Flashpoint (Hellgate)

by Mel Keegan

  “Now that,” Marin whispered, “is a house slave. She … or is it he? … has been here for a long, long time.”

  “Tea,” Rodman said harshly. “Where’s the boss?”

  The slave’s bow deepened further. “In the library, madam. Only quiet, please, so sorry.”

  “Screw quiet.” Rodman glanced back over one shoulder at van Donne and Ramon. “You know the bastard from Halfway, better than I ever did. Get up here and show your faces. Remember what you’re here for.”

  And buying an overpriced ship from Henri Belczak was not on the agenda. With an effort, van Donne pulled his spine straight, drew his shoulders back, and strode ahead with the long-strided, arrogant gait Travers recalled. Byrne and Ramon flanked him, a pace behind.

  In the moment they stepped into the house Travers had been aware of a faint prickle in his nerve endings, and under Rodman’s deliberate noise he said to Marin, “We were scanned. You felt it?”

  “Of course.” Marin set one hand on his jacket, under which was the sidearm. “The AI was thorough. It knows we’re armed, so Belczak knows. We’re under surveillance right now, and he’s probably listening to every word I’m saying. He’s thinking, they’re with Rodman and van Donne, so they’re not Fleet. Who are they, what do they want … what can I get out of them, how much are they worth to me?”

  A chuckle issued from an open door up ahead on the right, and a man appeared there as Travers turned toward the sound. The first surprise was that Henri Belczak was aged – not old, but far from young. His hair was thick and long but entirely white, his eyes were hard but his face was furrowed with lines, and though the spine was still ramrod straight, the man’s hands were gnarled with many years and hard work. He dressed in bronze silk, trousers and tunic, and his feet were bare on the library’s rich carpet.

  “Captain Rodman, Captain van Donne. It’s a surprise to see you together. Who, may I ask, is crewing for whom?”

  The accent surprised Travers. It was one of the Earth accents, though the only ones he knew well enough to name them were Richard’s French and Grant’s Australian. Belczak spoke the colonial dialect with a pronounced accent, long-voweled and clipped about the consonants.

  “We’re in convoy,” Rodman was saying, “not on the same ship, and you bloody know that, Henri. Sergei’s been his own master since he was cashiered out of Fleet – how long ago?”

  “Since the explosion on the Kiev. I know. What, five years ago?”

  “Six now,” van Donne told him, not even looking at him.

  “Yes.” Belczak indulged them both with a smile. “Know your enemy.”

  “I’m not your enemy,” van Donne said with deceptive mildness as he cut a straight line to the nearest overstuffed brocade armchair and sat down.

  “Everyone is an enemy,” Belczak argued. “Nothing personal, Sergei. That’s the rule I’ve lived by, and I’m three times your age.”

  The library was a ten-meter square with a genuine fireplace and a great deal of furniture which looked to Travers’s eye like genuine antiques. Robert Chandra Liang had many good pieces at the house on Elstrom StarCity, which he had liked to show off. Travers recalled them well. Belczak apparently shared the same fondness for things of long past ages, for the room was filled with anachronisms.

  A writing desk, hand-carved chairs, real fire irons, a tapestry so old, it was becoming threadbare where it hung, carpets with the hues and textures Travers associated with some place, or time, called Arabia. And the prize of Belczak’s collection, a glass-fronted bookcase containing at least forty real books. Travers had never seen so many. The windows were dimmed and the room’s lighting cascaded from more than twenty glowbots which floated where they were needed, scudding to and fro where the AI perceived the requirement for more light.

  The lamplight gleamed on polished surfaces and human skin. In the background, discreet, silent, out of the direct light, a pair of slaves lounged on a sofa – a young woman, a young man, both as near naked as Akanishi and Escobar, and much lovelier, but without the little androgyne’s submissive manners. More Shanghai stock? Belczak seemed to collect them, as he collected antiques.

  “So,” the old man was saying as he watched Akanishi and Escobar take station at the door. “Who are they, what do they want, what are they worth to me?” His head swiveled and the pale eyes looked piercingly at Travers, then at Marin. “They arrive with some of the most notorious and best-known Freespacers, but I don’t know them from Halfway or any other Freespace city. They walk in here armed like bodyguards, but they’re not on duty. They look like ...” His brows rose. “Agents. But agents from which agency, and on what business?”

