Kris Longknife's Bloodhound, a novella

by Mike Shepherd

  Why shouldn’t the rim send Earth the drugs its teaming masses demanded for their distraction.

  It had been an easy alliance for Henry. He had the ships; he knew which of his captains weren’t obsessive about following every little law. The profits hadn’t been all that great. Unity middlemen and the skippers had robbed Henry blind.

  But he’d gotten the connections he needed with President Urm.

  And Urm had happily promised Henry a war, with all its chances for war profiteering. And when it was done, he’d be in the prefect position to buy up losers for pennies on the dollar.

  Yes, the war could have doubled or even tripled the family’s fortune. If there was a brain cell left in the old man, he’d have had to admit that his son had beat both him and granddad.

  But the war ended too soon.

  “Is Whitebred waiting?”

  “Yes, Mr. Peterwald.” his secretary immediately answered.

  “How long has he been waiting?”

  “Two days, Mr. Peterwald.”

  “Good. Send him in. And, Milly, change my office to one most intimidating for his personality profile.”

  “Yes, Mr. Peterwald.” There was a brief pause. “Done, Mr. Peterwald.”

  Around Henry, the room wavered, then solidified. Patterned after the Hall of Mirrors at Versailles, this was one routine you couldn’t download from every site on the Web. Just keeping the mirrors synchronized took more computing power than a large city.

  Henry loved it. He relished what happened to others when he surrounded himself with these ancient trappings of power.

  Yes, it would be fun working Whitebred over in the Hall of Mirrors.

  A short, dark-haired man entered.

  He wore the buttonless gray suit that was de rigueur this month for high-powered business executives. Molded into the shoulders and arms were probably enough computing power to work a small starship.

  In Henry’s view, numbers appeared beside Whitebred showing his respiration, heartbeat and blood pressure, probably stripped right off his own coat’s confidential medical monitors. When Whitebred opened his mouth, Henry would get an immediate stress analysis, matched against Whitebred’s nominal stress in his last couple of corporate meetings.

  Henry kept such data on file for all his people. Good information on your subject made meetings like this easy.

  He checked the make and model of Whitebred’s own office software and suppressed a snort. Henry would know everything about Whitebred. He, in turn, would know nothing about Henry, or be in worse shape still if the poor man actually trusted the readouts that his own system fed him about Henry.

  Yes, Henry would enjoy this meeting.

  “Thank you for seeing me, Mr. Peterwald,” the supplicant said.

  “Hope I didn’t keep you waiting too long,” Henry lied.

  “No, no sir. No wait at all,” the man lied in return.

  “Are you enjoying your work with us?”

  “Yes, very much,” he lied again. “I think I have a lot to offer the corporation.” That was not a lie, at least as Whitebred saw it.

  “Well, we have to look out for our returning war heroes.”

  The man winced visibly.

  “I liked your idea. The way you were running that fleet, you could have ended the war in a day.”

  The man preened.

  Henry abstained from pointing out that his bottom line was predicated on the war going for another six months. Whitebred did not have permission to end the war so suddenly. Then again, his actions hadn’t mattered one whit.

  “I really could have if those mutineers hadn’t ruined everything.”

  “Apparently, yours weren’t the only mutinous hands around. It was one of his own men that killed Urm.” And ruined all my profitable plans.

  “Yes,” Whitebred hissed.

  “I understand that you were able to leave a bit of a present behind for your mutineers.”

  “Yes, Mr. Peterwald.”

  “Well, I have a surprise for you. That Colonel Longknife who killed Urm also bought your cruiser off the scrap heap. Even hired what was left of its crew, most of your mutineers, I understand.”

  “Have they attempted a jump?” The man was hardly breathing.

  “As I understand it, Longknife, Abeeb, and the Marine captain went tooling off to a meeting several jumps from Wardhaven. Never got there,” Henry announced dolefully.

  Whitebred beamed from ear to ear.

