CHAPTER
FOUR
The rain had let up, but the breeze blowing across Henry Hudson Post was wet with the possibility of more squalls. John considered summoning the cabbie, but decided against it; stores of all kinds crowded right up against the hotel and the train station, so he was confident he’d find a pawnshop or a jeweler.
Running up extra charges on the Company chit seemed like a bad way to start his relationship with Director English.
Two valets stood at the hotel entrance; one was opening the door of a sleek blue groundcar and helping its passengers step out, so John turned to the other and asked directions to a jeweler or a pawnshop.
“There’s a jeweler right there.” The valet nodded. “There are two pawnshops farther down that street, both on the right side.”
John gave the man five dollars, the last of his U.S. cash.
He was a little surprised by how little blue and buff he saw, once he stepped out onto the street. If these people weren’t Company employees, who were they? Former employees, who had quit or been fired, and weren’t able to afford the trip home?
Some were small merchants; just in crossing the street to the jeweler, John passed a noodle shop, a tattoo kiosk, a multitool repairman working out of a two-wheeled cart pulled by something that looked like a yak, and an oxygen bar.
Drones hummed overhead. Some carried visible packages—what did the others do? Were they messengers? Surveillance drones?
A two-wheeled rickshaw narrowly avoided running John over in the middle of the street. He stared as it continued past; its two yoke-poles rested on either side of a rolling ball, about one meter in diameter. At the corner, the ball abruptly swiveled right, and the rickshaw neatly pivoted in train.
There was no sign on the front of the jeweler’s indicating what its business was. The name Seteng glowed from one window with a steady blue LED light—or did seteng mean jewelry in Sedjem? All three windows were protected behind screens of thick, black iron bars.
The metal door was shut and barred from the inside. John pressed a button beside the door, and moments later a panel opened in the door at face level.
Two eyes and a dark brown nose appeared. “What you meri, mar?”
“Ah . . .” John said.
“What you want?”
“Looking for a jewelry-setty,” John said. “Seteng-setty? I want to sell.”
The face behind the door laughed. “Seteng is a name, mar. Hold it up, let me see what you have.”
“You don’t want to go in there.” This came from a new voice, behind John.
John took a step sideways and turned, fearing a mugger and wishing he had purchased a gun before doing anything else—though he had no cash, and was stretched too thin to have good credit. Maybe he could have used the Company chit.
But the man standing in the street looked harmless. He’d been walking, because his gray, wide-brimmed hat was awash with water. A transparent rain jacket hung from his shoulders, revealing a shabby blue suit beneath, with thin gray stripes and a short, fat tie. He clearly hadn’t shaved in several days, and his heavy jaw and protruding forehead were set in a broad grin.
“Good day,” John said.
The door opened, and was filled by a thin man with long facial features and skin the color of caffè Americano with extra milk. “We’re buying, mar,” he said.
“You don’t want to go in there,” the heavy-jawed man repeated. “You’re clearly from off-world, and you don’t know this, but Seleng has a reputation for ripping off sellers. You’re new here, right? Trying to pawn something to get a little cash?”
“I’m Seleng,” the man in the door said. “Show me the jewelry.”
“Do what you want,” the man in the rain jacket said. “I get it, I’m a stranger, too, and you don’t know who to trust. But I’d strongly recommend that if Seleng makes you an offer, you at least try one of the pawnshops in town to get a second opinion.”
He turned and started walking away, humming something . . . operatic. John wasn’t especially musical, but he thought it might be Verdi. The Chorus of the Hebrew Slaves, or something like that.
Seleng shook his head. “If I make you an offer, it’s take it or leave it, on the spot, mar. You don’t get to shop me around town and try to force my prices up.”
“Never mind.” Without waiting for Seleng’s sudden sputtering to resolve into anything else, John broke into a trot, aiming to catch up to the man in the suit. “Excuse me!”
At the corner, as he turned, the man stopped beneath a glowing sign that read Et Hanket Noob. “Ah, good,” he said. “You took my advice. Seleng is a thief. There’s a reason he’s willing to pay more in rent to be right next to the train station and the hotel. He’s trying to catch new arrivals before they know any better, and he gives the hotel valets a cut when they direct customers to him.”
“John Abbott.” John extended a hand. “As you guessed, I’m new.”
They shook hands and the other man looked John up and down.
“I’m Bangerter Cheapside,” he said. “Lawyer. New York Bar, not that it really matters here.”
