was a courier, bringing from orbit a liquid-crystal cube filled with complex instructions, instructions her company dared not trust even to coded radio transmissions. Princess would not have known what she carried, though presumably it contained inventory data, strategies for manipulating the market, instructions to subordinates, buying and selling strategies. Information worth millions to any competitor. The crystal cube would have been altered to a new configuration once the information was removed to the company computer–– a computer sealed against any outside tampering, but which could presumably be accessed through the terminals in the corporate suites.
Sarah also has no clear idea what is on the cube she is carrying. Some kind of powerful theft program, she presumes, to break its way through the barriers surrounding the information so that it can be copied. She does not know how good her program is, whether it’s setting off every alarm in Florida or whether it’s accomplishing its business stealthily. If it’s very good, it will not only copy the information, but alter it as well, planting a flow of disinformation at the heart of the enemy code, perhaps even altering the instructions as well, sabotaging the enemy’s marketing patterns.
While the RUNNING light blinks, Sarah stands and goes over every part of the suite she might have touched, stroking anything that could retain a print with her gloved fingertips. The house, and Princess, are silent.
It is eleven minutes before the computer signals READY. Sarah extracts the cube and returns it to her belt. She has been told to wait a few hours, but there is someone dead in the next room and every nerve screams at her to run. She sits before the comp deck and puts her head between her legs, gulping air. For some reason she finds herself trembling. She battles the adrenaline and her own nerves, and thinks of the tickets, the cool dark of space with the blue limb of Earth far below, forever out of reach.
In two hours she calls a cab and walks down the cold, echoing stair. The security man nods at her as she walks out: his job is to keep people from coming in, not to hinder their leaving. He even gives her the inhaler back.
She takes a dozen cabs to a dozen different places, leaving the satin jacket in one, cinching her waist in tighter and removing the suspenders in another, in a third reversing her T-shirt and her belt pouch, both now glowing yellow like a warning light. The jockey persona is gone, and she is dirt again. She finishes her journey at the Plastic Girl, the place still running flat-out at four in the morning. As she enters, the sounds of dirt life assault her, and she takes comfort. This is her world, and she knows all the warm places where she can hide. She takes a room in the back and calls Cunningham. “Come and get your cube,” she says, and then orders rum and lime.
By the time he arrives, she’s rented an analyzer and some muscle. He comes in alone, a package in his hand. He closes the door behind him.
“Princess?” he asks.
“Dead.”
Cunningham nods. The cube is on the table before her. She holds out a hand. “Let’s see what you’ve got,” she says.
She checks three vials at random and the analyzer tells her it’s chloramphenildorphin, purity 99.8 percent or better. She smiles. “Take your cube,” she says, but he plugs it into the room’s deck first, making sure it has what he wants. Then he puts it in his pocket and heads for the door.
“If you have another job,” she says, “you know where to find me.”
He pauses, a hand on the knob. His eyes, flicker. She receives an impression of sadness from him, as if he were mourning something newly dead.
He is an earthly extension, Sarah knows, of an Orbital bloc. She doesn’t even know which one. He is a willing tool and an obedient one, and she has fed him her scorn on that account, but that doesn’t disguise what they both know–– that she would give all the
Sarah also has no clear idea what is on the cube she is carrying. Some kind of powerful theft program, she presumes, to break its way through the barriers surrounding the information so that it can be copied. She does not know how good her program is, whether it’s setting off every alarm in Florida or whether it’s accomplishing its business stealthily. If it’s very good, it will not only copy the information, but alter it as well, planting a flow of disinformation at the heart of the enemy code, perhaps even altering the instructions as well, sabotaging the enemy’s marketing patterns.
While the RUNNING light blinks, Sarah stands and goes over every part of the suite she might have touched, stroking anything that could retain a print with her gloved fingertips. The house, and Princess, are silent.
It is eleven minutes before the computer signals READY. Sarah extracts the cube and returns it to her belt. She has been told to wait a few hours, but there is someone dead in the next room and every nerve screams at her to run. She sits before the comp deck and puts her head between her legs, gulping air. For some reason she finds herself trembling. She battles the adrenaline and her own nerves, and thinks of the tickets, the cool dark of space with the blue limb of Earth far below, forever out of reach.
In two hours she calls a cab and walks down the cold, echoing stair. The security man nods at her as she walks out: his job is to keep people from coming in, not to hinder their leaving. He even gives her the inhaler back.
She takes a dozen cabs to a dozen different places, leaving the satin jacket in one, cinching her waist in tighter and removing the suspenders in another, in a third reversing her T-shirt and her belt pouch, both now glowing yellow like a warning light. The jockey persona is gone, and she is dirt again. She finishes her journey at the Plastic Girl, the place still running flat-out at four in the morning. As she enters, the sounds of dirt life assault her, and she takes comfort. This is her world, and she knows all the warm places where she can hide. She takes a room in the back and calls Cunningham. “Come and get your cube,” she says, and then orders rum and lime.
By the time he arrives, she’s rented an analyzer and some muscle. He comes in alone, a package in his hand. He closes the door behind him.
“Princess?” he asks.
“Dead.”
Cunningham nods. The cube is on the table before her. She holds out a hand. “Let’s see what you’ve got,” she says.
She checks three vials at random and the analyzer tells her it’s chloramphenildorphin, purity 99.8 percent or better. She smiles. “Take your cube,” she says, but he plugs it into the room’s deck first, making sure it has what he wants. Then he puts it in his pocket and heads for the door.
“If you have another job,” she says, “you know where to find me.”
He pauses, a hand on the knob. His eyes, flicker. She receives an impression of sadness from him, as if he were mourning something newly dead.
He is an earthly extension, Sarah knows, of an Orbital bloc. She doesn’t even know which one. He is a willing tool and an obedient one, and she has fed him her scorn on that account, but that doesn’t disguise what they both know–– that she would give all the
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