Asimov’s Future History Volume 9

by Isaac Asimov

  Damik thought about that. “Has anything gone wrong?”

  “We don’t have to be coy now, Brun.” Coren pointed at the hemisphere. “Maybe Special Service has something that can unscramble the interference that’s generating, but it would take longer than our conversation.”

  “You’re not staying for dessert, then.”

  “I don’t think I’m staying for a second drink. I asked how your connections are. I meant it.”

  “I got a promotion, didn’t I?”

  “I’m talking about your black market ones.”

  Damik grinned. “So’m I. What do you need?”

  “I stumbled on a diverted shipment recently. You gimmicked a bay assignment all the way over in Petrabor, some stuff for Kysler. I’m assuming it was you, or someone in your office.”

  “You ‘stumbled’ on it? How does that work?”

  “Part of the job. Am I speaking to the right man?”

  Damik shrugged. “What if you are?”

  “Baley-running. How does that work?”

  Damik stabbed a forkful of green leaves and pushed them around the plate listlessly. “How much are you offering?”

  “Depends entirely on the quality of your data.”

  “Hm. Well, the cheap part is the actual transportation. Refitted cargo bins are popular. Usually, they only have to support life for a day or two till they get turned over to the ship that’s going directly to the colony of choice. Then it’s no different than steerage class. Most baleys, I can’t understand why they bother–they could go legally.”

  “You know that’s not true. ITE screening sorts out ‘undesirables’ and denies them visas. That means anyone with a political opinion, technical skills above a certain level, and money they might take with them. That’s about eighty percent of the people who apply.”

  “If they’re that well-off or that smart, why would they want to go?”

  “I really don’t care. Go on.”

  “The expensive part is the bribery. You need a customs inspector, a set of transit permits, and enough to payoff a warehouse crew. You need another customs official on the other end.”

  “At Kopernik.”

  Damik nodded. “But you knew all this.”

  “You left out the part I don’t know. Who do you start the process through? Who fronts the credits and who parcels out the payments?”

  “It’s not that organized. We’re talking about rats in the system, a few here and there. Whoever is taking money from the baleys themselves has to know who to talk to–”

  “Not in every case,” Coren said. “That might be true for small groups, but in the last two years the numbers have increased. There are shipments of up to three hundred people leaving in one group.”

  “That’s a myth. Numbers like that, ITE would look totally negligent–or subverted–to let them through. No, the largest single group you’ll ever see go through would be fifty or sixty. Even that’s pushing it.” Damik finished his salad. “So?”

  “So that still means enough money to attract the people I’m looking for. Once they get a taste, they don’t go away, they assume control.”

  Damik chuckled. “You never disappoint, Lanra. I can see why you left Service–those idiots wouldn’t know what to do with a smart one like you.”

  “I assume that means I’m right. So who?”

  “Depends on the colony. Each one has a gatekeeper.”

  “Reporting to who?” Coren asked.

  “I don’t know. I imagine you’re right, there is some person or persons at the end of the chain, but...”

  “Okay. Then give me a gatekeeper.”

  “Which colony?”

  “Let’s say Nova Levis.”

  Damik’s eyes widened fractionally, just for an instant. He shook his head. “You don’t have that kind of credit.”

  “How do you know?”

  “Because you’re overdrawn now and we haven’t even talked price.”

  “I knew you were the right gato to talk to about this. I always appreciated your honesty.”

  “Ha ha. Your wit hasn’t improved much.”

  “But my credit has,” Coren said.

  Damik regarded him skeptically. The waiter came and cleared away his salad plate, then set his dinner before him. Damik appeared to notice none of this, eyes fixed on Coren.

  “Do you remember,” Coren said as the waiter left, “all that business last year involving Clar Eliton and the assassinations at Union Station?”

  “Lot of dead Spacers. So?”

