by Chris Bunch
The speaker transmitted a sound that might have been laughter. “Isn’t it nice to find a couple of professionals who really trust each other?”
“Just like always,” Wolfe agreed.
“So what can I do you out of?”
“I just wanted to touch base. See if anything … interesting’s going on.”
There was dead air for almost a minute. “How clean is your transmission?”
“Clean. It’s bounced, well, let’s just say more than twice. And it’s as sealed as I could make it.”
“Okay. Only because I like to see things stirred up. Cisco’s looking for you. Looking hard.”
“That’s no news. He’s got a warrant out on me,” Wolfe said.
“That’s one thing,” the voice said. “That’s the official policy. He’s put word out that he wants a meet with you. Your terms, your ground, you know how to contact him.”
“Yeah. Sure. So he can collect the bounty?”
“Come on, Wolfe. Stop playing games. You know the rules.”
“I’m not sure Cisco does anymore.”
“No skin off my ass either way. I’m just passing the word along. There’s one other thing that goes with it — he said you can bring your friend from Tworn Station along.”
Wolfe waited until he could control his voice. Tworn Station was the undersea resort where he’d tracked down Taen.
“I got what you said … but don’t know what it means.”
The speaker stayed silent.
“Anything else?”
“Nope,” the voice said. “Unless you want the hot gossip on who’s sleeping with whom or who backalleyed her latest best friend. One other thing. Shoa InterGee is looking to hire a hotrod to take over their security section. The pay’s good, but I gotta warn you, their system stinks. I’ve been known to go wading in their stuff every now and then for giggles, and there’s folks out there far sneakier’n I am.”
“Hardly think they’d be interested in hiring somebody who’s on the run from FI.”
“As I said, I’m just the pipeline.”
“Thanks. Stay clean and I’ll catch you next shout.” Wolfe touched the sensor, and the speaker went dead. He turned to Taen.
“I understood the transmission,” the Al’ar said in Terran. “So this Cisco knows I exist and that we are teamed. I am hardly surprised — there were more than enough people who saw me when we retreated from my ship for Federation Intelligence to draw the correct assessment.
“But it will undoubtedly make life more interesting. My question is, should we agree to this meeting with the Intelligence man?”
Wolfe considered.
“The problem,” he mused aloud, “is how to walk into his nest and be able to get back out again. Mmmh. I think I can manage that.”
“I was hoping you would say that. I would appreciate any data we can absorb. We are operating with far too little input in our quest,” Taen said. “Now, once we derive whatever information we are able, can we kill this Cisco?”
Wolfe grinned. “Taen, you would have made a perfectly wonderful spy, what with your sense of morality and all.”
“Your words are meaningless. If you have an enemy, you seek him out and slay him. All else is nothing but noise to my brain.”
• • •
The door to Cormac’s inner office opened, and a soberly dressed man with a neat beard came out. He looked at Joshua, said “Good morning, son,” then went out the door, letting the door ease shut against his hand.
Wolfe looked thoughtful, shut off the com he’d been scanning, and went into Cormac’s office.
“The gentleman who just left called me son. I don’t think he actually had five years on me.”
“Better get used to it, young man. I’ve already put the word out for my bars to start making sure you’re of proper drinking age. Ain’t surgery wonderful? Drag up a chair.”
Wolfe obeyed. “Can I be nosy?”
“You cut my fingers off when I tried, but go ahead.”
“That gentleman who just left? Was he a Chitet?”
“He certainly was, although he didn’t sound like one for a couple of moments after I turned him down. He got a little dramatic on me. You have an interest in their little operation?”
“I do. They’ve tried to kill me half a dozen times now.”
“Mercy Maude,” Cormac said. “All this from an organization that claims to be nothing more than a logical and systematic philosophy and way of life.
“Then you’ll be very amused when you find out what he wanted. He put it most subtly, but he was very interested in acquiring, for a very impressive price, in cash to be handed to me directly, some of the mothballed Federation ships I’m supposed to be keeping all safe and secure. I don’t mind selling a part here or there, but his ideas seemed excessive.”
