by Eric Flint
“Nothing at all,” admitted Pausert. “I can’t say it looks a great place to settle, so there must be something here that’s worth a fair bit of money. It’d be a mining world, I suppose.”
“If anything was going to convince me of your innocence, that answer just did,” said the policeman. “Actually, we make our money out of flowers…you might say.” And they both laughed.
“Perfume?” asked Pausert.
“No, Captain. They just look like flowers, and it’s not the flowers themselves, but their droppings. You’ve got a little bit of it here on your ship. We produce the catalyst for your air recycler. It’s a natural organofluorate, something between what a plant and an animal produces, that drops a trail of little greenish granules as a waste product. The gatherers follow after them and collect them. The flowers roll with the wind, or can actually creep along. Out here their droppings break down in a few days, but away from the atmosphere of Cinderby’s World, it is stable. It’s worth many times its weight in gold, and that’s what Stratel was couriering to a manufacturer. He’s one of the major associates in the company that ships the stuff for the gatherers. Stratel, Bormgo, Wenerside and Ratneurt. They used to be competitors, but they got together a few years ago, and have a monopoly on the export.” The chief inspector grimaced. “Smuggling is a big issue, because the companies who own the concessions to harvest it, pay the gatherers as little as they can get away with. So, that is principally my job.”
“I see. But what has this got to do with me? Or your reaction to the lifecraft?” asked Pausert.
“On board that lifecraft was another powerful and wealthy man. Also a Councilor. Councilor Bormgo,” explained the policewoman.
“The lucky escape he had from space-pirates was all over the newscasts this morning,” said the other representative of the police, pulling a wry face. “He was transporting a valuable cargo—a packet of catalyst. The fluoroflower granules he had remain the property of the concession holders until sold. So they’re very glad.”
“Ah. But they’re actually Stratel’s granules?” asked the captain.
The policeman nodded. “Or rather, the concession holders who had entrusted Stratel. He’s in big trouble with them, and was trying to make you the scapegoat.”
“And this…Bormgo knew exactly when he was traveling and with what—so he could steal one load and sell the other,” said the Leewit. The captain knew her too well. That was almost admiration in her voice. The Leewit was something of a rogue at times. Well. At most times.
“Yes, I suspect that would be what they were up to, but proving it might be more difficult,” said the chief inspector, running her hand through her hair. “I tell you, Captain Edom, you’ve brought us a right Imperial mess. And, yes, I can see that you were just doing your best. Not that the prisoners might not have been better off to die in space than be here!”
“To give in to death without a fight is almost always the weakling’s choice,” said Ta’zara. “Here they have a choice, I think?”
“A choice between being a gatherer, or not breathing. It’s hard to get a free man to do this kind of work,” said the senior detective grimly. “But unless they’re wealthy people with access to funds, they haven’t got a lot of choices here. It’s a company town, in a manner of speaking. There’s us, the Port Control people and Judge Amorant—we’ve been seconded here by the sector governor of the Duchy of Camberwell—and that’s about it. All the rest are tied up in the granule business. They charge for everything, even the air the poor devils breathe.”
“Ouch. I still think most of them would choose breathing over not breathing. Anyway, now that we’ve solved your mystery, can we leave?” asked the captain. “I think you can see that neither the piracy nor the theft charges stand up.”
The two policemen looked at each other. The chief inspector grimaced and shook her head. “It’s a legal process, Captain Edom. Stratel hasn’t gotten a case, but he’s brought one against you. It will have to go to court for the judge to dismiss. One thing at least, Judge Amorant is strict and fair. Between you and us and your ship’s hull, he and my force were sent here to try and clean the place up a bit. The spaceport staff petitioned the governor to do something about the situation, and Viscount Camberwell, well, he’s a reformer.”
“Cinderby’s World Spaceport is an obvious pirate-raid target,” the senior detective said. “It’s hardened against spaceguns, and has endless airlocks. You’re a danger to a small part of the spaceport, not the settlement itself. You might as well deflect your guns.”
