by Bill Adams
A tall figure emerged from the shadows at his side, revealing the uniform of a Column marine colonel. “Sorry, Major,” he said. “I’m afraid the senator expects you to spend the rest of your tour in custody. But your boys did well—Condé really grilled them on those passwords. Convincing job.”
“He’s a cautious old fox,” Major Dubbs said. “That’s a hopped-up little messenger boat, probably one of those one-man Hermes express jobs. Smarter than coming with the big ship and escorts you expected. Harder to detect. And notice his approach angle? If he’d seen any indication we were responding under duress, he could have screamed past us into a half-orbit slingshot back to the sun.”
“You don’t have sell me,” the colonel said. “Your usefulness has been noted. The playacting’s well worth it, if we can net the big fish without having to fight the whole school.”
“Damn it,” protested Senator Mehta’s personal pilot, sitting nearby—a militia navy captain, on loan from the Swathe’s Sodality—“There never was going to be any militia uprising behind Max Condé. Aren’t my crew proof enough of that?”
“Yeah, for a mixed operation, things have gone very smoothly,” the colonel conceded. He nodded a head in my direction. “Of course, the commissioner deserves some credit for the intelligence background.”
“Not to mention the whole plan,” I said.
“Which has justified my approval,” said the colonel. “There you have it, Citizen DeVysse. Condé couldn’t pass up the chance to gloat over the senator in person. In two hours we’ll have him.”
“Terribly exciting,” said the most bored voice in the universe, at my side: Senator Delip Mehta’s private secretary, a rail-thin fop named Meier DeVysse. The senator had been keeping to his private chambers so far, but he’d sent out his amanuensis to grill that mysterious figure, Sub-Commissioner Parker. “Please finish the story,” DeVysse said to me now. “When those Iron Brotherhood uniforms came through the maze, you must have been devastated.”
“Deflated, anyway,” I said. “But I’d forgotten something I’d learned at the beginning, while eavesdropping in the statue chamber. Condé had managed to plant a Brotherhood lieutenant in each of the two manned defense satellites. When the ground attack began they were supposed to make sure that the satellites didn’t get off a distress call, by disabling the message boats in dock.
“Well, when the time came, they succeeded. Their comrades on the ground joined them in captured shuttles, and secured the satellites. At that point, they theoretically had the planet covered. But the magnetic storm we started prevented them from seeing Foyle regain her ship. And after her freighter slipped out of orbit, shields raised, their only chance to stop her was with the station’s boats…”
“I see,” DeVysse said. “The same boats they’d disabled themselves.”
“Exactly. So she had a clear field, and no trouble intercepting the senator’s yacht when it arrived the next day.”
“Fortunately, the senator believed her warning. A keen judge of character,” he added meaningfully.
I passed over this. “Your replunge, with Foyle in tow, was monitored. Major Dubbs, a practical man, realized that despite his local victory, the game was up. The planned uprising was still months away, and before that could happen the senator would be returning with Column troops. Condé’s rebellion was over before it started. Dubbs gave orders to preserve the life of all prisoners, and was quick to find the one best qualified to negotiate a surrender for him—myself. The rest you know.”
“Not quite. Who conceived the current plan?”
I shrugged. “The major had volunteered to do anything he could in the way of reparations. I simply restaged Condé’s own plan—reversed, as in a mirror. And so it is Condé, not the senator, whom the mercenaries welcome into a trap with all the right recognition codes.
“He sees what he expects. Signs of a battle, because there has been one. And the senator’s yacht, just as if captured. The only thing that could have given the game away was an extra Column spacecraft in orbit. But that’s the final turnabout. Because a marine troop-carrier is designed to withstand surface gravities, we were able to hide it in Condé’s own secret hangar, Level Null under the lake.
“So much for my contributions,” I yawned. “You must ask the colonel about the rest.”
