Pelquin's Comet Read Online Free Page A

way. Don’t look for me for the next couple of days, though. I’ll be too busy soaking in a hot bath and catching up on some snooze time.”
    Pelquin grunted, pulled his collar up against the chill emanating from the river, and continued along the subbankment footpath. He emerged on the far side of the bridge and hurried up another flight of stone steps, taking them two at a time, to emerge once more in the sunlit world of the quadrant’s financial capital.
    He didn’t dawdle, having left the rendezvous with Almont until the last possible minute. In fact, he’d have to hurry to avoid being late, which suited him just fine. Pelquin knew he wouldn’t relax until the alien thing had served its purpose and, hopefully, left his possession. This was largely because of Jossyren. If, as seemed likely, the faceless corporates really did have men out in the streets, they’d presumably be making a beeline for this area now that the spyflies were down.
    Ever conscious of the gonk’s solid presence at his hip, he stepped out into the stream of people. Transport modules shot down the avenue at high speed, unerringly controlled by the network’s AIs, while dampener fields protected pedestrians from both the wind and noise of their passage. Carefully choreographed light displays played along the sides of the endless stream of fast moving vehicles, gauged to match the ‘average’ walking pace of a person on foot in either direction so that the portrayed adverts could run their course. The one currently haunting Pelquin’s every footstep featured a series of glossy images of mankind’s noble endeavours, all fronted by women with faces as perfect as their physiques and men with biceps as broad as their foreheads. It was an ad for First Solar Bank, which struck him as ironic, given that this was precisely where he was going.
    Moments later he stepped into the plush lobby of the imposing black-glass building that served as First Solar’s head office and strode up to the reception desk. Human receptionists, two of them; as ostentatious a declaration of wealth as any investor could wish for.
    “Name’s Pelquin,” he said to the pretty young thing whose smile might as well have been tattooed in place. “I’ve an appointment to see Terry Reese.”
    Pelquin wasn’t remotely nervous. He’d dealt with bankers before – perhaps not with this particular one, but all such were interchangeable in his experience and he knew exactly what to expect. Reese was a capitalist by definition, and a successful one to have risen to his current position. He would be slightly corpulent, marginally the wrong side of middle age, his hair bearing an artful touch of grey – just enough to look distinguished in his own eyes – and his features would be a little waxy from rejuve treatments. He’d be dressed in an expensively tailored suit, with or without a waistcoat, and ensconced behind a completely redundant desk, there merely to impress upon those few privileged enough to be ushered into his august presence that this was his domain and they were there only at his tolerance. The man’s worldview would be narrow but his mind razor-sharp in one particular area: finance. Pelquin knew how to play such men and had his strategy all worked out. He’d tantalise Reese, using greed to draw the banker in, holding back his trump card until precisely the right moment, revealing it only once he could see the currency signs dance in the whites of the man’s eyes.
    The pesky alien artefact that Bren had so quaintly christened a gonk had turned out to be more trouble than Pelquin had counted on. He couldn’t wait to offload it, even if he was about to do so only in order to secure the funds to go and find a whole shipful more of the blasted things.
    The final door slid open, admitting Pelquin into exactly the sort of office he’d envisaged. The huge desk might be absent but the room was plush yet modern, efficient and sparsely furnished, with a few understated