Wolf Time (Voice of the Whirlwind) Read Free Page A

and hanging right on the edge. I like knowing that I have to do things right, that any mistake I make matters.”
    He shook his head. “I don’t understand that. People like you.”
    “You haven’t had to become an animal. You’re a macroeconomist, and you’re trained to take the long view. A few people blown out a hatch, that’s just an acceptable sacrifice. I tend to take this kind of thing personally, is all. See, I figure everyone who ever tried to get me killed was looking at the long view.”
    Ken’s gaze was steady. “I’m not planning on getting you killed. That’s not part of my view.”
    “Maybe someday I’ll end up standing between you and your revolution. Then we’ll see.”
    He didn’t say anything. In the steadiness of his dark eyes, the absence of expression, Reese read her answer, and knew it was the one she’d expected.
    *
    “Reese.”
    It was the first time she’d heard her name in six months, and now it came from a complete stranger on a streetcorner in Uzbekistan. Her hardwired nerves were triggered and her combat thread was evaluating the man’s stance, calculating possible dangers and responses, before she even finished her turn.
    He was about forty, tanned, with receding brown hair and a widow’s peak. His stance was open, his hands in plain sight: he wore a blue down vest over a plaid shirt, baggy grey wool pants, old brown square-toed boots. He smiled in a friendly way. His build was delicate, as if he’d been genetically altered. His face was turning ruddy in the wind.
    “You talking to me?” Reese asked him. “My name’s Waldman.” Her wetwear was still evaluating him, analyzing every shift in posture, movement of his hands. Had Ken shopped her? she wondered. Had Cheney, after deciding she was a danger to Ken?
    His smile broadened. “I understand your caution, but we know who you are. Don’t worry about it. We want to hire you.”
    His voice was as American as hers. Her speeded-up reflexes gave her plenty of time to contemplate his words.
    “You’d better call me Waldman if you want to talk to me at all.”
    He put up his hands. Her nerves crackled. She noticed he had a ragged earlobe, as if someone had torn off an earring in a fight. “Okay, Miss Waldman. My name’s Berger. Can we talk?”
    “The Natural Life, in an hour. Do you know where that is?”
    “I can find out. See you there.”
    He turned and walked casually up the narrow street. She watched till he was gone and then went to the apartment she rented in a waterfront condecology. She looked for signs anyone had been there in her absence— there weren’t any, but that didn’t mean anything— and then, to calm her jittery nerves, she cleaned her pistol and took a long, hot bath with the gun sitting on the side of the steel tub. She stretched out as far as the tub would let her, feeling droplets of sweat beading on her scalp while she watched the little bathroom liquid-crystal vidscreen show a bouncy pop-music program from Malaysia. She changed her clothes, put the pistol back in its holster— the security softwear at the Natural Life would shred her with poisoned darts if she tried to carry it in— and then headed back into town.
    The muezzins’ song hung in the gusty air. Her mind sifted possibilities.
    Berger was the heat. Berger was an assassin. Da Vega had shopped her out of pique. Cheney had sold her name. Ken had regretted telling her so much about his revolution and decided to have her iced before she sold his plans to Ram.
    Life was just so full of alternatives.
    Berger hadn’t arrived at the bar when she came in. The bartender was at prayer and so she turned on the desktop comp and read the scansheets, looking for something that might give her an edge, help her to understand what it was about.
    Nothing. The aliens hadn’t generated any headlines today. But there was a note about a Cerean exile named da Vega who had been found dead, along with a couple of his bodyguards. Another bodyguard was