Zurich Meet Tomorrow by Alastair Reynolds - Book - Page 7
She asks how Amaka is faring.
‘Oh, fine. Everything went well with Doctor Heurtier. I was
doing great, until I bumped into Marcus Siow.’
Mitsu’s memory-recall is instantaneous, but she manages
a good show of searching for the name. ‘Oh, your supposed
business rival. What did he want?’
‘He was sneaking around my supplier. I don’t have exclusivity
on those veneers, but that’s not the thing that’s bothering me.
I think he knows something about the Anchorpoint contract.’
‘He’s tendering?’
‘If so, Mister Zhang never mentioned it. All the same ...’
‘You must forget all about Marcus Siow,’ Mitsu says firmly.
‘Let him cut corners as he may, underbid you, but you have
your principles to uphold.’
‘Principles won’t pay my rent.’
‘Settle your mind,’ Mitsu urges. ‘You know the best way to
do that.’
She means the pencils, the inks, the watercolours.
Amaka rummages them out of her bag. The glasses make
the air-taxi disappear, Amaka becoming a cross-legged
goddess, levitating over shimmering seas and islands. She
sketches vigorously and feels calm and self-worth flood back
into her.
The artificial island sits two hundred kilometres west of São
Tomé, thumb-tacked to the equator. It’s a kilometre wide,
hemmed by an artificial reef, a thicket of buildings rising in
concentric waves to a central tower, flared and petaled like
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