The Year's Best Science Fiction, Vol. 20

“Is that what we’re talking about here? Are we saving my soul?” She gave me a sleepy grin. “If your life depends on my redemption, you are one dead Hermana, Camala.”

We always talked so tough with each other.

“Don’t go,” I whispered. “Please.” Perhaps you don’t know Orlando Coria, and this pleading sounds genuine, yes? And that wetness to the eyes, a nice touch.

Martisela’s taxi slipped out from the shadow of Puente de Hierro.

“I’ll call you when I’m away,” she said. I couldn’t believe she would really leave. We’d brought this city to its knees, helped a helpless widow, and faced down the big guero. How she could do this?

“Leave a message if I’m out.” If she hoped to gain some advantage on me, well, she hoped in vain, didn’t she? If she put her palm to her mouth or offered a little wave, I barely noticed. I had lots to think about. I had my commission, 10 percent of 1.5 teratramos. I was a man of substance now.

I remember checking my currency marker to show her what she walked away from. I don’t remember the amount, but it was an awful lot of money. Enough so that my life would never be the same. It was enough to make me feel vindicated. Funny the way some moments stay with you.

As for the jingle of the buckles on her sandal straps as Martisela turned away? Five years later, I barely remember the sound. I have my pride.

The night tends to blur after that. I remember walking the apron along Canal el Centra, talking to myself, feeling righteous.

The fog was in, lit from the heart by radioactinides from the ships in the wet docks. People move indoors to avoid Buenaventura’s wet dock fog, but I held off. Right around sun up, the ferry would leave the launch site at de Viejas for the low orbitals. I was thinking to maybe go see Martisela off. I was thinking to maybe invest in a bottle of mezcбl and drink myself to stupefaction. Decisions, decisions.

I absolutely was not going to worry for Martisela. Seсor a Pushcart. Seсor a Let’s-Sell-Shaved-Ice-and-Look-Like-Fools-to-Everybody-We-Know. I would start to weep and then I would make myself remember her plot to save my soul.

When that didn’t work, I told myself her fate was out of my hands. I was a trader, not a gangster, what could I do? Fill my hand and confront Dryden in some alley? Please. Buy back my pterachnium shares from him? There were Bright Matter consortiums who couldn’t put together the money to buy 900 pennyweight of pterachnium.

I found myself arguing the point with Martisela, a frustrating business even when she was around to answer me back. Tonight, she was regal and indifferent to her own fate, which infuriated me more.

Just to press my point, I added up all our assets-the fee from the pterachnium deal, the illyrium futures, the tea plantation, the winery and distillery, the beach house, the money, the anti-money. All of it. I came up with enough to buy back maybe a third of Esteban’s legacy.

But why stop there? I still had some stock options left over from the takeover of Coria Bright Matter. I pulled out my currency marker to check their price, though I knew they were worthless. I think I barely looked at the 10:32 market fixing and shoved the marker back in my pocket.

It took me that long to realize what I had seen.

Coria Bright Matter was in play. Noah Dryden was shopping our remaining assets through one of his black hole mining companies, doing better than I had imagined possible. Indeed, he had financed a good chunk of his pterachnium money on our tailings. I tried to remember just what we had owned that could be worth 620 meg per pennyweight. Dryden had a man waiting to answer any questions.

His name glowed against the shadow on my palm. I studied it, because I had to keep my eyes focused on something stable; the landscape was resettling all around me.

It was my friend, Alberto Zuniga-the man who so admired my taste in exotic vacuum states.

I don’t want to tell you what I did then. We have friends, they won’t speak to me even now. I have people looking to kill me, did I mention? With all the moral baggage that goes with being me, you’d think I would reap a few of the more temporal rewards, wouldn’t you?

Dryden was up at Puente de Hierro, waiting for the lift-off from Malecуn de Viejas. As I knew he would be. He had to weep a little before he sent people to their deaths. Made him feel more like a human being.

He never looked back at me, though he knew I was behind him. Without preamble, he said, “I must confess I’m leaving for Bougainville in a few hours and I’m panicked at the thought of going without those little candies. Those little-what are they called?”

“Piedras de molleja.”