“But there are still certain questions about your personal role, Commissioner,” DeVysse said quietly. “Major Dubbs and the other mercenaries are under the impression that you had been on to Sir Max’s operation for some time. Infiltrated it, in fact, so that they thought you were his man. But if the Tribunal has been conducting such an important investigation…Why is this the first we’ve heard of it?”
“ ‘We’?” I said. “Do you hold a rank in one of the intelligence services, Citizen DeVysse? I thought not. If your employer wishes to put questions to me in person, though, I’m at his disposal.”
DeVysse smiled as effectively as any puff adder. “I believe I can arrange the necessary…disposal, within the hour. Let us say, before the party.”
“Very well.” An exaggeration. Even if I did manage to spin out another successful installment of Al Parker, Secret Agent, I still had to face the senator’s dinner party. The entertainment was supposed to be provided by Sir Maximilien Condé, in chains. And once Condé pointed out the actor he’d hired to wear Column whites, told everyone what he knew about my history over the previous year—oh, they might not believe him at first. But they’d have to run an identity check…
The same trap I’d started in. But with less chance of getting away.
◆◆◆
At least, while visiting the planet surface that morning, I’d been able to recover my wardrobe of uniforms; one should always dress up for a party or a hanging. An intercom in my stateroom informed me that the senator would grant me an audience in an hour. I sat in front of the little nightstand.
In the drawer I found an ink pen and a few sheets of the wood-pulp paper rich men use for social notes. I cleared my mind and began to rough out the words I wanted Ariel to remember me by. I had a fair copy in thirty minutes. Pausing only to pick up a heavy leather carrying case I’d had to borrow from the construction camp that morning, I went into the empty corridor.
Directly across the way was the door to Ariel’s cabin. The robot lock opened to the sound of my voice—a privilege I hadn’t tested since our first night on board. I left the note on her bed.
Foyle’s cabin was next door. It, too, read NOT AT HOME and LOCKED, but this lock wasn’t set to my voice. A good test for the skeleton coder. I fit the end of the device into the lock’s computer jack. Days of experimenting on the yacht’s comp net paid off; the door opened in seconds. And sure enough, Foyle was not at home.
◆◆◆
Shortly afterward I met with Senator Mehta. He was a large, tired-looking man with gray hair, gray skin, gray eyes. But it was the gray of steel, plenty of strength left.
“If what you just said was a Shadow Tribunal password, Senator,” I told him, “I don’t pretend to know the countersign. I answer to a higher authority, one which I am not permitted to name.”
“I’m afraid I need more satisfactory answers than that, Commissioner,” he said. “For instance, why wasn’t I informed of Condé’s conspiracy, once you’d infiltrated it? You knew the Senate was investigating the man’s activities—”
“But who knew you weren’t a partner in them?” I asked.
He gaped at me.
“Come, come, Senator,” I said. “Look at it objectively. Despite your oh-so-public feud, he is your former partner, and was storing matériel of war on a planet owned by you. Matériel which could be used to ‘liberate’ the Blue Swathe from Column control—and isn’t that the same goal you’ve worked toward, in your neo-Federalist way, for years? Certain influential people suspected you of complicity. The Director of the Shadow Tribunal, for instance.”
He was trying to take it in. “Then you—”
&nb
sp; “Represent Someone who disagreed. Someone who believes that the Column will only be strengthened, in the long run, by less dictatorial methods of provincial control. This Someone thought you were being framed for treason by the Tribunal, and sent me to Newcount Two to gather evidence that would vindicate you. You may think I played the cards too close to my chest. But don’t you see, I had to wait until Condé moved against you personally—the only way to prove, no matter what the Shadowmen say, that the arms stockpile and the treason were his, not yours.”
“I see,” he said finally. He passed a hand in front of his face. “I have long suspected…But you insist you can’t tell me who your principal is.”
The key moment. I locked eyes with him. “Senator…I think you know who secretly favors your politics. Don’t you?”
The pause dragged on for so long I thought the gamble had failed, but then he nodded his head.
“Then you understand why I cannot even speak the name in private.”
