The city bosses of Stellopolis would have to reimburse GCC, if things went right. They had power, had these men of star city, to be very nasty to agencies who did not do things the way the city bosses requested; and equally an agency of a great econorg could spread the word and a star city would suddenly fall away in importance if it failed to honour its debts to an econorg.
Checks and balances; these were the things that kept the galaxy running, not brute force and armadas of space warships.
Not that there were not the occasional upsurgings of cultures new in the galaxy who thought they could send fleets of conquering starships out to carve empires for themselves ... They would be quickly taught the error of their ways; but for a time life around them in the galaxy would be highly unpleasant.
The last little money metal he had left he spent on a good meal in a restaurant far removed from the GCC agency he had selected as his target. Robots vended a tasty dish of Kiohan roasted meats, served in a wine sauce, with those tender little bamboo-shoots that had never grown in Earth's China, and Hook allowed himself a little luxury here, considering that star city existed to dispense that commodity. He drank tea, detesting coffee, and exchanged a few words with the couple in the adjoining booth.
"Going to the Stelldrome, taynor?"
"Can you recommend it?" Hook wouldn't admit he didn't know what was playing.
The girl laughed, displaying a low neckline and a transparent blouse to some advantage. "Oh, yes! A troupe of automatons who make no pretence at aping humans. They are droll! We've been anxious to go all week."
"I might look in. I hope you enjoy the show."
"We will, taynor, we will."
Hook paid with his money metal, and drew a puzzled frown from the couple, who simply flashed their credit cards. Hook made himself laugh after the fashion of a dizzy luxer. A luxer who sought sybaritic delights with all a hedonist's application was completely at home on Stellopolis. "A wager, friends. Can a man live a whole week and not use his credit card?"
They laughed. It was the kind of wager they understood. "You'll never do it," said the man.
"But we wish you good luck," said the girl.
Clearly, they thought him an idiot to take on so difficult a bet.
During this meal and as he sauntered back ready for the darkness to fall as the limb of the planet occulted the sun, Hook very carefully opened out those organic implants in his skull.
He listened out to the galaxy.
When he'd been ordered to volunteer, as a member of Earth's Armed Forces, and as Sergeant Jack Kinch had become the most notorious assassin in the galaxy, he had used these circuits in his head to keep alive, to give him information, to keep contact with control. He had not done a great deal of work for EAS; what he had done had been enough. Even today, so long afterwards, there were planetary bosses and heads of econorgs who trembled in their skins at the sound of the name Jack Kinch.
Nowadays, Ryder Hook was plain Ryder Hook, galactic wanderer; he had put away Jack Kinch for ever. But, as now, every once in a while he keyed open the circuits EAS had implanted in his skull and tuned in to the nearest apparat net.
That 'nearest' of course meant different things in different contexts. He might not be able to pick up the local police enforcers' net as they controlled their activities in the star city; but his EAS organic implants were designed to be activated by a centre perhaps so many parsecs away that normal ftl radio links might attenuate. He listened out carefully.
His brain could by straight forward induced coil circuits think him through the frequencies. He skipped along, recognising the chatter as a busy working day for the espionage boys, for the counter-espionage people, for the many different outfits in the galaxy who wished to place their own operatives in certain positions so that they might do for them something probably lethally nasty to their opponents.
The chatter filling his head provided a cross-section of what was going on in the galaxy between those various shadowy organisations who existed on the fringes of polite society. Information gathering, justice enforcement, espionage and counter-espionage, straightforward domination and control of others, all these people made their living without surfacing into the light of overt politics and day-to-day living. They inhabited the half-world of the galaxy, a half-galaxy Jack Kinch had known and detested.
He picked up a control centre who had an operative aboard a starship with orders to assassinate an important passenger, and moved on to another who were controlling an operative at this moment feeling his way through a darkened arsenal on a permanently frozen moon to steal the secrets of life and death manufactured there. He recognised many of the controls. Deliberately, he didn't go near any EAS frequencies. EAS had outfitted him with these organic transplants and they had at the time perhaps the best techniques in the known galaxy. He had been equipped to eavesdrop on other apparat nets without their knowledge. He could insinuate himself along the tenuous paths occupied by an operative and, like a ghost, pace the task being performed.
This was not telepathy. Oh, it was nearly that, of course, brain patterns amplified by organo-electronic means and flung the millions of kilometres between the stars, light-year conversations, parsec long instructions; but telepathy — no. This was scientific methods adapted to a human brain and giving that human brain the power of near-instantaneous communication with another human brain across the galaxy.
Hook ran through for an operative signing off.
When he found what he sought and heard that ghostly whisper in his brain saying : "That's all, Flo. The stuff's on its way to you by star-packet. Give my best to Charlie," he recognised an apparat with whom he could work. The control, Flo, said: "Check, Fram. Nice one. You'll be in contact."
Hook exerted his power.
He over-rode the last few words from Fram, saying: "Flo? Give me a quick rundown on this, will you?"
He looked at the GCC building.
