The Assassin's Salvation (Mandrake Company) by Ruby Lionsdrake

finished his coffee and debated asking Jamie what she intended to do. But she had glanced at the surveillance display and slid out of the booth first.
    “Looks like they’re done,” she said. “We should get back.”
    “Yes,” Sergei murmured, though he would have liked to stay and talk with her for a while longer. Maybe learn more about her instead of spewing out his own sordid past.
    But to what end? He had known from that first minute he had seen her that he wasn’t right for her. The best he could hope for was that she didn’t mention his dalliance with Zhou to Sergeant Hazel and that she didn’t stop talking to him forever, wondering what kind of mentally disturbed crazy man shared all of that with a woman he barely knew.
    Sergei scooped up the surveillance display and followed her out of the cafeteria.
    * * *
    Jamie stood next to Ankari on the moving sidewalk, glad she didn’t have to use her legs. They felt numb. All of her did in the aftermath of Sergei’s… sharing. Why had he told her all that? Oh, she knew why . Because she had snooped and overheard that conversation, and he had worried she would tattle. But the whole thing had been so awkward. She grimaced, wishing she had simply stayed in the office. Sergei had looked miserable the whole time they had been sitting in the cafeteria, and even now, as he stood behind them on the sidewalk, his expression was more saturnine than usual, that cloak of gloom she had sensed around him when they first met more like a blanket now, a blanket that threatened to smother him. She resisted the urge to look back. He probably wanted his privacy.
    “They took all of the specimens and the instructions for the transplants,” Ankari said. “They couldn’t pay much, but we’ll make a little profit on the deal. In the meantime, we have some more affluent private clients coming to the shuttle this afternoon and in the morning.”
    “More affluent on the backs of the farmers downside?” Jamie asked.
    “People lucky enough to be born up here, rather than down there, yes. Have you read any of the history of the planet?”
    Jamie shook her head. She shouldn’t be judging when she knew so little about the world, but she couldn’t help but feel an affinity for anyone who worked the land. She shouldn’t be snide about it to Ankari though. Ankari had grown up in a slum on overpopulated Novus Earth and dug her way out of poverty with her entrepreneurial streak and hard work. She could doubtlessly understand the lives of those on the planet below even more than Jamie could.
    “Two of the original colony ships from Earth landed here fifteen hundred years ago—from China and North America, I think it was. Each colony claimed one of the major continents, each on different hemispheres. They figured there was space enough for everyone, but within a couple hundred years, the American continent was struck by an asteroid and experienced some climate issues that were hard to deal with all around. The other continent had some troubles but had been better prepared. The Americans decided to move in. There was a war that ended up decimating a lot more of the planet. The Chinese won, but there wasn’t much left. That’s when they built the cloud cities, and they forced the losers of the war into serfdom down below, not caring how they lived their lives but demanding tribute by way of food, since growing space was limited up here. This worked more or less, if with strife, for centuries, until the Galactic Conglomeration formed, putting the first real system-wide government into place. They demanded their share of the food too. Now it’s a struggle for everyone downside. We’re a business—” Ankari lifted the briefcase, “—but we heal people too. Maybe we’ll at least be able to help some of the ill down there.”
    “The more I see of the system, the more I’m realizing that we had it pretty good on Mercruse,” Jamie said. “Are we—”
    A touch on her shoulder interrupted