The Ultra Thin Man

by Patrick Swenson

  The passenger lounge overlooked the launch pad, and as I gazed out the giant observation windows, the ground crew scurried about like tiny insects, insignificant. I saw my own reflection in the glass, as tenuous as the mirror images of the other passengers staring out the windows with me.

  Out of work and on the run in a really big galaxy. Where was that Temonus whiskey when I needed it?

  Six

  Sitting in the restaurant at the Orion, eating breakfast and wondering about his next move, Brindos watched his waiter hustle over to his table, then drop a lasergram into his palm.

  “Mr. Roberts,” the waiter said. “Just came in, sir.”

  Brindos acknowledged him with a nod, and when the man hustled away, he thumbed the DNA lock on the top of the lasergram’s thin resin and waited for the message to light up. Simple e-ink, flashpaper certainly too expensive for ’grams. It always annoyed him having to wait those seconds for the words to appear. He read it through, and it was not what he had hoped for. He needed solid information from Crowell to guide him through this mess, not chatty bullshit about how he and his roommate had stormed on the Temonus blue booze.

  Then it hit him like a fistful of stupid. Dave Crowell didn’t have a roommate, always the loner, never hitched, always making excuses, worrying about his mom, berating himself for not making things happen with Cara.

  And the lasergram, while it came from New York, didn’t have his name on it anywhere. It was in fact part of an emergency plan they’d concocted for troubled times should they ever come.

  Brindos hit the encrypt node on his code card, flexed the membrane until the PROCEED prompt glimmered red above the node. He wrapped the code card around the lasergram resin and waited for the message to transfer. Crowell had designed a simple cipher with his code card, transferred it to the ’gram, and sent it to Brindos to decipher on his end. The idea being they couldn’t carry around some obscure personal decoding program in their code cards for years without attracting suspicion. The design program itself was a crossword puzzle kit readily available in any software store, although Crowell had found a version of it on the DataNet, and stored it there in the ether where he could load in updates and tinker with its programming as needed. With a few simple modifications, he had himself a cipher builder. The sender wrote two messages, one for the across words, one for the down words, and the program designed a puzzle. Easy to code, but impossible to decode without the program on the other end.

  Brindos set to work on it amid the impatient stares of his waiter. The message was long, so it took half an hour before he had it decoded.

  Brindos read about Gray, the ultra thin level, the Plenko aliases, the Science Consortium, Temonus, and the NIO traces on them that screamed setup.

  The last bit of the message read: My code card is being monitored from home, but I’ll be safe once on our favorite backwater planet. I’ll contact you again with a Hancock when I’ve arrived. Find out everything you can about the Conduit and Plenko. Gray said you were in danger, so be careful. The assistant director knows you’re there. Do not acknowledge this message.

  Hancock. Crowell would contact him with one of his alternate identities.

  Brindos sighed, leaned back in his chair, and rubbed his eyes. Betrayed from above. This was not going to be pretty. He would have to keep his eyes open, try and sniff out NIO undercover agents, Terl Plenko and Movement sympathizers, and work even longer in the field. He’d never see his NIO desk again.

  He supposed everything made a lot more sense, the Movement and the NIO, maybe even the Union, involved in something bigger than imagined. A carrier like the Exeter should have been more than adequate to clip the Conduit, but no one had anticipated the wire’s durability. Those involved hadn’t toured the destruction along the drag path like he had. Or maybe they didn’t care if hundreds of innocents died. They didn’t weep for Coral and Ribon either. His stomach churned, remembering the horrors visited upon Ribon. The very agency he’d spent three years working for might have had a hand in it all.

  Crowell was going to Aryell. Brindos worried about his partner going to see Cara now, after three years. Three years of Crowell pining for her, never even telling her he was in love with her. If he’d thought either of them was the type of person to fly off the handle, Brindos would’ve alerted the vid networks and told them where they could find some juicy virtual programming.

  Because he’d finagled his way onto the press shuttle the previous day, he’d been cleared to tap his code card into Temonus’s newswire and pick up status reports. He logged in under his Dexter Roberts identity.

