The first they told you in management school was this: for God’s sake, don’t go native.

The textbooks didn’t use those exact words, but every paragraph in the WalWa Colonization Protocol talked about “maintaining mission focus” and “respecting cultural boundaries.” You could tell WalWa and the rest of the Big Three were terrified that we’d step off the boat, get our first sniff of off-world air and say, “To hell with staying in Service. I’m Breaching.” Shock and surprise, a lot of us did.

The Aotongji called it getting windswept. You’d stand outside in the early evening, right when the trade winds were sweeping out of the east, and you’d get a noseful of jungle funk, tea plantations, and sun-soaked flesh and everything fades away. It still got me, and I’d been on Santee Anchorage for six years. But this place could entice even the hardest of of hearts. That was probably why the only people the Big Three could get to stay in Service here were the fishsticks they defrosted deep inside the Traffic Control building. By the time they woke up, they’d only been breathing triple-scrubbed air, the poor bastards.

I’d often wondered, as I processed some wide-eyed Breach from Nebraska into the Santee Freelancer’s Union (only 20 quai per annum, and the membership pays for itself in coffee- and whorehouse discounts) just what the Big Three were thinking when they dropped liftr cables and made this place a hub world. Did the surveyors stay in orbit, just going off their sensors and giving Santee the green light? Or did they come down here, get windswept and convince their superiors, yes, this is the place, drop anchor and we’ll be back in a bit? I think it’s the latter.

“Oh, bulls’ balls, Polo!” said Soni Baghram over the thrum in Big Lily’s Chachop. “No one in the Big Three could get carried away like that. They surgically remove your passions when you get to mid-management.”

“Then how did you get here?” I said. Once upon a time, Soni had been a senior comptroller for MacDonald Heavy.

Soni scratched the police shield tattooed on her left cheek. “Dunno,” she said. “Must’ve had a bad surgeon when I signed up.”

“Then he must’ve been on duty for me, too,” I said, raising my cup.

“To half-assed work!”

“At full pay rates!”

We clinked our cups in toast, and Soni drained hers. I preferred to savor Big Lily’s brew, especially when she added heavy mint.

“Speaking of rates,” said Soni, giving me a cat-eyed grin. “You gonna make your quota?”

“You bet your badge,” I said, swirling my tea. “An unimpeachable source tells me that convoy of ore processors is en route from Nanqu.”

Soni raised her eyebrows. “LiaoCon ships?”

“You know it,” I said, thinking about those brutal warty tubs with their overworked, overcrowded crews ready to give Liao Consolidated the finger. “Even if one ship Breaches, that’s enough new members to get me bumped up from Ward Chair to something citywide.” And then, inside of a year, Union Prez? I couldn’t bring myself to say that part out loud. Good things come on the breeze, but so do ugly rumors.

“You might want to hold off on that promotion, Polo,” said Soni, nodding her chin upwards. As I looked up at the overhanging tv, my gut sank. There was a shot of a dozen dirty-faced LiaoCon ore processors all looking scared out of their minds as WalWa security goons in their blue and white armor stood off to the side. The caption screamed HIJACKED! and DARING RESCUE!

I vaulted out of my chair and turned up the volume, just in time to hear the plasticized anchorette say, “–thanks to the bold actions of WalWa Security personnel, the miners were rescued from pirates, and, in gratitude, they have all signed up for extended Service with Liao Consolidated–”

“More like they got arrested by WalWa,” said Soni, moving the tv away from my now-clenched fists.
“Goddamn dirt-sorting idiots can’t even Breach right,” I said, waving for Big Lily to pour me something stronger. “Ah, well. They would’ve made crap Union members.”

“Spoken with the compassion I know and love,” said Soni, getting up. “I gotta get back to work, Polo. Better luck next mutiny.”

I was about to give her an annoyed grunt when a breeze drifted through an open window. It was in the middle of the afternoon, just as the winds were ready to switch directions and head out to sea, and that meant this breeze had passed an offshore kelp farm, a few bakeries, and the laundry house down on Taupo, the one where the proprietor keeps plumeria. It was an instant pick up and calm down, and my anger and sadness melted into a warm, calm reminder that I was a free woman on a free world and that something else would come in on the next wind. I wasn’t the only one affected: Soni’s face was a mask of bliss, her badge smooth and free of worry lines. She chucked me on the shoulder, popped her patrol cap back on her head, and headed out the door.