  With a faint smile, Marin stepped forward and offered his hand. “Captain van Donne will vouch for us. And of course, you’re right. You’ve heard of Dendra Shemiji.”

  The eyes which had faded a little with age narrowed on him, though Belczak took his hand. “Of course I have. And you are –?”

  “Curtis Marin. This is my associate, Neil Travers. We’ve undertaken a Dendra Shemiji contract on behalf of a client whose name I can’t disclose. As you know, our agency often performs assassination, but just as often the work concerns matters of security. This is the latter.”

  “I’m glad to hear it.” Belczak gestured at the corners of the room. “You’re under surveillance, and you must have expected the house AI to have you covered with a variety of automatic weapons.”

  “Naturally.” Marin was looking directly into the lens eyes of the AI. “I commend your precautions. In fact, your security could be said to be the cause of our mission.”

  “My security?” Belczak echoed, and paused as the little androgyne appeared with a silver tray. “Set that down, Brianna. Leave us now. Daniel, you’ll pour. Tea, Mister Marin?”

  “No, thank you.” Marin stood aside as Escobar, lately of the super-carrier Shanghai, took over the tray, set it on the writing desk, and went through the ritual of pouring green tea with some decorum he had obviously been taught too recently.

  He fumbled it several times, and Travers wondered if he would be punished for the spills. But Belczak seemed not to notice and Marin went on, “Security on Celeste is so tight, your slaves don’t escape.”

  “My slaves?” For the second time Belczak echoed what Marin had said, and seemed to catch himself. “Forgive me, I don’t follow you.”

  “Your slaves,” Travers repeated. “You have several platoons of Shanghai prisoners. You took delivery a week ago, from a little slime called Reanie. I’m looking at two of them right now – Akanishi and Escobar, a couple of crewdeck grunts, conscripts out of the Middle Heavens slums, if their accents are anything to go by.” Danny Escobar shot a glare at him, but Travers ignored him. “The thing is, Mister Belczak, the conscription net catches rich men’s offspring as well as poor men’s.”

  “And there’s every chance,” Marin added, “you’re in possession of several quite valuable individuals. The dead are accounted for at Ulrand, and so are the legitimate prisoners of war, who are in camps in the southern hemisphere there, scanned and identified. Many crewmen would have been atomized in the battle, but we do know that more than three hundred were plucked out of space, out of escape pods, by salvage crews like the Mako and the Krait. There’s a good chance you’re sitting on a small fortune in, shall we say finder’s fees, without realizing it.”

  He was pushing all the right buttons, and Travers was actually amused – fascinated to watch the professional at work. He glanced over at Hubler, who had flown with them on the Omaru blockade, and saw the man’s poorly concealed grin. Rodman was merely speechless, but Ramon had already stifled a chuckle into a cough.

  “Well, now, I wouldn’t know about that,” Belczak was musing in guarded tones. “I only graded them by their muscle, their looks and their health. Some were sick when they got here. They died shortly after unloading. Others are still being treated for injuries suffered in the battle. Reanie’s a fool. He should have had the stock checked over, and p
roperly treated.”

  “How many have survived?” Marin wondered, as if the number were of passing interest.

  “Two-forty or so. Most went to the mines, thirty or forty went to the sexshops.” Belczak cocked his head shrewdly at them. “So, who are you looking for? I’d have to go through them one by one, see if I can identify them. You understand, I had no interest in who they were. They’re freeze-tattooed with a number when they get here, but that’s so we know the size of the labor force, how many we’re feeding and so on. Most people underestimate the complexity of running a live labor force – conscript, slave, indentured, whatever. The realities of feeding, watering, medical support, don’t change just because I don’t run payroll.”

  Marin looked levelly at Travers, though he spoke to Belczak. “This is where the deal is going to become extremely sweet. Our client is fronting for a citizens’ consortium. Some of them have mortgaged their souls to participate, and as a group they’ve raised a very large fund. We’re here to take them all off your hands, Mister Belczak. We’ll buy them all for fair prices, and we chartered the salvage vessel Wastrel to transport them back to the Deep Sky.”

