[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

Pictures of a dark-haired teenage girl filled the sheet. In some she was laughing, in others more serious,
but in all of them her dark eyes blazed with an intensity that reminded me of Jennie at the same age, right
before the Pinkelponker government took her away to heal the people they thought mattered.
"Jasmine is my only child, Mr. . . . Jon, a luxury I had not planned to permit myself. I never bothered to
get to know the maternal surrogate, so Jasmine is all the family I have."
"What makes you think I can help?"
He looked at me for a few seconds, then glanced away. "We could waste a lot of time doing this, but I
have no clue what that could cost me, so let's try to be efficient. If I'm wrong and you say so, I'll be
surprised, but I'll leave and see how quickly I can import some off-planet talent. I don't think I'm wrong,
though, so I'm willing to offer safe passage for you and anyone else you want to the planet of your
choice, plus a million additional credits in the repository of your choice. I've just finished brokering
Kelco's purchase of Macken we're expanding our real-estate holdings and what remains of the
planetary federation government is so far gone that everything's for sale and my bonus alone is more
than adequate to cover this."
I didn't need money, but it was going to cost me a lot to hop back to Pinkelponker and the start of the
cold trail that had never gotten me to Jennie, so I would need money soon. "Fair enough. No wasted
time." Though my washer had already filled me in, getting data firsthand is always best, so I asked, "Who
took her?"
"Some local anti-development group that calls itself the Gardeners."
"What do they want?"
"To keep the planet exactly as it is." He laughed and looked away, shaking his head slowly. "As if that's
even possible. We run into these naïve types in many deals, and it's always the same story: they try to
stop progress, and its wheels grind them up. What they don't understand is that I don't have the power to
stop this deal. It's done, and whether they do nothing or kill Jasmine or try anything else, Kelco will
develop Macken for the good of tourists everywhere. Then we'll furnish every tourist home and every
resident home with Kelco washers and Kelco refrigerators and on and on, and everything will work the
way it always has." He looked back at me. "I cannot stop this. They want me to leave the planet which
I'll gladly do, though I haven't told them that because they think that will matter. It won't. Someone else
will just lead the construction."
"Why not get your corporate militia on the case?"
Page 33
 "That's exactly what I'll have to do, and soon, because I can't keep the kidnapping secret much longer.
But if I do, you know what'll happen: they'll clean out the Gardeners, but they won't worry much about
anyone with them. I want Jasmine back safely, not dead with a bunch of idiot anti-progress types."
I thought about his offer. I could use the money, and finding them should be no problem; I've never
known any activist group, however green, that didn't indulge in such conveniences as laundry or hot food
from time to time. I had no clue, however, what I might be walking into, whether this was three people
with a little guts and light weaponry, or a heavily armed group, so I needed more information.
"How long did they give you to respond?"
"They wanted a response in a day," Slake said. "I persuaded them that nothing in my world moves that
quickly, and I got five days. That was last night."
"I'll think about it and get back to you in the morning." I pulled out my wallet, thumbed it, and it got
Slake's contact information. "If I decide to help, I should be able to do so within their time limit. Glen's
Garden isn't that large, and I assume you've already verified she wasn't on any departing flights or
boats" he smiled in acknowledgment "so they're either hiding her in town or, more probably, in the
rain forest." I stood. "I know that's not the answer you want, but consider what you'd do on my end of
such a proposal, and you'll know it's the only reasonable answer."
He smiled again. "True. That is, unless, of course, you were involved, in which case you might be foolish
enough to answer sooner."
I prefer dealing with smart people; even when you don't like them, at least you have a shot at
understanding their thought processes. I stared straight at him. "I'm not involved in any way, though even
if I were I would never appear that eager." I walked him out and basked for a moment in the warmth and
moist air. "I'll get back to you in the morning."
* * *
You can learn a lot from appliances, but you can't get the feel of a place without being in it. I'd largely
avoided the town since I shuttled down from the jump station, so I didn't have much of a sense of it. The
house came equipped with a small shuttle vehicle, which I had take me to the far edge of town, where the
sea was only a moist presence in the air and the rain forest was a towering perimeter guard. I figured to
walk the few miles back to the house.
Service businesses and city government buildings ringed this edge of Glen's Garden, all facing inward, a
stretch of untouched grass between them and the rain forest's edge, the green no doubt an attempt to
show that they wouldn't expand the city in a way that would hurt the ancient forest. Right. Even without
Kelco taking over, that kind of growth is the only alternative to death for a planet a few generations into
its human settlement.
If the people here knew about the purchase, they sure weren't showing it. Various ads flashed in the
windows and on the walls of the shops, but none were for protests. The news scrolling on the main
government building was benign pap about local businesses, minor crime, and upcoming events, with the
occasional meaningless and almost certainly false planetary federation announcement woven into the
images for cosmopolitan color. Strolling along the perimeter I learned nothing more than the one thing that
I always found when I visited a place with people simply living their lives: I didn't belong here. No news
in that.
Page 34 [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

zanotowane.pl

doc.pisz.pl

pdf.pisz.pl

glaz.keep.pl