“How did you know I was a new arrival?” John asked.
“That shirt and those pants. Not Company issue, bought off the rack from a department store, not worn full of holes. Let me guess, you’re some kind of engineer.”
“Accountant,” John said.
“Ah. I knew it had to be one of the nerdy professions.”
“Could have been a lawyer, then.”
“Except the Company doesn’t fly any lawyers in.”
“Did you fly yourself in, then? That’s expensive. You must have a prosperous practice.”
Cheapside scratched his nose. “I was a Company employee, once. When they fired me, they weren’t going to send me back to Earth. I just hung out my shingle here, instead.”
“You were one of the lawyers English talked about?”
Cheapside laughed. “Still telling the same damn jokes, is he? No, I was a pharmacist. Worked at the Company clinic here in town. But I was a qualified lawyer, too.”
“What does a lawyer do on Sarovar Alpha?”
“Same as a lawyer anywhere, basically. I resolve private disputes. I execute and write wills. I help people negotiate contracts. Sometimes, I represent people in front of the Company’s executives, arguing about Company bylaws and code of conduct issues, or the very few actual U.S. federal statutes that apply here. Once in a very great while, I sue the Company, and try to hold it accountable to its own conscience.”
“That sounds interesting.”
Cheapside laughed. “Does it? Did I mention that I’m single, poor, and possibly alcoholic?”
“I’d invite you to get a bowl of noodles with me,” John said. “Or maybe a bowl of Et Hanket Noob, if that’s something edible. Et is food, right? Not sure I remember the other two words. Only I have no cash, and it doesn’t seem right to invite you to buy me dinner.”
“Hanket is any drink,” the lawyer said. “Though, properly speaking, it’s beer, in the same way that, properly speaking, et is bread. Noob in this context means cash, though it can also mean gold. This is a convenience store. In Brooklyn, the sign would read, ‘Groceries, Ice cold beer, ATM.’”
“I guess I’m going to have to knuckle down and learn this patois.” John sighed.
Bangerter Cheapside shrugged. “Everyone speaks English. All the humans do, anyway. But you’ll sound less new when you can sedjem a bit.”
“All industries have their shop talk,” John said. “But I admit, I find this one especially strange.”
The lawyer nodded and seemed to be considering something. “If you have any extra time here in Henry Hudson, you should check out the Stone Gardens.”
“I’ve seen some nice murals in Company House.”
“The Stone Gardens,” Cheapside said again. “You can get there by car, or a longish walk, if you have good shoes. I can tell where to find a cobbler who’s worth a damn. And you’ll look less new when you’re wearing a Company jumpsuit, or at least something that’s locally made. I can point you to tailors, too, if you want.”
John shook his head. “But the pawnshops, or more reputable jewelers, would be very helpful. Thank you.”
The lawyer gave John quick directions to two pawnshops farther from the hotel than the ones indicated by the valet. They shook hands again, and parted company.
The rain picked up again as John turned left off the main street. The buildings here were three meters apart, and awnings from both left and right entirely covered the space, turning what was technically an alley into a tunnel, with flat-packed gravel underfoot and a rough gutter to one side. The gravel drained water better than asphalt did, so the tunnel was something approximating dry.
And lined with shops.
John passed two clothing shops, a cobbler, and a bar, but then dawdled a bit at a fruit seller. He’d spent time on five of Earth’s continents and seen all kinds of trees, but he still couldn’t immediately place half the fruits that stood piled up in wooden trays. “What does this taste like?” he asked the vendor, brushing his fingers across a heap of blue, hard-shelled spheres.
“Very tasty.” The vendor looked East Asian. “Like watermelon, but a little sweeter, and not as wet. Chewier. You can eat the seeds, if you don’t mind a bit of extra crunch. Two bucks.”
“I’ll be back.” John kept walking.
A hundred meters from the street, he found the first pawnshop. Cheaper wares were stacked near the front of the store: clothing, boots, multitools, battered paperback books. The shop was narrow enough that John, despite being the thinnest man he knew, had to turn sideways to get inside. In the rear of the store, under clear plastic counters, lurked the pricier items, including firearms and jewelry.
A burly man with thick red hair on his forearms leaned on the plastic counter and chewed a toothpick. “Looking for a little extra protection?”
John realized his gaze had been lingering on one of the pistols. It was bulky and square, and lay between a pair of semiautomatics. “I guess I am curious about that one,” he admitted.
