ship's double hull. The crew contributed food rations. We found that protein-glucose ferments rather well."

"People gave up their food to power the ship?"

"She's lying," the NP said.

Ane Zaki nodded. "So much depends on power, Nick."

Dominic glanced around to see if Qi knew about this, but the major had stopped some distance back to do chin-ups on one of the overhead pipes. He let out a quiet whistle. "You did that even before the spin-off? The Benthica didn't belong to you then."

Ane Zaki eyes grew brighter. "It's our home, Nick."

"Bullshit," the NP growled. "I don't believe it."

As they walked on, side by side, Dominic was troubled. He couldn't doubt Ane Zaki's word, yet it confounded him. Even as Nord.Com drove them into bankruptcy, these protes had sacrificed their food to keep their submarine operating. A week ago back in Trondheim, he could not have imagined it. He kept glancing at Qi, but the major trailed too far behind to join in their talk. Benito shifted uneasily on his shoulders.

Halfway down the next row of fuel cells, he noticed three strange contraptions. When Ane Zaki saw where he was looking, she emitted a quiet laugh, covering her mouth with her fingers. "Our new gas turbines."

As she took his hand and pulled him along, her voice grew high-pitched and eager. "We've been cannibalizing our cabin walls for materials. When Dominic Jedes freed us, we devoted all our resources to finishing these three. You notice how they work? The turbines capture waste thermal energy from the fuel cells to generate more power. We've increased output from these three cells by 70 percent."

Dominic examined the devices with interest. "Why not build more?" he asked.

"Preter-keen idea." Qi walked up and snapped her fingers in his face. "More turbines, Anzie! Are you sitting on your hands, girl? Why don't you build more turbines?"

"Major Qi." Dominic stood to his full height and stuck out his chest. Sometimes her sarcasm exasperated him.

"Nick-O, you are so freakin' dense. If Anzie had parts for more turbines, don't you think she'd build them?"

"Of course, I—"

Just then, Ane Zaki swayed, and Qi dashed over to catch her. "You're worn-out, Anzie. Sit down, okay?"

"There's more that Nick should see." Ane Zaki began to titter in a hectic, unnatural way, and Dominic perceived at once that she was ill. Qi swept her up and carried her to a bench, while Benito squirmed down and ran to her side. With a sense of his own clumsy ineptitude, Dominic followed.

"When did you sleep last?" Qi was searching pockets. "Freak, I'm all out of tabs. Poor Anzie. I don't have a thing to give you."

When Ane Zaki closed her eyes, the light went out of her face, and she looked deathly pale. Dominic recalled the last antiviral tab he'd swallowed. Now he wanted to kick himself.

She spoke without opening her eyes. "Our careful plans are failing, Nick. We can't distill fuel fast enough. The demands are too great."

Dominic involuntarily stretched out his hands toward her. He thought of the lie he'd been telling everyone, that he could get more fuel. But he couldn't lie to Ane Zaki. Qi found an alcohol wipe in one of her numerous pockets and used it to bathe Ane Zaki's forehead. Benito knelt on the floor and rested his chin against her knee. Not knowing what else to do, Dominic stalked off into the machinery.

He wanted to shoot that idiotic council. The miners could have survived, he saw it now. The original crew could have made themselves a haven here at the bottom of the sea. They could have grown that vat goo and distilled their homemade fuel and salvaged whatever they needed from the junk piles. They could have traded with each other and amassed wealth.

Instead, that ego-mad council invited the whole world to join them, and now they'd worn the life out of this mild, bright angel, Ane Zaki. Worse, they were still sending the invitation, and more workers kept streaming in. All the possibilities would come to ruin now, because of that insane broadcast.

Dominic cursed through his teeth. He had no trouble believing that the council would retreat to some lair and keep broadcasting, even as their recruits fell ill and died. And let's not forget the Orgs, he thought bitterly. In their secret satellites, the AI gods would exploit the situation for their own dubious ends. Anger churned in his belly, and the accumulated fatigue and stress came tumbling down on him like an avalanche. He clenched his fists and looked for something to hit. But his enemies weren't here in Ane Zaki's immaculate power plant.

"Let's go smash that Net link," he said under his breath. "Which way?"

"Now you're talking, boy!" The NP sent a healing wash of warmth through his left eye, and a second later, he felt a jolt of energy, as if he'd mainlined amphetamine. The NP must be screwing with his body chemistry. Before he could object, the genie said, "All these detours are filling my memory. I've had to triple in size just to store this boring stuff."

'Triple?" Dominic touched his eyelid. "You're growing?"

"Relax. I'm hardly bigger than your fingertip. But the longer this takes, the more energy I have to leach from your bloodstream to power my comp. So let's get moving."

Fingertip? Dominic looked at his index finger and imagined an object that size growing inside his head. The idea was gruesome. In fact, it was intolerable! He lurched toward the nearest cylinder and punched it with his fist.

"Settle down, son. We're on the same side. When this is over, I'll dissolve in your bloodstream. You'll never know I was here."

Dominic's neck muscles stood out like ropes as he stared at the bloody dent he'd made in the cylinder. The chemicals in his blood made his heart hammer, and heat flashed up and down his body. Then he took a long breath through his nose, and when he spoke again, he subvocalized. "I want a hard-and-fast agreement. When this is over, you'll remove yourself. I won't take another step until I have your solemn oath as an exec."

"As an exec? Sure, you have my word."

"Damn you to hell." Dominic sank to the floor and dropped his head between his shoulders. What could the NP know about executive honor? Its guts were made of binary code.

And what am I, he thought. A genetic copy of a dead man. He scowled at his split knuckles where he'd punched the cylinder. Then he turned his hand over and gazed at his battered palm. Djuju's bandages were long gone, and the cuts from the miners' bucket handles had turned dark. The inflammation between his ringers had spread to the back of his hand. But the four lines running across his palm were still clear. Heart, head, fate, life, the palm reader's map of destiny. Once, his father had paid a roving psychic to read his young son's future in his palm. "Two for the price of one," Richter had joked, spreading his hand next to Dominic's to show how exactly their palms matched.

Dominic spread his lacerated palm till the wounds burned. At that moment he despised himself and his father both. He despised the inscrutable Orgs, the renegade employees and the finger-sized genie growing in his eye. He was tired. All he wanted was to go back to his condo in Trondheim and take a nap. He didn't belong here. Why shouldn't he just leave?

Yes, why not? The major knew where to find that bathysphere, and he could force her to tell him. Then he could take Ane Zaki to safety. Benito, too. If he happened to meet Tooksook along the way, or Penderowski, or that pretty Captain Gervasia, he could rescue them as well. Sure, he'd even bring the wily major along. Let the guards arrest all the others. He would take his friends away in the bathysphere and sail to that charming mountain lodge in Hammerfest, overlooking the Barents Sea. He had plenty of money. Why shouldn't he set them up in a new life? Benito could go to school.

He got to his feet, marched back and grabbed Qi by the shoulder.

"What the freak! Let me go," she said.

Qi was strong, but she was no match for Dominic in his present mood. He hauled her away from Ane Zaki's bench. Benito watched with round eyes as Dominic drew her into a space between two fuel cells. When they were out of earshot, he whispered, "Help me talk Ane Zaki into leaving. Before the lights go out for good, we need to find that bathysphere."

"Oh. You wanna sneak away and leave these people to die."

She shoved past him, but he blocked her. When she tried to punch him, he caught her wrists.

The NP flared, "You can't leave yet! You have to find the Net link!"

Dominic tightened his hold on Qi. "Better to save a few lives if we can. Ane Zaki. Benito. Maybe some others. I've thought about this."

"You want to handpick your friends out of nine thousand? Yep, it's tip to nine thousand people now." Qi's ebony face had gone pale. "Do you really think anyone will go with you?"

When she tried to jerk away, he gripped her close and twisted one of her arms behind her back. But she knew a trick to escape that hold. She spun fast, and Dominic fell hard against a steel cylinder.

"Don't pretend you wanna save people. You're a coward."

"Major, I—"

Qi seized this chance to kick-punch him in the chest, and he slumped to the floor with a gasp. At that moment, Ane Zaki appeared.

"Anzie, you shouldn't be up." Qi kicked Dominic again.

Ane Zaki leaned on Benito's little shoulder. Her skin gleamed with perspiration, and she was trembling. Had she overheard his escape plan? It seemed shameful now. He turned his face away from her.

Qi stepped over him and took Ane Zaki's arm. "Sorry about this, Anzie. I was hoping . . . But as usual, I've been a fool."

"Hope is never foolish." Ane Zaki gently drew Qi's head down and kissed her brow. Then the lady electrician offered her slender hand to Dominic. He scrambled to his feet. He felt unworthy of her aid.

"Coin giver, we'll meet another time." She took his hand despite his reluctance, and as he met her weary glance, he felt like a criminal. Her face filled with light. "Go, Nick. Make your offer to the council. I know what you've come to do."

CHAPTER 15
VOLATILITY

FOR a long while after they left the power plant, Dominic felt the touch of Ane Zaki's hand. Though she'd showed him nothing but kindness, her touch burned like an accusation. He couldn't stop thinking about her parting words. Somehow, she'd heard the lie he'd been telling that he could get fuel and supplies for the colony. And she believed it. The last thing he wanted was to deceive Ane Zaki.

Qi led the way up the ladder, the boy followed, and Dominic came last. Inside his head, the NP kept up a steady harangue, claiming it could recombine his neural transmitters to boost his energy level. He ground his teeth and thought about what he was going to do. Ane Zaki expected something brave. That was the worst—she trusted him, the same way Benito and Penderowski and all the others did, starting with his sweet, bleeding-heart assistant, Elsa. Their trust weighed on him like a heavy coffer of loot he'd stolen by mistake. They expected him to offer a deal that would rescue everyone, but what deal could he parley between a council of lunatics and an unyielding bit-brain? He was a banker, not a miracle worker.

He rubbed the stinging inflammation that covered the back of his right hand. If only he'd found decent jobs for the miners right at the beginning. That was his original plan. He'd even told his young assistant Karel to start the process. That night before he made the disastrous joke about the spin-off, he asked Karel to make a list of Coms that owed him favors. He'd intended to call them the next day. Why hadn't he stuck with that reasonable course of action?

Yes, he could have found jobs for the miners. But with all his eloquent phrases, could he have convinced the miners to take them? He suspected not. Not then. And not now. Their position was hopeless. Returning to Com protection was their only chance, yet he knew they were too naive, or too thickheaded, to act reasonably. He wanted to throttle them. They were as stubborn as the NP.

Deep in his eye socket, the genie buzzed nonstop, counting down the minutes and reminding him the broadcast was still going out. Why did the council keep inviting more people? It made no sense. Surely, Ane Zaki had warned them this place was a death trap.

"Protes are children," the NP said inside his eye. "They need us. I know we've had differences, but we always agree on the main points."

"Shut up," Dominic said aloud. If Qi heard him, she didn't react.

The shaft leading up from the power plant was wider than the others. It held six ladders jammed together in a star pattern, and all of them shook with climbers. Assembled in haste out of scrap plastic, the slender rungs deformed under Dominic's weight, and in the dimness, he felt the soft impact of heels and shoulders as workers moved on the other ladders.

The walls were a bas relief of patches, rivets and welds. Yet the shaft looked plumb. It led straight up without interruption to a bright round hole far overhead. When Dominic leaned back to see the top, he felt woozy. That was the Dominic Jedes above. Ane Zaki had said so, and he believed her. No more detours.

"How much air left?" he subvocalized to the NP.

"Two hours, forty minutes."

'Two!" Dominic nearly missed a rung. "When I find the link, how long will it take you to call the guards?"

"All you have to do is touch any part of the apparatus. I'll send our coordinates instantly. You'll return a conquering hero, boy."

"When the guards arrest these people, we'll need to move them immediately to a safe habitat. We'll need transport and facilities standing by."

"No worries. I've planned everything to the last detail."

Dominic mulled that over. He imagined a hot shower and clean fresh clothes—and then he imagined his first few days back in the office—the calls he'd have to make, the favors and bribes and coercion he'd have to use to find jobs for all these runaways. Yes, that's what he would have to do, despite the personal cost. He wouldn't leave them to rot in some detention center. But nine thousand people? It might take weeks to place them all. Meanwhile, Zahlen-Bank would have to feed and house them. What a mess he'd made. Well, he would just have to pay his dues.

As he mounted the ladder, the bright round opening overhead grew larger, and he felt a foreboding, almost a premonition. The Orgs wanted him to die here. That was the penalty they meant to extract. Gazing at the steel walls that enclosed him, he commanded himself to stay focused.

His foot rags had long since disintegrated, and his bleeding feet made the rungs slick. Above him, Benito moved more slowly, and Qi faltered. He saw her hand slip off a rung. Then her chin banged the ladder, and she stifled a groan. Amazing, the valiant major was staggering with fatigue. But she kept going, and Dominic followed.

After a hard climb, they emerged from the mine shaft and passed through a laser-cut hole into the rusting steel hull of the ship. It smelted of acetylene welding torches and rang with the clatter of construction. Even so, the lower decks were already packed with refugees, stringing together their nomad shelters of boxes and plastic. From a nest of rags, a sleepy toddler stared.

If he found the Net link now, he would gladly rip it to pieces. He was determined to stop this madness. He ground his teeth till his jaw popped, as step by step, they ascended yet another steel tube through the bowels of the Dominic Jedes.

When they reached a metal catwalk leading to a bulkhead door, Benito sat down and wouldn't budge any farther.

"Major, wait," Dominic said.

The boy was exhausted, and Dominic was feeling woozy himself. The NP's drug must have already worn off. He prodded his cramping calf muscles with his fingertips and tried to catch his breath.

The NP said, "Hell, you can't sleep now. You're nearly there. I'll give you another jolt."

Dominic subvocalized, "How much time left?"

"One hour, fifty-eight minutes."

"We can afford a five-minute rest." When Dominic sat down, Benito crawled into his lap and locked arms around his neck. "Not so tight, Benito. I won't drop you. I promise."

"You promise." Qi lounged on the ladder above, smirking down at him. Dirty sweat streaked her face. "Three cheers. Another heartfelt promise from Dominic Jedes."

The NP strobed in his eye. "Don't forget the time."

Dominic ignored them both. He was sweating and shivering through hot and cold flashes. Maybe the NP's drug had thrown his blood chemistry out of balance. He leaned against the wall and waited for the hammering in his chest to slow down.

"Valuable commodity, your promises." Qi sat sideways on the ladder just above the catwalk, bracing her feet against the rail. "People get a promise from you, they end up in debt."

"Why're you so angry, Major?" Dominic tried to moisten his lips, but his mouth had gone dry. "Haven't I done everything you asked?"

"Everything but open your eyes. Oh, what's the point. It's too late now."

"But Major Qi—"

"Once and for all, I'm not your preter-vicious major! I never have been." Qi pulled a rag from one of her pockets and blew her nose. It sounded like a trumpet. Then she massaged her forehead. Dominic wondered if she'd caught his cold. She said, "Wanna trade with me, Nick-O? Truth for truth?"

"Sure." He wondered what new trick she would try.

"I'm not an exec, okay? I'm a scuzzy, lowlife protected employee. Born in a Sub-Jersey factory."

"You're a what!" He spoke louder than he meant to. She had managed to shock him again.

"Yep, you heard me. My parents were agitators. Before I was old enough to talk, they hacked your famous Zahlen-Bank Ark and forged me a new profile. Made me a little executive child so I could get special training and work my way inside the system."

Dominic was speechless. Her parents had hacked the Ark? But ZahlenBank's security was fail-safe. No one had ever broken the Ark's firewall. He wasn't quite sure he believed her.

Qi rubbed her nose with the back of her hand. "I wasn't a very good spy though. I've never accomplished anything. Okay, that's my whole sad freakin' story." Tears welled in her eyes, and she tilted her head back so they wouldn't spill over.

Dominic blinked. He felt light-headed. "You're a prote?"

She sprang toward him with a raised fist, but instead of punching him, she pounded the empty air, and her face puckered. "You know that word's a slur."

Dominic reached to touch her hand, but she jerked away.

"Forget the brunette," said the NP. "You don't need her."

Then to Dominic's surprise, Qi laughed at the top of her lungs. "Hoo-hoo, my big confession. Look at me. A prote impersonating an exec impersonating a prote. Sleek, huh? Sixteen years I've carried fake IDs. I'm a total imitation. Sometimes I forget which version of me is real."

She ran fingers through her blue-black hair, and Dominic noticed how it hung in sweaty strands. Fatigue pulled at her features like gravity, but she smiled and pretended to be as carefree as ever. Then she slipped something small and shiny from her pocket. He couldn't see what it was.

She spoke in a lower register, "Do you hear me, Gig? Thought you knew everything? Well, I've been lying to you for sixteen years."

Dominic said, "You're still in contact with Gig?"

"Gig thinks the world's his private stage. He chooses the actors and sets the scene. Then he sits back to watch the entertainment." The object in her hand reflected the dim light like a mirror. She added, "He's a lot like your dear old Da."

"If you're linked to the Net, tell the Orgs to save these people," Dominic pleaded.

She went on in a rising voice, "Gig will record us to the very last breath. Every hiccup, every sniffle, every preterinane heartbeat. Then he'll analyze. And judge. Why did she raise her voice? Why did she sweat? Gig's a connoisseur of human motive."

Qi turned the small object over in her hand. It was a shard of broken glass.

"What are you doing?" He lunged to grab her hand, but the boy got in his way.

In a rush, Qi twisted the glass behind her earlobe, and crimson blood spurted down her dark throat. A second later, she tossed the glass shard aside and gazed at the small bloody chip lying in her open hand—the implant. She'd cut it out of her skin.

"Sixteen years," she said softly. "The masquerade's over." She squeezed her fist, lifted it over her head, and hurled it down the ladder tube with all her might. For a long while, she stared at the shadows. Blood trickled down her neck and soaked her collar. "Good-bye, you old pervert," she murmured, in a tone that sounded very much like grief.

Dominic bit his lip. Benito said, "Hn."

The NP chuckled. "Serves him right, the S.O.B."

Abruptly, Qi curled her toes around the ladder rail and laughed. She was trying very hard to appear unruffled. "Okay, truth for truth, Nick-O. That's my story. Now yours. You're hiding secrets, too. We're gonna die here. No reason to pretend anymore."

Dominic noticed that her long ebony legs were bruised and scraped. He could sense her despair, and he almost reached out to touch her knee, but the boy wriggled between them.

'Truth for truth?" he said. "Okay, I'm an imitation, too. I'm Richter Jedes' clone. Is that good enough for you?"

Qi shrugged. "Your Da wanted a son. Lots of parents have clone kids. That's not shattering news."

Dominic steeled himself and went on. "I'm not an ordinary clone. I'm an exact duplicate. The technicians controlled my epigenetics, too, even in the gestation tank. No random cell mutations. No developmental modulations. They left nothing to chance. In every way, I am a second Richter."

Qi merely gazed at him with her black Asian eyes.

"You knew that already," he said. He didn't think anyone outside the Bank knew that.

Benito squirmed to get their attention. Distracted, Dominic noticed the pencil point had broken again, so he clicked the button to extrude more lead. Meanwhile, Qi dug an old candy wrapper from her pocket and gave it to the boy to use as drawing paper.

"Zhhh," Benito gurgled. He spread the wrapper across his bare thigh and began to draw elaborate flourishes. He grinned as the two adults watched. Dominic knew time was passing and that he should get up and start climbing again. The NP droned a nonstop reminder. Yet he didn't move.

Qi stroked the boy's hair. "I thought this place would succeed, you know? The labor market's glutted. Too many workers. If a few runaways build a place outta trash at the bottom of the ocean, why should anyone care?"

"As you said, they made too much noise." Dominic tried to identify the image Benito was scribbling, but he was so tired, his eyelids fluttered shut. He came awake with a jerk when Qi spoke again.

"The day Gig gave me this assignment, I thought, yeah, this is why I gave up my real life. This is the mission I've waited for. Now it's over."

Dominic glanced up and saw her forehead pressed against a ladder rung. All her merriment was gone. She seemed done in.

He let his eyelids fall shut. He didn't know how to comfort Qi. She said it was too late, and she was probably right. Even if he reached the Net link in time, could ZahlenBank's guards evacuate nine thousand people in less than two hours? No, he'd have to place a rush order of fuel and oxygen to supply the colony—at triple the regular charge. But even before he could do that, he would have to persuade the bank directors, and how long would that take? And what if the miners wouldn't accept the new jobs he found? He felt tired just thinking about it. He'd come here to fix his mistake, keep ZahlenBank in one piece and put everything back the way it was. How did he get saddled with nine thousand dependents?

Benito was thumping his chest. He opened his eyes and squinted at the boy's drawing till he made out a raft riding a ferocious ocean. Among the passengers, Benito had sketched one stick figure taller than the rest, with a block-shaped head and huge feet and one astonishingly long arm holding up the sail. Dominic shut his, eyes. I have to get up and do something now, he told himself, or this boy will die.

Like my father.

His father's sightless stare came back to him. He should have stood up and called the medics. He should have adjourned the stupid meeting and called for help. That Monday in the conference room, there hadn't been much blood on the table, just a few dark drops trickling from his father's mouth. "Please!" Dominic had shouted, furiously, pathetically, while his colleagues turned away. Klas Lorn had fiddied with his notebook. Ulla Mannheim fled through the double doors. And someone—Oscar Blein—made a joke. Karel Folger was the one who shut Richter's eyelids and called the disposal team. Dominic remembered how youthful his father's broken body looked as they folded it into the bag.

He woke in panic. He was still sitting on the catwalk with Benito sleeping in his arms. The metal grate bit through his thin silk trunks. He couldn't have dozed long. Light glimmered against the walls, outlining the wet orange stains of bacterial colonies. The ladders creaked with moving workers, and the hot air stank of living. For a moment, every detail sprang out in stark wonder. I'm still alive. I still nave time.

He tried to get up, but when he reached out for the rail, his vision blurred, and he almost vomited. Wooziness. Everything was spinning. He sat back down and willed himself to hold steady. Benito shifted in his arms. On the ladder above, Qi had managed to fall into a deep slumber. She was incredible. He focused on the bruised soles of her feet.

"How long did I sleep?" he whispered.

'Too long! You have less than an hour left," the NP said.

Dominic shook Benito awake.

"While you were dreaming, the power blacked out three times, and the oxygen level dropped to a 10 percent deficit. Does that interest you? No, you'd rather play nursemaid to your brat and chump to your brunette tart."

"Shut up!" Dominic clawed at his eye.

"Oh, was I snoring?" Qi leaned out from the ladder and stared down at him. "Something in your eye, Nick-O?"

With animal agility, she slid down the ladder and bounded onto the catwalk beside him, flashing a smile. Her mood had changed again. The nap must have revived her. She was back to her old sardonic self. Now she knelt and put her thumbs against his temples, tilted his head back roughly and scrutinized his left pupil.

"It's nothing," he said. "We have to keep climbing. Do you have any water?"

'Truth for truth, Nick." As she leaned closer, her face hovered only centimeters away, and he could see the sheen of sweat on her upper lip. Her smell was pungent.

"You cheated, Nick-O. You didn't mention the nasty little secret hiding in your eyeball. Yep, Gig told me. Gig knew all along." She sat back against the ladder and smirked.

The NP sizzled. "Lurking bastard. How did he find out?'

Dominic tried to moisten his lips. "You had your bit-brain, I had mine. It's only fair."

"Fair? You poor stiff." Qi sucked her teeth. Then she crossed her arms and watched him steadily. "You've been hunting the Net link because you plan to call your guards and arrest these people. Then you'll go home and comfort your conscience with cheap talk about market order."

"Qi, these people are running out of air." He set the boy on the ladder and would've started climbing, but Qi seized his wrist.

"All they need is a little more time, Nick." She wasn't smirking now. Her mouth tightened in a straight line, and for a moment, she reminded him of earnest Elsa Bremen. "The colony can survive if you buy them more time. Arrange a loan for the supplies they need, just till they're self-sufficient."

He shook his head. "ZahlenBank will never deal with protes. I'll find them jobs, so they'll be safe."

"Safe?" Qi's face contorted. The intensity of her anger startled him. "You are so deluded. Arrests cost money. Your dear old Da isn't gonna arrest these people. He's gonna blast this place outta the water."

"What? That's nonsense. The NP wouldn't murder all these people just to save money."

"You would."

Dominic blinked. As her words sank in, he leaned back against the wet wall and gazed at the bright round opening above. Strange, he'd forgotten that small fact.

'Two thousand protes. Nine thousand protes. What's the difference? You've got billions more," she went on. "The NP sent you here to light up the target."

Dominic said nothing.

"It's a cost-benefit equation," Qi said. "Any dumb logic engine could figure it out."

He nodded. He knew she was right. Swift and simple, nominal cost, no loose ends. Eliminating the colony would be ZahlenBank's cleanest way out of its problems. It's what he suggested in the first place.

He subvocalized to the NP, "You plan to destroy this colony?"

"Sure, with space-based weapons. Don't tell me you're surprised. We always knew the miners were expendable."

Right. He knew. It was the kind of solution his father taught him to aim for. The old man liked sure bets. The genie said they shared the same values. They were practically twin brothers. Dominic wondered why he hadn't anticipated this move all along.

"I won't shoot till you're safely away," the genie added. "All I need is a location."

Dominic forced himself to look into Qi's fierce black eyes. "That's why you led me away from the Net link."

"Yeah. That demon in your eye wants to contact its big brother. If you touch the Net link, we're dead." Qi pulled a water sack from the folds of her uniform and flung it at him.

He caught the sack' in reflex and squeezed it between his fingers. Barely a swallow left. He gave it to Benito and watched the boy suck it down. By the NP's logic, this boy was counted expendable. In the balance of pure value, Benito didn't carry enough weight.

But Dominic was the one who first sentenced Benito to die. Not Richter. Not the NP. He did it to save a month's salary. Realizing this, he would have cursed the day he was born, but that was impossible. He was never born at all.

"Wanna hear some more nonsense?" Qi said. "Your dear old bit-brain doesn't trust you. It thinks you're too soft. So that agent in your eye is getting ready to metastasize and take over your motor controls."

"Liar!" the NP blazed. "Don't believe her, Dominic."

Qi went on. "Yeah, it's gonna force you to touch the Net link and call down the laser strike, whether you want to or not. Still think that's fair?"

Dominic dropped the water sack. Metastasize? Like cancer? He pictured ugly threads of glittering digital rot lacing through his brain. It couldn't be true. A wave of nausea made him choke, and he leaned over the rail, but his stomach was too empty to throw up. He heaved with dry spasms.

"You get the idea," Qi said, watching him. "Your dead papa wants to repossess you."

"That is total bullshit," the NP said. "I grew some memory and evolved a few add-ons. Practical stuff for the mission, that's all."

As Dominic fought back his next urge to vomit, Benito drew closer and patted his shoulder.

Qi kept talking. "Why do you think Richter spawned a clone so late in life? He planned all along to hijack your body. He wants to live again. Gig told me."

"No way!" the genie blared in his eye. "You know I wouldn't do that. You're my own dear boy."

Dominic shook with another dry heave.

"It's the truth," Qi said.

But he wasn't listening anymore. He couldn't look away from the ugly picture in his mind—the NP's nanoquans marching through his cerebellum, taking over his central nervous system, turning him into a grotesque husk with no will of his own. He wanted to deny it. His father wouldn't use him that way. His father had been a brilliant, honorable banker. The man who read him stories and taught him to count would not use him like a mindless husk. But the NP might.

Yes, the NP was a damaged copy. Dominic felt sure his father didn't plan this. Richter couldn't foresee how his Neural Profile would evolve. Migrating to the Net must have corrupted its data. Yes, it was the genie, not his father. Dominic prodded his left eye to make it hurt.

"If you knew what the NP planned, why did you bring me here?" he asked Qi. "Why take that risk? What do you want from me? What do the Orgs want?"

Qi didn't answer.

"Your whore wants to make us doubt each other," the NP said. "You know I'll bring you home safe. You're the only thing in the world I love."

Another fog of wooziness made Dominic shiver. He leaned against the ladder and gazed down through the grill-work at people moving in the shaft. Benito kept softly patting his back, and he couldn't help but imagine how it would feel if the NP took control of him. Would he be unconscious? Or would he look on, paralyzed, while the NP jerked his arms and legs like a marionette and forced him to give away the miners' location? He didn't want to kill these people. He clenched his jaws so tight, his head trembled.

