“I invited you for ‘tea,’ to which you are certainly welcome, but I prefer coffee. What would you gentlemen prefer?”
It was coffee, of course, which was promptly and expertly served by a young lady, wearing a simple white silk blouse and a dark, knee-length skirt. She had dark skin and features that echoed those of their host, but with less severity. Her long, glossy black hair hung loose, just below her shoulder blades. A belt made of engraved gold and silver links glittered in the room’s subdued light, accentuating her narrow waist and the womanly curves that flowed from it in both directions. Exquisite knees met perfectly sculpted dancers’ calves which narrowed sublimely to shapely ankles. The woman smiled as she poured the coffee, parting her full lips to reveal teeth as white as piano keys. She was the most beautiful creature the doctor had ever seen. She looked up at him and he spent a breathless eternity, lasting for less than two seconds, gazing into the warm, liquid depths of her dark eyes before she blushed, blinked, and turned away.
When she finished pouring the coffee, she stood attentively facing the host, as if awaiting further orders. Wortham-Biggs said, gently, “Thank you, Elisa. That will be all.” The doctor and Fahad exerted a laudable effort to keep from staring at Elisa as she floated out of the room with the unconscious grace of a virtuoso ballerina at home alone. By way of explanation, “My daughter, Elisa. If I may say so, brilliant girl, splendid eye for art. She assists me.”
All three men sipped their coffee appreciatively. It was a fine, rich, dark brew, full of complex aroma and robust flavor, but without any trace of bitterness. “Your coffee is excellent. I have never tasted better,” said Sahin.
“Thank you. Coffee is one of the commodities in which I trade. What you are drinking is a blend that I compound myself for my own use and selected others—personally selected beans, purchased at totally irrational expense from four different worlds, carefully roasted at minutely controlled temperatures, then fresh ground precisely to just the right fineness for the roast. It is—no doubt—far superior to that to which you are accustomed in the Union Space Navy.” When the doctor started to speak, he waved his hand dismissively. “No need to deny it, Doctor, my business, being somewhat more sensitive than that of the gentlemen with whom you have been drinking tea the last few days, requires that I be extremely well informed at all times. And, I must admit, my connections are rather better. So, I would very much prefer that our relationship not be soiled with falsehoods, even the pro forma denials required by your patriotism and your duty as an officer.” He smiled briefly, as if to signal that he took no offense.
“Accordingly, I know that you, Doctor, are Lieutenant (Junior Grade) Ibrahim Sahin, Union Space Navy, Chief Medical Officer of the U.S.S. Cumberland, and I believe or surmise that your vessel is at this moment deeply stealthed and quietly nestled up against one of the more run of the mill icy bodies in this system’s Kuiper belt, all the better to conceal its mass signature and waste heat. I further know that you have been making some not entirely indiscrete inquiries into some business dealings that the parties involved would prefer not to be widely known. You need neither confirm nor deny the accuracy of these statements as, aside from my speculation about the location of your ship, I am quite certain of their correctness. Again, my sources are excellent.”
Something told the doctor that, in order to obtain the information he sought, he would have to be forthcoming himself, at least to some degree. “I will simply say that you are more well-informed that I expected.”
“I thank you. Now, to the more interesting and, ultimately I believe, more important subject: what I do not know, at least, what I do not know for certain. First, I should like to turn to what I believe or have surmised but cannot confirm. The pattern of your inquiries is strongly suggestive that you wish to learn more about the activities of certain parties who are the ultimate purchasers in a series of transactions to which I have been a party. The pattern also indicates, not quite so strongly, that, unlike me, you do know the identity of these purchasers. Doctor?”
“For the purposes of our discussion, you may assume that your analysis is correct.”
“Very good. That moves things along quite nicely. Now, shall we turn to that which I do not know and which I am not prepared even to guess?” The doctor nodded. “So we shall. I do not know why you would seek this information or what precise use you would make of it, except that it is a matter of military intelligence. I, further, do not know the identities of my ultimate purchasers. I do strongly suspect, however, that if I were to know the answer to the second question, the answer to the first would be quite apparent. As you might expect, I am quite eager to learn the answers to both questions, and would be willing to offer consideration of quite substantial value to obtain them.”
Aha. The man was ready to deal. “If you can provide me with detailed information about the movement of the cargo you are selling, or provide me with access to the cargo so that I can place tracking devices in it, I would consider your actions more than adequate payment for my telling you what I know about your purchasers. I assure you, my knowledge is very precise and you will find it quite valuable.”
“I believe that a trade of the kind you propose would be equitable. I do, however, have one concern. We are both men of honor, and you will understand that honor is an important component of my business dealings. I must be satisfied, as I already suspect to be true, that you are not making these inquiries as part of some scheme to obtain greater profits or some business advantage over a competitor. The information I have, limited as it is, is considered commercial intelligence, and I could not in good conscience divulge it if it were to be put to commercial use. Given your naval connection, as I said, I am surmising that you are seeking this information as military intelligence, to gain some sort of strategic advantage for your people in their war against the Krag, in which—by the way—they have my entire sympathy and support.”
“That is correct.”
“Would you be willing to swear an oath to me to that effect?”