Forearm Hair unlocked the panel behind the counter, reached in, and placed the weapon atop the clear plastic. “It’s an energy pistol.”
But wasn’t that illegal? John blinked and bit his tongue. He could see the slot at the back of the weapon where an energy cell would be inserted.
“You’re thinking, ‘This is illegal, unless you’re in the military.’” Forearm Hair laughed. “But that’s because you’re new here. U.S. firearms laws are inapplicable in the system. Company policy might restrict where you can carry something like this, but you can wear it around on the street, no problem, or in the forest.”
John picked up the weapon and sighted down the barrel. “How many shots do you get out of a cell?”
“With this model, one. With some of the newer models, as many as five. You see the switch on the side—that lets you toggle between a wide beam, which will stun a crowd of attackers or light a forest on fire, and a narrow beam, which will punch a hole through steel.”
John set the energy pistol down. “I’m here to sell. Do you buy jewelry?”
“I do.” Forearm Hair set a clear plastic tray on the counter. “Let’s take a look.”
John felt ill setting his wife’s jewelry down, but the pawnshop owner seemed thoroughly competent. He looked closely at the necklace, bracelets, and earrings through a magnifying class, holding it all carefully with a soft white cloth and doing everything fully in John’s view.
“These are nice pieces,” he said. “I can give you ten thousand dollars.”
“They’re antique,” John said.
Forearm Hair nodded. “You’d get more for them in Los Angeles or Hong Kong, but I have to resell, and I don’t have the children of billionaire moguls walking through here, looking to drop a hundred thousand bucks on new shinies for prom.”
“Can you go twelve thousand?” John suggested.
“Ten-five. That’s it.”
“What about a loan?”
“I can lend you eight thousand bucks. You’d have six months to buy it all back for eighty-five hundred.”
“If you can buy it for ten thousand five hundred, you can lend me ten thousand,” John said. “But I need a year to buy it back.”
“New trader, eh?” Forearm Hair chuckled.
“Arrowhawk.” John laughed along, not disabusing the man.
“You might make your first shipment within a year. Or at least, sell to a buyer at Central Transit.”
“It belongs to my wife, and it has sentimental value. I’ll do whatever’s necessary to buy it back.”
“A year’s going to cost you,” Forearm Hair said. “You can buy it all back within one year, but it’s going to be for twelve thousand dollars.”
“You have a competitor just down the street,” John said.
“And you should absolutely go ask for a bid from him. His name is Leafty, and he won’t go as high as I can, because he doesn’t sell as much jewelry. My name is Joe Monson, but everyone calls me Red. Tell him the bid you got from Red, and see if he’ll top it. He won’t, because he can’t, but he’ll try to wheedle you into taking his offer, anyway. He’s from the ‘Oh, I am a poor man, why do you want to rob me?’ school of negotiation. And then come back here and get your cash. I’ll get your ticket filled out in the meantime, that’s how confident I am.”
Red scooped the jewelry back into John’s zipbag, and John carried on down the tunnel of shops. Next to a pink-awninged kiosk selling bright blue and green liquid in fist-sized plastic bubbles with drinking straws punched into them, he found Leafty’s.
Even after hearing Red’s offer, the best Leafty could do was nine thousand dollars. “Repeat business,” he said in a husky voice, “I’m a repeat player. Maybe I can’t get you the best price on this jewelry, but you’re going to want to come to market again, when you need crates for all the Weave you’ll ship, or pretty shoes for your girlfriend, or a new hat. I’m the most connected man in Henry Hudson, and if you want something exotic, you’re going to come back, I promise.”
“What I want,” John said, “is as much money as I can get for the jewels.”
Red had the ticket all but complete when John returned to his shop. John filled in a few final details and took a receipt, and Red asked, “How do you want the money?”
“Two hundred in cash,” John said, “and the rest in my Depository account.”
“I don’t have U.S.”
“Sarovari is fine.”
Red transmitted the money and John got the receipt message on his multi, pocketing the two hundred dollars.
“Take this.” Red pushed the energy pistol across the counter, and three energy cells with it.
“I need the money for others things.”
“I know,” Red said. “This is my gift.”
“Do you think I’ll need it?”
Red grinned. “I get the most money if you come back, soon, and buy back the jewelry. The gun is just a way to increase the odds that you come back.”