In addition to the ticket itself, the flatscreen display showed me that my account at the Sioux I-face Bank had just more than quintupled, with an infusion of 22-Kay nuyen "contingency funds."

Finally-also for download onto my credstick-was an "electronic password," I guess that's the best way of describing it. The message I had to deliver to Barnard's "colleague" in Hawai'i wasn't something I could memorize and recite verbatim-of course not, that would mean I'd know what the message was. Instead, it would be delivered to me on optical chip-no doubt encrypted and loaded with enough ice to chill a good-sized lake of synth-scotch-when I arrived at the Casper International Airport for my boost to the islands. The electronic password would identify me to the appropriate gofer at the airport for the handover.

I stared at the data displayed on the screen, and I fretted. Not because my comfortable little life was getting turned upside down and shaken out like a garbage can-well, not only because of that, at least. No, what worried me the most were my own reactions. Just a few hours before, I'd been thinking I didn't have the instincts to survive in the shadows anymore (if I'd ever had them…), and now I had proof.

Proof? Yeah.

I found myself wanting to trust Jacques Barnard, wanting to believe he was telling me the chip-truth about the trip to Hawai'i. About the fact that he didn't consider me in hock to the corp. That he'd picked me for the messenger job because he respected and-maybe-liked me. Worse, I found myself wanting to like him.

Trust him? Like him? Get fragging real. Barnard was the Johnson to end all Johnsons-I'd had enough personal proof of that four years before, hadn't I? If I thought he would-or could-feel any genuine human emotion for a convenient tool like me, I was naive at best, schizophrenic at worst. And the fact that I felt an urge to reciprocate those nonexistent feelings… well, maybe it was time to hang up the old trenchcoat and hip flask and carve out a nice, safe career selling greeting cards or some drek.

With a snarl I shoved my credstick into the telecom's slot and punched Download. As the system transferred the data-ticket, operating funds, and password-I forced myself to think through the situation coldly and logically.

Okay, no matter how Barnard couched the "request" in polite and friendly terms, the fact was that I didn't have much choice but to go along with him. Debts are debts, and megacorps are even harder on welchers than loansharks. I was going to Hawai'i, carrying a message that I couldn't read, to a person that I didn't know, under circumstances that I couldn't control. Anything I'd missed? Oh yes-facing potential opposition that I couldn't analyze or estimate. Great, better and better. In other words, this situation was the exact opposite of the "shadowruns" I usually chose, I thought bleakly. Maximum exposure, minimum leverage, and probably zero backup. Going in blind and stupid.

Well, at least I could do some research. I groaned as I thought of spending the next four or five hours whipping together another smartframe like Naomi to scope out any and all connections that Yamatetsu as a corp. and Barnard as an individual, had with the independent Kingdom of Hawai'i. Well, hell, I could sleep on the plane, I supposed.

Wait a tick here-there might be another option. I had one resource that might be able to tell me something useful. This resource seemed to have an almost encyclopedic memory for facts, factoids, and scurrilous rumors about corps the world over, and key players within them. Considering that he'd been involved with Yamatetsu and Barnard himself-albeit indirectly, through the intermediary of one Dirk Montgomery-he might be able to shed some interesting light on the subject, on what I was getting myself into.

I leaned forward again, raided a command string into the telecom's keyboard, then waited while it dialed a CalFree State LTG number. For the second time tonight-my time for cold relays, apparently-I watched the icons blink as my call was routed through a couple of intermediary nodes. Then, finally, the Ringing symbol flashed on-screen.

Someone answered immethately-through a blank screen, audio only-a thin, somewhat asthmatic voice that brought to mind images of a weasel-faced punk. "Do desu ka?"

"Get me Argent," I told the screen.

The weasel paused. "And who the frag are you?" he demanded.

"The fact that I know about this relay means I don't have to answer that, doesn't it? I pointed out.

"Look, priyatel," the weasel snarled, "you want to play fragging games, you play them somewhere else, neh?"

I imagined him reaching for the Disconnect key with a dirty forefinger and shrugged. "Okay, omae," I told him, "we'll play it your way." It didn't really matter anyway. 'Tell Argent that Dirk Montgomery wants to talk to him, okay?"

"Montgomery?" The weasel's voice changed, the habitual hostility vanishing. "Hey, the Man talked about you, priyatel, told me some stories. We got something in common, you know that?"

I didn't really want to think about what that might be, but the weasel went on, "We're both refugees from the Star. How about that, huh? Small fragging world, neh?'

"Yeah," I said, muffling a sigh. "Small fragging world. And you are…?"

"You can call me Wolf."

"Oh." I tried again. "I need to talk to Argent, Wolf."

"Can't do it, priyatel, he's over the wall and out of the sprawl. On biz."

"When's he due back?"

Wolf/Weasel chuckled thinly. "You ever known Argent to give you a straight answer to that one?" He paused, then went on more seriously, "I'll get him to call you when he gets back, that's the best I can do. Got a relay number?"

I gave Wolf the LTG number for a voice-mail service in Cheyenne. Nowhere near as secure as a true cold relay, of course, but since the voice mailbox was rented in the name of a dead man, at least it wouldn't lead interested parties directly to my doorstep. I exchanged a few more empty pleasantries with Wolf/Weasel and logged off as soon as I could.

I sighed again and checked the time. Close to eighteen hundred. It had been a full couple of days, all in all, and it didn't look like the pace would be slowing any time soon. I reviewed the details on my S-0 ticket: departure, oh-six-hundred, check in and be in the boarding lounge no later than one hour before dust-off. No worries there… at first glance. Unfortunately, however, the only airport in the Sioux Nation capable of handling full-on suborbitals is in Casper, not in Cheyenne-and almost 300 klicks away. Which meant a short-hop "Skybus," which left from downtown Cheyenne. Which, in turn, meant a cab from my doss to the Skybus terminus, unless I wanted to pay an arm and two legs for parking my car. Which meant…

I sighed one more time. I'd better start packing.