Ghost War mda-1

by Michael A. Stackpole

  I fanned the bills. “How much did you skim?”

  He blinked, then smiled. “Twenty percent. I did sell him on the plan, after all.”

  “More like forty, I’m sure. Mine is the bigger piece though, so that’s okay.”

  Gypsy smiled. “Ah, but there is more. He wants you to use that money to buy yourself suitable evening clothes. Two nights from now you’ll be in Contressa at a little gala. The Emblyn Palace Contressa is opening its main facility and Mr. Emblyn is throwing a party for a thousand of his closest friends.”

  “And I’m numbered among them?”

  “You are now.”

  “When do we leave?”

  Gypsy shook his head. “Not we, just you.”

  I frowned. “You don’t know me well enough to know I can deal with this sort of thing without causing trouble. I’m a wild card. You can’t trust me that much.”

  “I know that during your exploration of the city you picked up a well-tailored suit.”

  “You were watching me?”

  “And you would not have watched me were our roles reversed?”

  “Point taken. Okay, so I can dress well.”

  “And you are very quick. The way you dealt with Catford was most politically astute. I might have found you a crude lumberjack on Helen, but that was a disguise.” Gypsy smiled slowly. “But, it does not matter if I trust you or not. My master expresses his wishes and I carry them out. He wants you there, so you will be there.”

  “Anyone else I know?”

  “None of our little family, no. You’ll be a guest of the resort for the weekend, then come back here Monday.” He nodded slowly. “I’ll be fascinated to hear your report on the whole thing. Keep your eyes and ears open.”

  “I shall.”

  “One thing, Sam.”

  “Yes?”

  “This access to my boss. It’s a onetime thing.” His eyes became cold. “If you try to cut me out of things, your plans will live on well after you, and we shall mourn your passing.”

  26

  In war, as in love, we must come into contact before we can triumph.

  —Napoleon

  Contressa, Garnet Coast District

  Basalt

  Prefecture IV, Republic of the Sphere

  9 February 3133

  I opted not to let Gypsy’s threat color my plans to enjoy the weekend. I took the time to do a bit more research into Emblyn’s hotel properties and learned he’d been sent to Basalt to run a string of hotels for an off-world concern. According to business journal articles, when he arrived he found things an absolute shambles. The hotels were making no money and this was because money was being skimmed all over the place.

  The articles put a positive spin on what happened next, making him into a white knight, but I was looking from a different perspective. The core of the problem he had to deal with was that while The Republic was prospering, people didn’t need a world like Basalt as a resort. There were other, more famous places, like Terra, where they could spend their time. And a lot of their money went to things that improved their own homes and communities, so they had even less inducement to travel to a backwater world to get rained on.

  Emblyn realized he couldn’t possibly make the hotels make money without significant concessions from the local government. He went to them and basically represented himself as having been sent to Basalt to close the chain down since it was not profitable. He entered into a conspiracy with the government to give him significant tax breaks on the properties if he could put together a local consortium to buy the places and keep them open. He raised the capital he needed, then made the parent corporation an offer to buy the Basalt properties. The parent company sold them off to him, while keeping them affiliated, at the moment, with the chain. This gave him the benefit of some booking services thinking they were part of the chain, so his potential customer stream didn’t suffer immediately.

  Emblyn started upscaling things, and lobbied the local government to allow him to add casinos to his properties. Emblyn said it would bring a lot of money in from off-world, and it has, but has redistributed even more local wealth. A lot of it ended up in his pockets and three thousand of that was burning a hole in mine.

  Emblyn was shrewd enough to know that if he could lower costs, he would boost profits, so he started buying into the various firms that serviced his hotels. Food wholesalers, liquor distributorships, breweries and the like sprang up or profited from his investments. With his direction, they expanded and suddenly became profit centers on their own. Most articles tried to put estimates on his total wealth, but I figured they were off considerably, no matter how generous they were.

  Part of me wondered at how the man could want me at his party. Everything I’d said to Gypsy was true: I was a wild card and Emblyn had no way to judge me. For all he knew I could be there and when someone asked how I knew him I could say, “Remember the sewers backing up in Manville? I did that so he can take over the planet.”

  Clearly he wouldn’t have asked for me to attend if he thought I was that stupid, so Gypsy must have given him a good impression of me. Likewise I imagined that he’d not have invited me if I were the sort who would be impressed with three thousand stones. Perhaps the invitation had been tentative, based on Gypsy’s assessment of my reaction to the bonus.

  I decided I would play things by the rules, but go in cautiously. There was only one place where I would press my luck. I doubted he would notice one way or another, but success would give me a bit more freedom to operate if I needed to do something quickly.

  I packed my clothes and caught a hovershuttle up to Contressa. Taking a shuttle isn’t very elegant, and the transport company had some really beat-up vehicles. I got put in one of the newer ones, however, while non-Anglos were directed to the older ones, and packed in tightly. While the shuttle didn’t cost much, there was a surcharge applied to those with almond eyes, and that disturbed me a great deal.

