Mainline Read online

  "Christian's well-articulated, cleverly constructed plot hurtles along at a blistering pace.... A debut of splendid promise."

  —Kirkus Reviews (starred)

  "Intricately drawn characters . .. solid plotting ... all the ingredients of a science fiction thriller."

  —Library Journal

  "Manuscripts that rise from the 'slush pile' to hardcover publication are rare indeed. Deborah Christian's Mainline is one such, and it's easy to see why it caught the slush reader's jaded eye ... the novel impresses."

  —Feminist Bookstore News

  "[Christian] manages to pack a lot of action into an intelligent and thoughtful package."

  —Publishers Weekly

  "Mainline is gripping, inventive and eventful, all the things a good sf thriller should be."

  —Interzone

  "Here is someone who tells a story crisply and enables her readers to live with her characters through even the most extravagant happenings."

  —Vector

  "Engrossing and fascinating . .. Mainline offers the best of fantasy and sf, much like Zelazny himself, blending and merging both genres and taking them on to new levels of superior fiction."

  —Pirate Writings

  NOTE: If you purchased this book without a cover you should be aware that this book is stolen property. It was reported as "unsold and destroyed" to the publisher, and neither the author nor the publisher has received any payment for this "stripped book."

  This is a work of fiction. All the characters and events portrayed in this book are either products of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously.

  MAINLINE

  Copyright © 1996 by Deborah Christian

  All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book, or portions thereof, in any form.

  Cover art by Bruce Jensen

  A Tor Book

  Published by Tom Doherty Associates, Inc.

  175 Fifth Avenue

  New York, NY 10010

  Tor Books on the World Wide Web:

  http://www.tor.com

  Tor® is a registered trademark of Tom Doherty Associates, Inc.

  ISBN: 0-812-54908-2

  Library of Congress Card Catalog Number: 95-53747

  First edition: June 1996

  First mass market edition: August 1997

  Printed in the United States of America

  A first novel can be an especially uphill battle to write and sell

  and get into print. That you hold this book in print in your hands,

  is something you and I both owe to these people:

  Helen Hakeem Christian, my mother, for all her love and support.

  Tina Olivas Estrada, former partner, who enabled this work with love and many personal sacrifices.

  Mary Walker McCants Wilton, extraordinary teacher and school administrator in Long Beach, California, who nurtured my talents at a critical juncture.

  Don Miller and Chris Christian, my brother and sister, for timely aid.

  Rene Ellen Feinstein, my friend and patron of the arts, who did more to help in the completion of this book than anyone will ever know.

  Leta Rank and Lynn Flewelling, fellow writers, who helped midwife the process.

  Kathleen O'Shea, for helping me maintain my sanity.

  Nicola Griffith, David Drake, and Walter Jon Williams, for helping out a newcomer.

  Stephen de las Heras, my editor and kindred spirit, for sharing the mania with me and making it happen.

  Julia Cameron, whose book, The Artist's Way, went far to help make this book a reality.

  My love and thanks to you all.

  PROLOGUE

  The ghost-ray was a rumor, a myth discounted by the Unmodified of Obai Shelf. The sea-children had their tales, though, of the Sea Father of R'debh, who lived phantom-like in the depths. A creature who rode the currents, a giant ghost the color of silt-sifted water, fading from sight only to reappear nearby, or later, or never. Their tales did not say what the ghost-ray's purpose was. He did not speak to them. But now and then a child was found stunned, who awakened with strange wisdom and a head full of visions.

  Niva was two months pregnant, a daughter's bio-alteration already under way in her womb, when she swam to the deepwater pump station, her work assignment. It was as far out on the shelf and down as an unaltered human dared go.

  Niva did not know exactly what she met. A presence was suddenly before her, massive, invisible, yet tangible. A backwash of current swirled past her, wings that couldn't be seen brushed over her. She felt the electrical potential in the water tingle around her skin like a caress—electrical potential, and something different. Something more.