“Gladly.”
Wortham-Biggs stood and removed a long, beautifully curved sword from a pair mounted above the mantelpiece. The doctor could see that it was not merely decorative: its handle was darkened with the oils it had absorbed in many hours of use and his experienced eye caught the gleam of a keen edge. He stood, and drew his own blade from beneath his robes.
The two men stood facing each other, about a meter and a half apart, and brought their swords together, flat to flat, touching about a third of the way from the tips. “I, Ibrahim Sahin, swear before Allah the Merciful and the Just, creator of all things, whose name stirred the blood of my fathers and who is the holy source of my honor as a man, that I seek the information for which I came today for no purpose of wealth or lucre and that I will use this information neither for personal gain nor to obtain advantage over any business competitor. Should this oath be broken, may He cause these blades to swiftly avenge my perfidy. Is the oath satisfactory?”
“Perfectly.”
“Admirable weapon, you have there sir,” said Doctor Sahin.
“Thank you. Yours appears to be quite deadly as well. Have you drawn blood with it?”
“Touched but not drawn.”
“So, a man of restraint. An admirable quality. But not unexpected. It can be very difficult to show your enemy your edge but not cut him with it,” said Wortham-Biggs.
“Quite. Now, shall we return to your excellent coffee? I should like another cup before we conclude our business.”
“Capital notion.” Each man returned his sword to its former place and Wortham-Biggs poured more coffee for all three men. “Now, as the one who did not swear the oath, it is incumbent upon me to show my good faith by making the first offer of information.” He walked over to his desk with his coffee, sat down, and pressed an unobtrusive switch. A keyboard in a hidden tray slid out, while a wafer-thin screen rose from a concealed slot in the desk top. He typed rapidly for a few moments. “There. Docto
r, if you will instruct your flipcom to access data channel 113, and input the password “mastiff” you will have in your hands the complete cargo manifests and shipping schedules for all of my transactions with the party in whom you are interested, including the future shipment dates along with the names and transponder ID codes of the freighters on which the goods will be placed. Of course, the shipments are always transferred to other freighters in deep space, but the coordinates of those transfers are in the file I am sending you. From those freighters, the cargo is transferred again at least once, perhaps more times after that. I presume you have a set of tracking devices.
“Yes.” The doctor nodded to Fahad, who produced from deep within his robes a small flat case, similar to the kind in which a gentleman carries his cigars. “Here are six devices of the standard kind. Kindly hide one in each shipment. They are the standard metaspacial transponders, but coming from Union Naval Intelligence more sophisticated than most. The tracking signals are impossible to distinguish from background noise unless you know the five hundred character encrypt sequence. Before you implant them, simply remove the tip to activate.”
“Very well.” He took the case.
Meanwhile, Fahad had pulled out his flipcom, accessed the designated file, downloaded it, and looked quickly at his screen to see if it was data of the kind promised. He nodded to the doctor.
“And now,” Sahin sipped his coffee briefly, “to what you wish to know.” He cradled the cup in his fingers, as though his hands needed to draw warmth and strength from the pleasantly warm china. The doctor had not failed to notice that, although his host had many religious books on the shelves, his Quran was on its own stand, and was open, the place marked by an elegant blue ribbon embossed in Arabic with the statement, “I find my strength in the faith of my fathers.”
“What if I were to tell you that your ultimate purchasers were the worst kind of Infidel?”
“They are not People of the Book?” Meaning not Muslim, Jewish, or Christian.
“Indeed not. They are not even, strictly speaking, people at all.”
“Biologically absurd. What aliens would have use for human foodstuffs and would be able to use equipment designed for eyes that see the same frequency range as ours?”
“Aliens whose distant ancestors are from Earth.”
After a short pause, the shop owner’s face hardened, his lips a thin line of fury. “You cannot mean,” he said in a voice the temperature of liquid Helium, “that I have been selling to the treacherous Demon-Rats.” He used the local name for the Krag. “I would require evidence of such a startling conclusion.”
“I can provide you with an intelligence report tracing palettes of frozen meat, machine tools with manufacturers’ serial numbers, ore still in shipping containers, and even small arms still in the makers’ crates, all captured from Krag ships in Krag space or from Krag industrial installations, and all traceable to your warehouses. In addition, the ion drive on a captured Krag surveillance drone was found to have mercury propellant with an isotope profile showing it as having been mined here on Rashid IV. It is a small mine and you are the only seller of its output in interstellar commerce. Of course, we hold you entirely innocent. The Krag went to great lengths to hide their identity from you, knowing you were too honorable to sell to them, no matter what the price.”
“Have you personally reviewed these reports?”
The doctor knew what the man wanted. Or needed. “Yes. And, on my honor, I regard their findings as conclusive.”
He sighed with resignation. “Then, that is the only proof that I need.” Under Rashidian custom, if a man’s honor was sufficient basis for a Sword Oath, it was sufficient for all purposes. “I presume that the items already purchased must be delivered to these . . . vermin.”
