Free The Baba Yaga by Una McCormack Page B

choke themselves to death. This would not have been allowed within the Expansion. For all the petty corruption of its senior officials, or the tendency of its police to shoot first and ask questions later, the Expansion did maintain a certain quality of life for its citizens. She looked at her hand where it had touched the window. It had come away black and damp.
    “Fucking shithole,” said Yershov, and Walker was inclined to agree.
    After a couple of changes, the shuttle dumped them in the centre of Roby, a small square built around a fountain (dry). Here an effort had been made, once upon a time, at civic pride: there were numerous red-brick building with ornate fronts and the proud names of their one-time benefactors emblazoned across grand doorways. Some were quite fanciful—turreted, even, or with ornate tilework. But the bricks and the tiles were all soiled and blackened, and the locals scurried around the place with eyes down and shoulders hunched.
    Fredricks had given Walker an address here in the main square. Walker got her bearings, and then led Yershov over to one of the larger buildings, which, it seemed, had once been a public library. Walker doubted such a thing operated on Shard’s World now. They passed through high main doors (hinges rusty and the paint cracked) into a huge vestibule, whose size and ornate decoration gave it a faded glamour. Two big men waited there, smartly dressed and armed with lasers. One stepped forwards to meet them.
    “Are you Walker?”
    “Who’s asking?”
    He rested his hand upon his weapon. “Don’t push it, lady.”
    “I’m Walker,” she said. “Where’s Fredricks?”
    The other man gestured behind him to a grand stairway. “He’s waiting upstairs.”
    Walker made to follow, but found her way blocked. “I can’t go upstairs with you in the way, gentlemen.”
    “We were only expecting one of you.”
    Walker looked back over her shoulder at Yershov. “Don’t worry about him. He’s no trouble.”
    “Not a chance, lady.”
    Walker shrugged. It wasn’t like she was relying on Yershov. He’d surely be gone at the first whiff of trouble. “Yershov,” she said. “Wait here. I’ll buy you something nice on the way back to the ship.”
    One of the men gestured Yershov towards a big sofa at the far end of the lobby, and stood guard by him, arms folded. The other man led Walker upstairs. Here any remains of the building’s former glory were not to be seen. The paint was cracked, the carpets worn and scarred. They stopped outside a closed door, and the man tapped gently against it. “Mr Fredricks, sir. Your guest has arrived.”
    A voice called from beyond the door. “Bring her in! Bring her in!”
    Walker’s guide pushed the door open, and she stepped inside the most hideous room she had ever seen. Fredricks had hardly been the classiest person of Walker’s acquaintance, but this place outdid even his standards of conspicuous consumption. The gilt candelabra was a low point, Walker thought, although the purple and silver brocade curtains were also particularly unpleasant. Behind a huge wooden desk, the man now known as Fredricks was sitting like a supervillain in his lair. Walker looked round the room, trying to think of something to say. She settled for, “Nice eagle,” nodding at the bird, stuffed and housed within a glass dome. It had a gold collar round its neck.
    Fredricks beamed at the thing. “Cost a fortune to ship in.”
    “I can imagine.”
    “I’m after a panther.”
    “When it comes down to it,” said Walker, “who isn’t?” She took a seat across from Fredricks. He was portlier than she remembered too (more conspicuous consumption, no doubt), but then the last time she had seen him, he had been sitting in a holding cell quivering in terror that his ex-employers might know where he was. He had, it seemed, thrived in exile.
    “Have to say, Ms Walker”—he spread out the title: Mzzzzz —“you’re the last person I would have expected