Stellar Ranger

by Steve Perry

  Cinch watched the old medic as he poured a sample from one of the vials into his analyzer. “Hold up a second. We know where Tuluk was a little while ago, he was out inspecting your little surprise. Besides, Gus Kohl said there weren’t any signs of forced entry, plus one of his vehicles is gone.”

  “Where would she go in the middle of the night? Why would she just take off?”

  The doctor’s machinery hummed to Iife, The flat tubescreen it bore lit up with a crawl of numbers and a spike-bar graph.

  “She was angry last time I saw her,” Cinch said. “Maybe she just went for a ride to blow off a little heat.”

  “Why was she upset?”

  Cinch sighed. “She wasn’t happy that your sister and I had become so ... well acquainted.”

  “Why would that–?” he stopped and stared at Cinch.

  “No,” the ranger said, “I’m old enough to be her father. But maybe she might have thought otherwise.”

  Maybe, hell. But Pan here was smitten and it didn’t cost anything for Cinch to make it sound questionable. No point in rubbing his nose in it.

  Pan’s jaw muscles danced as he clenched his teeth. Didn’t help, Cinch’s attempt at kindness. He thought the kid might want to take a swing at him and he wondered what his reason would be if he did: because he wouldn’t sleep with Baji? Or because she wanted him to?

  Pan held his temper; at least he didn’t try to floor Cinch with a fist.

  “I’m going to go look for her,” Pan said. His voice was tight, stiff, and whatever affection he’d felt for Cinch was gone from his speech. He turned without another word and marched out.

  Well, shit. What was he supposed to do? Baji was what she was, not his problem.

  “My, my,” the medic said. “Look at that.”

  “What is it?”

  “You got yourself a major psychedelic here, Ranger. I could give you the chemical names, they run to half a page if I print ‘em out, but you probably know it as ‘Throb.’ ”

  Cinch blinked. Now that was something he hadn’t expected. An orgasmic mindchem.

  “Judging from the trace elements, I’d say the stuff is being bioengineered and botanized.”

  “Which means?”

  “It’s been grown, Ranger. Created and cooked inside some variation of the local blueweed. A biological processing plant, at least for the first steps.”

  Cinch nodded. That explained a whole lot of things.

  And didn’t it make this whole affair real interesting all of a sudden.

  * * *

  Tuluk was angry at the turn of events, but in a strange, almost perverse way, he was happy. Okay, so he would have to put things on hold for a time. He would have to kill the ranger and weather the storm of investigation that would naturally follow. Those things would not have been his first choices by any means; still, it had been years since he had been forced to rise to any real challenge. A man missed that. Comfort was good, but it wasn’t everything. Get too used to winning every hand, the game can get boring.

  He sat in his study, sipping his imported whiskey. Been drinking more than normal lately, but certainly he was entitled. The problem with challenges was that they could be aggravating in their unpredictability.

  Still, he was on top of it. Lobang and his collection of slow-wits had the illegal extract crated and on its way to a safe place, or damn well better in the next few hours. The Twist was being harvested and, regretfully, destroyed. It would make a nice series of fires and the resultant ash would be scattered. True, a good bioforensic tech could maybe come up with something to raise eyebrows–did she look in the right places even after the fires–but nothing to hang Tuluk with. Heat destroyed the active ingredients and “potentially illegal” didn’t mean a thing.

  Of course, this was only the beginning of the housecleaning. There was the ranger, that was a given. Gus Kohl would have to go, as would the damned raj, every last one of them. The woman Meritja, she might know something the ranger had let slip in his pillow talk. A broad broom, to be sure; but as long as he was sweeping, he might as well get it all. He would have to hire himself a new scientist. So many details. Ah, well. Life was in the details, was it not?

  He sipped his drink and smiled.

  * * *

  Dawn came and went the day blossomed into its usual heat and dryness. Cinch had left the medic’s and gone off into a narrow canyon where he found a shady spot out of sight and parked the borrowed flitter. He located a soft patch–well, relatively soft, anyway–and stretched out for a nap.

  He awoke a couple of hours later, made some coffee in the little hot pot, and felt a little more rested if not altogether fresh. Unless he was mistaken, Tuluk would now be a more dangerous opponent, and since he had demonstrated his willingness to kill, that meant Cinch would have to watch where he put his feet from now on. He didn’t think there were going to be any more warning shots fired, and to expose himself without taking a few basic precautions would be stupid.

  When he’d left Kohl’s, Cinch had brought along a clean com unit. It was officially registered to a traveling sales rep for a food marketing chain halfway around the planet, the number and channel much different from Cinch’s regular unit. The clean unit also had a scrambler and a bouncer on it. Anybody who might happen across it with a scanner would get an earful of white noise, and any attempt to backwalk it to a location should fail, unless the tracker had a program a lot better than most commercial ones available. He used the com now and called Wanita. Even if her channel was tapped, he could get away with a short conversation without being pinpointed by a listener.

  He hoped.

  “Yes?”

  “Wanita, Cinch. You hear from Pan?”

  She laughed. “Oh, yeah. When he came in, he didn’t much like you, but he’s a lot better now.”

  “Why is that’?”

