by Chris Bunch
The man came to the table, still keeping his hands motionless, bowed.
“I am Friedrich von Baldur,” he said. “At your service, Miss …?”
Riss gave him her name.
“May I join you?”
“Why not?”
Baldur sat down.
“This is a much nicer milieu than the other evening.”
Riss managed a smile as a waitress came out with a heavy tray. She saw Baldur, brought the tray over and set it down.
M’chel tried not to look at the tray as Baldur paid. There was a jug of caff, toasted breads, buttery and steaming, an omelet, sausages, and cheeses.
Baldur noticed her expression, misread it.
“I know,” he said. “I am a slave to my stomach. At least I do not put on weight easily. But I should eat more like you.”
M’chel tried, without success, to keep a deadpan expression.
Baldur caught the flicker.
“Ah,” he said, “I had heard that the former Mrs. Fal’at is reluctant to meet her obligations. My sympathies.
“I, too, am at liberty, although at least I was paid before being punted onto the welfare rolls.
“Paid well, with the correct amount for severance,” he said thoughtfully, and motioned to another waitress.
“Could we see a menu? My friend here is hungry.”
“No,” M’chel protested. “I can’t …”
But her mouth was filling with saliva.
“Yes,” Baldur said firmly. “You can. And the only debt you will owe is to do the same for some other soldier who has fallen on hard times.”
M’chel knew she should protest, couldn’t. She ordered baked eggs, juice, multiseeded toast, unbuttered, and fruit.
“Good,” Baldur approved. “Starving to death is most terrible.”
“How did you know I was a soldier?”
“My dear Miss Riss, very few people end up in our chosen line of work without some form of military training. And none of the amateurs would dare that entrance from the roof that you made.”
“Thanks, I guess.”
“If you do not mind,” Baldur said. “My toast grows chill.”
She nodded, and he began eating. A few moments later, Riss’s order arrived, and the world vanished as she gorged, wanting to gobble with both hands, but managing to eat in a civilized manner, even if all her plates were bare in a few minutes.
“Might I inquire about your current employment?” Baldur said, who’d finished minutes earlier, and was watching her, a small smile on his face.
Riss thought of lying, thought why bother?
“Since that bitch didn’t come through with the money for rescuing her crumb-snatcher, I’m looking hard. I was supposed to meet some bastard here about a courier job, but he’s a no-show.”
“Just as well,” Baldur said. “All too many of those courier contracts mean you are carrying stolen objects. Or else drugs.
“Not that I object to either, but I distinctly dislike being the patsy in the middle who is caught with the loot, and will have to do the time, since there is no one he can sell out to save his own hide.
“What a dirty trade we have chosen.”
“Maybe,” Riss said. “But there’s worse.”
“True. True. There is always worse. Might I inquire as to your background?”
M’chel gave a brief, succinct resumé of her career.
“Most impressive,” Baldur said. “I especially like your time in Intelligence, and the three Expeditionary Force landings.
“You have seen the elephant.”
“Since we’re giving out bios?” Riss asked, waiting.
“There is little to mine,” Baldur said. “I retired as a Colonel in the Alliance Navy after twenty-five, some four or five years ago, when I realized my career was not advancing as I wished.
“I am qualified on most spacecraft, have had the usual number of investitures and excursions.
“I also, although the way you caught me by surprise the other night would seemingly disprove my claim, have dabbled in some of the martial arts.”
“Well,” M’chel said, starting to rise, “I can’t thank you enough for the meal.” She smiled wryly. “Now, I’ve got to be out and about, and find a way to pay for my lodgings.”
“Actually, that was why I came over,” Baldur said. “I am, as you shall no doubt learn, a creature of rapid decisions.
“How would you like a job?”
“Doing what?”
“As a partner … on a trial basis, of course … with my firm. Star Risk, Limited. I have a decided need of skilled operatives.”
Riss gaped, sat back down, realized her jaw was dangling, and stared at von Baldur, speechless.
“Perhaps we should adjourn to my offices, and you shall understand my situation more clearly.”
• • •
The building was ultramodern, in the current style dubbed “Unsupported Freeform.” Polished steel beams jutted up, zigged at impossible angles that could never buttress or support the alloy structures scattered among them. Riss had once read an article on the style, knew that antigrav generators, each hopefully with emergency backup power, actually kept the fifty-story building from toppling.
The lifts were clear platforms that seemed to hang from spidery cables. Again, hidden antigravs did the work.
Baldur bowed Riss out of the lift on the forty-third floor.
Directly opposite were tall double doors, of what appeared to be real wood, with small, discreet lettering: STAR RISK, LTD.
“Actually, there is no such thing as a ‘limited liability corporation’ anymore,” Baldur explained. “But Trimalchio does not much care what you call yourself, so long as your taxes are kept up to date.
“And I always thought ‘Limited’ sounded most elegant.”
“A question,” M’chel said. “What’s the significance of ‘Star Risk’? I mean, it’s sexy and all, but does it have any intrinsic meaning?”
“As you said,” Baldur said, “it is a sensual name.”
He touched his finger to the print-lock, and the doors opened.
“Actually, not wood, but fireproof metal under the veneer,” he went on. “Also guaranteed to stand up to at least two direct blaster hits.”
He entered, coughed apologetically.
M’chel followed, looked around, and started laughing.
“Now,” she eventually managed, “now I see why I’ve been offered a partnership.”
The offices had expensive carpeting and more expensive vertical shutters.
And nothing else. No desks, no vids, no computers, no files, no employees.
“You spent all of Mr. Fal’at’s payoff renting this?” she gurgled.
