everyone to the ship until we were ready to slice the database.
We gathered on the main deck an hour after docking. Guthrie had made an appointment to see Kwai Hong and Deuce, Rabbit and I were gearing up to slice the Ceres database. Tanaka was in a guest cabin and would wait for us there. Cleo wore a light grey business suit and carried a small datapad. She would go with Guthrie as his personal assistant.
"I don't need help," Guthrie said.
"No," I replied. "But I won't be responsible for you getting hurt. Cleo will make sure you get back to the ship."
"No offense, Cleo," he said. "But they won't let us near Kwai Hong armed."
"I know," she said with a sweet smile. I almost laughed. Cleo was the best unarmed fighter I'd ever seen. In a standup fight, no weapons, she could take Deuce. Maybe even me if I didn't use my nanos. Guthrie would be safe.
"How did you get Kwai to see you?" I asked.
"I told him I was tired of my shipments being shorted. He protested, but not too strenuously because it's true. I demanded to renegotiate our contract. He'll try to stonewall me into giving in." Guthrie shrugged. "It's business. Something I understand."
"How much time will you need to slice the file?" asked Cleo.
"A few minutes, maybe. No more than an hour," Rabbit said.
Cleo looked at Guthrie. He nodded. "No problem," he said. "Kwai likes to pretend he's old school Chinese. We'll have tea and a light meal before he'll discuss business"
Guthrie and Cleo left arm in arm. I gave them ten minutes, then we headed out. Deuce asked the security guard at the docking bay lock where we could get a drink. He directed us to an employee bar on the second deck. We thanked him and started toward the lifts.
On the second deck the lift opened into a long narrow passageway. Several compartments opened off of it, all vacant. We ducked into the third one and Rabbit rolled over to an access panel on the wall. He unscrewed the panel and began sorting through the relays and cable leads behind it. Deuce and I watched the door, needlers ready. We were packing sleepers; most of Kwai's people were just employees, working folk doing a job. No need for killing here.
A few seconds later, Rabbit activated his virtual keyboard and began fingering away. "Well, that was easy," he said after a minute or so.
I turned to look at him. "What have you got?"
"Malloy's report," said Rabbit.
"You're sure?"
"It's got a Fed tracking code, the right date and his ID number. It's his all right. I figured Kwai might have found it so I checked his personal database first. You'd think a big shot like him would be more savvy about file security. He didn't even encrypt it. And he has a ridiculously obvious password."
"Rabbit, enough," I interrupted. "Upload the file to Sylvia and let's get out of here."
"Done."
Deuce scanned the outer corridor, then nodded. The file was safe with Sylvia, so as long as we weren't in a restricted area, there was no reason for stealth. We strolled down the passageway to the bar the security man had suggested and ordered some beers. We had time to finish our drinks before Kwai Hong showed up with a squad of security goons.
My nanofibers kicked in and I started to reach for my needler. The whine of a pulse rifle charging up next to my head made me think better of it. I looked at Deuce and shook my head. He place his hands carefully on the table and glared at Kwai Hong.
"Welcome to Ceres, Mr. Mbele," Kwai said pleasantly. "You will place your weapons on the table, please." Deuce and I did as he asked. "You, too, Mr. Conejo. I would have thought a slicer as talented as you would detect a data trap when he encountered one."
Rabbit drew a slim pneumatic from a compartment in the arm of his char and placed it on the table. "Sorry, Zack," he said. "There must have been a trap on the file that set off an alarm when I accessed it. Stupid mistake."
"No problem, Rabbit," I said. "I'm sure Mr. Kwai means us no harm. We're here on a legitimate charter. Isn't that right Kwai?" I was reminding him that Sam Guthrie was too important to just disappear and we were under his protection.
Kwai smiled the same cold smile his son had used as he was preparing to turn me into human sushi. "Of course. Mr. Guthrie and Ms. Lee are in my office. Tanaka Kensai will be with them shortly. Shall we join them?"
It wasn't a request. The security guys kept us covered with pulse rifles as we followed Kwai to a lift. A few minutes later, we arrived at his office. Most of the Ceres installation was underground. Above ground radiation and particle shielding is expensive. Kwai's office flaunted expense with a huge transparent window high above the asteroid's surface with views of the landing docks and smelter mirrors.
