by Chris Bunch
• • •
Minutes after they started moving, they heard the whine of gravlighters and saw lights in the sky.
“Down, and hope the Inspectorate’s shitty with people-sniffers,” Joshua ordered.
Explosions boomed, and the ground shuddered around them.
“Good,” Joshua said. “Bomb that old jungle. Always do it the easy way.”
There were high screams from the sky, and a pair of scoutships dove down. Fire blossomed from their bellies, and rockets slammed into the mountain.
“They’ll keep that up all night, if I know my amateurs,” Wolfe said, “then land troops on top of the mountain and sweep down. When — if the Inspectorate discovers the cave, they’ll have something to keep them busy, and they won’t be looking for us.”
• • •
Just before dawn they heard gunfire and explosions. “They found them,” Chesney said.
“Maybe,” Wolfe said. “Or maybe they’re shooting up each other or a really offensive tree.”
“I hope they get the bastards.”
“Why? They did something stupid,” Wolfe said, “and it seems to me they’ve already paid for it.”
“I don’t like people who try to kill me.”
“An understandable emotion. I frequently share it.”
• • •
Chesney was staggering by the time the sun came up. Joshua found an impenetrable thicket, and they pushed their way into it. Chesney went immediately to sleep, not offering to stand guard.
Wolfe let his senses float out but felt nothing. He calmed himself, breathing steadily, and let his body relax while his mind watched.
Around midday, Chesney grunted and woke up. He saw Wolfe sitting cross-legged, counting money. “How much do we have?” he asked.
“A little less than half a million,” Joshua said. “Again, it appears real.” He shook his head. “They should’ve bargained instead of going for the guns. Two-thirds isn’t bad soldier’s pay.”
Chesney nodded agreement. “You’re right,” he said. “Lord knows I’ve taken less and not cried all night. But why the hell can’t people stay honest?”
Wolfe looked at him without replying.
Chesney had the grace to turn away.
• • •
They moved slowly, quietly, following the mountain crest, until almost midnight, then they holed up until just before dawn. Aircraft constantly passed overhead, scout-ships, lighters, gravsleds. But none slowed, so Wolfe paid no mind.
They crossed the few open spaces at a trot, listening carefully first. “We’re making a big circle,” Wolfe explained. “We’ll have one more night in the open, then make the Resolute not long after first light.”
“Oh Lord, a consummation devoutly to be made,” Chesney misquoted fervently. “I never knew I could smell so bad. I’m going to live in the fresher until further notice. Is that what it’s like being a soldier?”
“Nope,” Wolfe said. “It’s when you don’t know you stink and don’t care either that you start soldiering.”
• • •
That night, when Chesney slept, Wolfe slid over beside him. He picked up Chesney’s pistol and pushed its bell mouth firmly down into the ground they lay on. He wiped the dirt from the outside of the barrel, and set it back down near the pilot’s hand.
• • •
Chesney touched controls on the tiny box and waited. Brown water roiled, and the Resolute surfaced. Its secondary drive hummed, pushing it close to the bank. Its lock door opened, and the gangway slid out. Wolfe started down the bank.
“Joshua.”
Wolfe stopped.
“Turn around, Wolfe. I don’t like being a back-shooter unless I have to.”
Joshua obeyed.
Chesney had his pistol aimed in both hands at Wolfe’s chest. “I really don’t think three-quarters of a mill is enough for two people,” he said, and his voice gloated as it had when he told Trevor he was wrong. “And I don’t think I’ll be sharing it with our mutual friend, either.”
“You don’t want to do that, Merrett,” Joshua said.
“Oh, but I have to,” Chesney said, and his voice had a tone like the ring of cracked crystal. “I know you weren’t sleeping. I know I was talking in my sleep. No one must know about me. No one.”
“I said, don’t do it,” Wolfe said calmly.
The dirt-clogged barrel of Chesney’s gun was aimed steadily at Wolfe. “But I’m going to,” Chesney said.
Wolfe turned, started up the Resolute’s gangway.
Merrett Chesney laughed again, convulsively jerking the trigger.