  “I’ll let him tell you. He’s here. Hold on.”

  After a moment: “Cinch?”

  “Yeah. You okay?”

  “I’m fine. Better than fine. I’m great!”

  “I take it you located. Baji?”

  “Oh, yeah, you might say that. I located her. She was waiting for me here when I got back. Look, Cinch, I’m sorry I was such a dickweed at the Doc’s. I mean, I–well, Baji and I, we–that is, we’ve had a real nice visit and everything is okay. Great.”

  A real nice visit, eh? Cinch didn’t have any trouble figuring out what that little euphemism meant.

  Well, well. So Baji had found somebody else to play with. And from Pan’s tone of voice, he’d thoroughly enjoyed being second choice. Gus Kohl might not like it, but Baji was in bed with the raj, at least in one way. Which was fine by him since it would keep her out of his hair. And maybe one less loose cannon would be rolling around the deck in such a way as to blow his head off.

  “Glad to hear it,” Cinch said. “So what now?”

  “I’m going to stay out of sight for a while. I’ll put in a com to HQ and let them know what is going on here and then see what’s what. You best cover your tracks. Tuluk and his boys will figure out who blew the pipeline and they’ll be gunning for you. Be a good idea if you found a hole and stayed in it for a while.”

  Pan laughed and Cinch knew what he was thinking.

  “That’s not what I meant, Pan. This is serious. We might have scared Tuluk and scared men do stupid things. We’ll stick him, eventually, but I would hate to see anybody get hurt until we do.”

  “I can take care of myself.”

  “Probably Picobe thought so, too. It’s a discom, I’ll talk to you later.”

  * * *

  Ulang was not a happy man.

  “I am sorry our agreement has to end this way,” he said, his voice cool.

  Tuluk shrugged. They rnet at a spot just outside of town. Lobang sat in the limo while the chern merchant and Tuluk stood in the sha
de of a cottonwood on the bank of a small stream. “It doesn’t have to end, only be delayed for a time.”

  Ulang shook his head. “If the rangers suspect you, our further association holds no interest for me. You may escape prosecution by wiping away the ranger and those who could tell stories, but the rangers have very long memories. You might as well buy yourself a rearview cam and hang it on your shoulder, M. Tuluk. They might not be able to touch you legally, but somebody will be back there watching, you can bet on it.”

  “You are prone to hyperbole.”

  “No, I am a man wanted on a number of planets and I have seen how the rangers work, more than once. You are a rich man, most of it made legally if not morally. Enjoy what you have, Manis, because if you kill this ranger you’ll never be able to step over the line again. They will come down on you like an asteroid on a moon without atmosphere. Trust me on this, M. Tuluk, I know. I have seen it happen too many times before.”

  Tuluk shrugged again. UIang was skittish, he’d operated outside the light too long. Well. No matter. There were other dealers.

  “I’rn sorry you feel that way. No hard feelings?”

  “Of course not. This is just business.”

  “I’m glad you understand,” Tuluk said. “Oh, here, I have a little going away gift for you. You know the cigars vou liked?”

  With that, he drew his tangler. He took care not to move too quickly and thus alarm the dealer.

  Before the Ulang’s surprise had registered fully, Tuluk fired the weapon.

  He could hardly have missed from two meters away. Ulang fell, his consciousness fled forever, his brain dead and his body hurrying to catch up.

  Lobang scrambled from the limo and sprinted toward him, his own gun drawn.

  “Christo, boss, what the hell happened?”

  “He became tiresome.”

  Tuluk felt a small flash of triumph as he saw the astonishment in Lobang’s eyes. Didn’t know the old drone’s stinger was so sharp, did you? See that you don’t forget it.

  “Get rid of the body,” Tuluk said. “And be careful you don’t blow yourself up with that explosive he supposedly has wrapped around himself.”

  The air smelled like roasted walnuts

  TULUK THOUGHT about the problern with the same kind of focus that had made him rich. The solution was simple, in theory: Figure out what’s broke and fix it.

  He sat in his study, drinking coffee this time–he needed to keep his wits sharp now, this ranger had proven more adept than expected–and considered various plans.

  He couldn’t control all offworld communications, but he could exercise his considerable clout in monitoring message tubes headed for the Stellar Rangers’ Sector HQ. So far, none had officially been logged since Picobe’s abduction, and it was worth five years’ pay to the man or woman who intercepted and delivered any such tubes to him. Certainly there were ways around this and Tuluk had to assume that eventually some word of what the ranger thought would get past. Could be hidden in freight or some such. But that was later. What he needed most now was enough time to clean house, and a few more days would ensure that. Even if the rangers had a ship standing offworld that could get here in a week or less–which he doubted–it would do them no good if there was nothing for them to find.

  The ranger had to be found, made to talk, and then eliminated.

  Anybody who might possibly know what he knew, or even suspected, would also have to be silenced.

  Tuluk waved his com to life. “Lobang, I want you to bring in the mercenary group from Kingsland.”

  “Aw, boss, we don’t need–”

  Tuluk shook his head at the com. Maybe Lobang had outlived his usefulness. The stupid thug was really beginning to irritate him. “Just do it. I have a list of people I’ll want rounded up.”