  “More than that–quite a few Terrans were killed or hurt, too. It was complicated. For a time, Rega Looms was suspected. In the course of doing my job–covering Rega’s butt, technically–I learned a lot of details about a lot of people, mostly people I’ll never meet and never deal with. But there’ve been exceptions. You, for instance.”

  Coren leaned forward, as if preparing to confide in Damik. “We knew each other for... what? Six years before I left Special Service?”

  “Something like that.”

  “In all that time I never knew you were a Managin. Did you even know that yourself, or did you simply neglect to enter it in your file?” Coren spread his hands. “None of my business, really. Before last year, none of anyone’s. But they turned out to be less than simply embarrassing to someone like you. They turned out to be–can you guess, Brun?–a security risk. Now imagine that. A bunch of fringe idiot anti-Spacer sociopaths an actual security risk. I’ll tell you, Brun, I got a real laugh out of that when I heard it the first time. I thought, ‘Don’t those people at the Terran Bureau of Investigation have anything better to do than upgrade their lists of the possibly dangerous all day long? They should be after real criminals, real threats, real detriments to society.’”

  “You thought all that, did you?”

  “Yes, I did. I thought all that. But that was then. Today I thought, ‘I wonder what the director of ITE would say if he knew his freshly-promoted chief of inspection at the Baltimor Station used to be one of those sorts?’ And I decided to find out what you would think of it first.”

  Coren sat back and smiled across the table at Damik.

  Slowly, Damik picked up a fork. “Is that all?”

  “No, no, no. You were a real follower back then. I’ve got your name attached to at least four other groups like the Managins. But to be fair, only two of those ever got serious attention from the TBI. “Coren watched Damik cut a piece of his cutlet and fork it into his mouth. “So, how’s my credit now?”

  “Still not good enough.” Damik grinned crookedly. “I’ll tell you this, they’re all corporate types at the high end. I wouldn’t be at all surprised if the guy getting out from rehab this week is one.”

  “Alda Mikels? Is he the one you deal with.”

  “I told you, I don’t know names–”

  Coren shifted in his chair, leaned on his forearms over the small table. “I asked, is that who you deal with?”

  Damik moved back. He studied Coren with narrowed eyes for several seconds. Finally, he shook his head. “Mikels is in jail–how could he do anything with baleys? Look, Coren, that’s as much as you get–”

  Coren sat back. “Let’s see, besides the Managins, you were part of the Campaign for Terran Rights–they were the ones who shut down the vats feeding Calcubay District several years back. About the time you were an active member, under the name of...” Coren looked upward in mock concentration. “Ah, I remember. You called yourself ‘Damil Bruller: Then there was–”

  “Enough.”

  “What’s the problem, Brun? No one can hear us.” Coren gestured at his hemisphere.

  “How big a file do you have on me?”

  “Big enough. Come on, Brun, I don’t have any desire to ruin your life. This has nothing to do with you. I just need to know how to find the people who would have had oversight on the last shipment of baleys out of Petrabor that you so innocently arranged. Seriously, who do you deal with? Who helps you afford real pork?” C
oren took his own fork, reached across the table, and delicately worked loose a small piece of the gravy-soaked meat. He popped it into his mouth and smiled. “Very good.”

  “You don’t need to know that.”

  “I’m afraid I do, “Coren said flatly.

  Damik let out a long, low breath–nearly a growl. “Two people come see me to arrange things: a woman named Tresha, and a man named Gamelin. At least, that’s what she calls him. He never speaks–I assume he’s just muscle, he’s big enough.”

  “Tresha what?”

  “The bank is closed for the day.”

  Coren studied Damik’s eyes, then shrugged. He picked up his hemisphere and dropped it back into his pocket.

  “You don’t ever come talk to me again, Lanra,” Damik warned. “We’re done.”

  “Oh, I wish I could promise that. I really do.” Coren smiled. “Enjoy the rest of your meal.”