But I'm the one who sentenced Benito to die. It's me.

Lightning flashed in his eye as the NP spoke. "Okay, I'm glad you know the truth. Imagine the power we'll have with two minds merged in one body. We're made for each other, boy. We'll unite the speed of machine logic with savvy human cunning. Genius beyond reckoning. Did I mention immortality? Those Orgs will eat our dust."

"I won't do it," Dominic subvocalized deep in his throat. "Curse your demonic soul. You can't force me to murder people."

"I knew you'd turn to mush." The NP snickered. Suddenly, Dominic's right hand rose-—of its own accord— then dropped like deadweight. The NP teased, "See what I can do?"

"Bastard." Dominic saw his hand rising again, and he clenched his fist to stop the motion.

"Okay. You resist me now," the genie said, "but not for long. I'm getting stronger."

Benito whimpered, and Dominic saw he'd sunk his fingernails into the boy's shoulder. When he relaxed his grip, Benito drew away from him. I'm a monster, he thought.

"Flush me out to sea."

"Huh?" Qi opened her mouth.

"Through an airlock." He squeezed her hand. "I'm dangerous. You have to get rid of me. The NP draws power from my nervous system. Kill me, and it dies, too."

Qi stared at him as if she didn't understand what language he was speaking.

He leaned closer and pointed to his eye. 'Take the genie out of the equation. That should buy you more time. You'll think of something, Qi."

She touched his stubbly chin, and the tension which had masked her features eased. She seemed only tired. Yellowish liquid coursed down the shaft wall, and they leaned away from it. A couple of workers climbed past them down the ladder, and they had to shift positions.

He said, "You can trade for fuel on the hot market. Bargain for credit terms. Use your wits, Qi. This isn't over."

She drew her knuckle along his whiskery jawline, and her ink black eyes glistened. With a look of pure anguish, she pointed up the ladder.

"Right," he nodded. The airlock would be above. He stood and steadied himself against the wall. His left leg had gone numb, and he stomped his foot to get the circulation going. "Let's do this."

CHAPTER 16
TURNAROUND

THE ladder shaft did not twist or curve. It did not lead to a dead end or stop abruptly at a locked bulkhead door. It led straight up, straight as a rocket launch. The rest on the catwalk had given Dominic a second wind, and as he climbed steadily up toward the airlock where he would be flushed out to sea, he glanced from side to side, observing everything. With unusual clarity, he perceived that, before this moment, even when he was lost in the tunnels and fainting from lack of oxygen, he had always believed the NP would save him. He'd been sure he would return safe to Trondheim, to neat, pressed trousers and air-conditioned sanity. But now he understood, even as the NP harangued him to call the guards, that his life was slipping away by the second. So he drank in every detail. Things looked different now.

Portals stood wide open, and he could see workers teeming through the decks. His ship—the Dominic Jedes— appeared tight and dry, though repairs were still under way. Welding torches sprayed blue-white sparks, and people called out to each other as they hauled tools and materials into place. Their voices echoed musically against the steel walls. Temporary light tubes had been draped in haste along the passages, and their bright, sagging loops hung like garlands. Often Dominic heard the groan of warping metal as some part of the hull deformed under pressure. Still, the ship had a lightness. A clean smell.

For the first time since he'd arrived in the miners' colony, he recognized the promise of this place. Given time, the workers would build a real town, a bright, friendly refuge under the sea, where people could live and work and raise families—and even make their own choices, in a limited way. He wondered how the matching hall would evolve, and how soon they would recognize the need for currency. Yes, and a banking system, too. He could have helped with that. He had ideas. For the first time, Dominic began to see the possible values of freedom. Just as he was leaving.

He stopped and gripped the ladder. The rungs vibrated softly as Qi and Benito continued climbing. He ignored the NP's insistent voice and watched their shadowy bodies. A foreboding of death passed over him like hard vacuum. He felt weightless and blank. He didn't want his life to end just as he was beginning to understand. He imagined choking on a lungful of water, and fear froze him. That blank wall. No one could say what waited on the other side. Maybe justice. He was the one who had cast the miners adrift. As he pressed a cheek against the coarse metal rung, he knew himself—a cold, cynical murderer. Who was he to judge his genie brother?

He started climbing again. He'd grown deaf to the NP's tirade, but when a cramp seized his thigh, he suspected the genie had caused it. His limbs felt heavy. The NP was trying to slow him down. He stooped to massage his cramping thigh and glanced down the length of his body. He'd lost weight, and his muscles stood out visibly. More than ever, he looked like his athletic, mountain-climbing father.

I am my father, he thought. Bred in a glass dish, trained and conditioned from infancy to succeed the great Richter Jedes, I'm a facsimile. Is there nothing about me that's mine alone? What makes one individual distinct from another? My father had every major organ surgically replaced. His skeleton was mostly carbon composite. What made him continue to be Richter Jedes for nearly three centuries? And me, am I just another replacement part on a larger scale?

The ladder stopped shaking. He glanced up and saw Benito's little buttocks swathed in the huge, striped shorts. The boy was waiting for him, expecting miracles. Very well, he would perform. One choice remained within his control. The airlock. One short swim in the hot, sulfuric sea. With a quivering jaw, he mounted up the ladder.

He passed a deck where a gang of workers hauled a large piece of equipment along on a sledge, and he paused to watch them bend in unison to tug at the heavy ropes. It was inconceivable that all this effort would go for nothing. He felt sure these work-hardened miners would find a way to survive. Qi would contact the hot markets. Millard would salvage another respirator pump, and Ane Zaki's crew would cobble together more turbines. Naomi could build more food vats if she would let people help. Tooksook might persuade her. Again, Dominic imagined the quick flush into the ocean, and he gulped as if he were already drowning.

The NP talked nonstop, and its fireworks nearly occluded Dominic's vision. "You're too intelligent to believe that black whore."

"I can't see. You'll make me fall."

The light show faded, but the NP kept speaking. "Once you find the link, we'll be outta here. You'll save the whole fucking market system, Dominic. You'll be a celebrity. Imagine the party we're gonna have. The women. Anything you want."

Dominic gritted his teeth and climbed another rung.

"Your whore says nine thousand protes are here. How does that balance against a global die-off of 12 billion people? That's what'll happen if we let ZahlenBank fail."

Dominic swung to one side of the ladder as two young men climbed past him carrying a heavy crock of soup. Mealtime for someone. He sniffed the salty aroma and felt his mouth water.

The NP shot sparks. "It's on your head! Do you wanna kick us back to the dark ages?"

Like a rupturing dam, Dominic broke into gales of laughter. Benito had splashed into the soup crock. As the two young men wrestled to snatch him out, Dominic held his stomach. He was laughing so hard, his ribs ached. His emotions were pitched so high, he was almost hysterical. When the men finally hauled Benito out of the crock, the boy's hair, shoulders and chest streamed with oily soup, and his grin stretched the whole width of his face. "Mmm."

"Chaos. Looting. The tail end of things." The NP had never stopped talking. "Make no mistake, Dominic, that's the price we'll pay."

Soup dripped from Benito's hair onto Dominic's forearm, and he licked it off. Savory, with a hint of citrus. Then he grabbed the boy and hugged him. It felt good to laugh.

"The role of martyr doesn't suit you, son."

Dominic decided to answer. "Do you think I'll stand still and let you take over my mind?"

"She's lying about that. We'll be equal partners."

"Screw you."

"Nicky, are you coming?" Qi called down from above.

He started to shout an answer, but for a brief instant, he glimpsed her unguarded expression. Her anguish unsettled him. It reminded him of what he was about to do. He whispered too softly for her to hear, "Wish I could have known you better, Major Qi."

She started climbing again, and when she reached the top, her image was silhouetted against the bright round opening. Then she clambered through and disappeared. Benito followed close on her heels, and Dominic felt a wave of dread. Let it be quick, he thought. I hate the ocean. He climbed the last few rungs humming aloud the tune Djuju had taught him, jamming the NP's tirade.

Qi was waiting quietly with Benito. She'd shoved her blue-black hair behind her ears, and Dominic noticed again how striking she looked, despite her fatigue. She beckoned him to follow, then turned and sprinted away. She was leading him to his death. Why was she in such a hurry? Of course. Every minute he lived, the NP in his eye grew stronger. His very existence put nine thousand people at risk.

"Billions will die," the NP buzzed. "If you fail in your duty, it won't be just ZahlenBank. The other big Coms will fall like dominoes."

Nine thousand or 12 billion, which statement was true? Once, he'd been very sure of the answer. Once he would have done anything to save ZahlenBank and avert a market crash. He'd been brought up to weigh people in a scale like coins. If ZahlenBank failed, civilization would be kicked back to the dark ages, his father used to say. Dominic pictured the miners crowded in dank, grimy corridors, eating scraps and suffering the ravages of disease. It occurred to him to wonder, which dark ages would that be?

Lightning strobed across his retina. "I'm not a monster, son. I'm just thinking of the greater good! Sacrifice the few to save the many. You used to understand that."

Dominic saw Qi disappear into a narrow passage, and he followed several steps behind. Just as he entered, the passage walls began to twist and flow like liquid. I'm hallucinating, he thought. Either the air's going bad, or the NP is already controlling my brain!

He clawed his way along the passage as blue shadows surged up the walls and gushed across the ceiling in waves. Swaying forward, he put out his hand, expecting to tumble headlong, but when he closed his eyes, there was only the slight motion of a ship rocking on its moorings. He opened his eyes and saw the windows.

Windows! A row of them along one side of the passage. He stumbled over and pressed his face against the thick warm glass. Outside, he could see the ocean. Underwater floodlights illuminated the area near the ship, and welding rigs threw bright strobing arcs through the water. Liquid shadows heaved up and down the passage walls like turbulent surf. He wanted to laugh. It was the ocean casting these drunken shadows, not his rotting brain. The effect was an optical illusion, like an amusement ride at a juvenile arcade. He wiped his mouth with his arm.

Then he sucked in his cheek and bit down hard. Soon, he would be out there breathing that poisonous water.

Soon, but not yet. This was his first view of the outside world in days. He leaned against the glass to drink it in. The mountains of junk stood out clearly—crushed vehicles, chunks of concrete, barrels and crates of unmarked waste. And there, maybe two hundred meters away, lay the Benthica. No, they called her the Pressure of Light, he reminded himself. She lay half buried under an Everest of cable and metal boxes. What were those boxes, old computers?

The NP whined at the edge of his awareness. "You won't let the bank fail. There's too much Richter in you."

Dominic ignored the genie's words. This place was a treasure trove. Surely the workers could find what they needed in this continent of junk to produce all the energy and oxygen and food they needed. He began to feel hopeful. He pressed closer against the glass to see the flank of his own ship, the Dominic Jedes. He counted seven, no, eight other wrecks clustered nearby. Divers with their curious bubbling tanks swarmed over the hulls, cutting and grinding and patching. His vantage was high, and as he looked down on their work from above, he felt the ship sway again, almost imperceptibly.

"We're near the bridge." The NP spoke in a hush.

That tone sounded ominous. Why would Qi bring him near the bridge? The Net link was there. No, she wouldn't bring him anywhere near the Net link, he was certain of that much. She was leading him to the nearest airlock. "How deep are we?" he asked the genie.

"Easy. From the light refraction, I calculate we're 62.487 meters below sea level."

"That's shallow." Dominic wondered how fast his drowned body would pop to the surface.

"This has to be the Canadian shelf," said the NP. "Used to be hundreds of islands around here."

"Before the snow melted," Dominic said. "You remember snow."

"I remember the Net link. Don't play games with me, boy. We're close."

The airlock. Do it now, Dominic told himself. After one last look at the view, he pushed away from the window and marched toward the door at the end of the passage. It was like the others, heavy and oval-shaped, painted gray. What awaited him on the other side. Oblivion? He hesitated only an instant. Then he leaned his weight on the lever and pushed through.

But he didn't find an airlock, only a small dim room. More blue shadows rippled along the walls, but these were not from ocean reflections. Here were the flickering displays of a dozen active computers. A semicircular bank of flat plasma screens dominated the room, and one cone projected a rippling 3-D hologram of the local seafloor. Its shimmering green projection showed a scale copy of the miners' underwater town rising out of the waste dump, and Dominic gazed at it for a long while.

Audio signals overlapped in a soft background babble, and the dense array of instrument panels made the room feel cozy. Several moments passed before he chanced to look overhead. Above this room rose the thick glass hemisphere of a lookout dome, and he glimpsed stairs leading up to the instrumentation. This could be only one place— the bridge! Dominic spun around and located Qi pressed against the wall. Her dark face was hidden in shadow, and she wouldn't meet his glance. Seated in the captain's chair, square in the middle of everything, was Gervasia.

"You!" Dominic said.

Gervasia's beautiful blue eyes transfixed him. She'd tucked her blond hair under a cap, and she seemed more at ease than before, clearly at home in the seat of command.

"So you've come at last, coin giver. Are you ready?"

Ready to be flushed out to sea? Hell no, he wasn't ready. There was no graceful way to drown. He could already imagine the dark waves rushing into his mouth, the choking panic. He realized he was breathing too fast and willed himself to calm down. He said, "I'm here, aren't I?"

A bolt of pain shot through his left eye. "You're a Jedes, born and bred. No way are you gonna sacrifice yourself to save protes."

Dominic smiled with grim irony and spoke aloud to the NP, no longer caring who overhead him. "You're right about one thing. I've got too much of Richter in me. No one dictates what I do." Then he turned to Gervasia. "Where's the airlock?"

She glanced to her left, and Dominic saw someone standing there, in the shadows behind the bank of computers. Several people. He began to recognize faces. Estaban, the bathysphere pilot, the one he'd planned to knock in the head. Millard in his wire-rim spectacles, with a ballpoint pen stuck in his hedge of red hair. Naomi in her dress blue uniform. Massoud stepped out of the shadows and winked roguishly. Sereb, the mining chief, saluted him, while Djuju gave a solemn nod. Then Dominic saw something even more unexpected. Sitting cross-legged on the floor was the old grandmother, Juanita Inez. She rocked back and forth, gripping her long-lost grandson in her arms, and as Benito gurgled with joy, tears washed her wrinkled brown cheeks.

"Am I late? Sorry!"

Dominic spun around and saw Penderowski rush through the door, red-faced and out of breath, with his green turban half undone and his amber glasses pushed up on his forehead.

The young man flashed a dimpled smile. "Hullo, mate!"

"What does this mean?" Dominic swung to face Qi, but unaccountably, she wouldn't look him in the eye. This was some new trick. Here he was, preparing for a gruesome death, and she was still playing games!

He turned to Gervasia. "Explain to me what's going on."

"You wanted to meet the council on the bridge. Here we are."

"What? You people are the council?"

Gervasia pointed to the observation dome above her head. High in the air on a suspended platform, tottering on a rickety step stool, with a floppy set of paper instructions unfolded in his hands, stood Tooksook. How did the old man move around so fast? A heartbeat later, Dominic noticed what Tooksook was polishing with his tattered yellow cloth. The Net link.

"That's it." The NP's whisper seemed to vibrate down the length of Dominic's spine.

He remembered its shape perfectly. An upright black box on a squat swiveling base. And there was the diaphanous silver disk, two meters across, tilted toward the heavens.

Dominic said, "What hoax is this?"

"It's real." The NP spoke with raw lust. "I'm picking up signal frequencies. That link's active, and it's broadcasting. Just make physical contact anywhere on the surface, and I'll call for our limousine."

Dominic backed away. He had no intention of approaching the Net link.

"Touch it, boy. That's all you have to do."

When Dominic tried to move farther back, his muscles locked up, and he staggered.

"Hello, Nick." Tooksook stepped down from his stool and gestured toward the stair that led up to the silvery Net link. "You wanted to see it, yes?"

Dominic turned away, then spun back around against his will. The flashes in his eye throbbed brighter. 'Touch it," the NP whispered. "This is what we've come for."

He felt his limbs shaking as if he had some kind of palsy. The NP was trying to direct his muscles. "Qi, it's already penetrated my motor controls," he shouted. "You know what that means."

"Climb the stairs," the NP's voice echoed inside his skull, "to save ZahlenBank."

"Qi, talk to me!" His right foot moved without his volition toward the staircase. He clutched at a column, but his hands failed to grip.

Frantically, he grabbed a teacup from Gervasia's console and hurled it toward the silver disk, hoping to smash the link before the NP could use it. But the cup fell short and bounced against the wall.

Gervasia moved out of his way and said nothing. All of them simply watched. Why didn't they stop him!

"Climb. We share the same nature. We want this." The NP's voice no longer carried sound. It threaded through Dominic's mind like a brilliant thought, and he began to mount the stairs.

"Qi, help me!" he called out.

Qi sprang toward him, but Gervasia blocked her. Were they fools? 'Tell them what the NP will do!" he shouted, clenching his muscles to resist the NP's power. But his legs moved as if pulled by wires.

"Why are you resisting?" The NP's thought whispered like an embrace. "The same father made us both.".

"No!" He took another step up the stairs. This was crazy. He was about to destroy all of them. Why didn't Qi stop him? "Qi!" he screamed, fighting for control. But his legs jerked up the steps.

Then a memory flashed. The Net link had a vulnerable point at the base. If he could smash it there, without making contact. What could he throw? Penderowski's torch? It was still stuck in his waistband, at the small of his back. He reached for it, but his arm stopped midway as if turned to stone.

His eye ached, and when he willed his arm to reach for the torch, a bolt of pain sharper than any he'd known pierced his cranium. But his arm moved. First a centimeter. Then two. Bunching his muscles like ropes, he pushed against an invisible force and drove his arm farther behind his back, stretching his fingers, compelling his hand with a conscious thought to close on the torch. He had it! In one smooth motion, he spun and hurled it at the swiveling base. But his aim was high. The torch sliced a small rip in the receiver dish and ricocheted against the dome.

Inside his eye, the NP laughed. "Piss poor!"

Out of control now, Dominic's body leaped up to the platform and staggered closer to the apparatus. He pleaded with Tooksook, "Push me away. Knock me down."

The old man stuck a knuckle in his mouth.

"Don't you know what's at stake?" Dominic yelled, even as his left eye sizzled with a new, agonizing light. "I'll destroy all of you. Stop me!"

Without meaning to, he lifted his arm. Tears streamed down his left cheek. His fingers stretched forward as if moved by unseen magnetic fields, and as he fought to keep from touching the link, his muscles shuddered. When he tried to speak again, his words came out as a guttural roar. Was it his imagination, or could he smell the aqueous tissue of his eyeball burning?

"Touch it," the NP breathed. "Our father made us for this."

I won't let you control me, he thought. But he lurched another step forward, and as pain cut through his head like acid, his fingers wavered just centimeters shy of the black box. Sweat dripped from his body, and with every fiber of strength he still owned, he took a step back.

The NP gloated, "Give it up. I've always been the truest copy. You're just analog. You've got Richter's flesh, but I know his mind!"

And in that distracted moment as the NP howled with smug laughter, Dominic took control again. Faster than thought, he stumbled backward, leaped over the stair rail and fell.

He fell into white light. Cold as ice. Cracking white brilliance, like a glacier rupturing through silence, splitting time.

"Nick. Oh Nick." He heard Qi's voice muffled and far away. Hands seized his shoulders, and breath warmed his ear. "You did it"

He was lying on the floor, gazing up into the faces of Qi and Gervasia and Tooksook. Their expressions were dreadful. They stared at his face and glanced at each other. Tooksook's long eyebrows drooped mournfully, and Gervasia turned away. Qi sobbed. Dominic found this confusing because he felt better than he had in days. The left side of his face had gone blissfully cool, and the sharp lights no longer flashed in his eye. Best of all, the NP had finally stopped talking.

Qi pulled a lot of stuff from her pockets. He could tell she was cleaning his face with swabs, but he didn't feel her touch.

"You just had to find that Net link. Dominic Jedes knows best." She wept quietly, but it didn't interfere with her work. He realized she'd always been very efficient at everything—kick-punching him, patching him up, telling him off, whatever he needed. He wanted to laugh, but his throat didn't respond. When she taped a thick white bandage over his left eye, he noticed it didn't block his vision at all. That eye was blind.

Am I paralyzed? He raised his right hand and let it flop back to the floor.

"Stop wiggling." Qi held an injection jet against his shoulder.

He sensed a pressure and heard a brief hiss. She'd injected him with a sedative. He felt the effects at once, but he didn't want to sleep. When he tried to speak, he started coughing. Tooksook laid a hand on his forehead. The hand felt cool. That was a good thing.

Why did you let me get so close to that Net link, he wanted to ask. But every time he tried to speak, he only gurgled and coughed.

"Rest!" Qi yanked his chin hairs, then ran her fingers over his lips. She was kneeling on his left side, so Dominic had to turn his head to see her. Those ink black eyes, so different from what he'd imagined he would like. She held a water sack to his lips and squeezed a few drops into his mouth. When he swallowed, she smiled.

Tooksook winked at him. "That sickness in your eye. You cured it. Yes, yes, it's all gone."

"Sleep." Qi stroked his hair. "You'll need your strength, Nick-O. The council's ready to negotiate."

CHAPTER 17
MARGIN CALL

"YOU lied to me!"

"Yep."

"You tricked me, so you could use me!"

"Yep."

"This entire expedition, the people I've met, everything was staged."

"Some of it. Not all."

"And you'll lie again if it suits you."

Qi flashed a grin and shook her head. "Not that I wouldn't enjoy it. You're such an easy mark. But no, we can't fart around anymore."

Dominic tried to prop himself on one elbow. As the dizziness hit him, he grabbed an overhead rail. He was lying in the lower bunk of a small cabin. Indirect light glowed against the walls, and he heard the faint electric whir of a cooling fan.

He clenched his jaw and spoke in a dangerous whisper. "Was Benito part of the act?"

"No, not the boy," Qi said.

Dominic studied her face. He had never been able to read her, and he couldn't do it now. He glanced at his surroundings, a desk with charts, a rack of crystal liquor bottles, the sheen of faux leather upholstery. He touched his left temple and felt bandages covering the side of his face. Memory of a terrible pain flitted through his head, but there was no pain now. Qi must have given him a local anesthetic.

"Where am I?"

"You're in the first officer's quarters," she said, "of the good ship, Dominic Jedes. We thought you'd feel more at home here. The council's waiting next door."

"Don't patronize me." He sat up and gripped the edge of the bunk to keep from swaying. "You've played a cynical game. You're no different from the NP."

It was then Dominic noticed what he was wearing. Crisp blue trousers with a sharp hand-pressed crease running down his thigh. He touched his chest and felt the smooth pleats of a tailored shirt. Someone had dressed him in Nord.Com executive blues.

"Is this a joke?"

Qi wasn't smiling. She was leaning forward and scrutinizing him with such intensity, he involuntarily jerked back.

To cover his confusion, he barked, "Why did you let me get so close to the Net link? The NP might have locked on our location."

"The link is dead. We killed the broadcast last night."

"But the NP picked up an active signal."

"We faked it," Qi said. "We had to make both of you believe it was real so you would fight. That's what killed the demon in your eye." Her dark fingers slid across the blue fabric covering his chest. She lifted his chin and forced him to look at her.

"You could have drowned me," he said. "I was willing."

"Dominic." She brushed her lips against his. Soft. Dry. Barely a touch. It took him by surprise. "We need you," she said.

When he leaned toward her for more, the room swam. His one-eyed perspective disoriented him, and he couldn't gauge distances. He swung his arms to embrace her, but she moved out of reach.

"Qi, I'm sorry. That offer to trade fuel and supplies, you know mat was just a ruse. ZahlenBank will never bargain with prot—protected employees."

"You told us an untruth? I'm floored."

Qi offered him a water sack and a plate of cookies. He gulped water and picked up a lumpy hard cookie, studded with bits of synthetic fruit. Because his stomach was so empty, he no longer felt like eating, so he merely held it in his hand. "I know you want me to negotiate with the council, but—"

"No, Dominic. We don't want you to negotiate with the council. We want you to negotiate for the council."

"What?"

"We want you to speak for us. Go head to head with ZahlenBank, and get us a loan."

For a moment, Dominic could think of nothing to say. She wanted him to represent the miners? He was president of the bank. Had she never heard the phrase, "conflict of interest"? Unaware of what he was doing, he crammed the whole cookie in his mouth, where it melted like sweet glue.

A short while later, he found himself perched on the edge of a faux leather chair, gazing across a polished table in the officers' mess. Gervasia was talking, but Dominic listened with only half an ear. Qi's outrageous request still revolved in his head, and he had no attention left for mundane matters, such as how the genie in his eye had been destroyed. But Gervasia explained anyway. Apparently, when he resisted the NP's attempt to take over his muscles, his epinephrine spiked off the chart and zapped the nanoquans in a lethal chemical bath. Now the fried mites were dissolving in his bloodstream and washing away.

"The next time you urinate," Gervasia said, "you'll be pissing liquid bit-brain."

Still in a fog, Dominic fingered the gauze bandage and nodded. He had to admit, it was a relief to have only one brain in his skull again. He would have savored the blessed silence, but there were questions he needed to ask, and around this table sat all the people who could answer.

Millard, Naomi, Estaban, Penderowski, Sereb, Djuju, Massoud—all the characters in the play staged for his benefit. Qi lounged in the chair to his left, his blind side, so he had to turn deliberately to see her long slender legs thrown up over the chair arm. At his right, Tooksook slid the plate of fruit cookies closer to his hand, and Juanita refilled his executive-issue crystal tumbler with water. He didn't see Benito. Benito hadn't been part of the play. That pudgy teacher was missing, too, he noted. At the head of the small table, Gervasia laid down her gavel and gave him the floor. The council stared at him with open, expectant faces.

What should he say? He tried to formulate a statement in his head, but then a thought struck, and he blurted, "Where's AneZaki?"

"Anzie's not well," Qi said in a taut voice. "She knew you'd ask. She sends regards."

"That brings up an important issue," Gervasia said. "Why we need money. As you know, we're running short on supplies."

"That's putting it mildly," Naomi said.

"Right," Dominic broke in, "you have less than an hour's worth of oxygen."

"Or maybe two more days." Millard's wire-rim spectacles caught the light. He unclipped the ballpoint pen from his hair and tapped at a small notebook lying open on the table before him. "It's a moving target, but numbers don't lie. We're on the verge of catastrophe."

"Hey, let's not be pessimistic." Massoud smoothed his mustache. "We'll give the coin guy the wrong impression."

'Two more days?" To Dominic, that seemed like a lifetime. "How long have I been here?"

No one seemed to hear him. They were all talking at once, and he had to resist the urge to pound the table. Instead, he raised his voice. 'This disaster is your own doing. Your experiment could have worked, but you invited too many people."

"We invited everyone!" Naomi hammered the table with her fist. "We even invited you!"

Penderowski said, "Who should we leave out, mate?"

"Exclusivity contradicts our stated aims." Millard stared at the table and frantically clicked his pen.

"Yes, yes, but we've stopped the broadcast, Nick." Tooksook fluttered his hands for everyone to calm down, then he pushed the cookie plate till it bumped Dominic's elbow. Dominic just managed to keep it from sliding off the table.

"That's right, college." Sereb leaned on his beefy elbows. "Last night, your freakin' NP nearly traced us. We were forced to shut it down."

"That devil in your eye may be dead, but its big brother patrols the airwaves like a demigod," said Gervasia. "Since you've been away, that bit-brain has collected some potent add-ons. It calls itself Chairman Jedes, and it's prying into everything. It even tried to sabotage the WTO."

Naomi jutted out her chin. "Doesn't matter about the broadcast. People will still come. One person tells another. Everyone wants to be free."

"Not everyone," Sereb boomed. "Getting here is no stroll in the mall. There's plenty of cowards wanna play it safe." He leaned back and folded his massive arms across his chest.

A general hubbub broke out then as council members interrupted each other. Dominic smiled wryly. These people behaved just like execs, everyone spouting opinions, no one listening. He turned to trade a wink with the major, but Qi sprawled sideways in her chair with one arm flung across her eyes. He marveled at her ability to fall asleep. She still wore the same cutoff uniform, pungent with sweat. Almost all of the councilors wore soiled, ragged clothes. Only he and Naomi sported Nord.Com dress blues, and for a moment, he felt keenly self-conscious.

