Flashpoint (Hellgate)

by Mel Keegan

  When the lies came from the likes of van Donne and Rodman, and even Ramon, Belczak believed them. He had no reason to doubt, and after a moment’s reflection he gestured at Marin. “All right, I’ll take Vaurien’s drones.”

  “And the cash settlement?” Marin touched the combug to make sure it was transmitting.

  Again, Belczak paused. For some moments he seemed to be running files, numbers, while his eyes lost focus, and then he said levelly, “I’ll take two billion in Confederate credits or gelemeralds. Not colonial dollars, gentlemen. Colonial currency is likely to be worthless very soon.”

  “You don’t believe the Deep Sky can win its fight for freedom,” Travers observed.

  “I don’t.” Belczak studied him closely. “My voice tells you I’m an Earther. I came out to the Deep Sky over seventy years ago on an asteroid miner, and I made my start like them.” He nodded at Akanishi and Escobar. “I whored for years, until the Freespacers who’d wrecked the mining ship I’d been crewing on adopted me as one of their own, and then – then it was my turn. Others whored for me. I played folgen for a ship, and then another ship … this is the way of things in Freespace. You two, Mister Marin, Mister Travers, you’re from the worlds where the lights shine brightest. I’m hearing Jagreth in your voice, Marin, and you, Travers, is that Darwin’s World?”

  He was good, Travers admitted. “Yes. And your point is that there isn’t enough honor in the Deep Sky to win this war?”

  “Honor?” Belczak’s brows rose, furrowing his forehead. “No, there’s plenty of honor out here, and plenty of ambition. But not the iron discipline, the capacity for stone-cold rationale and sacrifice, that is common in the homeworlds. Out here, it’s all passion and daydreaming. Mark my words, Mister Travers. Rationale and discipline will conquer hot-headed idealism.”

  Marin’s face gave nothing away. “You could be right,” he said indifferently. “The Colonial Wars are not our concern, Mister Belczak. We’re merely here to negotiate the return of a number of prisoners, and if you’d give us a moment to confer with the client, we might be able to confirm your cash settlement – it will be in gelemeralds, of course. Our clients haven’t dealt in currency since –” and he was looking directly at van Donne as he spoke “– several billion dollars vanished between numerous accounts, during an arms deal brokered between the government of Omaru and elements within the Regan de la Court company.”

  The diamond-hard glitter in van Donne’s eyes betrayed the man’s wicked humor. Travers was concentrating on the combug as Vaurien said, “Tell him, a billion and a half.”

  “Our client offers one billion dollars in gelemeralds,” Marin said smoothly.

  And Belczak smiled, an absurdly paternal gesture. “We appear to have agreed on one and a half. Very well. Captain Vaurien, I presume you can hear me?”

  “Every syllable,” Vaurien affirmed.

  “Our client says he can,” Travers said quietly. “Go ahead, Mister Belczak.”

  “Then, I’ll expect the drones groundside tomorrow,” Belczak said smoothly, “and my AI will give the orders to have the hostages rounded up and transported to the holding pens at the loading zone. My gelemeralds will be delivered here.” He gestured at the library. “Captain Rodman can bring them. And, of course, you gentlemen will accept my hospitality until the exchange is made, as the guarantee that it will be made.” He gave Marin and Travers no opportunity to decline, but clapped his hands to summon Akanishi and Escobar. “The green room, with the view of the landing field. Fresh clothes, the dinner menu, wine, Companions, all the social graces. See to it.”

  Both Akanishi and Escobar crossed their arms and bowed, as the little androgyne had done. They needed more practice at the move, Travers thought. Akanishi especially was awkward, with none of Escobar’s natural grace. Marin’s lips had compressed, but he said, “Wastrel, it seems we’ll be staying. The Hong Lung is coming up without us, but Mister Belczak promises us an exchange tomorrow.”

  “I heard,” Vaurien said sourly. “Damnit, Neil. Be careful.”

  “We will.” Travers was watching van Donne climb carefully to his feet. “It isn’t a problem, Richard.”

  “Yet,” Vaurien added. “Leave the comm open. Two words in the wrong direction, and Belczak will find himself up against more than he bargained for. You need anything – you even think you need anything, you yell. I don’t like this.”

