Constellation

by Sharon Lee

  “Good,” said the first voice. “Where is the High Judge?”

  “I don’t know,” he heard himself say.

  “I see. Why were you going to your ship?”

  “Orders.”

  “What orders?” He was listening in earnest now, interested in the answer; expecting to hear another, “I don’t know . . .”

  “Orders to get out, if it looked like all was going to hell.” Well, he thought, inside the thinning fog, that certainly makes sense.

  “And things in your opinion were going to hell?”

  He’d said so, hadn’t he? “Yes.”

  “Ah,” said the voice. That not being a question, he found himself speechless. Time passed; he felt the fog growing dense about him again.

  “What,” the voice said, sharp enough to shred the fog and cut him where he hung, defenseless. “What was the text of the last message you sent to the High Judge?”

  “Situation stable,” he heard himself answer.

  “When was that?”

  “Four weeks ago, local.”

  More silence; this time, he found he was able to concentrate and thin the fog further. He could feel the shadows of the tanglewire binding him to the chair; a breath of headache . . .

  “You were at the comm when we located you earlier this evening. Who did you send to?”

  A question had been asked; the drug compelled him to answer with the truth, but the truth had facets . . ..

  “An old girlfriend.”

  “Indeed. What’s her name?”

  The answer formed; he felt the words on his tongue, swelling, filling his mouth, his throat . . .

  “Impressive,” the voice didn’t-ask, releasing him. Exhausted, he fell back into the fog, felt it close softly around him, hiding the restraints, the pain, the sense of his own self.

  “What,” the voice asked, soft now, almost as if it were part of the fog, “is the code of the last receiver to which you sent a pinbeam?”

  Calmly, his voice told the code, while he sank deeper into the fog and at last stopped listening.

  * * *

  SHE SET Skeedaddle down in the general port, calling some minor attention to herself by requesting a hot pad. Tower was so bland and courteous she might have been back on Kago, which didn’t comfort her as much as maybe it should have.

  Sighing, she levered out of the pilot’s chair and stretched, careful of her back and shoulders, before moving down the hall.

  She pulled a pellet pistol from the weapons locker, and a needle gun—nothing more than a trigger, a spring and the needle itself. Completely illegal on most worlds, of course, though she’d come by it legally enough: It had been with Berl’s body when it came back, with his ship, to his sister.

  She slipped the needle gun into a hideaway pocket, and clipped the pistol to her belt. That done, she straightened her jacket, sealed the locker and went back to the galley for a cup of ’toot and a snack while the hull cooled.

  * * *

  THE FACT THAT THEY hadn’t killed him was—worrisome. That they kept him here, imprisoned, but not particularly misused, indicated that they thought there was more he could tell them.

  He’d had time to consider that; time to weigh whether he ought to file his last flight now and preserve what—and who—he could.

  The end of that line of consideration was simply that he wanted to live. His one attempt toward suicide had failed and he couldn’t say, even considering present conditions, that he was sorry on that score. If it came down that he died in the line of doing something useful, then that was how it was. But to die uselessly, while there were still cards in play—no.

  That decision left open the question of what he could do of use, confined and maybe being used as bait. Not that the judge would fall for bait, but Grom Trogar might not know that. In fact, Chairman Trogar might well see the Judge’s concern for his household and his courier as a weakness to be exploited. Big believer in exploiting other people’s weaknesses, Mr. Trogar.

  Having the time, he thought about his life past, and what he might’ve done different, if he hadn’t been your basic idealistic idiot. Put that way, he could see himself staying with Midj, leading a trader’s prosperous life, raising a couple of kids, maybe getting into politics. There were more ways to change the galaxy than the route he had chosen. And who was to say that change was the best thing?

  He’d been so sure.

  * * *

  SHE HAD A PLAN, if you could call it that. Whoever had fixed the alias for the pin-beam Kore had sent his last message from had been good, and if she’d started with no information, she’d right now be on a planet known as Soltier, somewhere over in the next quadrant. Knowing that Kore was on Shaltren made the exercise of tracking the ’beam somewhat easier, and she thought she had a reasonable lock on his last location.