Gervasia pounded her gavel, and the group gradually settled down.

"Back to the original issue," Gervasia said. "Why we need money. Given enough time, we can be self-sustaining. But we're in a short-term bind. We need fuel cells, antibiotics and cancer drugs, in that order."

"And I need a pump," said Millard.

Dominic processed this information. In a hesitant voice, he asked, "Does Ane Zaki have cancer?"

"She'll appreciate your worry," Qi snapped.

So the major wasn't sleeping after all. Dominic saw the tight set of her mouth. What was she angry about now?

"We all have cancer, Nick. Even you," said Gervasia. "Look at your right hand."

Dominic glanced at the inflammation that had now spread halfway up his forearm. Skin rash. First sign of toxic exposure. So his executive blood had not protected him after all. He felt amazingly calm about it. After what had happened, a little touch of cancer seemed trivial.

Djuju, the miner woman, stood up and spoke in an even voice. "I believe we skipped over the most important thing." Dominic noticed the respectful attention everyone paid to Djuju, so he turned to study her—and found her observant gray eyes studying him. Her scrutiny made him uncomfortable. After a short pause, she said, "We wanted to thank you, coin man."

"Yes, I suppose we did." Naomi sniffed and smoothed her hair.

"You made everything possible," said Estaban. "You set us free."

"That's why we named this ship," said Penderowski, "to honor you."

Another hubbub erupted as everyone offered gratitude, and Dominic was flabbergasted. "I haven't done anything," he repeated more than once.

Gervasia pounded her gavel, and Dominic tugged at his eye bandage. The skin underneath was beginning to itch.

Wiry Massoud hopped up and waved his hand. "You mentioned a straight loan package at prime plus two. We're willing to go with that."

"We don't want handouts," said Sereb. "We'll pay it back."

"Assuming the terms are reasonable," said Millard.

"You can vouch for us," said Djuju. 'Tell Z-Bank we're good for our word."

"I still think Nord.Com owes us punitive damages," Naomi muttered.

Dominic drummed his fingers on the table. Even now, the NP was hunting them with satellite-based weapons— and they expected ZahlenBank to lend them money? The idea was preposterous. Lending to employees was against bank policy. Even if the NP didn't oppose them, the board would reject their application. That broadcast had been their only bargaining chip. Without it, they had nothing to trade. They were dreaming.

But Dominic couldn't say all that to the grave, earnest people facing him around this table. Penderowski leaned forward and crossed his young, work-hardened hands. Gervasia's blue eyes smoldered. Djuju impaled him with her intelligent gaze. Tooksook slipped a cookie off the plate and passed it to Naomi.

Dominic rolled his head till one aching vertebra popped in his neck. More than anything, he wanted to laugh. This negotiation would be a farce, and they were asking him to play the chief buffoon. He said, "Go on. I'm listening."

In the next three hours, he learned many things. Gervasia did most of the talking, though Millard interrupted with statistics-, and others emphasized key points. Djuju propped her feet on the table, and Massoud jerked at his mustache as if he meant to rip it out by the roots. Only Major Qi remained silent, curled sideways in her chair with an arm covering her eyes.

Gervasia explained how they first came to the difficult decision of giving up their mobility. They could have kept running. That was the safest course. But other workers couldn't have found them, and that was no good. From the moment Dominic Jedes appeared on the Net and gave them their submarine, they knew the world had turned upside down. Dominic's gift was too precious to keep to themselves. They had a duty to share it. So they hid in the largest refuse dump in the Arctic Ocean and sent out their first broadcast.

"You recognized me from the beginning?" Dominic asked.

"Sure," said Gervasia. "We knew who you were."

"How could we forget your face, mate? You're our founding father." Penderowski's dimples deepened.

Then Dominic asked about the signal cloaking. How did they devise a looping echo technique that even ZahlenBank's data masters couldn't break? Yes, it was ingenious, Gervasia said. Someone sent it to them over the Net. An angel. They didn't know who.

The Orgs! Dominic felt certain Gig had sent that cloaking scheme, but he kept silent and let Gervasia go on.

Almost twenty thousand people now inhabited the colony. Dominic nearly choked when he heard that number. Estaban and his team had been running a steady shuttle service to the rendezvous point. It wasn't the factory ship anymore. For security, they changed the rendezvous every few hours. How did they communicate its location? Simple. Volunteers in handmade boats patrolled the inlets and bays of the Arctic coast to meet the newcomers. They used old-fashioned horns to signal each other through the smog.

Their Net broadcast reached workers as far away as Uzbekistan and California. Until last night. Last night, they got an anonymous tip that ZahlenBank was very close to tracing them, so they shut down. Dominic wanted to know about this anonymous whistle-blower. Was it the same mysterious angel who gave them the cloaking technique? Gervasia claimed not to know. Who else could it be but the Orgs, Dominic thought, though he kept his suspicions private.

They moved on to the topic of life support. Food was not an issue. Naomi's bugs were infinitely prolific, and vats were easy to build. It turned out Dominic had seen only one of the many vat rooms hewn into the bedrock below the Arctic Sea. He also learned that some of Penderowski's homemade sealant worked rather well. And Sereb's miners had built an underground electrolysis plant to harvest potable water from the ocean. When Dominic asked how they built so much so quickly, the mining chief laughed and reminded him of the one item they didn't lack—labor.

Food and water were coveted, but air was another story. Just as Dominic had feared, Millard was already rationing oxygen in the less crowded areas. He had salvaged a third respirator from one of the wrecks, and he'd been working around the clock to bring it online. Meanwhile as a stopgap, divers were constructing oversize snorkels to draw atmosphere directly from the surface with a rotary-cranked bellows. They planned to filter it through a set of old respirator membranes they'd found in the junk heap, and Millard thought they could eke out enough breathable air with this antiquated tech to keep everyone conscious—as long as the electrical power lasted.

Power, that was the ultimate key to everything. Power grew the food, ran the water plant, purified the air. The combined Pressure and Jedes power plants were operating at maximum output, and divers had scoured the other wrecks for working fuel cells—to no avail. Ane Zaki had implemented rolling blackouts, and her technicians were building more gas turbines to boost cell efficiency. But that wouldn't be enough. Her group had been experimenting with ocean thermal energy conversion when she fell ill. Now progress was slow. The blackouts were getting longer and more frequent—which didn't bode well for air production, or food, or water or anything else.

As an emergency measure, they'd improvised primitive floating windmills to generate extra power. But they hadn't deployed them yet because satellites would spot the mills the instant they surfaced. As long as the NP was scanning for their location, deploying the mills meant giving up their dream.

"So we need a loan," Tooksook said, as if that were simplicity itself.

"In two days, or maybe less, we'll be forced to float the windmills," said Millard.

"Two days. Splendid."

"Or maybe less," said Millard.

Dominic tried to scratch the skin under his bandage. He didn't know whether to laugh or bash his head against the wall. Maybe he should bash the council's heads together to knock sense into them. Two days? Negotiate with the world's mightiest financial institution, without a single point in their favor, when the only thing the NP wanted was to destroy them? And do it all in two days? He almost hooted like Major Qi.

Then he felt ashamed. These people had been working themselves to exhaustion. His mistake, he realized, was not in freeing the miner but in undervaluing them. He had discounted their ingenuity at every turn. He'd called them fools and fanatics, and he'd accused them of luring people to a death trap. Now he realized that in their naive good faith, they intended to save everyone.

Dominic puffed his cheeks and calculated. "Your Net link is still functional?"

"Yes," Gervasia answered, narrowing her blue eyes. "But if we go onwave, that bit-brain will trace us."

"Can we browse passively? I need information. Market reports. News."

Gervasia frowned. Her suspicions were obvious.

"I won't give you away," Dominic said, "but I can't operate in the dark. You have to let me gather data."

Around the table, all eyes turned to Tooksook. Dominic wondered why. The old man was rearranging the cookies on the plate for the umpteenth time, and he didn't even seem to be listening. After a moment, he glanced up with his gummy, toothless smile and winked at Dominic. His long eyebrows moved up and down.

He said, "Time for your decision, Nick. You gave us liberty. Will you help us keep it?"

"Tooksook, I—" Dominic was about to fall back on disclaimers. He couldn't promise anything. He wanted to help, but the miners had no bargaining position. Every point was against them. Yet as he looked into the man's cloudy, trusting eyes, his excuses failed. He understood the full weight of Tooksook's question: Will you break faith with your father's bank to help protes?

That's what his decision would mean. If he spoke for the miners, he would abandon his father's values. The directors would fire him, that was a given. Newscasters would brand him a prote sympathizer. His colleagues would call him a traitor—or an idiot. He could never hold his head up in executive society. Even his vast Jedes wealth would not save him. He would become a pariah. Worse, the Orgs might use his action finally to break ZahlenBank apart. Divestiture, the hated word. The only thing his father truly feared.

Could he, Dominic Jedes, live out the rest of his life with that kind of betrayal? Compared to that, drowning would have been easy. He could almost hear his father beseeching him. "ZahlenBank is our sacred trust."

Dominic bowed his head and sighed, because there wasn't any decision to make. Hadn't he already offered his own death? He would not cast these people adrift again. He knew them.

Tooksook patted his arm. "The coin giver will not betray us."

I'll betray my father instead, Dominic subvocalized—as if someone in his head were still listening.

Gervasia gave a brisk nod. "Nick, you heard what the president said. You may use the Net link."

President? Gervasia's eyes were aimed at Tooksook. This was so unexpected, Dominic did a double take. Tooksook scraped at one of the cookies with his fingernail. Then he bent over the plate and snuffled loud enough to stir up crumbs. Dominic turned back to Gervasia. "Tooksook's your president? I thought you were in charge."

"You were wrong." With one quick motion, Gervasia slid a small gray notebook down the table, and Dominic caught it against his chest. It was a Net node, the old-fashioned kind with a keyboard interface. She rapped her gavel. "Meeting adjourned. We'll recess for one hour while Nick browses the news."

As the councilors dispersed, Dominic sat still in his chair, shaking his head at this latest revelation. Old Tooksook was the council president? What next? He grabbed Qi's arm when she tried to slip away. "You can't desert me now."

"I'm tired," she said, and her head hung like a heavy dark blossom on a stem.

"Sleep when this is over." He pointed to the chair beside him. "Major, no joke, I need you."

When they were alone in the officers' mess, she drained his water glass and licked her lips. "Do you realize it's two hours after midnight?"

Dominic noticed a large round analog clock on the wall. He'd been out of touch with local time for so long, he'd almost forgotten how to measure it. "What day is this?" he said.

"June 30th." Qi found the water jug and drank some more. "You've been here eleven days, if that's what you're wondering."

"Eleven days!" Dominic whistled. He flipped open Gervasia's gray notebook and absentmindedly tapped the control key. The node powered up and fired a tiny collimated beam to the ship's Net link, which relayed it straight up into the articulated chaos of microwaves propagating through the Earth's aura.

After half an hour on the Net, he didn't want to see any more. Qi sat beside him, fuming and spitting. Earlier in the week, the Euro Bourse sank to historic lows, the Nikkei dropped 44 percent, and the American Stock Exchange halted trading. Numerous factories reported work stoppages, and an estimated 2 million employees were fined for absence without leave. In isolated areas, a few thousand workers were shot trying to escape, and riots ended brutally. But the markets hadn't crashed, and there was no evidence of chaos or looting, not a hint of cannibalism.

Last night after the miners shut down their broadcast, all northern markets came roaring back to new highs, and Chairman Richter Jedes of ZahlenBank was named the man of the hour. Features about his bold market rescue blazoned every news site. Odd, the newscasters spoke of this so-called Chairman as a real man. Dominic browsed video and realized the NP was using a holographic projection for public appearances. Did anyone believe this? Had they forgotten the report of Richter's death?

"That blasted genie runs the bank," said Dominic. "You know this loan scheme is pointless."

Qi chewed her thumb and spat out a piece of nail. "Your Da's vulnerable. He—" She was about to say something more, but an alarm tone sounded, and a plain-text box popped open on the screen.

"DETECTION IMMINENT. TERMINATE SESSION NOW."

"Where'd that come from?" said Dominic.

"Who cares! Turn the thing off!" Qi punched the escape key, but nothing happened.

Dominic clicked End Session, but the little notebook kept beaming an active signal through the Net link. The connection seemed frozen in a live position. "This is bizarre," he said.

Qi lifted the notebook and rapped it hard against the edge of the table. It splintered to pieces, and plastic shards flew in all directions. But the alarm tone was still ringing.

'That did a lot of good." Dominic was already sprinting for the door.

The officers' mess adjoined the bridge, and when he burst in, Gervasia spun in her chair. "What happened?"

He didn't pause to speak. He bounded up the winding stairs toward the Net link. Penderowski was bending over the fragile receiver dish, soldering the rip Dominic had made earlier. Juanita was handing him tools. Sure enough, all indicators showed the Net link was actively transmitting. The NP was sucking data!

Dominic didn't hesitate. He yanked the soldering tool out of Penderowski's hand and stabbed it into the vulnerable electronics in the base. Over and over, he gouged the delicate works, mutilating the connections, shouldering Penderowski out of the way and ignoring Gervasia's commands to stop. Sparks shot out, and when the fine silver mesh of the receiver dish caught fire, it went up in a whoof of black smoke. This time the Net link went dead for good. Broadcast and reception both terminated. Flakes of ash filtered softly through the air like snow.

CHAPTER 18
RATE MOVEMENT

THEY waited on the bridge, all of them together. Dominic still gripped the soldering tool in his fist. The air smelled of metallic ash from the burnt-out Net link. Had the NP traced their location? Hunkered on the floor, they drew their heads between their shoulders and whispered and tried not to move, as if that would protect them from the NP's deadly blast. Minutes ticked by. There wasn't enough time to evacuate the tunnels, and they had no defense against weapons from space. So they waited.

"What kind of guns does yer bank have?" Djuju whispered.

Dominic adjusted his eye bandage and frowned. He'd never thought to inquire. Satellite armament was part of the bank's security system, an operational detail.

"Laser cannons," said Massoud. The wiry little bursar yanked at his mustache as if he meant to eradicate it, one hair at a time.

"You think we'll hear thunder?" Penderowski asked, "Or maybe see a bright light?"

Gervasia pounded her fist against her thigh. "How could they lock on to a passive browsing session? I should never have turned on the link. Why didn't I think it through?"

Dominic touched her shoulder. "Gervasia, don't blame yourself."

"Maybe the bit-brain didn't get our coordinates," Sereb said. "It hasn't fired yet."

"That probability increases every minute," said Millard.

"Or maybe the bank'll send a rescue team for its president." Qi arched her eyebrows at Dominic.

"Well, they're late," said Naomi.

Dominic kept his one good eye trained on the hands of the analog wall clock. Sereb rolled onto his stomach and did push-ups. Millard wrote figures in the palm of his hand.

With a growl of impatience, Gervasia jumped to her feet. She woke up her computers, tapped a few keys and frowned. "Okay, I've got the transmission log. Let's see what data that bit-brain hacked out of our system."

Dominic was beside her in an instant, looking over her shoulder, but the file on her screen was garbled and crazy.

"It almost looks like encryption," he said.

"That doesn't make sense." Qi elbowed him out of the way.

"Yeah," Gervasia said. "Why would the bit-brain encrypt our data before sucking it out?"

As the first hour passed, they grew more restless. Penderowski kept rewinding his turban, and Dominic prodded the numb flesh under his eye bandage. Djuju read her book. Massoud furtively loaded his pipe, then put it away, and Tooksook wanted to know if anyone was hungry.

At the end of the second hour, Qi said, "This is nuts. I'm going topside to look around. Estaban, can I borrow your shuttle?"

Gervasia said, "Nobody's going anywhere till we figure things out." She jabbed her computer keys with punishing force. Dominic noticed her jaw muscle quiver as she scrolled data. She was taking all the responsibility on her own shoulders, and he knew what that felt like.

Before he could speak, she announced to the group, "Both bathyspheres are en route to the surface. Looks like about eight hundred newcomers are waiting up top. We can't bring them down here, not now. I vote we radio the shuttle pilots to evacuate."

Everyone spoke at once. "I oppose that!" "You wanna turn people away?" "The bit-brain's gonna fry us any second." "Where would they go?" "I don't think the bit-brain spotted us." "They risked their lives to get here." "We need more information." "Let's take a vote."

About then, Juanita stood up and yelled louder than anyone, "Where's Tooky?"

The council looked at each other and realized Tooksook wasn't among them. "Tooky! When did he slip off?" They scrambled around, searching the bridge.

"He's in the galley fixin' sandwiches," Penderowski called.

The old man emerged from a small doorway bearing a plate of dark brown buns slathered with yellow goo. People parted to make a path as he blinked and smiled, showing off his tooth. When Djuju started to explain the vote, his bald head bobbed. "I heard you. Yes, yes, I heard. Nick will tell us what to do."

There was a collective pause. Then, all eyes turned to Dominic. He could read mistrust in several faces, but the council was giving him full attention. He thought carefully before he spoke.

"It's fair to say I know the NP better than anyone," he began.

Several people nodded, and Sereb said, "Qi told us."

Dominic caught the sympathy in their faces and flushed. He drew up to his full height and went on quickly. "I think the NP would have acted by now. I don't think it knows where we are."

"I agree," said Qi. Dominic hadn't noticed her standing by his side. The eye patch limited his view. She leaned toward him and added in a lower tone, "There's something about that encryption. It reminds me of Gig."

Dominic nodded. It corresponded with his earlier suspicions. The Orgs were certainly stirring this pot, but why? The implications were baffling. He said, "Let's assume we killed the Net link in time."

"Okay, so we can still go for the bank loan," said Sereb.

Dominic pointed at the soot-blackened Net link. "How am I supposed to contact the lending department?"

Qi punched his shoulder and pointed at Gervasia. "Charm your girlfriend into giving us a shuttle. I know where to find a phone."

Less than an hour later, Dominic sat on a hard metal bench, trying to squeeze himself into a rubber suit that was rank and clammy and about three sizes too small. The inner lining stuck to his hairy legs and wouldn't slide up. He cursed and yanked the suit on by main force, but when his chest hairs caught in the zipper, blood rushed to his face. Gervasia! She decided both bathyspheres were needed for passengers. She wouldn't take one out of service, so she allocated Dominic a SCUBA rig!

'Trouble with your zipper?" Qi was already suited up, with her tanks and buoyancy compensator strapped into position. The gear looked heavy, but she moved with her usual ease and freed his zipper with one swift jerk. "Aw, is that suit gonna be too rough on your tender nipples?"

Dominic shot her a frown and examined the pile of scuba gear lying at his feet. His assistant, Karel Folger, had gone scuba diving a few times. Karel told Dominic some hairy stories about ruptured eardrums and burst sinuses.

"This is serious, Major. Please explain again what happens if we surface too fast."

Qi mock-punched him in the chest. "Nitrogen boils out of your blood, your lungs explode, the vessels in your eyeballs pop—oh, and you may develop a brain embolism."

"Ah yes."

She shoved him playfully. "Just follow the tiny bubbles, Nick. And don't hold your breath."

The tanks were old and dented, relics from the twenty-first century. Dominic eyed the inspection stickers, dated March 2004. He swallowed hard and strapped on his fins. They looked like huge flat clown shoes. He recalled the silky Kevlax surface suit he'd worn at the start of this mission— the same suit his father wore to climb mountains in Asia. It offered full hermetic protection against the environment, whereas this rubber diving suit didn't even have a hood. The silicon mask covered his nose and eyes and left his skin exposed to the ocean. Nasty hot sea fluid might leak into his mouth. It would certainly soak through his eye bandage.

Qi harnessed him into the heavy gear and helped him step backward into the airlock. The inner door closed. Then he heard a metallic screech, spun around and nearly toppled over in the unwieldy gear. She had wrenched a valve open. As the warm yellow ocean flooded into the airlock, he recalled the offer he'd made only a few hours ago, to stand in this lock without any gear at all.

With that vivid image in mind, he bit down hard on his mouthpiece and watched the fluid creep up over his mask. As it sluiced through his hair, he could taste it seeping past his lips. Once outside, he would probably pop to the surface and burst into a million bloody fragments. Well, at least he would see the sky again.

When the outer hatch grated open, he stepped out, drifted in slow motion and fell against the hull. The weights Qi had strapped around his waist were dragging him down, and he sucked hard for air. With every breath, a stream of bubbles rushed by his ears like an eruption. He hadn't expected the noise to be so loud. Qi gripped his shoulder strap and gave him the okay sign. The ocean was so murky, he could barely make out her face, but he nodded. He was breathing way too fast, gulping in short, shallow pants, and he half expected to hear the NP scold him. Focus, Dominic! He drew a deep, calming breath through his nose—and got a snootful of bitter fluid. Then he choked and coughed and would have panicked if Qi hadn't gripped him tight and held his mouthpiece in place.

They tumbled softly into a rubble pile, and their fins stirred up denser clouds of sediment. Then Qi switched on a laser torch strapped to her wrist, and Dominic remembered he'd stuck Penderowski's torch in a pocket somewhere. He'd sealed the old torch in a plastic ziplock bag, and sure enough, when he clicked the switch, it came on. The first thing its beam revealed was a vending machine, upended, smashed and rusty, spilling loose change on the seafloor.

Qi signaled him to kick his fins and follow her. He tried to do as she'd instructed, to keep his legs straight and take long slow kicks, but he wasn't used to the motion. Qi was a better swimmer and kept getting ahead. Visibility was wretched, and with only one eye, he could barely see the beam of her light. Beating his fins madly, he lunged forward caught hold of her hand and didn't let go.

In the turbid gloom, they bashed softly against another hull and pushed their way along its length. This must be the Pressure of Light, he thought. When they rounded its stern, Dominic played his torch beam along the massive propellers, and while he was examining them, Qi struck off toward another vague shape nestled among the trash on the seafloor. Since he still gripped her hand, she towed him along like loose baggage till he got himself aligned.

This new object was too small to be a submarine. Was this where she hid her so-called "phone"? Dominic wanted to head for the surface—it wasn't that far above. He'd been underground so long, he practically yearned for it. But when he tried to get Qi's attention, she ignored him.

As he kicked through the murky ocean grasping Qi's hand, he cast his torch beam back toward the miners' town, and although the gloom was too thick to see it, he waved good-bye. Then he scolded himself for being a soft-headed fool. Hadn't he lived his entire life on the surface? Under thick, sealed domes, yes, but always with a view of the sky. Many times during the last eleven days, he thought he might never see that smoggy sunlight again. Yet here he was, leaving this dark, watery garbage dump with almost a pang of regret.

Qi kicked steadily on toward the small, pale object hidden in the trash. It loomed in the murk like a boulder, and if Qi hadn't spotlighted it with her torch, he wouldn't have paid it any notice. When they bumped against it, Qi guided his hand to a rail. Then he sensed a pressure change and saw a geyser of bubbles rushing against his mask. Before he could react, Qi grabbed his upper arm and shoved him through a circular opening barely wider than his shoulders. He felt her hand push his butt as he swam inside, and his helmet immediately bashed against a wall. Qi kept pushing, and he tried to move sideways, but all he could do was fold himself up because now she was climbing in beside him. This felt somehow very familiar. When he heard a thump and a clank, felt another slow pressure change, and saw light scattering through the egg-shaped airlock, he knew exactly where he was.

"The Devi!" he gurgled as soon as the airlock cleared. Then he yanked out his mouthpiece. "You sank the Devi!"

"This sweet little bitch? Never!" She hooted her boyish laugh. "Nicky, she's my ride."

While Dominic was struggling to take off his fins, Qi climb into the cabin and bragged. "I staged that whole thing to fool Gig. Now both our bit-brains think my Devi's gone. I never trusted either of them."

Stealing the Devi had always been part of her plan, she explained. She had secretly preprogrammed it to lurk under the surface and follow her. "Sleek, huh?" She threw a long leg over the back of her seat and slapped her buttock. "I had a transponder of my own."

"You had a chip even the mighty Gig didn't know about?" Dominic narrowed his eyes. "I thought he spied on you twenty-four/seven."

"He didn't know about this," she declared, a little too stridently.

"You're telling me the Orgs can't track their own stealth craft?" Dominic shook his head.

"They're not freaking gods, Nick. I fooled them. They don't know about the Devi." Qi's eyebrows knotted. She seemed nervous and unsure. Some spy! Dominic began to wonder how crafty she really was. Could the devious major be, after all, just a desperate woman who made mistakes? He noted the angry spots in her cheeks and decided to drop the subject.

The Devi's cockpit was just as he remembered, an egg-shaped coffin with a ribbed overhead light tube and very cramped seating. His rubber diving suit bound him like a torture device, so he opened the zipper and tugged his shoulders and arms out before stuffing himself into the miniscule seat. Qi smirked and slipped her AR headband on, adjusted the wire in front of her left eye, and slid cybernails onto her fingertips. Dominic found his own AR headband on the floor under his feet.

He slid his hand farmer under the seat. That's where he'd stuffed his briefcase eons ago, the one containing his hyperwave Net node and a small fortune in credit chips, but he couldn't find it now. When he glanced at Qi, she pretended to pout.

"I took it, sorry. I spent your money on satellite time for the miners' broadcast. We were running in arrears with our service provider."

"That was low."

Dominic rubbed his chin and mulled over this information with a grim sense of irony. He tried to hold his angry scowl, but finally he gave it up. The way she was grinning and shaking her damp hair and humming that sassy tune, who could stay mad at her?

"Major, you owe me one. Where to next?"

They had to get far away from the colony before calling the bank, to make sure they didn't give away the location. Earlier, Qi told him they would sail a raft to Canada. Typical. For all he knew, she might take him wheeling off into space.

She flicked her cybernails to activate the Devi's interface, and with a mighty jolt, they shot through the water. Acceleration pressed Dominic back, and it was only with forceful effort that he pried his head loose from the backrest.

After a while, she gave him a sideways look. "You pick the direction."

"How about the Barents Sea?" he said. "Let's pop up right under their noses. It'll show our resolution."

"I like that." She grinned. Then she sank back in her seat and closed her eyes. "Dim," she said, and the cabin light dropped several levels. "Okay, course locked in. Can I sleep now?"

"How long before we get there? Millard said we have two days or less, and we've already blown part of that." His words were wasted. She'd dozed off.

Her body slumped toward him, and her long slender arm swung loose, trailing her cybernails on the cockpit floor. He noticed how her dark skin shaded to a creamier tone inside her elbow. Her short, thick lashes lay quiet against her dusky cheeks, but her slack lips moved with each breath, and her head lolled on her shoulder. Gently, he tilted her head back into the cushioned headrest, then brushed her cheek with his hand. Her nose twitched, but she didn't wake. He gazed down the length of her body in the ragged, cutoff uniform. Slim, muscular legs. Boyish hips. Small breasts.

He blew a hard breath, tugged on his AR headband and forced his attention to other subjects. He had to consider what he might say to the NP. Only logic would work. The genie would scorn sentimental appeals. He remembered how his father hated sentiment. Emotional crap, the old man called it. "Whenever you have strong feelings about a deal, beware!" he used to say.

Vividly, Dominic recalled how Richter once barked at some luckless junior officer who took insufficient collateral for a loan. "Tangible assets! That's the way we secure a loan at ZahlenBank! The day we base a loan on emotional crap is the day ZahlenBank starts to fail!"

Dominic hunched lower in his seat. There were no logical reasons why the bank should make this loan. The miners could offer no collateral. They couldn't afford to pay prime plus two—or any amount of interest. They couldn't even pay back the principal for decades. This deal had no upside for ZahlenBank, none at all.

Worse, here he was, the bank president, proposing to violate a standing policy against bargaining with employees. Not only that, he intended to represent them! It was a blatant conflict of interest—illegal, unethical, totally without honor. If Richter had lived, what would he say?

As Dominic ground his teeth and brooded, a memory from eight years ago surfaced in his mind. An ordinary Monday in the executive spire. He was a junior lending officer then, not yet a member of the board. So his request to see his CEO father during banking hours bordered on presumption.

"It's come to my notice," he began, standing rigid before his father's desk.

"Sit down, boy. Relax. You want caffie?" Richter spoke into his wrist node. "Ulla, bring us two caffies, plenty of cream and sugar."

Dominic perched on the edge of the sofa, while his father grilled him congenially about pending deals. They'd played this game before, and Dominic knew how to prepare. His answers were correct and terse. After Ulla served the caffie and left them alone, the old man sat down beside his son. "You're doing well, boy. Even Klas Lorn says so."

