Carmody had some expendable people he could willingly send to talk, and offer Khartoum cooperative arrangements for mutual profit. However, getting off on the wrong foot (or head in their case), would sour any future relations.
Yet, somehow, the operators of the Falcon had managed to establish what was rumored to be a very profitable arrangement with those touchy Sheiks. Carmody wanted that introduction, or to use the Falcon’s owner as his intermediary. He’d make Captain “Smith” an offer he had better accept.
When that weasel Gunther called his lieutenant, Carl, to say the freighter he was watching for had landed, Carmody ordered the greasy little worm to shadow the blonde haired young captain and tell them where he was going.
Carl relayed the instructions, but when he cut the call to their toady, he asked his boss a question. “Mitch, that runt might lose him. Don’t you want someone more competent on his guy’s tail? He might have some of his crew along with him when he leaves the ship. If they are up to something shady, they’ll be watchful. More eyes might spot Gunther. He blends in OK around the port, and near the bars and whorehouses. If the man you want heads into town, Gunther will stand out in a crowd of clean cut citizens.”
“This Smith, when he was here before, almost always stayed around the port area, went into many of the bars, some of them ours. He apparently met his contacts there, and picked up some of the classier looking women. Never had anything to do with our contract whores, male or female.
“I wasn’t on the watch for him on his first two trips, but he arranged the purchase of several dozen high tech space planes, and tons of basic consumer products. That took some serious money, and he paid cash. Or rather had gold, platinum, and gemstones that he converted to cash. Hell, I made money from the ridiculous exchange rate charged at our bank, which is what brought him to my attention. Brody, the bank president, said he’d made similar transactions on two previous trips, but none as large as that one. He didn’t bat an eye at the five percent surcharge on top of the PU standard fee for the exchange. Money wasn’t a concern.
“After that, I had my AI search the old surveillance footage of the street cameras, from inside the bank, and in our bars and clubs he visited. I wanted to know what he bought, who he bought it from, and how it was delivered, since it wasn’t through me.”
Carl asked, “We having any of our competitors get involved on your territory?” He wondered why the boss hadn’t sent him and some of the men out to “correct” the situation. This was news to him.
“That’s the odd part. It all stayed under my radar, because he didn’t buy anything illegal. The space planes are hard to come by, but are sold to any planetary government that can afford them, and want more raid protection if the Krall send a clanship of novices to call on ‘em. The consumer goods were made here, and delivered directly to his ship. None of it was expensive, or specialty items. It’s low profit crap, like household electronics, smart plastic reconfigurable furniture, electric scooters and cycles for off road use. The sort of low cost stuff sold to Rim worlds as their population increases. I got the usual under the table export fees from the companies that make the stuff. We got the standard protection bribes to our drivers in our trucks, to not steal any of the cheap useless shit we couldn’t give away.”
Part of it didn’t make sense to Carl, or the lack of agitation on the part of his normally volatile boss. “Mitch, some of those space planes passing through here could have sort of fallen off the trucks, so to speak. They must be worth millions of Hub credits each.”
Carmody shrugged and grimaced. “They were shipped directly from the factory on some Hub world to the customer. I didn’t bother to check out the production process, since that all took place where we can’t get a cut. However, I wanted to know where they went. I paid a small bribe to a freighter captain that made a delivery, only to discover he’d have told me for nothing.
“The delivery location proved to be in an uninhabited system, and the sealed cargo containers and spare parts were left in high orbit around a barren rocky planet. The customer had left a radio beacon and a message, which asked them to unload and leave if they wanted to collect the safe delivery bonus, left in escrow with the manufacturer.” He admired the secrecy and the tactic. It wouldn’t have worked as well if Carmody had been involved with the shipment.
“The Captain of the Falcon slash Sparrow’s only contacts for the space planes met him here one time, showed him some data and specifications, discussed some required structural and equipment modifications, and arranged payment in advance and delivery. I learned this from the servers, bartenders, and hotel staff that saw them talking in a conference room of the Rialto Hotel. I also had one of our people steal the video and audio of that day. The meeting didn’t draw attention because it was done openly and legally. Same for the crap from here that he bought.”
