Putting Up Roots

by Charles Sheffield

  The other three stared at Sig. He shrugged, but his face gave nothing away.

  "All right," Sapphire said at last, and the others nodded.

  "But I have a question before we go in," Topaz said. "Was the drink that he was going to give us poisoned?"

  "It was."

  "Then why do you need to question Brewster? I don't see him confessing to anything. And you've got enough evidence already, haven't you?"

  Winnie nodded. "More than enough, if all we needed to do was prove that Brewster was guilty of attempted murder, and maybe of actual murder—though that will be harder to prove. But I want more. I want to use him to snare Unimine."

  "How?" Topaz asked. "I thought you said they're really cunning types, who'll vanish at the first sign of trouble. I can't see them trying to save Brewster."

  "They won't. Not in a million years."

  "So how can you use him to catch them?"

  "You'll see in just a few minutes." Winnie glanced at her watch. "All right, he's been awake and alone in there for over half an hour. He's had time to think about things. Let's go."

  Josh couldn't speak for the others, but his stomach was tight with tension as they went inside. Sol Brewster might not scare Winnie Carlson, but he still scared Josh.

  The man was sitting in the biggest chair in the room. Broad gray restraining straps held him at forearms, wrists, waist, ankles, and knees. It was difficult to read his facial expression, because his mouth, chin, and cheeks were daubed with an orange ointment. He gave the trainees one glance of loathing, then looked away.

  "Are you ready to cooperate yet?" Winnie asked. "I've told you what I want. You didn't set all this up by yourself. Unimine is in it, too. I need the details of that. And I'd like some practical help, too."

  Brewster said nothing. He did not even look at her.

  "You know, you ought to be a bit more appreciative," she went on. "I didn't have to wipe those spices off your face, and wash them out of your mouth. I could have let you sit there all night, and this morning you wouldn't have been able to speak even if you wanted to."

  That persuaded him to look at her—not in appreciation, but with a glare of hatred and anger. Josh noticed something odd. Brewster seemed to have shrunk since the previous day; and Winnie seemed to have grown. She had become the dominant one, clearly in charge.

  "You probably think you know exactly where you stand," Winnie said. "I told you who I am, and why I am on Solferino. I had to. My job requires that as a representative of SDSI state my true identity when making an arrest. And I'm sure you know all your rights. I've accused you of certain things, including multiple murder, but you don't have to defend yourself to me. In fact, you don't have to say one word, until we're back Sol-side and you have your own legal counsel. You probably figure that you're better off sitting tight. We can accuse you of all sorts of things, you feel, but we can't prove them."

  Brewster did not smile, but his head nodded a fraction of an inch and he gave her a sneer of contempt.

  "And if I were the only person on Solferino," Winnie went on, "you'd be quite right in all your assumptions. But I'm not. The trainees are here, too." She pointed at Josh and the other three, standing in a silent row facing Brewster. "They are underage, all of them. It would be quite irresponsible for me to leave them alone on Solferino, while I was taking you back through the node to a Sol-side arraignment and trial. So I have a problem, don't I? I have to be in two places at once. I asked these four—the oldest of the trainees, as you know—if they had any suggestions as to how to solve my problem."

  For the first time, Brewster seemed puzzled and faintly alarmed.

  "Nothing bad, of course," said Winnie. "I have explained to them that although you are legally a prisoner, you cannot be mistreated in any way. Even if they felt that you deserved to have the shit kicked out of you—which they do—I cannot allow it."

  "Damn right." Brewster relaxed again. "I know my rights."

  "I'm sure you do. Very well." Winnie turned to Sig. "Why don't you ask Mr. Brewster your question?"

  Sig walked to stand directly in front of Brewster. "Agent Carlson insists that you made a deal with the Unimine conglomerate, to get rid of us and leave them free to take over Solferino and obtain mineral development rights here. Is that true?"

  Brewster shook his head. "It's total bullshit. She doesn't know what she's talking about. I work for Foodlines, and only FoodLines. I have no deal with Unimine, and I never had one." He gave Winnie Carlson a confident glare. "Try to prove anything different, and you'll make a fool of yourself."

  "I hear you," said Winnie. "All right, Sig. Now make your suggestion."

  "Even if you are innocent of every charge, Mr. Brewster, according to Agent Carlson you must return at once through the node network to Earth, where you will be formally tried. However, it is not necessary that Agent Carlson accompany you. She must reach Earth in time for your trial, but she does not have to leave here at once. We trainees would like Agent Carlson to remain with us, until someone else can be sent out to continue our training. So the question becomes, who could accompany you to Earth, and be responsible for your safekeeping? We suggest that the job be given to Unimine. They are already present in the Grisel system, working on Cauldron. If we send them a message, they can pick you up from here and have their next ship take you to Earth. Please think about this possibility. If you agree, Agent Carlson will make the request of them at once."

  Brewster thought—but not for long. He lowered his head to his chest, then a second later raised it to glare at Winnie. "Damn you, Carlson. This wasn't their idea—it's yours."