“They’re on the move, Cormac,” Wolfe said. “The last time they tried to slot me was with an Ashida-class cruiser.”
“Oh? Not the most subtle way to suggest they don’t like the way you cut your hair. And here my fine-feathered friend was telling me how they really needed half a dozen big ships to convert into transports for a large shipping deal they’re about to sign. He was real specific about what he wanted: those three Nelson-class battleships, two of the heavy cruisers I’ve got, and by the way, there’s a C & C rig out there that’d be almost perfect. Looks to me, if they need Command and Control, they’re building a fleet. Got a bit hostile when I told him to pack his ass with salt and piddle up a rope. Most civilly and in my most mellifluous tones, of course.”
“Why’d you turn them down?”
“To be honest?”
Wolfe grinned. “If that’s the best option you can come up with.”
“I couldn’t figure out what story I’d have if somebody ever came looking for them and asked me to explain a hole in space. Although now I’m getting a little concerned for some of my confreres who don’t have the well-developed sense of survival I do. As I said before, there’s a lot of available warships out here in the Outlaw Worlds.
“You know, Joshua, people with a goddamned mission in life who know what I should be doing better than I do make me nervous. Especially when they start buying guns.”
“You and me both,” Wolfe agreed. “A small suggestion — keep your back against a wall for the next few forevers. These Chitet don’t seem to handle rejection well.”
“So I gather. Fortunately, my cowardice genes are well developed.”
Cormac got up from his desk. “ ‘Tis a parlous world,” he said. “I guess the only option for honest folk like you and me is to have a drink. C’mon.”
• • •
“What were you looking for when the FI robot got pictures of you on Sauros and put me in motion?” Wolfe asked.
“I had landed on several of our homeworlds already, looking for any data that might give me a clue to the Mother Lumina,” Taen said. “I hoped to consult certain files, I think your word is, from our Farseeing Division, what you call Intelligence.”
“Hasn’t FI already seized those?”
“They think they have,” the Al’ar said. “But there are other copies, available for those who know where to look.”
“What data did you specifically seek?”
“What I sought, I never found. Mention of the Mother Lumina, mention of the Guardians, anything that might have been transmitted before my people made The Crossing.”
“And?”
“Nothing.”
“I cannot believe,” Wolfe said, “that at one signal, a signal you say you didn’t receive, every frigging Al’ar in the galaxy went away like a Boojum. So you weren’t looking in the right place, or in the right manner.”
“I dislike your levity, but I must concede, logically, you are correct.”
“Which of the homeworlds, what we call the capital worlds, were the most important?”
“Sauros,” Taen said. “The world I had my birth-burrow on, the same one you lived on before the war. I al
so sought access to one of our great machine-thinkers, computers, to help me analyze the problem. But I had no time to search for anything before that spy-probe found me.”
“If I can put us both back on Sauros, will you let me help in the search?”
The Al’ar curled on a ladder that was the closest approximation Wolfe could find to his customary seat. He remained silent for a long time. Twice his hood puffed, deflated.
“There are risks,” he said. “To us both. There will be precautions still in place, unless they were set off by Federation searchers earlier. And I do not believe the Federation even knew where to look.”
“I’ve seen Al’ar booby traps,” Joshua said. “They can be managed.”
“So you have a plan?”
“An idea.”
“Which of my two goals are we seeking?”
“Not the Mother Lumina. We’ll start with The Guardians. Maybe that’ll lead us to the rock in question.”
Taen’s slitted eyes stared at Wolfe. “One thing you have never told me. Not honestly, by what I can feel of your thoughts. You could have abandoned me on Montana Keep, or simply returned me to one of my own worlds, and then gone to ground.
“I do not doubt you have more than enough abilities to avoid both the Chitet and Federation Intelligence. They will not seek you forever, especially when they learn you have taken no further interest in the fate of the Al’ar.