  She was found adrift, unconscious, deeper than she should have ventured. Sea-children pulled her to a rest dome. Like the children, she was different for a time, full of dreams and half-remembered visions, living on the verge of a great revelation, only to have it slip away like a receding wave before its meaning could be grasped.

  Her daughter was born Unmodified, like her air-breathing parents. Niva did no swimming during her next pregnancy.

  ONE

  ""A choice of realities once foregone is gone forever."

  I

  It was an old capital, sure, but who would live there if they had a choice? Almost 50 outside, and the sweat streamed off the few unprotected backstreeters where they wilted in the meager shade. Geoplast and steeloy and covered slidewalk to Old Town kept the rich in cool comfort. But the sideways were in the open, for those who trod the back paths and the poor who had no alternative. Outside there was no climate control, no cool—just the clinging blanket Lyndir called air and the heat, washing over from above, radiating from below.

  Reva paused in the angled shadow of a vidvert panel and studied the off-main walkways of Port Oswin. Right then she lived the Timeline where the shade was thickest behind the panel, the Line where no one looked her way, and those who did were too drone to see anything out of the ordinary. It was reflex, a tiny balance, like riding a powerband in a wide margin. Easy. Not tired yet, nowhere near tired, she waited for him, for Number 12. It was break-time in the city for the next two hours. The ways were deserted, mostly, but Number 12 would be out any minute, wasting his time, squandering his money, hot on the trail of his newest Betman, an underwriter of rigged races, another warren rat in the exterior maze of Port Oswin.

  She spotted him. Coolsuit on high—no condensation on the polychrome, a radiant chill as he walked by. She could see it in his walk: he thought he owned the backways, as long as his plastic paid the way. No cares, and not aware; not aware of those who stepped out of his way, and not aware he was being watched. Reva tailed him, nearby, not a safe distance back. But any distance is safe, she thought. I live between the Lines. Nothing's safer than that.

  She hunted a bit, felt for the moment, waited for it, walking up to it with each step down the sideway. Then it happened: an intersection, and he paused to get his bearings. On Mainline, it was a heartbeat of indecision, and he went his way to the Betman. One Line over, he paused a minute longer, reconsidering the wager, then continued on. Two Lines over, he forgot the address; he wasted a minute dredging it from his mind, then checked his nailplate for directions.

  The other Lines were unimportant. Reva took the second one off Mainline, and the other possibilities faded into nothingness as she chose her future and shifted down to Realtime. She stepped behind the gambler as he curled his fingers to read the nailplate. With one motion she unplugged the powerpack of his coolsuit, plugged in the supercharger, stood back. He turned to her, eyes wide in surprise, then rolling up in shock.

  Her client was right. He froze solid in ten seconds.

  Reva left on a Line that took her unnoticed through the gathering crowd.

>   II

  Chorb. Waterworld. Imperial starship yard and Marine training base.

  Reva stayed inside the starport terminal. Kirk, her contact there, stood reluctantly by her side, squinting longingly at the beckoning holosigns and feelie shops outside. She turned to him, curled a red-lipped sneer. "Seen one Startown, you seen 'em all. Vomit in the gutters, overworked cleanbots, security mechos scanning every corner."

  "Whadjya 'spect?" he drawled. The hoppers were wearing off. Reva studied him, her hazel eyes amber-tinged, their hard highlights riveting his attention.

  She didn't know him, really, but his problem was unmistakable. "You hit the shops too much," she criticized. "Euphorics, sensie-feelies, holorounds—they just rip your last cred from you, or maybe your last unvouchered organ. How many of those you got left?"

  "Whut?"

  "Unvouchered organs."

  "Zthata question?"

  Reva spat, accurately, and the toe of Kirk's boot was hidden beneath mucus. "The more you pay, the more it's worth."

  Kirk stared at his boot toe. "Whatzat mean?"

  "Shit."

  Flunkies could stew whatever synapses they wanted, but she wasn't there to chat with the brain-burned. Kirk gave her the code for the call she had to make, and he was the intro to the courier. Nothing more. She scoped the terminal for the Cardman. No one looked

  likely, and she glanced again at her companion. His eyes unfocused as a vert for hoppers snagged his limited attention span.