  "I will deny any such suggestion, Mr. Brewster. It sounds like an excellent idea, although as I say it had not occurred to me. Unless you have something more to tell me, I will go now. I will use our crippled message equipment to send a request for assistance to the Unimine work force on Cauldron."

  "You can't do that!" Brewster fought against the straps, his face turning red with effort. After a few seconds of useless struggle, he slumped back in the chair.

  "All right, Carlson." He croaked the words like an old man. "You win, damn you. I'll talk."

  "And will you cooperate, in any way that I request?"

  "I'll cooperate. Just get me a drink of water." He raised himself a little in the chair. "And get rid of those damned—those—"

  " 'Trainees' is the word you are looking for." Winnie nodded to Josh and the others. "All right, you can go. You do not need to be here for this. In fact, it is better if you are not."

  They trooped out, into a Solferino morning so bright that they all had to shield their eyes. Grisel, high in the sky, seemed almost golden.

  "What was going on in there?" Topaz turned to Sig. "All right, admit it. You knew what was happening, didn't you?"

  "I didn't. But I do now." Sig led the way toward the camp kitchen. Josh suddenly realized that he was starving, after a makeshift dinner last night and nothing this morning. They walked together into the empty kitchen, and Topaz began to pull out the makings of a quick meal.

  "I've decided something," Sig went on, as they sat down. "I'm never, ever, going to do anything to get on the wrong side of Winnie Carlson. She's worse than sneaky. When she told me what she wanted me to say, I had no idea why."

  "It's because of what Winnie Carlson can do," said Sapphire. "But mostly what she can't do. Am I right, Sig?"

  "You've got it. Winnie can accuse Brewster, and arrest him, and even ask him to cooperate with her. But she can't force him, or hurt him. She certainly can't kill him. But she can trap him, and she did. Once he said that he didn't have any deal with Unimine, and never had, Winnie had every legal right to say that she could then trust Unimine to be responsible for transporting Brewster back to Earth for trial. But in fact she knew, and he knew, that there was a deal, and it had involved murder. The only person who might talk about that deal, other than the Uniminers who were involved in it, was Brewster. The Unimine people are not bound by SDSI rules. They c
an kill people. They have done it on Solferino, and they'd do it again to protect themselves. Put Brewster into Unimine hands, and he would never live to be charged on Earth. There would be an unfortunate 'accident,' somewhere between here and the node, that killed him.

  "Brewster is a swine, and a murderer, but he's not an idiot. Winnie was telling him, plain as day, that if he wanted to live to see his next birthday, he'd better tell her anything she wanted to know." Sig glanced back toward the building where they had left Sol Brewster and Winnie Carlson. "I wish I was a fly on the wall over there. I'd like to know what's being said."

  "No." Sapphire took his hand in hers. "That's the way you feel at the moment, Sig. But if you think about it a bit more, you'll decide that you don't really want to know."

  Chapter Twenty

  SIG had warned them—never get on the wrong side of Winnie Carlson. Less than twelve hours later, Josh did. He felt like he was leading a mutiny. "I know we have to return to the compound." He was standing by the aircar steps. "And I told Dawn to get on board. She won't."

  "She refuses?" Winnie said.

  "That's the wrong word for it. She takes no notice of me, or of Topaz. She just sits there, holding Gussie's paw and staring at the fissure. And I won't leave without her."

  "Does Topaz know what the problem is?" Winnie, like Josh, had come to accept that Topaz was the best hope for dealing with Dawn, just as Dawn was the best—maybe the only—way to communicate with the rupert.

  "Sure," Josh said. "It's all because of Gussie. She won't go near the aircar, and Dawn won't leave her."

  "Do you realize that at some point we may have to take Gussie, or some other rupert, back to Earth to prove how smart they are? Oh, never mind. That's a problem for the future. Let me think." Winnie was sitting on the aircar steps. The camp had been dismantled and was already loaded in the cargo hold. Everyone except Dawn, Josh, Gussie, and Winnie was already aboard. Sol Brewster, sitting in the rear, had his hands and feet taped, but Josh didn't think it was necessary. Since yesterday, Brewster had had a dead, defeated look to him, as though he had already been tried and sent to prison. Whatever Winnie Carlson had said to him in private had certainly worked.

  "Looked at from one point of view," Winnie went on, "I'd rather you all stayed in the camp until Unimine has been taken care of. You'd be safer here than back at the compound." She sat with her chin on her hands, more debating with herself than talking to Josh. "On the other hand, I'll really need some help. But I won't need everybody with me." She looked up at Josh, who moved back to make the point again that he was not about to enter the air-car. "Do you really have to stay with Dawn, yourself? Or would you trust someone else to be here with her?"

  "Who?"

  "Sig, and Topaz. No, better still, let's say that everyone stays here, except you, me, Brewster, and Sapphire. And we'd be back in a day."

  It seemed an odd grouping of people, but Josh had a suspicion as to how Winnie was thinking. He decided to say something—he had mutinied, he might as well go all the way.

  "I don't think that's a good choice. Sig's bigger and stronger than Saph. If there's any sort of trouble he'd be better. It would make more sense to take Sig and me with you, and leave Saph in charge here. But you don't trust her, do you? Not after what happened at the other camp, with Ruby."

