Schismatrix plus - Bruce Sterling [56]
Lindsay pulled himself through the darkness, tugging the loading crate behind him. He tapped at the rock as he went. "Paolo! Fazil!" A stone plug grated aside and Paolo appeared in an eerie glow of candlelight. He pulled himself out to the elbows and leaned toward Lindsay.
"Yes? What can we do for you?"
"Let's talk terms, Paolo."
"Is it that orgy business again?"
"We're doing a launch," Lindsay said. He jerked his thumb at the loaded crate behind him. "We could do two launches if we can come to an agreement." Lindsay smiled. "Favor for favor, all right? I'll get you your launch. In return you back me up on the Carnaval proposal."
Paolo's face wrinkled. He rubbed gently at the oozing sores beneath his chin. "Trade our bodies for our art. Forget it, State. The rest would never go along with it. Can you imagine Kleo"—his voice fell—"her legs open to that thug captain?"
"I didn't say it would actually happen," Lindsay said. "I only want you to agree to back me up. Do you want the head launched or don't you?" Paolo glanced back into the tunnel. "I say yes," came Fazil's voice.
"Then I want one of you to go to the launch room and help set parameters," Lindsay said. "And the other to come with me and help me load the launch ring. And not a word to anyone about our agreement, understood?"
"You get us our launch. Then we'll make you look good with the others. Like you talked us into it with sheer charisma, right?"
"Those are my terms," Lindsay said. "You keep my secrets, I'll keep yours. Now, which of you is going to set the launch?"
"I will," said Paolo. He squirmed past Lindsay in the tunnel and vanished in the darkness, headed for the launch control room. Fazil peered out. "What's in the crate?" he said.
"Evidence," Lindsay said. "Souvenirs from past raids and the like. Things that might embarrass us, now that we've settled here for good." It was half the truth, as Lindsay understood it. The embarrassment would not come within esairs but at the Mech cartel, when the pirates would have to be on their best behavior. Major cartels like Themis were particular; even in their dogtowns, open piracy was not condoned.
The pirates had loaded the crate without his knowledge and told him to launch it. By this token he knew that their coup was close. Fazil moved into the tunnel with his candle. "May I look?" He reached past Lindsay and put one hand on the packing crate. A pitch-black roach squeezed head first out between the plastic slats, waving whip-thin antennae as long as a forearm. Fazil snatched his hand back with a hiss of disgust. Lindsay made a quick grab at the roach but missed.
"Filthy," Fazil muttered. "Help me with the head." Lindsay followed him into the workshop. Together, they heaved and wrestled the massive head out into the corridor. It was a tight fit in the narrow tunnel. "Maybe we should grease it," Lindsay said.
"Paolo's face isn't going into eternity with a snotty nose," said Fazil. He blew out the candle and resealed the workshop. He pushed the sculpture ahead of him, toward the launch ring. Lindsay followed, towing the crate. The route was devious, traversing gnawed-out rock veins where the air was stale. The ring's loading dock was near the surface of the asteroid, set in one wall of esairs' major industrial center. Here, next to the launch ring, they manufactured the decoys.
The decoy complex was a grapelike cluster of fermentation bags, connected by flaccid hydraulic tubes, anchored with guy ropes and ringed by harsh banks of bluish grow-lights. The cluster hung in midair, its translucent chambers churning sluggishly.
The complex had not been shut down completely; that would have killed the wetware. But its production was cut almost to nothing. The blowpipes had been unplugged from their output duct into the launch ring. Instead of thin decoy film, they were producing a thick, colorless froth. The air reeked with the sharp fever stench of hot plastic.
The Family's robot was on duty. It stopped in mid-program as Fazil floated past it, clutching the head. As Lindsay drifted by, the robot crouched