  Released logs from the Exeter revealed coded changes in its navigational program. When the ship entered the planet’s atmosphere it locked onto autopilot, running a curve that moved deceptively along routine reentry paths, but a last-minute course deviation sent it hurtling into the Conduit. I thought about the servo-robot flailing around in the wreckage of the Exeter, and wondered if someone had somehow programmed it to do the dirty work. The crew’s only hope of overriding the program glitch, which was well-hidden and guarded by a triple fail-safe system DNA interlock, was to go back in time and get out of the transport industry. They had less than a minute to impact when the course deviation commenced.

  Brindos wondered if Melok’s article in Cal Gaz appeared, if he made a case for sabotage. Most of the Temonus papers blamed the Movement. If the natives were getting restless, they didn’t show it. Life moved along, and he continued to be treated as a welcome visitor, which of course made him nervous as hell.

  His assignment had been to look for Plenko and Koch. That they were the same man made an impossible task only slightly more difficult. A real hole in his investigation had been a lack of a visual ID on Koch, but if he wanted a reminder, he only had to scan the local newspaper roll and read the Stickman comic, which seemed to be very popular here. The cariacature of the superhero’s nemesis bore a remarkable resemblance to the photos of Plenko in NIO files.

  Crowell had suggested some new Plenko aliases. Tom Knox. Tam Chinkno. Brindos figured, you want to catch a stray, stake out his watering hole and make some noise.

  After breakfast, he told Joseph, the Orion’s concierge, about his interest in sampling some Helk cuisine later in the day.

  He grinned. “Mr. Roberts, there’s a restaurant in the city that does the real thing.”

  “Call me Dexter. Real thing?”

  “Authentic.”

  Brindos said that if he took him there, he’d buy him dinner that night. He agreed.

  Brindos met Joseph after his shift, about seven o’clock, outside on the hotel steps. He had exchanged his concierge uniform for an old gray wool suit, freshly pressed but looking its years. No doubt a remnant of Joseph’s younger days on Earth. It hung loosely on his tall, age-thinned frame. His wispy silver hair, which Brindos had barely noticed before due to his cap, fluttered in the light breeze. He moved across the steps in a stiff, deliberate manner to greet Brindos. It occurred to him then that he’d encountered few other elderly colonists, if any.

  The restaurant, he explained, was across town in a sector Brindos had not yet explored. “Can’t quite recall the name,” he said, thinking.

  “I thought you knew everything there was to know about this town.”

  “I’m also damn old.” He pointed to his head. “Brain cells going. Anyway, it’s a place few tourists seek out, and I rarely go to that part of town myself.”

  They waited ten minutes for a ground bus. Few colonists owned personal transport vehicles, and autocabs were expensive here, a luxury used principally by tourists and the small upper class. Most rode public transit, or they walked. The bus took them across town, dropping them on the fringe of what appeared to be a ghetto district. The buildings were coarse but sturdy structures of stone and red brick. Many of the glass windows were broken or boarded over.

  Brindos hadn’t expected to visit a pre-human quarter. Helk settlements had been built decades before the establishment of the current
colony but most tourists didn’t realize that. It’s how Earth had discovered the Helks, coming across the settlements when Temonus opened up as a colony possibility.

  “The old district will be demolished and assimilated into the rest of the city plan before long,” Joseph said.

  “Do many live here now?” Brindos asked.

  “A few. Not many. The restaurant, though. Whatever it’s called, it’s there because it always has been. The only restaurant in the district. Obviously, it has a good reputation, or it wouldn’t be there.”

  The gray, cracked streets were empty but for them and an occasional soul who might appear a block off, then disappear, slinking down some side street. The streetlights, which came on in the early dusk, reminded Brindos of the old electric streetlights on Earth, complete with a flickering hum and harsh, unnatural light. The night’s wary patrons dodged the sporadic spotlit circles like cockroaches.

  A small wooden sign nailed above the front door of a dirty brick building had a single Helk word stamped on it, which Brindos couldn’t read.