  Coren entered a bar down the corridor from the restaurant, ordered a drink, then went into the restroom. He shrugged out of his jacket, pulling it inside out, changing it from a dark green to a light blue. He broke a small vial in his hands and smeared the thick liquid through his hair, which turned black in less than a minute. He washed his hands before returning to his drink.

  Damik walked by a few minutes later. Coren gave him several meters before he sauntered after him.

  Damik went through the motions of surveying for a tail, but Coren suspected that his skills were long unused and inadequate. Within two intersections, Damik stopped looking behind him, and picked up his pace.

  Coren followed him to a high speed walkway that carried them south into the vast financial district that filled a lot of the area between Baltimor and D. C. He got off after ten kilometers and used a public comm. Coren counted off two minutes, twenty seconds. Damik left the booth and skipped across the accelerating lanes to continue south.

  Another ten kilometers. Coren took off his jacket and tied it around his waist. Damik had apparently decided no one would follow him from here and never bothered to do another survey. Coren moved closer out of contempt, as if to dare Damik to recognize him, but the man never glanced back.

  Damik got off in a warehouse sector. He descended three levels, to a home kitchen, and took a position leaning against one massive pillar. He stood out in this T-class area and drew a lot of odd looks, but he remained where he stood, feigning ambivalence.

  Coren turned his jacket out again, slung it by one finger over his shoulder, and skirted the edge of the kitchen till he found a table recently vacated. He sat down before the remains of a late, vat-based dinner, the rich yeast-and-grain aroma thick in his nostrils. He gripped the nearly empty glass of beer and pretended to be enjoying the last of it, keeping Damik in the corner of his field of vision.

  About ten minutes went by before anyone approached Damik. An older man in an innocuous black jacket and gray pants came up to him. Coren slipped his optam out, adjusted its range, and waited. Just before Damik and the old man were about to turn away, Coren smoothly raised the device and recorded them.

  They moved away from him. The last Coren saw of them, the old man put his arm around Damik’s shoulders and patted him in an incongruously paternal manner.

  Seven

  COREN SWALLOWED A painblock. The throbbing along his neck and shoulder began to ebb. He did not want to take the time to see his doctor, though he knew he should–he still did not know how badly he had been injured in Petrabor.

  He crossed the avenue to the open arcade. Shops alternated with private offices along both sides. Coren breathed in the mingled smells of several restaurants and food vendors. At this hour he saw few people. Later, the place would be as crowded as it had been during the height of the last shift.

  The door he sought turned out to be plain blue bearing a small nameplate: RW ENTERPRISES.

  The image he had recorded of the older man matched quickly to a name–Ree Wenithal–and the company he owned. The public record contained a brief description and little else: a general import-export firm specializing in textiles, licensed eight years ago, with Ree Wenithal listed as sole owner. No recent police reports, at least not in the last three years.

  Coren had nearly paid a second visit to Brun Damik after his cursory check of Wenithal’s company–what was their connection? Then he found the one detail that had brought him directly here: Wenithal had been a cop.

  Coren pressed his fingers to the nameplate.

  “Yes?” a polite voice asked.

  “Coren Lanra to see Mr. Wenithal.”

  “Do you have an appointment, Mr. Lanra?”

  “No, but I think he’ll want to talk to me. I was given his name by a mutual acquaintance: a man named Damik.”

  Coren waited.

  “Very well, Mr. Lanra. Please come in.”

  The door opened.

  At the end of a short hallway, he passed under an arch into a wide, brightly-lit office area. Coren counted eight people working at desks.

  A door at the rear opened and a neatly-dressed man with thin, pearl-white hair came toward him–the same man he had seen meet Brun Damik. He seemed tall from a distance but as he neared, Coren saw that it was an illusion: the man walked and carried himself as if he stood a head taller than anyone else.

  “Mr. Lanra?” He extended a hand. “I’m Ree Wenithal. How may I help you?”

  “A little of your time, a few questions.”