“Yes. They must. But, I promise you I will do everything within my power to see that not so much as one grain of corn or one gram of ore ever reaches the Krag. And, of course, afterwards, you will never again suffer the dishonor of having any dealings with them. It is my sad duty to tell you, however, that the materiel thus far purchased from you have been of substantial aid to their war effort.”
“I can understand how that would be so and it grieves me greatly. Do not be misled by this London Shopkeeper exterior—it is a necessity when one deals in the kind of art in which I specialize. Although my ancestry is mixed, my fathers were Bedouin. My heart is Bedouin. These dealings with the rat-faced Infidels are a matter of grave dishonor to me and my family. The Krag have killed many of my people, laid waste to whole worlds, massacred innocents, desecrated holy places of many faiths. They are a stain upon Allah’s holy creation. Having aided them is almost more than I can bear. It is a great dishonor. I fear I shall never be free of its stain.” He was genuinely and profoundly upset, deep emotion cracking the veneer of British reserve.
“Their rich, warm blood will wash away your dishonor, and your family’s.” Both men turned suddenly to Fahad, who said the first words he had spoken since stepping into the shop. “Sir, unless I miss my guess, my Captain is going to take the information you gave us and follow those transponder signals to destroy the freighters that carry the goods to the Krag and to destroy the Krag ships that bring the goods home. He’ll get them, sir. He’ll blow them to flaming atoms. All of them. Since he took command, we have vaporized every Krag ship we have found and we have shot every human traitor we could lay our hands on. We’ll kill them for you. We’ll kill the cocksuckers by the bushel fucking basket. Pardon my Frennish.”
“Hear him. Let us be your agent, my brother,” the doctor picked up the ball and ran with it. “We shall collect their payment for you. Payment in blood. Dishonor shall stain neither you nor your family.”
Wortham-Biggs sighed. “Thank you. Thank you both. Had you not come to me I might have continued to provide these unclean, unholy creatures with the means to kill my own kind for years to come. I owe you a great deal more than merely the information I have provided to you, as you have kept the additional blood of thousands, perhaps millions of innocents from my hands. Nothing I could ever do would even come close to paying my debt to you. Please. Tell me what more can I do to express my thanks. ”
The doctor waved his hand dismissively. “I am here in my capacity as a Naval Officer and not for the purpose of obtaining anything for myself. If you would, however, care to thank my shipmates by providing at the current market rates fitting foodstuffs to sustain them on their long voyages between the stars, I would consider any debt between us to be entirely satisfied.”
“I will accept no payment. I know you have made some purchases already, so kindly let me know the remaining capacity of your microfreighter’s hold and I will see it filled with such stuff as will fill their bellies and gladden their hearts. I already know where you are hangared.”
***
About an hour later, having left the shop with their precious cargo of information, the two men were making their way down a broad avenue with only a few pedestrians on the walkways. It was just after 19:00 local time, and most of the locals were eating their evening meal or watching a highly anticipated football match (the kind with the round white ball that was kicked, not the kind with the brown ball pointed on both ends that is handed off, run with, and thrown, most planets having a strong preference for one kind or the other) between the Crocodiles, Rashid IV’s planetary team, and the Jackals, their cross-system rivals from the mining and foundry moon, Rashid V C. Casually, the doctor grasped Fahad by the arm and guided him to a shop window displaying an array of local spices and smoked meats as if to show him an item there. “Do not look, Fahad, but I believe we are being followed.”
“You mean the guy with the blue headband and the Fenkep-style beard about fifteen meters to my left?”
“Precisely. You have noticed him, too?”
“Naturally. Do you think Captain Robichaux sent me to a non-aligned planet near a war zone on a covert intelligence-gathering mission along with one of his most valuable office
rs just because I’m a good drive and thruster man?”
“I suppose not.”
“I spent three years in the Navy’s Criminal Investigation Division in covert surveillance and counter-surveillance, tailing and slipping tails a specialty. I had to get out when I became too familiar to too many of the wrong kind of people.”
“Then, I defer to your professional expertise. What do you recommend?”
“Well, Bones, I was thinking about taking him.”
After a short discussion of how that was to be accomplished, the two men walked on about half a block until they came to and ducked inside a small sundries shop that Fahad had noticed earlier. Fahad pretended to shop for local souvenir knick knacks (consisting mainly of poorly made plastic camels, of all things) from a counter that allowed him to see out the window while Sahin made a quick purchase.
A few moments later, the doctor exited the shop holding an aerosol can while fumbling with the nozzle and to all appearances not looking where he was going. He then walked right into the man who had been following them. “Oh, my pardon to you, sir.”
“Think nothing of it,” said the other while the doctor made a great show of straightening the man’s robes which had become somewhat deranged by the collision.
“My most sincere pardon, most sincere. Tell me, sir, you sound as though you are local. The way this can works is different from how they operate on my home, and I can’t get it to spray, perhaps you can assist me. See? Nothing happens when I press here.” The doctor then, apparently on accident, sprayed the man in the face with a sunburn treatment product temporarily blinding him while, at the same moment, Fahad—who had slipped out of the shop through the delivery entrance—jabbed the man in the neck with a pressure syringe disguised as an ordinary writing pen. Before the man could say a word, Fahad said firmly into his ear.
To Honor You Call Us Page 30
