Engineman - Eric Brown [43]
"If I do," Fekete said, "I go and take a cold shower until the feeling passes. But what's all this about the flux? Have you two come by a tank, perchance?"
"Ralph was approached by a guy this morning, asked him if he missed the flux."
Fekete was nodding. "Sounds like a pusher."
"He was an off-worlder, name of Hirst Hunter. He wanted to meet the team-"
Fekete held up a restraining hand. "Stop there. Did you say Hirst Hunter?"
"That's right. You know him?"
"I know of him, if he's the same gentleman. Is he by any chance handicapped by an extreme facial growth?"
Mirren displayed the pix. "This him?"
Fekete squinted. "I think it is, Ralph. You say he's a flux-pusher?" He sounded doubtful.
"I thought so."
Fekete shook his head. "Sounds highly unlikely. I mean, what would a fellow like Hunter be doing pushing flux like some cheap street hustler?"
"Who is he?" Dan asked.
"He was - and still might be - a trouble-shooter for the Danzig Organisation-"
Mirren interrupted, "The Rim sector interface company?"
"The very same - the Organisation responsible for the military take-over of a hundred or more erstwhile free planets over the past twenty years," Fekete said. "Hirst Hunter was in the news ten, fifteen years ago - accused of organising terrorist strikes against the last of the bigship Lines on the edge of the Expansion. It was never proven, but his name was linked to a number of other dirty tricks campaigns around the Rim."
"So he works for one of the companies who put us out of business?" Dan said.
"Do you recall the attack on a smallship on Emerald ten years ago? Three spacers were killed and the Danzig Organisation was implicated."
"I remember something about it," Mirren said.
"Well, Hunter was reportedly behind that, too."
"But what the hell would a Danzig high-up be doing selling flux-time?" Dan said.
"I think you'll find that he isn't," Fekete said. "You say he wanted to see us?"
"I arranged to meet him at the Gastrodome at midnight."
"If you don't mind, I'd like to come along," Fekete said, "and see what Monsieur Hunter is up to."
"We'll meet you on the corner of Gastrodome boulevard and fifth in... say fifteen minutes?"
Fekete inclined his head. "I'll see you then, gentlemen."
He cut the connection.
Dan indicated the wall-clock. "We'd better get moving."
They took Mirren's flier and mach'd low over the rooftops, passing in and out of lighted districts where the city still functioned. The vast, hemispherical dome which covered the centre of Paris appeared before them, dominating the skyline. The dazzling bauble protected ancient buildings and monuments - many of them moved from their original sites - from the elements and the street-gangs alike.
A descend imperative flashed on the windscreen from a traffic control tower, and Mirren followed a channel of laser vectors which stitched the night like tracer. They swooped to street level and idled behind a line of other vehicles, fliers, roadsters and coaches, waiting to be admitted into the central precinct. At the checkpoint, an archway in the wall of the dome, Mirren proffered his identity card to a bored gendarme who barely glanced at it and waved them through. He hovered slowly along the streets - air flight was prohibited within the dome - past ancient buildings and parks. It was a part of Paris he'd had no reason to visit in years, and the grandeur of the architecture, unspoilt by the depredations of alien vegetation, reminded him of the time when Paris was a city of both influence and culture. Hordes of tourists from Oceania and South America strolled along the avenues, admiring the genteel beauty of a bygone age. Later, by contrast, they would slum it in the safer sectors of the ghettos and experience what the city had become.
Mirren steered his flier along the wide boulevards towards their rendezvous with Fekete.
Chapter Eight
Birdsong and the scent of Hennessian honeysuckle...
Ella was in her bedroom at her father's villa, in the luxurious Falls district