“Then why do you think he’s still involved with smuggling?”
Snapping in frustration, Carmody said, “Because he uses a phony ship registration to visit here, and names like Fred Smith, dumb ass. He sent a few billion credits worth of space planes to an empty solar system, and when he leaves here, that ship of his seems to vanish. I pay enough to the sorry assed customs pukes here to get copies of what goes in and out of here, and on other Rim worlds, to discover what’s worth stealing, and when and where to steal it. I bribe a woman in the Port Authority for departure and arrival databases throughout most of Human Space. No freighter of this exact description or name shows up with the same cargo that it leaves here with, not at any port I can find. It does sometimes come and go at Poldark, where it was based before the invasion, and is still registered there as the Falcon. However, with the military security in charge, I can’t find out what he’s really doing there. For damn sure, Poldark doesn’t need cheap household goods from here.”
Delicately, so as not to trigger his boss’s quick temper, Carl expressed his curiosity. “Mitch, if Smith doesn’t smuggle through our port, or buy anything worth stealing from here, why do you care?”
A hand slap to the table sounded like a gun crack. “Because I know that sneaky bastard’s up to something, because that ship owner once had smuggler dealings with Khartoum, and I want to use him to get the same deal with those towelhead Sheiks. If we can expand our off world markets through their networks, I can force the other mobs on New Australia to go through me to get to those new markets. If I can find out what we have that the Sheiks want, whether it’s young blonde girls, or little boys, I don’t give a shit. I’ll sell ‘em what they want. Then buy and resell what they have that anyone else wants. It’s good business.”
Carl nodded. “I hope he goes where Gunther can follow.”
“I think he will. At least on his three prior trips here, per the Tri-Vid my AI pulled of him. Smith’s frequent stop is one of my bars, the Mechanics Lounge, right next to the port maintenance hangers. Seems the good captain claims he worked his way up from a ship’s engineering job before he got his own command. He chugs beers and booze with any ship engineers or drive rats he finds, buying drinks, and sharing outlandish stories. Later, when he leaves them happy and drunk, he usually heads to Club Roo. He has numerous drinks playing poker at a table with one of the several attractive poker dealers in the casino. When she gets off work, he takes her to bed. They don’t ever seem to turn him down.”
“How does an old former engineer hold all that booze, and then get in bed with one of those dealers? The Roo is a classy joint and those dealers are young and beautiful. I wish you owned that place.” He stopped suddenly, feeling stupid. Carmody had tried to buy the place multiple times, but the wealthy Lady that owned the hotel and casino refused to sell it to a criminal organization.
Luckily, the comment didn’t piss his boss off. “Smith won’t make a date tonight, nor win like he usually does at poker. Not if he hits the Mechanics Lounge, or the Flea Bag bar and grill I own on the same street. He likes the plain simple foods around spaceports. But he isn’t as old as you seem to thin
k.”
He reached over to press a button to activate a voice link to his AI. He didn’t like it listening to his conversations, even if it belonged to him. The government could extract incriminating evidence, even if he did a full erase. “Hey, play that video of Smith entering the Mechanics Lounge the first time.” He then switched the Link off, and turned to a wall screen. Carl swung around to see what his boss needed him to see.
On the scene from the interior door camera, he watched one person leave, and a young man paused to hold open the door for an older woman to enter ahead of him. They were not together, as it happened, and the woman went to a table to join some friends. The slightly built young man walked to the bar. Or rather, it appeared more as if he glided across the room, weaving smoothly around the tables with occupants, as if he had practiced the moves repeatedly. The flat-topped, rakishly tilted black officer’s cap, with a gold filigree design on the bill concealed his upper face. It looked as if his hair on the sides was blond. He then slipped his hat off as he approached the bar, revealing more medium length blond hair, and the view angle suddenly shifted to show his face through the two-way mirror behind the bar.