“Why, Joshua Wolfe? Why, One Who Fights From Shadows?”
There was a long, heavy silence.
Wolfe shook his head slowly from side to side.
• • •
“She sings, she dances, she sways, she swoops,” Cormac said proudly. He and Wolfe stood on a crosswalk in an enormous bay. Below them lay Wolfe’s ship. It looked just as it had when he ported at Malabar. “Would you care to request your good ship Lollypop to go through her paces?”
He handed a transponder to Joshua.
“Do you hear me?” Joshua asked the ship.
“I hear you,” came through the small speaker. “I recognize your voice. Do you have a command for me?”
Joshua turned to Cormac. “So what do I ask for?”
“How about ‘gimme the external dimensions of a Hatteras-type 92 yacht?’ In case you forget your Jane’s, that’s about twenty feet longer than the Grayle and a whole lot humpier.”
Joshua spoke into the transponder.
“Understood,” his ship said.
He heard the hiss of hydraulics, and the Grayle grew imperceptibly. As she did, a long oval atop her hull lifted, and a portholed bridge appeared.
“That’s all false front, of course,” Cormac said. “It extends back over the drive tubes, so you don’t really pick up twenty feet, and the bridge is a dummy, too. I couldn’t figure any way to mickey up hull blisters, either, that wouldn’t conflict with your retractable ones, so I left that alone.
“The Grayle can physically mimic about twenty other ships more or less of her class, from a Foss-class tug, to any number of in-system workships, to one of the new Federation Sorge-type spyships. That might be an interesting switch if things get sticky with our friend Cisco.
“But that’s the frosting on the iceberg, when somebody gets too close. The real changes are in the various signatures, infrared, radar, and so forth. Onscreen, your little putt-putt can look like almost anything from a medium cruiser down to a miner’s asteroid puddle jumper. That’s the real prize. I decided that everybody wants to go small when they’re phonying up what their ship looks like, so I’d go mostly the other way around.
“Plus your rig’s pretty clean anyway, so I wouldn’t be able to get much tinier an echo.
“You lost two storerooms and one of your spare staterooms for all the e-junk I loaded in, and you don’t even want to think about drive economy, especially if you’re using any of the drive-signature spoofers.
“Your performance envelope is still the same, unless you’re using any of the physical phonies in-atmosphere. I went for things that had lots of little bitty stickouts, so there’s a lot more drag. Be a little cautious about going full tilt when you’re surrounded by air if you’ve got any of that crap extruded. I don’t guarantee my welds that far.”
“You through?”
“I think so.”
“Pretty good spiel,” Wolfe said.
“Pretty good work,” Cormac replied. “Now you owe me.”
“I do that.”
Cormac turned serious. “And that’s a favor I’m going to call in.”
• • •
Wolfe was almost asleep, nodding over a last Armagnac and Murder in the Cathedral when the buzzing grew in his ears. He came fully awake, but the sound didn’t stop; it grew still louder.
He felt menace, danger, and in spite of himself looked around the familiar bridge.
Pain seared his arm, and he pulled his sleeve back and saw the red welts emerge.
Then the buzzing was gone, and there was utter silence.
After a time, the welts subsided.
Wolfe got up, made strong coffee.
• • •
“De Montel?” Wolfe whistled. “This is a serious favor.”
Cormac ran a thumbnail through the foil and pulled the cork. “Now that’s what a proper bottle-opening ought to sound like,” he said. “Never could get used to that crack when the pressure seal breaks.”
There were two snifters on his desk. He poured one about half full, about an inch into the other.
“Thought you didn’t touch hard stuff,” Wolfe said.
“I’m trying to be sociable.”
Wolfe sniffed, tasted, nodded. He eased himself down into the armchair in front of the desk. “Okay. What’ve you got?”
Cormac reached into his desk drawer, took out a holo, passed it to Joshua. “Remember her?”