  Even the newer shuttle wasn’t all that comfortable, but it was half full and let me see more of the planet. Route One followed the eastern shore of the Broad River to the northern delta and Contressa. It skirted the edges of a major rain forest preserve and while I didn’t see much more than some brightly colored birds and perhaps some apelike things, just seeing that much deep blue was very pleasant.

  When I wasn’t reading or staring out the window, I did check out the others on the shuttle. Most were kids traveling home for the weekend from school. I suspected there had been a lot of communications traffic to and from Manville after the sewer backups, with worried parents demanding their children head home for a weekend. Some older couples joined them, and far in the back I saw a young woman wearing a billed cap and big dark glasses—indicating she didn’t want to be noticed, but attracting all the more notice for it. She wore very casual clothes, no makeup or jewelry, and was pretty enough that I could imagine her being some model or minor celeb traveling north for the resort opening. I’d probably see her later that night as someone’s eye-candy arm-piece.

  Whoever she was going to be adorning, he had to be pretty low-rent if he made her travel on the shuttle. I found it pretty easy to imagine her being a single mother who was working hard to support twin daughters. If that was the case, she’d clearly cashed in some first-class air transport ticket for this, so her kids could have new shoes.

  Shoes that had been ruined because they’d been floating in sewage.

  We arrived in Contressa in just over two hours. I only had one bag to get since I was just up for the weekend and I noticed she was traveling similarly light. She went for her bag, but a large man bodied her aside so he could grab a plasticene crate with some rat-dog-thing in it. As he waddled away cooing at Snookums—yes, the name was painted on the crate—I grabbed her bag and handed it to her.

  The protest at my touching her stuff died quickly and she smiled. “Thank you.”

  “Not a problem. In the future don’t get between a man and his snack.”

  She
laughed and it was a pleasing sound. “More true than you know.” She gave me a nod and turned to disappear into the crowd, taking advantage of the trough the fat man had plowed through it.

  I wandered over to ground transportation and hired a hovertaxi to take me to the resort. The ride took a half hour and ran along the northern coast. It really was prime resort property, with beautiful white sandy beaches and patches of blue jungle matching the water in color. It was true that having wave after wave of clouds pass stripes of darkness over the earth was annoying, but between them I got a great view of the triangle of Basalt’s moons. It was all pretty enough that I thought about trying to get Janella to join me here for a vacation.

  The Palace resort matched the sand in hue, making it look almost as if it were a castle raised by magic. The main building did not have towers and crenellations, but did have a soaring majesty that evoked power and beauty. The long drive up to the door had been flanked with statues of beautiful men and women of all races and sizes, including Clan Elementals and pilots. The statues were naked, but more along the line of art than anything salacious. Beyond and around them, azure lawns stretched as far as the eye could see, save where they ran to jungle or were dotted with blue topiary cut to the shape of local fauna and mythical creatures.

  I checked in easily, was shown to my room and put my clothes away quickly enough. The room I’d been given was fairly standard for size, but featured some nice amenities. The refreshment center had been fully stocked with Diamond Negro. The beer could have been there because Diamond was an exclusive supplier to the hotel, but I suspected it was because that was the only thing Gypsy had ever seen me drink.

  I showered and changed clothes, then took my bonus money and descended to the gambling floor. If the hotel was a temple to money, the casino was the Holy of Holies and I went right to the altar. I didn’t have to wait long to get a seat at a poker table, and after three hours walked away with seven grand more than I’d started with. The people I’d skinned were all guests, just like me, and took their losses with good grace. Given that most were wearing big, blocky rings studded with enough gems that I’d have had trouble lifting one, much less buy one with my nest egg, they could afford it.

  I retreated to my room and dressed for the evening. The store in Manville had done a great job with the suit. While I was certain there would be people in the room who would recognize it was not custom made, they would know it had a designer label. One could decry such shallow behavior, but it made those folks pretty easy to peg and, subsequently, manipulate.

  As I dressed I found myself smiling just imagining what Janella’s appearance at a party like this would do. Her beauty and elegance would get her noticed right away, of course. Her being nobility and from Fletcher would have caused a bit of a stir. Her being a Knight of The Republic, however, that would be serious stuff. People would be all over her, wanting to know what The Republic intended for Basalt, for Emblyn and, hopefully, themselves.

  And if they knew what I was, well, I’d not be there if anyone knew what I was.

  I took the lift to the top floor and actually gasped as I stepped out. The entire ceiling and three of the walls had been made of glass, affording a wonderful view of the night sky. On Basalt that meant we’d be able to see a stunning display of lightning. The clouds were gathering to deliver it, and part of me wondered if Emblyn hadn’t managed to arrange things that way.

  I joined a line of people snaking past Emblyn at the entryway. An aide standing well back behind him had a noteputer which she consulted as we entered. She subvocalized and an ear-bud microphone transmitted her words to Emblyn, who smiled and greeted everyone by name. He shook hands heartily, asked little personal questions, and laughed at the replies. I took it as a very good sign that no ethnic segregation had been done to the guest list, and Emblyn seemed equally at home with everyone.

