Mage-Provocateur

by Glynn Stewart

  “Drag the Legacy out here into the void and the shadows?” He gestured at the screen showing the empty space around Red Falcon.

  “Out here, I’ll go all-out. But in-system, we need to be subtler.”

  “So, what do we do?” Maria asked.

  “We get the Skipper to wear a tracker, just in case,” the Marine told her. “I’m going to quietly make sure I have a lot more armed people on the Spindle than anybody knows, and I’m going to make sure I’ve got the links and the codes to call in the local Marine garrison if needed.

  “After the Skipper’s last visit to Corinthian, my understanding is that there’s a trio of destroyers and an entire RMMC regiment standing guard, plus the locals,” he continued. “I can think of all kinds of uses for those folks.”

  “And I can think of a few other people we can poke,” Maria admitted. “If we get a target…well, one of the dead drops we have to contact LMID is only a few jumps from Corinthian.”

  Skavar blinked.

  “We have dead drops to contact LMID?” he asked.

  “Well, the Captain does,” she told him. “He briefed LaMonte and me—and now I’ve briefed you. Legatus has him marked as an asset. That’s something they’re going to regret in the long run, but I’ll be damned if I’ll let it go to waste today!”

  32

  “A tracker?” David asked, looking cautiously at the large-seeming hypodermic in Dr. Gupta’s hand.

  “A modification of the standard Marine-issue challenge-response beacon,” Skavar told him, standing behind the doctor and very clearly trying not to seem like he was forcing any part of this issue. “If it gets hit with the correct signal, it responds at random intervals for the ensuing ninety seconds.”

  “As I recall, that beacon is built into the dog tags,” David replied. “And you want to inject me with that?”

  “It opens up a lot of options and possibilities,” his security chief told him. “Plus, bluntly, you have a habit of getting in trouble, Skipper. This would make sure we could track you down, no matter what.”

  “Within limits,” the Captain pointed out. “It’s not like it’s some magic interstellar beacon. Radio waves, right?”

  “Not many other options I’m aware of,” the Marine agreed. “And while I’d love to borrow a Tracker, the only people I know with one, well, we blew half their fleet to pieces and bribed them to sell out their clients.”

  David sighed.

  “And if I were to promise to be a good boy and do everything by electronic coms?” he asked.

  “We both know that’s not an option. Even if we weren’t coming to Corinthian to try and sort out a meet with the Legacy, the kind of spec cargo we’re bringing in requires you to meet with people,” Skavar concluded. “Much as I’d love to lock you on the ship, behind a wall of armored troops and maybe a battle tank or two, the job requires you to leave the ship.

  “So, this lets us keep an extra eye on you and know where to come barrelling in with all the troops and guns if something does go wrong.”

  “Does it have to be quite so intimidating a needle?” the Captain grumbled.

  “We could, in theory, install it in your leg,” Gupta told him. “That would require me to have more faith that Legatan hardware will play nice with Martian hardware than I do. The injected chip is honestly the best option.”

  David looked at the needle again and shivered.

  “I’ve had worse,” he admitted. “Fine.”

  “Pull up your sleeve, boss.”

  There was a sharp stab, and then a swab of cooling coagulant.

  “That’s all.”

  “Thanks, boss,” Skavar told him. “After the last few months, even one extra arrow in our quiver makes me a feel bit better. Surprises…well, I like having surprises to spring a lot better than I like running into them.”

  “Me too,” David agreed. “Plus, well, more likely than not, the person this is going to save is me!”

  The PA system crackled to life as he was speaking and Kelly LaMonte’s voice sounded across the ship.

  “All hands, all hands. Stand by for final jump into Corinthian System.”

  There was a nearly imperceptible flicker of reality changing, and then the XO spoke again.

  “All right, folks, welcome to Corinthian. Those of us who made an impression last time…well, let’s not remind people about that.

  “I promised the Captain we wouldn’t stun any cops this time!”