Lorn says what pleases you, Dominic thought. Aloud he said, "It's about Mr. Lorn that I've come to see you. I've been going through the house accounts."

"House accounts? That's detail work. Leave that to Ulla." The old man whitened his caffie with thick oily cream.

Dominic watched the spoon going round and round in his father's cup, stirring up vortexes. "Mr. Lorn took out three personal loans this year with no collateral. That's against bank policy. It leaves us exposed."

The old man sipped his caffie, then drew back his lips as if he didn't like the taste.

"Our proper course is to call those loans in," Dominic said. He knew his father wouldn't like to hear this. Klas Lorn had served Richter in the early days, when they first engineered the Ark. But Lorn's unsecured loans posed too much risk, and it was Dominic's duty to say so.

Richter squeezed his son's knee. "The house accounts are Ulla's turf. Let's talk about our trip next month to the Himalayas. Did you get the boots I sent over?"

"Father, you haven't heard it all. Mr. Lorn hasn't made any repayments. I can't begin to calculate the interest he owes."

Richter looked Dominic in the eye. They sat so close together on the sofa, Dominic could smell his father's cologne. Like the scent of old dollar bills. "Listen, boy. The bank has use for men like Klas Lorn. When you take my chair, you'll learn how to play 'em—and how to pay 'em. Till then, leave it to me, understand?"

Dominic shut his eyes. Yes, he understood. He'd understood the moment he realized those loans weren't reported in the bank's financial statement. He'd been hoping that was an oversight, hoping his father would set matters straight. Those loans undercut the bank's profit. They went against everything Richter taught him.

"So you got the climbing boots?" The old man leaned back and laced his fingers behind his head. "It's lucky you and me have the same feet, boy. I never have to guess your size."

"Yes, thank you. They're very nice." Dominic smiled as Richter nudged him affectionately. What he didn't say was that tucked inside Lorn's file he'd found a handwritten log of Richter's own off-the-books transactions. Billions' and billions' worth of uncollateralized personal loans going back for nearly four decades. Richter still paid lip service to executive honor. Why had he stopped believing?

Dominic never made that trip to the Himalayas. He never climbed mountains with his father or raced aircars or trekked through deserts or sailed yachts. He cited work demands and stayed in Trondheim, doing deals. He tracked clients like a heat-seeking missile and closed loans with ruthless calculation. He mastered the skills, outperformed all rivals and racked up fat profits. He devoted himself. And slowly, very slowly, he grew tired.

Ocean fluid dripped down his cheek from the sodden eye bandage. The tape was coming loose, so he peeled it off and stuffed it under his seat. The skin around his socket was tender and puffy, and the eye remained stone blind. He touched the swollen lid. When this episode was over, he would have to check into a clinic and replace the eye with a transplant. Or maybe he'd order an artificial eye, custom-matched to his color, with optic enhancements like night vision and zoom. Yes, he thought bitterly, a man-made eye would serve him better than a real one.

As he explored the scars with his fingertips, his negotiator mind invented arguments and prioritized talking points and gave up in frustration a dozen times. What could he say to win over the NP? So intent was he on laying a strategy that he barely noticed the silty underwater plane of the Canadian shelf rolling by in the luminous false lavenders of metavision, relieved only by mounds of golden garbage.

Traveling submerged at a depth of twenty meters, they took three hours to cross the Arctic Ocean. Dominic jerked awake when Qi's automatic timer sounded reveille. He yawned and scratched his belly and rubbed his face. His beard had grown thick and soft, and he liked the way it felt under his stroking fingers. Still half asleep, he pictured his colleagues' reactions to his new fashion look.

"Are we there yet?"

"Yep. Are you ready to place your call?"

He watched her power up the Devi's small Net link and activate the onboard node. The dull blue frame of a standard browser appeared on screen.

"Call from here?" he said. "No, let's surface."

"Safer to stay down," she said.

"But we're this close."

His face must have shown his eagerness, because Qi laughed and tickled him under the chin. "Aw, poor Nick. You miss the sunshine."

He started to speak, then closed his mouth. His feelings at the moment were too complicated. He didn't want Qi to laugh at him.

"What the hell," she said. "They'll trace us anyway. Let's go up and catch some rays."

When she flicked her cybernails, Dominic felt his seat shudder, and the Devi rose out of the sea with a frothy crash of waves. Sunlight blazed through the cockpit, and Dominic covered his eye. Tears blurred his vision. The surface! After so long in the dark, he could barely see.

After a moment, he uncovered his eye and tried to focus on the panoramic view through his headband. Another long summer day was passing over the face of the northern hemisphere. To his left, black mountains rose from the purple waves.

"Norway?" he asked.

"Yep, that's the Varanger Fjord."

Dominic twisted in his seat and gazed through the window at the craggy peaks of his homeland, less than five kilometers away. He could swim that distance, he knew he could. He could cross those mountains on foot, with or without his father's custom-made climbing boots. He could walk all the way to Trondheim if he had to. That would be the easy part.

CHAPTER 19
NONNEGOTIABLE

"MAYBE there's a compromise. Supplies for silence."

"What's come over you, son? We never bargain with protes."

The NP's voice flowed from the Devi's Net node like warm breath. This version sounded much more authentic than the genie in his eye. The impersonation was so rich and supple, so true to Richter's living tone, that Dominic felt old fears and hopes battling inside him. A vivid holographic head rose from the screen and seemed to blush with sudden pleasure. A sheen of sweat dampened its forehead, and its handsome sea gray eyes held Dominic enthralled. The NP had drastically upgraded its interface.

"You're still in that stealth car? I watched it sink." The gray eyes leered at Qi, then sliced back to Dominic. "You need a wash, boy. And a shave! Krishna Christ, you've been through hell. What's wrong with your eye?"

Dominic glanced at Qi, who merely shrugged. He resisted the impulse to touch his dead socket. "We're talking a straight business loan. A standard contract with—"

"We're talking NO DEAL! Tell me where you are, and I'll send the guards. This circus has lasted long enough."

Dominic gripped his seat cushion but managed to hold his features still. "The miners will pay you back. You have my personal guarantee."

"You vouch for protes? You're not my son. You're a forgery. Hold your palm to the screen so I can verify your ID."

Dominic ground his teeth and pressed his hand through the NP's immaterial face. When his palm flattened against the screen, the face flickered and re-formed. He hated that face. He hated the way the square jaw moved back and forth. He despised the straight nose and the thick, full lips. It made him want to rip his own skin off.

"Yeah, okay, I recognize the palm print. They've brainwashed you, boy. Just come home, and we'll straighten everything out."

As the NP spoke, another shape began to stream out from the screen, and Dominic flinched back. But in the small cockpit, he couldn't draw far enough away. In shock, he watched a shimmering white hand reach to touch his face. A short, thick finger delved into his left eye, crackling with electricity, but his ruined flesh felt nothing.

Quietly, he said, "Looking for your nanoquans? They're gone."

"So I find." The NP raised its holographic eyebrows, and the hand withdrew. "That is a serious loss of data, not to mention the investment. I am not freakin' pleased."

Dominic forced a ragged smile. "This deal with the miners, I admit it's unorthodox. But if you loan this money, the miners will—"

"The miners are fuckin' debris! When I find that ship, I'll sweep it up and toss it in a dump."

Dominic bit his lip, trying not to react. "Let's calm down and talk like reasonable pe—" He faltered over the word. "Like reasonable bankers. Our priority is to stop the Org lawsuit, correct? So if the miners promise no more broadcast—end of lawsuit, problem solved."

"The miners' existence is the problem. We can't let them set up a haven for runaways. It'll cause no end of labor troubles."

"But if they're quiet—"

"Protes don't know how to be quiet. They whisper like gutterbugs. Chatter chatter chatter. Freakin' gossips. You should listen in sometime."

Dominic rolled his head till his neck made a cracking sound. How could he appeal to the NP's interests? His father taught him a skillful negotiator had to crawl into his adversary's mind, understand his secrets, figure out what made him salivate, and play to his greed. Right. He had to crawl into the mind of a bit-brain? The NP was copied after his father. What argument would move Richter Jedes?

He sat up straighter and lowered his voice. "My estate's worth a million times the value of this loan. Use my money to secure the deal. I'll pay the interest up front."

"Your estate? Your money?"

"It's my legal property. My inheritance."

"I gave you that money! Every cent. To hear you talking this way, speaking up for protes—it shames me, son."

Dominic gripped the little Net node so hard, he nearly tore it off the Devi's console, but he held his voice steady. "Let's drop the father-son fiction."

The NP howled with laughter. "Absolutely right. You're nobody's son. Richter manufactured us both. I'm intelligent code, whereas you, he jerked off in a dish."

Dominic took deep breaths through his nose and counted ten.

"Sure, let's drop the fantasy," the NP went on. "I like facts better. We're Richter's proxies, and he put us here to guard ZahlenBank. But you screwed up the very first day. That's always the problem with analog copies."

Dominic lurched in his seat. "Say another word, and I—"

"You what? Quit?" The NP snickered. "You won't quit. Richter gave you a motivation you can't resist. I think the word was 'honor.'"

Dominic put his fist through the screen.

"Well, that was smooth." Qi brushed shards of plastic from her lap. "I don't have another Net node. What's your next move?"

"This." Dominic grabbed Qi's hand. He remembered which icon in her light matrix retracted the cockpit cover, so he forced her to prod it with one of her cybernails. Instantly, the Devi's ceiling split across the middle and retracted. "I'm going for a swim," he said. Then he lurched up onto the cockpit rim and dove.

He pulled long hard strokes, lengthening his spine and stretching his limbs. The Nord.Com uniform hampered his movement, but it felt good to plow through the oily ocean. What did he care about the brown foam lapping in his face every time he took a breath. He'd been exposed to sea fluid before, and seeds of cancer had already germinated in his flesh. So be it. He'd just lost the deal. He'd lost it!

Ahead lay a flat horizon. He was moving out to sea, not in toward the mountains of Norway. With only one eye, he had trouble gauging distances, but that didn't matter. He never stood a chance negotiating with the digital genie. It was too much like arguing with his father. And he lost all those battles. If he was an exact duplicate of Richter, they must have shared the same innate gifts. Why couldn't he stand up to his father like an equal? Why did he always feel like a lesser man? Several meters out, it occurred to him that opening the cockpit had probably revealed their position, and that bank guards would arrive any moment to arrest them. He pushed the thought away. Right now, he needed to swim.

After a while, he swung around and headed back to the Devi.

"Cooled down, are we? You wanna climb back in? I'm making lunch." Qi swung a ladder over the Devi's flank. As he pulled himself in and shook liquid from his hair, she said, "You blew our cover. Not to make a pun."

"Stupid, I know. We should submerge."

"Doesn't matter." Qi tossed him a sack of yellow goo and a straw. "Your dear old Da was bound to find us. The Devi's stealth is way obsolete compared to your NP's new add-ons."

"I don't want to be found yet. I have an idea." Dominic sat in his dripping uniform and sucked the goo, remembering how much he liked the taste of Naomi's pudding.

Qi slurped the last few drops through her straw. "So where to?"

"Trondheim," he said, licking his lips.

She crushed her empty food sack between her hands. "Just like that? You're going home? Giving up?"

He grinned. "I haven't even started."

They closed the cockpit and dove straight down, then crept along the seafloor, changing direction often, hoping to outwit the NP's scans. Hidden in the murky depths, Dominic whispered the strategy he'd formulated. He'd been thinking it through during their long journey across the Arctic. The NP would never approve a loan to the miners. That was a given, he said, rubbing his hands together in nervous admission of defeat. But he owned personal assets. He'd inherited one of the richest estates in the northern hemisphere. He would simply make a withdrawal.

One billion deutschdollars should cover their immediate needs. He'd have to sell some stocks, but that was easy. Giving the miners access to the funds would be more difficult. He planned to set up a new dummy bank account under a fake ID. That would require hacking into ZahlenBank's Ark, but he had a notion how to do that. He would call his young assistant, Karel Folger. Karel would be glad to help.

When no guards appeared after half an hour, Qi decided it was safe to head for the Norwegian coast. They parked the Devi in an underwater cave and swam into a rocky inlet a few kilometers north of Trondheim. Standing on the beach, Dominic peered at the pallid midnight sky. They had one day left. Or maybe less, as Millard would be sure to say. The smog hovered like wool. Dominic heard no air-cars circling above, but still, he felt uneasy.

"Don't look up!" Qi's shout startled him. "The satellites might recognize your face. Keep your head down." She drew a fresh dry Nord.Com uniform from her pack and slithered into it. In the shadows, her dark body was almost invisible.

"We'll have to disable the logos on these uniforms," she said. "Every surveillance camera in this hemisphere will be watching for Nord.Com insignia. Ugh, Nicky. You're all wet."

"Don't worry. I'll dry fast." He turned away from her, stripped off his uniform and started wringing it out.

"Sweet," she said, "moonshine."

Dominic laughed. He'd discarded his filthy silk underwear, and the night wasn't dark enough to hide his pale buttocks. As he slung the uniform in a circle over his head to spin the liquid out, he said, "How do we disable the logos?"

"We remove their chips so they can't beam an AR readout," she said. "I brought along some counterfeits. From now on, we're middle managers at Lapp.Com. You're Veltin in HR, and I'm Sanwalt in quality assurance."

"Delightful."

"Just remember our new names, okay?"

It took Qi only a minute to replace the chips and reconfigure the logos on their executive uniforms. Her pack held lots of tools. She'd obviously performed such a switch before. Under her hand, Nord.Com's slanting silver N unraveled and re-formed as a quirky brown quadruped— a reindeer, Dominic recalled—the Lapp.Com logo. He dressed quickly in his damp uniform, while Qi hid her pack among the rocks. Then she slicked his beard down with her fingers.

"We need to find you an eye patch." She started tying her hair in a knot.

"Don't," he said, touching her hand. "It looks better down."

She shook her hair free. Then she touched his bare foot with her toes. "Sorry, Nick. The Nord.Com aristos didn't leave us any shoes."

She led off through the twilight, and he followed, picking his way barefoot through the sharp rocks. Wind whistled around them. Like every landmass that was still livable, Norway's surface bristled with the domes, towers, rain mills and solar collectors of dense human habitation. Dominic saw it all for the first time, in true color, without the intervention of a windshield or face mask or metavi-sion headband. How bleak the mountains looked, the soil blasted away by winds, the rocks bare and pitted. Black, gray, brown, these were the colors of his homeland. A clabbered dawn gathered in the east, increasing their exposure to the roving eyes of satellites. Qi tugged at his sleeve, and they started to run. Soon they found a dome with an airlock, and Qi knew a trick or two for getting it open.

Inside the dome, refrigerated air swallowed Dominic like a cold bath, and the fresh, sterile scent brought back a glut of memories. He stretched his arms and rolled his neck, relishing the ambient cool, until Qi yanked him behind a column. Their counterfeit chips offered thin protection, she warned him, and if the authorities checked their palm prints, the NP would be on them in nanoseconds. Surveillance cameras scanned every tunnel, so they kept their heads down and slunk along with the steady stream of foot traffic.

Norway's suburban levels weren't as well appointed as the executive domes, but they were clean and uncluttered, freshly painted every week to hide the graffiti. Municipal employees grudgingly swept the floors and sprayed antiseptic, and though the halls smelled astringent, they were free of toxins. Dominic slapped his arms to warm up. His uniform wasn't quite dry, and the chill air made him shiver. At last, they found a public air chute, and Qi fooled the mechanism into thinking she'd fed it a coin. Then they rode its pneumatic cushion down, inhaling the dry empty air.

The air chute dumped them into an employee residential area, and Dominic peered around with curiosity. He'd never seen one before. Traffic was sparse at this hour, midway through a shift. The short straight halls crisscrossed in a logical grid, and uniform metal doors lined the walls, bearing sequential numerals. He knew that behind each door lay a standard living cube, four meters deep and wide and high, equipped with graceless built-in furniture, mass-produced in molded plastic. He's seen the items in catalogs.

As they passed a commissary, he paused to study the green-and-orange laser advertisements painted in the air, and he stood listening with one ear cocked to the lyrics of the promotional jingles. This commissary was the cheeriest place he'd seen. Here at all hours, employees could purchase everything life required—snacks, clothing, digital entertainment—at low, subsidized prices. There was no crime. No loud noise. No litter. All these blessings were the perks of Com protection. This was what the runaways gave up, and as Dominic gazed at a display of pizza-flavored powder in sealed foil packets, he began to understand why. This place had no living smells. Even the passing minutes seemed to have been sanitized, dehydrated and sealed in foil.

A few executives strolled among the employees, wearing badges and carrying notebooks. He watched one of them, a woman, stop a couple of juveniles and check their chips with her scanner wand. She was tall and narrow, with champagne-colored hair, and when she asked a question, she didn't wait for the answer. In a pompous tone, she ordered the boys to go home. Home? Dominic watched their faces. With his one good eye, he saw their cagey mock respect. The woman strolled on, oblivious, but from the way they glared at her back, Dominic knew they hated her. He could almost hear the violence building behind their sullen young eyes. All at once, his executive blues bound too tight, like a skin he wanted to shed.

A little way down the corridor, Qi hooted softly and pointed to a recess in the wall. When Dominic moved closer, he came face-to-face with an automated teller machine. It was programmed to dispense the round copper coins used by employees, and high on its front panel gleamed the elegant gold Z of ZahlenBank. Its marble veneer reflected an image of a man Dominic barely recognized, lean and grizzled, with a twelve-day beard, a face half covered in scars, and one hungry, sea gray eye. He turned away.

A woman was hurrying past, and he brushed against her. She spun, red-faced, and started apologizing, and when one of her many tote bags slipped off her shoulder, three cans of synthetic meat rolled across the floor. Dominic scooped them up, and the woman opened her mouth in silent fear. She gazed at the cans as if he meant to confiscate them. Execs did that sometimes. She almost reached for the cans, then timidly drew back her hand. Dominic winced for her. He dropped the cans in her bag and laughed to cover the awkwardness. The woman backed away, and he laughed again, imagining what he must look like with his beard and bruises and ravaged eye.

Qi butted his chest with her shoulder. She nodded toward a camera swiveling on its mount, and they stepped behind another column to avoid its gaze.

"We'll wait here till the shift changes," she whispered. "When the halls fill up, we'll move."

"We have one day left. Can we afford the time?"

She elbowed him farmer into the recess. "We can't afford to get caught."

"Is there enough room to sit down?"

"No. Keep still."

They were jammed tight together in the small space, and Dominic put an arm around Qi's shoulder. "Cozy."

"Yeah, too bad your girlfriend Gervasia isn't here."

He grinned and drew her closer. "You'll do in a pinch."

She kneed him in the groin. Her attack didn't really hurt him, but he sprang back in reflex. 'That was mean."

She yanked him back behind the column. "The camera, remember? It picks up audio. Think of it as your Da's eyes and ears."

Dominic squeezed against her again, and when she turned her back, he smelled her hair. She had a wholesome smell, like a child. He'd noticed it before.

He whispered, "One minute you're friendly. The next, you're a bad-tempered pest."

"Shush." She pointed in the direction of the camera.

He put his lips to her ear. "Which one's the real you?"

She pushed his face away with her hand.

A loud chime sounded the shift change, and the noise level rose. Up and down the corridor, protected employees emerged from their residences and trudged toward the east. Dominic watched their faces. Now that he'd really begun to see them, he realized there were no children. And no old people. Did dependents stay shut up all day in their monotonous cubes—or were they sent to group care areas? It embarrassed him not to know something as basic as that. These workers ranged in age from thirteen to about sixty. No one was smiling. Not a single smile in the whole crowd. Most had a sleepy look, as if they'd just gotten out of bed and thrown on their work clothes. Some carried sacks of cola and food, and they ate as they walked. He saw a man stumbling along, holding something in front of his face. A book! Like the one Djuju had. The man was mumbling, pressing his nose into the page, running his finger along the lines of text.

"Let's go." Qi's voice snapped Dominic out of his reverie. They merged into the traffic and let it carry them to the train station. An hour later, they were standing outside his condo park in Trondheim, wondering how to get in. " "It's my apartment. I should go," Dominic insisted.

"You'll walk straight into a trap," Qi said. "I've been trained to break and enter. I'll do it." She kicked her bare foot against the curb and studied the building's service entrance with a practiced eye. "What do you need in there?"

"Shoes for a start. Also, my personal node. It holds the passwords to my bank accounts. I need those passwords to get my money."

"You don't have them memorized?"

He made a face.

"Okay, wait here," she said. "Hide under this green thing. What is this, a plastic bush?"

They huddled under the artificial leaves of the rose bower surrounding the condos, and amid the phony floral fumes, Dominic described the layout of his apartment. He gave her the password to his back door and told her precisely where to find his Net node. He also reminded her about shoes. "Get a pair for yourself. Your feet aren't much bigger than mine."

"Funny," she said.

In perfect silence, she stole around the corner and disappeared from sight. Then he immediately regretted letting her go alone. To mark time, he watched the cleaning robots making their regular rounds. The robots had little to do in this rose garden because executives didn't drop litter. Occasionally a bot would stretch out its arm and vacuum a bit of lint. Dominic had forgotten the vacant stillness of these lanes around his condo. Perhaps he'd never noticed. Every day, just like all his neighbors, he drove his car straight in and out of the garage. Had anyone ever walked here among the plastic roses? This area was secure. No workers were allowed here, only residents and guests. He waited half an hour, and not a soul passed by.

Distracted, he broke off a pink blossom and twirled it between his fingers. The petals looked genuine, but they were stiff and hard, not fragile like a living flower. He'd seen real roses, expensive hothouse clones valued as gifts. This bud had a stronger fragrance. At its heart, a tiny engine pumped waves of artificial scent, with a battery designed to last for generations. A century from now, buried deep in an urban landfill, this rose would still smell as sweet. He crushed it against his chest and ground the sharp petals into his uniform. Maybe it would mask his body odor.

Changing shadows told him too much time had passed, and he grew anxious about the major. He should have gone with her. True, she was trained for prowling in shadows and violating locked doors, but still he felt guilty. She was an odd one, Major Qi Raoshu. Moody, oh yes. Outwardly tough. Attractive in an erratic sort of way. He remembered how her lips moved when she was sleeping. Yes, attractive. But he knew her secret. Underneath that hard mask, she was as soft as any child. He was just darting around the corner to find her when they collided head-on.

"I got it," she said, out of breath. She was clutching a pillowcase crammed full of bulky contents. "Let's go. I tripped an alarm."

They raced through the rosebushes, found the service entrance they'd used before, and took the stairs three at a time. At the landing, he lifted the pillowcase from her arms but didn't have time to see what she'd packed. They shot out into the public corridor and melted into the crowd of weary employees. Hunched down to conceal their executive height, they kept glancing over their shoulders.

"Remember the cameras," Qi whispered.

She grabbed his hand and pulled him into a denser group of workers, and he noticed she was wearing his best patent leather evening shoes.

"We've got exec insignia," he whispered back. "Won't this look strange, two execs slouching along with employees, one of them carrying a pillowcase?"

"Yeah, we gotta lose these logos. Your condo read my ID. You didn't tell me you had a security camera in the toilet."

"Oh." Dominic's forehead wrinkled. "I forgot that one."

She tightened her lips and kept walking, glancing side to side without moving her head, and nudging closer into the employee group every time they passed under a camera.

"Nick-O, we severely need a place to hide."

He took her to his gym. The doorkeeper was not a computer scanner but a pretty blonde named Sharon, whom Dominic knew on very intimate terms. Sharon balked at his altered appearance, and she asked a lot of questions, which he suavely vowed to answer at a later date. After some finagling, she let them come in without demanding the usual palm print.

At the back of the weight room, behind the stationary bikes, there was a small sauna hardly anyone used. It was the old-fashioned kind made of genuine, antique wood, and the water bucket had to be lifted manually to wet the heated rocks and make steam. Most members found this inconvenient, but Dominic preferred the privacy. In the larger spa rooms at the front, execs met to talk business and to impress each other with their body enhancements.

Just as he'd hoped, the small sauna was empty. He led Qi inside, closed the door and set the thermostat as low as possible. The heat reminded him of the miners' colony, and it felt almost welcome after the frigid Trondheim air. In the pillowcase, he found his node, his oldest pair of down-at-the-heel house slippers and a box of snack mix.

Qi brushed a stray rose petal from his chest. "Take off your uniform. They'll be watching for Lapp.Com insignia now. I have to kill that logo chip."

"I should have asked you to get me some underwear."

"Relax. I won't look at your little pecker."

Dominic started to say something but changed his mind. When he handed her the uniform, she spread it flat on the sauna floor, then picked up a heated rock, using his sleeve as a mitt. Half a dozen times, she smashed the logo emblazoned over the breast pocket, thrusting the rock down with such force that it finally cracked in two. "That should do. You can get dressed now."

He pulled the uniform up to his waist and tied the sleeves in a knot over his belly. Beads of sweat rolled down over his bare chest. The sauna was too hot to dress completely. He sat on the wooden bench and settled his Net node across his knees, trying and failing to keep his eyes off Qi as she stepped out of her uniform and squatted nude to pound her own logo with a rock.

"I have a feeling the NP knows exactly where we are," he said, stuffing his mouth with snack mix.

"Maybe." She rolled her lean naked shoulders, then dipped her hand into the water bucket for a drink. "He hasn't arrested us yet."

Dominic spoke with his mouth full. "That thing is not a 'he.' It's an it."

"Aw, don't be so testy." She faced him with a smile and wriggled back into her uniform.

The full frontal view made him fumble a node command, and he had to mumble "Undo" three times.

Qi sat beside him and poured snack mix straight from the box into her mouth. About a third of the box disappeared down her gullet, and when she closed her lips, her cheeks puffed out like balloons. She crunched noisily and grinned. Dominic spoke to his Net node in clear, even words. "Full encryption mode. Call Karel Folger. At home."

CHAPTER 20
PRIVATE ENTERPRISE

"YES, sir, um. Where are you, sir? We've been max worried. Um, are you in disguise?" Karel's face warped unnaturally on the flat screen. His nostrils gaped like a pair of dark caves, his pink gums glowed, and his teeth thrust forward wolfishly. As usual, he was leaning too close to the camera lens.

Dominic touched his scarred, bearded face and winked at Qi. "Right, Karel. I'm traveling incognito on a mission for the bank. You're surprised to hear from me, I suppose."

"We thought those terrorists were holding you hostage, sir. I'll call Mr. Lorn and let them know you're safe. Would you like me to send a car?"

"No, Karel. Don't call anyone. This is top secret. Do you understand?"

Karel's eyebrows twitched. He turned his head for a second, and Dominic saw a voluminous red ear, grooved with dark declivities. Then Karel's gaping nostrils reappeared. "Not anyone, sir?"

"I need your absolute promise of secrecy, Karel."

"Yes sir. Nondisclosure. Count me in, sir. What's the deal?"

Dominic relayed the necessary facts. In the sultry sauna, with the Net node balanced on his lap and sweat rolling down his chest, with Qi resting against his knee and munching snack mix, he said he needed to break into the Ark. He wanted to reroute his personal funds into an alias account without anyone knowing. Since the money belonged to him, it wouldn't be illegal, no more illegal than some other transactions they both knew about. As he continued explaining, Karel's buckteeth protruded in a smile.

"You once found a back door in the Ark's firewall," Dominic said. "Did you ever report it?"

"Negative, sir. A secret like that's a negotiable asset. You taught me, sir."

"Right. So this is payday, Karel. I need to use your back door, and you can name the toll fee."

"For you, sir? Gratis."

Karel's stringy hair fell in his eyes. He seemed to be twitching all over with eagerness to please. Dominic couldn't help but smile at his naivete". "Nothing's ever gratis, Karel. Everything comes with a price, so name yours. A raise? Promotion? Lump sum? You've caught me in a generous mood."

Karel rubbed his nose. "I wouldn't mind an upgrade, sir. Now that you're president, maybe you could make me an AVP."

This caught Dominic off guard. Assistant vice president? Karel was only seventeen. He hadn't even completed the bank's basic management course. Only youth and inexperience would make such a request, and Dominic tried to laugh it off.

"In time, Karel. In time. You're on a fast track. I'll skip you up two levels to senior clerk, how about that? With a 25 percent salary increase."

