Part 29 (2/2)

”Sure I am,” Hap said. ”I'm not a kid!”

The Chief smiled ruefully. ”See? You can't even stand up to me, and I'm only one level up the food chain from you. You are as far away from the powers that be as you are from the very stars outside.”

Hap was crestfallen. ”So what should I do?”

”Give it up,” the Chief advised him. ”This whole situation is bigger than your next meal. It's bigger than your life. They're going to look at you like a bug that learned to talk.”

”Then, you teach me. Please. Help me. I want to go Up. I've never had the chance of anything in my life.”

Gormley shook his head with a paternal smile. ”You've always been the dreamer. I envy you that. I haven't had a real dream in years.”

”Teach me,” Hap pleaded. ”I know I can get along up there. Teach me how to ask so they won't get mad at me. I'll stay out of trouble. I swear.”

”Teach you everything I know in five minutes? All right. I'll keep it simple.” Gormley leaned forward over the desk and pointed at him. Hap stared at the finger. ”Listen. They're always saying in the vids that knowledge is power. Knowledge isn't power. Knowledge is knowledge. Confidence is power. Everyone is insecure. Make'em think you know something they don't, or have something they need, and you can get the upper hand. But it all falls apart if you can't pull it off with confidence. There,” he said, leaning back again. He looked smaller than he had when Hap had come into the room, older and more shrunken. ”I've given you everything I can. If you can make it now, I hope that the next time I see you, you're up among the stars.” He sighed and reached for the communicator on his desk. ”Can't delay any longer. You've got a call to make.”

”Chief...” Hap said, hesitantly. Gormley took his hand off the control pad. ”There's no hard feelings, is there? Chinn said the reward's for one. I... I can do things for you once I'm Up. I'll try...”

Gormley held up a hand. ”Enjoy it, son. I don't need a thing. Down here we fight over cigarette b.u.t.ts, but if you make a fortune, it all yours.”

”Huh?''

”Money makes you lonely, because it throws up walls. When you've got nothing, that's when you know if you have friends or not. Remember that. It's the man who has the least who gives the most.”

Hap didn't understand, but he committed the words to memory. Shaking, he watched as the Chief dialed up Station Commander Chinn's office. He straightened his back as the woman's face appeared on the screen.

”Yeah, we've got it.” Gormley glanced at Hap, and gave him a thumb's-up. ”All safe and sound. I've got a young man who wants to come Upstairs and talk to you about his reward.”

The blue-white-clad guards who met Hap at the lift station all wrinkled their noses as he walked out of the lift. Hap felt defensive. He was as clean as three sonic showers in a row could make him. He threw his head back and walked out of the lift without saying a word. The guards, two men and two women in uniforms so tidy they looked new, surrounded him and marched him off. Maybe Hap did stink compared with them. He'd had no way to tell before. The first thing he noticed, not even a step out of the box, was the air. A light, fresh breeze brushed his cheeks. It smelled of flowers, or perfume. No, he was wrong: it smelled of nothing. Pure air. His first miracle.

He was so excited he didn't know what to look at first. Not a single speck of anything was on the floor, and it was coated with a spongy material that slightly rebounded his steps. The walls were made of the same high-impact ceramic as the ones below that weren't missing their facade, but they were clean and undamaged. Huge vidscreens were embedded in the walls at just above eye level. The audio hummed, not blared. And the people-they all seemed to be on vid, too. They shone as if they were polished. Even after a shower everybody Belowstairs seemed still to be a little dull or dusty. At a corner Hap noticed another pack of guards walking towards them, escorting a tramp toward the lifts. When he got a little closer he realized he was looking at a polished wall. He was seeing his own reflection. So that's what everyone saw him as.

Hap steeled himself. He threw his head back and walked onward with dignity. Once the Chief told him he had to act confident he watched vids; until he found a role model, and studied him. The man in the vids met everyone's eyes with a little smile and a nod, and kept his back straight. When he listened, he leaned his ear toward the speaker, eyes down and a little hooded. When people looked at him as he walked, Hap met their eyes and made his little smile. He was a vidscreen person now. It didn't matter that his suit had three owners before him. Over it he now wore a blast-suit of phony confidence. This was the way, the Chief said, the only way to get what he wanted. Mentally, he ticked off the list: the first thing was an ID. That was the biggest request, the only one that really mattered. Then a job. He didn't care what he did. He was a good technician, and he knew Station systems inside and out. And they'd have to give him somewhere to live temporarily until he made enough to pay for his own room. And food rations until his first paycheck. If they wanted their little lump back, that is what they would have to give him.