Flo said : "Hold it a minute — there — coming up — now."
Over Hook's retinas appeared the projected semblance of the GCC building. He could see layer by layer through the building, as masonry and metalloy stripped away under the gaze of the instrument telltales under the control of Flo's console assistants. He'd tuned into a big net, then. Nice. He saw the GCC building in true perspective, for the head-up display against his retinas presented the building in focus. A check very quickly established the main outlines of the defensive system.
Flo said: "You break in there, they'll crucify you."
She accepted him as one of the operatives employed by her own apparat net — for how could anyone else speak to her over her systems?
Hook said: "Red section want an assist, Flo. Call me Red, if you have to. That place has to be busted."
"You're buying trouble."
"That's the business."
"That window on the — urn — sixtieth floor. Checks out with a faulty alarm."
Somewhere on a planet light years away a console assistant programmed her computer and that beam of non-telepathic thought speared from the outlet and into Hook's brain, caught and identified by his organo-electronic implants, flashed up from his brain to his eyes. What he actually saw was a fluorescent orange ring suddenly encircle a window on the sixtieth floor, high up beneath the dome.
"You'll need your anti-gray pack for that one, Red."
"Don't have an ag-pak."
Flo must have been a senior controller, for she had no hesitation in saying : "What they doing over in Red section? Losing their lift? Grab an ag-pak or suction kits —"
"No chance."
"The choice is yours, soldier. We'll run you through when you're in; but you'll have to get in on your own."
Sixty floors up, a window with a faulty alarm would allow ingress. Hook cocked his head, staring up. How to get up there?
Being Ryder Hook he had the obvious answer ready.
CHAPTER FIVE
RYDER HOOK said: "Check this out."
He looked around the street
level, slowly turning his body, revolving in a complete three sixty degree circle. He appeared to see the metalloy sheeting vanish and the working lifelines of star city show through. Cables and conduits, circuits and energy beams all spread out before him. He tapped into a thick cable marked with the black and white that often indicated ag-power and followed it downwards. It vanished into a lead-shielded construct situated below and dead centre of this domed section of the city.
"Check, Flo. Stay with me until I'm zeroed in."
"Check, Red. I have you."
Walking slowly and acting as just another citizen of Stellopolis, Ryder Hook descended a glideway, strode a pedway and descended again until he was near enough to the ag-generator.
He looked about again and this time he looked in order to see what normal sight would show. He was alone. He took out the Tonota Eighty. He notched it up to full power.
He must be very careful. Hook knew and approved of those cultures who refused to allow a starship passenger the possession of a powergun in space. The things were too dangerous, and the usual weapons — a dis-gel gun, a buzz-saw, a toxicator — for use in space were amply lethal enough. If he'd been running star city he'd have confiscated all energy weapons the moment they showed in the berthing area.
No matter who carried 'em.
He shot the lead shielding out.
It pyrotechnically blotted out in light and thunder all reason and all vision. The Tonota hammered on, pouring its vicious radiation and concentrated power into the heart of the ag-generator. Hook saw shielding blowing apart, saw chunks of core separating and flowing, saw a little fire begin where a fire has no reason to exist and snuffed a sideways blast across it so that the backlash of air extinguished the licking flames. He melted down the on-site controls and saw the end of the black and white cable go snaking away, lashing like a cobra, spitting sparks.
He pushed gently against the pavement.
In free fall he drifted up past the pedways and glideways down which he had just walked.
Alarm sirens keened. Automatic fans span into blurs as they came on to circulate the atmosphere.
Hook soared up through the interstices of the interleaved walkways and drifted comfortably to the top street level. He said : "Here we go, Flo."
He jumped.
In free fall he went soaring along the flank of the GCC agency buildings. Because of his ancestry Hook's senses attuned to the assumption that the building lay below him and that he flew along it like a bird over the countryside. To an onlooker standing on the pavement below with his head pointed to the overhead dome, Hook would have appeared to be walking up the side of the building.
Every now and then he pushed off afresh, for the distance was great enough for a simple single massive jump to bring him hard against the dome with momentum enough to break through, given the extraordinary powers of his body.
At the window on the sixtieth floor he hauled up on the sill.
Flo's voice in his head said: "I must say you don't mess about." There was naked admiration there. Hook grunted and bashed the window in.
Although alarms were sounding all over this domed area no alarm so much as cheeped from the window.
Hook eased in. He turned to look down, for now the floor of the room gave a normal perspective to the view, and saw star city techs flailing along towards the smoking crater. That smoke was being whipped away by the fans and sucked off into disposal chutes. People were crowding around and flying up and generally congregating to see the excitement. Hook went back to the room and padded across to the far door. The room's darkness was no impediment to him, for Flo had coupled in a pair of infra-lux scanners and he could see as well as in daylight. He went into the corridor and headed for the banking section. He carried the Tonota in his hand. His face would have scared a gargoyle.
Finding the banking outlet was easy.