  David waited until they were close enough to the Spindle for a reasonable conversation before reaching out to his contacts. A few seconds’ delay as messages flew back and forth was easily handled by experienced spacers.

  Longer called for recordings, and this wasn’t a conversation he wanted to have via recording. He wasn’t even sure that the contact code he had would work.

  When the screen lit up with the image of a reception desk and a perfectly coiffed young woman in a purple dress, he was certain he had the wrong number. He had a few other ways to try and get ahold of the man he was looking for, but they were all complicated.

  “Spindle Spider Information Consulting,” the young lady happily chirped at him. “How may I assist you?”

  Well…information consulting was more promising that he’d initially thought.

  “Good afternoon,” he greeted her. “I had this contact number for Travis Carmichael. Would you be able to put me in contact with him?”

  From the woman’s complete non-reaction, Carmichael clearly had some connection to the consulting company David had reached.

  “I am aware of Mr. Carmichael,” she said carefully. “SSIC does some business with him, but I’m afraid I have no way of getting in touch with him immediately.

  “Certainly, SSIC is not in the habit of passing on contact information without explicit permission.”

  “Of course,” David allowed. Carmichael, it seemed, had kept the old contact code he’d given David before Blue Jay’s visit to Corinthian had gone sideways, but attached it to a filter.

  “If you could pass on a message to Mr. Carmichael,” he continued, “please let him know that Captain David Rice is looking to get in touch with him with regards to a potential business arrangement.”

  He smiled.

  “Mr. Carmichael knows who I am.”

  The woman nodded.

  “Of course, Captain Rice. I’ll talk to the partner who works with Mr. Carmichael and see if we can pass on your information. How would he be able to get ahold of you?”

  “I’m aboard the freighter Red Falcon,” David told her. “We’ll be docking in an hour or two.”

  “Thank you; I’ll make sure that Mr. Carmichael hears.”

  He nodded his thanks and closed the connection. She’d messed up at the end. She was supposed to be pretending that she didn’t work for Carmichael, but her final phrasing had been that of an employee promising their boss would be in touch.

  David made a checkmark in his mental book of bets with himself as his wrist-comp chimed. He’d barely had enough time to hit the head and refill his coffee.

  “Rice here,” he said into the little computer.

  “Skipper, we’ve got an inbound call for you from a Travis Carmichael,” the current com technician told him. “Should I put him through?”

  “I’ve been waiting for him,” David told her. “Connect him to my office system.”

  The last couple of years didn’t seem to have changed Carmichael much. The tall information broker was still just as slim and fit as he had been, and he’d lost none of the sheen to his red hair or the piercing glare to his eyes.

  “Captain Rice,” Carmichael greeted him. “The last time we spoke, I believe I told you never to come back to Corinthian.”

  “You certainly advised against it,” David agreed. “Though it was more in the order of warning what the government and local thuggery would do if I came back. Things have been sorted with the government.

  “Should I be concerned about the criminals?”

 
Carmichael chuckled.

  “Between one thing and another, I don’t think anyone you pissed off is still in play,” he admitted. “Carney would probably want you dead, still, but he drank a vial of poison in lieu of being arrested about a year back.”

  The younger man on David’s screen shrugged.

  “His organization was all but gone at that point anyway. Half got arrested; half abandoned him for a new flag. Hell, the guy they abandoned Carney for is dead now too, but he didn’t go quietly on his front porch.”

  Last time he’d been in Corinthian, David Rice had made a deal with the crime boss Carney to break out his Ship’s Mage. He’d also left Carney swinging when Hand Stealey arrived to clean up the mess.

  “So, you’re probably safe to be here,” Carmichael admitted. “Can’t say I’d have come back in your place, but I’m presuming you’ve got a reason. What do you want, Rice?”

  “I want to engage your services,” David told him. “I’ve brought in a spec cargo, which means I’m going to need to track down buyers. I can’t imagine you haven’t rebuilt from whatever losses the Hand inflicted on your network.”