The tall man in the impeccable black collarless suit rose and inclined his head gravely as the guards showed Hap into the big room. As overwhelmingly beautiful as the corridors were on the way up, this place was something special, like the backgrounds in a vid about presidents and kings. The soft rose of the walls framed a long elliptical table of real wood without a single pit in its surface. It was gorgeous. The Chief's grand desk looked like sc.r.a.p beside it. He was awed into silence. Around the gleaming oval were more grave-looking people.

”Sir, won't you join us?” the tall man asked Hap. ”Please, sit there.”

Antonio eased the visitor into the seat at the head of the table and settled down beside him, wearing his most suave visage. The boy didn't seem impressed by his surroundings. He must know what he had, and what he wanted. Antonio waited for him to speak. Instead, the boy regarded him with a polite smile. He was waiting, too. Antonio was taken aback by his confidence.

”May I introduce myself? I'm Perry Antonio, president of Techgen.” He introduced everyone around the table, ending with Min Haseen, on the visitor's other side.

In a low voice the young man said, ”I'm Hap Duxon.” He fell silent, wearing a little smile.

Antonio got nervous. The boy, he thought, must know he has all the advantage. Since they didn't know where the Opalite was, they had to play his game. The visitor still waited.

”Well, Hap... Mr. Duxon... We are all very glad you came up here today. I can't stress how important it is to have the Opalite returned to us so quickly. You do have it safe?”

Duxon nodded gravely, keeping his eyes a little lowered while Antonio talked, but meeting them fully when he stopped.

”Yes, it's safe.”

”Good!” Antonio was rattled. How could outcast sc.u.m be so serene in the presence of every big name on the station? Was he on drugs? Antonio wished he was. ”Well, you're not returning it just because it makes us happy. You've come about your reward. Naturally, it should be commensurate with the value of the object. We were very upset that the news media started so many rumors. Eight billion credits!” he said, with a little laugh. ”This little sample isn't worth a fraction of that, but I will admit to you, Mr. Duxon, that it is enormously valuable. On a hypothetical level, what would it take to persuade you to release it? The price of a new flitter, perhaps? A new flat, with luxury furnis.h.i.+ngs? Would you like to travel? Have you ever seen Earth? I tell you frankly, Mr. Duxon, we're prepared to go all the way to a million credits, if you are able to return the Opalite now.”

Hap liked it when the executive called him Mr. Duxon. He never heard his last name down Below. He'd had to look it up to make sure he remembered it properly because the Chief a.s.sured him everyone Upstairs used theirs. Everyone here smiled at him, wanted him to feel comfortable in his nice springy chair.

It was a good thing he'd studied the vid actor, because their offers overwhelmed him into terrified silence. It was one thing to dream of a personal flitter, but this man was offering one to him, for real. To travel off the Station? Or he could buy all these things with a million credits! What to ask for? he wondered. He looked around at the people at the table, trying to guess what they'd choose.

As he met their eyes they all smiled at him. They seemed nice, but their eyes were cold. Hap suddenly realized that everything the Chief had told him was true: they'd hate him forever if he overreached. He couldn't take a million credits. A vast fortune like that would set him up, but it wouldn't keep him out of their hands. If he traveled he'd still have to come back here. He almost opened his mouth to ask for the new flat. His corridor was getting more crowded, and the overflow valves on his level kept opening up to emit gas in the night. But that would mean living up here among them. The Station Commander was at the other end of the table. Hap knew she'd remember his face. There must be vid pickups in the walls that were capturing every angle. He was marked. The Chief warned him to settle for small dreams, ones he could control.

”Can I?” his throat closed. He cleared it. ”Can I have something to eat? Food?”

The s.h.i.+ning people all looked at one another.

”He's hungry,” said the dark-eyed woman at his left.