  “Yes, I think you have taken care of all our problem people.” Henry chuckled.

  The other man laughed out loud.

  This was going rather pleasantly. The man was Henry’s kind of fellow.

  “How would you like to be an admiral again?”

  “I don’t think the Navy would have me, Mr. Peterwald. But, if you can arrange it, sir, and that’s where you want me, I’m your man,” he quickly corrected what another man might mistake for a rejection.

  Henry smiled his understanding.

  “No. There’s nothing in the Humanity Navy that interests me. However, Savannah is in need of a new fleet commander. The station there is doing double duty for me. The Navy shores up a government I find very convenient, and its yards will work on ships other places are squeamish about handling, if you know what I mean,” Henry said with a raised eyebrow.

  “Definitely, sir,” Whitebred said, no question even hinted at.

  “Good. I want a man there in charge of all that. President Milassi of Savannah owes me several favors already. What with an election coming up, Milassi will want to owe me many more.”

  Henry snickered at the malleability of politicians.

  Whitebred joined him in the laugh.

  “Having my own man on the scene is just what I need. You’ll command not only the ships and yards but several battalions of marines. Think you can handle that?”

  Whitebred had the good sense to say nothing at this reference to his recent inability to command his own fleet.

  “I might add, that unlike the fools you had to put up with in the war, most of these officers know where their money comes from. The real money, not that pittance they draw from Savannah.”

  With it clear that all the important officers were in Henry’s pocket, Whitebred leaned back in his chair. “When do you want me to start?”

  “Right now would be good. I want to update you on the history of Savannah. Not the crap the media would feed you.”

  Henry stood, walked around his desk and put an arm around Whitebred’s shoulders as the man scrambled to his feet. “My grandfather started that colony. I think of it like a plantation that’s been in the family for generations. Can’t let it be tossed around like a ball among strangers, can we?”

  “No, Mr. Peterwald, we can’t let that happen.”

  “Good, how would you like to do dinner?”

  Henry beamed happily as the man nodded.

  “We can talk more over food. Milly, have security scrounge up my son from wherever he’s hiding. It will be an education for him to hear how the family runs things.”

  FIVE

  Where Ruth grew up, they had words for how she felt; useless as tits on a boar hog. Worthless as a fifth wheel.

  None of those were as useless as an officer’s wife while he was busy moving his detachment. Trouble was prowling around his green-clad troops, talking with his Gunny, busy as a man could be . . . and impervious to Ruth’s presence.

  Older Marine officer wives had warned Ruth about this. She understood it . . . in her head. But living through it . . . that was another thing entirely.

  Maybe she should have stayed on the Patton, or come down on another shuttle.

  But she had work of her own to do.

  And it would help if she was introduced to the embassy staff by Trouble so that they would connect her with him.

  After all, if she got in trouble and had to run for the safety of the legation, it would help if the Marine at the embassy gate knew to let the captain’s woman in.

 
And Ruth was busy getting herself in trouble.

  Or at least not doing what a simple space-based farmer or officer’s wife should do.

  Izzy and Trouble covered this during the week the Patton was in transit.

  Those idiots back on Riddle had hardly known how to grow the drug plants. Surely, they hadn’t done the bioengineering that turned common Earth-based plants into forget-the-world dust. No, someone else had created the stuff.

  Ruth’s job was to find that someone and do something about them.

  Right! Easy! Just land on a strange planet and wander around asking any stranger, “You know where the illegal-drug research station is?”

  I wouldn’t survive a day.

  Izzy and Trouble had looked at her dumbly, and said “That sounds like a plan.” and left her to stew over a real one.

  As Trouble got his Marines and their duffle bags loaded aboard a bus sent by the embassy for his company, Ruth rented a car from a counter in the spaceport.

  Now she understood why Izzy had been so insistent that Ruth get a credit card with her corporate name on it.

  Pa never borrowed anything. If he and Ma couldn’t pay for it, they went without.