  The story was so plausible, Travers would have believed it himself. There was no hint of doubt in Belczak’s face, but for almost a half minute he remained silent, brow creased, eyes unfocused as he ran through a complex suite of calculations.

  At last, the white-maned head shook. “It’s an attractive proposition, Mister Marin, but I can’t do it. The cash your consortium would pay for the return of their – shall we call them hostages? – would not begin to cover the losses I’d take at the mines. Productivity would sink like a brick. You understand, ninety percent of the hostages shipping into Celeste are labor. Just labor. They have neither the looks nor the aptitude to score work in the sexshops, much less in the mansion here.” He glanced sidelong at Akanishi and Escobar. “Come in here.”

  Silent, treading softly on bare feet, the pair stepped into the room and Travers watched the belligerence melt away from them. As they moved into Belczak’s sight they became coy, with shy little smiles, flaunting their near-naked bodies with an innocence that was teasingly attractive though it was just as obviously fake.

  A nod from Belczak, and they dropped the silk scraps. A gesture, and they were wrangling in the lamplight, right there on the rug at the man’s feet. “You see?” Belczak said, amused. “You don’t have to look very far to find the ones whose careers were merely interrupted by Fleet conscription. These two would have slithered out of school into the nearest sexshop with a vacancy, if Fleet hadn’t required five years of their valuable time. They arrived here with all the tricks of the trade intact – learned, I imagine, on the crewdeck of a super-carrier, where officers without a shred of decency will trade sexual favors for furlough passes, booze, mai boogey, prohibited game cubes, whatever. These two would have been right back to the trade inside the same week their hitch was up. Here, they’re doing the same work, trading the same favors for cool fresh air, the best food, residency in the mansion, and the real probability of promotion.”

  “Promotion?” Rodman demanded.

  Belczak lifted a brow at her. “They won’t keep their looks forever, Asako. Nobody does. And even if they did, one grows bored with the same toys after a while. A year or two from now, they can be serving on one of my ships, amusing its officers while they learn the Freespace salvage and surveying trade. Ten years from now, they can be commanding one of my ships, with entertainment of their own.”

  Travers looked down into Akanishi’s face. She was on her back under Escobar, and she was an excellent actor. Her eyes were hard and sharp as flint as she glared up at Travers for just a moment before slipping back into the role of the sexshop Companion. She and Escobar had it all worked out, and they would have been plying this trade among the Shanghai’s officer corps for years. They were the consummate professionals, at the top of their game and arrogant about it

  “Well now,” Marin was saying, watching the performance with thoughtful indifference, “your labor difficulties mean my consortium simply needs to up the ante. There’s a solution, Mister Belczak, and we’re here to negotiate it. Name your price.”

  With a few ringing claps, Belczak brought Akanishi and Escobar back to their feet, and with one thumb he gestured for them to get out. They grabbed up the flimsy clothing and returned to the door. Travers frowned at them, seeing the flushed cheeks and ragged breathing which told him they got a kick out of the work, which was the first requirement for pros in the trade.

  “Don’t offer me money,” Belczak said regretfully. “You could offer me the GNP of a small colony, and I’d have to turn you down, because the problem isn’t money, it’s expendable labor.”

  “Slave labor,” Rodman muttered.

  He only shrugged. “Call it what you will. The bottom line remains the same. I can’t get a labor force in here for pay. We’re a Freespacer operation, which means hiring in the Deep Sky is out of the question. The process is constipated by rules, workforce laws, taxation, registration, licensing, inspections, documents, certification, safety standards. We’re Freespacers, we have no time and no patience for that. They’d turn us into a colony if we let them, and the next thing you know we’d be paying taxes to the Confederation and our kids would be receiving draft papers! Forget it. So labor is a major problem because, as you’re well aware, drones don’t last long here. They’re difficult to repair and impossible to replace.”