  She sighed, impatient for the Cardman to show up. She had one rule: people serious about using her services paid in kind, with genetic samples, retina prints, and other irreplaceables. Goods that could pay her way no matter what Line served her for Mainline. Reva had learned that lesson the first time she took a credit chit in payment. By time the hit was done, she was living a Timeline where there were no credits in the man's bank to cover his chit. When they paid in kind, it didn't turn worthless in a week's worth of heartbeats. Not usually.

  A page blared distinct over the terminal interlink, echoing down broad hallways between boarding calls and arrival announcements.

  "Kamisku Benulu, please authorize credcheck on Plancomm seven-niner. Credcheck on Plancomm seven-niner, please."

  Metallic speaker tones, female voice.... The code name registered, and Reva looked for a house comm. A global credit check happened rarely enough, and this could only be the prearranged signal. But there was always room for error.

  "Konib'nichwa," Reva spoke Ganandi to the vidunit. "Benulu gesko."

  "Code green, please," came the response, then the ear-scritching rasp of disconnect.

  Reva stepped to the public com booth, punched in the "green" vidcode for moneymarket transactions and the special access code Kirk had given her.

  The screen flared to life but carried no video. The voice was distorted. As, she knew, was hers.

  "A member of the Economic Council on Selmun III," a man's voice said dispassionately. "Her name is Alia Lanzig. She holds proxies and a controlling interest, and uses them.

  "Your first target is her uncle, Albek Murs. He inherits her seat if she goes first, and he could do even more harm in that position than she has. After Murs is gone, get her. Any questions?"

  "No," replied Reva.

  "Good. Dossiers follow. Is your downlink ready?"

  The voice was disembodied, factual, but the mention of Selmun III had distanced Reva already. "Oh ... yes, of course," she said.

  "Dumping now," came the response.

  The download began.

  III

  Reva was ten, living in the Obai Shelf dome with her parents and younger brother on R'debh. It was not yet Selmun III to her, nor was there much more to her world than the domes, the aqua-farms, and the ocean. Her brother Calin dropped through the water-lock with a wave and a laugh. A taunting laugh, for he needed no breathing gill and was always ready for school before Reva was.

  She sealed her bodysuit and settled the breather over her face, a cripple arranging her prosthetics. Her schoolmates never let her forget that she was different. Reva the misfit. Reva the freak, the throwback in whom the R'debhi genetic mutation had worked no changes. Not so much as vestigial webs on fingers or toes for Reva. No nictitating eye membrane, no pressure-venting eardrum. Most telling of all, no gill-adaptation necessary for an unhindered life beneath the sea.

  "It doesn't matter," her mother Niva assured her often. "The mutation doesn't always take. We get along fine without it, your father and I. You will, too."

  Reva dropped through the water-lock and swam toward school behind her brother. The fins on her feet propelled her through the water as well as or better than a sea-child's webbed toes. Like other R'debh natives, she was lean, with the muscles of a swimmer. In that respect she was no different from the others, and faster than most. She drew close to Calin despite his head start.

  They met Lita beneath the kelp rafts, their friend treading water slowly, her weight belt not adjusted quite right for neutral buoyancy. Reva looked for the others, caught a motion behind the kelp fronds. She slowed, on her guard. They were hiding. She had been the brunt of many a joke that had started this way before.

  Her brother body-signed to Lita, asking if she wanted to race to school. She signed no, waved him on, and waited, hands sculling through blue-green ocean.

  As Reva came near, Lita clutched at a sudden cramp in her leg, gills flaring in pain. Her over-weight belt pulled her down, toward the poisonous spines of the beldy, urchins that lived among the kelp stalks on the bottom. Reva glided close, grasping to pull her friend up and away from the danger. The girl uncoiled as the others burst from their hiding places amid the fronds. Hands grabbed Reva's feet, stripping the fins from her legs. Lita grinned and plucked the breather mask from Reva's face. The children laughed, an explosion of bubbles, then turned and raced toward school.

