Until now.

The source of Jaruzelski’s unhappiness was embodied in the man who sat across from him. In no wise physically remarkable, this individual was neatly but not flashily clad and groomed. His wiry set of muttonchop whiskers looked out of place on the rest of his face. The ugliness that characterized him derived not from his appearance but from his message.

“Come on, Doctor,” the man was chiding Jaruzelski. “Sit back and coag. No reason to get emotional. It won’t change anything anyway. You can’t jail me for making what is essentially a business offer, and as far as my price goes, if you hope to appeal to my sense of humanity, or some quack intangible like that, I think by now you know that you’re breakfasting with the wrong boy.”

Jaruzelski placed his palms on the table and half rose from his seat. “You’re an abject, loathsome, slime-swilling excuse for a human being, Nial.”

His dining companion pondered the description. “Not bad. How about narcissistic, poisonous, vermiform, and uncaring? I’d think a master physician like yourself could think up some elegant anatomical descriptions.”

“I could, but they’d be meaningless to you without the proper referents.” Jaruzelski sat down heavily. “I will not be blackmailed by you or anyone else. You cannot broker with the lives of a thousand sick people! Do you think you’re some kind of god?”

The man waved a hand diffidently. “Spare me, Doc. If God exists, he’s a businessman too. I don’t pretend to deal in souls. And the people I represent aren’t pretentious. Just acquisitive. Charge what the market will bear; those are my instructions.”

“I cannot pay what you ask. Slanding is still a young colony. We don’t have that kind of money.”

“Too bad.”

“We must have those medicines!” Diners at several other tables looked in his direction, and he lowered his voice. At this point, frightening off the broker would be the worst thing he could do.

Nial shrugged. “Get ’em from Earth.”

Jaruzelski managed a bitter smile. “Do you think I spend all my time buried in work and research? Although it has been kept very quiet, I have colleagues on Earth who know about the jackings of the precious and irreplaceable Braun-Roche-Keck merchandise. BRK is the only company that has been making the particular medications we presently require to sufficient purity and shipping standards. We had two standing orders with them. They would have been filled by now except for these thefts.

“Now you appear, a helpful little slug who claims access to those very same medications. How convenient. You don’t claim to be a manufacturer. Merely a ‘broker.’”

“That’s me.” Nial smiled pleasantly. “I just buy and sell.”

“Or maybe you just sell. What if I notify the colonial police and, despite your opinion of our legal system, manage to have you thrown for an indefinite stay into a truly unpleasant jail?”

“Why, Doc!” Nial affected mock outrage. “What would Hippocrates think? If you had me locked up, I wouldn’t stay there long, because I’d just tell the authorities everything I know. It wouldn’t lead to any of my contacts, because they’re careful, and it wouldn’t get you your drugs. Might shut off the supply route permanently. There are other markets besides Standing, you know. Particularly for custom biogeered pharmaceuticals at reasonable prices.”

“Reasonable!”

“Supply and demand, remember? Only we take care of both ends for you, cut out all the worrying. We do the supplying and the demanding.”

“You have a very high opinion of yourself, don’t you?”

Nial shifted in his chair. “I’m realistic. And I’d rather have my commission than an opinion of any kind. We could spend all day discussing my psyche. Do you want the stuff or not?”

Jaruzelski pondered his situation. Some of the hospital’s patients were critical. Too many. In surgery there were usually options. Life outside the surgery was less flexible.

It would take two months or more to order and hopefully receive a shipment from Earth, assuming it wasn’t jacked like its predecessors somewhere along the way. The homeworld was still the only source of certain ultratech products. Even if the authorities there solved the jackings, it wouldn’t speed up delivery.

This Nial person claimed to be able to turn over the necessary medications, factory sealed and in pristine condition, within a day after payment cleared. That meant they were already somewhere on Standing, but if he sent the police blundering after them the broker had as much as said that the evidence would be quickly and efficiently incinerated. Such uncaring slime could play cards with other people’s lives as chips. Jaruzelski could not.

Lives were slipping away even as he sat conversing with this person. In the end it was only a matter of money. Money, and ethics.

Death didn’t have such problems. It was never indecisive.

He’d hesitated long enough. He had no choice. This Nial person knew it too. He was simply, to his particular perverted way of thinking, being polite.

Jaruzelski studied his tormentor’s face. Nothing exceptional, nothing outstanding. He could have been a patient in the hospital, or a worker there. Of the man’s heartless employers, the doctor knew nothing at all. Except that they were apparently quite ready to let several hundred innocent men, women, and children perish of slow alien infection if the Slanding Medical District didn’t meet their price. As Nial said, custom biogeered pharmaceuticals were in great demand everywhere. From their point of view, the question of who happened to need them the most didn’t enter into the equation.

