Night Sky Mine by Melissa Scott

Author:Melissa Scott [Scott, Melissa]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: science fiction, cyberpunk
Publisher: Crossroad Press
Published: 2023-04-16T00:00:00+00:00

“I don’t think this is smart,” Rangsey said.

Tarasov looked up from his net display, one hand hovering over the controls, then sighed and touched the combination that froze the program in midstream, still well inside the boundaries of the Company frontage. “You’re talking about the girl, I assume.”

“It’s not like we’ve done anything else recently,” Rangsey answered. “At least not anything that stupid.”

Tarasov smiled in spite of himself, acknowledging the remark, but said only, “I think it was the right thing to do.”

“And I don’t.” Rangsey tipped his head to one side. “You’re the one who was bitching about my being made part of this. What changed your mind all of a sudden?”

That hit home. Tarasov said, “What changed my mind is we’re in this up to our necks already. I don’t know these nets as well as that girl does, and if there’s any information to be pried out of them, she’s more likely to find it than I am. Ketty was the one who handled the controlled habitats, not me.”

“Ista is a hypothecary,” Rangsey said, “not a programmer. And this could be dangerous—especially Macbeth’s new plan.”

Tarasov looked back at the display’s frozen image, a single icon blinking in one corner to remind him of programs in suspension, his lens host left to fend for itself until he reasserted control. Rangsey was right, that was the worst of it, and he himself didn’t have a lot in the way of good reasons to defend himself. “It’s what she said,” he said at last. “She’s part of this already.”

“She could get forged ID,” Rangsey began, and Tarasov shook his head.

“How many of those cases did you handle last year? You know how long those papers last.”

Rangsey made a face. “All right, yes, two or three trips at best, and then you’d better buy another set.” He looked away, and Tarasov knew they were thinking of the same thing, the disks that arrived on their desks every month, names and ID numbers that had been flagged as forgeries, or suspect for some other reason. The Patrol never caught up with more than a tenth of those names, never found the live bodies that used them, but it was no way to live, even for a Traveller.

“I just don’t want it to be us who gets her hurt,” Rangsey said. “Hell, put it this way, I don’t want to be responsible for her.”

“You want to bet she wouldn’t be doing this on her own?” Tarasov asked.

“Do you want to bet she’d be doing it if we hadn’t started saying we were going after these people?” Rangsey shot back. “That doesn’t work, Sein.”

“She’s already in the middle of it,” Tarasov said again. “She was in at the beginning, Justin. She deserves the chance.” He paused, studying the other man’s still unconvinced expression. “What would you be doing, in her place?”

Rangsey smiled, reluctantly. “The same thing she is. But it still wouldn’t be smart. And, no, before you ask, I don’t think I could stop me.

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