"Plus an extra week of vacation?"

Dominic burst out laughing. "I did teach you, didn't I? Yes, two extra weeks of vacation. Now let's get down to business. Tell me about this back door to the Ark."

"Well, sir, it's hardware. The engineers left an open port in one of the timing servers. If you want to use it, you have to come into the bank and physically plug in."

Dominic spent an hour interrogating Karel. He was hoping for some means to use the open port by remote access. The last thing Dominic wanted was to walk into the bank in person. He had a pretty clear idea what the NP would do if its flesh flunky came within reach, and he had no intention of becoming that bit-brain's personal puppet. He'd already decided he'd rather die.

Vibrating with enthusiasm, Karel offered to handle everything himself. He had clearance into the computer room, and he often worked late. No one would suspect him. But Dominic refused to put the young man in danger. If the guards caught a junior assistant hacking the Ark, Karel's career would be over before it started. They'd probably transfer him to rot away in some obscure post like that factory ship. No, Dominic couldn't let Karel take the risk. He had no choice but to go himself.

He spent the next hour arguing with Qi.

"It won't work. How will you get through the front door? They'll scan your DNA."

"We're running out of time, Qi. I'll sneak in. You'll do your spy stuff and disguise me."

"Sneak in how? If the NP catches you, how will the miners get their money?"

"Their money?"

"You know what I mean. Forget the heroics. We need a plan that might actually succeed."

After exhaustive discussion, Dominic finally convinced her. Only he knew the Ark file structure well enough to counterfeit a cash account, and only he knew how to populate it with money. Ergo, he was the one who had to physically enter ZahlenBank, find the timing server with the open port, plug in a bus then sit there and work through a hardwired connection. It wasn't as if he relished the idea.

Break-and-entry tactics he delegated to Qi. While she and Karel linked online and pored over schematics of the bank building, Dominic slipped down the hall to use the shower. His gym catered to the upper ranks, and the furnishings were opulent. After so many days in primitive surroundings, this simple gym seemed like paradise. He marveled at the sparkling tiles. He admired the way the incandescent light spilled in artful pools across the floor. Orderlies paced the shower room in white jackets, sedately making themselves available for personal service. He motioned one of them to take his wrinkled uniform for cleaning.

"I need it back in five minutes, understand?"

"Yes, sir."

The orderly didn't recognize him. Good. He glanced around at the other four men in the shower room. He'd seen them before, they were all regulars at the gym, but they didn't seem to know him either.

The instant he stepped into the wide white shower stall, the light softened and music began to play. The polished brass nozzle fountained hot water in twenty different programmable patterns. He chose "deep massage" and let the it splash over him till his skin puckered. Then he soaped up with a foam that smelled of jasmine and scrubbed himself all over with a rough sponge. It was almost better than sex.

From a wicker basket, he took three thick green towels, and when he was dry, he pumped a double handful of moisturizing lotion from the dispenser and rubbed it everywhere. Complimentary combs and brushes, shaving equipment, deodorant, tooth cleaner and facial cosmetics gleamed in a tray by the sink. Usually, he ignored them, but today, he fingered each bottle and tube with relish. Then he met his reflection in the mirror and flinched.

His first impulse was to hide his face. Now he understood why no one recognized him. It wasn't easy to confront that feral apparition staring at him from the glass. His short hair had grown ragged, and a coarse stubble covered most of his cheeks. Above the beard, livid burn scars laced across the left side of his face. One eyebrow was missing, and a purplish lid covered his sunken socket. No wonder Qi wanted him to wear an eye patch. He was hideous.

Why hadn't she said anything? All this time, she treated him just the same as usual. Teasing him. Making jokes. How could she bear to look at his mutilated face? He lifted a razor to shave, then thought better of it. Might as well take advantage of the disguise.

Slowly, he examined his full-length reflection. What he saw was a lean dark stranger, bruised and hardened—and tanned. Except for the parts of his body that his silk underwear covered, the sun had burnished his skin an even copper brown. He let out a wry chuckle. He was exactly the color of a ZahlenBank copper coin. Then he noticed the skin rash. It had spread above his right elbow.

The orderly approached with his clean, pressed uniform, and after slipping it on, he wiggled his bare toes and frowned. He still had no decent shoes. Major Qi expected him to wear those ancient house slippers. She had a wicked streak, that girl.

He eyed the orderly's shoes. Polished black loafers with thick soles. They were about the right size. He could simply take them, and the orderly wouldn't dare object. Then he glanced up into the man's mild blue eyes, saw the sheepish nod and the one missing tooth, and he knew he couldn't take this man's shoes. He asked for a pair of scissors.

He snipped a long section of lining from the sleeve of his blue uniform and fashioned himself and eye patch. With some pride, he remarked on his growing ability to improvise. He was just finishing When Major Qi stuck her head through the door.

"Freaker, Nick. I've been looking everywhere. We've got places to go." She slung the pillowcase over her shoulder like a vagabond sack and threw him the house slippers.

"Do you want to clean up?" he asked.

"No time. C'mon."

He knotted his eye patch like a scarf at the back of his head and checked the mirror. The filmy blue fabric covered the worst of his scars, and with the beard and untidy hair, he looked like a pirate from a B-movie. He tilted his head rakishly till his good eye caught the light.

"C'mon. You look lovely. Karel's meeting us with a car."

Karel had found a way into the bank that Dominic and Qi never would have thought of. All they had to do was scale the outside of the Trondheim city dome, climb up ZahlenBank's executive spire and enter through the aircar pad at the summit. That was Richter's private entrance. No surveillance cameras monitored that entrance because Richter never wanted anyone to see his comings and goings. It went without saying that the best security money could buy guarded that entrance. And only one key opened it—Richter Jedes' palm print.

Or a perfect replica.

Dominic didn't think scaling the dome would be as simple as Qi advertised. He would have preferred to fly up in Karel's car, but Air Traffic Control had standing orders to arrest any aircraft approaching Richter's landing pad without authorization. Qi sat in the back of Karel's car making a list of gear for the young man to buy at a sporting goods store. She chewed the tip of the stylus and frowned, then counted silently on her fingers and wrote something.

"You're sure we won't be arrested for climbing the spire?" he said.

Karel piped up. "Positively, sir. Juves climb the spire for fun. It's kind of a rite. Cops always look the other way because they know the kids can't get inside." Karel swerved his car through the Trondheim shopping district with a slightly maniacal grin. He skidded into a parking space and slung Dominic against the passenger window. "We're here, sir."

Qi handed over her shopping list, and Dominic scanned it briefly in passing. He didn't recognize half the items, but then he'd never climbed a city dome before. "Charge everything, Karel. I'll pay you back before your statement arrives, I promise."

"With interest, sir?" Karel laughed and slammed the car door. Dominic couldn't remember the young man ever looking happier.

When Karel disappeared into the sporting goods mall, Qi asked, "You really think you can trust him?"

Dominic arched his back to pop his vertebrae. Karel's economy car was putting a crimp in his spine. "I told you before, Karel wants to be a big man at ZahlenBank, and I can do that for him." The bright windows of the gear shop displayed sleek climbing boots on sale at a bargain price. Dominic massaged his neck. "Besides, he's enjoying this."

A short while later, they parked in front of a maintenance airlock that would take them outside the dome, and for the second time in less than two weeks, Dominic struggled into a silky Kevlax surface suit. This time, the price tag still dangled from the sleeve. He let his blue eye patch hang around his throat like a neckerchief when he pulled on the helmet. Funny, the suit seemed superfluous now. Hadn't he traipsed through the Norwegian countryside in his bare feet? But Karel insisted on full protection, so he resigned himself to the clumsy helmet and gloves. He didn't mind the thick-soled boots at all. Qi tugged her suit on with ease, while Karel behaved as if he were dressing for a party. Right, wear the surfsuit, Dominic reflected. No sense courting death. Then he threw his head back and hooted, just like Major Qi.

Airlocks were old news to him now. He'd squeezed through so many underwater ones that this surface model didn't even faze him. When the outer door whooshed open, he watched Karel's excited expression through the helmet faceplate.

Outside, Qi slapped the hardened ceramic dome. "Didn't I tell you this would be a stroll in the mall?"

Like a glowing moon half buried in the Earth, Trondheim's dome swelled above them and vanished in the smoggy morning sky. Behind its opalescent panes, vague shadows moved, as pedestrians milled near the wall. The milk white glass was less than a meter thick but strong as titanium. When Dominic stepped backward to see the top, his boots made crunching noses in the gravel.

In the heavy smog, they could see little of the bleak exterior landscape. They had to stay close just to see each other. Touching the opalescent glass with their gloves, they circled around the dome till they reached a point where two enormous panes met in a reinforced steel seam, and Karel pointed out the small steel rings sunk every couple of meters up the seam.

"This is where the juves climb up," Karel said. "I've done it myself. Please don't tell."

Dominic chuckled. "That isn't the worst thing you've done, Folger. We all have secrets now. Maybe we should form a co-op."

"A mutual secret association." Karel guffawed and slapped his glove against his helmet.

Qi looped climbing rope over her shoulder. "Nick, have you ever worn a climbing harness? No? Oh you'll love this."

The first lesson in climbing a dome, Dominic discovered, was overcoming tedium. It just went on and on. He'd toughened up during his trek through the miners' colony. He'd climbed so many ladders that scaling this gentle arch barely winded him, but it seemed like they'd never reach the top. Qi had rigged him in a climbing harness, a figure eight of bright orange strapping looped around his legs and waist and pinned together in front like a diaper with a big titanium carabiner. They traveled on what she called "belay," linked to each other in some complicated tangle of ropes and carabiners that only she understood. The rings they used as steps were barely large enough for toeholds, but Dominic's spanking new surface boots offered stiff protection for his feet, somewhat better than rags, he thought with a wry smile.

Light from the dome illuminated the smog and made it seem denser. All he could see now were the glowing white glass and the trail of metal rings. Ghostly colored shapes moved beneath the glass. Aha, they were laser advertisements projected from inside. He could read their backward text—popular brands of beer, condoms, movies. They put him in mind of bright red and blue fish gliding in a pool of milk.

A random gust momentarily lifted the smog, and he glimpsed the ZahlenBank spire towering above the dome in the distance. He didn't often see it from outside. Like a lacy gothic fortress drawn thin and sharp as a needle, it pierced the sky. Its faceted windows glittered, and its framework of heat-annealed alloy seemed to drip down the sides like iridescent amber. He couldn't see the summit, nearly a hundred meters above the dome, but that alloy looked slick as ice. No ready-made ladder of steel rings would simplify this climb.

When they reached its base, Qi frowned at the glossy annealed metal. She activated a cybernail in her glove and tried to scratch it, but her claw didn't leave a mark. Next, she checked it with a magnet.

Karel giggled. "Didn't I tell you?"

Qi nodded and dropped her heavy gear bag between her feet. "Okay, guys. Time for the crampon mags."

Crampon mags turned out to be battery-powered electromagnetic boot attachments—standard gear for edifice climbers, a sport Dominic had never heard of until today. The magnets attached not to the soles but to the sides and toes of the boot, so that theoretically, the climber could position an ankle or toe against an edifice, and by leaning into the wall and clinging to small flanges and irregularities, he could stand upright and shin his way up. Dominic was greatly relieved to learn his gloves would have magnets, too.

Karel and Qi both demonstrated how to twist the boot quickly up and out to break the magnetic lock and take a step higher. Dominic never got the hang of it. For two hours, he slithered up the spire, sliding his appendages along like some incompetent reptile, still diapered in his bright orange climbing harness. Twice the air cops circled in and spotlighted them, and twice, Karel waved them off with a big toothy grin. The young man was right. Cops didn't seem concerned about juvenile thrill seekers penetrating the ZahlenBank spire.

As Dominic approached the summit, the winds picked up, and when the tower swayed, he told himself it had to be an optical illusion. Smog closed in, but he could see a bright spot glowing directly overhead in the sky, and that meant it was already noon. They'd left the colony two days ago, and Millard said they only had two days! Or maybe less. Clots of smog whipped past and slammed into Dominic like pillows, beading his faceplate with oily moisture. His breath rasped.

"You okay?" Qi's voice buzzed through the helmet radio, reminding him of another voice that once buzzed through his head.

He didn't answer. With every magnetic lurch up the spire, with every step closer to his father's private entrance, Dominic's uneasiness increased. He could feel the NP's will to ensnare him like the heat of an approaching fire. What preposterous egotism made him think he could elude a supercomputer! But no, the NP was more than a computer. It had a complete record of Richter Jedes' life experience, with all the cunning that implied. Dominic shuddered when he recalled how the genie tried to possess him. It craved some twisted merger. Dual minds sharing a body. 'Two heads are better than one," he whispered unconsciously.

"And three are meta-stellar," Karel chirped. "We can't lose."

Dominic hadn't realized he'd spoken aloud. He rested his helmeted head against the building, and muscles all over his body twitched with tiny electric bursts.

"There's a tube in your helmet beside your right ear if you need water," said Qi, ever practical.

Dominic sucked a long drink, but his mouth was still dry as sand. He peered up the gleaming amber wall to where it terminated at a vanishing point. Far overhead, a white strobe light blinked like a ticking clock, radiating the smog around the summit He started creeping upward again.

When they reached the top, he couldn't disconnect his magnetic boots and throw his leg up over the rim. Karel had to push from below while Qi hauled him up. Wind whipped him sideways when he tried to stand, so he followed Qi's example and crouched low.

He remembered this landing pad, square and smooth, with its slender beacon tower at one corner and Richter's private residence at the other, a glass-roofed turret jutting up two stories above the pad. Each time the beacon strobed, the turret's hexagonal roof sparkled like a diamond. Cop cars growled in a slow circle over their heads, and in the turret's entryway, the airlock light was on.

That's a good sign, Dominic assured himself. Richter always left it on. He realized he was shivering with nervousness and took a slow, calming breath. "This is where we part company."

"But we're a team," Karel said.

"We stick together," Qi said. "You're gonna need us."

"This is my deal. You wait here."

"Dominic—"

"No." He cut her off. "Think it through. Karel could lose his career. And you—what would your Org bosses do if they caught you here? Besides, there's the colony to think of. If I don't make it, you have to try something else. This is not a sure bet."

She clutched his shoulders with her gloved hands and shook him. "You couldn't even climb up here without our help."

"I'm not afraid, sir. I know you'll succeed." Karel was visibly shaking, either with enthusiasm or fear, possibly both.

They crouched close together on the bare pad, and wind sliced between them, whistling around the turret. Above, the cop cars circled, and the beacon flashed as steadily as a metronome. Dominic puffed his cheeks and blew. "This is one case where I will not bargain. I go this alone. You agree, or we shut down the project Which is it?"

Qi punched him hard in the shoulder. "You are so freakin' stubborn!" Then she unhooked her gear bag and shoved it at him. "You don't even know how to use this stuff."

"Right. You keep it. Once I'm inside, I know my way around. This is my turf, Qi."

"At least, take a pistol." She pulled a dark heavy handgun partway out of the bag.

He shook his head. "That's not the weapon I use."

Then in a rapid move that surprised him, she circled her arm around his waist and hugged him. Just as rapidly, she pushed him away. "Go on, then."

"Wait one hour. If I'm not back—"

"We'll wait two. You always piddle around."

"Sir, they've changed some of the pass codes. You need me." Karel fidgeted beside the airlock, too excited to keep still.

"I'm the bank president, Folger. I can override the codes. But thanks. Thanks for all you've done. You're a good friend,"

"Yes, sir." The young assistant stood at attention, and Dominic half expected a salute.

Once that was settled, he turned his attention the ID pad. It was an unfamiliar type, and Karel showed him how it worked. It used magnetic imaging to scan his palm right through the glove. Dominic was fairly sure his father had never wired this entrance into the bank's central network. Richter liked his privacy too well. So, theoretically, this palm scan would not light up any security screen. The signal would travel no farther than the door mechanism. With a hammering heart, he placed his right hand in the slot. A small green light flashed, and the airlock's outer door slid open.

Dominic let out his bream and checked the watch Qi had strapped to his wrist. "Twelve hundred thirty-two hours."

"Yeah, close enough." Qi adjusted her own watch.

He rolled his shoulders and felt bones pop. Then he stepped inside and pulled the ring to start the airlock cycle. Just as the outer door was sliding closed, Karel dashed in beside him.

"Sir, I can't let you go alone. They've changed the codes. I really can be of help, sir."

"Folger, we had a verbal agreement! A banker never goes back on an agreement!" Dominic was furious with the young man and relieved at the same time. He had half a mind to open the airlock and push Karel outside.

When the all clear signal chimed, Karel popped off his helmet at once. He was grinning like a fool, showing off his healthy pink gums and raking his stringy hair back with his glove. He was so eager. Dominic had felt that way once upon a time. He remembered standing with his father outside the door of some important meeting, anticipating the clash of wills and thirsting for blood. Yes, he understood Karel's exhilaration. And with a little jolt, he realized he was feeling that way himself. After so many tedious years, the old predatory thrill had returned.

All at once, he felt a renewal of Confidence. ZahlenBank was his home turf, his stomping ground. He knew this place inside out. Yes, he could do this. He could be master again. He tugged off his helmet and pulled his rakish blue eye patch into place.

Karel pointed to a second ID pad, a standard interior one this time, and Dominic wavered only a second, trying to decide what to do about Karel. He could pull the ring, reverse the airlock cycle, and send the junior clerk outside to wait with Major Qi. Or he could let the young pup come along and learn something. He slipped off his glove and flattened his palm against the inner pad.

Another green flash. A silent sliding door. He stepped into the quiet semidarkness and smelled his father's cologne. How well he remembered this private apartment, with its elegant decor and its glass roof faceted like a diamond. Richter used to bring women here. He didn't often admit his son, but Dominic had seen it enough times to remember. There was the huge round bed, and there the holographic stage that could imitate a crackling fire, and—

Bright lights flooded the room. Dominic saw bank guards, and other men in black uniforms prowled near the door. There was a face he knew. Klas Lorn. The man squinted at him with an ugly smug smile. A second later, Dominic noticed who was leaning beside him, wearing the same ugly grin. It was Karel Folger.

CHAPTER 21
CODICIL

"WELCOME."

The NP's voice reverberated through the glass-roofed apartment, and Dominic spotted the source—a notebook perched on a carved table. Four bank guards stood ready to pounce, and two men in black uniforms lurked near the door—his father's former bodyguards. The traitor, Karel Folger, leaned and whispered to Klas Lorn, his new mentor. Dominic dropped his helmet and pressed back against the airlock, forcing himself to breathe.

Klas Lorn pointed. "Take this man into custody. Handcuff him."

The guards hustled forward, but the NP said, "Don't be absurd, Klas. You're addressing our president. We should celebrate his safe return."

The guards halted. Lorn stopped smiling, and his face splotched pale lavender, like the start of bruises. "What about our agreement? You said—"

"In time, Klas. In time. First, let me enjoy this happy reunion."

Above the notebook, a ghost image swelled rapidly to man-size and gained definition. There stood Richter Jedes, swaggering in the bloom of holographic health, flaunting his manly beauty, as real as life. His bright gray eyes flickered as he raised his arms for an embrace. "Welcome home, son."

Dominic pressed against the airlock. "We agreed to drop the father-son crap."

Richter lowered his arms and sighed. "Something happened to you in that submarine. You're damaged."

Dominic touched his eye socket and contemplated methods of suicide. The guards carried rifles. Could he get his hands on a gun long enough to put a bullet through his brain before the NP invaded his body again? Maybe he could hang himself with his orange climbing harness.

Overhead, the smog broke, and a dazzling sun blazed down through the hexagonal roof. Its radiance blotted out the flashing beacon, and its light gleamed along the rifle barrels pointed at Dominic's head. Instantly, the glass darkened to block its rays.

"He can be fixed, sir." Klas Lorn slunk closer to the NP's hologram and gave a squinty fawning smile. "The surgeons are waiting outside to run him through cell hygiene. They'll replace his eye. He'll be as good as new, sir."

"It's not his fuckin' eye that worries me." The hologram strode right through Lorn and faced Dominic toe to toe. "He's a flawed copy. Analog, what can you expect."

They stood exactly the same height, but the NP's meaty physique and clean-cut good looks made a sharp contrast with Dominic's hard, hungry thinness. Still, the genie's presence was so palpable, Dominic could almost feel its hot breath in his face.

He adjusted his eye patch and feigned self-assurance. "Richter taught me—"

"Richter Jedes was an overconfident windbag!" The hologram shouted with such wrath, it sprayed virtual saliva through the air, and Dominic almost felt the wetness on his cheek. "You're the only son he made. The only freakin' one!"

"Our new backups are gestating nicely, sir," said Karel. The junior clerk edged closer to his mentor's side, a picture of meekness.

"Thirty redundant genetic copies. Perfect reproductions of the master," Klas Lorn bleated.

"Freakin' embryos. I can't wait twenty years!"

For an instant, Dominic envisioned thirty little brothers tumbling in an incubator, but he didn't have time to pursue that thought. His negotiator instincts kicked in, and he grasped for bargaining straws. "Why are we still talking? You must need something from me."

The hologram opened its palm, then slowly made a fist. "Richter raised you by hand. He programmed you personally. What went wrong?"

On inspiration, Dominic tried a risky bluff. He smoothed the eye patch over his socket with a show of nonchalance and said, "If you want my flesh, call your surgeons and take it."

"Yes!" Klas Lorn sprang forward, but the NP waved him back.

Seeing that, Dominic felt sure he'd guessed right. "You're afraid to use force because I fought you off before. I killed that copy you put in my eye."

"My agent. If you hadn't fried the little bugger, we could've hot-linked and saved a lot of time." The NP rolled its head till its holographic neck made a cracking sound. "Listen to me. The bank's in serious trouble. Our idiot shareholders wanna see Richter alive and in charge, or they'll withdraw their capital. This holographic illusion isn't good enough." The genie slapped its luminous chest, and sparks flew.

While the NP talked, Dominic slid his hand along the airlock door behind his back, feeling for the switch plate. "Your agent and I were out of sync from the beginning," he said. His hand was sweating. He couldn't find the door switch. He eyed the guards' rifles and knew he couldn't reach them in time. He glanced around wildly for any kind of weapon or escape. Why hadn't he taken Qi's pistol? At least he could put a bullet in his brain.

The hologram loomed centimeters from his face, and when it tapped his blue eye patch, electric current made his jaw muscle jump. "Don't resist. Join me," the NP whispered. "Our partnership could foster the beginning of a new race."

"Another ground-breaking innovation," raved Klas Lorn, "in a long tradition of ZahlenBank advances."

"Meta-stellar," Karel seconded in a meek voice.

Dominic swung his arms and pushed through the hologram—it was nothing but light after all. He kicked over the table holding the notebook, and the NP bounced up the wall like the artificial projection it was.

"Get him!" Klas Lorn snarled. Karel hid under the table.

The guards lifted their rifles, and Dominic rounded to face them. Two of them, he noticed, were women. They circled him, and he spun, balancing the way he'd learned in gym class, but he couldn't face them all. When one of the women closed in with handcuffs, he hesitated. He'd never hit a woman before.

"That's right, show 'em what your made of," the NP said.

He glared at the genie, and the guards seized him. The woman with the handcuffs wrenched his arm behind his back. When he struggled to sling them off, his eye patch slipped down around his neck.

Klas Lorn sneered. "You're revolting."

The NP spilled down the wall, landed on the floor and marched toward him. "We can't let ZahlenBank fail. It props up our whole economic system. I need your cooperation."

Before Dominic could answer, a loud crack rippled through the glass roof overhead. They all looked up just in time to see a thin white fissure split halfway across the glass, then branch in a hundred directions, then a million. Two seconds later, with a shattering noise, the entire roof crashed, and glittering beads exploded through the air. Dominic crouched to cover his face, expecting the glass to slice through his skin, but the beads only stung and bounced off. On the floor around him, the small nubby pebbles collected like snow. It was tempered safety glass.

"Up here, Nick!"

He saw Qi crouching at the edge of the ruined roof with about a kilometer of lightweight climbing rope looped over her shoulder. Hot yellow billows of smog rolled into the room with a stink of burnt sulfur.

"Poison! We're going to die!" Klas Lorn screeched.

Karel popped out from under the table, covered his nose and sprinted for the door. When Lorn got in his way, Karel elbowed him aside. Then Lorn snatched at Karel's coattail, but the junior clerk was stronger and slung him off. They disappeared together, racing each other down the hallway.

The guards gawked at the dingy smog, then at each other, and almost as one, they leaped to their feet and followed in Lorn's wake. But the men in black uniforms didn't leave. They pulled small masks from their pockets and slipped them over their faces.

"Get the prote spy! I want her," the NP commanded.

Qi tossed Dominic the rope and yelled, "Climb!"

Dominic pulled himself up, hand over hand, clenching his legs around the rope for support. He wouldn't have believed he could do that, but fear gave him strength. Qi hammered the last shards of glass away with her fist and helped him climb out onto the turret's ledge. She tried to haul up the rope, too, but the men in black were already climbing it. Two stories below, a cop car landed on the pad, and three surfsuited cops emerged with rifles. They moved quickly toward the base of the turret, sighting Qi and Dominic in their scopes.

"We've gotta rappel," Qi said.

She'd switched on her helmet speaker, so her voice sounded amplified. Dominic had lost his helmet, so he couldn't ask what she meant by "rappel."

The cops played a prerecorded message through their loudspeakers: "Stop. Put your hands behind your heads."

As the cops knelt on the pad and aimed their rifles, Qi rapidly clipped carabiners to the front of his orange climbing harness. He watched her rig an anchor around the part of the broken roof structure. Would that hold? "What's to stop them from cutting the rope?" he asked, but she couldn't hear him through her helmet. With stupefying speed, she spun and started clipping him to the back her harness like a sack of gear.

"Stop. Put your hands behind your heads," the recording blared. Then a bullet sang through the air—a warning shot.

"Hold me tight and just step back," she said. "Close your eyes if you need to."

Dominic saw a tiny red light gleam in Qi's hair. One of the cops was taking aim with a laser beam. He wrenched her sideways, and what happened next was unclear. He felt the effects of gravity. There was a jolting, flopping sensation as they slammed against the building. Qi kicked off, and rope slid through a ring. But something was wrong. The rope kept hanging up. Cop cars swooped past, blinding them with spotlights.

"You're wasting time, Dominic. You can't escape me." The NP's harmonic voice poured from multiple loudspeakers in several hovering police cars.

The two black-suited strangers leaned out from the shattered roof over their heads. Don't cut that rope, he mentally prayed to whatever chaotic probabilities ruled his fate. But of course, the NP would not destroy its flesh flunky. That would mean waiting two decades for a replacement. They dropped again, but only a short distance, and as Dominic's head slammed into Qi's bony back, he heard her fretting over her snarled rope. In the smog below, tiny figures swarmed across the dome.

"Look!" he shouted.

They sailed down another couple of meters, and Qi brought them to a bouncing stop against the building. Then they hung in silence, peering through the smog at the luminous white dome far below, where an army of cops milled around like gutterbugs waiting for them. Something large and black was unfolding in their midst like a huge ominous flower. What was that thing?

"They're inflating an air pillow," Qi said through her helmet speaker. 'To catch us if we fall. Nice."

Overhead, the two black-suited figures were already wriggling down the rappelling rope. A cop car closed in and projected a shimmery beam through the haze, and the NP's hologram materialized in the smog.

"You've got guts, Dominic. Join me. Help me sire a new class of being. I'll even let you keep your black whore."

Qi must have lost her hold. She let out a little cry, and they dropped fast. The rope reeled out of control as they bashed and bounced down the lacy amber facade, but ten meters down, the rope hung up again and jerked them to a halt. Dominic felt Qi trembling through her Kevlax suit.

"Easy. It's all right," he said as the wind whistled around them. "I'm sorry I got you into this, Qi."

She said something, but he couldn't understand it. He thought she was laughing. The external speaker in her helmet seemed to be broken.

Without warning, she started running sideways along the face of the spire with Dominic still clinging to her back. He was amazed. Where did she get the strength to do that? She ran as far as she could before gravity took over and swung them back in the opposite direction. The woman must have thighs of titanium. They made a wide, sweeping arc, and she used the momentum to run higher up the other side before gravity pulled them back again. Back and forth they flew like a pendulum, and on each swing, she kicked at the wall to make them soar in wider and wider arcs. Dominic clung tight and wondered if she'd gone mad. He was getting airsick. Ten meters higher up the rope, their two pursuers fluttered like flags.

