Burning Bright

Because he’s the best netwalker I’ve ever seen. And he plays politics. Damian said aloud, keeping a tight rein on his temper, “Illario Ransome is brilliant on the nets. He is also an imagist, he taps all the nets, all of them, he goes trawling for images for his story eggs, and he remembers everything. He’s the only person who would be at the right place at the right time to spot the paper trail, and the only one who has enough outside information to put the pieces together. Does that make it clear?”

There was a little silence, and then ji-Imbaoa looked away. “Still, you should have what you want. He should be distracted, investigating your Game.”

“I hope so.” Damian paused, considering. It might work, at that, might give him the time he needed to—adjust—the customs nets to accept his new cargo. If Ransome did as he was told, of course, and if Cella’s scenarios were enough to catch his eye… But Storm was coming, too, and the first few days of Carnival were celebrated on the nets, as well as on the streets. The two things together might be enough to let him get away with it. “Have you gotten the destination codes?”

“I am still waiting,” ji-Imbaoa said. “I will pass them on to you as soon as I have them, you need not worry.”

I always worry, Damian thought, but said, “All right. The sooner the better, though, Na Speaker, because without them I can’t get this cargo into HsaioiAn.” He paused, seeing annoyance in the sudden clenching of ji-Imbaoa’s hands, made himself add, “Thanks for dealing with Ransome, though.”

Ji-Imbaoa’s hands relaxed. “We are in this together, Na Chrestil. Now, I have had an active night, and wish to sleep.”

“Sleep well, then,” Damian answered, and cut the connection. He leaned back in his chair, ran his hand across the shadowscreen to close down the link. The triptych slid slowly back into place over the now-empty screen, and he stared at it for a moment. I wonder what it would cost me to commission Ransome to do a piece to replace it? he wondered, and grinned at the thought. It might keep him busy for a while, and he’d be furious: it’s an insultingly minor job. Hell, it might be worth asking just to see the look on his face. He fiddled with the shadowscreen, filing the thought for later consideration, and touched another icon to bring up the rest of his mail. The secretary, programmed to be helpful, appended a to-do list as well. Damian considered it for a moment, and succumbed to temptation. Rosaurin wanted him to approve the next week’s shipping plot, and that was much more fun than the painstaking records-melding that needed to be done. He pushed himself away from his desk and out the door before he could change his mind.

Day 30

High Spring: Ransome’s Loft,

Old Coast Road, Newfields,

Above Junction Pool

Ransome half sat, half lay in the chair that conformed itself to his thin body, barely aware of the shifting cushions that held him exactly where he wanted to be. Images filled the air around him, ghostly yet substantial-seeming, all but blocking out the cityscape spread out below the loft windows. The windows dimmed again, cutting out the sunlight—they had been dimming steadily since sunrise, following the house programming—but Ransome did not notice, lost in the flickering narrowcasts that held and surrounded him. The implants set into the bones at the outer edges of his eye sockets caught and amplified the conflicting signals; his wire gloves, thin and flexible and warm as blood, let him sculpt the space around him, defining each unreal volume according to his whim. The offerings of half a dozen different narrownets danced in the air around him: Gamers to his left, four different sessions played out in as many different venues, three old, pretaped, the fourth a late-night session that had dragged on into the morning. Faces and streets and shadows, culled illegally from the Lockwardens’ security systems, wove in and through the other images, overlaying them with a bizarre patchwork of morning light and shade. The matching audio murmured on a dozen channels from the speakers at the base of the room’s walls, backing the images with the solidity of sound. His attention was fixed on a single image, floating overhead, at the apex of the cone of light and noise: flickering market glyphs from the port computers spun in delicate linkage, legitimate public numbers and private taps combined into a single database, strings of numbers combined into a dazzling three-dimensional shape that had a weird organic beauty all its own.