The Year's Best Science Fiction, Vol. 20

“I hear share prices for the Hierophant’s salvage rights have gone up 27 percent since the accident. I don’t suppose you’d like to take a little credit for that.” He never looked up from his task. In the best of times, there is antipathy between vane dogs like Chuy and mercaderos like myself. This was not one of those times.

I smiled. “You’re just saying that so I’ll buy the next round.”

He leaned forward to give me a malign squint. For one moment, an arc of quiet speculation seemed to spread out around the two of us. My life was, as they say on the Exchange, in play.

But the night was too sad for that sort of foolishness. He slapped my arm and gave me a snicker at once ugly and forgiving. The sort of laugh meant to be passed around between pinche cabrones like ourselves.

“Here,” he said, and passed me one on the house. As he did, he leaned in close. “A couple of gabachos looking for you.” He waved his flippered hand toward the room. “They’re around here somewhere. You keep your business quiet. I won’t be responsible, you start offending people’s sensibilities.”

Even as he spoke, I felt a presence at my side. In the mirror just past Chuy’s head, I saw a copper-haired Anglo with pouty lips and strawberried cheeks. I doffed my beer to him. “Mister Chamberlain,” I said.

He smiled. “Orlando Coria. And your friend, Contreras…?” He looked past my shoulder as if Esteban might be waiting in the crowd. No Esteban; Chamberlain lifted his eyebrows, well well well. “Damn shame,” he said. “Smart guy like that. And that nasty little nun?”

“Back at the convent.”

“Well,” he offered, “I’m sure you miss her.” He took my hand as he spoke. More than a handshake-I felt myself gently directed toward a quiet spot at the end of the bar.

Another Anglo waited there. This one sprawled across his chair, hips and shoulders cocked fashion-model style. A little smile played at his lips. This would be Chamberlain’s… “chauffeur?” These Anglos.

Chamberlain gave him a nudge that knocked his leg from the tabletop. “Bell, be convivial.”

Bell said, “Hey, Buddy.” They must have been bashful where Bell came from.

I made room under the table for my barter bag. It was mostly empty but for a couple of perbladium samples from one of Esteban’s little jobs. These gabachos had introduced themselves as perbladium speculators. I was curious to know if they would recognize real perbladium when they saw it. I was curious to know who they really were.

I set Esteban’s salvage ticket on the table and leaned back to take in their reactions.

Chamberlain studied the ticket over tented fingers. He might have been counting his money. He might have been adding up his crimes.

“That’s a lot of money for a bit of morghium,” he said.

“That was my thought as well. Have you seen what’s left of the Hierophant? Whatever you gave Esteban to turn, it didn’t transmutate into morghium.”

He gave his partner an expression of aggravation. “I told Seynoso to pay for this stuff outright.”

“That would have been awkward,” I said.

“When would it have been more awkward than right now?”

“About the time the Hierophant burned with all hands. Someone from the Mechanics’ Guild makes a point of looking up every registered investor.”

I was calling him a ship killer, is what I was doing. There were two possible reactions to this sort of slander. Horror and outrage, and this other one. More rueful, more considered.

Chamberlain pressed his fingertips a little tighter. “There’s a story behind this morghium deal. Things are more complicated than you think.” He waved his hand, the story was too complex to go into now. “I’m willing to buy these salvage rights from you, blind. I’ll pay you 10 percent market price. And before you laugh, consider the realities. You don’t know what you’re holding anymore than we do. You might be holding lead futures for all you know.”

I would have stood up to leave, except that Chamberlain was right. All I had in my hand was a market mirage. It was expensive as such things went, but all salvage looks good from a distance.

This was when I missed Martisela’s market expertise. She had three of the seven basic Thommist Catastrophes ingrained as quantum processors into the unused DNA of her hands. Wasn’t a decay chain she couldn’t follow. I had nothing to go on but my unscientific nose, which wrinkled considerably at these two.

“I’m not in a position to negotiate,” I lied. “This salvage claim belongs to Seсor Contreras’s family. Unless you’ve got some further claim, I am obliged to sell it at the market price.”

“ ‘Further claim?’ ” Chamberlain gave his compaсero a nudge, such language! “We have further claim,” he said. “We bought first position on your decay rights.”

He produced a futures contract for whatever isotopes might decay from Esteban’s unspecified salvage. I looked down till I found the signature of Esteban’s wife, Cynthia. I looked back and the two of them were grinning at me.