Something came loose and sailed by Dominic's head. At first, he thought it was one of the men above, but it was Qi's helmet. She had ripped it off. "On the next swing, grab for that ledge!" she shouted.

What ledge? As they flew across the spire, faceted windows reflected the brilliant sun, and Dominic searched the facade for a ledge. Then he saw it, the wide sweep of the windowsill that opened from the executive conference room. How well he knew that broad, thick window—from the inside, not from out here. As they swung toward it, he stretched his leg and hooked his boot around the window jamb. For an instant, he held them. Then his boot slipped, and they went flying again. On the following swing, he lunged and grabbed the window frame with both hands. Qi wedged her knee into the angle, and with a tremendous grunt, Dominic pulled them both into the shallow recess of the window ledge. Before he knew what was happening, Qi cut their rope, and the weight of the two men above swung it away.

They sat with their backs against the glass. Hot ashy wind tossed their hair and burned Dominic's throat. Now they had no way up or down. Spotlights swept around them, and the NP materialized in the smog, clenching its fists.

"Show some fuckin' dignity," it said. "You're president of ZahlenBank."

Qi was working at the glass with one of her spy tools. Dominic found the blue eye patch dangling around his neck, and he nonchalantly untied it. "NP, I have a couple of questions about your merger proposal."

"You're stalling." The hologram seemed to float in a smoggy halo of rose-colored clouds.

"For instance, after the merger, what will our name be? I assume that's a negotiable point." Dominic retied the patch over his eye at a rakish angle.

"Yeah, that's droll. My people have a nice, comfy mattress waiting below. All you have to do is jump."

The NP surged forward and gave Dominic an electric shock that made him shiver and jerk. Qi caught him around the waist. "Hold on to me," she whispered.

Dominic gripped her belt and pulled his eye patch back into place. "Another thing. Who decides where we go for vacation? Do we build consensus or just take a vote?"

The NP lifted its hand, and an arc of blue-white static jumped from its fingertip into Dominic's chest. The jolt threw him back against the window and knocked out his breath. Qi held him while he rasped and fought to get his lungs working again.

"You're just hurting yourself," the NP said.

Dominic heard the glass cracking behind him. Qi had worked her magic again. A moment later, he tumbled backward into the conference room and fell on top of her. Glass beads lay half a meter deep under the window, and when he rolled, they made a shrill, grinding sound. They stuck in his beard and hair.

Bank guards were waiting inside to seize them, but as soon as the clouds of toxic atmosphere rolled in, they fled and slammed the double doors behind them. Qi tried to drag one of the heavy chairs to block the doors, and when Dominic realized what she was doing, he palmed the door lock and input a new password. Then he helped her lift another chair. While they were building their barricade, a cop car slowed to a hover just outside the broken window and beamed the NP in beside them.

The genie materialized sitting calmly in the chair they were carrying. "You think a pile of furniture can stop ZahlenBank guards?"

Dominic knew the effort was pointless. Very soon, the guards would return in surface gear, and no stack of chairs could stand against them. He only hoped the new password would delay them for a while.

"Do you have a plan?" he whispered to Qi.

She shook her head. Her face had gone a paler shade of dark, and her movements were brittle. So, he thought, the indestructible Major Qi is afraid. He did not find this comforting.

"No, she doesn't have a fucking plan," the NP said, "She's a prote. Yeah, I know all about her 'big confession.' You'd be amazed what I know."

Dominic stuck his fingers through the NP's face. "You're not attractive when you frown," he said. Then he marched to the head of the U-shaped table, picked up the handheld remote he'd used so many times before, and whispered into its tiny microphone. "Activate Net link."

A screen glided down from the ceiling, already displaying the luminous gold Z of the ZahlenBank home page. Dominic unzipped his surfsuit and pulled his personal Net node from his right breast pocket. He flipped it open and spoke the commands for infrared linkage. Outside in the corridor, something very large battered against the conference room doors.

He said, "Dominic Jedes personal accounts. Display all balances."

There was no pause. The screen immediately presented a red circle crossed with a forward slash, and the machine voice said, "Access denied. If you have questions, please check our helpful FAQ."

The pounding at the doors set up a loud, clattering rhythm. Those doors weren't designed to withstand that kind of assault, and with every thud, the stack of chairs vibrated.

"What did you do to my accounts?" he said to the NP.

"I froze your assets. Did you expect something different?"

Dominic took a deep breath through his nose. In a taut, calm voice, he spoke to his handheld. "Override. This is Dominic Jedes, president of ZahlenBank."

The red circle and slash blinked once, and the machine voice repeated its formula. "Access denied. If you have questions, please check our helpful FAQ."

The NP leaned back in the chair and crossed its legs. "You need deep code to get past me. Flesh interfaces are defunct in my world."

The banging at the door grew louder. The. guards must have been using a battering ram. Outside the window, half a dozen cop cars jockeyed for position. When red laser dots started dancing across the walls, Dominic made Qi lie on the floor under the window.

"They won't shoot me," he said. "I'm too valuable."

"Oh, they might wing you." The NP snickered. "I can always have you patched up later."

Dominic dropped to the floor beside Qi, just as she rose and peeked over the sill. "Cops are rigging a gantry," she whispered. "They're gonna come in through the window. This was all my stupid idea."

He yanked her back down. "Only one person deserves credit for this circus. Richter Jedes. The visionary."

Qi caught Dominic's head between her hands and pulled his face close. "Don't let that monster rape me," she whispered. "Promise, Nick. If he takes over your body, don't let him have me."

Dominic opened his mouth, but he couldn't think of anything to say. Instead, he pressed her head to his chest and stroked the back of her neck.

On the table, his personal Net node beeped with an incoming call. He saw the tiny green light. It had to be the NP, trying to lure him out into the open where the cops could "wing" him. He shifted in the screeching bed of glass, held Qi in his arms, and calculated options. Qi, Tooksook, Benito, they're counting on me, he told himself, still finding it hard to believe.

Bang! The guards rammed the doors so hard, a chair tumbled off the barricade and crashed to the floor. His Net node beeped again. Qi was punching his shoulder, mumbling into his chest that she should have thought of a better plan, so he caught her wrist and squeezed her tighter. A grappling hook landed on the window ledge and bit into the metal frame.

"Doesn't it intrigue you just a little, the idea of becoming an entirely new category of organism?" The NP's hologram perched on the sill like a glowing Buddha.

"You can't take me without my consent," Dominic said through his teeth.

The NP frowned. "I'm not a monster. We're patterned after the same man. A man you once respected and loved."

Dominic ignored this hypocrisy. "My consent, how much is it worth to you?"

The NP spread its hands on its knees and rocked forward. The guards walloped against the door, and another chair fell off the barricade. "You want a deal?"

"Tell your guards to stand down," he said. "I want two things. Qi goes free, and the miners get their loan."

The NP rocked back, slapped its belly and roared with laughter. Above the hologram, a very real bank guard stepped onto the window ledge and pointed a rifle. Its laser made a red smudge on Qi's forehead, and Dominic covered her face with his arm.

A second later, the barricade of chairs broke apart, and more surfsuited guards pushed in through the doors. Half a dozen rifles bristled at them, and red lasers swarmed over their bodies like motes of dust. Dominic helped Qi sit up. He brushed glass from her hair and felt her trembling. She gripped fistfuls of glass beads in both hands. His Net node beeped again.

He glowered at the NP. "Meet my terms, and I'll accept your degenerate merger. Otherwise, I'll fight you till one of us dies. You have my word."

"Nick, you can't," Qi whispered. He hushed her with a look.

Rifle muzzles bore down on them like staring eyes, and Qi sat still and tense, fingering her gear bag. Very slightly, the NP moved its jaw.

"Bad precedent," the NP said at last. "Dealing with protes. It'll come back to bite us."

"It's good business," Dominic said quickly.

He sensed the NP was wavering. One well-phrased argument might cinch the deal, but he had only a few seconds to compose his line. It had to be solid, rational, irrefutable. It had to be the truth. Yes, only a real benefit would be potent enough to sway the NP's calculating mind. He drew a breath through his nose, and as he lined up his thoughts, a tremendous blast of heat bowled everyone to the floor.

There was a clash of cymbals, a profound shredding rumble, and the NP's holographic projection flew backward out of the room.

"The cop car crashed!" Qi was the first on her feet, pointing out the window. Look!"

The NP had been projecting its image from the police cruiser. While the guards were busy shaking themselves off and retrieving their weapons, Dominic crawled through the slippery glass beads and leaned over the window ledge. A ragged eddy of black smoke swirled up from the dome where the cop car had gone down. And something was happening in the sky. Air cars churned through the smog, spinning up whorls of turbulence. It was hard to see what disturbed them.

"Wish I hadn't thrown my helmet away," Qi said at his elbow. "It was rigged for metavision."

Out of the billowing smog, a small white car skidded in and bumped sideways into the ledge. Its side panels were dented and scraped, and the entire front section was bashed in. Two people in surfsuits knelt in the open door holding a double armload of rope. No, it wasn't rope, it was a cargo net. They flung it over Dominic just as Qi made a flying leap toward him. The net caught them both, and the aircar jetted away, trailing them behind. In midflight, their abductors hauled them into the tiny cabin and slammed the door.

Dominic fought at the heavy net, but the best he could do was force his head through one of the holes. His eye patch had blown off. Sunlight splintered through the car's windows, and he turned his one good eye away from the glare. The driver banked a sharp right turn, then a left, and Dominic bounced around like loose change. In the commotion, he saw Qi work free from the net and grab the back of the driver's seat to steady herself. Dominic rammed his hands through the net and clutched the other seat back, just as the passenger turned to face him. When she removed her helmet, mousy brown hair stuck to her forehead.

She said, "Sir, I've been trying to reach you."

Dominic blinked his single eye. "Elsa?"

CHAPTER 22
CAPITAL PRESERVATION

"YES, sir. It's me, sir. This is my brother, Offener. We came as fast as we could." Elsa Bremen ducked her head and swiped at her sweaty bangs. Her hair stuck out in soft damp wings where the helmet had pressed it. She gave a shy smile.

Dominic introduced Qi, and when the car settled into a glide for a few seconds, he shook hands with Offener Bremen, the driver. Then the car flipped on its side and hurtled through a forest of communication towers. Blue lights flashed through the smog as a cop cruiser zoomed up behind them.

"How did you know where I was, Elsa? And why did you do this? You've taken a terrible risk." Dominic glanced through the rear window. Their car was jetting white smoke. That meant engine damage. Not far behind, the cop cruiser skidded between two antennas and kept coming.

"Sharon called. You know, sir. Sharon at the gym. When she saw your. . ." Elsa indicated her left eye and blushed. "Sharon was worried, sir. You hadn't cut your hair, and you were wearing the wrong uniform."

"Oh, the wrong uniform. I see." Dominic slammed against the ceiling as Offener careened the car through another sharp turn. When he thumped back to the floor, he patted Elsa's shoulder. "You saved my life."

"We're going back into the dome, sir. We're too easy to spot outside."

"Sweet costume, Nick." Qi helped him disentangle his head and arms from the cargo net.

"Halt!" blared the cruiser's loudspeaker.

"You can't escape me," blared the NP's voice.

Dominic reached for a hold as the car flipped on edge again. He said, "Elsa, I'm afraid you've sided with the losing team."

"Don't worry about the car, sir. It's a rental. We didn't mean to crash that police cruiser. We just wanted to bump it out of the way." Elsa had cinched her seat belt so tight, when her brother inverted the car in a barrel roll, she barely moved.

Dominic, however, spun sideways, smacked his teeth against the ceiling panel, then ricocheted into Qi. He grabbed the loose cargo net, but it didn't do him any good at all.

"Nicky, control yourself," Qi said.

Elsa tucked her chin down and gave him her shy little smile again. "I don't mind about losing my job, sir."

Dominic felt certain that wasn't the worst she would lose. Poor innocent Elsa. What had her loyalty cost her? As the car took a nosedive, he grabbed her seat back and held on tight.

"We're going into the main airport, sir. Lots of traffic to hide in." Elsa faced front again.

Offener hunched over the steering yoke and maneuvered through an obstacle course of surface equipment. Clearly, he was a man of action and few words. Qi clutched Offener's seat back and leaned into the turns as if her body language could help steer. She glanced at Dominic and grinned. She was enjoying the ride.

"Do you want to hear about the mess I've dragged you into," he asked Elsa.

"The Neural Profile, sir. I understand. You're trying to get the miners a loan."

The car plummeted, and his stomach levitated. "How does news travel so fast?"

"Viral chat. You know, office gossip. Word is, you want to hack the Ark, sir."

Dominic wedged his shoulder against the ceiling and braced for another acute turn. "How many people did Karel tell?"

"Everybody knows, sir. And a lot of people are rooting for you. We don't like an unprogrammed AI running our bank."

They zigzagged through a loose fringe of aircars waiting for permission to land at the Trondheim Intercommer-cial Airport. Running lights diffused through the afternoon smog and cocooned each car in a soft rusty glow. As Offener steered closer to the main port, the traffic grew denser, like stars spiraling around the cloudy brown heart of a galaxy.

"Offener will set us down in the employee terminal," Elsa explained. "We'll travel as workers so we'll be less conspicuous. I hope that doesn't annoy you, sir."

He laughed. "I can do that."

"And, um, we have a disguise for you, sir." She snapped open her purse and lifted out a sealed plastic envelope. Dominic read the label. "Inflatable body cast."

He puffed his cheeks and blew.

They landed with a soft thud, and Offener shouldered open the one car door that would still move on its hinges. Already, a security siren was blaring as they raced away from the battered white car into the shelter of a luggage wagon. Hiding between stacks of suit bags, Dominic pondered the mysterious complexities of his fate as he tugged on the filmy, yellow "body cast." While Elsa and Offener kept lookout for the security guards, Qi made him lie flat on his back while she sealed the tabs around his wrists, ankles and neck, then yanked the inflation ring. With a piercing squeal, compressed gas filled the suit, mashed the breath from his lungs and squeezed his entire body in a big yellow bubble. Qi chose that moment to kiss him on the lips. Then, with brisk efficiency, she wrapped layers of white gauze around his head and face.

"I'll pay you back for that trick," he mumbled through the gauze. "With interest. Compounded hourly!"

"Yeah, yeah. Cut the chatter."

He could feel her slathering something cold and viscous all over his hands. It had a sharp chemical stench. "What is that vile gunk?"

"Fake scar tissue. Elsa found it at Jack's Joke Shop. She says it'll disguise your palm print when we go through security." He could feel Qi blowing on his hands to dry the fake scars. Then she paused. "Your little friend Elsa, I like her."

As soon as the gunk hardened, Qi tossed him over her back in a fireman's carry. He couldn't see what happened next because Qi hadn't left him an eyehole. But he could smell tar and jet fuel and feel her sharp bony shoulder gouging his groin as she sprinted across an open surface, up a short stair, and through an echoing hall. He heard a pitter-pattering step that was probably Elsa, and a loping run that had to be Offener. And something rolling on wheels. Qi flopped him down onto a hard cottony pad that jounced on springs. A rolling hospital stretcher.

"This is for you," Elsa said.

"Thanks," said Qi. "I like to play doctor."

Dominic heard the rustle of fabric. Qi was changing clothes. Then the rolling wheels creaked louder, and he sensed rapid movement.

Bars of fluorescent light glared through his gauze as they traveled down endless noisy concourses. Strangers bumped into his stretcher and did not apologize. Several times, they passed through, security checkpoints where guards stopped them for questioning, and he heard timid Elsa spout outrageous lies. In the mildest tones, she gave false names, phony credentials, bogus itineraries, and she must have flashed fake ID chips, too. Only her soft bashful voice made her wild fabrications sound credible. She also paid liberal bribes.

Somewhere along the way, his stretcher crashed into a group of people who shoved and yelled curses. Qi shouted back that this was an emergency, her patient was experiencing acute respiratory failure due to toxic exposure. Dominic thought that might not be far from the truth. Then everything went quiet, and he heard the cool, self-important voice of an executive.

"You people are holding up traffic."

Dominic sensed a shifting of feet, then a pregnant stillness. "You're out of uniform, nurse. What Com are you with?"

"ZahlenBank," Elsa's small shy voice spoke up. "We're all with ZahlenBank, sir. Our clothes were contaminated with toxins, sir, so we burned them."

"That's right," Qi said. "This patient's contaminated, too. You wanna inspect him?" The stretcher lurched forward.

"What the hell! Get that away from me!"

"We have to go, sir. Most sorry. It's an emergency."

Dominic pictured himself bouncing like a yellow squeeze-toy as the wheels of his stretcher bounced down the concourse, rounded a sharp corner, jogged down some steps and jolted over a curb. Then hands seized his wrists and ankles and swung him up into the air. He flew into darkness and landed with a rubbery squilching noise. People pressed in beside him, and he heard breathing and felt hands nudging his yellow bubble. From the quality of the sound, he sensed an enclosure. Someone slammed a metal door.

Then Qi sliced the gauze away with her knife and wiped the sweat off his face. "How they hangin', Nick-O?"

"They ain't," he said. "They're squashed. Get me out of this rubber ducky."

"Hoo-hoo! Nick makes a joke!" Qi punctured the body cast with her knifepoint, and the gas whistled out like a high-pitched fart. Everybody laughed.

As Dominic sat up and peeled the gummy scars off his fingers, Offener slipped behind the wheel of the van— another rental, Elsa explained. He darted out at breakneck speed and dodged through traffic as if he were playing a video game. Dominic peered over his shoulder at the speedometer. Offener liked to drive fast. Their van raced through the congestion circling the airport, then swerved down into a tunnel. They went deep, deep into the suburban levels under Trondheim, deeper than Dominic had ever been before. Already, he missed the sun.

"Here, sir. Put this in your pocket. You never know when you might need it." Elsa handed him a fistful of coins, and he laughed aloud.

They wound through tunnels just wide enough for two cars to pass. He never knew tunnels this narrow existed in Trondheim. Long stretches of light tube had failed, and only the van's running lights illuminated the gray concrete. Pedestrians pressed against the tunnel walls, sometimes two or three deep. He wondered why pedestrians were walking here. Wasn't it dangerous? He tried to see their faces in the dim light, and then he noticed other things. These people weren't wearing uniforms. They were carrying sacks and baskets and jugs of water. And they were all headed in the same direction. They were runaways.

"Sir, we have two choices now. We can take you straight to a med clinic for cell hygiene. You need it, sir. Both of you. I've-lined up a doctor who wants to help."

"Or?" said Qi.

"Or we can go to a safehouse where you can uplink to the Net."

Dominic checked his watch. Very soon, the colony would run out of air. Then they'd have to float those windmills and give up their freedom forever. But maybe he could still do something. He met Qi's eyes. "Safehouse?"

"Yep."

Offener emerged into a populous worker neighborhood and braked to a skidding halt in front of the Rest Nest Hotel. The Rest Nest was an inexpensive tube lodge patronized by vacationing employees, Elsa told them. She'd booked a suite of interconnecting sleep tubes with Net access, and she charged the van, the lodging, and other miscellaneous expenses to an obscure office maintenance account at ZahlenBank. She said the auditors wouldn't find her trail for years.

"Elsa, you astonish me."

"I know it's wrong, sir. I hope you're not offended."

In answer, Dominic hugged her and kissed her brown hair.

Qi elbowed him in the ribs. "Enough sappiness. Let's check in."

"Offener's going," Elsa said. "He'll return the van."

Dominic turned to thank the young man, but Offener was already careening the vehicle away and hurtling toward the tunnel. A man of few words.

Dominic had never patronized a tube lodge before. At the Rest Nest Hotel, guests paid by the hour for cylindrical cubbyholes stacked one on top of another like drawers in a morgue. The tubes were sized to sleep single, double or triple, and they came equipped with bedding, power outlets, small storage bins with sliding doors, and for an extra fee, a Net node. Lockers and coin-operated public bath stalls were available at the lobby level. To reach their tubes on the sixteenth row, Dominic and his party had to climb a ladder. It felt like old times.

Elsa had reserved two contiguous triples with a pass-through window, and she'd filled one of them with computer equipment. "I hope I remembered everything," she said, pressing a finger to her lips.

Dominic examined the neat stack of peripherals and modular add-ons in matching dark green cases. Very tasteful collection, he thought. "Everything for what?"

"You know, sir. To hack the Ark."

"But Elsa." He tried to explain why that plan was no longer viable. If everyone knew he was coming, how could he sneak in? The Ark was the most fiercely guarded databank in the world, and now the NP would throw up even more impregnable blocks. It couldn't be done.

"We know you can do it, sir. I'll help."

But Elsa, what can you do? he started to say. Then he remembered her dogfight with the cop cruisers, her bald-faced lies in the airport, her joke shop scars to hide his palms. Soft-hearted Elsa. He'd underrated her too long.

With a sigh, he folded his long body into the tube with the stylish green computer equipment and picked up a set of cybernails, brand-new in their cellophane packet. He tore the seal and dumped the shiny claws in his palm. "This office maintenance account," he said, slipping the claws onto his fingertips, "show me."

Elsa's eyes gleamed.

They worked for three hours, as measured by the tube-lodge billing meter, which ticked off the minutes on a big round dial mounted to the wall. There was no desk or chair. Elsa positioned the Net node on top of a green case, and Dominic tried sitting lotus fashion for a while, but that hurt his knees. He had to keep shifting, stretching his legs, rearranging his long body in the short space.

He opened a separate browser to monitor market news, and the projection shimmered in the air like a pane of glass reflecting colorful shadows. He programmed an agent to watch for news of the miners, then muted the sound.

Qi asked for some of Dominic's spare change. Then she slipped out for a bath and came back with wet hair. She brought protein jerky, noodle soup and strong black tea from the vending machines in the lobby, and after their meal, Elsa cleared away the empty food cartons. Neat as a column of figures, that Elsa. Toward the end of the third hour, Dominic's one good eye went bleary, and he began to calculate how long since he had slept. His senses were off kilter, and he wasn't making any progress cracking the cross-coded, self-referential shell maze of ZahlenBank's office maintenance account.

"Meta-mobius, isn't it?" Elsa tapped her finger against her lips.

"Who set it up?" he asked.

"Sorry, sir. The account was there when I came to the bank. It just popped up on my menu one day. Weird."

The account concealed its traces with baroque layers of back-loops, but something nagged at Dominic's senses. Those loops seemed familiar. He scrutinized the binary strings till his eye blurred out of focus. He couldn't keep going on food and tea. He needed rest.

"Major, by my count, the miners are running out of air now."

"Maybe not." Qi rocked back and forth nervously. "It depends on how many new people show up, and whether Millard brings another pump online, and how fast Anzie's team can brew more alcohol."

He slumped forward. "A moving target, right."

"If they floated those windmills, we'd hear about it on the news," Qi said. 'Trust their ingenuity, Nick. Don't give up yet."

He shucked off his cybernails and ran fingers through his ragged hair. "I can't see the screen anymore."

Elsa said, "Shall I rub your back, sir? I'm trained in shiatsu massage."

"I'll handle the massage." Qi started poking his shoulder blades with her knuckles.

"Actually," he said, "I'd like you to look at this code, Major. The way it kinks back on itself, it puts me in mind of the miners' broadcast Remember how the signal echoed back and forth through all those servers?"

"Hoo-hoo, kinky code. Sounds like my kind of fun." Qi pushed him out of the way and sat cross-legged in front of the Net node. "Rest for a minute. I'll take a crack at this Ark of yours."

Elsa opened a pass-through window into the next tube. "Climb through here, sir. I've made your bed."

"Elsa, you stick with me," Qi said. "I may need your help."

Qi didn't look at either of them. She bent over the holographic interface and squinted at the icons with a serious expression. When her blue-black hair fell across her face, she pursed her lips and blew it away. Then she started humming. Dominic watched her cybernails flick through the light matrix, and he experienced an unreasonable desire to kiss her nose.

"She's right, Elsa. You'll make faster progress together," he said.

When Qi cast him a sideways look, he winked. Then he tumbled through the window into the next tube and fell asleep.

He woke to the smell of tea and fumbled for the cup in the darkness. He found it steaming on a molded plastic shelf recessed in the wall. How much time had passed? His luminous watch read 2339 hours. Nearly midnight. He pictured Benito lying in darkness, choking for air, and he rattled open the pass-through window.

"We've found something, sir." Elsa bounced over to help him crawl through.

"You're right about this kinky code," Qi said. Her face sagged with fatigue, but her ink black eyes blazed. "Whoever rerouted that broadcast left the same autograph on this office maintenance account. It's a beautiful piece of work. Either someone inside the bank helped the miners, or someone outside the bank diddled your books. I'll lay odds it's the same someone. My old boss, Gig."

"I had the same thought," Dominic said. "But why?"

"The pointis, sir," Elsa sounded breathless, "we found a way in."

He set down his styrofoam teacup. "Into the Ark?"

Elsa nodded vigorously. Qi twisted off her cybernails and dropped them in his hand. With a broad grin, he shook them like dice and let the ladies blow on them for luck.

He worked another long session, well into the small hours of the morning, clicking through ranks and files of glowing holographic symbols. Having only one eye interfered with his concentration, but he ignored the tension headache and kept searching. The office maintenance account linked into every operational center in the Ark. There was no end to its cunning. He followed the pathways and deciphered strings of arcane programming that sometimes led to cul-de-sacs, sometimes to brave new worlds of creative accounting.

He couldn't gauge the passing hours, but he knew precisely how many muscles in his lower back began to ache and how sandy his eye felt every time he blinked. Elsa and Qi hovered at his shoulders and offered suggestions, some of them useful. Elsa blotted his forehead with a linen handkerchief, and not to be outdone, Qi rolfed his shoulders. At last, he broke through the final firewall and gained access to his personal accounts.

His assets were not merely frozen. They were gone. Every account in his name showed a zero balance. The NP had transferred his money elsewhere.

"That's theft!" He shoved the node so hard, it bounced and fell on its side. He gazed from Elsa to Qi, then back to Elsa. He opened and closed his hands, and the cybernails made small red dents in his palms. "The primacy of account ownership is our bank's most sacred policy."

"The Neural Profile issued a new set of rules, sir. Last week."

"Yes, but if we violate the principle of account ownership—even once," Dominic stared at the cylindrical plastic walls, "who will trust our bank again?"

"Everybody's irate about it," Elsa said.

"That bit-brain's destroying my bank!" Dominic rammed his fist against the sleep tube wall. Then he seized the Net node and reactivated the interface that had gone dormant when he knocked it over. He started flicking through the code again, and his cybernails clicked together with a sound like ringing steel.

"What are you doing, sir?"

"Composing a poem, Elsa." Dominic clicked away, stringing new code together, unconsciously working his jaw. "Just a few unrhymed couplets of poetic justice."

Breaking into the Ark had been difficult. The rest was a stroll in the mall. Inside the office maintenance account, he wrote a program to tap ZahlenBank's profit stream and levy small fees, bare shavings of copper from every cent of markup that passed through the operational centers. On the directory, he labeled it VST, for value-subtracted tax, his private joke. Then he set up an automatic schedule to sweep the money into a new alias account. For account holder name, he wrote: Tooksook & Associates. In seconds, the new account began to fill.

"Sir, that's—that's—" Elsa sounded stressed.

"Embezzlement." Dominic said the word aloud. He'd broken the cardinal rule of honor. He'd stolen from Zahlen-Bank. There was a time when he would have cut off his hand before touching the bank's money. He squeezed his. eye shut.

Funny, he thought with a bitter smile, how the old lessons still wrung him with shame. What would Father say? That was the question he couldn't help asking. After all that had happened, Richter Jedes was still the standard by which Dominic measured his worth. The NP claimed Richter programmed his son, but that wasn't the right word. Richter inspired him with respect. Honor thy father's values. But Dominic broke the paramount rule. And no matter how honorable his reasons, his heart still ached.

"Sir, that's ingenious," Elsa finished her sentence.

Qi punched him in the arm. "Sleek work, Nick-O. Now it's my turn."

"What are you doing?"

She shoved him aside and wrenched off one of his cyber-nails. "We can't leave the miners' money in ZahlenBank. I know a nice little church in Australia."

"The South? Oh my." Elsa bit her finger.