Carl was startled. The young man looked to be in his early to middle twenties. Carl was just out of his late twenties himself. The boyish good looks told him why the female poker dealers found him so appealing. He had intense blue eyes, wavy blond hair, and wore a sincere looking smile that revealed perfect white teeth. He appeared to know their bartender, and called him by name. He was revealed to have a clear resonate deep voice.
“Hello again, Mister Gibson. How are you this cool evening?” It was approaching dusk, and a hot summer day was just ending. Cool had to be from this man’s perspective, because that season was always hot and humid. The new arrival, having walked over a mile from the customs office, showed no sign of perspiration.
“Mitch, he looks too young to be a captain of a ship, and you say he worked his way up from an engineer’s rating? How do you know he isn’t lying about his experience? His youth, even with better than average genes, is pretty obvious.” In the current human era, with life spans of up to one hundred thirty or forty years, and delayed ageing, skin condition and a lack of wrinkles still were reliable cues to identifying youth.
The bartender was the kind Carmody usually hired. Large and burly. Cordial seeming, but capable of becoming mean in a hurry, if that was called for by his boss. Smith appeared to be several inches shorter than Gibson was, making him probably about six feet tall, and of medium build.
Switching the screen off, Carmody said, “Take six good men with you, and head for the port area. When Gunther calls, or I do, to tell you where Smith went, get inside the bar with him, and casually spread our people out around the room if it’s one of my places. He has plenty of them to choose from down there. If he’s not in one of our bars, then we can take him outside some place, but I don’t always have wipe ability on every video that may see you. He drinks like a fish, never sounds or moves as if he’s intoxicated, and walks like a damned dancer. He’s done some pretty athletic or coordinated things, so don’t underestimate him. I want him healthy, relatively unharmed, and cooperative.”
“Athletic like how?” Carl liked to size up an opponent, no matter how outmatched they seemed compared to the well-trained former Ranger, and Army deserter.
“Reviewing recordings, I watched him catch a drink knocked off a table by someone else as he passed through the room. He bent over in a quick movement, his hand moving extremely fast. He not only caught the overturned glass before it could hit the floor, but turned back upright and swooped his hand back up to scoop the spilling liquid and the swizzle stick. He hardly lost a drop, and sat it down on the table before he casually moved on. You’d have to see it to appreciate how fast and well performed it looked. There were other examples, such as how dexterous he can handle poker chips and cards. People I’ve seen like that have a high degree of muscle control and coordination.”
Carl often dismissed other people’s assessment of how tough someone they watched move would be in a fight. He didn’t often do that with Carmody’s opinion. The man had hired Carl after only a brief exposure to the ex-Ranger. He’d identified a physically capable individual quickly, even before he interviewed him for a job as an enforcer, and learned of his background. Nevertheless, he would have six big muscled men with him to confront Smith. Or whatever the young man’s name really was.
By sending so many men, Carl didn’t think his boss was concerned for an instant about any of his men’s health, or safety. He simply didn’t want the man he hoped to use for his own purpose to be hurt, by unexpectedly injuring one of the thugs he was sending to kidnap him. An injured man might overreact and seriously harm Smith, or even kill him.
****
Mike Haveram was headed for an evening on the town. He left his two genuinely young people with him to watch the ship. They were eighteen-year-old Daniel Waters, and nineteen-year-old Loren Mugaba, both full genetic Kobani, as was Haveram now that he’d received his final upgrades. He had needed to stop making supply runs for Koban long enough to allow the more delicate Mind Tap genes to properly incorporate.
The Mind Tap experience was extremely familiar to him, of course, having been in frequent mental contact with many young full Kobani, and the more recently upgraded older Kobani, who had also used new nanite technology to achieve all of the genetic enhancements, including age regression and Mind Tap ability. Experiencing a Mind Tap for receiving information was one thing, but being able to exchange your own thoughts and images at a lightening pace was a heady experience. It accelerated learning and information exchange, and comprehension, all from simple hand-to-hand physical contact.