  Through angry, slitted eyes, streaming tears lost in the bio-rich ocean around her, Reva glared after her schoolmates in a rage of frustration and hurt. She drew up a leg to scissor-kick her way to the surface—but before she could, the undersea scene blurred and shifted. This was not a distortion caused by stinging seawater, but unfocus of another kind Reva had never seen this way before.

  She became light-headed. Time slowed. There were several scenes to watch instead of one, several bodies superimposed in the same place, like different versions of the same vidcast. Each figure acting like, yet unlike, the clones of its image.

  It was a confusing garble: her agemates swimming to school, her gear gripped in their hands. Frelo releasing a fin and letting it bob to the surface; Frelo holding the fin, and swimming with his hand inside it. Simultaneously, Lita carrying the breathing gill, donning it for fun, letting it drop, being distracted by it, brushing too close to a kelp-crawler....

  Angry impetus fixed on that vision. Yes! thought Reva. I wish she were hurt. I don't care. Then the multiple vision was gone, and she kicked her way to air.

  Frelo followed, screaming to Reva over the whitecaps. "Get help! Lita's bit by a kelp-crawler!" He vanished beneath the waves.

  Reva was stunned, swimming without thinking to the nearest kelp platform. The men there dove, got the sea-child to medical care. But not in time. Lita lost her arm.

  And Reva discovered her gift.

  IV

  Reva put Selmun III out of her mind. The courier was late, and she paced while she waited, high-heeled boots clicking an angry staccato on the ceraplast flooring.

  By time the Cardman showed, she was ready to strangle the man. She held him with her gaze, a trick of intensity she had perfected to an art. He was middle-aged, pale, and slim, a bureaucrat with a receding hairline and a security case bonded to his wrist.

  "Next time I don't wait," she said coldly, "and you can explain to Adahn why his contract is refused."

  The Cardman blanched. Before he could decide on a response, Reva pointed him toward a conference cubicle. He slipped gratefully out from under her stare and entered the
chamber. Reva followed right behind him, sealing the door shut in Kirk's face. She opaqued the outer wall and motioned to the security case.

  "Let's see it."

  Inside were ten vials of drugs and one palm-sized AI link module. "What's the line?" Reva asked, picking up a vial first.

  The Cardman cleared his throat and spoke in dealer's shorthand. "Ten vials, 50 cc per, top-batch hallendorphs. Contraband on Class B worlds and better. Psychologically addictive. Going rate after 50 percent dilute cut, 100 creds per cc to smugglers. Hijacked MCP, the newest from Renels-Lyman."

  "Mind control pharmaceuticals," Reva echoed. "Imperial?"

  The Cardman nodded.

  A muscle tightened in her jaw, and green-gilded nails clicked against the vial. She replaced it in the case and picked up the link module. "And this?"

  "Kardon-3M language brain. Ten thousand languages, program independent. Fits standard smartmechs."

  Reva looked up from the unit in her hand. "Where's it from?"

  The Cardman swallowed nervously. "Imperial Army smart-mech."

  "Hot, like the drugs." It was a statement, not a question.

  The courier dipped his head. "But rated at 50K credits, conservative," he added. "It'll probably go for 100K."

  She slipped the palm-sized unit back into its holder. "Tell Adahn, 'No more.' I'm tired of the risk. In the future I take only clean goods worth the same or more. You hear me?"

  The courier nodded as he removed the bonded wristlock from his arm. "But he needs to move these things, you understand, and you're so—"

  Steel-hard fingers gripped his throat, pushed him back against the opaque wall. The Cardman smelled her perfume, spicy and sweet, just before his air was shut off.

  Reva's face came close to his, her voice low and naturally husky. "I'm so good, I don't need backblast from you or Adahn.

  He wants my services, he pays going rate. Clean. I'm not a clearinghouse. Gichnu?" She emphasized the Ganandi query with a squeeze of her fingers. The Cardman gurgled and tried to nod, pawing futilely at her hand.