  “Damn, that’s it, of course!” Joseph exclaimed. “It’s just called the Restaurant.”

  Joseph assured him it looked a lot better inside.

  And indeed it did. The setting was formal and elegant. A plush, crimson carpet swept across the room, a vast red tide within a sea of laced white dining tables. The room floated in the aura of candlelight and boisterous dinnertime conversation.

  Brindos turned to Joseph. “We should’ve made reservations.”

  “Who would’ve thought a Hulk joint would be in such demand, eh?” he said, grinning.

  All the employees Brindos saw were Helks. The large white-jacketed waiters danced around the tables, which looked like little doll settings. In fact, it struck him as odd that only a few Helk diners hunkered down to the small plates, tiny chairs creaking. Wouldn’t they have Helk-sized chairs, plates, and silverware in a Helk restaurant? He started to ask Joseph, but the maître d’ saw them then and, with a perfunctory smile, motioned for them to come with him.

  They walked behind the Helk, smaller than most, probably Third Clan. Brindos caught glimpses of the other diners as he peered around his back. They were finally seated at a table near the back of the room, and within moments a waiter appeared, a Second Clan Helk.

  “Good evening. My name’s Jordan. Would you like to hear the specials?”

  “Jordan, where are all the Helkunn diners?” Brindos asked, ignoring the specials.

  “Sir?”

  “Surely actual Helks would be a confirmation of the fare’s authenticity. Joe here recommended the place. Frankly, I’m beginning to have my doubts.”

  From the corner of his eye, Brindos noticed Joseph, slack-jawed. The waiter took it all pretty well. He stared at Brindos for a long time.

  “The truth is,” the waiter said, “that the food you will receive, though excellent, has been altered slightly to fit the more delicate digestive systems of most of the restaurant’s patrons. The real thing you would find painfully indigestible, and perhaps a trifle strong in flavor.”

  “What about the few Helks dining in here now?”

  “They’re entertaining non-Helk guests,” he said, forcing a polite smile. “Many Helks frequent an adjacent room on the other side of the building that serves true Helk cuisine.”

  Satisfied for now, Brindos checked the menu and, on a recommendation from Joseph, placed his order for gabobilecks, a spicy meat sausage. Joseph ordered the same, plus a bottle of Helk white wine.

  When the waiter had gone, Joseph leaned across the table and said, “I recommended the place, and you’re complaining before even eating?”

  “Sorry.”

  Luckily, the waiter came by a moment later, saving Brindos the trouble of trying to say something concilatory. The waiter opened the wine and poured a small amount in his glass. He tasted it and nodded. An excellent bouquet of crushed apples and hazelnuts.

  Okay, maybe he had been hasty.

  The rest of the meal was, as Joseph had promised, excellent, a quality reflected in the final bill, which Brindos paid happily, with a hearty tip for the service. He excused himself, leaving Joseph to finish his wine.

  An analog clock the shape of a gabobileck said it was 11:00. Getting late.

  The restrooms were in a dimly lit hallway. Thinking he might get a glimpse of the authentic portion of the restaurant, Brindos walked past the men’s room door, down the hall, and around a corner. Ahead on his right, light spilled out of a bright room, along with the sounds of a kitchen. He walked quickly past, moving toward a large, crude wooden door he thought must be the entrance to the authentic portion of the Restaurant.

  Curiosity got the best of him. He had his hand on the push-worn brass doorplate leading to the other half of the Restaurant, the door gently swinging inward, a warm draft of animal-scented air escaping past him, when the door slammed back into him, knocking him to the ground. He looked up to see Jordan, his waiter, in the doorway; Brindos apologized for getting in the way and started to get to his feet. Jordan must have been going off shift because he’d taken off his white jacket.

  The big fellow leaned down to help, but he didn’t look too pleased. He picked Brindos up with one hand around his throat, as if he were a sack of kitchen garbage, and carried him down the hallway.

  “Fucking let go of me,” Brindos wheezed, and he struggled, his hands over the waiter’s. Brindos tried to pry them from around his neck, but no luck. Jordan’s grip tightened, and he couldn’t breathe.