I was about to tell Big Lily to hold off on the hard stuff when something big and stupid smashed through the door like a runaway drop can and zeroed in before I could leap through a window. How someone as fat as Vytai Bloombeck could move so fast was a mystery, but he was too much of a jackass to make the science worth it. “Polo!” he shouted, “I got something, make us both righteously wealthy, like Jesus would want.” He plopped into two chairs, both of them blocking my exit.
“Not even Jesus wants you, Bloomie,” I said, resigned to hearing him out.

He spread his arms wide, like I’d just zapped him in the heart with a cattle prod. “Hey, I’m only thinking of the Union, Polo. Looking out for my brothers and sisters in solidarity from bondage.”

“Great,” I said. “Then you got the five years of back dues you still owe me?”

“In a way,” said Bloombeck, smiling in his weird manner, all upper lip and blue gums. “All I need is three hundred fifty quai to bribe the radar control officer at Sou’s Reach.”

“Christ on a ricksha, are you trying to piss me off?” I said, whapping him upside the head. “I’ve let you slide on dues, let you work to keep renting that filthy hammock you call home, and you have the balls to squeeze three and a half bills out of me? Forget it.”

“But I haven’t even told you the deal!” he cried. “How do you know what it is?”

“If it involves the words ‘bribe,’ ‘radar control officer’ and ‘Sou’s Reach’ all coming out of your big mouth, that’s enough.” I leaned back in my chair and closed my eyes. “Now get the hell out of here. You’re ruining my breeze.”

“But you’ll want to know about this!” he whined, “especially after that LiaoCon thing–”

I opened an eye. Maybe the breeze had just put me in an amenable mood. Maybe it was the desperate look on his reddened face. I should have just thrown a tea cup at him, but, instead, I nodded. “Let’s hear it.”

Bloombeck’s eyes widened, just one more indication that what he had planned was going to join the ever-growing list of Vytai Bloombeck’s Moronic Ideas. “Okay, okay,” he said, running a tiny pink tongue over his blue gums. “I got a pal over in Traffic Control. Jimney Potts, he sweeps up at night.”

“I know Jimney. He owed me dues when he still lived in Brushhead.”

“Then he’ll be able to pay you back, ’cause he overheard some techs talking about a WalWa colony seeder coming for a water stop in three days. He tells me, I put out some feelers, and–” He smiled and spread out his hands, like he was opening for a hug.

I narrowed my eyes. “And?”

Bloombeck shrugged. “About a hundred people want to jump ship. You know now bad those seeders are.”

I certainly did. Shoddy, slapped-together beasts from the shipyards of San Sbarro, packed to the gills with musty, half-frozen fishsticks all screaming in bored rage as they’re force fed looped videos for the length of their journey. WalWa would give us more Breaches if fewer of their crews died in transit.

“We just need the radar operators to lose the cans for a few hours while we off-load,” said Bloombeck, waggling his obscene little eyebrows. “Even if half of ‘em turn into paste on re-entry, that’s a good digit, yeah? And after I get the finder’s fee, I’ll have enough to pay back the Union!”

“More like all of your finder’s fee goes to the Union,” I said, getting up. “I get to charge a discretionary Putting-Up-With-Your-Bullshit fee.”

“But, the Union rules says–”

I leaned in. “You want to talk to your Ward Chair, see what she has to say?”

He shook his head, his jowls shivering like jell-o.

“I didn’t think so,” I said, standing up. “Okay. I know I’m going to regret this, but let’s go. You bring me to Jimney, and we’ll get this ball rolling.”

“Okay, okay!” he said, pounding his hand over his heart. “Solidarity, yeah?”

“Solidarity,” I said, as we walked out of the chachop. As I waved down a tuk-tuk, the wind shifted. It had picked up the smells of just-fired hotpots on Chengdu Lane, arcing steel from Repair Street, and the faint hint of evening rains. I’ve always liked this time of day, and the wind’s scent was comforting, even with Bloombeck nattering all the while. Still, as we climbed into the puttering tuk-tuk, I wondered how much this whole thing was really going to cost me.

It didn’t help that the tuk-tuk’s meter was broken.