Daniel and Loren had only rudimentary knowledge of the intricacies of an Engine Room and a Jump Drive when they left Koban. It was a six-day Jump to this remote side of Human Space, and Haveram had run out of new things to teach them about the technical details of his old job. The wolfbat ultrasonic hearing enhancement, along with organic superconducting nerves had long ago reorganized their memory storage, and they absorbed and recalled tremendous amounts of information and details in instants.
To fill the time, the two youngsters had taught Haveram the mostly theoretical combat skills they had absorbed from those slightly older young Kobani fighters (at ripe old ages of low twenties). The three of them practiced their newly learned fighting skills with one another, with the two youngsters, having had superconducting nerve capability since age sixteen, compared to eleven months for Haveram. They consistently beat him in speed of reaction activities, leaving him feeling old and slow, despite the nanites and gene changes, which had rolled back his physical age and appearance to his mid-twenties.
His main advantage over them was his sixty-four years of experience, which enabled him to recall how disparate facts and events could be brought together in a new situation, and allow you to contrive a new or better response to a situation, despite all three having essentially the same base of technical knowledge for instant recall.
After landing on New Australia, Haveram told them they had at least a day before they needed to meet the local merchants. They were here to buy more of the local products that the isolated people of Koban found to be such exotic luxuries.
Mike showed them, via Mind Tap, some of the activities he intended to be engaged in tonight, and the two youngsters, definitely more interested in each other, had not had much privacy for their first trip away from Koban. They preferred to wait to see the local sights after a night of not-sleep. They had been school sweethearts for two years, and following Koban’s cultural need for increasing its population from their original twenty five thousand people twenty years ago, the two had married the day after Daniel turned eighteen, just two months ago.
Mike set off alone, as he had also done on his most recent trip to this rough port area of Brisbane, a blue-collar city with frequent crime. The last time he was here, he’d just received the ripper genes for that pr
edator’s carbon fiber muscles, and the whiteraptor’s carbon nanotube gene for bone strength. Now he had added ripper night vision, wolfbat ultrasonic hearing, and the contact telepathy gene from the tiger-like rippers, which in a human was called Mind Tap. The gene secret they had copied from the alien Prada, who deeply respected and honored their most aged members, had halted his aging at mid-sixties. However, it was the use of human nanites, combined with the Prada’s method of repairing age related damage as it happened, which made possible retroactive DNA repair, and had allowed him to exit the med lab two weeks later, looking physiologically young again.
It was great to feel not only fast and strong, but also young and good looking again. It had helped with the ladies he met on the previous trips when he was here. Now, if he chose to be so intrusive, he could actually find out what they thought about him. The Kobani, as a group, pressured those with the Mind Tap gene mod to use it with great discretion. Those without the ability could easily learn how to block their thoughts when they knew you had this capability, almost as easily as they could avoid blurting the same thoughts aloud. You could project lies and false images as well.
The surreptitious sensing of what someone was thinking was a double-edged sword. It could deflate your ego as quickly as it was inflated, if someone was only being polite to your face in a verbal conversation.
He wanted to have some drinks, and with plenty of local currency from his last trip, he didn’t need to stop at the Port bank to exchange any of the gold or gems he’d brought on the Falcon. At least not until he was ready to buy what he’d come here to get.
He enjoyed the plainspoken, low browed and honest company of men that had worked at jobs similar to his, back when he was a Chief Petty officer in the Engineering Departments on commercial transports. He ingratiated himself with those men and women in bars here, initially by buying rounds of drinks, and eventually by sharing humorous stories from his and their experiences. He was captain of the Falcon now, but in his soul, he was still “Chief” Haveram, where his rating had replaced Mike as his first name. He needed to tell some funny tales of past bad captains before his new “friends” would share their own with him. It often took multiple rounds of drinks, which he certainly could afford. There was a slight drawback however.
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