Torch of Freedom

by David Weber

  * * *

  "Are you all right, Jack?" Steven Lathorous asked, and Jack McBryde looked up quickly from the memo he'd been studying.

  The two of them sat in McBryde's Gamma Center office, going over routine paperwork as part of the current installment of their regularly scheduled three-times-a-week meetings. Lathorous was the Center's assistant security director, McBryde's senior subordinate, and they'd known one another literally since they joined Alignment Security as cadets. They worked well together, and, what was more, they were personal friends. Which gave the look in Lathorous' eyes—a sort of fusion of mingled perplexity and concern—additional weight in several ways.

  "Am I 'all right' about what?" McBryde asked after a moment.

  "If I knew what might be bothering you, I'd probably know whether or not it really was bothering you. As it happens, I don't 'know' anything of the sort, but, if I had to hazard a guess, I'd say it probably has something to do with our problem child hyper-physicist."

  "Simões?"

  "Unless you happen to know about another 'problem child hyper-physicist' you may have simply failed to call to my attention," Lathorous said dryly, and almost despite himself, McBryde chuckled.

  "No, thank God." He shook his head. "But you're probably right. If I seem a little . . . distracted, it's probably because I am worrying about him."

  "We're getting close to the end of his project, Jack," Lathorous pointed out in a considerably more serious tone.

  "I know." McBryde made a waving-away motion with his right hand. "But even when we do, the man's still a valuable research asset."

  "Yes, he is." Lathorous' dark eyes met McBryde's blue eyes very levelly. "That's not the main reason you're worrying about him, though."

  McBryde gazed at him for a moment, thinking about how long they'd known one another. Their careers had brought them together and separated them again often enough over the years, and Lathorous had spent considerably longer in the field as a "shooter" than McBryde had. Unlike the McBryde genome, the Lathorous genome was a beta-line, but even without the sort of nonbiological implants some of the military and/or security-oriented beta and gamma lines often received, Lathorous was a decidedly lethal presence. McBryde was reasonably certain his old friend had been assigned to the Gamma Center specifically to provide the additional, relatively recent field experience he himself lacked.

  And, despite their friendship, Lathorous was undoubtedly the most dangerous person in the entire Gamma Center where McBryde's own increasingly ambivalent feelings towards the Alignment in general—and the rapid approach of Prometheus, in particular—were concerned.

  "No." McBryde sighed finally. "No, Steve, it's not just about his value. The man's already been hammered hard enough. I don't want to see him get hammered any more."

  "Not a good attitude, Jack," Lathorous said quietly. "I'm not saying I do want to see him get beaten up on any more than he has to be, but we're supposed to maintain our professionalism where the people we're responsible for keeping an eye on are concerned. And we're especially not supposed to get too close to someone who's so likely to self-destruct."

  "Wasn't my idea in the first place, Steve!" McBryde pointed out. "Bardasano personally stuck me with this one."

  "A point of which I'm painfully well aware." Lathorous nodded, yet concern still hovered in his eyes. "But whoever's idea it was, it's been six months—almost seven—since the girl was terminated, and better than four months since Bardasano assigned him to you, and he's not getting better. In fact, we both know he's getting worse. He's going to crash, Jack. We can't—you can't—prevent that, however hard we try. All we can do is minimize collateral damage when it happens . . . and I don't want the effect it has on you to be part of the fallout."

  "I appreciate that," McBryde said softly. "And I'm pretty sure I'm going to be okay," he added, lying as carefully as he ever had in his life. "I'm working on it, anyway."

  Lathorous nodded again. He was obviously still less than happy about the situation, though. As much as McBryde appreciated his friend's concern, letting Lathorous pick up even a hint of what was really going on inside him was definitely contraindicated, so he twitched his hand at the memo he'd been looking at without really seeing.

  "What do you make of this?" he asked.