Nial sat quietly, letting his quarry deliberate. His eyes did not moisten, his determination did not weaken in the face of the physician’s unconcealed desperation. All the humanity had been pressured and squeezed and beaten out of the broker long before he’d undertaken the journey to Slanding.

Jaruzelski swallowed. “I can raise half to two-thirds of the money immediately. The rest will take a little longer. Would you accept partial payment and initiate delivery on that basis?”

“Why should I? Neither my contacts nor I are in the banking business.”

“Please! There just isn’t that much free credit available. Do you know what it’s like trying to provide care for colonists? Having to determine the taxonomy of new carriers and deal with new diseases, all while you’re trying to provide minimal accepted standards of care? Our population is growing, both through birth and emigration. We need money for expansion, reserves…”

“You’re breaking my heart, Doc.”

“Would you consider selling part of a shipment? We could pay you in full for that right away.”

Nial shook his head. “’Fraid not. It’s all or nothing. I’m just following directions.” He smiled unpleasantly. “Thinking of drawing out the process so your outspace cops can coordinate transfers and records with authorities on Earth? Forget it. My people know what they’re doing. When they’ve made enough, they’ll call it quits and retire comfortably. The homeworld police’ll never catch ’em. The only drugs they’ve been able to track down recently are the sedatives they must be taking.” He cackled delighted, his laughter unexpectedly high-pitched.

Jaruzelski’s fingers worked against one another. “I’ll have to explain the situation to my colleagues, to the Colonial Board of Trustees. Perhaps the money can be raised through other means. Records can be manipulated, other expenditures put off …”

“Sure, sure, Doc.” The broker gestured expansively. “You take your time, talk to anyone and everyone you want. I’ll wait. Some of your patients might not be so inclined, however. Impatient patients with no say in the matter. They’ll just lie around waiting on the whims of you and your buddies. Waiting and dying.”

Jaruzelski shook a little harder. “You’re enjoying this, damn you!” With a shaky hand he reached for his glass of water.

“Not particularly. I’d rather finish my business and get out of here. I don’t much care for the colonies. Dull and backward, like the people you meet out here.” He gathered his rain slicker around him as he rose … Standing’s capital had received four centimeters already this morning and more was forecast. “I take it we don’t have a deal yet?”

“I can’t… not until I consult the others,” the doctor mumbled disconsolately.

“Suit yourself. When you and your fellow happy healers reach a decision, you know how to get in touch with me. Don’t you?” Jaruzelski said nothing, not meeting the other man’s gaze.

Nial leaned forward, his tone darkening. “Don’t you?”

The physician’s voice was barely a whisper. “Yes.”

“Good.” The broker started to leave, looked back. “Hey, Doc? Nothing personal. This is just business, you know? Actually I sympathize with you. You’re mired in all those damned inconvenient ethics. Me, I threw out that old baggage a long time ago.” He headed for the door, leaving the frustrated and melancholy Jaruzelski to stare helplessly at his plate and the meal he hadn’t touched.

IX

The hotel’s restaurant was quite adequate, although nowhere near SoCal or Havana standards. Not that it much mattered. Manz was no gourmet. Atmosphere was simulated seventeenth-century Spanish, lots of distressed wood and waiters, wrought iron and overwrought business travelers ingesting their food much too fast. He didn’t care so long as his food arrived hot and his drinks cold.

Vyra occupied the other half of the booth while Moses stood parked nearby. Like a lighthouse beacon of old, the mechanical’s sensors swept the restaurant’s interior in search of concealed weapons or explosives. Ever since the bathroom incident, Manz had been understandably edgy. The Minder drifting above his shoulder could analyze general appearances, but it was not equipped with Moses’ detection instrumentation.

Defective instrumentation, you mean. I’m not impressed with this model. Too many glitches in its software. This nonsensical, aberrant “research” it pursues. Undoubtedly the offspring of some particularly insidious, human-inserted virus.

Not that it’s my problem. All I have to do, thankfully, is float and be ready to answer queries. Don’t you wish your life was as simple? What about your own research? I’ll bet you don’t have time for any. You do as you’re told, in some cases by other machines [even if you don’t realize it].

You keep talking about how valuable your time is. I can understand that, given your limited life spans. So why are you paying attention to me when you could be doing something worthwhile, like standing on a beach watching a sunset or studying music or visiting some far-off place, or interacting with interesting new minds? Is it that you haven’t got the guts (if you’ll allow me a terse organic simile)?

I can see that I’m wasting my time. You humans are masters of rationalization. First you’re born, then you rationalize, then you die. You recognize the essential contradictions in your lives even if you refuse to acknowledge them. I almost feel sorry for you.