Radiance

“The Deformed, Insane, and Infirm. St. Nepthys, was it? I believe Ibis also has a charming amusement park with a rollicking good roller coaster. And bumper cars. How nice for you! Who wouldn’t grow up into a fine young man given such idyllic circumstances? A splendid estate overlooking the Sea of Serenity. The very eyeball of the man on the moon. Toys and books and good, nourishing, Earth-grown food. Even an outpatient program! Ah, but you didn’t do well at St. Nepthys, did you? Well, who could? Nurses can be such a bother.”

“Stop.”

“So you ran away from your hospital and your guardian and the bumper cars and that steadfast little rollercoaster. And where did you land first? Come now, surely you remember.”

My face burned. The drinks I’d gulped down in the Talbot were in a hurry to come back up.

“Stop it. Just stop it.”

“Oh, but I’m sure you know better than me, Mr St. John. Where was it? Mars? No, no, that was later, after you dried out—the first time, anyway. What was your first stop?”

I gritted my teeth.

“Mercury. Trismegistus.”

“Oh, that’s right. The hacienda. Now, was that your first suicide attempt, or did we miss one back at old St. Neppie’s?”

“Enough.”

“Tell me, Mr St. John, what exactly is a callowhale?”

A man can only hear so much of his own history before he cries uncle. And that was my uncle, right there.

“That’s me, then,” I said cheerily, lifting my hat as I walked away from her. Fast but don’t flee, I thought. Fleeing doesn’t look good on anyone. I shot over my shoulder: “You have a nice morning, madam. I’ll see you in hell.”

“Mr St. John, get back here this instant or I’ll have you breaking your ribs in a titanium mine by glassup.” I froze. If you’d seen the inside of a Uranian mine, you’d freeze, too. “And I’ll find a foreman with a particularly oppressive home life to look after you.” She softened her voice, but not by much. “Don’t be an idiot. We will pay you more money than you’ve seen in your life. We will supply you with food. Drink. Transportation. The drug or drugs of your choice. Companionship, if you fancy it, though I’d recommend a bath first. A personal, dedicated radio unit so you never have to bother with Depot queues again—which is worth nearly half what we’re paying you to begin with. Cythera will go with you, of course—we are not fools. You need a governess. But, I promise, you can do this job fat, drunk, high, and fucked senseless, and afterward you can sleep with a security blanket made of money. Or you can do any number of less stimulating jobs digging out the marine tunnels or hauling sewage or mining the most poisonous thing I can think of this week. But you will leave my office employed.”

God, I just wanted to leave. Just let me leave. “Jesus, woman, why? I am as useless as a sack of nothing, you can see that. Your secretary, or whatever Miss Brass out there is, could see it.”

“Because I know you can do it with a needle in your arm and a fifth in your fist. You were a private eye on Callisto for seven years. It’s the longest you ever stayed put. You were good at it. You don’t like being good at things; it makes you stand out. But you couldn’t help being good at it. You tried to fail and for once you didn’t. But I guess regular meals and an apartment where the heat stayed on were too much for you, kiddo. We’re not offering any of that. We’re offering what you do want: enough money and vice to drink yourself to death in comfort after you’ve done with us.”

“Who is us? Who are the ‘interests you represent’? For that matter, who are you? What do I call you?”

The boss smiled, the smile of a boss who knew she’d won. It was a sick fucking smirk. “My name is irrelevant to you personally. You can call me Melancholia when you need to call me anything, which I do not expect to be often. Nor should it concern you who I represent. Do your job; get paid.”

“Not good enough.” Not good enough for her. Not if I had to hunt her down like a dog after a fox. I wanted to know who was up on the horses.

Melancholia sighed. She looked out the window at the blue froth of the All-Clear. Her sharp nose stood starkly against the bleeding colours. “Only four sequences of The Radiant Car Thy Sparrow Drew survived whatever happened, and they are quite badly damaged. I’m sure you’ve seen them. I represent a consortium of business interests loosely gathered under the tent of Oxblood Films. Oxblood underwrote all but one of Ms Unck’s movies. We own Radiant Car. We paid for it. In a very real sense, we own her. And we must insist upon recovering our property. Undiscovered footage may not even be out of the question.”

“It is.”

The boss shrugged. “If you say so. We will accept a body in lieu of a print. Either of these things would be beyond value as far as we are concerned.”