He licked his lips nervously. “Tell her I understand,” he said.
Her? What the hell. It’s a good trick that surprises the magician.
“I need to assimilate this.” He summoned up a smile. “But I’ve just been informed that the Knuckle-Cracker will be in custody within the half hour. We can discuss the matter further after the party. I’ll join you there shortly.”
I nodded, picked up the carrying case, and left, having successfully extended my freedom perhaps twenty minutes. As the senator shook hands with me on the threshold, the marine colonel passed, on his way to the party.
I overtook him, saying, “This is convenient—the senator just asked me to speak to you. A matter of protocol; you know these civilians. The senator wants his guests to see that this arrest is an Intelligence matter, and not just a private vendetta. He requests that when you take Condé into custody, you send the news by military courier, not the intercom, and to me, not him. I will then announce it to the party guests. Silly, I know, but—”
“Damned silly,” the colonel grumbled. “More logical for the runner to report to me.”
“Well, I’m afraid the senator—”
“I could step in front of the flag by the banquet table, and announce it as a sort of a toast. Maybe prepare a few words in advance, humorous but dignified—oh, all right, since you insist. Not the first time I’ve had to cater to the petty vanity of civilian officialdom. I’ll go pass the word now, sir.”
He stamped back the way he’d come. “Marine,” it occurred to me, is an obsolete name; we need something more contemporary and logical—like “Space-taker.”
On to the party. The size of the senator’s yacht may be imagined by the fact that it had a ballroom. True, the floor curved, but if you didn’t look down, spin-gravity would leave you unaware of the fact. Waiters passed around hors d’oeuvres and straightened the white linen on the banquet tables. My friends wandered amid the senator’s retainers and hangers-on.
Ariel detached herself from a palm-leaf cluster of admiring military men and came my way diffidently. She’d given me another hero’s reward the night we were transferred to the senator’s ship, but it had been in the nature of a good-bye, the butterfly spell of our tryst in the arbor-tree long since broken. I wondered if some sixth sense hadn’t told her I’d finally given up my secrets—to another woman. Or perhaps she’d noticed the discrepancies in my various stories, and suspected I was a phony. Fair enough; at least I wasn’t quite phony enough to try changing her mind. We conversed like cousins. I could tell she hadn’t received my note yet.
A moment later I saw her dancing with Wu Arsenovich, the chief contractor. The man had never made such impression on me, but was now a local hero for refusing to collaborate with the mercs. There was a slight bruise on his temple. I recognized the type: the seemingly pointless speaking part from Act One who reappears just before the final curtain to squire away the unattached but deserving heroine. Bit of a cliché, but too late to fix it.
Next I paid my respects to Helen Hogg-Smythe, and shook hands with Harry Lagado. The boy had been marooned by his father’s death, but Helen was looking after him, and from what she said after drawing me aside, I gathered that an adoption was in the works. “I have no children,” she explained, “only a few years left, and hundreds of thousands of munits I’d rather not leave to the tax man.”
“He’s a good kid.”
“Too good, if anything. Too polite, and a bookworm. But a huge inheritance should ginger him up, if it doesn’t ruin him entirely. We all have to pass through the fire.”
“It’s an easier trip when we’re in good company,” I said, and lifted her hand to my lips. “Take care.”
“You too, dear Commissioner,” she replied. “Or whatever you are.”
Someone tapped me on the shoulder, and handed me a glass as I turned.
Foyle was a contrary as ever. I’d have bet anything that this prickly and independent woman wouldn’t even own an evening gown, much less one that snapped a man’s neck around faster than a hangman’s knot. It was the same green as her eyes, and set off the dangerous red hair. I’d always considered her handsome, but this sudden outburst of playful sexiness made me feel as if I’d been conned. Even cheated.
Her eyes and lips shone with champagne, professional success—the Newcount Two finds would make her famous—and the enhancement of all pleasures that one feels for a few weeks after not being killed. There was our shared secret, too; she seemed to find everything I said and did ironically amusing now.
