Suzi Petkovski’s skimmer was pretty much the standard package—a blunt-nosed twenty-metre twin turbine rig that deserved the name hover loader more purely than did any of the huge vessels plying the sealanes of Harlan’s World. There was no antigrav system to kick up the buoyancy, just the engines and the armoured skirt, a variant on the basic machine they’ve been building since the pre-diaspora days on Earth. There was a sixteen-seat cabin forward and freight rack storage aft, railed walkways along either side of the superstructure from cockpit to stern. On the roof behind the pilot’s cupola, a nasty-looking ultravibe cannon was mounted in a cheap autoturret.

“That get much use?” I asked, nodding up at the weapon’s split snout.

She swung herself up onto the opened turbine mounting with accustomed grace, then looked back down at me gravely. “There are still pirates on the Expanse, if that’s what you mean. But they’re mostly kids, mostly methed to the eyes or,”—an involuntary glance back towards the terminal building—“wirehead cases. Rehabilitation projects all folded with the funding cuts, we got a big street problem and it spills over into banditry out there. But they’re not much to shout about, any of them. Usually scare off with a couple of warning shots. I wouldn’t worry about it if I were you. You want to leave your pack in the cabin?”

“No, it’s okay, it’s not heavy.” I left her to the turbine and retreated to a shaded area at the end of the wharf where empty crates and canisters had been piled without much care. I seated myself on one of the cleaner ones and opened my pack. Sorted through my phones and found an unused one.

Dialled a local number.

“Southside holdings,” said an androgynous synth voice. “Due to—”

I reeled off the fourteen-digit discreet coding. The voice sank into static hiss and then silence. There was a long pause, then another voice, human this time. Male and unmistakable. The bitten-off syllables and squashed vowels of Newpest-accented Amanglic, as raw as they had been when I first met him on the streets of the city a lifetime ago.

“Kovacs, where the fuck have you been?”

I grinned despite myself. “Hey Rad. Nice to talk to you too.”

“It’s nearly three fucking months, man. I’m not running a pet hotel down here. Where’s my money?”

“It’s been two months, Radul.”

“It’s been more than two.”

“It’s been nine weeks—that’s my final offer.”

He laughed down the line, a sound that reminded me of a trawl winch cranking at speed. “Okay, Tak. So how was your trip? Catch any fish?”

“Yes, I did.” I touched the pocket where I’d stowed the cortical stacks. “Got some for you right here as promised. Canned for ease of carriage.”