  Here, Ruth needed borrowed wheels, and no one rented without a credit card for collateral. The Navy wasn’t the only place that took some getting used to.

  Ruth completed her rental agreement and pulled her tiny car up behind the bus to wait. The fellow who rented her the car had assured her that its map screen would show her how to get anywhere in town.

  Yeah, right. Ruth would follow the bus.

  While she waited for Trouble to get moving, she asked the computer to show her the best way to the Society of Humanity Embassy.

  The computer told her there was no embassy, “Glorious Unity forces being at war with Earth’s running dogs.”

  Someone hadn’t updated their database.

  Trouble seemed in no hurry, so Ruth expanded her research. “Where’s the illegal drug research center?”

  “I know of no such business,” came back at her.

  “Chemical research center?” she tried.

  “I know of no. . .”

  “Farm or plant research center?”

  “I know of . . .”

  “What do you know?” Ruth snapped in exasperation.

  That was a mistake. The computer began an unstoppable exposition on all the bars and bordellos in town, some with quite graphic descriptions of the services offered.

  And it wouldn’t shut off. Ruth tried punching buttons. If anything, it got louder.

  “Hey, woman, want your windows washed?” a young voice piped.

  “What?” Ruth asked, glancing around for the voice’s source.

  “Want your windows washed? They’re dirty.”

  “What? Where are you? I can’t hear you very well. This thing won’t cut off.”

  In answer to her first question, a squeegee started waving outside the passenger side of the car.

  Ruth rolled the window down.

  The squeegee reached in and rapped the dashboard, “Shut up, you machine mouth,” the young voice snapped.

  The silence was delicious.

  “That’s better. Woman, you want your windows washed? I do a good job. Only one dinar.”

  Ruth checked her purse. “I don’t have any Savannah money yet.”

  A face, very dirty and horribly thin rose on tiptoes to smile at her from the passenger window. “That’s fine. I can do your windows for one Earth dollar.”

  Ruth wasn’t sure what the exchange rate was, but she was pretty positive it wasn’t one for one. She glanced at her windows. They were clean.

  She studied the kid; his hopeful smile was hard to deny. Ruth held up an Earth quarter.

  “You drive a hard bargain, woman, but you win,” and the kid quickly went to work smearing her front windows.

  “Where you want to go?” the kid asked as he came around to her side of the car, giving Ruth her first good look at him.

  The rest of the boy was as thin as the face had promised. He looked maybe six or eight, but allowing for a tough street life, he might be twelve. His clothes were dirty, torn and way too big for him. What passed for shoes were held together by string with used newspaper for soles.

  Following behind him was a girl, maybe a year or two younger.

  “Are you his sister?”

  “No, he’s my brother,” the girl piped back.

  “Tiny gets confused easy,” the boy explained, not slowing down his work. “Where you going?” he asked again.

  “To the Society of Humanity Embassy,” Ruth answered this time.

  “The old one or the new one?”

  “The one with the ambassador, I hope.”

  “Oh. The traffic’s bad through town. You could get lost real easy, ma’am. I’ll show you a shortcut. Get you there real fast. Only cost a dollar.”

  “I’m planning on following that bus.”

  The boy studied the big vehicle ahead of them. “You could lose it at a stoplight. I can make sure you get there. Only a dollar.”

  Ruth looked down into the pleading eyes of the girl . . . and weighed the chances that these two kids could hit her over the head and leave her body in a ditch somewhere.

  Concluding that neither or both could hurt her, Ruth nodded. “You make sure I get to the embassy, and I’ll pay you two quarters.”

  “You drive a hard bargain, lady,” the boy answered.

  But his sister was nodding yes.

  “Okay, we do it. Just for you.”

  Sis let out a squeak of joy and clapped her hands. A moment later, big brother opened the passenger door and helped sis into the backseat. She ignored the seat belt and stood, leaning on the front seat. Brother then settled himself down beside Ruth.