“They make us feel a bit more comfortable,” said Pausert, shaking his head. “So what happens now, Chief Inspector?”
“I’m supposed to charge you, take you to the cells, search you and your spaceship, and then have you in front of Judge Amorant for a bail hearing,” she answered apologetically but firmly.
“I see. Of course, the tubes are warm, the airlocks are closed, and we could just take off right now,” said Pausert, equally firm.
“Believe me, Captain. I did think of that. That’s why we came aboard, to show our good intentions. Otherwise I could have insisted you come out or be fired on. Look, I’ve been in policing long enough to realize a pirate is not going to discharge, free and yelling blue murder, a valuable man for ransom, let alone a cargo of people he could sell for slaves. We…well, we thought this was a trick to smuggle pirates into the port. So we mobilized our defense unit. And then they turned out to be rather battered, unarmed people—and a prominent citizen of Cinderby’s World, accusing you of piracy and theft. I realized we were dealing with a genuine rescue. Those people could have been unloaded as slaves here for five hundred maels a piece. I know you’re not guilty, that you put your ship and selves at risk to help. But the law is the law. And that is what I do. I uphold the law.”
“You’re not going to put a little girl in jail, are you?” asked the Leewit, doing her best to look like a little girl, sweet and harmless…in a way that would have frightened Pausert into blocking his ears. But then, he knew her. And could guess what she was up to. “I am scared of jails,” she said innocently.
“Er.” The chief inspector plainly didn’t have children.
“I’ll tell you what,” said Pausert, stepping into the breach the Leewit had created. “You leave your senior detective here with my niece. I’ll go along with you. You’re not planning on charging her, are you? And your senior detective can search the ship, under her guidance.” He turned to the Leewit. “If I’m not home in time for supper, you can whistle up something, uh, from the robobutler, and have something nice to eat. Have an Egger or something.” Pausert hoped he didn’t have to use the Egger Route back to the Venture 7333. He wasn’t that confident of doing it on his own.
“That seems reasonable. I think the judge would be fine with that. I mean it’s not like she could fly off on her own. Or do anyone any harm,” said the chief inspector.
Captain Pausert did manage to keep a straight face as he agreed with her. The Leewit had quite a convincing coughing fit.
If the two planetary police officers were not fooled, they were better at hiding it than either Pausert or the Leewit. “We’d have to take the adult members of the crew,” said the chief inspector.
“I cannot leave my mistress unguarded,” said Ta’zara, folding his arms with a calm finality.
“Yes, you can,” said the Leewit, equally firmly. “I order you to.”
He shook his head.
“Me being safe depends on the captain being here to fly the ship, Ta’zara. So don’t be a clumping dope. I’ll whistle if need help.”
“I’d have to lock the nova guns on their target. They’re touchy, and old. Anything disturbing the ship might well set them off,” said Pausert. “So I am afraid you’d be stuck inside it, senior detective, until we come back. If you tried anything…well, you’d still be here.”
“I’m due some time off,” said the officer, managing a smile. “Happy to spend some of it here.”
&n
bsp; Pausert managed not to smile back. But Ta’zara stepped forward. “I am her sworn defender. Her La’gaiff. Do you understand what that means, policeman?”
The policeman nodded. He could scarcely be unaware of the Na’kalauf tattoos on Ta’zara’s broad face, or have been a police officer without knowing. “She’ll be as safe as if you were watching her. I won’t allow anyone else on the ship,” he said, nodding, slightly wide-eyed.
“You won’t be able to. Because we’re not going to give you access codes, and that means you’re stuck here,” said Pausert, “until we come back. Now, I’m wasting fuel on my tubes and they’ll overheat, so if you’ll excuse me, I’ll go and shut down the warmup cycle, before we go.”
So he did that, and a little later, he, Ta’zara, and Vezzarn set out with the chief inspector for the spaceport. They were ushered through customs—and past an obvious barricade set up to allow the soldiers, now packing their gear, to fire from behind. There were two little groundcars with drivers waiting, and Pausert and the chief inspector got into one, and the other two into the other. “I have to ask, because asking awkward questions is my job,” said the chief inspector. “How come your niece has a Na’kalauf bodyguard, and one sworn by their highest oath to defend her?”