  The broker chuckled.

  “I took the arrival of a Hand as unto a sign from God, Captain Rice,” he replied. “I keep my finger on the pulse of the underworld here in self-defense, yes, but I keep my nose clean. Your spec cargo is exactly the kind of work I do most of these days.

  “What kind of cargo are we talking?”

  David smiled.

  The channel was sufficiently secure that they could talk about past potential criminalities, but not secure enough that either of them would risk admitting to current crimes or problems.

  “At the high level, it’s ferro-organics from Sandoval Prime,” he told the broker. “Buying a spec cargo there, however, means I’ve got a bunch of hundred- to five-hundred-thousand-ton lots of slightly different things.

  “I’d like to go over the details in person.”

  Carmichael nodded slowly. Just as David had picked up that he had more underworld contacts than he’d admitted, he’d picked up that David needed more than someone to put him in touch with buyers.

  “All right, Captain Rice,” he agreed. “My office is still in the same building, even if it has a different owner these days. I’ll have my staff send yours the address. Say, tomorrow at eleven AM Olympus Mons Time?”

  “That sounds acceptable,” David said. “May I bring my Ship’s Mage?”

  “Feeling paranoid, Captain?”

  “You remember my last visit to the Spindle,” David pointed out.

  “Fair enough. Is it still the young Montgomery?” Carmichael asked.

  “No. Montgomery moved on to different pastures. Mage Maria Soprano leads my Mages now.”

  “That’s right; you have a much bigger ship these days, don’t you?” The broker nodded, his gaze flickering as he clearly ran a data search on a screen David couldn’t see. “Very well, Captain, feel free to bring Commander Soprano with you.

  “Her record sounds fascinating.”

  33

  The Corinthian Spindle wasn’t necessarily unique in human space, but it was spectacular. Like the core piece of Junkertown in Snap, it was an O’Neill cylinder. Unlike Junkertown, however, the Spindle’s builders had managed to put the resources in place to keep the Spindle operating.

  The primary cylinder continued to spin fast enough to provide a semblance of one gravity on the outer edge, and massive quantities of soil had been lifted from the surface to allow for planting forests and farms. With the surface area available on the inside of a fully functioning O’Neill cylinder, the Spindle had towns, cities, farms, even carefully manicured parks.

  Making the transition from the zero-gravity “caps” on the end of the cylinder, kept motionless so ships could dock, to the verdant glory of the primary Spindle was impressive even to David, and this was his third visit to the Spindle.

  Soprano had never been here before, and the Mage stopped dead as she stepped out of the elevator terminal and into the neatly arranged rows of trees that shaded the exit from the carefully controlled brightness radiating from the core pillar at the center of the cylinder.

  “Damn,” she murmured.

  “There are other places like the Spindle,” David agreed, “But none that managed the concept quite so well. It’s like a chunk of Old Earth in space, except you can look up and see Germany.”

  His Ship’s Mage chuckled.

  “I didn’t think there were any fully ecosystemed O’Neill cylinders outside Sol, let alone the Core Worlds. I knew Corinthian had a cylinder, but…”

  “You figured it was something like Junkertown, where someone had started and never finished?” David asked. “There’s a few of those. But…Corinthian takes a lot of pride in this place, though they don’t mention the real reason for it.”

  “What’s that?” Soprano asked carefully.

  David pointed “Yard-wards” as they exited the park around the elevators. Halfway along the length of the artificial ecosystem the Corinthians maintained, a massive black iron fortress rose out of the surface. Its harsh exterior was softened by trees planted on its terraced exterior, but even from here you could tell that it was a fortress against the world.

  “The Citadel. It’s the center of the Mage Guilds in Corinthian—and the Mage Guilds underwrote most of the cost of building the Spindle. The system had some major problems with anti-Mage sentiment, including some ugly riots and bombings just as the Spindle was being started.”