  “I can take you there now. Why you want to follow stinky bus?”

  “Because my husband’s on it.”

  “He one of the jarheads?”

  “Marines,” Ruth automatically corrected the epitaph she now knew to smile when she said, and better yet, not say. “And since he may have to loan me an extra quarter for your tip, it’s Mr. Marine to you.”

  “Yes, ma’am, boss lady. Whatever you say.”

  The bus rumbled into life, and Ruth discovered why the kid called it stinky. The engine let off a blue cloud of poorly burned hydrocarbons that made Ruth want to cough.

  Sis held her nose and made a “Pee Euw” sound.

  Brother gave Ruth his “Whatever you say, woman, you’re paying for this,” shrug. Thankfully, the bus quickly got in gear.

  Ruth followed it out of the port.

  “It’s gonna turn left at this light,” brother told her. It was a good thing Ruth had been warned; the bus did a quick left at the light without even slowing and nary a signal.

  Ruth hit her turn light and followed.

  “I told you so,” the boy grinned.

  “That’s worth an extra quarter,” Ruth assured him, keeping her eyes on the road, the traffic, and the bus.

  “It’ll take this on-ramp to the expressway,” the boy offered.

  “Expressway?” Ruth cringed inside. On Hurtford Corner, she’d never driven over forty, fifty kilometers an hour.

  She’d since learned that speeds on expressways . . . unless clogged with rush hour traffic . . . could be a hundred or more. Swallowing her fear, Ruth followed the bus up the ramp. Again, no turn signal.

  She listened for her own turn signal; it made happy clicks. Yes, turn signals weren’t outlawed on this planet.

  But they did seem distressingly optional.

  At least for large buses.

  And trucks and anyone else that wanted in her lane.

  Everyone behind the wheel on this planet seemed possessed by some urgent death wish. Cars and trucks rocketed along at speeds that must have exceeded the Patton’s best, changing lanes with only inches to spare.

  The bus, not to be outdone, aimed itself for the far left lane as soon as it entered the
highway and dared anything smaller to get in its way.

  Ruth started to follow.

  “I know the way to the embassy,” the kid assured her, “if you want to go slower.”

  The boy huddled on the seat beside her. Sis was no longer hanging over the front seat; a quick glance behind Ruth didn’t show sis on the backseat.

  She must be cowering on the floor.

  Ruth started to ask if the two of them had ever been on an expressway before. Then swallowed the question, unwilling to strip the boy of his man-of-the-world airs.

  Ruth stayed in the slower right lane and let the bus disappear in traffic ahead.

  “Where is the embassy?” she asked her guide.

  “Near the river, a couple of blocks from Government Center,” he said through clinched teeth.

  “Computer, show me the way to Government Center,” Ruth ordered. A map appeared on the dash in front of her, showing the expressway in red. The fifth or six exit ahead showed as yellow and a trail led off it to the right.

  “Thank you, young man.” Ruth said as cheerfully as she could manage with a huge truck riding her bumper, eager to push her along.

  “Ah, you are welcome,” the boy said, the words seemingly strangers to his mouth.

  How often was the poor kid thanked for what he did?

  As Ruth motored along at a stately speed . . . and cars whizzed by her on the left . . . the children regained their confidence. Apparently, they’d never experienced the view the expressway offered. As they came over a rise and began the descent into the river valley, their excitement returned.

  “Oh, there’s the river,” the girl squealed.”

  “Those tall buildings near the river are Government Center,” the boy offered.

  Ruth risked a glance. Several skyscrapers shot up in the center of town. Whether all of them were Government Center or just a few, Ruth didn’t know or ask.

  No doubt, she would find out soon enough.

  Don’t miss, Vicky Peterwald – Assassin, an e-novella, by Mike Shepherd, summer 2014

  Kris Longknife killed my brother. Kris Longknife must die!

  Or Vicky Peterwald – Target, by Mike Shepherd, coming from Ace summer 2014