  Nothing guaranteed that he’d still be at that location, of course, but it was really the only card she had, unless she wanted to go calling on the chairman, which she was holding in reserve as her Last Stupid Idea.

  For her first trick, she needed a cab.

  There was a cab stand at the end of the street, green-and-white glow-letters spelling out Robo Cab! Cheap! Quick! Reliable!

  Right.

  She leaned in, hit the call button, and walked out to the curb to wait.

  Traffic wasn’t in short supply this planet-noon, and the port looked prosperous enough. If you didn’t know you were on galactic crime headquarters, in fact, it looked amazingly normal.

  Up the street, a cab cut across three lanes of traffic, angling in toward her position, the green-and-white Robo Cab logo bright in the daylight. It pulled up in front of her, the door opened and she stepped in.

  Mistake.

  “Good afternoon, Captain Rolanni,” said the woman pointing the gun at her. “Let’s have lunch.”

  The door snapped shut and the cab accelerated into traffic.

  * * *

  IT WAS GOING TO take a bit to disable the camera, but he thought he had a workable notion, there. The hard part was going to be getting out the door. After that, he’d have to deal with the details: scoping out where, exactly, he was, and how, exactly, to get out.

  He’d read somewhere that it was the duty of prisoners taken in war to attempt to escape, in order, so he guessed, to make the other side commit more resources to keeping their prisoners where they belonged. It had occurred to him at the time that the efficient answer to that might be to shoot all the troublemakers at hand and institute a policy of taking no prisoners. On the other hand, with Mr. Trogar having erred on the side of prisoner-taking, he supposed there was a certain usefulness to confounding the home guard.

  Or, as the Judge was a little too fond of saying, “Let’s throw a rock in the pond and see who we piss off.”

  * * *

  SURPRISINGLY ENOUGH, it was lunch, and if there was a guard mounted outside the door of the private parlor and her host was armed, no one had gotten around to taking the gun that openly rode on her belt, or searched her for any hidden surprises she might be carrying.

  Lunch was simple—premade sandwiches, hand pastries, coffee, and some local fruit.

  To hear her tell it, the host’s name was Sambra Reallen, which was as good as any other name. She professed herself a not-friend of the current chairman, on which point Midj reserved judgment, considering the manner of their meeting. Since she also seemed to hold some interesting information, Midj was willing to listen to her for the space it took to eat a sandwich and savor a couple of cups of the real bean.

  “You’re here for Korelan Zar,” Sambra Reallen said. It was disturbing to hear that fact stated so baldly, no “am I right?” about it.

  There was no use playing games, so Midj nodded slowly and sipped her coffee. “Man asked me to give him a ride off-world. That against the law?”

  The other woman grinned, quick and feral. “At the moment, the law here is the chairman’s whim. Given that—yes, I’m afraid it is.”

  “Tha
t’s too bad,” Midj said, hoping she sounded at least neutral.

  “You could say that,” Sambra Reallen agreed. She wasn’t drinking coffee, and she hadn’t even bothered to look at the sandwich in front of her. “Captain Rolanni, do you have any idea who Korelan Zar is?”

  Well, that was a question, now, wasn’t it? Midj shrugged. “Old friend. Called in a favor. I came. That’s how we do things, out where the chairman’s whims count for spit.”

  Another quick grin. “I’ll take that as a long ‘no,’” she said. “Korelan Zar is the High Judge’s courier.”

  Midj sipped coffee, considering. She decided that she didn’t really care what the Juntavas had to do with judges or judging, and looked up to meet Sambra Reallen’s sober gaze.

  “Kore was a hell of a pilot,” she said, which was nothing but the truth.

  The Juntava snorted. “So he was and so he is. He’s also been with the High Judge for twenty Standards—maybe more. The two of them came out of nowhere—the High Judge, he wasn’t a judge then; the closest we had to judges were the enforcers—and that wasn’t close at all. He sold the Justice Department idea to the then-chairman—the chairman that the present whimsical guy we’ve got replaced, you understand. The two of them—Zar and the judge—they set up the whole system, recruited judges, trained ’em and set ’em loose. I don’t know how many judges there are now—the last number I heard was thirty, but I think that’s low—very low. The High Judge isn’t a man who shows you all the cards he’s got in his hand—and Korelan Zar’s just like him.”