“Well, all the players are in place,” she said, “save the villain, and he’s due to be marched in soon. A little barbaric to greet him this way, but I suppose it’s good theater.”
I grunted.
She responded more quietly. “Ah, a professional opinion. What does make for good theater, then?”
“The exquisite timing,” I said, “of entrances and exits.”
The waiter with the bottle passed, and I took it away from him as a gift for Foyle. He made chiding tut-tut noises until it actually passed into her hands, then wisely retreated.
“Thank you! How does it feel to be a hero of the Column—considering?” she asked, and poured herself another.
“Don’t you know?”
She laughed. “I’m not even ashamed. After all, what we really did was preserve the Blue Swathe’s local freedoms. Very Kanalist of us, to ignore the state structure and liberate from within. And I do feel liberated—the heroine of a Larkspur play, in fact. You’ve won, I believe it all. Anything is possible, freedom is a state of mind, and we can start fresh every morning if we choose to.”
I glanced at my new watch. Five or ten minutes left until Condé’s arrival.
Still smiling, she pointed at the carrying case in my hand. “Speaking of which, I have to admit I was a little nervous when you shuttled away with the maze jewels this morning. I can see how you might feel you have a certain personal claim to them. But really, it’s not worth throwing away your new identity for. Now that you’re a hero, you can do so much more good, on the inside.”
I must have looked dubious, though I didn’t intend to explain how little job security Sub-Commissioner Parker really had. “Besides,” she went on urgently, “the jewels belong to the whole human sphere. I think I’ve persuaded the senator to put them on traveling exhibit. I’ll write the catalog; it could educate people about the real meaning of Kanalism, if I can get it past the censors. And I promise I’ll try—but here’s the senator now.”
And in fact the senator, DeVysse, and most of the other guests were gathering around the pedestal on which the jewels were to be displayed. As we joined them, DeVysse introduced me to the crowd as no more than a sub-commissioner of antiquities—though I could tell by the nasty edge to his voice that if I was just a government agent using archaeology as a cover, he didn’t understand the trouble I’d taken over the jewels. But when I had the whole room’s attention, I played the curator role to the hilt, lifting my carrying case onto a n
earby table with a flourish and pausing dramatically before opening it flat.
The displays it had contained now lay side by side, apparently two puffs of faintly edged air with an identical arrangement of jewelry floating within each. “Instead of using conventional glass for a case,” I explained, “I used thin sheets of luminotrope Alpha, virtually invisible, no distraction from the pieces themselves. So one of these slabs is mostly hollow, with the actual jewels fixed between transparent panes and sidepieces. The only trick was keeping the joins and angles from reflecting light—that’s what took me two hours. The other slab I then cast in less than a minute: a mass of type-Beta glass large enough to produce an interior illusion of the same set of jewels, and a coating of Alpha to square it into the same shape as the real case. This is the copy the senator has graciously permitted me to keep for myself. But can anyone tell which is which?”
Various polite murmurs, no.
“Fortunately, I can point it out,” I said. “Let me just make sure I got the dimensions right…” I picked up one slab and fit it into the slot at the top of the pedestal.
“Well, let’s see,” Foyle said. She picked up the slab I’d left on the table. “Since this is relatively light—it must be the thin glass and the real jewels.”
She put it down and removed the other slab from the pedestal where I’d just put it. “Unh! And this, the heavy one, must be your solid personal copy, Commissioner.”
She handed it back to me.
“…Well, yes,” I said. “That’s an even better way to tell them apart, yes.”
There was a bit of extra color in her face, but an angry warning in the green eyes as well. However, when DeVysse murmured, “You might have turned a nice profit on a mistake there, Commissioner,” she bit his head off.
“Nonsense! As I’m sure your patron knows, the jewelry is of little metallic value—low-grade gold and silver, mainly. Without a provenance, it’s not worth much.”
“What’s a provenance?” Ariel asked as I packed my slab back into its case and put the lighter one in the pedestal’s slot.