  Soprano shivered.

  “Right.” She shook her head. “How do we get to this Carmichael?”

  “We walk over to the Length-way over there,” David gestured, “and grab a taxi. The station’s pretty well set up.”

  The discreet three-story office building tucked into the outskirts of one of the Spindle’s small towns was much busier this time than the last time David had visited. A bakery-style café had moved in on the main floor, and the beginning of the lunchtime rush was already filling its tables.

  Their directions took them to the second floor, where a young lady in a dark green dress greeted them in front of a stylized logo of a jeweled spider. It was a different woman from the one who’d answered the call the previous day, but she was cut from much the same distractingly attractive, probably dangerously smart cloth.

  “Captain Rice, Mage Soprano,” she greeted them cheerfully. “A pleasure to meet you both. May I show you to your meeting room?”

  “Of course,” David told her.

  The moment the woman stood up and moved, he realized he’d still dramatically underestimated her. The only people he’d seen move with that kind of liquid grace had been the genetically augmented assassins employed by Turquoise of the Silent Ocean syndicate.

  He had a Mage beside him, so the odds were probably in his favor if Carmichael’s new bodyguard decided he was a threat, but it wasn’t a chance he wanted to take!

  She led the way up to the top floor and a familiar office looking out over the Spindle’s artificial world. The room was still paneled in imported Sherwood oak, and any filing cabinets or storage space was concealed behind the panels. A single desk of the expensive hardwood filled the center of the room, and several overstuffed chairs, also framed in oak, were scattered comfortably around the room.

  In person, it was easier to see the silver that had begun to sneak its way into Carmichael’s hair. The information broker was closing the blinds as they came in, hidden panels in the roof adjusting their glow to keep the light constant.

  “Thank you, Lisa,” he told the bodyguard. “You shouldn’t need to remain. Captain Rice is no threat.”

  “Of course, Travis,” the woman replied. “Your next appointment is lunch at twelve thirty. We’ll need to get moving at about twelve fifteen to be there on time.”

  “Thank you, Lisa,” Carmichael repeated with a smile. The young woman bowed herself out, closing the door behind her.

  David was watching for it and felt th
e Faraday cage built into the room activate as the door closed.

  “Still sweeping the building for bugs every day?” he asked.

  “Of course,” the broker confirmed. “Even if I was willing to let that up, Lisa and her sister wouldn’t.” He smiled. “They were apparently intended to be sold at a slave auction when I came across the information on their shipment.

  “Programmed for obedience to their designated client.” He shook his head. “There are lines in this galaxy, Captain Rice, that even those of us who often work in the shadows should not cross.”

  “You rescued them?” David asked carefully.

  Carmichael chuckled.

  “In a manner of speaking. I arranged for the transport carrying them and two hundred other slaves to be raided by security, handed the man who organized the shipment over to the Marine garrison, and watched his successor flail his way into an open firefight with a Navy landing team.

  “Lisa and Maria tracked down the source of the information that freed them and volunteered their services. They are extraordinarily capable employees who do not let me pay them nearly enough.”

  He tapped a hidden control on his desk, and a two-way screen rose out of the wooden surface.

  “Now, you didn’t come here to talk about my new hires. You had details on the cargo that you wanted me to help find buyers for?”

  “I do,” David confirmed, pulling a datachip from inside his blazer and sliding it over. “There are about thirty-seven different lots with about ninety different variations of source material, target refined product and state of refinement. With this kind of spec cargo, a broad variety is useful to find who in Corinthian will be interested in buying it.”

  “That’s correct,” Carmichael agreed, sliding open a concealed panel to reveal a reader he dropped the chip onto. “From what I know of Sandoval’s products, I’m quite certain we can find buyers for everything, but I don’t know in what quantities or at what prices yet. It may well prove that only certain products are profitable enough to be worthwhile—and those may not be desired in sufficient quantity to be worth shipping.”