  "Maybe not."

  "She's been fine ever since."

  "I know. You've all helped her." Winnie stood up. "But I can't risk it. Trust isn't something that's given, it's something that's earned. For the moment I want Saph with me, where I can keep a close eye on her. And Sig will stay in charge here. All right?"

  Josh nodded—reluctantly. He knew that Sapphire would understand the reason for Carlson's decision, and be unhappy with it.

  He was right. She avoided his eye as the others piled out of the cargo aircar. Winnie and Josh ascended the steps. When the car rose into the calm morning air Sapphire stared out of the window at the group waving good-bye. Her profile could have served as the model for one of his mother's standard acting expressions: remorse and misery.

  As the car carried them east, Winnie gave both Saph and Josh something else to think about. She came and sat between them, allowing the car to pilot itself.

  "I want to go over what will happen when we arrive," she said, "and I want to do it in detail. Move by move, second by second, so there's no possible doubt about what each of us will do. Brewster already sent the signal we wanted. He had a small transmitter hidden away, and he told the crew of the Unimine ship that everything went according to plan, the trainees were disposed of, and it was safe for a Unimine lander to come down to the main compound. What's wrong, Josh?" She had seen him frown.

  "Suppose there was a code in the signal, telling people on the ship that something had gone wrong? Then they might not arrive at all—or they might show up ready to shoot."

  Winnie Carlson did not seem to take his worries seriously. "Brewster is cracked and broken," she said, "but he's still smart enough to evaluate comparative risks. If he helps us, he knows he'll live, even if it's only in jail. But if he crosses us, and things go wrong, I've assured him that I'll tell the Unimine group he was in this from the beginning and part of our plan to capture them."

  "But that's not true!"

  "Of course it's not. That isn't the point. If the Unimine group had the slightest suspicion that Brewster worked against them, that would be the end of him. 'Innocent until proven guilty' isn't the operating philosophy of the conglomerates. 'Anyone who isn't a friend is an enemy' is more their line."

  Sapphire hadn't said one word, but Josh was pleased to see that she was listening closely. "What do you want us to do?" she said. "So far you haven't mentioned why we're here."

  "I'll get to that. Yesterday the two of you were just witnesses. This time, you have a more active role—only don't overdo it. I want you to stay hidden in this aircar until I give you a signal. Then I want you to stand up, so that your heads are visible through the car windows. That's all. Don't move around after that. Don't come out until I tell you. All right?"

  They nodded, and Winnie went on, "Then here's the sequence of events. We land. Brewster and I get out. You stay here, heads down—out of sight of anyone on the ground. Brewster and I go to the compound communications center. And we all wait. You may find that's the hardest part. Don't worry, it will be for me, too. We wait, until the Unimine ship lands and the crew comes out. According to Brewster, there should be two of them.

  "At that point, Brewster will come out of the building and wave to the ship. He won't go over to it, though; he will beckon them to come to the building. I'll be at an observing position in the next building over, out of sight. When Brewster beckons them I'll let you know. Then you can take a peek. As they approach him, I will leave my observer position and step out of my building. I will tell the Unimine lander crew that I am SDSI, that they are on the scene of a crime, and I am arresting them for questioning. I'll tell them to keep their hands away from their bodies and hold them high in the air. You'll hear all this, because I'll pipe their conversation and my comments through to this car's audio system. Then I'm going to point to this aircar and add, 'Don't get any ideas about resisting. We have you covered.' I don't want you to wait for that, though, before you move. When you hear the words, 'under arrest for questioning,' you stand up so they can see your heads. I want them to know you're there as soon as they turn to look your way."

  "Suppose they don't believe we have weapons?" asked Sapphire.

  "Because we don't, "Josh added.

  "Then we would all be in trouble." Winnie was reassuringly casual and certain. "But actually, we will be all right. You have to understand the way their minds operate. They would have weapons if they had the drop on us, so it will be beyond their belief that we might act differently. They won't fight back, because they don't know how much firepower we have. In a similar situation, they'd bring enough to vaporize us, and our ship, too.

  "Once they have their hands raised,
I'll disarm them. I assume they'll be carrying weapons from habit, even if they never expected to need them. While I'm doing that, don't under any circumstances come outside. I don't want them to know that the 'SDSI agents' on this aircar are two kids. Once I have their weapons, I'll tie them up the way Brewster was tied last night. It will all be over except for the questioning and the trial. Clear to you? Can you think of anything I've missed?"

  Sapphire shook her head, but Josh said, "It sounds great. But suppose things don't go the way you say they will?"

  "Good." Winnie nodded approvingly. "You're thinking the right way. You must always allow for surprises. It's impossible to allow for them really, because if you can they're not surprises. Here's what we will do, just in case. I will leave this aircar on full emergency standby. You, Sapphire, will sit at the controls. If anything looks, sounds, or feels wrong, you don't wait around to discuss it with me. You hit full power, and you head off in any direction you like. Be ready for a big starting kick if you have to do that. You'll accelerate out of here like a streak, three Gs plus."