  They crashed through the exit door into the back alley. Jordan threw Brindos ten feet across the garbage-slick cobblestones and he crashed into the redbrick wall of the opposite building. He landed hard on the stone ground, consciousness dancing hazily in and out. His back throbbed. The alley looked pretty closed in, and the distance between him and the yellow exit door of the Restaurant kept him from even thinking about getting up.

  “Jordan, what the hell?” Brindos said, massaging his throat.

  “My name’s not Jordan,” the waiter said casually, as though he had just helped Brindos to his chair, “it’s Tom Knox, and I’m glad to let you know it.” He spoke with a calm Brindos found rather menacing.

  “Tom Knox?” Brindos whispered. He arched his back, waves of pain running up and down his spine.

  It wasn’t possible.

  He couldn’t have planned the timing of this encounter better himself, at this restaurant, with this Helk conveniently placed in his path. How could this be Tom Knox? Or, more accurately, since Knox was an alias, how could this be Terl Plenko? Plenko was First Clan and this Helk didn’t look anything like Terl Plenko.

  Brindos couldn’t maintain consciousness, and he succumbed to darkness.

  Seven

  After queuing through Heron Station in orbit around Aryell, I boarded the drop shuttle through the umbilical and eventually found myself at the planet’s only spaceport. A light snow had fallen on abandoned ships, almost a cleansing, a futile effort to hide the dirt and gritty corrosion. I left the drop shuttle with fifty other passengers, towing my carry-on suitcase, a hard polymer plastic shell designed to withstand just about any attempt to open it. DNA lock, of course. Most of the passengers were tourists, I figured, here to check out the red-light district—the Flaming Sea Tavern in particular—or to ski and ’board some of the best snow in the Union worlds at any number of quaint, rustic resorts that boasted uncrowded slopes, but offered very few amenities. I’d skied as a kid in Montana, but that snow, even the famed deep powder, paled in comparison to the Aryellian slopes. That’s why places like the capital city of Kimson did so well, and why tourist attractions like the Flaming Sea kept a steady business. It would be springtime on Aryell soon enough, and that meant the ski resorts would be closing down. Last chance for tourists to get to the slopes before the snow went away.

  I shivered in my light cotton clothes; I hadn’t had time to go on a major shopping spree during my run away from the NIO. Even though sprin
g was just around the corner, I could’ve used a jacket. No ground car came to the pad and I swore at the inconvenience. We all walked to the terminal, a simple brown stucco building encircled by a gated fence. The Aryellan flag of blue and white vertical stripes fluttered alongside the green pennant for the Union of Worlds.

  The man at immigration smiled when I approached, his pencil-thin moustache and slicked back hair glistening in the lights that hung low from the ceiling. He took my code card, now set to passport mode, and glanced at it. I hoped he didn’t pay too much attention to the size and shape, slightly different than the standard comm card civilians carried.

  “Mr. Neil Ryan,” he said, seeing only my alternate identity. “It says this is your first visit to Aryell?”

  “That’s right.” It was my first visit as Neil Ryan, anyway.

  He smiled again as he handed the code card back, then said, “All seems to be in order. I hope you enjoy your visit.”

  “Thank you. Can I get tranportation to Kimson City?”

  “Oh, most certainly, sir. Ground buses come from the hotels to meet incoming flights. One should be here any minute to take you into Kimson. You can make connections from there to any of the ski resorts or local attractions. Do you have luggage to claim?”

  “No,” I said. I gripped my carry-on tighter.

  “Very good,” he said, logging me into his system. He smiled once more, then said to the man behind me, “Next?”

  I found a seat in the corner of the waiting area. Actual smart posters, a rarity here, of the eight Union worlds adorned the stucco walls. They were always in motion, animated nature scenes or pictures of famous landmarks moving across the surface of each. The planet names were emblazoned permanently in ribbons of color diagonally across the left bottom corner of each poster. Along the top borders, bold black letters proclaimed TWT’s universal slogan in alternating text blocks.