  “Understood,” Marin mused, “but I should think we can arrange to solve this problem. With drones, to be sure, but with at least a year’s supply of spare parts to keep them working for as long as you could expect slave labor to last in your mines. Ah, I see you’re interested.”

  The pale eyes had widened fractionally, brightened in the light of a glowbot which drifted closer when the house AI detected a change in the tone of human voices. Belczak was extremely interested. His hands clasped behind his back, and he frowned into Marin’s face. “I’d need a drone to replace every laborer you’re taking from me, plus a number of standby units, plus the supply of spare parts … and a wedge of cash to make the exchange attractive to me. Yes?”

  “Oh, I should think so.” Marin favored Belczak with an indulgent smile. His right hand slipped into his jacket pocket and he produced a combug, which he displayed clearly between thumb and forefinger. “I’ll confer with our client, if you’ll give me a moment. We’re using signal encryption, of course.”

  “Of course.” Belczak took a delicate porcelain cup of green tea and stepped back into the shadows. “Take your time. Asako, if you’d like to discuss the ship you were interested in...?”

  She followed him into the library’s far corner, where the bookshelf sat like the jewel of Belczak’s collection, and Marin turned toward Travers. The combug slid into his ear, and he brought it alive with a tap. Travers pressed a bug into his own ear, and at once the Wastrel’s comm loop whispered to him. The house AI would receive every signal, but the encryption was Resalq, too dense for any system Belczak possessed to even get close.

  “Wastrel, this is groundside,” Travers said quietly. “We have half a deal organized, but it’s not going to be as simple as cash.”

  Vaurien must have been waiting for the call. Etienne was monitoring the mansion and its adjacent landing pasture, but any attempt at bugging would have been picked up immediately by Belczak’s own security. It would not take much, Travers mused, to make the man suspicious, and Henri Belczak could be extremely dangerous. He had not known what to expect of the man. A young thug would have been easier to handle. An old hand with the experience of eight or ten decades was a very different kind of challenge.

  “It’s never simple, Neil,” Vaurien was saying in arid tones. “What does he want?” And from his tone, he could guess.

  “Drones to cover his labor force – and he has about 240 survivors. A number didn’t make it. Plus, say, ten percent more drones for standby, and a stack of spares to keep them runn
ing.”

  A moment of silence, and then Vaurien was back. “Tell him, can do. What kind of cash is he looking for, as the sweetener?”

  “I’ll ask,” Marin said into the loop. “Standby.”

  And, now that the comm was open, he left it open. From this moment on, Etienne would hear every syllable as well as being able to use the combugs to identify Marin and Travers individually. Marin cleared his throat and Belczak turned back toward him.

  “The drones are available, Mister Belczak. We’re fortunate to have chartered the Wastrel. Captain Vaurien can supply the machinery and will take payment direct from our client.”

  Now Belczak’s pale eyes narrowed. “Doing business with Vaurien is the one part of this I don’t like. He legitimized. I’ve never trusted a man who changed sides in the middle of a battle.”

  It was Rodman who snorted a laugh. “You don’t know Rick Vaurien very well, do you, Henri?”

  “It’s true, I don’t,” Belczak admitted. “Freespace is a big place. You, on the other hand, know him well?”

  She gestured vaguely with a fine china cup that looked odd in her big, leathery hand. “Well enough to have fought beside him, got stinking drunk with him, shared a bed with him on one occasion a long time ago – how much better could you know a man?”

  “And you vouch for Vaurien?” Belczak pressed.

  “If she doesn’t,” van Donne said as it if were of no account, “I do. He legitimized, did he? And what would you do, if some bastard gave you the choice, fly insane charters for Fleet Borushek, or spend the next quarter century in the Jackson maximum security pen?”

  “Me?” Ramon mused. “I’d fly for General Shapiro … and I’d use the man every way I could find, to turn his dumb-ass assignments into some major, major jobs on the side.”

  “Like running the blockade into Omaru, with the help of the Kiev itself,” van Donne added. “Treating Hellgate like you own it, grabbing salvage rights on the biggest ships in the DeepSky Fleet.” He gave Belczak an amused look. “You have no idea how Rick Vaurien has turned the connection with Shapiro into serious money.”