Galactic Bounty

by William C. Dietz

  After considerable effort, he'd convinced Lieutenant Lowe to grant him direct access to the Naval Intelligence computer. She'd finally agreed— but restricted his access to those matters directly related to Bridger's disappearance. He wondered idly if the computer would consider her personnel file to be directly related or not. A soft tone chimed as information flashed onto the screen opposite him. For some reason the ship's previous owner had preferred text, and programmed the ship's computer to use voice only in emergencies. McCade saw no reason to change that policy.

  He wasn't surprised to find the report contained little more than a garbled account of the action. However, he was relieved to learn that, in spite of his fears, all the bystanders had survived, though some would be hospitalized for some time. The section leader's name was Amos Van Doren, and he was doing well. Judging from the nurse's notes, McCade guessed he'd be released soon. He got the feeling the nurses couldn't wait. Van Doren was evidently a difficult patient. As McCade read on, he learned that routine autopsies hadn't revealed anything useful about the three assassins. Each bore prints, retinal patterns, dentition and vocal cords they hadn't been born with. All standard for assassins. Inquiries to the Assassin's Guild had been met with the usual refusals on grounds of Guild-client confidentiality.

  A request for the most recent report on the bombing in Swanson-Pierce's office was met with a notice reading "Investigation in Progress." With a snort of derision he asked for the intelligence summary on Bridger's disappearance. It wasn't very helpful either. They didn't know why Bridger went, where he went, or how he got there. They thought Cadet Votava was with him . . . but they couldn't prove it. The only thing they seemed sure of was where Bridger wasn't. According to "reliable sources," which McCade doubted, Bridger wasn't on any Imperial planet enjoying regular interstellar commerce. All arrivals and departures from such worlds had been carefully screened since Bridger's disappearance. They'd even checked the records of arrivals and departures for the last standard month. Nothing. Of course that didn't mean much, McCade reflected as he ordered another drink. He'd arrived on and departed from more than one planet without bothering to notify customs. Plus there were all the frontier worlds to consider. And to top it all off, Bridger had a six-week head start. But still . . .

  He requested Bridger's service file and sipped his drink as it came up on the screen. Most of it was boring and routine. "Lieutenant Bridger was transferred to such and such a vessel on a particular date. Commander Bridger completed a Headquarters course on logistics with honors." And much later, "Captain Bridger will go aboard the ship Imperial, there to take command of said ship, and all personnel aboard, conducting himself with honor and in accordance with Imperial naval regulations." It was all there. The thousands of entries which mark off the predictable path of a military career.

  Just out of curiosity he ran the file forward to where the first annual psych profile after the Battle of Hell should have been. It wasn't there. The screen lit up with "For Imperial Eyes Only. Enter access code." McCade leaned back, an amused smile tugging at the corners of his mouth. So they didn't want him reading what the shrinks had to say. No sweat. It didn't take a bulkhead full of degrees to know Bridger had been operating on about half-power. And at least he knew what they weren't telling him. But what if they'd simply deleted information? He'd have no way to know it was missing. And it would be Walt's style. The old "just tell 'em what they need to know" routine. Grimly he turned his attention back to the screen. He'd have to assume some things were missing.

  The next regular entry recorded Bridger's assignment to the Academy as an instructor. He taught mostly naval history. And the regular evaluations by the head of the history department suggested Bridger was good at it. His interest in history even extended to his own time. This was the part Swanson-Pierce had mentioned. McCade read the subsequent information with interest. After the loss of his family, Bridger often used his leaves to make one-man expeditions to the artifact worlds.

  Many of the artifact worlds were discovered during the early days of space exploration. They were empty of intelligent life, except in a few cases where other life forms native to that particular planet had gained sentience after the disappearance of the original builders. The fact that they'd had time to do so suggested the Builders had been gone a very long time indeed. In any case, the fantastic ruins and artifacts the Builders had left behind gave mute testimony to an advanced civilization whose people had occupied and ruled many systems. The similarities between artifacts found on different worlds left no doubt as to their mutual membership in the same empire.

  But archeologists discovered little more than that. Oh, they had plenty of theories, but very little to base them on. For one thing, the evidence was so ancient that the ravages of time had reduced most of it to little more than enigmatic hints at what must have been a magnificent race and culture. But, every now and then, some lucky person or group would stumble onto a hidden cache of artifacts protected, by luck or happenstance, from the elements. Over time all sorts of things had been discovered in this manner, including a variety of machinery, art works, precious stones, written documents, and a great deal of thus far unidentifiable, but nonetheless interesting junk.

  So each year countless academic and private expeditions were launched in an effort to find a hidden chamber deep inside the ruins of some artifact planet which would reveal the nature of those who preceded both man and Il Ronn into space. Some sought knowledge, and others sought the riches knowledge can bring, but so far no one had really succeeded. But while none had yet managed to strip bare the secrets of the Builders, quite a few did find something for their trouble, and McCade was intrigued to learn that Bridger was among them.

  At the time, the press made quite a fuss over it, probably because Bridger was a war hero more than anything else. Then too Bridger's find turned out to be quite controversial, or at least the centerpiece of it was.