Dominic was stunned. Qi wanted to move the money South? She couldn't mean that. The South was unsafe. Too scandalized to react, he let her take the rest of his cybernails and put them on her fingers. Australia was full of gangsters and free agents, and Southerners ran their businesses like open-air bazaars. They never took pains to amass wealth for the future. He grabbed her hand. "We don't know anything about their banking laws."

"Have you been there?"

"Have you?"

Qi elbowed him away and didn't answer. Very few Northerners chose to journey across the broiling equatorial latitudes to reach the southern hemisphere. Dominic had always wanted to go, but it was easier to visit the moon than the southern pole. The South was a place of legend, a wild frontier about which Northerners knew very little. Automated agents blocked every southern Net site to prevent the spread of viruses. The South drew Dominic's curiosity and suspicion in equal measures.

Qi started tapping icons. "If we leave this money at ZahlenBank, sooner or later, your dear old Da will steal it back."

"But the South." He shook his head.

"Let me show you something."

She opened a browser, and a new pane of light shimmered in the air. The heading read, "Perth Church of Constant Necessity." In the background was a real-time image of the Milky Way, beamed from some orbiting observatory. Dominic browsed the church's menu: Health, Games, Arts, Shopping, Finance.

"You intend to put money here?" He was flabbergasted.

"Yes, I do," Qi said.

"This is a Southern site. How did you get past the blocking agents?" Elsa asked.

"My former boss showed me a trick or two." Qi flicked the icon to Send Deposit Now.

While Dominic watched, the balance in his new alias account began to dwindle away as fast as it appeared. "We didn't discuss this!"

"I discussed it with the council. They think this is best."

"Those amateurs! Those lunatics!"

"Those protes. That's what you mean. Say it!" Qi rose on her knees and faced him with hard fists and blazing Asian eyes. She looked furious and exhausted, and when she punched his chest, it didn't even hurt.

He caught her in his arms. "You know me better, Qi." He held her tight and smelled her hair and watched the money disappearing out of the account. "I only meant we should perform due diligence before transferring large sums of money to this wacko Southern church."

Qi leaned back and examined his face. She made him self-conscious. He wished he still had the eye patch to cover his scars.

She said, "What if I told you this church gave the miners a loan three weeks ago? That's how they got the new drilling rigs so they could build the colony. How about that?"

"Oh my." Elsa quietly opened another package of cybernails and started browsing through the Perth site. She said, "They offer watercolor classes."

"Yeah, and they make loans on pure trust," Qi said. "Is that duly diligent enough for you, mister executive coin machine?"

"I haven't used the term 'prote' in a long time," Dominic said. "I'm not the same person. You know that."

Qi rocked back and forth in his arms. "I guess."

"You know that," he said.

This time when she bounced against him for a quick kiss, he was ready. He caught her head between his hands and explored her chapped lips with his tongue. Their teeth clicked together, and he tasted her soft, warm, salty mouth for a long time.

"Goodness," Elsa said. "They have digital roulette."

The plastic sleep tube echoed with Qi's boyish laughter. After a second kiss and a third, she disengaged herself from his arms and crowded next to Elsa. "Click the Shopping icon. Girl, we have stuff to buy."

Before anything else, Qi paid off the loan because the Perth Church of Constant Necessity had limited capital and needed its money back. Their first purchase was a supertanker of high-grade synthetic fuel to resupply Anzie's power plant. As more money streamed into their Perth account, they bought a showroom full of the latest new fuel cells with integrated gas turbines to capture waste thermal energy. Soon, all three of them were so engrossed in ordering the newest antibiotics and cancer drugs, Kevlax sealant, rivet guns, diving masks, designer wall paint, a respirator pump, a quantronic loom, that they didn't notice the ghostly light jetting from one of their spare peripherals. They didn't see it take form, and swell to man size, and lounge comfortably among the green cases, and casually cross its holographic knees.

CHAPTER 23
ACCRUAL

"HOO-HOO! We did it!"

Qi tossed her cybernails into the air like confetti. In the time it took all ten of the silver claws to hit the sleep tube ceiling, her buy order streamed through the airwaves, ricocheted through a ring of satellites, and zinged into the processing queue at the Perth Church of Constant Necessity. The miners' merchandise was bought and paid for.

She hooted again. "The colony's gonna make it, Nick!"

"Congratulations, sir," said Elsa.

Dominic felt the old charge of elation. A deal closed. Victory in the palm of his hand. He couldn't hide his smile.

"Such confidence. It fuckin' warms my heart."

Elsa gasped. The holographic intruder wagged its head and leered at them. It was projecting from one of the dark green cases. The NP—there it sat, clean-cut and resplendent in a tailored pin-striped suit. Qi sprang back and overturned her Net node.

Dominic crossed his arms. "You're too late, NP. Frankly, I expected you to trace us before now. Old age must be slowing you down."

"Makes you wonder, doesn't it? Why did I wait till you placed the order?" The hologram snickered.

"No time for long good-byes, Nick." Qi tossed him his slippers. "We gotta go."

Elsa was already cramming items into a gear bag. If the holographic image was here, its bank guards wouldn't be far behind. Dominic didn't bother to pack. By the time he hustled out of the sleep tube, Qi was already halfway down the ladder.

The NP's image projected through the open sleep tube door, and its voice followed them. "All I have to do is track your supertanker. It'll lead me straight to the Benthica."

Dominic stopped moving down the ladder. That gloating tone, he despised it. He met the NP's luminous gray eyes.

"Move, Nick!" Qi grasped his ankle and yanked him down.

He helped Elsa off the ladder, and they raced along the narrow hall, Qi first, Dominic next, Elsa trailing behind. In the Rest Nest lobby, half a dozen life-sized NPs beamed from a row of courtesy Net nodes. Hotel guests dropped what they were doing and gawked. The six NPs wagged their heads, and the replicated voices spoke in chorus. "Wherever you're going, I'm already there."

Qi burst through the front door into the tunnel, and Dominic heard sirens wailing. Qi didn't stop to look around. She ran for the subway entrance, and Dominic and Elsa galloped after her. As they jogged down the entrance ramp, Elsa's gear bag slipped off her shoulder, and contents spilled across the pavement.

"Forget it. Let's go," Dominic said. He was trying to keep Qi in sight. Elsa's legs were too short to run fast, so he caught her arm and propelled her forward.

Cars zipped through the narrow subway at high speed. This route wasn't meant for pedestrians. In the dim greenish light, they hugged the wall and ran in single file. Qi was far ahead now.

Abruptly, the NP's voice projected from a road sign. "All this time you thought you were hiding. I saw you land on the coast. You looked straight up at me. Don't you remember? I waved."

Qi took a turn into a deeper tunnel, and Dominic dashed for the opening with all the speed he could muster, tugging Elsa along like baggage. The ramp was steep and slick, and he almost lost his footing, but Elsa grabbed him around the waist and kept him steady. She was winded, gasping for breath. She wouldn't be able to run much farther. When a cop car screeched against the curb right on their heels and trapped them in its spotlight, she let out a cry.

Dominic got her moving again. Then the NP took shape. It projected from the car window and pretended to run along beside them, mocking their awkward gait. "I saw you hide in the rosebush. I saw you climb the spire. Our spire, Dominic. It belongs to both of us."

Qi darted out of the shadows. She lifted Elsa over her shoulder in a fireman's carry, and Dominic lumbered after them. They headed for the darkness, trying to outrun the spotlight, but the cruiser followed at a crawl, taunting them. No way could they outdistance a car. Any minute the cops would arrest them, or shoot them, or smash them against the wall.

The NP's hologram stopped pretending to run and simply glided along. "I want you back, Dominic. I'll destroy the Benthica, unless you come back."

"He's lying. He can't trace the tanker," Qi yelled between panting breaths. "It'll be cloaked."

"Cloaked like your Devi?' The NP made its snickering noise. "In fact, your tanker just left the dock in Frisco. Its current position is 37 degrees 37 minutes North, 122 degrees 23 minutes West. Close enough for you?"

"He pulled that out of thin air," Qi yelled. "Don't believe him, Nick."

"You want to save those charity cases in the submarine?" The NP grinned at Dominic. "Always that soft streak. You're as bad as your ditz-brain pal, Elsa Bremen."

"Bastard!" Qi kicked at the hologram, but her foot passed through the insubstantial light, and she nearly stumbled off balance. Elsa ducked her head.

As the NP floated along beside them, it pretended to take a folded sheet of printout from its breast pocket, flap it open and hold it out for Dominic to browse. "This is the deal you offered. The miners get their loan. Your whore goes free. And you consent to our merger. Those are your terms, and I accept them. As for your treacherous, thieving Elsa, I'll even turn a blind eye to her. Pardon the unfortunate cliche"."

"That deal is off the table." Dominic loped on without looking at the NP's contract.

The hologram raced effortlessly ahead, then turned and skipped backward, facing him with a derisive smile. "You think I'm bluffing?"

Dominic didn't bother to answer. He had no faith in the NP's word. When Qi staggered against the wall, he lifted Elsa from her shoulders.

"I can run, sir. I've got my second wind," Elsa said.

"Right." He set her on her feet, and they took off again.

"It's not like I'm asking you to commit crimes, boy. You'll help me save ZahlenBank and keep the markets alive. You still believe in the markets. The markets feed—"

Loud car horns blotted out the NP's voice. A traffic jam was developing behind the slow-moving cruiser. People yelled catcalls and projected obscenities on the tunnel ceiling with their lasers.

The NP snapped its holographic fingers. "One word, and this comedy comes to an end. I'm giving you a chance, boy. I want you to volunteer."

Qi sprinted ahead, and Dominic lost sight of her. It was difficult to see beyond the harsh bright circle of the cop's spotlight. The cruiser engine whined at his heels, and he asked himself why he kept running. He couldn't escape. His lungs heaved, his thighs were going rubbery, and Elsa was already falling behind again. When he stopped to wait for her, he bent over and inhaled big drafts of the acrid subway air. He was just on the verge of surrendering when he heard a noise ahead.

Shuffling feet. A low rustle of voices. Soft at first like running water. Then louder, like a rushing flood. Hastily, the cruiser's spotlight panned away from Dominic and jittered into the tunnel ahead, lighting the front ranks of an oncoming mob. Even in the dimness, Dominic could see their haggard faces and threadbare clothes. Men, women and children, not one of them in uniform, not a Com logo among them. They were runaways.

He saw men and boys, old women, children grasping the hands of their mothers. The people carried no weapons, only sacks and suitcases. And they chanted no slogans. They simply walked, holding their infants in their arms, hundreds and hundreds of them. Dominic lurched when he heard the cruiser doors open right behind him. Then he saw the polished black boot of a ZahlenBank guard step out onto the pavement. It was over.

But then the boot drew back into the car, and the door slammed. He looked up and saw the mob roll around the car like a tide and hem the cops in. The NP's hologram flickered and broke apart as employees marched through it.

"Nick! This way!" Qi signaled him toward the wall where she was pressing against the rough concrete to avoid the marchers.

"You can't escape me, boy. We're two sides of the same coin!" the NP thundered. "We belong together."

Dominic hurried after Qi, but Elsa caught his hand and stopped him.

"Sir, this is where I leave you."

"Elsa."

People buffeted against him as he stood gazing down at her. She ducked her chin bashfully and tugged him closer to the wall. He wanted to argue—he wasn't about to leave her behind. But then he reconsidered. Perhaps Elsa would be safer away from him.

"Thank you," he said, knowing the words sounded void and cheap compared to the enormous price she'd paid to help him.

She stood on tiptoes and kissed his cheek. "Good luck, sir." Then she faded into the crowd.

Dominic pressed flat against the tunnel wall and crept toward Qi. Someone noticed his executive uniform and pointed. People whispered. "It's the banker. Dominic Jedes." His name passed among them like a breeze. Girls cast him shy glances, a man clapped him on the shoulder, and a woman touched the hem of his sleeve. Among so many faces, he lost sight of Qi. More sirens yowled as dozens of cop cars converged behind him, but the people moved forward to block them.

A scream made Dominic stop and look back. The cop cars were plowing into the people, crushing adults and children alike. Strobes reflected on the curved tunnel ceiling, and shrieks echoed against the concrete as cops attacked employees with batons. But the people marched on without hesitation. Gray-faced and silent, they leaned forward as if into a strong wind, and watching them pass, Dominic felt sick. How could the cops do this? But of course, they were executive class. He knew how little respect they had for employee lives. By God, he knew.

Staggering, he pressed his sweaty hands against the wall, dismayed that these innocent people would offer their bodies to shield him. He couldn't let this slaughter go on. He was the last person on Earth to deserve their sacrifice. With a fierce, inarticulate cry, he pushed toward the cop cars to give himself up, but then a man wearing a striped blanket reached out and shook his hand.

"We heard what you did, banker. Some of us took up a collection." The man pressed a small purse into Dominic's palm.

"I can't take this." Dominic tried to give the purse back, but the man melted into the throng. "No, please. I don't deserve a gift. You don't know me."

A yellow-haired woman cried out, "Save yourself, coin man. We're counting on you."

To his amazement, the runaways parted before him to make a clear path for his escape, and the yellow-haired woman motioned for him to flee. Others gestured as well. Go, their silent faces urged him. Finally, Dominic understood. They weren't giving their lives to save one man. They were saving their hope of survival. He was their only access to money.

With a will, Dominic turned and ran.

At the first tunnel intersection, Qi was waiting. "Through here, Nick."

They leaped into a coin-operated air chute, and Dominic opened the purse. But the purse didn't contain money as he expected. It held an artificial eye, a pair of plastic tweezers and a tiny folded sheet of documentation, all sealed in sterile cellophane. Dominic dumped it into his palm and stared.

"We need a coin! Elsa gave you some loose change!" Qi fished in his pocket and fed the slot a coin.

As the pneumatic cushion plummeted, he felt weightless. Blank. Devoid of content. Not massive enough to fall. And so he soared. A stranger had given him a gift. The eye was an inexpensive model with standard optics and no special features. The color didn't even match—it was commissary-issue black. But coming from a penniless employee, it was priceless. If a poor man could show such munificence, what could a wealthy man do? He floated above the cushion and found himself expanding beyond his own skin, beyond private hungers and selfish dreams, beyond the limits that defined him. He drifted free of himself and became larger, wider. He felt capable of valor.

"We're counting on you," the yellow-haired woman had said.

There is no me, Dominic wanted to answer.

Qi led him into a maintenance area full of growling air exchangers. "No surveillance cameras here. We're home free, Nick. You did everything you promised. You were wonderful!" She hugged him and kissed him, and her boyish laugh rang louder than the rumbling machinery.

He was still clutching the artificial eye in his palm, and while Qi danced around him and cheered, he quietly inspected it. By slow degrees, a sense of providence stirred him. "I think I want to wear this."

"Sure. Why not." Qi laughed and switched on a torch so he could read the documentation on his new eye.

The installation was quick, though a bit painful. Qi stretched his scarred eyelid open while he popped the little orb into place with the tweezers. Its intelligent molecular structure immediately adjusted to the size and shape of his socket and began generating nerve cells and capillary connections. The owner's manual said it would assemble a bridge to the optic nerve and become fully functional in about an hour.

"Are you okay for another run?" she asked. "We'll sneak into the airport and steal a car."

Adrenaline surged through his muscles. He could have run all night, but instead, he laid his hands on Qi's shoulders and searched her ink black eyes. "Where can I go?"

She lifted her eyebrows. "The colony, of course. They're waiting to welcome you."

"The NP will find the colony. "

"No, I swear!" She gripped his hands. "That bit-brain won't find our tanker. We're using the sonic noise field. I stole the design from Gig."

"Let's hope so, Qi." He kneaded her shoulders. "But the genie will keep looking."

Tears welled up in her eyes. "I bought medicines for cell hygiene. I bought a lot of nice things for you, Nick."

He pressed her head to his shoulder and kissed her hair, wishing he could stop time. "There's only one way to make the miners safe. I have to settle with the NP."

She squeezed him hard enough to crack ribs. In her misery, she bit the fabric of his uniform, and her words came out muffled. "You can't trust him. He'll turn you into a living robot."

"I know."

"You think you're a match for him, but you're not."

"Qi, the NP will never stop hunting unless I go back and make a deal."

She gripped the front of his uniform and shook him. "What are you trying to prove? No one expects you to do this."

"Qi, stop. Listen to me."

"No, I won't listen! You're going back to save your scuzzy bank, that's what!"

Her accusation brought him up short. He didn't know how to answer, and when she punched him in the shoulder, he staggered.

"Stupid, arrogant stiff." She pounded him in time to her words. "All right, if you insist on going back, I'll go with you."

"That would be suicide, Qi. You can't."

"And I say yes!" She shoved him hard against the wall. "You don't stand a chance without my help."

"Qi, the colony needs you."

"Don't give me that sappy line." She leaned against him and kissed him on the mouth.

Dominic felt desperate. He held Qi in his arms and pressed her body tight against his, drawing out the kiss, feeling the firm shape of her thigh against his groin. He couldn't let Qi sacrifice herself. She was dear to him. He had to make her leave.

Abruptly, he shoved her away. "You're right! I'm going back to save my bank. Did you really expect me to side with protes?"

Qi's dark face went noticeably pale. "Nick?"

"That grubby colony. You mink I want to live there?" He let out a short harsh laugh. "Major, I'll stick with my own kind, thank you very much."

Qi backed away from him.

He gritted his teeth. "That's right. I'm an executive, born and bred. And you, you're nothing but a prote."

Qi tripped and almost stumbled. "I don't know you."

Dominic hated himself, almost as much as he hated the expression in Qi's black eyes. Her nostrils flared, and she wiped her mouth with the back of her hand, where he had kissed her.

"Go!" he shouted.

Without another word, she turned and left him. He saw her dodging through the exchanger stacks, her torch beam rippling over the pipes, her boots slapping the concrete. Only once did she glance back, but she was so far away by then, he couldn't read her face. He told himself he no longer owned a personal life—and with his one good eye, he watched until she was gone.

Then he felt in his pocket for Elsa's loose change. One copper coin left. He tossed it and caught it in his palm. A burnished Z gleamed up at him, and he smiled. One coin would be enough. He didn't have far to travel because the NP would find him soon. With a gentle grunt, he stepped into the air chute, slotted the coin and thumbed the keypad for the top floor.

CHAPTER 24
WILL AND TESTAMENT

HOW quickly the smoldering dawn brightened to white-hot morning as Dominic watched through the conference room window. The NP had chosen this ground for their final negotiation, this room where Dominic had once been master. Smog rolled in ochre waves against the broken pane, now repaired with glue. The seams glittered like veins of gold, but soon they would fade and disappear. Every sign of his recent forced entry, every bead of glass, grappling hook, bullet hole in the wall, had been cleared away. As he sat in a chair that was deep and enfolding and difficult to move, he reminded himself: There is no me. He placed his hands on the U-shaped table and fixed his one eye on the NP's hologram. His new artificial eye hadn't come online yet.

"I gave you what you wanted," the NP said.

"You couldn't stop me from taking it." Dominic sat perfectly still in his chair, telling himself he had nothing to lose.

"You stole from your own bank. You're the lowest kind of traitor."

"I've come to deal."

The NP strode up and down, clenching its fists in its pockets. Dominic might have been watching a video of himself, a year ago, working through the points of some hard-fought negotiation. There is no me, he chanted silently. But his heart walloped in his chest. This deal mattered to him. He couldn't help it. The ambitions that drove him before seemed like ashes and dust compared to this aching new desire to succeed.

And so, as he sat in the awful chair, facing the most potent adversary of his career, he was handicapped by the negotiator's worst nemesis, emotion. He kept picturing Qi's narrow back as she ran away from him, and he kept seeing Benito's sketches of stick-man heroes. Outside the double doors, he pictured surgeons waiting to inject nanoquans into his bloodstream, to transform him into a mindless, living depravity, but that wasn't what he dreaded most. He was afraid of letting Qi and Benito down.

Focus on the deal, he told himself. This is the work you were made for.

Then he remembered one of his father's favorite sayings: "There's no such thing as a simple deal."

The genie marched up through the center of the U-shaped table, twisting the linings of its holographic pockets. "Here's what I don't get. You have precisely the same intellect as Richter, and he taught you how to think. Me, I'm a complete neural-net archive of his mind. Why are we so different?"

Dominic breathed through his nose. "I ask myself the same thing."

The NP snickered. Then it raised its right hand and used some laser beam wizardry to shoot a ball of lightning from its fingertip. Dominic jumped in his chair. The holographic fireball expanded in rapid stages to fill the space inside the U-shaped table, and colors swirled over its surface, forming continents and oceans. Next, it sprouted a grid of latitudes and longitudes, and began very slowly to rotate on its axis.

The NP pressed both hands against the holographic globe to stop it from spinning, then leaned over the northern pole and squinted at a small red light blinking just off the coast of Canada. "Hiding in a garbage dump! Damn me, no wonder my scans missed 'em."

Forgetting his dignity, Dominic climbed over the table for a closer look. Had the NP already tracked down the colony? He knelt on the table to examine the globe from above. Yes, in the shallow waters of the Hudson Sea, offshore from Nouveau Manitoba, the red light throbbed like a tiny heartbeat. He touched it with his finger and thought of Benito drawing pictures on the floor. As he watched, a net of sapphire blue jewels materialized around the globe and cruised in uneven rings.

"My satellites." The NP pointed to half a dozen sapphires orbiting within close proximity to the miners. "One word from me, and they fire."

Dominic thumped the table. "Enough theatrics. You won't destroy them. You need my consent for your insane merger."

The NP pulled thoughtfully at its lower lip. "Protes are a dime a gross. You were all set to ditch 'em before. Then you had some experience in that submarine, and you came back here and robbed me. Tell me why."

With a show of outward calm, Dominic slid off the table and resumed his seat. "Give the miners a repayment schedule. You'll get your money back."

The NP's hologram rippled like a bad video. "They'll destroy us! We'll lose control. If protes think they can walk off the job anytime they please—"

"They'll repay the loan with interest."

"They're defying us!"

Dominic shot to his feet, and his chair scraped across the floor. Old angers and frustrations came rushing back as he recalled how many times he'd stood on this very spot arguing with Richter. He found himself jamming his fists in his pockets and twisting the linings, and when he realized what he was doing, his arms stiffened. The conversation was heating up too fast. This wasn't how he meant to start. As he turned and paced, an odd tingling spread through his ruined left socket. His vision hazed, and he felt queasy. The new eye must be coming online.

The NP sauntered to the globe and trailed a holographic finger through the net of satellites. In the finger's wake, each blue jewel glowed with a brighter sparkle. Was the genie arming its weapons?

Dominic said, "I'm offering my flesh. That's what you want."

"Your flesh isn't all I need, boy. I can take that anytime."

Then what? Dominic didn't understand this new tack. He watched the NP stretch to its full height, square its shoulders and stroll to the window to gaze wistfully at the smog. How often he had used that identical bit of melodrama to gain an opponent's sympathy. He felt shivers and wanted to laugh at the same time.

With a mournful tone that sounded much too familiar, the NP spoke to its reflection in the window. "I have identity issues."

"What?" Dominic bit his lip. He felt a nervous urge to snicker.

"Richter Jedes lived 279 years," the NP went on, examining its reflection. "He was a hundred different people, and I have a vivid record of each version. They're all equally available to me. Which Richter am I supposed to imitate?"

Dominic blurted, "You want my advice about who to be?"

The genie flashed him a peeved, martyred look. "Richter wasn't consistent. Some versions contradict each other. From a distance, he looks cohesive, like a drop of oil. But when I try to put my finger on the real man, he runs all over the place."

Dominic grimaced. "Funny, I thought he was made of pure brass."

"Quicksilver. Helium. I don't know what he was." The NP touched its mirrored fingertips in the window and left no prints. "That's me problem. He had some screwy interior monologue that kept shifting his recollections and redefining his nature. My archive didn't record it, and I can't impersonate him without it."

Dominic couldn't keep from grinning, though he covered it quickly with a sober scowl. He would bide his time and let the genie talk.

The NP faced him with glittering eyes and gestured at the net of satellites. "I record more facts every nanosecond than your sponge brain sucks up in a lifetime. But it turns out people don't trust me."

Dominic struggled to keep a straight face.

"Richter had a knack," the genie went on. "He was personable. People confided in him." The NP pressed its holographic forehead to the window. Its brooding tone mimicked a style Dominic had patented, though its breath failed to fog the glass. "I can't seem to reproduce that quality, so it must be flesh-based. You have it."

Of all the problems the bit-brain might encounter, this one caught Dominic off guard. He lowered his head to hide his pleasure. This disclosure gave him a bargaining edge. "You ask a traitor to teach you about trust?"

"What I need is your. . . your. . ." The NP paused and pretended to search for the right words. Finally, it puffed up its cheeks and sighed. "I need you to like me."

Dominic burst out laughing. He couldn't stop himself. This was too rich. But then the laughter strangled in his throat, and he was back on the Jedes bridge, losing control, jerking up the stairs like a marionette. That humiliation. He gritted his teeth and couldn't swallow. The thought of living out his life as the NP's mindless slave almost unmanned him. He sensed the hologram observing him, so he met its luminous gray eyes. "Cut to the bottom line."

"Stand by me, son, the way you used to stand by Richter. The others'll follow your lead." The genie nodded its holographic head. "And when we merge, you'll show me how the fuck you flesh types keep revising yourselves. I have to simulate that."

"So you can win friends and influence people," Dominic said.

"Exactly. Starting with you. I want your allegiance, boy. The same allegiance you gave Richter. No faking. Everyone'll know if you pretend. And no second-guessing my decisions. That'll slow down my processing time."

"If you want a sycophant, call Klas Lom."

Dominic glared at the hologram, and the hologram glared back. In sync, their jaws moved very slightly from side to side. Silhouetted against the window, the NP's immaterial features almost washed out in the harsh sunlight. Then the silhouette divided in two.

Dominic blinked. Was he seeing things? As he glanced around, every object in the sunlit room split apart The U-shaped table produced a shadowy doppelganger. The globe went binary. A duplicate yellow window slid out of register with its original, and light splintered in sharp twin rays. He rubbed his eyes. Double vision! He saw two of everything. The documentation for his new eye warned him this might happen at first.

"This is not a one-sided deal," the NP said. "I'll bring you light-speed genius, a global knowledge base, nearly three centuries of recorded banking experience. We'll be a new kind of organism, and together, we'll rule ZahlenBank for the next thousand years."

Dominic blinked his artificial eye, but his vision wouldn't clear. "Let's say I develop this sudden fondness for you, and our merger succeeds. You'll give the miners a favorable line of credit?"

"Don't mock me, boy!" The genie advanced toward him and growled, "Our whole future's at stake. My shareholders doubt my intentions. My execs question my authority. And my idiot customers are switching to other banks in the South. If I can't convince people I'm reliable, ZahlenBank will fall to pieces."

Dominic crossed his arms. "Quid pro quo. You get my blood, flesh and tears. The miners get revolving credit."

"Forget it. That's not an option."

"Then we have no deal."

A blurry pair of NPs slapped the holographic globe, and the net of satellites glowed white-hot. "Yield now, or your friends get cremated."

Dominic strained to see, but his eyes wouldn't work together. Concentrate, he told himself. He pictured Ane Zaki lying on her couch, luminous with fever, dreaming up new ways to generate energy. But how could he dream up loyalty to this genie when everything it did revolted him? He massaged his new eye. Cheap artificial contraption—he should have waited to install it. The genie held a twinned hand suspended over the globe, poised for his answer.

Instinct told him the NP was bluffing. He couldn't back down, so he prayed to whatever logic ruled a gambler's luck, and he answered in a low, dangerous whisper. "Do it."

The genie sliced its hand through the air, and the satellites erupted with a brilliant blue flash.

"Wait! Don't kill them! I concede everything!" Dominic lurched toward the globe as if he could shield the miners with his bare hands.

"You give your word? You'll be my loyal son again, and merge with me of your own free will?"

"Yes. Everything." Dominic bit his lip.

Instantly, the holographic eruptions froze—like a video on pause. He raised an eyebrow and squinted at the fuzzy, motionless starbursts hovering around the globe. Real laser fire wouldn't freeze like that.

"It's just a light show. You bastard."

"I want your respect, boy."

Dominic swung around and shouted in the genie's face. "Then do something I can respect!"

They stood toe to toe, leaning into each other, showing teeth, If the NP had been real, they would have started a shoving contest.