  "I think it's about damned time . . . and pretty damned silly," Lathorous replied with a sour chuckle. "Mind you, I'm sure I don't know everything about the full damage Zilwicki and Cachat have managed to do to Manpower—and us—over the years, but I know enough to think eliminating them would be a very good idea. That much I'm entirely in favor of. My only real problem with it, from an operational perspective, is that I'm pretty sure what really happened was that they finally did something that pissed Albrecht off. I mean, really pissed him off." He shook his head. "Putting out what amounts to a 'shoot-on-sight' order to everyone isn't exactly a calm, reasoned response. I mean, how likely is it that anybody here at the Center is going to stumble across them in our daily routine?"

  His chuckle was the least bit sour, which, McBryde suspected, had something to do with the fact that Lathorous really missed fieldwork. He probably would have enjoyed pitting himself against the redoubtable Anton Zilwicki or Victor Cachat. Unfortunately (from his perspective), his assessment of how likely anyone in the Gamma Center was to encounter those particular targets was undoubtedly dead on the money. On the other hand . . .

  "I think the theory is that finding them is going to be the next best thing to impossible," McBryde pointed out. "Until we can pin down their physical location with some degree of confidence again, all we can really do is hope that they wander into our sights somewhere along the line."

  "Oh, I understand the theory just fine," Lathorous agreed. "And you're right—given the fact that we don't have a clue in hell where they are, this is probably the most effective way to go about it. Even if it doesn't have a snowflake's chance in hell of succeeding!"

  "You just want to take them down yourself," McBryde teased.

  "Well, it wouldn't look too bad in my résumé," Lathorous conceded with a chuckle. Then he sobered. "On the other hand, I've got to admit that their reputations would make me a little nervous unless I was in a position to completely control the situation."

  "They are a capable pair of bastards," McBryde acknowledged.

  He considered the memo again, then paged ahead to the next screen. He scanned the header on the new memo quickly, then grimaced.

  "I see Lajos is bitching again," he said.

  "Hard to blame him, really."

  Lathorous' words were reasonable enough, even sympathetic, but his tone was anything else. He and Lajos Irvine had never gotten along particularly well, and McBryde suspected that at least part of it was Lathorous' yearning to be back in the field. He knew he wasn't going to get there anytime soon, and the fact that Irvine seemed to be agitating for the type of assignment Lathorous wasn't going to get only increased the irritation quotient.

  "Actually, I agree with you," McBryde said out loud. "I'm probably as tired of his whining as anyone, but, let's face it, spending your time pretending to be—no, scratch that, actually being—a slave has got to be just about the least appealing assignment Security has."

  "Better than getting his ass shot at in the field by those Ballroom yahoos."

  There was a certain degree of feeling in Lathorous' response, due, no doubt, to the fact that his own last field assignment's cover had been as a mid-level Manpower executive, and the Audubon Ballroom had almost gotten lucky in his case.

  "Agreed." McBryde nodded. "On the other hand, it's the poor bastards pulling Lajos' duty that keep that sort of thing from happening right here on Mesa on a regular basis, you know."

  "Oh, I know. I know!" Lathorous shook his head. "And I promise I'll try to make nice to him."

  McBryde looked at him for a moment, then shrugged.

  "Look, Steve, I know you and Lajos don't exactly get along like a house on fire. How's about I take it over with him
for a while? It's not like it would use up a lot of my time, and I could at least reduce your irritation factor a bit. Maybe a few weeks' vacation would actually make him easier for you to take. And, frankly, I could use something besides Simões to worry about."

  Lathorous had begun an automatic refusal, but he paused at McBryde's final sentence. He hesitated visibly, then shrugged and gave his friend a slightly sheepish smile.

  "If you really mean it, I'll take you up on it," he said. "I know I shouldn't get pissed off with him when he comes in to make his personal reports. And I even know you're right, that what he does is important. It's just something about his attitude. It gets right up my nose, even though I know it shouldn't. And I'm pretty sure he knows I'm getting pissed off with him, even if I try not to show it, and that only gets him even more pissed off. To be honest, I think it's taking the shine off of our joint professionalism, if you know what I mean."

