In the end, Montar bought all of my spare plates, and most of my vanilla. In return, I'd get a complete new vat and recycling system, an aquifer, a pair of fully stocked fish tanks, and enough supplies to last us for four years or more, depending on how good the recycling system was. All I needed to do, was get down to her warehouse and pick what I wanted, and sign for the release of the plates.

  "I'm coming right now," I said and closed the channel, opening a new one to Hao. It rang twice before she answered, her voice heavy with sleep.

  "Wake and jump," I said using my most chipper tone, "we have a meeting with the kind and generous Mistress Montar."

  "Go void yourself," Hao mumbled, and closed the channel. I gave her five minutes, then rang again. Instead of answering, she exited her cabin, zipping up her armored jacket.

  "You've got your gun?" I said.

  "Better." Hao raised the hem of her jacket, showing me her tool belt.

  It was mostly empty, a broad, blue swath of reinforced polymer. But on her hip hung a few long, narrow screwdrivers, and her crowbar. Which she'd almost brained me with when we'd first met.

  "Brings back fond memories," I said. "Can't you just use a club like normal people?"

  "Clubs raise all manner of questions. Crowbars don't."

  Which was the truth. We got off the Bucket and down the docks without trouble.

  Riding the walk-ways to Montar was a thirty-minute journey. About five minutes in, something started to bother me.

  We were riding through the middle levels of Rimont station. Lots of people wearing bright blues, greens, yellows. A few dark-clad clerks and traders. Food vendors every so often. The lights were dimmer, this being the off-cycle and most day-workers at home and asleep. Cleaning crews moved up the streets, directing miniature mechs. The place smelled of jasmine disinfectant.

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  "What's wrong with this?" I asked Hao, nodding toward the street around us.

  She raised a bushy eyebrow.

  "Looks normal to me," she said. "For a place where prices are crudmunging crazy."

  "Something is different," I said.

  "Less people. More room to move about."

  My com beeped, giving me a confirmation that the cargo pallets we had off-loaded and left in consignment had been claimed.

  "Montar's people have got our plates," I said. It should have made me feel better, the trade being halfway over, but it didn't.

  A trio of girls in tight, bright-yellow dresses, so alike they could have been sisters, or used the services of the same reconstructive surgeon, passed us on the meeting walk-way. They were giggling at something one of them was showing on a com readout. A noodle vendor called out to them, waving his ladle at the price list above his huge, steaming pot.

  "You're right," Hao said. "Something feels different."

  "I know," I said, turning and looking behind us.

  More people. The yellow-dressed girls were still looking at the readout, their backs to us.

  Nothing special. No crowds but not empty. In the distance, a shouting match erupted between two young men dressed entirely in blue. The stench of disinfectant was thinning, chased away by the smell of peppers and garlic from a food cart.

  Something was missing, though.

  We stepped away from the walk-way, onto a crossing one, taking us at an angle from the main street. The lights grew dimmer. More closed shops and residential apartments here. Fewer people, most hurrying in the opposite direction. Late revelers or early workers, maybe.

  We stepped from the high-speed walkway to a slower one, heading for the descent toward the third level and Montar's warehouse. A lonesome couple, younger man, older woman, passed us in the opposite direction. Then we were traveling alone.

  From a side alley ahead, someone waved.

  I looked around. The couple was a good hundred meters behind us. The walkway was bringing us closer to the waving person, a hunched-up shape, wearing dark grey.

  "You see that?" I asked.

  "I see it," Hao said, her hand going to rest on the protruding head of her crowbar. Mine fell to my thigh, before I remembered that I was wearing a back holster, not my customary side.

  The waving intensified, the person trying to beacon us toward them.

  "Check or flee?" I said.

  "Your call, captain." Damn the responsibilities of command.

  The street was fairly well lit. So was the alley. I could see a ways down it, mostly shut doors and a couple of the small, white trikes that cruised the streets during the day. We were almost level with the frantically waving person. I made my decision.

  "Off," I said, stepping down from the walk-way. Better to figure out what was wrong than to walk blindly forward. Behind me, Hao's boots splashed into a puddle. Otherwise, the street was silent. And I realized what had bothered me so much.

  There were no guards.