  “Nor do we,” Marin said quietly, “but it’s a reasonable request, and we’re being treated like visiting royalty.”

  The remark won him another disquietingly paternal smile from Belczak. Rodman and van Donne had gathered at the door, where the androgyne stood, half-bowed and silent, waiting to show them out. Hubler’s eyes were filled with suspicion, but Rodman shook her head, a subtle gesture, and he said nothing.

  “Tomorrow.” She clapped Marin’s shoulder in passing, and then Travers’s. “Sleep well.”

  They were gone then, and Travers heard a heavy thump from his heart as the door into the courtyard whined closed. No sound made ingress from the outside. The house was utterly quiet, save for the thread of music, the soft shush of air from the vents, the brush of Henri Belczak’s bare feet on the deep carpets.

  “The green room,” he repeated as he passed by. “Make yourselves at home. Send for anything you desire. I have some of the most delectable slaves in Freespace, the best trained and the most willing. You can have almost anything your imaginations can conjure. Dine well, sleep soundly. Until tomorrow, gentlemen – join me for breakfast while we await the delivery of my gelemeralds, yes?”

  The glowbots dimmed as he stepped out of the library, leaving just a pool of light over the couch where the two shadowy house slaves still lounged, and a brighter spill at the door where Akanishi and Escobar were still waiting. The moment Belczak and the curious little androgyne left, their attitude reverted to the belligerence Travers recalled from the courtyard.

  “So you’re here to buy the prisoners,” Escobar said, as if the idea amused him.

  “If you don’t want to go home, feel free to stay where you are, soldier,” Travers said tersely. “You want to spend half your life on your knees with your butt in the air, don’t let us stop you.”

  Akanishi barked a hoarse laugh. “Christ, you must have left your brains behind when you took this job. Me and Danny, we lucked out, we scored the mansion, not the mines or the dens serving the boozer trade. You just don’t get it, do you? You want us to go back to the Deep Sky? We do that, the system picks us up, soon as we’re processed through Medical before they let us back on the street. Next thing we do is report to Fleet Sector Command, and say yessir, you bet, sir, which warship are you putting us on, sir?”

  “And then there we are,” Escobar said with a vast sweep of his arm, “right back on some fucking carrier, with the Colonial Wars getting set to explode.” He gave Travers a mocking look. “You must think we’re mad – mad enough to want to go through that again. Once was enough. We got off the Shanghai through pure, freakin’ luck.”

  They made a point, and Travers looked at Marin with a certain wry amusement. “You don’t mind all this?” Marin gestured at the flimsy bits of silk they wore. “And that.” A gesture at the patch of rug where they had performed on command.

  “After three years on the Shanghai?” Akanishi demanded. “That was a joke, right?” She drew her hands across her cheeks, her breasts. “This face, this shape, got me into more trouble than I was ready for. There’s times I wished I’d been born butt ugly – and then I learned how to use it, and use the bastard officers, same as Danny learned. He had to put up with a sergeant, a lieutenant and two majors, which is more than used to hit on me.”

  “And here?” Marin wondered.

  Escobar only shrugged. “Belczak’s possessive of his new toys, but we get loaned out when somebody special swings by. It’s mostly boring, but there’s a couple of the freighter captains I don’t mind.” He leered. “What, you thought I was gonna feed you some bullshit sorry abou
t it being a fate worse than keelin’ over stone dead, and you gotta help me, you gotta get me outta here?” He shook his buzz cut head. “Like Suze said, it’s easier than the Shanghai, man, with a lot better prospects.”

  These were hard-leaned lessons – and no conscript grunt should ever be compelled to learn them, Travers thought. But reality was often very different, and he waved Akanishi and Escobar aside. “The green room, the man said. Then you can bugger off and get the dinner menu, and then – vanish, and keep the rest of this house’s livestock the hell out of our way till morning, understand?”

  Absurd, rebellious, Akanishi snapped to attention and jerked a salute at him. “Yessir. Somebody should tell you, you sound like a crewdeck sergeant, sir. And it ain’t no compliment.”

  “Somebody should tell you,” Marin said in velvet tones, “house slaves are supposed to behave like – what’s her name, Brianna?”