• • •
“Chesney’s dead,” Wolfe said into the blank screen.
“How?”
“He didn’t believe people tell the truth sometimes,” Joshua said.
“What does that mean?”
The transmitter hissed for a while.
“All right,” the voice conceded. “He was a strange one at best. I suppose you knew about him?”
“I learned.”
“He was so afraid of anyone finding out, and I think everyone knew. Oh well. So what next?”
“No changes,” Wolfe said. “I’ve got nearly three-quarters of a million credits. I take my cut, drop the rest off with you.”
“What’s the split?”
“I’m going to take my fifty percent of what we agreed on, plus half of his fifty percent for general aggravation,” Joshua said. “You get the rest.”
“Pretty damned generous,” the voice said.
“Why not? I’ve got a ship now, so I can afford to keep up the old ties.”
“Good. Nice doing business with you,” the voice said. “Stand by to record.”
Wolfe scanned the control panel of the Resolute, found the recorder, and switched it on.
The voice reeled a set of coordinates, then: “Got them?”
“I do.”
“Good.” There was a moment of silence. “Wolfe … I’m sorry about what happened — but you understand how business works.”
Wolfe lifted an eyebrow.
“Clear,” the voice said, and the contact was broken.
• • •
The coordinates were for open space, far between systems, near the fringes of the Federation. During the war a great battle had been fought here, and the shattered hulks of starships, Federation and Al’ar, still spun in aimless orbits.
A medium-size, ultramodern starship hung in space at exactly the specified points.
Wolfe opened his com. “Unknown ship, this is the Resolute.”
“Go ahead, Resolute. You have the credits?” It was an unfamiliar voice. Wolfe shrugged. He hardly expected his contact to meet him personally.
“I have.”
“Come on across, then.”
Wolfe breathed, felt across the distance. There was nothing. No warmth, but no threat. He tucked his hideout gun into his waistband, put on a spacesuit, buckled on a heavy blaster, went into the lock, and cycled himself into space.
It was dark, except for the far-distant glimmer of forgotten suns. Wolfe turned on a suit spotlight, jetted across the short distance to the other ship, and touched down next to its lock.
The outer door was open. Wolfe went into it, closed the lock door, and let the lock cycle.
The door opened into luxury. Stepping out of the lock, Wolfe saw three men with guns. They wore strange helmets that fit snugly from the base of the neck over the top of the head and down over the forehead. Reflecting goggles hid their eyes.
They held blast rifles leveled.
Joshua slowly lifted his hands, grimly cursing his carelessness.
A man came out of a compartment. He also wore a helmet, but instead of a suit he wore a uniformlike tunic with a jagged crimson streak on the chest.
“If you move, you’re dead,” said a voice in Joshua’s speaker.
The man took Wolfe’s gun, gingerly unfastened his helmet, and lifted it away. His hand came back very quickly with a
n air-hypo against Wolfe’s neck, and he pressed the stud. Wolfe jerked aside, but not in time.
“There.” The voice came from another room. “That’s got you.”
A door slid open. Out came Jalon Kakara. He walked over to Wolfe. His eyes were alive with rage, hate. “I warned you,” he said, and smashed his fist into Wolfe’s face.
“I warned you,” he said again.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
SECRET
By the authority of Federation Military Regulation 267-65-909, the following INACTIVE RESERVE UNITS are REACTIVATED and will participate in Federation maneuvers as soon as they are at full TO&E strength:
783rd Military Police Battalion
43rd Starport Security Detachment
12th Public Information (Active) Detachment
7th Long Range Patrolling Unit (less 17th Troop)
96th Logistical Command
21st Scoutship Flight
78th Scoutship Flight
111th Scoutship Flight
831st Heavy Transport Wing
96th Field Headquarters Support Company
4077th Field Medical Unit
3411th Field Medical Unit
9880th Field Medical Unit
All members of these units are to report IMMEDIATELY, and are permitted to use any civilian transportation necessary, and are authorized the highest priority in reaching their units.
Members of these units should advise their dependents they will be on extended active service and, at this time, there is no capability for dependents to travel with them, nor will their new posts allow dependent housing.