  "I know exactly what you mean," McBryde told him with a chuckle. "And don't expect me to take this over permanently, either! But I can at least give both of you a break from each other. After all, that's what an astute manager of personnel resources does, right?"

  "Right," Lathorous said with a warm smile. "I know it's only cold, cynical calculation and manipulation on your part. But, anyway, thanks."

  Chapter Thirty-Eight

  "What are the DNA results from the inspection of . . ." The Mesan System Guard officer looked back at her display for the name of the ship in question. "The Hali Sowle? They should have come back from the lab by now."

  The SG was one of Mesa's (many) uniformed security forces, but it was far less punctilious than the majority of its fellows about things like military ritual and formal address.

  "I don't know," said her junior partner. "Let me check." Gansükh Blomqvist pulled up a new screen at his own work station, checked for a list, and pulled up yet another screen. He then spent perhaps half a minute studying the data displayed.

  When he was done, his face was creased by a smile that bordered on a leer. "They check out all right, E.D. But talk about motherfuckers! It seems as if everybody on that piece of crap is closely related. The one married couple—I kid you not—are uncle and niece."

  E.D. Trimm shook her head, but made no wisecrack of her own. Unlike Blomqvist, who was newly hired, she'd been employed by the SG for almost four decades. Most of which time, she'd spent in orbit working on ship inspection. Since she'd married another resident of the huge space station eighteen years earlier, she rarely returned to the planet any longer, even on vacations.

  Blomqvist thought a freighter crew made up of closely related individuals, especially when marriage was involved, was a subject of derision and wonder. He'd learn, soon enough. A high percentage of the crews of such freighters—"gypsies," they were called, usually small in size and with no regular runs of any kind—were comprised of people related to each other. There were whole clans and tribes out there, working the fringes of the interstellar freight trade. Some of them were so large they even held periodic conclaves; where, among other things, marriages were contracted. There were some powerful incentives to keeping their businesses tightly held, after all.

  Unlike her new partner, whom she'd already decided was a jackass, E.D. was not given to much in the way of prejudice—at least, so long as genetic slaves weren't involved. On that subject, she had the same attitudes as almost all freeborn Mesans.

  But, unlike Blomqvist, who, despite the benefits of a good education, seemed remarkably incurious about the universe into which he'd been born, E.D. had actually absorbed what she'd learned as a student in one of Mesa's excellent colleges. Those colleges and universities, of course, were exclusively reserved for freeborn citizens. Mesa didn't forbid slaves to get an education, as many slave societies had done in past. They couldn't, given that even slaves in a modern work force needed to have an education. But the training given slaves was tightly restricted to whatever it was felt they needed to know.

  She'd been particularly fond of ancient history, even if the subject had no relevance to her eventual employment.

  "Why should tramp freighter crews sneer at the same practices that stood the dynasties of Europe in good stead?" she asked. "To this day, I think the Rothschilds still set the standard, when it comes to inbreeding."

  Blomqvist frowned. "Who's Europe? And I thought the name of that dog breed was rottweiler."

  "Never mind, Gansükh." She leaned over him, studying the screen. "Cargo . . . nothing unusual. Freight brokerage . . . okay, nothing odd there."

  Blomqvist made a face. "I thought Pyramid Shipping Services was one of those outfits serving the seccy trade."

  "It is. And your point being . . . ?"

  He said nothing, but the sour look on his face remained. Normally, Trimm would have let it go. But she really was getting tired of Blomqvist's attitudes—and, looked at the right way, you could even argue she was just doing her job by straightening out the slob. Technically, she was Blomqvist's "senior partner," but in the real world she was his superior. And if he didn't realize that, he'd soon be getting a rude education.

  "And what would you prefer?" she demanded. "That we insist the sutler trade be serviced by the Jessyk Combine? No—better yet! Maybe we should have Kwiatkowski and Adeyeme handle it."

  Blomqvist grimaced. Kwiatkowski & Adeyeme Galactic Freight, one of the biggest shipping corporations operating out of Mesa, was notorious among System Guard officers for being a royal pain in the ass to deal with. Worse than Jessyk, even though they didn't have nearly as much influence with the General Board.