  Wenithal smiled and waved Coren in the direction of his door. Coren keyed the little hemisphere in his pocket.

  The office was dark, expensively furnished with heavy chairs and sofas and polished woodwork. The desk was cluttered with disks and papers. A suit hung from the handle of a closet door to the right. Another sheaf of papers lay beside a half-full cup of coffee on an end table by an upholstered armchair that still held the imprint of its recent occupant.

  Coren turned at the sound of the door clicking shut.

  Wenithal’s left hand was in his jacket pocket.

  “There are easily four other ways to leave this office beside the way you came in,” Wenithal said matter-of-factly.

  “Do I need to know any of them?”

  “I suppose that depends on what you have to say.” His eyes narrowed. “You used a name I know to get in here. But I don’t know you.”

  “But you know my type.”

  “TBI?”

  “Special Service.”

  “But not anymore. You‘ve gone private.”

  “It happens from time to time.”

  “Who do you work for now?”

  “Rega Looms.”

  Wenithal’s face showed a moment of confusion. Then he grunted, took his hand from his pocket, and went to his desk. “Drink?”

  “No, thank you.”

  Wenithal poured a glass for himself and added ice, moving carefully, methodically. “So,” he said, turning to Coren, “what does Mr. Looms want with me now?”

  “‘Now?’ Has he wanted anything from you in the past?”

  Wenithal frowned. “We’ve done business before. I admit, he’s never sent his security people to negotiate a new contract, but...”

  “Nothing. I’m not here at his behest. I’m following up on something else, unrelated to the company.”

  “What would that be?”

  “I’m told that you’re the man to see about baleys.”

  “Who told you that? It wasn’t Brun.”

  “A mutual acquaintance.”

  Wenithal shrugged. “Suit yourself. I don’t know anything about it.”

  “I could check.”

  Wenithal sighed. “I’m assuming you checked me out before you came in here. You know what I used to do. What I know stems from my investigations as a law enforcement officer. Most of that information is several years out of date. I’m really not interested in rehashing old cases with you.”

  “Old cases often refuse to go quietly into a file. Especially if they’re big enough.”

  “And are mine big enough?
”

  Coren shrugged.

  “You threatened Brun over this. You are the same man who spoke with him earlier, aren’t you? What particularly do you want?”

  “Names. Who were you investigating?”

  “You don’t know what you want, do you?”

  “I hoped you might be able to help me narrow it down. I’m looking for a baley runner, the one who makes all the arrangements with the shippers before the runners themselves shunt their cargoes.”

  “A particular one, I imagine.” Wenithal smiled sardonically. “Actually, at one time I was investigating your Mr. Looms.”

  “For what?”

  “It didn’t prove out. His name was on a list. You know how that goes. It was coincidental.”

  “So why mention it?”

  “Just to remind you that we all have files. What would someone find in yours?”

  “Less than you might expect. I’ve had a fairly dull career.”

  Wenithal looked surprised, then laughed. “My cases are all a matter of public record–you could look for yourself. Why bother me?”

  “What I’m looking for won’t be in your case logs. For one thing, I doubt very much if the people I’m interested in are part of the public record.”

  “Why not?”

  Coren felt his patience fray. “Is this a test?”

  Wenithal shook his head. “You’ve come into my business, you’ve asked questions that could be construed as accusatory, you’ve made requests you have no right to make and no authority to push through. I haven’t heard one thing yet to convince me that I shouldn’t call the police and have you escorted out.”

  “Nova Levis.”

  Wenithal’s face hardened. His reaction lasted less than a second, but Coren recognized it and it surprised him. Dropping the name of the colony had been a gamble; Wenithal could easily have feigned ignorance. Instead, Wenithal now took this seriously. Coren wished he knew why.

  “This had been slightly amusing till now,” Wenithal said. “Leave. I no longer have any involvement in anything that might help you, and I resent the implication that I should. I’m a businessman. A legitimate businessman.”