The Year's Best Science Fiction, Vol. 20

There is nothing illegal in optioning 900 pennyweight of pterachnium to one investor and then optioning its decay products to someone else. Martisela always warned me to cover those isotope futures in the contract. What had Cynthia been thinking?

“Seсora Contreras is distraught,” I said. “Whatever she hoped to gain with this will be satisfied some other way. I think I will leave you now.”

“What about our decay rights?”

“The problem with decay futures? They are useless unless something actually decays. That is why they are cheap to buy. Ay te wacho.”

Chamberlain needed a moment to realize what I was saying. “You really are going to make this hard, aren’t you?” To himself: “He’s really going to make this hard.” He looked at Bell to do something. Bell seemed utterly impassive.

I was pushing myself back from the table when I noticed a fluorescence in the gloom of Bell’s shirt cuff. I recognized the source from my own improvident youth-a 48 yuen piece on a leather loop. With a bit of steghnium to light old Mau’s eyes. Or a 128 yuen piece, bearing Emperor Yuan, lit by phoellium. Or a 256 yuen piece, glowing with albatine. Depending on what sort of smugglers they were and what sort of detectors they had to confuse.

Bell had been toying with the coin all this time, but I hadn’t noticed till he let it slip from his fingers and into the gloom of his sleeve. He twisted his cuff as if embarrassed, but not so quickly I would miss the bleeding ulcer beneath the coin. Yes, he had been wearing it a very long time.

He noticed my eyes on his smugglers’ charm. He gave me a smile as desolate as every darkened doorway along Galle de Campana. Chamberlain nudged my barter bag with his foot.

“Enjoy the evening,” he said. “We’ll catch up with you.”

I glanced to the rest of the room. An engineer off of the Page of Wands sang a corrido to the vane mechanics of the Hierophant. How much they loved their pepper seed mash. How bad it made them smell. A compaсero chimed in, something about their dubious sexual practices. Make no mistake, they’d all be weeping in a moment. Had I miscalculated?

The entire roomful of people seemed caught in their grieving. Save one little Anglo. I spotted him sitting by Doctor Friendly, the tumor broker. I remember hooded eyes, and this goatee that seemed to point the way for his nose. He watched me intently. I thought he might come to my aid. The little Anglo merely nodded at me and smiled- now what?

They do have their sense of fun.

I turned back to Chamberlain: “What if I made you a counter proposal?” I said.

Chamberlain lifted an eyebrow at Bell- are you listening to this?

“One moment of patience, I will show you real wealth.” I had come here to deal for Esteban’s legacy after all. And why not offer them a sample?

I gave Chamberlain my confidential smile. Careful, careful, so as not to alarm, I pulled the pouch of woven lead from my barter bag. It was a small pouch. It barely filled my hand. But heavy enough I had to stiffen my arm beneath it.

There is an art to this sort of presentation. I peeled back the double-sealed flap. I made it an unveiling. Inside gleamed a ball coated in mirror-smooth nickel. I could see Chamberlain was fascinated. He wanted to touch it. Still, I held onto it. I waited till he asked before I slipped it from its leaden sheath and into his palm.

He laughed at the surprising weight of it. “It’s heavy.”

“Yes, it is.”

“It’s warm.”

“Like holding a hamster in your hand. It’s a subcritical amount of perbladium, distilled from liquid suspension and purified. Up in the Scatterhead Nebula, the militias use it as a crude proximity trigger. That warmth in your palm? That’s alpha particle radiation, knocked off the sealant.”

Chamberlain shrank back. He had the cerrazadito’s abhorrence of contamination. Now it was my turn for amusement.

“Forget the alpha particles,” I soothed.

He looked at me to see if I was having him on. His shoulders eased. “Perbladium,” he said. He laughed a rueful little laugh. “I stay away from the real touchy stuff.” This was a big admission for Seсor Chamberlain.

I nodded. Sure, sure. “You need something to worry about, consider the neutrons reflecting back from your body. They are quickly pushing that little ball to criticality.”

He was still smiling as he looked up at me. I’ll never forget the moment he stopped.

“You’re lying.”

I had a particle detector on the table. It roared to life at my touch.

Chamberlain made a strangled yip. He dropped the ball of perbladium. He dove backward into a drunken throng of vane mechanics, which might have been the wrong thing to do.

That left Mr. Bell. His eyes skittered from the sample on the table to me. One of us would kill him. He seemed uncertain which. I was about to clear up his confusion when Chuy Navarete rounded the bar with a couple of beefy crane operators off of the Ace of Pentacles.