  “Brianna’s a he, or used to be,” Escobar said sourly. “Got redesigned to please some moron who owned him a few years back. He’s more of a she now. Or maybe an it. Christ knows. He came here as live cargo when some civvy ship went up on a reef, just short of Hellgate, and look at him now. Don’t let him fool you – only follow, sir, so sorry, sir. Fact? He runs this place, and he can get any of us strung up and flogged bloody if he even feels like it.”

  “Which he’s done – twice,” Akanishi added. “He’s got a temper on him like a drill sergeant, and he’s a cruel little sod when he’s mad.”

  They were making their way down a cool, wide passage filled with the art and sculpture of past centuries. Marin was intent on the paintings as they passed by, but Travers was intrigued, against his better judgment. “So Brianna wouldn’t take a ride off Celeste, if it came his way?”

  “No sir, so sorry,” Akanishi mocked. “That one never had any ambition to get on a ship, get the hell out of the Deep Sky, show ’em a rack of sterntubes and never go back. No, sir, so sorry, just carrying tea trays and warming sheets, and kneeling, bum-upwards, on satin cushions – oh yeah, and ruling his own little fiefdom, which means every poor bastard down the ladder has to kiss ass and make nice, or there’s hell to pay. He’s got the boss wrapped round his little finger, and he loves it.” She spat into the carpet with all the elegance and finesse of any grunt. “Green room. Here’s your billet. There’s circuit access, so tell the damn’ AI yourself, you want the dinner menu – and take a tip. Don’t eat the fish. You’ll be in the latrine for a week.”

  With that she spun and marched away, and it was Escobar who hung back. “Is there, uh, anything else? Like, you want some tits and ass, maybe? There’s this one guy who’s hung like a horse, with gold rings and … stuff. The boss said you can have anything you want, so, like, what?”

  “So, like, vanish,” Travers suggested.

  Escobar gave him a murderous glare, but did as he was told.

  The ‘green room’ was a massive chamber split into three areas by hand-painted screens in the Velcastran tradition. The walls were pale mint, the carpet deep sea green, the vast bed laid out in shades of old gold and savannah. The circuit access was a threedee so big, one could walk through it. Off the far side, close to the bed, was a bathroom in every shade of gray from pearl to charcoal. The windows offered a view over the wall to the landing field, but none of those windows opened. Travers was impressed, and whistled.

  “The wages of sin,” Marin observed. “I haven’t seen opulence like this since the Sandokan hotel. You remember?”

  As if Travers were likely to forget. He and Marin had gone there to report to Robert Chandra Liang, after the termination of Roy Neville. Belczak had style, an eye for art, and for human beauty. “What do you make of Akanishi and Escobar?”

  “Them?” Marin considered the door which had closed behind Escobar moments before. “They became what Fleet made them, which means there was a bunch of officers on the Shanghai who preyed on conscripts. It happens. Roy Neville preyed on them, in a different way. Some of those officers are dead now, the rest are in the prisons on Ulrand. And these two? You heard. They scored the mansion, they’re sitting pretty and expecting to ship out in a year or so as captain’s pets. God knows, they might actually do it. Belczak did. Freespace is what you make of it, Neil. Play by its rules, and you can win. There’s people who belong here. Like those two.”

  As he spoke, he shrugged out of his jacket, hung the sidearm over the nearest chair, sat on the end of the bed and looked up at Travers out of dark, almost mocking eyes. Travers went to him, both hands on the lean shoulders, and Marin’s legs went around him to pull him closer, keep him there. Travers held him at arm’s length. “You know we’re under surveillance.”

  “One lens in the corner, another in the ceiling, one more on that wall,” Marin said, pointing, “and twice as many audio bugs, so be careful what you say.” He fell back onto the bed, taking Travers with him. “Everyone and everything in this house is under surveillance, including Henri Belczak himself. You can’t scratch an itch around here in private. The same,” he added pointedly, “as living and working on the crewdeck of a super-carrier.”

  Travers settled beside him, frowning into the tiny lens he had just seen in the ceiling. “So we’re under surveillance.”

  “So get some rest.” Marin’s eyes were already closed. “Shiptime, it’s the early hours of the morning, and there’s not one damned thing we can do to hurry this process up.”