  Still, they had enough. The quip among experienced customs agents was that any finding of an irregularity by a K&A freighter guaranteed at least fifteen hours of hearings—and, if people had still been using paper, the slaughter of a medium-sized forest. As it was, untold trillions of electrons would soon be subject to terminal ennui.

  She straightened up. "Just take my word for it. Everyone's better off leaving the ragtag and bobtail seccy trade to the gypsies. Easier for everybody, especially us. The only important thing—check this for me too, if you would—is how long the Hali Sowle is requesting orbit space."

  Blomqvist pulled up yet another screen. "Anywhere up to sixteen T-days, it looks like."

  Trimm frowned. That was a little unusual. Not unheard of, by any means, but still out of the ordinary. Most gypsies wanted to be in and out of Mesan orbit as fast as possible. Not because the Mesan trade gave them any moral qualms, but simply because they weren't making money unless they were hauling freight somewhere.

  "What reason do they give?" she asked.

  "They say they're waiting for a shipment of jewelry coming from Ghatotkacha. That's a planet . . ." He squinted at the screen, trying to find the data.

  "It's the second planet of Epsilon Virgo, over in Gupta Sector," said Trimm. The request for such a long orbital stay made sense, now. Gupta Sector was rather isolated and the only easy access to the big markets of the League was through the Visigoth Junction. Given the notorious fussiness of Visigoth's customs service, any freighter captain with half a brain who needed to spend idle time in orbit waiting for a shipment to arrive would choose to do so at the Mesan end of the terminus.

  Gupta Sector was known for its jewelry, and jewelry was one of the high value freight items that a freighter would be willing to wait for. Provided . . .

  "Send them a message, Gansükh. I want to see the financial details of their contract of carriage. Certified data only, mind you. We're not taking their word for it."

  From the frown on his face, it was obvious that Blomqvist didn't understand why she wanted that information.

  "For your continuing education, young man. The financial section of their contract of carriage should tell us who's paying for their lost time in orbit. The shipper of origin? Or it could even be the jewelers themselves. Or the final customer, or their broker. Or . . ."

  His face cleared. "I get it. Or maybe they're eating the cost themselves. In
which case . . ."

  "In which case," E.D. said grimly, "we're sending a pinnace over there with orders to fire if they don't allow a squad of armored cops aboard to search that vessel stem to stern. There's no way a legitimate gypsy would agree to swallow the cost of spending that much time in orbit, twiddling their thumbs."

  "What's a stem?" he asked, as he sent the instructions to the Hali Sowle. "I thought it was part of a plant. So why would it be connected to a starship?"

  Since he couldn't see her face, she let her eyes roll. At least she'd only have to put up with the ignoramus for another three days before the shifts were restructured. If she got lucky, she might even be partnered next time with Steve Lund. Now, there was a man with whom you could have an intelligent conversation. He had a good sense of humor, too.

  "Never mind, Gansükh. It's just a figure of speech."

  She sometimes thought that for Gansükh Blomqvist, the whole damn universe outside of his immediate and narrow range of interests was a figure of speech. Oh, well. She reminded herself, not for the first time, that every hour she spent bored by Blomqvist's company piled up just as much in the way of pay, benefits and retirement credit as any other hour on the job.

  * * *

  "And there it is, Ganny," said Andrew Artlett admiringly. "Just like you predicted. How do you know these things, anyway?"

  Friede Butry smiled, but gave no answer. That was because the answer would have been heartbreaking for her. She knew the many things she did which almost none of her descendants and relatives did, for the simple reason that she'd had a full life prior to being stranded on Parmley Station—while most of them had spent their entire lives there.

  For some considerable part of that pre-Station life, she and her husband had been very successful freight brokers. That was how they'd amassed their initial small fortune, which Michael Parmley had then parlayed into a much larger fortune playing the Centauri stock exchange—and then blown the whole thing trying to launch a freight company that could compete with the big boys in the lucrative Core trade.