It was chaos.
Thousands of people walking, tagging along on slow-moving, black-marked walk-ways, or riding small, white electric trikes that whirred whenever they powered up or down. Everyone talking, to their friends, their coms, the empty air. Dozens of languages, hundreds of accents jabbering all at once.
The ventilation slapped my face with a hot, humid wind of sweat, crushed orange, chemical jasmine. The floor was endless, disappearing in the distance before I could even notice the curvature.
Rimont was beyond enormous. I suddenly understood why Hao had hated the idea of visiting it, and agreed with her. Still, it was perfect.
I paused at a stall selling noodle soup, holding up my hand and forcing Hao to stop unless she wanted to walk into me. Aluminum pot the size of a bathtub. Black worms floating in a fatty broth dotted with green onions. Chili, garlic, turmeric, butter. Vat grown or chemical, I didn't care. The smell made me salivate.
"Hot?" I said.
"Spicy to curl your toes," the seller replied, in a deep-pitched drawl.
"Two," I said, holding up a ten-gram vial of helion. The seller beeped it against a reader, validating it. Many people, little trust. Check.
"Are you insane?" Hao hissed in my ear. "Ten grams for a bowl of soup?"
"Two bowls," I said, handing her one. Her jaws were clenched tight. "Relax," I said. "That's an order. And enjoy the soup. That's another order."
She glared, but took the soup. Two spoons in, she coughed, swallowed, coughed some more.
"Don't tell me that wasn't worth five percent of our wealth," I said.
Hao waved her clear polymer spoon at me, flinging drops of soup in a small arc around her. "It wasn't, but it was voidmunching close."
Maybe she was right, but as I coughed my way through the peppery soup, slurping pale noodles and black meat-worms with equal abandon, it was worth every gram.
Not only for the soup, but for the information.
Twice, four-man security teams passed us by. Both times, the soup seller looked down or away. Once a pair of Trade Inspectors rode past on an electric trike, the white carapace bisected by a thin, blue line, assault rifles and warded armor on display. Everyone got out of their way in a hurry.
Enjoying this book? Seek out the original to ensure the author gets credit.
Something was wrong on Rimont station. I didn't know what, and I didn't want to find out. Dock, sell, refit, leave was starting to sound mighty attractive no matter how many swimming pools the station featured. I tilted my bowl, letting the last fatty drops slip past my lips.
Sated, I motioned for Hao to get on the walk-ways, letting the sliding floor carry us forward while we gawked. Red, green, blue signs in artfully twisting light-strips announced shops, malls, restaurants. Rimont seemed to have ingested the neo-catenary movement and forgot to spit it out. Everything was curves, or free-hanging wires. Even the walls bulged or bent gracefully. The only straight things were the black-armored security teams.
"What are we looking for?" Hao said.
"That," I said, pointing to a blue trade broker sign proclaiming Joar's Import-Export.
Joar's was you typical trading office, clean, well-staffed, way too much beige. Beige carpet, caffe latte walls, khaki seats. Dark umber ship markers on an off-white trade board, listing ships docking, loading, or reading for departure. Even the clerks were sandy-colored. There were three of them.
"May I help you?" the junior clerk said. The fact that he was junior was amply exhibited by him approaching. All three of them had given me and Hao a quick glance, then gone back to taping their readouts. Scrolling the news and gossip columns no doubt.
"I'd like to sell," I said, raising my com and bringing up my cargo manifest.
"I see." The junior clerk kept a good two meters between us. Just close enough that I could smell his too strong crushed-orange perfume, not close enough that he would risk touching me. It made me want to punch him.
My com blinked, searching for an open receive channel. None was forthcoming.
"Well?" I said, tapping the readout meaningfully.
Junior clerk hesitated, glanced at his superiors, realized no help was forthcoming and gave me a smile so fake that real smiles would sue it for infringement. A channel opened, and I sent my manifest.
The clerk glanced at it, tilted his head, rubbed his nose, and declined to do business with me.
"Voidmuncher," I said, letting the door seal closed behind me.
"Truest thing you said today, captain," Hao said. "What now?"
"That," I said, pointing to another trading consortium sign, and letting the black walk-way carry me there.
Different color scheme, different ships on the trade board, same result. I came out from the trader more surprised than annoyed. One crudmunger was chance. Two was unlikely.
Three was dangerous.
We'd gone a good fifteen minutes, walking on the moving walk-way to get away from the passenger docks faster, on the theory that crud accumulated where money flowed.
The trader sign said Milamber Pug's. The sign showed a serene, black-robed older man. The couches were dark, soft, and highlighted in chrome. The trade board was all black, with silver miniature ships standing above manifests and destinations.
The result was the same. Junior clerk, disdain, dismissal.
I lifted my arm, sniffing under my armpit.
"Did I start to smell or something?" I said.
The clerk shifted from foot to foot. She was a barely taller than me, with discretely rouged cheeks and a pale orange lipstick.
"Sir?" she said, glancing over her shoulder for backup. The three other clerks were studiously studying their gossip columns, pretending I didn't exist.
I lowered my voice.
"Everyone's treating me like recycling vat reflux," I said, pulling a jar of vanilla from my pocket. "This is pure organic vanilla, planet grown, thirty grams. Tell me why I'm being shunned, and it's yours."
The clerk licked her teeth, glanced at her superiors, bit her lip. Apparently bribes to juniors was frowned upon on Rimont. Either that, or just talking to me made her position precarious.
"There is a restaurant two crossings down," she said, quietly. "Called Doorman Saul's. I can be there in ten minutes."
"Ten minutes it is," I said. Then I gave her a nod, and stomped out, giving the revolving door a shove on my way out, as if I'd been snubbed.
Might save her some explaining to her superiors. I'm not a total crudmuncher.