  “Okay, boss.”

  Tuluk waved the com off. All right. That started things. There was a fire, he would put it out and once things cooled, rebuild. A glitch, that was all.

  * * *

  In the shade of the overhang, Cinch finished dictating his report. Tuluk was hurrying, no doubt to cover his ass, and that wasn’t good. Cinch’s only real option was to put a stop to Tuluk’s cleanup operation before it vanished completely. How he was going to do that exactly wasn’t clear. He was outgunned and he wouldn’t be able to get help from offworld for weeks, by which time it might be too late.

  The report finished, he sealed it into its tube and stashed it in the flitter’s carrier. So he had to figure out a way to stop Tuluk from wiping away whatever evidence there was, if he wanted to give galactic or local authorities something with which to build a case against the rich man. By himself. Odds on that didn’t look real good, but he would work on ideas.

  What else?

  After a moment with the hot breeze from the desert washing over him, Cinch realized he’d forgotten something.

  He put in a COIn to Wanita.

  “What’s up, Ranger?”

  “It occurred to me that Tuluk is getting real nervous about now,” he said, “and we know he’s not above killing people. It would probably be a good idea for you to take a little vacation.”

  “Why? All I do is serve the man drinks.”

  “Until you started spending your spare time with me. He might play it conservative, just shut things down and wait until we get bored looking for evidence–that’s what I would do in his place. But he knows I know what he’s up to, and he might guess that you and Pan and Baji know, too. I expect him to try to take me out. That’s part of the job and I know how to deal with it. But it worries me he might want to extend that to anybody I’ve talked to since I’ve been here.

  “You and I, uh, we’ve done more than talk. We have to assume he knows that.”

  “I wouldn’t put it past Lobang to peep in windows,” she said. “But I’ve got a business to run and I’m not afraid of Tuluk.”

  “I didn’t say you were afraid. Do it as a favor to me.”

  There was a long pause.

  “Okay. I guess I can go see this hideout Pan is always bragging about. For a few days.”

  “Thanks. Take Baji with you. I’ll talk to Kohl and let him know what’s going on.”

  “You really think there’s any danger?”

  “I could say no, or I could coat it with a ‘better safe than sorry,’ but yeah, I think there is. Tuluk is rich and worried, and we know he is deadly. That makes him dangerous.”

  “Okay. You corning to see us there?”

  “Maybe. But I don’t want to know where it is until necessary.”

  “You are concerned about this.”

  “Just being careful. Make sure you aren’t being followed when you go. I’ll call you.”

  He discommed, then called Gus Kohl. The old man already knew his great-granddaughter was with Pan. He hadn’t been happy to hear that but he didn’t have a lot of choice in the matter. Cinch figured the girl was going to twist the old man’s tail a lot more before she was done, unless he figured out a way to get a handle on her. Well. It wasn’t his problem. Good thing, too.

  Cinch explained the situation as he saw it.

  “So, old Tuluk is finally going down.”

  “He won’t go easy,” Cinch said. “We know he’s guilty but we still have to prove it. If I and everybody I talked to while I was here disappeared all of a sudden, it would make it real hard for anybody to prove anything. It would probably be a good idea for you to lay low for a while, Maybe go visit some distant relatives on the other side of the planet.”

  The old man made a rude sound. “Like hell I will. My boys and I will sharpen up our watch. I got shooters here who can knock a bucket off a stump at eight hundred meter.”

  “That may be true, but Tuluk already has spies on your property within spitting range of the house.”

  “You mean them two in the hidey holes
with all the scopes and stuff? The ones s’posed to be watching you?”

  “You knew they were there?”

  “Son, this is my ranch. A cow farts and I know about it. Them two won’t cause anybody any trouble, they’ll be wrapped up tight in about three minutes from when I say so.”

  “Better say so, then.”

  “If Tuluk comes calling, we’Il give him something to think about.”

  “It’s your neck.”

  “That it is, son. You sure Baji is gonna be okay?”

  “I trust Pan and Wanita. She’ll be as safe with them as anywhere else. Can’t hurt what you can’t find.”

  “I guess so. All right. You keep me posted.”

  “I’ll do that.”

  Cinch broke the convoluted radio connection. What else had he missed? Anything? He didn’t think so, but he had a nagging worry he’d overlooked something, something obvious. He usually felt that way at some point in an operation and usually he was wrong, but it didn’t make the next time any easier. In this game, one wrong move could cost you your neck.

  The com cheeped at him.

  “Cinch? It’s Pan.”

  “What’s up?”

  “I have somebody here you need to talk to. Name is Sutera Kutjing.”

  “Yeah?”

  “He says he’s the partner of an illegal chem merchant who was here to cut a deal with Tuluk. Says his partner went to a final meeting and that Tuluk killed him.”

  “He’s probably right.”

  “No probably about it, he says. His partner was a very cautious man and he set it up that if anything happened to him, he was to find you and deliver a package.”

  Cinch felt a rush of hope flow through him. “A package?”

  “Yep. According to Kutjang, it is a record of everything his partner and Tuluk set up, full audio and video of the whole deal.”