The woman in the holo had dark, curly hair that frothed down about the shoulders of the sea-green gown she wore. She was on a promenade deck of a ship, and behind her a planet’s curve arced. She’d evidently been told to look happy for the recorder and was trying her best to comply, without much success.
Wolfe blanked the background and the jewels at her throat, and studied her face. “I think so. From the war?”
Cormac nodded.
“Little bitty thing? A first looey … no. Captain.”
“That’s her. She was my log officer. Rita Sidamo.”
“Okay. I’ve got her. What’s her problem?”
“She’s married to a shithead who won’t let her leave.”
Wolfe lifted an eyebrow. “No offense. But that’s a little thin these days. It’s too easy to just walk out … or scream for help.”
Cormac didn’t respond to that, but went on. “We were, well, pretty friendly for three or four months before the war ended. Against regs, naturally, but who gave a damn? It was pretty intense, actually.
“Since the war ended so quickly, it kind of left us hanging. We weren’t sure whether we wanted to stay together, or what.
“She took her discharge, went back to her homeworld inside the Federation. We sent a few coms back and forth, and then all of a sudden she stopped writing.” Cormac picked up his drink, tasted it, and grimaced. He went to the cooler and came back with a beer.
“I got over it. Or thought I did, anyway. What the hell, we all kid ourselves about things.
“Three months ago, I got that pic and a letter. She said she had to pay someone to get it out for her.”
“Out of where?”
“The reason she stopped writing is that she got married. Real quick, for no good reason, she said. I guess it was because the guy was good-looking and rich.”
“This isn’t sounding any thicker, Cormac.”
Cormac’s lips tightened. He opened his desk again, took out a microfiche, stuck it into the viewer on the desk, and spun the device until the plate was facing Wolfe.
An image was onscreen:
A man about Joshua’s size, dark-haired, harsh features, staring into
the recorder lens with a challenging look.
“His name is Jalon Kakara. He’s a merchant fleet owner. Has his own shipyard.”
Other images, starting with a tab’s screamer:
BEHIND THE MASK: JALON KAKARA’S PRIVATE SINWORLD
“He’s got his own planetoid, which he calls Nepenthe. It’s inside the Federation,” Cormac said. “I don’t know about the sin part of it. But it looks pretty spectacular.”
Wolfe nodded absently, watching images flash past: a long spaceyacht; two mansions; a gleaming high office building; a domed, irregularly shaped planetoid; a spaceport with its pads about half full, all of the ships with jagged crimson streaks down their sides; laughing, richly dressed people at some sort of party; then a picture of Kakara and the woman, both wearing swimsuits, sitting on the rail of an antique hovercraft.
“He’s a shit,” Cormac said flatly.
“I’ve never heard of the guy,” Wolfe said. “But that doesn’t mean anything. The pics make him look rich, all right. Sorry I said what I did.”
He drank and Cormac refilled the snifter.
“I’ve done some research. Had some friends inside the Federation get what they could on him. Kakara does most of his business from Nepenthe,” Cormac said. “When he goes offworld, he has his own yacht. Actually, it’s a full-size Desdemona-type freighter he had laid down in his yards and modified to his specs.
“Sometimes he lets Rita go along with him. But mostly, she’s stuck on Nepenthe. Especially now.”
“I’ve known people who’d like to be stuck like that.”
“His biggest thrill is getting in the pants of his friends’ women,” Cormac said. “And he’s a hitter.”
Wolfe’s face tightened.
“She wanted out, told him so, even managed to file divorce papers. He got to the records and blanked them. Told her she’s his, she agreed, and that settled things. Period.
“She said he likes it better now that she’s a prisoner.”
“Are you asking me to do something about it?”
“No,” Cormac said. “I wouldn’t do that. But I’d like you to come up with a plan for me.”
“For you? Cormac, you’re a goddamned driver, not an op. You’re the guy who gets people like me in and out, remember?”