Fortunately, Pausert had seen this one coming. “It’s a debt of honor. Her father is quite an important man.” Both of these things were true, they just had nothing to do with each other.
“I wondered. Normally they only sell their services to the La’tienn level.”
“I don’t even know the difference,” admitted Pausert.
“La’tienn is defense, unarmed, and not in breach of the local law, for a defined period of time. The Empire doesn’t have a problem with that. La’gaiff…well, there are no limits, and the guardian’s clan will intervene or avenge, if harm comes to the one guarded, and the bodyguard is killed.”
“And do the Empire’s police have a problem with that?” asked Pausert, reading her tone. “She’s a little girl, chief inspector. Not a drug lord or a pirate captain.”
“It does make me wish to know who her father is—and why she’s on your ship. But that is my job. To notice odd things and to find out answers.”
Pausert wondered if he hadn’t been too clever himself, again. But that was part of being a Karres operative—trying to outthink your foes, and finding out that what you were really good at was outthinking yourself. Keeping his mouth shut seemed a good idea. So instead he looked out of the window and took in the wonders of Cinderby’s World’s settlement. That didn’t take long. There weren’t any. It was a typical dometown—with space at a premium and buildings occupying most of it. The buildings were prefabricated ferrocrete slabs, built to the roof. So there wasn’t a view, either. “Cheerful place,” he said, as they headed through yet another airlock.
That got a snort of laughter from his escort. “It should be. A lot of money comes into it. But the prices are high. Rents are sky high.”
The wealth wasn’t that obvious at the jail. It didn’t have rats, probably because they couldn’t afford the rent. It was rather small, and the three of them had to share one cell. There were other cells, but they were full.
“You’re pretty popular,” said Vezzarn, taking in the full cells in the corridor.
“Yes,” said the chief inspector. “It’s cheaper to get locked up than to find a bed. The gatherers come in, get paid, get drunk and commit a suitably minor offense in front of one of my police officers and get locked up for the night. You’re unpopular because your ship had most of the police force at the port-dome. Hopefully I can arrange a hearing for you soon so I can free up this cell.”
She wasn’t joking, either. A few minutes later another policeman came down the passage with a ragged scarecrow of a man, wearing many layers of tattered clothes. The policeman looked around the cells, sighed. “Look, can I put him in with you three? All the other cells are six deep by now. And you won’t be here much longer.”
Pausert could only hope so. And it did seem a little odd for prisoners to be asked. By the smell of the man, he wished he’d said no. Their new cellmate was in the final garrulous stage of having drunk or drugged himself to the edge of insensibility. “I’ve been a bold gatherer for many’s a year…” He sang tunelessly, before noticing them, and beaming aimlessly at them, and then blinking and screwing up his bleary eyes to try and focus them. “You!” He announced, definitively, and pointing a waving finger. “You ain’t gatherers. What they put me here wi’ you for?” He sounded quite disgusted about it, which, considering how he smelled, was something of an insult.
Pausert had been through enough port bars to know how to handle this, to avoid the fight. First you tried to distract them. “We just got in off a ship today.”
That was, by luck, the right thing to say. “Great Patham! You poor devils. Yer gotta get more clothes. Them breather’s won’t keep yer warm out there. You try shonky Jok’s near the east gate. He’s a thief, but they all are, and he ain’t as bad as some. Who got yer contract? Don’ tell me ’s that kranslit Ratneurt?”
“No. Stratel,” said the captain, fishing for information.
That got a snort of disdain. “He thinks he’s a kranslit too. I uster be bonded to him before he sold me bond to Ratneurt.”
Pausert was glad that the Leewit wasn’t here to translate “kranslit,” or to hear it for that matter. She collected bad words with great relish.