”Of course,” Antonio said. ”I am so sorry, Mr. Duxon. We've brought you all the way here and never offered you refreshments.” He nodded sharply to a white-suited girl at the end of the room, who disappeared through a doorway.

”I have never been in the other half of the Station,” said the dark-eyed woman, Ms. Haseen. ”Don't you have enough to eat down there?”

”Of course they do!” Commander Chinn snapped. Her face turned red. She and Hap both knew the truth about the recyler-synthesizers. Hap watched her, quietly, until a tray was set down before him by the girl. She wore a uniform like Soraya's.

He'd met Soraya before he came up. She was still wearing hers, but it wasn't as clean as this one. Soraya was trying hard to keep herself dignified, but her big, scared blue eyes told him she was frightened half to death and still mourning about what they'd done to her. Her whole life taken away in an instant, like an explosion. Lots of the people Belowstairs made fun of her, ha.s.sled her, but the Chief told them to back off. He was protecting her, but doubted she'd last. Chances were she'd throw herself into a recycler pretty soon.

He smiled his thanks at the server, then looked down into a bowl. His first reaction was revulsion. A fume simmered off the lumpy substance in it, a rich, heady aroma like sewage, but then he realized all the bitter stinks weren't there. It was... it was pure. Pure food. He scooped up a spoonful, and had to close his eyes at the exquisite taste. Nothing he had ever, ever eaten was so good.

”Is something wrong, Mr. Duxon?” Antonio asked.

”No. No, thank you,” Hap said, indistinctly, around his mouthful of soup. He hardly wanted to swallow the first bite, it was so good, but he had to have another, and another. Before he knew it, he was sc.r.a.ping the bowl. He longed to pick it up and drink the last drops, but all the vids showed that as being bad manners. The rest of the tray was full of more Upstairs food: little hors d'oeuvres with orange roe and baby artichokes; whipped meat paste or cheese paste in white vegetable stalks; yellow squares of cheese, not stinky or rough-textured, paired with tan crackers, which were crisp, not soggy. Together they were fun to eat. He grinned around at his hosts at the pleasure of it all. They watched him solemnly, and he remembered his dignity. The last thing on the tray was a round tart the size of his palm, its surface covered with jewel-colored slices of fruit and with something in the bottom that looked like yellow slime mold but tasted... it was so soft a taste he had no words for it. The substance melted away in a creamy haze. He almost slipped into a trance enjoying it. He'd remember this meal for the rest of his life. This was what the G.o.ds ate.

The s.h.i.+ning people watched him eat every bite. When there was nothing left, he wiped his mouth with the white cloth napkin, worth a hundred times more than his s.h.i.+psuit, and pushed away the tray. For a feast like this he'd have returned a thousand Opalites.

”Okay,” he said. ”Here.” A bargain was a bargain. He reached into his pocket and put the wad of cloth on the table.

The smooth-haired woman with big liquid eyes almost jumped for the package, but sat down again. She let him unfold the wrappings until the glowing lump was revealed. They all looked it in silence. Hap swallowed. It was beautiful. If it could do everything the news reports said it could do, then it was a miracle as well.

”We haven't come to terms about the reward yet,” Antonio said smoothly. ”You're ent.i.tled to a finder's fee. Call it a mere consideration. We could extend the privileges of the Station to you, with my colleague's approval,” he extended a hand toward Chinn. ”Naturally, that would require you being issued an identification chip, so that you would have the freedom of the Station, and the reaches beyond...”

Hap opened his mouth to say that he had already gotten his reward. He realized that he was wrong. He was a fool. He had been wrong even to try and do what he'd come up here to ask for. They were ready to give him a planet, and he'd been about to settle for a square meal. The Chief was right. He was starlanes out of his world up here. He snapped his mouth shut.

The girl came around again, with a plate of tiny cakes and brown squares which she set down before him. She smiled at him, then scurried back to her place. Hap stared at the pet.i.ts fours and candies. That was real chocolate there on that plate. He was full, but he'd be d.a.m.ned if he was going to leave Upstairs food uneaten. He just couldn't manage it. What would these people do if he put the cakes in his pocket to take with him?

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