This activation is a purely routine test of the Federation’s ability to mobilize. There is no cause whatsoever for alarm or false rumor.
FOR THE COMMANDER:
Tara Phelps
Vice Admiral
Federation J-1
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
“I told you,” Kakara went on, “to sleep with one eye open — but you didn’t. You just went on about your merry way, as if you could steal my wife and there’d never be any paybacks to worry about.”
Wolfe tried to speak, couldn’t.
Kakara grinned. “Can’t talk, can you? Just so you know, you’ve been hit with about two hundred cc’s of HypnoDec. Your automatic body controls function, but that’s about it. Go ahead. Try to walk.”
Wolfe’s sluggish mind tried to work, tried to reach out, tried to feel the great Lumina a few hundred yards away in the Resolute.
He was empty, drained, half-stunned.
“You see,” Kakara gloated. “You see? Now here’s the way things are going to work. You’ve gotten a preliminary dosage. So right now you’re suggestible. I’m programming you now, just like a frigging computer.” He turned to his aide. “Hit him with the rest of the dose.”
The man obeyed.
“Good,” Kakara said. “Now I can tell you to kill yourself, if I wanted to. But I don’t. We need you, Wolfe. Go to sleep! Sleep!”
Wolfe’s eyelids drooped, he sagged, fell forward.
“Catch him,” Kakara ordered, and two of the suited men had Wolfe’s suit by the utility belt.
“Good,” Kakara said. “Very, very good. Move him into the lab, strip him, and body-search him. Check his body cavities, make sure the son of a bitch doesn’t have any surprises. If there are any, it’ll be your asses.”
“What about his ship?” one of the suited men asked.
“Destroy it,” Kakara ordered.
Somewhere, deep in some distant ocean, Wolfe’s mind stirred, felt red panic, horror. Somehow he pulled himself up, pushed toward the surface miles away.
Somehow he reached out …
Or perhaps the Lumina reached for him.
“Never mind,” Kakara said. “I changed my mind. Don’t waste the energy. Let the ship rust with the others.”
• • •
Joshua heard words, repeated over and over.
“Wake up, wake up, come on, man, wake up. Dammit, something’s wrong!”
Wolfe floated toward the sea’s surface.
“Nothing is wrong,” a calm, sterile voice said. “We possibly gave him too much HypnoDec, and he’s taking some time to come back to awareness.
“Do not fret, Kakara. All worry does is shorten your life.”
Wolfe heard an inarticulate snarl of rage, was just below the surface.
“Yeah,” Kakara said. “Yeah, he’s back with us. I saw his eyes flicker. Can you hear me?”
“I can hear you,” Wolfe said.
“Can you understand me?”
“I can understand you.”
“Is he telling the truth?”
“He is,” the calm voice said. “Perhaps he’s not fully able to analyze what you say, but your speech, your orders are absorbed, and will be retained in his memory.”
“Good,” Kakara said. “I want to give him something that’ll eat at him. Listen to me, Wolfe. I know who you are, I know everything about you. Joshua Wolfe, prisoner of the Al’ar, commando hotshot during the war, worked for Federation Intelligence, fell on hard times like most soldiers when there’s no public tit to suck on, ended up in the Outlaw Worlds as no more’n a bounty hunter. Freelanced for FI, got on their wrong side, is currently hotter’n hell, though there aren’t any wanted posters up yet.
“How about that shit?
“When you stole Rita — I don’t know why, but you’re going to tell me — I told you not to make any long-range investments, didn’t I? Jalon Kakara gets what he wants. Always. So I started looking for you. I started by backtracking. There’s some dead people around, thanks to you. I started with that bitch at the employment agency who sent you to me. She didn’t know shit — that resume you mickeyed up fooled her good. But she’s dead. I don’t like people who play games with me.
“But then I had a dead end. I figured I’d been had by a pro, and there aren’t many slick ones. So I had my security people — I’ve got real good ones, you know — start looking in the sewers people like you live in. One name kept coming up. Joshua Wolfe. But the holo I got didn’t match the one on your employment record, so I set it aside.