Breaking into it presented a considerable problem; but with Flo operating from her agency light years away to guide him, Hook could see the interior wiring of the alarms, could short-circuit the easiest and blow holes in the more intractable. He dealt mercifully with the half dozen guards who arrived on the scene. The Tonota, being an Eighty and therefore capable of doing the holocaust-destruct work he had just employed it on, was also capable when fined down of delivering a sweet-dreams punch, a paralyser. Hook put the guards to sleep gently and went back to opening up the ready-money safes. They had been sealed for the night; of course; but as close to money metal as this Ryder Hook wouldn't wait for a long-drawn out tumbler — sniffing and turning technique. He blasted the corner off the nearest safe, kicked the hot metal aside, trampled around a bit and then began scooping money metal.
"You have dilly assignments in Red section," said Flo.
"Check."
"I read heavy breathing, rapid heart-beat, concealed footstep vibration, coming from your left rear."
Hook whirled, triggered the Tonota, sent the last goon into sweet-dreams.
"Thanks, Flo."
Now had he been operating in fast time, as a Boosted Man, he'd have picked up all the signals Flo had read from the display boards of her console, channelled in through Hook's ears, long before. As it was, he was a mere Homo sapiens ordinariensis.
He took exactly the amount of money metal owed him.
This was a stupid thing to do.
But, being Ryder Hook, he did it anyway. And then, after he'd thought about it for perhaps a microsecond, he blew off the corner of four more ready money safes. A consignment of micro-happenings had spaced in yesterday, and after they were cleared through GCC's agency, they'd be paid for in money metal. The star-faring race who'd brought them in, the so-called star-merchants, had wanted money on the nail. Otherwise Hook would not have turned over so much ready cash. He let it go drifting about in free fall, admiring the way the metal bills flashed in the subdued lighting.
"You havin' fun, Red?"
"Orders, Flo."
He caught a harder edge to control's words.
With the money metal safely stashed into his inside belt pouch, his Tonota ready, Hook took off. He listened in his head to an instant play-back of Flo's last words, and again he caught that sharpness.
The people on night duty within the agency had mostly gone streaming out to gawp at the ag-generator wreckage, and those guards Hook had met now slumbered. He felt it redundant to make his way back to the sixtieth floor. All the alarms might go off in one great burst — after he'd departed. He took the precaution of burning the air after him, with the Tonota set on wide-angle and half-aperture, feeling the draught rushing in to replace what he incinerated. In free-fall conditions the calculations were interesting; but all he was concerned with there was to dispose of his body residuals. When the forensic sniffers went to work they'd have nice fresh clean air to work on containing no trace of Ryder Hook.
Flo worried him.
She worked for a big apparat net, and he'd picked on them for that reason. But he didn't like that last edgy tone in her voice. As far as Hook knew — and he could always be wrong —there were less than half a dozen controls with operatives capable of cutting into another net. And of them all — again so Hook believed — Earth's Armed Services were the best. He'd given EAS a soldier's farewell, and wanted no more to do with them. He was grateful, in a twisted back-handed kind of way, for what they'd plumbed into his cranium. But he was on his own now. If Flo's outfit, too, had the capacity to cut in, the idea wouldn't shock her as it would a normal control who firmly believed the non-telepathic but surrogate-telepathic links were inviolable.
Flo said: "You said you were with Red section, Red. You've done a nice job —"
Hook wasn't listening.
He shut off those organo-electronic circuits in his head so fast it sounded like the clap of doom.
He wondered by how many micro-seconds he'd baulked the flash of killing energy Flo's superiors had flung at him.
He told himself to remember to check up on Flo and her apparat later on, find out what
they thought of Red, if he could.
He blew the third floor window of a lady's lavatory out into a well. He soared out, pushed off and sailed easily over the opposite wall, let himself fall by easy stages to the street level.
By this time the Tonota was discreetly back in its holster. People were skylarking about, leaping up and somersaulting in free fall and as the limb of the planet slid past and away in a running bead-like procession of burgeoning light the annunciators came on warning of resumption of normal artificial gravity. There was a five minute warning so that anyone who'd lightly jumped off a bridge in the abandon of free-fall conditions wouldn't be smacked down to the ground in a jelly of blood.
Hook noticed the way the Stellopolis' techs brought the gravity on smoothly, and he felt the smack of his booted feet against the metalloy decking as he walked. He was clear of the GCC building and the area and well on his way to the P.A. berth where, Andrews had assured him, his star cutter was repaired and ready to go.
What he had just done was according to the laws of this star city highly illegal. He had committed a criminal act. He had harmed no one. The guards would wake up feeling no worse than before. He had destroyed property; but in an interstellar culture artefacts of far greater importance and complexity than a light-duty ag-generator were routinely lost and retailored or recycled. Accordingly replacement would be minimal. In the view of a man without protection in the galaxy what he had done merited a simple answer; he had taken what belonged to him, no more, no less. Relativity played a part here, of course; what he was owed that could not be paid in money had counted in the equation.
Now he would take the cutter — which was his only because he'd stolen it from the Boosted Men — and space out.
Star City Page 5
