Ballistic (The Palladium Wars), стр. 39

flight levels in streams that seemed to diverge and converge hundreds of times from her vantage point at ground level. There were advertising projections everywhere on building walls and above storefronts, flashing and pulsing and cycling through slogans. Through the massive viewport, it was a sudden and overwhelming visual onslaught, Acheron introducing itself to visitors with a handful of fireworks to the face. Solveig had lived in and near Sandvik, biggest city of the biggest and oldest planet in the system, for most of her life. But seeing just this slice of Acheron’s largest city through the viewport of the station made her feel like a backwater colonist. There was no doubt in her mind that the Acheroni had designed this in-your-face presentation with the purpose to impress and awe, and she had to concede that it excelled at that.

“What do you think?” Kee asked her. Both the Hanzo men by her side were scanning her face, waiting for a reaction.

“It’s the best thing I’ve ever seen,” she said, momentarily robbed of her entire Acheroni vocabulary.

Hanzo had a fleet of surface transport pods waiting. They were all four seaters, and Cuthbert, Solveig’s corporate security agent, insisted on riding with her and Anja. Kee took the fourth seat, eager to show off his home city some more.

Coriolis City was everything she had expected it to be, and at the same time it was nothing like her expectations. According to Kee, the social topography of Acheron cities was the opposite of that of any other large city she knew. The street level was the most desirable layer, not the top floors, and the outside of the city was more desirable than the center. The transport pod had a clear roof, and Solveig could see countless skyways connecting buildings in every direction.

“Our fresh air comes from below, not above,” Kee explained when she asked him the reasons for the difference. “Our outer ring is closer to the dome. Better views, closer to the periphery parks. And if you live at street level, you don’t have to waste time with vertical travel.”

Their column rode along kilometer after kilometer of sensory overload. Solveig saw hundreds of shops, businesses, amusement complexes, and residence towers, interspersed with parks and plazas and unfamiliar buildings whose mystery was only enhanced by the fact that she couldn’t read much of the signage. Acheroni writing was the hardest part of learning the language, and it was difficult to decipher syllable sequences when they were spelled out on holographic projections she passed at fifty kilometers per hour. It was all so wildly foreign and unusual that it made her heart leap in her chest with every unfamiliar sighting.

I’m finally here, she thought. I finally get to see another planet. And Papa is a hundred million kilometers away right now.

Then she looked over at Cuthbert. The security officer caught her glance and smiled curtly, then returned his attention to the street outside of his window again. Solveig suppressed a sigh. As long as she had him tagging along, she knew that Papa would only be as far away from her as the comtab in Cuthbert’s suit pocket, thanks to the instant data traffic of the Mnemosyne.

The unintended drawbacks of quantum entanglement, she thought.

Her private comtab hummed its brief incoming message alert. She pulled it out of her pocket and looked at the contents of the message in the palm of her hand, unwilling to open a screen projection that Cuthbert would be able to read in mirror image.

Do you have dinner plans yet?

She smiled and looked out of the window. From what she could tell, every third or fourth shop out there was a noodle joint.

I do, but you’ll find it tricky to join me. I’m on Acheron on business. Tonight it’s whatever the locals are having. Wish me luck with the spice scale gamble.

She sent the reply off into the Mnemosyne to Detective Berg. His response came just a few seconds later.

Jealous.

She tucked the comtab away again and smiled at the thought of the tousled-haired detective scratching his head and writing his one-word response in the middle of the culinary row in Sandvik. Right now, not even the presence of Papa’s electronic leash in Cuthbert’s pocket would temper her enjoyment of something she had been looking forward to since the first week of university. And if Cuthbert wanted to report in detail on the walk to the nearest noodle shop she had planned for the evening, he was welcome to waste his time, and Papa’s, too.

CHAPTER 12

ADEN

“What a piece of junk,” Tess said in an awestruck voice. The expression on her face was a blend of disgust and admiration. “If that shit bucket can pull more than three g without shaking itself apart, I’ll eat a square meter of their deck lining.”

The image on the forward bulkhead projection was a high-resolution visual of the ship they were supposed to meet for cargo transfer. Aden knew next to nothing about spaceships, but even he could tell that the ship a hundred kilometers off their starboard bow was beyond its best space-going years. It was a freighter of some sort, considerably larger than Zephyr, but it didn’t look sleek and new like their little speed yacht. It looked like it had been assembled out of spare parts from half a dozen ships, and none of those parts looked like they were originally designed to fit together in this fashion.

“It’s no wonder they need to hire someone for a stealth run,” Maya said. “That would be the worst smuggling ship ever. The Rhodies could get a sensor return from a million klicks away.”

“Look at that,” Tess pointed. “Someone welded on external tanks to extend the range. They just ran twenty meters of fuel line externally so it would connect to the original feed without having to cut into bulkheads. If you try to dock that contraption at Oceana, the station controller will have a coronary event. I’m not sure