“But your damned name kept appearing again and again. And most of your compatriots could be accounted for: dead, working, or with good alibis. And this Joshua Wolfe liked working as either a gambler or a barkeep when he was undercover.
“So I took a chance. I play poker like that, too. Get a feeling about things — and I’m damned seldom wrong. And I remembered the number of crooks who’ve had their faces rebuilt when the heat was on. I went looking for you. Looked hard. Posted a big reward. Real big.
“Nothing for a while, and I was starting to think I was wrong, when I got a call from somebody you know. He said you were doing a job for him, but he’d be willing to hand you over for a price I was willing to pay, if you got out alive. He even left a message for you. ‘Like I said, it’s only business,’ he told me to tell you. Nice friends you got, Wolfe. I would’ve cleaned up his loose end, but he’s a very cagey player and hard to locate. Sooner or later, though, I’ll get a lead, and wrap him up, too. Doesn’t all that make whatever brain’s not doped up squirm, Wolfe? Make you finally realize who you went up against?
“Now I’ll tell you what I want you for, but I bet if your mind was working you would’ve figured it out by now. You’re going to tell me where Rita is, and, since I assume you didn’t take her for yourself, who the bastard is who’s got her.”
Wolfe’s breathing came fast, and his fingers clawed.
“No, you fool!” the sterile voice came. “You just alerted one of his compulsion modes. Continue and he’s not unlikely to have a brain hemorrhage or even suicide!”
“All right, all right,” Kakara’s voice went. “Forget what I just said about Rita.”
Wolfe’s breathing eased.
“This is like walking through a minefield,” Kakara complained. “All right, Brandt, what do I do now? And don’t ever call me a fool again. I only give people but one
warning.”
“My apologies,” the voice said, undisturbed. “Tell him to come fully awake.”
“Wolfe, wake up. See, hear, feel,” Kakara said.
Wolfe surfaced. He felt the table he was lying on, and the restraining straps. He opened his eyes.
Standing next to Kakara was a slender, balding rather friendly-looking man in his early sixties, wearing old-fashioned glasses. He was dressed a bit formally, in an expensive lapel-less jacket and pants and tip-collared shirt.
“Joshua Wolfe,” the man said, “I am Doctor Carl Brandt. Have you ever heard of me?”
“No,” Wolfe said.
“That is good,” Brandt said. “For I’ve always despised the limelight.” He surveyed Wolfe with a smile. “You must forgive my pride, but I consider you my creation. For quite some time I worked for Federation Intelligence. I am the one who devised the various mindblocks and suicide programs that you’ve been conditioned with so you wouldn’t have to worry about torture, drugs, or prolonged interrogation. Very seldom have I had the chance to examine one of my field operatives, particularly one who’s been through as much stress as you. While you were unconscious, I ran a battery of mechanical tests, and I am certainly impressed with your mental stability, at least as far as physiological means could determine. I would dearly like to have some time with you, and perform a complete analysis, but Kakara said that’s impossible. Since I’m now working for him, I’ll just have to watch from the sidelines, I’m afraid.”
“You see, Wolfe?” Kakara said. “You can’t even escape by dying. Somebody warned me all of you hotshot spooks were loaded for bear, and if anybody fooled around with your mind, tried to interrogate you or use heavy drugs, you’d kill yourself. Shut your brain off permanently, cause a heart seizure — they said there could be a dozen ways you’d been modified to suicide. So I went looking for a good headsplitter, and got lucky. I’ve found the harder you work, the luckier you get. I ended up with the guy who put you — or anyway the people like you — together.
“Another precaution I took. I kept hearing stories about how you could do things other people couldn’t, and I remembered how you managed to hypnotize me, and some other people so we thought you were invisible. Or maybe you even can make yourself invisible. The reality doesn’t matter much. A couple of people my men talked to said it was because you spent so much time with the Al’ar. They said you were about half Al’ar yourself. Jesus, no wonder I get the skincrawls around you. You’re a goddamned monster like they were. That gave me some problems. Then Doctor Brandt told me about something you probably never heard of.”
