Spin State - Chris Moriarty [102]
“Hey, relax. I just thought this would be a good chance to touch base and . . . see if we could help each other out.”
She narrowed her eyes. “Is this coming from Daahl or you?”
“Both.”
“And what do both of you plan to get out of it?”
“Well, that’s what I was hoping to talk to you about. It’ll take a minute, though.”
“You’ve got five,” Li said, leaning back against the railing and shaking out a cigarette. “Well, more like six, actually, depending on how fast you make me want to smoke. Cigarette?”
“No thanks,” Ramirez said. “They’re bad for your lungs.”
She looked hard at him.
“You know someone like you could do a lot of good, Major.”
“What do you mean, someone like me?” she asked quietly.
“Someone who grew up here. Who knows what it’s like. You could really open people’s eyes Ring-side.”
“And what would that accomplish?”
“Everything. It would give the lie to the corporate propaganda about the Trusteeships, about what goes on in Bose-Einstein mines. It would let people in the inner planets know what their money’s really doing.”
She laughed. She couldn’t help it. “They know, Ramirez. They know as much as they want to know. Or are you too young and idealistic to have figured that out yet?”
Ramirez flushed.
“Look,” she said. “I didn’t mean to give you a hard time before. But I’ve seen way too many idealistic young things rip through this town. And they all believe the same thing. That if they just talk to the right media types, get on the right spins, publish the right book, all the injustices of the system will magically stop. Well, they won’t. The system is the way it is because people like it that way. Because it works most of the time for most people. Or at least for most people who have enough clout to do anything about it.”
“That’s pretty cynical.”
“Just realistic.”
“It’s also a good excuse for not taking action.”
“Don’t preach, Leo.” Li flicked the ash off her cigarette and watched it flutter in the breeze. “It’s not attractive. And besides, I gave at the office.”
“I understand where you’re coming from. You’ve worked hard for what you have. You don’t want to jeopardize it—”
“You don’t understand anything,” she snapped.
“But—”
“But nothing. I’ve seen rich kids just like you all my life. You come down from your university dorm, or Mommy’s house, or wherever. You rile everyone up, you get a few miners shot, then you buy yourself out of any real trouble and go home to a comfortable job in a nice office. Meanwhile, the miners who got shot in your little passion play are still dead. And their parents and kids and brothers and sisters are still wheeling oxygen tanks around by the time they’re fifty.”
“I’m sorry you feel that way,” Ramirez said. He shook his head as he said it, and something about the movement looked odd to Li. “Did you know work has started up again in the Trinidad?” he asked, switching gears abruptly.
“No,” Li said, really caught by surprise this time.
“That change your opinions any?”
“No. Is this all you had in mind when you dragged me out here, or is there something else you want?”
“There is.” He leaned back against the fire-escape railing and crossed his arms. “Listen. We were approached recently. I won’t say by whom. But the gist of it is that there are parties who want to know what Dr. Sharifi was working on before the fire. And these parties would be willing to support the . . . um, action we discussed recently. Financially as well as in other ways.”
“I assume you’re talking about Andrej Korchow,” Li said. “And, no, I’m not interested in discussing anything with him. Certainly not anything under TechComm jurisdiction.”
“Not even if—”
“Not even if.”
Ramirez shrugged his shoulders, then winced and put a hand to his neck. And suddenly Li saw what it was that had bothered her about his kinetics.
He was nursing