  What made Bridger's find special was a large metal plate. Its composition was similar to durasteel. Inscribed on its surface was writing in what was clearly two different languages. One was the language of the Builders, examples of which had been found in many locations, but the other was a complete mystery. No one had yet managed to decipher the language of the Builders, though many had tried, so attention quite naturally centered on the new, and heretofore unknown second language. Bridger swore it was a form of ancient Il Ronn, so old that even the Il Ronnians had lost track of it. To support his thesis he pointed to various similarities between its characters and modern Il Ronnian script. Some experts supported Bridger, especially those who believed the Il Ronn preceded man into space by thousands of years. Others scoffed at his claims, pointing out that the characters were also similar to the pictographs used by ancient Chinese, and did he think the Chinese had somehow left Earth to meet with the Builders?

  In spite of such criticism Bridger continued to claim that the plate could be the modern equivalent of the Rosetta Stone, which offered the first clue to understanding ancient Egyptian hieroglyphics more than a thousand years before. He argued that the layout of the metal document suggested a list of some kind, the decoding of which might provide an understanding of the Builders' language, or provide insights into what they were like. He even referred to it as the "Directory."

  Had they chosen to, Il Ronnian scholars might have been able to confirm or deny Bridger's thesis. However, the on-again, off-again state of hostilities between the human and Il Ronnian empires made such cooperation impossible.

  Nonetheless, Bridger continued to search the artifact worlds as his time and funds allowed, looking for evidence which would prove his theory. To that end, he also used a great deal of Academy computer time, running programs he hoped would unlock the secrets of the metal plate.

  And there it seemed to end. McCade pulled out and lit a cigar. It was interesting stuff. Partly because it offered new insights into Bridger's personality, and partly because the naval officer's theory involved the Il Ronn, thus creating
still another link between Bridger and that alien race. Walt had played down the importance of Bridger's hobby . . . but McCade wasn't so sure. Curious, he asked for the date of the last computer run prior to Bridger's disappearance. What he got surprised him. Bridger's last run occurred more than a month before he vanished. A long time for someone who made use of the computer almost every day. A quick check revealed Bridger had also wiped all memory assigned to him. Why do that unless you've got something to hide? Positive he was on to something, McCade asked for the last date on which someone else had requested the data he'd just received. When it flashed onto the screen he saw it coincided with the start of Swanson-Pierce's investigation. So they knew, but either felt it wasn't important, or didn't want him to think it was. The possibilities made his head spin.

  So what did it all mean, if anything? McCade inhaled deeply as ashes from his cigar tumbled unseen down across the arm of his chair. It could mean any number of things. But his favorite theory by far was that Bridger cracked the mystery of the metal tablet on that last run. Somehow he'd found the key that eluded everyone else. He'd figured out the language of the Builders and learned something. Something valuable. Something he could use for his own purposes. Something Swanson-Pierce was trying to play down. So Bridger had recorded or memorized whatever it was, and then wiped the memory. Then he'd taken some time to plan his next move.

  It all made sense and fit together logically. Of course that didn't make it true. But it would explain something that had bothered McCade all along. Why now? After all these years, why take off now? The answer might be that Bridger's discovery had provided him with leverage. Enough leverage to convince the Il Ronn to do his bidding? If so it would have to be something military, as Swanson-Pierce had suggested. Nothing else would interest the Il Ronn sufficiently to enlist them in Bridger's cause. A hidden cache of Builder-designed super-weapons perhaps? There was no way to know, but the theory felt good, and McCade had learned long before that a successful hunter often relies on intuition.

  Putting Bridger mentally aside for the moment, McCade turned his attention to Cadet Votava. Where did she fit in? When her Academy file came up on the screen, he wasn't surprised to see she'd taken leave at the same time as Bridger. What was surprising was the routine personality profile the Academy shrinks had prepared on her the year before. For some reason McCade imagined her to be insecure, emotional, and dependent. Hungry for an authority figure to worship and follow. Nothing could have been further from the truth. It seemed she was intelligent, confident, and extremely independent. So much so her life seemed to lack significant personal relationships of any kind. She had no close friends, lovers, or enemies among her classmates. They described her as "smart but distant." Out of curiosity he scrolled back to her pre-enrollment personality profile. His eyebrows rose with surprise. It sounded like a different girl. Her instructors on Mars had described her as "warm, sociable, and expressive." Of course people change as they grow older . . . but it still seemed strange. He shrugged and read on.

  It soon became apparent there was a notable exception to Votava's self-imposed isolation. Captain Ian Bridger. Her transcript and personal calendar indicated either a close personal relationship with Bridger, or a fixation on him. She'd taken every class Bridger taught—many of which weren't even required for her sequence. She wrote him notes. She sought his advice. She met with him for counseling. She attended his church. A quick check of Bridger's daily schedule confirmed that the two were in daily contact. And because their meetings all took place within the framework of an appropriate instructor-student relationship, no one had noticed or objected. It all seemed to point toward an impressionable young woman pathetically in love with an older authority figure. Except according to her most recent profile she was neither impressionable nor dependent.