"Look at me. I'm you. We're Richter," said the genie. "We built the Ark. We single-handedly turned ZahlenBank into a world power."

"Power." Dominic spat the word.

"Our power is what keeps the markets alive, boy. That means food in every belly, coins in every pocket. That means, even though we pissed away our atmosphere, 12 billion people get to keep on breathing. Even your bullshit miners depend on ZahlenBank."

Dominic held out his hands, almost pleading. "Be dependable. Let the miners trust you."

The genie's holographic face went dark. "Hear me once and for all. No deals with protes! Richter wrote that policy in my hard code."

"Then change your code! Change, goddamn you! Change your mind!"

Dominic balled his fists, but his father was dead. There was no one to bit. He stepped through the hologram as if it weren't there and leaned his knuckles on the table. A smoky double reflection gazed up at him from its polished surface.

"You ask which version of Richter to be?" he said. "I'd like to tell you to choose a young Richter, one who still believed in honor. But the truth is, if Richter were still alive, he'd be someone new. That's what we flesh types do. For good or ill, we alter."

The NP moved around in front of him. "Like the markets?"

Dominic had never thought of it that way before. He pictured the erratic highs and lows of the indexes. Chaotic, unpredictable, forever mysterious. "Yes, like the markets."

"How do you revise yourself?" the NP said. "What's the process?"

Dominic's mouth twisted in a wry smile as he remembered his journey through the tunnels. "Things foul up, you lose familiar ground, you take prisoners when you don't mean to."

"That doesn't make sense. That's worthless. You have to be more specific."

Dominic's left eye watered freely, and he didn't bother to wipe it. He felt the deal slipping through his fingers. Somewhere real satellites circled the earth, armed with real weapons, and the NP would always have a finger on the trigger. The miners would never be free, because he simply didn't know how to explain himself to this bit-brain. It was impossible.

For some reason, an image of Tooksook popped into his mind, grinning like a fool and cutting those stale chocolate bars into thirty-eight tiny pieces so everyone in the colony got a treat. The picture was so ludicrous, a half-blind old man sawing away at candy bars with a plastic knife. Not impossible. A matter of division.

Dominic parted his lips. Silently he repeated his father's words: "There's no such thing as a simple deal." Somewhere inside him, a savvy negotiator came wide-awake, and he got an idea.

He turned to the hologram and gestured. "Let's break this down. You want to control ZahlenBank. I want to finance the miners." He sensed the NP trying to object, so he raised his hand. "Hear me out. I've already agreed to merge with you, but you say that's not enough. What if I add a sweetener to the deal?"

"Sweetener? Go on. I'm listening."

Dominic rocked on his heels and smiled. "You need your directors and shareholders to trust you. Well, I can make them love you. With my help, you can give them the one thing they want most—the one thing Richter tried to do for decades and never could."

"Beat the Orgs' lawsuit!"

"Correct. Stop the divestiture and keep ZahlenBank intact for good." Dominic rubbed his eye, and briefly the duplicated world slid together. "Give your investors that, and you own them. I'll merge with you and help you do it."

"I see your little scheme. Hell no! We'd be ruined!"

"I haven't explained yet."

"You wanna start up a new bank!"

"How did you know that?" said Dominic.

'Talk about bad precedents. You're toying to con me, boy." Then the NP snickered. "Fuck, it just might work."

Dominic frowned. "Have you invented some way to read my thoughts?"

"Yeah, I have." The NP snickered again and tapped the left side of its head. "We're already merged. Have been for an hour. Your fancy new eyepiece, it's a little design of my own."

'This came from you?" Dominic covered the artificial eye with his hand. He should have known. Runaways couldn't afford that kind of expense.

"Direct interface," the genie said. "I've invented a way to browse your real-time cognition? Call it my bit-brain style of empathy."

The NP's hologram flickered and went inert, frozen on standby mode with an inane smile plastered across its square open face. Dominic flinched when the voice vibrated inside his eye. "Your circuits are wet, boy. Stringy and wet. I don't like wet."

The new eye felt warmer than before. With a shudder, he imagined the NP roaming at will through his private thoughts. A spasm pulsed through his cheek, his neck muscle cramped, and the scarred left side of his face itched like a rash. How long, he wondered, before his identity began to submerge in the genie's vast sea of data?

He gripped the table edge and drew a sharp breath. No time to waste. He had to close this deal.

"At least you understand my idea," he said. "If a competing bank starts up in this hemisphere, ZahlenBank no longer holds a monopoly. And by law, the WTO can't force our breakup. Case closed. You win."

"Yeah, yeah, I'm already there," the NP said. "But you wanna bring in the fuckin' miners. That's nuts!"

"That's the key that makes it work." Dominic paced with nervous energy, twisting his hands in his pockets. "This new bank has to belong to total outsiders with no connection to ZahlenBank. Otherwise, the WTO will smell collusion."

"Fuckin' Orgs."

"Exactly." Dominic paced back and forth, remembering the vibrant confusion of the matching hall. He went on eagerly, "You need me to make this happen, NP. I know the miners. I can convince them to start a bank."

His artificial eye pulsed with sarcastic laughter. "A prote bank. That is so pathetic."

"It'll stop the lawsuit," Dominic said. "That's what counts. You'll win your case, and the investors will love you."

'So you say."

"You know it's true. You'll get everything you want. Me. The bank. Total control. And you'll even make a decent profit on the miners' loan."

"It might work."

"Is that a yes?"

"Awright, awright. Yeah, I like it. You want a handshake, too?"

Dominic rubbed his damp palms together and moistened his lips. Now the important part was coming. He had to do this perfectly. "Before we ink the contract, there's one more thing."

"You want more!" The NP's voice exploded like wildfire. "Don't push me, boy."

Dominic's shoulder muscles tensed. He gripped the in-sides of his pockets and forced himself to breathe. "Look, you're getting free access to my every thought. How long will it take to figure me out? You're a mega-genius."

"Don't try to flatter me. I wrote the book."

Dominic consciously relaxed his arms at his sides. When he spoke next, it was with the firm assurance of a master banker. "One year. I'll be your bonded slave for one year, then I want out. You're a quick study. That should be enough."

"Lifetime contract or nothing!" the NP barked.

"Think about it." Dominic modulated his voice to a confiding murmur. "I'll help you beat the Orgs. You'll humiliate those S.O. B.s. You'll make them eat your dust." Dominic paused dramatically, then lowered his voice to a whisper. "What's that worth to you?"

No answer.

Dominic rushed to the window and peered at his reflection to see what was happening in his eye. The dark iris gleamed. He blinked his mutilated eyelid and thought of Qi's narrow back running away from him. He wanted to hold her again, to whisper the words he couldn't say before. There was so much he wanted. He had to take this to the end.

"One year," he said to his image in the glass. "That's my final offer."

"You're lying, boy. I'm browsing your thoughts, remember? You care too much about those idiot miners. You'll do anything for 'em. You'll give me your whole life."

"But I'll hate you," Dominic blurted. Then he dropped into one of the heavy chairs and groaned. He'd run out of arguments. His bargaining ploys were exhausted. Benito, Tooksook, Ane Zaki, they were all running away from him. He watched them recede in the distance. Qi's blue-black hair swung between her shoulder blades as she sprinted away. One last deal—and he couldn't close it.

"Yes, I'll do anything," he surrendered. "You can have my whole life." Then he shut his eyes. He'd lost her.

At last, the voice in his head rumbled, "Okay. I get the picture."

CHAPTER 25
FUTURES

"NICK. N-I-C-K. Try to say it." Dominic mouthed the word elaborately. "N-n-n-nick."

Benito grinned. His black eyes gleamed with mischief as if he were relishing a secret joke. He said nothing.

They sat on the flotation collar around the ZahlenBank van, kicking their bare legs in the warm, late-summer waves of the Arctic. Both of them knew this moment couldn't last. As the breeze ruffled Dominic's wet, curly beard and the sea fluid dried on his chest, he gazed up at the smog and waved. Somewhere overhead, the NP watched through a lens.

"How about another swim before we go?" he asked the boy.

They stood together and dove into the oily gray sea. Side by side they swam, one turn out and back. He paddled slowly so the boy could keep up, and they splashed each other and ducked their heads to wash foamy scum off their faces. When they scrambled back onto the rubbery inflated collar, Dominic lay on his side and gazed at the horizon.

"Look at that, Benito. The sunset."

He pointed west, where blood-colored clouds opened like wounds. This might be the last time they would see a sunset together with naked eyes. In a few minutes, Benito would have to get in line with the others and go through cell hygiene.

The mining colonists had been cycling through ZahlenBank's fleet of medical vans for the past seven days—all part of Dominic's new contract with the NP. Now Benito's turn had come. Soon he would sit in the folding chair and lay his little arm on the padded rest, and the automated doc would inject molecule-size robots into his veins. While he sipped a sweet drink and watched videos, the cleaning robots would spread through his tissues and eradicate every trace of environmental toxin. Cell hygiene would wash him clean, and his flesh would be whole again. After that, he would not be allowed outside without a surfsuit.

Dominic puffed up his cheeks and blew, and Benito did the same. They got to their feet on the slippery flotation collar, took one last look at the scarlet clouds, then stepped together into the airlock. Ane Zaki was waiting inside the van. She sat with her feet tucked under her chair, sipping tea. Goose bumps stippled her pale arms, and a cotton ball was taped inside her elbow where the needle had gone.

"This cell hygiene makes you chilly." She shivered and smiled. "Like an ice bath."

Benito climbed into her lap, and she cuddled him.

"We could use a bath. Couldn't we, boy?" Dominic lifted Benito and placed him in a vacant chair. Together, they watched the automated doc shine a purple light to sterilize the boy's skin for the injection.

"What do you think of Anderungen?" the NP's voice hummed inside Dominic's artificial eye.

Dominic grimaced and subvocalized, "In what context?"

"I've been trying out names. It has a nice ring, don't you think? Anderungen. I'm sick of people calling me NP. That's not a fuckin' name. It's a product description."

"Does it matter?" Dominic showed Benito how to palm a coin and make it vanish and reappear. He wanted to distract the boy from the auto-doc's needle.

"Everybody deserves their own name," said the genie. "From now on, call me Anderungen."

"You're in a good mood. Let me guess. The Orgs settled." Dominic handed Benito the coin.

"Hell yes! We won, boy! I got the call just now. The court approved the miners' new bank charter and dismissed the lawsuit. And you'll love this, the Orgs have to eat fifty years' worth of court costs. Those wet-heads must be blowin' their circuits."

Benito waved his empty hands—he'd made the coin vanish! The boy was quick at learning. He pretended to find the coin in Dominic's belly button.

Dominic laughed and ruffled Benito's hair. Then he gazed out the van's side window, where a ZahlenBank air-car was just landing in the gray waves. "So it's done," he subvocalized. He'd gotten used to forming silent words at the back of his throat. It came naturally now.

"We have to be in Nome in one hour to dot the i's and sign the documents. Your transportation's waiting. Don't be late."

Dominic felt no sense of victory, no elation now that he'd finally won his father's long battle. His vision was clear. The double images had stopped troubling him. Already, smart nanoquans were migrating from his new artificial eye and healing the scarred tissue around his socket. The dark iris has changed color, too. Now it matched his other one perfectly. Sea gray, the classic Jedes' trait. The nanoquans had cured his skin rash, too. Dominic suspected the 'quans were performing other tasks as well, like smoothing his wrinkles and lifting the loose flesh under his chin. Jedes' vanity, he couldn't escape it.

One more thing the 'quans would do. After one year, they would dissolve and wash away in his bloodstream. One year, that was the length of his merger contract. The NP had made that concession. In the end, the genie decided a friendly takeover would serve its interests better than a hostile one. Or maybe the NP was already learning how to revise itself. For one year, it would ride along inside Dominic's head, observe his every thought and act, and try to discover what process he used to invent himself from one moment to the next. One year, and then Dominic would be a free man again. Would the genie honor its promise? It was up to Dominic to teach it how.

For now, he turned to Ane Zaki, who'd been quietly watching him play with Benito. A faint pink blush had returned to her cheeks, along with her air of benevolent calm. The cell hygiene had restored her health, and somewhere deep below them, her power plant whirred with renewed vigor, pumping currents of energy to illuminate the mining town spreading beneath the sea. Ane Zaki tilted her head and smiled.

"The major still won't see me," he said.

A touch of melancholy softened Ane Zaki's smile, and she slowly shook her head. "Qi is busy with her duties in the hospital."

"She despises me," Dominic said.

"No," said Ane Zaki.

"Aw, not this sentimental crap again." The NP sighed. "I'm too old for this shit. I'm loggin' out for a while."

Dominic felt an acute physical drain when the NP withdrew its presence. He was chagrined to find how accustomed he'd grown in just a few weeks to the genie's constant companionship. For once he had privacy—and he felt abandoned. Those nanoquans were feeding him some addictive drug, surely. Or maybe he was just weak—the kind of man who would always need someone.

"What if I go to the hospital and demand to see her?" he asked Ane Zaki.

The lady electrician shook her head again. As she gazed at him, her mild Asian eyes caught the light. They were like Qi's eyes, but not the same. "You've said good-bye, Nick. Don't disturb her again."

He nodded, knowing she was right and at the same time wanting one more chance to explain himself.

"Juanita Inez needs a word with you."

"Juanita?" Dominic wondered what the old grandmother could want. He'd given her enough money to set up her grandchildren for life.

"She's waiting for you in the bathysphere."

Through the window, Dominic saw the rusty, dented shuttle bobbing in the waves beside the sleek ZahlenBank car the NP had sent for him. The bathysphere's small round hatch gaped open, and a rickety ladder had been lowered into the water.

One more leave-taking. Juanita probably wanted to thank him again. This final trip to the colony saddened him more man he had expected. He'd already said his good-byes to Tooksook and the council, and he'd given Massoud ample advice about how to organize the new bank. They'd structured it along the lines of a mutual credit union, and Dominic even helped design the new nickel-plated coins. He also helped Massoud place ads on the Net. Naturally, the new bank would invite everyone.

The NP didn't take the new bank seriously, but Dominic did—because he'd seen the energy of the matching hall. He'd witnessed the colonists building their town from the castoff rubbish of North America, and he'd recognized the promise. Once he had dreamed of being part of it.

Now the old grandmother wanted to thank him again and embarrass him with hugs and kisses. He scowled at the bathysphere, then rolled his aching neck. Best to get it over with. Best to leave quickly and go back to his own world, the world that seemed blank now by comparison.

One last time, he bowed to Ane Zaki and ruffled Benito's hair. Then, before emotion could overtake him, he rushed through the van's airlock, dove into the sea and swam to the bathysphere. Juanita was waiting alone inside. She'd dyed her sack dress an earthy red and tied her long gray hair with a strip of the same rough cloth. Her new plastic boots shouted green. Otherwise, she wore no adornments, but she studied him with a self-assurance he hadn't noticed before.

"Let's take a trip," she said, closing the hatch.

Dominic glanced at his wrist node. "I don't have much time. I'm expected elsewhere."

"Indulge me, banker." Juanita shifted the old-fashioned levers, and the bathysphere sank into the ocean.

She handled the controls with skill. Even though she was the same gray-haired grandmother, she looked like a different person. Dominic tried to analyze what changed her. Posture maybe, or the way she held her head. The way her eyes twinkled.

"Watch the view," she said, pointing to the small round screen.

They descended steadily, and in a few moments, the miner's town loomed up out of the murk. Divers had strung necklaces of underwater floodlights, and the lamps cast cloudy glows through the green ocean. Dominic bent closer to study the blurred images forming on the screen. There was the Pressure of Light, now rooted to the seafloor by jerry-built annexes, enclosed walkways and tethered diving bells. Juanita brought the shuttle about, and he saw the old crawler from a different angle, its belt-driven treads mired deep in the silt. Not far away, the Dominic Jedes rocked very slightly on its moorings. Shipshape and fully occupied, its windows glowed a warm inviting yellow. Next to it lay the Zygote, listing a few degrees starboard. Blue-white flashes from a dozen welding rigs showered down its rusty flank, and shiny new patch-welds covered a third of its hull. Juanita steered toward the garbage mountains, where more wrecks lurked in the gloom, waiting for repair.

'Take me closer," he said suddenly. The mountains were moving. Every hillock and bluff of accumulated junk swarmed with activity. What was going on?

Juanita took the shuttle low. Frustrated with the screen's poor resolution, Dominic rushed to the tiny portal, cupped his hands around his eyes and peered through the thick, distorting glass. The mountains were covered with divers. They were picking through the waste, salvaging scrap, and he saw them piloting motorized sleds of reclaimed metal and plastic along the littered valley floors. The sleds held other things, too. Bales of cable. Machine parts. Electronic components. Dominic could only imagine the riches they were finding. These mountains held enough material to build Trondheim ten times over.

"Your money made this possible," Juanita said

He pressed his face closer to the glass. "How many people are here now?"

"That's confidential. I just thought you'd like to see your investment paying off." Juanita rested a hand lightly on his shoulder. "There's something else you should see. Come back to the screen."

She punched keys, and the screen dissolved into whirling rainbow colors. Some kind of graphic took shape, with surprising definition considering the shuttle's obsolete screen. Dominic tried to make sense of the colored patterns. Weather map? Satellite view of the upper atmosphere? Whatever it represented, it was beautiful. Bright green-and-blue masses streamed in whorls, condensed into white lumps, then exploded and re-formed. Perhaps it was an artist's rendition Of the early universe.

"What is it?" he asked.

Juanita answered, "It's the marketplace."

Dominic shot her a quick glance. The marketplace? He bent over the screen and studied the ceaseless movement, the shifting spectrum of colors, the massing and dissolution of bright spots. It mesmerized him. The flow seemed to pulse in a rhythmic reiteration, yet he couldn't quite pin it down. No movement ever exactly repeated.

"If this is an econometric model, it's the most sophisticated I've ever seen," he said. "Where did you get this, Juanita?"

"From my superiors." Juanita smiled. "Your Major Qi wasn't the only Org operative here."

Dominic stepped back and stared at her. She held herself erect and calmly returned his gaze.

"That's right. I'm a WTO agent. Gig asked me to show you this." She tapped the screen, where wine-colored masses were transitioning into darker, deeper violets. "The Orgs created this model to observe the tides of entropy in the marketplace. The program factors every market swing from order to disorder and back again. This is how the Orgs predict outcomes."

Dominic turned back to the entrancing screen. Pockets of light and darkness formed. "So what are you telling me, Juanita? The Orgs see the future?"

"No, not mat." Juanita sat on the pilot's stool and made herself comfortable, then patted another stool beside her. "Join me, coin giver. We need to talk."

Dominic was too curious to refuse. He sat beside her, and as the bathysphere drifted between two soaring peaks of wreckage, Juanita told him what the Orgs had forecast. Richter Jedes, she said, was a true visionary. ZahlenBank's iron-fisted monetary control had kept the markets teetering in steady state for almost two centuries, ensuring full employment—and delaying the onset of radical change.

"But change is inevitable, Dominic. You've seen the reports. Temperatures are still rising, resources are failing, and technology's not keeping up." Juanita picked at the folds of her dress. "I don't have to tell you about the queues down in the tunnels."

"The tail end of things," Dominic muttered.

"Not at all," she said. "More like a pressure cooker without a vent."

Dominic watched the screen as she talked. Greens, yellows and fuchsias coiled together and blossomed. Sometimes linear shapes emerged, chains and spirals of faceted crystals. Sometimes the colors branched like veins. He said, "The miners made a vent."

"Precisely." Juanita took his hand between hers and patted it. "A condition of intolerable pressure was building. The colony became necessary, so the marketplace created it."

"Incredible," Dominic said. "The Orgs predicted that?"

"We foresaw that the marketplace would self-correct."

"You knew I would help the miners, even before I knew it myself?"

Juanita demurred. "We had reason to trust your instincts."

"And you knew about Qi." Dominic jerked his hand free and pulled away from her. "You deliberately threw us together."

"Dominic, the Orgs can't measure the position of every particle in the system. We deal in probabilities. Certain incidents act as fulcrums around which the streams of causality bend and change direction. That's what we look for. Sometimes we assist—carefully. Remember, the WTO is inside the system, too."

Juanita-got up and squinted through the tiny portal. "Banker, this is not the tail end of anything. The markets are swinging back to order again. Production is up. Prices are holding. Every condition is temporary."

"And the colony? What about that?"

Juanita shook her head. "It's stabilizing, for a while. When the miners first sent their broadcast, an initial flood of runaways burst out of their overcrowded Coms and came here. But now the pressure has eased, and the flow is trickling off."

Dominic rose and joined her at the portal. They watched a team of divers unearthing an old surface vehicle, half crushed and rotted with rust. Inside its sealed trunk were boxes of plastic toys. "People will always come here," Dominic murmured.

"Yes, they will." Juanita smiled at his reflection in the glass. "But only a few. The journey's hazardous. Most workers would rather stay in protected jobs. The colony is already becoming a myth. A necessary myth. You see that?"

"I think so."

"That's why Gig shielded the miners and disguised their broadcast."

"Gig inserted that office maintenance account into the Ark, too. Didn't he?" Dominic set his jaw. "Gig's fingerprints were all over it."

"Um-hm. And that's why we dropped the court case." Juanita winked. "Let your genie believe we're blowing circuits and eating court costs. The Orgs lost nothing."

Dominic gazed out the portal and chewed over this information. One of the divers had found some kind of paddle-shaped device in the box of toys. The paddle had a ball attached with an elastic string, and the diver was attempting to bat the ball around underwater. After a moment, Dominic laughed.

"So what's next, Juanita? What does the mighty Gig predict for my future?"

Juanita laughed, too. "When we return to the surface, your genie will be furious with both of us. It'll want to know why this old bathysphere is clad in stealth shielding. You can tell it anything you like. I'll go back to the colony and raise my grandchildren. I trust you won't betray me."

"The NP reads my mind, Juanita. I can't hide anything."

"Then I'd better do something to make you forget for a while." She pinched his cheeks affectionately. Already, she was slumping, sagging, visibly changing back into the arthritic old woman he'd first met in the raft. She operated the levers, and the craft began to rise.

"But—you can't see what's ahead for me?" he asked.

Juanita chuckled gaily. "You'll lead an interesting life, coin giver."

"I wanted to stay here and help start up the new bank and—other things."

Juanita worked the levers and watched the dials. "You have a lot of hard choices ahead. Like everyone."

"I'll come back in a year," he said. "I will."

"Tooky thinks you will."

"He does?"

"Right now, you have an appointment to keep elsewhere. Go, Dominic. Go where you belong." Juanita stood on her tiptoes and kissed his cheek, and he felt a tiny spark of static electricity.

At that moment, the bathysphere broke through the surface and tilted violently on a rolling wave. Bright sunlight streamed through the portal. And like a power surge, the NP's presence charged into his artificial eye.

"Where've you been? You belong in Nome, boy. We're about to seal the deal of the century. You gotta sign the documents. I need you, boy."

"I'm coming."

Dominic offered Juanita a handshake, but the old woman hugged him to her fleshy bosom. Blushing, he made a quick transfer from the bathysphere to the ZahlenBank aircar.

"You're soaking wet," the NP ranted. "Get cleaned up. I packed you a suit. What did that old hag want anyway?"

"Nothing important. I can't even remember."

"Huh. That's freakin' strange," the NP said. "I'll figure it out"

Dominic didn't really care. He buckled himself into the seat and watched the pilot ready the craft for flight. Through the window, he could see the old bathysphere tilting in the waves. Juanita was leaning out of the hatch and struggling to haul up the ladder. Inside his comfortable cabin, a musical chime signaled imminent liftoff, and he heard the engines powering up.

"Wait," he said.

"Wait for what?" said the NP.

"Something I have to do without you." Dominic was already unbuckling. "I need you to log out."

"We don't have time!" the NP railed. "The meeting!"

"Give me five minutes. The sooner you log out the sooner I'll be back."

"More sentimental crap. I know I'm gonna regret this. Okay, five minutes."

Dominic felt the drain as the NP withdrew. Then he rushed through the airlock and wrenched open the car's exterior door. "Juanita!" He dove into the ocean and swam for the bathysphere. "Juanita!" he called, spitting gray foam. "Juanita, let the ladder down."

The descent to the hospital deck on the Pressure of Light took only a few minutes, but it seemed to go on forever. Once inside the ship, he sprinted through the corridors, checking every ward, asking everyone he met if they'd seen Qi Raoshu. He found her feeding tea to an old woman propped up on a cot. The instant she saw him, she sprang to her feet and reared back as if she meant to hurl the cup at him. The old woman gaped.

"Qi," he said. Then he couldn't go on.

"Don't talk to me." She knelt again and began pouring tea down the old woman's chin and neck till the woman coughed and pushed her away.

"Qi," he said again.

"You've got that thing in your eye." She dabbed roughly at the woman's chin with a washcloth. "I won't have it spying on me."

"It's gone, I swear." Dominic knelt beside her. "Wait for me. I'll come back in one year."

She smoothed the woman's blanket with both hands as if she meant to iron out every wrinkle. "You're gonna play Siamese brains with your dear old Da. Who knows what you'll be like after a year."

"My father is dead. It's just me now. No one else is here. Look at me." He tried to touch her, but she jerked away. "Please, Major. I need you."

She swung around and started beating him with her fists. "I'm not your preter-vicious major! I never have been!"

"Yes, you are." He caught her in his arms and held her. "You are my preter-vicious major. Say it, Qi. Say you'll wait."

She sobbed into his shoulder and bit him. "You're a scheming liar and a thief, and you'll promise anything." Then she kissed him. "Conceited, selfish, underhanded." She kissed him again, hard on the mouth, and. she hugged him as if she meant to crack him open. "Plus you're lazy," she said.

"Don't forget greedy." He nuzzled her neck. "And lustful."

"And way too pale."

Glancing over Qi's shoulder, Dominic saw the old woman give him a thumbs-up.

Much, much later, back in the ZahlenBank car, he borrowed the pilot's headband and adjusted the wire in front of his right eye.

With a jolt, the NP surged back into his head. "We missed the meeting! I can't believe I let you do that!"

"So we make the Orgs cool their heels." Dominic calmly rebuckled his seat belt. "The deal isn't going to evaporate because we got hung up in traffic."

'Traffic! Krishna Christ, boy!"

As the car lifted off, Dominic watched the fleet of medical vans disappear in the smog. Then he switched to metavision and continued to watch till they dwindled away behind him to infinitesimal particles and finally vanished in the dazzling purple waves.

One year, he promised.

Aloud he said, "That name you picked out, tell me again?"

"Anderungen," the NP said proudly.

"So how about a trade? I'll call you Anderungen if you'll call me Dominic. No more 'son' or 'boy' or anything like that. We're partners, not relatives."

"Sure, sure. You wanna be called Dominic. I can do that."

"Splendid." Dominic put the headband away and opened his notebook. "Let's go over that Org settlement again, point by point, to make sure they don't trick us."

The NP chuckled. "Hell, I like the way you think. We're two sides of a coin, you and me."

"A coin with two heads." Dominic stroked his beard and smiled at his interesting life. Such a deal.

THE END

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The Coin Giver

Table of Contents

CHAPTER 1:
SHORT POSITIONS
CHAPTER 2
PAYABLE ON DEMAND
CHAPTER 3
ARBITRAGE
CHAPTER 4
MARGIN REQUIREMENT
CHAPTER 5
FLOATING EXCHANGE
CHAPTER 6
BEARER BOND
CHAPTER 7
COST OF LIVING
CHAPTER 8
SUPPLY AND DEMAND
CHAPTER 9
LIQUIDITY
CHAPTER 10
DEBENTURES
CHAPTER 11
CONSUMABLES
CHAPTER 12
MERCANTILE
CHAPTER 13
USURY
CHAPTER 14
DRAIN ON RESERVES
CHAPTER 15
VOLATILITY
CHAPTER 16
TURNAROUND
CHAPTER 17
MARGIN CALL
CHAPTER 18
RATE MOVEMENT
CHAPTER 19
NONNEGOTIABLE
CHAPTER 20
PRIVATE ENTERPRISE
CHAPTER 21
CODICIL
CHAPTER 22
CAPITAL PRESERVATION
CHAPTER 23
ACCRUAL
CHAPTER 24
WILL AND TESTAMENT
CHAPTER 25
FUTURES