  He really did look every inch the successful businessman he was purported to be. Unlike Jacob Bannson, Emblyn was tall and slender, with his thick black hair brushed perfectly into place and his deep brown eyes wet with sincerity. As I came up, his smile grew just a bit broader than it had been with the elderly couple before me. “Mr. Donelly, so pleased you could make it.”

  “I appreciate the invitation, Mr. Emblyn.”

  “Call me Ring. Everyone does.”

  “And I’m Sam.”

  He shook my hand heartily. “I understand you won a little bit of money at poker this afternoon.”

  “A little bit depending upon who is doing the accounting.” I smiled, impressed that his people had been watching me. I’d spend the rest of my stay watching for the watchers, though I knew the casino’s security system would make surveillance child’s play. That meant I’d also be very careful. “Should I feel guilty that they were your guests?”

  “Not at all.” He leaned in closely. “They’ll just drop more in an effort to reverse their bad luck, so take all you want.”

  I laughed. “Spoken like the master of ten-percent rake.”

  He nodded and let me go. “Please, enjoy yourself.”

  Thus released I moved into the room. A person in hotel livery found me and handed me a small chit. “You will be sitting at table twenty-seven, right over there. The bars are to your right and left, appetizers at the stations. You will be seated in an hour.”

  “Thank you.” I pocketed my chit and wandered to one of the bars. While I waited in line I studied the selection and found they had my favorite Irish whisky. My mouth immediately started to water, but I held back. Emblyn’s people had pegged me as a Diamond Negro man, and I didn’t want to give them too much to think about. Moreover, anything, no matter how innocent, that could link me back to my old self was to be avoided. For all I knew, someone in here could have spoken once with Victor Steiner-Davion and heard him mention that whisky, and bits would start to be flipped here and there until someone decided there was something interesting to learn about me.

  Once I had my beer, in a great big pilsner glass with the Emblyn logo emblazoned on it, I started toward the hors d’oeuvres table. Yes, normally at a party this impressive there would been a small army of servers circulating with silver plates full of these things. Most of them were, in fact, wandering with flutes of champagne. The appetizers, though, all arrayed on twenty-five linear meters of tabletop, made for an exhibition that was as much art as it was food. Things had been color coordinated so the produce from one world resembled the planetary banner, or items from a particular corporation were spread out to look like its logo. The centerpiece, however, was a collection of things that were the picture of the hotel itself, as if shot at dawn from the shoreline. The help could have been carting all that around, but they would have been hauling pieces of a puzzle that no one could have put together.

  The display was breathtaking and, I’ll admit, I’d just started to drift unconsciously past, trying not to drool on myself. I was not paying attention until I felt a hand on my right elbow. It jerked me back just as a behemoth that, in his evening clothes, looked like the biggest penguin ever seen, slashed right past me and went straight for the hotel. Clutched under his arm was a tiny dog that graced me with a growl as they slipped by.

  I turned and looked at my savior. “Thank you.”

  She smiled, her blue eyes full of fire that matched the sapphire at her throat. “Just returning the favor.”

  “Pardon?”

  “Never get between a man and his snack, remember?”

  I blinked. “That was you?”

  “Yes, and that was him, too. Perason Quam, the food critic for the Manville Journal.”

  I glanced at the broad back and wavering hips as huge holes appeared in the mural. “That’s his name, Quam, not yours?”

  “Yes.” She frowned very slightly. “You’ve not been on Basalt long, have you?”

  “Not long enough to know him, nope. You, on the other hand…” I slowly smiled, buying another second or two for my brain to start working. In the blue, off-the-shoulders gown she wor
e, she looked much more elegant than she’d been on the shuttle and, yes, it came to me. She was far more elegant than she’d been in Tri-Vid reports on the sewer disaster. “You are associated with some of the private shelters that took people in last week. I remember you, but only caught the middle of a report. I didn’t get your name.”

  “So you had no idea who I was on the shuttle?”

  “No, just being kind. Would it have made a difference?”

  “To some, yes.” She offered me her hand. “I’m Bianca Germayne. I’m Count Hector’s daughter.”

  27

  A person seldom falls sick, but the bystanders are animated with a faint hope that he will die.

  —Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Emblyn Palace Resort

  Contressa, Garnet Coast

  Basalt

  Prefecture IV, Republic of the Sphere

  9 February 3133

  “His daughter?”

  “She is, depending upon his mood.” Quam had waded back through the crowd, little orange greasy stains curling down the valleys of his multiple chins. The little dog held beneath his left arm alternately licked at his face and the edge of the plate on which he had created a sagging pyramid of food. “Forgive my intrusion, I am Quam. How are you, my dear lady? Who is your friend?”

  Bianca smiled indulgently. “Perhaps we can find out together. He was on the shuttle with us.”

  “Oh, the shuttle. I hate it, but Snookums won’t fly, so what can I do.” He smiled, deepening the crevasses in his flesh. “Besides, the Journal need not know what I did with the cash for the fare here.”

  “No, they don’t.” Bianca laid a hand on his right arm, the one holding the plate, which engendered a little growl from Snookums. “Thank you, again.”