The gatherer went on. “Reckon they’ll put you on the north pass. That’s where he’s gotten his stash caves and they allus put the new ones there. You watch out for them porpentiles. There’s a lot around them parts.”
“What’s a porpentile?” asked the captain, and soon wished he hadn’t. Part of that was because the gatherer decided to demonstrate how porpentiles killed gatherers, which involved smothering them. Ta’zara had to haul the scrawny fellow off, before his smell killed the captain.
“I was just showin’ him,” protested the gatherer. “Let go o’ me.”
Ta’zara showed no sign of doing so—and then suddenly did, because something had poked its head out of the man’s collar and bit Ta’zara on the thumb, before vanishing again. It was so fast Pausert barely had time to see the sleek little head and fiery slit eyes. It was the prickle of klatha again, rather like letting his hands find components that might be malfunctioning, and often were. There was something useful here. Something wrong. “Let’s listen to him, Ta’zara.”
“His talk comes from a grog bottle, Captain. And something bit me,” growled Ta’zara, but he put him down.
The gatherer pulled his layers of clothing clear of his throat. “Y’didn’t have to be so rough. I was just warning you about the porpentiles at the store caves.”
There was that feeling again. But what was it from? Porpentiles? Or the store caves? Pausert couldn’t tell, and went back to fishing, leading the man on. But before they got anywhere, a sturdy policeman came and unlocked the door. “Follow me. Judge Amorant will see you now.”
* * *
The Leewit realized she was looking as cross as a cornered Tozzimi, when they left. The truth of it all was that she’d given the police inspector a break…and the captain a break, but she was actually wanting a break herself. A break from people. Being a healer was hard in ways she’d never thought about. Even buffered, she could feel their pain, and there was nothing that could stop her seeing their fear.
She really wanted a particularly tall Marachini-fruit tree, which she could disappear to the top of, and spit pips at anyone who came too close. Failing that, the Venture would have to do. She hadn’t anticipated them leaving someone behind. And now she was stuck with the clumping idiot. She considered whistling him to sleep, or at least unconscious, and grumpily decided against it. She tried her best little-girl smile instead. It wouldn’t have fooled Goth or the captain, but the policeman was a dope.
Except, he wasn’t quite such a dope when it came to searching. The Leewit followed him around, watching ever
y move. She reckoned it made him a bit uncomfortable, which was good. She also learned a whole bunch of neat new possible hiding places that she hadn’t even thought of. That was also probably good, even if it meant someone else had thought of them already. She also talked to him, getting him to answer all sorts of questions. He wasn’t a bad old dope really, and he answered what he considered quizzy little-girl questions politely. She kept asking. She figured it wore people down. He was probably telling her a lot of stuff he wouldn’t have told the captain—or anyone else.
He explained, patiently, how his wand worked. “The granules have a scent. The wand’s sensors pick that up at less than two parts per million.”
Among the things she asked was why he was so good at searching, and he said something that the Leewit figured was both serious and odd. “There’s a lot of money to be made out of smuggling the catalyst granules. The supply has dropped off a great deal, and that’s pushed the price up.”
“Why has the supply dropped off?”
“I don’t know. The duke’s advisors think it’s that the cartel—Stratel and his business partners—are holding back supply. They have a history of doing it.”
She read doubt in his tone of voice. “But you don’t think so, do you?”
“Well, we’re seeing a drop-off in the volume smuggled. That could just be that the smugglers have figured a better way.” By the way he said it, he badly wanted to believe it.
The Leewit wasn’t too sure what it all meant. But the granules were the heart of the air recyclers. And that was something everybody needed in space.
It took up so much of her thinking that she couldn’t even play poker well, later, when he finished his search. Well enough to clean out the copper’s pockets, but not well. She was a bit disgusted with herself about that.
CHAPTER 5
Captain Pausert found himself up before Judge Amorant—very briefly. The judge wasn’t much interested in keeping them in prison. Unfortunately the prosecutor was not of the same mind. “I see no reason why bail should not be granted,” said the judge, looking at the papers.