  It was a fair description of Kore, all things weighed. And the project itself jibed with the one he’d tried to sell her on, sitting across from her in Skeedaddle’s tiny galley, holding her hands so hard she felt the bones grinding together. Bunch of crazy talk, she’d thought then. Now . . . well, say the years had given her a different understanding of what was necessarily crazy.

  “Not that I’m disinterested in your problems,” she said now to Sambra Reallen, “but I’m not quite grasping what this has to do with me.”

  The other woman nodded vigorously. “Thank you, yes. You do need to know what this has to do with you.” She leaned forward, face intent, eyes hard.

  “The High Judge, his household, all the judges I know about and all those I don’t—are gone. Say that they are not blessed with the chairman’s favor. I don’t doubt—I know—that the High Judge had a plan. He must have foreseen—if not the current situation, at least the possibility of the current situation. He would have planned for this. His very disappearance forces me to conclude that he does have a plan, and has only withdrawn for a time to marshal his forces and his allies.”

  Midj shrugged. “So?”

  “So.” Sambra Reallen leaned deliberately back in her chair. “About a month ago, local, the chairman realized the High Judge had not been seen in some while. That, indeed, the entire network of judges, as far as they are known, had slipped through the hands of his seekers. He realized, indeed, that the sole member of the High Judge’s household remaining upon Shaltren was—”

  “The courier.” Midj put down her cup, all her attention now focused on the other woman.

  Sambra Reallen nodded. “Precisely. The word went out that Korelan Zar should be brought to the chairman. How Zar heard of the order, I don’t know, but I’m not surprised that he did. He made a strike for his ship, as I was sure he would, and I waited for him there, hoping to divert him to a safe place. Something must have spooked him; he returned to the High Judge’s house—and was taken into custody shortly thereafter.”

  “Hm. How ’bout if it was you who spooked him?” Midj asked. “I’m thinking that altruism isn’t exactly your style. What’d you want from Kore in exchange for the safe berth?”

  The other woman’s face tightened. “Information! The High Judge must be planning something—I must know what it is! The chairman can’t be allowed to continue—he’s already lost us ground on three significant worlds and will loose Stelubia entirely if he’s not stopped. All of that would be reason enough, if there weren’t Turtles in the mix, too!”

  Midj blinked. “Turtles? Clutch Turtles?”

  “There’s another kind?”

  “Not that I know of. These would be two, and asking after the health of a couple of humans they adopted, am I right?”

  Sambra Reallen nodded, sighed.

  “Indeed,” she said finally, finding her pastry’s icing a fascinating diversion from the discussion as she weighed some inner necessity.

  “These things are too big to be secret,” she continued, “no matter how hard any of us wish to hide them. Here you are, fresh in, and already the word is out.”

  The pilot relaxed slightly, realizing that the Juntava was apparently too focused on her own set of woes to pursue Midj’s familiarity with the doings of the Clutch.

  “I’ve been reading history, Captain Rolanni. The vengeance that these two beings may visit upon the entire organization if their petition is mishandled—and there is no possibility that the chairman will not mishandle it—doesn’t bear thinking about. I—action needs to be taken. But I must know what the High Judge is planning.”

  “And you think Kore knows.”

  “Yes.”

  “But Kore’s been taken by the chairman,” Midj pointed out, trying to keep the thought—and its implications—from reaching real nerve endings. “If he’s as ruthless as you say, he’s already cracked Kore’s head open and emptied out everything inside.” Including my name, my ship’s name, and the fact that I was coming for him. That did touch nerve, and she picked up her cup, swigging down the last of the cold coffee.

  “The chairman tried to do exactly that,” Sambra Reallen said. “Mr. Zar’s defenses are formidable—also, as I discover from my study of the session transcript, he wasn’t asked the right question.”

  “You got my name from the transcript, then.”