  McCade scanned the reports and research papers she'd written searching for something, anything, that might hint at where she and Bridger had gone, or what they planned to do. They all seemed routine except for two. Those he read with great care. The first dealt with the Empire's strategy regarding the pirates and the Il Ronn. Votava did an excellent job of demonstrating the Empire's use of the pirates to counter the aliens. In fact, she made it seem so obvious that McCade squirmed in his chair. She went on to suggest that with each passing year both the Il Ronn and the pirates became stronger, while the Empire grew weaker and more complacent. It all sounded very familiar, McCade thought, and he wasn't surprised to see that Bridger had given her a very high grade for it. Here then was something both of them had in common.

  In fact, the more he read, the more Cadet Votava sounded like Bridger. Or did he sound like her? There's an interesting thought . . .. Which came first, the chicken or the egg? In any case she was quite persuasive. McCade began to wonder if she and Bridger were right . . . maybe the pirates were too strong . . . not that it made much difference to him.

  The second document to attract McCade's attention was a research paper on methods used to transfer bulk cargo over interstellar distances. He read the paper with great interest, taking particular note of the marginal comments added by Bridger. Why would Votava's history instructor comment at all? The paper was for another class. Long after he'd finished reading, McCade continued to stare at the screen, lost in thought.

  The computer chimed softly, and the image before him changed to reveal the head and shoulders of Lieutenant Lowe at the main entry port. She looked very pretty. Dark brown hair cascaded down to surround a heart-shaped face. Her eyes looked tired. To McCade's annoyance the ship's computer let her in as she palmed the lock. He wondered what other liberties she'd granted herself. Moments later she arrived in the lounge and tossed a navy-style duffle bag in his direction.

  "Your stuff's in there," she said, wrinkling her nose in distaste.

  "Hello to you too," he replied as he opened the bag and rummaged through it. Inside were the things he'd taken along as he chased Cadien from one system to another. He'd last seen them in a cheap hotel near the Pink Asteroid. It was mostly dirty laundry now. At the bottom, his hand encountered the familiar feel of his slug gun. As he pulled it out, he saw someone had cleaned and oiled it. "Thanks, Lieutenant. By the way, did the navy issue you a first name?"

  When she laughed it was warm and open. "My friends call me Laurie . . . although it's actually Lauren. May I call you Sam?"

  "I wish you would," McCade replied. "Drink?" He motioned toward the autobar.

  She shook her head. "No thanks. Not just now. Is everything squared away?" She glanced around the lounge.

  "I think so . . .," McCade answered, taking another sip.

  "So what happens now?" she inquired.

  "I try to bring Bridger in," McCade replied with a slight smile.

  "Just like that? You just go out and pick him up?"

  "No . . . I think a squad of marines might come in handy," McCade answered dryly.

  "You're serious, aren't you," she said, leaning forward eagerly. "You know where he is."

  "Correction," he replied. "I think I know where he is."

  Laurie frowned thoughtfully, drumming her fingers on the armrest of her chair. "Obviously you think he's close . . ." Suddenly her face registered surprise. "You think he's right here—on Earth!"

  McCade smiled as he shook his head. "No you don't. We're doing this my way. Your people had their chance. Besides, if I'm right we don't have much time. Certainly not enough to waste trying to convince your superiors to get off their butts. Now here's what I need—"

  "What we need," she interrupted. "Where you go, I go. Besides, if it's like you say, you'll need some help, and I was top of my class in hand-to-hand combat." Her features were set in hard, determined lines.

  "I'll bet you were," McCade said reflectively as he pretended to think it over.

  Six hours later McCade sat next to Laurie as she expertly nudged their small troop carrier out of Earth's atmosphere and into high orbit. She'd insisted on piloting the craft herself, pointing out that without her, h
e wouldn't be able to get either the ship or the marines. Unless of course he wanted to go through regular channels. He had reluctantly agreed. Going through channels would take forever, plus he'd probably end up with Walt looking over his shoulder, and that would be even worse. Whether he liked it or not, he needed help, and allowing her to run this part of the show was a price that had to be paid.

  He glanced back, and received an answering grin from Section Leader Amos Van Doren. McCade had approached the marine, looking for some volunteer help. Van Doren quickly agreed to round up some "off duty" buddies. They all turned out to be friends of Reynolds, the marine the assassins had killed. They were eager to even the score. Van Doren himself had refused to remain behind, in spite of his wound. When McCade started to insist, the marine gently suggested that if he didn't go, the others wouldn't either. McCade knew when he was beat. Maybe they weren't doing it his way, but at least they were doing it. So the section leader sat behind him, wearing full space armor, and an ear-to-ear grin.

  As Laurie skillfully maneuvered the troop carrier through the maze of satellites, orbiting ships, defense installations and cast-off junk which circled the planet, McCade popped a stim cap and hoped he was right. Still, it seemed like the only possibility that made sense. What if Bridger and Votava hadn't left Earth? What if they'd holed up somewhere waiting for the search to die down? But they'd still need transportation off-planet. How could they get it without alerting the authorities?