  “Yes, but –”

  “Neil. Rest. You need it.”

  Dutifully, Travers closed his eyes, but rest was a long time coming. When he dozed at last, despite the silence of the mansion – perhaps because of it – his dreams were fretful and the sleep too light, too broken. Marin did not seem to be asleep at all, but meditating in some Resalq discipline Travers had envied for a long time. When the war was over, he told himself yet again, he would learn.

  Chapter Six

  “I know squat about this stuff,” Rodman’s voice was saying as Travers came close enough to the door of Belczak’s private study to hear sounds from within. “I’m not a tech – nobody on my ship’s a tech.”

  And Hubler: “You know damn’ well, Belczak, you need to be talking to Jazinsky about this. She’s the only one in this whole shitty quadrant that might, and I say might, know what she’s looking at.”

  At Travers’s right hand, and a pace behind Akanishi, a pace ahead of Escobar, Marin checked. Travers slowed and pinned Akanishi with a hard look.

  The woman’s big shoulders twitched in a shrug. “Some bit of junk they dragged in here a few days ago, after Silverlake.”

  “Silverlake?” Marin echoed.

  The light from several skylights cast odd shadows around his face. It was still not long after dawn, and the sun rose on this part of Celeste only a few hours after midnight. The day was less than twenty hours, and a man’s time sense soon went to hell.

  She seemed indifferent. “Some big bust up at a lode way, way out – Freespacer crap. They stopped yacking over subspace, so the old man sent a ship out there to find out what went bung. Not out of the kindness of his heart, you understand. He staked ’em to open up the new lode and his investment just got flushed.”

  “Meaning?” Travers acknowledged a shiver in his spine.

  “Meaning,” Escobar said with a little more concern, “Silverlake went boom. But it’s weird – Suze and me were serving coffee or some stupid thing, and we saw it on the threedee. Looked more like …” He shook his head slowly. “Like something had sucked the camp in, or maybe down. Big hole in the ground where it used to be, but – and this is the weird thing – nothing, and I mean nothing that looked like an impact or an explosion. And trust me, man, I used to be a demolition specialist. I know an explosion crater or an impact structure where I see one. Weird.”

  Weird indeed, unless you were privy to the Zunshu data, and knew the signs of an implosion. Travers swallowed on a throat grown suddenly dry as Marin asked, “How far out is – was – Silverlake?”

 
“A day, day and a half, if you’re heavy-footed in a decent ship.” Akanishi frowned at him. “You know something. Don’t you?”

  “Slaves,” Marin said dryly, “don’t ask questions.” He brushed by her and stopped in Belczak’s doorway as Rodman was saying,

  “For chrissakes call Jazinsky. This is way out of our league, Henri. We came down to deliver your gelemeralds – you’ve got them, we’re on our way. This thing looks like a piece of crap lashed up by some dumbo of a Freespace tinkerer, and something just like it went wrong and took a planetoid with it.”

  Henri Belczak was dressed in shades of blue this morning. He stood, straight-backed with annoyance, on one side of a long trestle workbench which had been set up opposite his desk, while Rodman and Hubler stood on the other side, and between them sat a featureless black case, half a meter long and wide, and a quarter meter thick. It was damaged, twisted out of shape, and one corner seemed to have been corroded but no part of the case was perforated, and it sat on the bench, mocking Belczak.

  “This was all we recovered from Silverlake,” he said slowly. “The camp was gone. Even my ship, which would have been parked in the middle of the camp, providing power, was gone. Everything else was rock, stone, sand, dust, to the horizon … and this.” He studied her darkly. “You and Hubler, you were both on active service with Fleet, well inside the last couple of decades, yes?”

  “Sure,” Hubler agreed, “but we weren’t techs.”

  “I know you weren’t,” Belczak said with thin-stretched patience, “but you worked with techs, and with every piece of technology Fleet has to throw at the Freespacers. Us. This isn’t our tech, so it has to be yours.”

  But Hubler was making negative noises before Belczak fell silent. “Sorry, man. I quit Fleet a hell of a lot more recently than Asako, and I never saw nothin’ like this. You’ve tried opening it?”