  “No.” The Juntava shook her head. “I got your pinbeam receiver ID from the transcript. Mr. Zar could not be persuaded to part with your name, though he was obviously experiencing some . . . discomfort for withholding the information.”

  The receiver ID was enough to sink her—present company being evidence—but she’d made it extra easier for them by coming on-world—and the joke was on her, if she’d taken an honest warn-away for code.

  “So, what do you want from me?” Might as well ask it straight out, though she thought she had a good idea what it would be.

  “I want you to pull him out of custody. I can provide you with his location, weapons if you need them, and a safe place to bring him to.”

  Yup, that was it. Midj shook her head.

  “And what do I get?”

  The Juntava pushed the untouched sandwich away and leaned her elbows on the table.

  “What do you want?”

  Just like that: name a price and the Juntavas would meet it. No problem. She felt a hot flash of fury and the words, I want my brother back rising; she kept them behind her teeth with an effort. Sat for a couple of heartbeats, breathing. Just that.

  When she was sure she could trust her voice, she met the other woman’s bland eyes.

  “What I want is Kore, free and in shape to leave, if that’s what he still wants. And I want us both to have safe passage out of here, and a guarantee that neither of us will be pursued by the Juntavas after.”

  There was a pause.

  “I could promise you these things,” Sambra Reallen said eventually, “but until I hear what Korelan Zar has to tell me—if he will tell me anything—I can’t know if my promise will hold air.” She raised a hand, palm out. “I understand that you have no reason to love the Juntavas, Captain. The best I can promise at this point is that, if Chairman Trogar leaves the game, I will do my best to ensure that your conditions are met.”

  About what she’d figured and as good as she was going to get with no time to negotiate anyway, not with Kore’s life on the line.

  “Why hasn’t the chairman killed him
?” she asked.

  The Juntava shrugged. “It could be that the chairman thinks Korelan Zar still retains some potential for amusement.”

  Right. Midj sighed.

  “I’ll need a diversion. If Kore’s high-level, then there are high-level people interested in him who’ll have to be drawn off.”

  Sambra Reallen nodded. “I’ll call a department chair meeting.”

  Midj blinked. “You can do that?”

  The Juntava smiled, letting a glimmer of genuine amusement show. “Oh, yes,” she said. “I can do that.”

  * * *

  GETTING OUT THE DOOR hadn’t been so hard after all, though there was going to be hell to pay if—well, there was going to be hell to pay. It wasn’t any use thinking there could be a different outcome to this.

  He was sorry he wouldn’t be on hand to see the finish of it, since he’d been in on the beginning. It had been a grand, beautiful scheme, so logical, so—simple. Introduce a justice system into Juntavas structure. Feed and nurture and protect it and its practitioners for twenty, thirty, fifty Standards—they hadn’t been sure of the timing, but hoped to see results within their lifetimes—easily that. Lately, he thought they’d been optimistic—and not only of the timing.

  Still, he had a gun, courtesy of a guard even more stupid than he was, and he knew where he was, and where he was going, more or less right down to his final breath. It was . . . freeing in a way. He felt at peace with himself, and with his purpose. If he could kill Grom Trogar, then he would depart as happy as a man filled full of pellets could be, and the plan—his plan, that he’d given up his life of small happinesses to see through—would have a second chance at continuing.

  It was convenient that his holding room was in the chairman’s building. Convenient that he had committed the layout of that building, along with several others, to memory years ago. He knew where the secret stair was and he knew the code that opened the hatch. He eased the panel shut behind him and began to climb.

  He paused to catch his breath just below the fourteenth landing. Only one more landing, if his memory could be relied upon, and since he’d already decided that it could, why worry about it now? The hatch opened in what used to be a supply closet in the chairman’s suite. He steeled himself for the unpleasant truth that he might need to kill blameless people before he got to his target. He wasn’t an assassin; even killing Mr. Trogar, himself, as much as it was needed, wasn’t going to be a joy. The important thing was not to freeze, not to hesitate. To acquire his target and shoot. He might get only one shot, and it was important to make it count.