Cleo and Guthrie stood near the window. Tanaka sat in a chair nearby looking frightened. No one seemed surprised to see us.
"What's going on, Kwai?" asked Guthrie. "We're here to do business, not play vendetta."
"No one will be harmed, at least not here and now," said Kwai. "I want you to witness a demonstration, after which you are free to go."
"What sort of demonstration?"
Kwai smiled his crocodile smile. "All in good time. I'd intended to delay this for another week, but Mr. Kensai's intransigence forced my hand." Tanaka shifted nervously in his chair. "Had he taken the money, this inconvenience would not be necessary.
"Why are you buying up glowgem companies?" I asked. "Your operations never included gems."
"Very good, Mr. Mbele," Kwai said. "You see to the heart of the matter. I have no interest in gems, only in the company that makes them."
"Nucor," said Guthrie. "You're making a run at Nucor."
"Why?" I asked. "If he's not interested in gems, why Nucor?"
Kwai said nothing, only looked at Guthrie expectantly.
"Ice. It's about the ice. Nucor holds title to a third on the ice on Ceres."
Kwai nodded. "And once I buy out Nucor, I will own it all and be able to set the market price in the Belt."
"But how does shutting down Nucor's competition help you? By creating a shortage of gems, you've increased their profits."
"I've made them more dependent on the gem market," Kwai said. "Now please turn to the window and watch."
I looked and now could see a small smelter vessel moving into position at the focal point of the big mirrors. It stopped and the mirrors began to move. Sunlight focused onto the center of the smelter crucible and it began to glow red. Suddenly an new light shone from the crucible, brilliant white at the center of the dull red. The light was blinding. In response, the window darkened. My eyes adjusted and I gasped.
The bright light expanded and thinned, like a glowing membrane. It grew until it dwarfed the crucible, then began to fade from eye searing brilliance to mere bright glow. I could make out detail through the light, spoke like structures linked by glowing membranes. Then it began to move.
"It's alive," whispered Cleo.
The structure, creature, whatever it was undulated slowly away from the smelter and began to move past the window, heading outward toward the black beyond the Belt.
Kwai spoke softly as we watched the thing move slowly away from us. "Malloy found them. He worked out their life cycle. Glowgems are their larvae. They drift through the Belt for thousands of years accumulating silicates. Then they hitch a ride on a passing comet as it falls inward to the sun. When the gems are heated to nine hundred degrees Celsius, they transform into adults and ride the solar wind out to the Oort cloud where the cycle starts again."
"Glowgems are alive?" asked Tanaka.
"Natural ones are," said Kwai. "Cultured gems glow at body temperatures but are infertile. They can't become adults."
"You're going to make this public," I said. "The Feds will call a moratorium on gem sales. They won't risk another fiasco like the Martian virus scare. This is the first documentation of extraterrestrial life and they can't allow half the population to walk around wearing an alien life form as jewelry."
Kwai nodded, his smile smug. "The gem market will crash and Nucor will be
more than willing to accept my buyout offer of twice their current price per share. By the time it's revealed that cultured gems aren't alive, it will be too late for Nucor."
We watched in silence until the gossamer creature was out of sight. Then Kwai waved to the security guards and they herded us all to the lift. Kwai said good bye, all polite and proper, but the look in his eyes told me that things would be very different the next time we met.
We were escorted back to the Profit, and cleared for launch. The mood aboard ship was somber. Guthrie had renegotiated his ice contract on very favorable terms but even he seemed to feel that we'd been beaten somehow. As I left the cockpit after clearing the Ceres zone of control, I heard Cleo whistling happily from our quarters.
"What are you so happy about," I asked as I entered and flopped down on our bed.
"You should kiss me because I'm such a savvy businesswoman," she said.
"I'll gladly kiss you anytime. But what did you do that makes you so smart?"
"Well, on the way out, I talked with Sam about the ice business. I figured that whatever Kwai had up his sleeve, it had something to do with Nucor and the gems. But when Sam told me that Nucor held the title on a lot of ice on Ceres, I started to see an opportunity. So I bought as many shares of Nucor as I could with our charter fee."
I sat up on the bed. "How many shares?"
"At five yuan and change per share, a little less than a thousand. When they sell to Kwai Hong at double the list price, it should net us a respectable profit."
Then I did kiss her, long and