“Actually, no,” Baldur said. “The architect, also the owner of the building, who incidentally has the penthouse suite, owes me a considerable favor. Also, this style of architecture seems to make prospective tenants a little nervous.
“He discharged his obligation by giving me this suite on a year lease.
“Now I am required to make it work.”
“Um, could I ask on what basis you thought Star Risk would be a go?” M’chel asked.
“Certainly. These are times, as someone or other once said, that try men’s bank accounts. The Alliance can hardly be considered a strong government, and there are many, many people who think that right grows from the barrel of a gun. Or from a very entrepreneurial law firm. Or from a malleable legislator.
“Not that I am particularly shocked by that proposition.
“But in times that are close to lawless, men will seek out their own law.”
“Star Risk, Ltd.?” M’chel asked.
“Yes,” Baldur said. “Or, since a true mercenary judges not, Star Risk is there to assist those who are acquisitive.
“Assuming,” he added hastily, “they can pay for our services. Pay handsomely.”
“I don’t know if I like the idea of working for the bad guys.”
“That is why I use a
sliding scale of payments, depending on our involvement or feeling, if any, in a particular cause.”
“Credits cancel morality?” Riss suggested.
“Well, I would not put it quite so bluntly,” Baldur said. “But a hefty bank balance makes it much easier to look in the mirror each morning.”
“So what happened? I don’t see a long line of clients, wearing either black or white hats, streaming in the door.”
“I may have made some minor miscalculations,” Baldur admitted. “Have you ever heard of Cerberus Systems?”
“No,” Riss said. “Wait. Yes. I saw something on a vid a few months ago. They’re a private security service, right?”
“That, and everything else,” Baldur said sadly. “They’ll do anything from espionage to counterespionage to union security to strikebreaking to investigative work to military advisory work to collapsing currencies to riot incitement to … and this is only a bit more than a rumor, directed violence beyond any law’s forgiveness.”
“How far will they take that?” Riss asked.
“The only limits are what you can pay for, the story goes. Murder is supposedly called ‘End Certification’ by them. But that is neither here nor there, other than I generally discourage assassination. It has a nasty, nasty way of being found out, and the act blowing back on you, the poor operative, rather than the villain who hired you for the dastardly deed.
“Cerberus is also very, very active in dealing with competitors. They’ll pass out false rumors, put their operatives in the way of a competitor finishing the mission they were hired for, even if they themselves have no interests in that area.
“Cerberus is one problem. Another is that I am not the only one who has considered a mercenary career. It seems that every half-witted knuckle-dragger who can afford a blaster and a license to carry it are suddenly Emergency Situation Specialists.”
M’chel looked down at the carpet.
“I am sorry, my dear,” Baldur said. “I was not referring to you.”
“No,” M’chel said. “Don’t apologize. Even though I think I’ve got talents and skills beyond ruining my manicure on the pavement.
“In fact, I’ve got a question. When I was in the Marines, one thing I specialized in was Target Analysis.
“Let me,” Riss said, unconsciously taking on the tones of an instructor, “ask about this Cerberus Systems.
“I really don’t care about how ruthless they are. Are they any good?”
“They are,” Baldur said reluctantly. “They are big, so they can put a lot of operatives, equipment, resources into any operation they undertake.
“They pay well, and they actively recruit. I am surprised, quite frankly, that they did not attempt to add you to their organization.
“Overall, they operate on the basic premise that any person is corruptible in one or another way, and all that matters is the size of the bribe.
“Which, in our chosen field, is not altogether an erroneous way to think.”
“Fine,” Riss said. “What are their weaknesses?”
Baldur considered. “They are slow to move, like any colossus. And once they move in any direction, it is hard for them to change direction. Also, once they decide on a given course, they are reluctant to accept input that might suggest their original examination of the situation was faulty.
“They are bureaucratic, naturally. The longer you are in their employ, the greater respect you are given, and the less likely you are to be terminated without making a series of extreme errors.
“I personally think their board of directors is hidebound, prone to doing business as they did last week and last year, and that they apply the same tactics to Situation B merely because it appears to resemble Situation A, where those tactics worked very well.
“So now you see the reality of my situation. Do you think you might be of service?”
“I don’t know,” M’chel said. “I don’t think I could make it any worse.”
“Good. Excellent in fact. It gets most lonely, beating your head against brick walls each day.”
Baldur walked to one door, pushed it open. “You mentioned that you were having a bit of problem with your digs. This shall be your office.”
He went to another door, and opened it. Inside was a camp cot, a clothes rack, a small refrigerator, and a convection oven.
“This is my office. So you can see that I understand your difficulty.”
Riss hesitated.
“There is a lock on the door,” Baldur said hastily. “And you can perform your ablutions in either of the suite’s two bathrooms. There is a salvage store two blocks away that can provide you with a cot and whatever other necessities you desire.
“You do not have to worry. I have never screwed one of my partners.
“At least,” he said thoughtfully, “not in that particular sense of the word.”
M’chel thought about things. She certainly didn’t trust Friedrich von Baldur at all.
But on the other hand, there was that mystery meat, a flea-bitten single room, a glowering hotel manager, and another goddamned sugared bun for the next two meals staring at her.
“Since I can’t see that I’ve got anything to lose,” she said, holding out her hand, “we have a deal.”
“For six months,” Baldur said.
“For six months,” Riss echoed, and Baldur touched her palm with his.
THREE
Dmitri Herndon was a happy man. A sweaty, tired happy man.
He pushed the ore-carrier ahead of him, toward the welcome gleam of his ship’s floodlights.
There was enough high-grade in the carrier to pay off his bill with Transkootenay, grubstake himself for another lonely six weeks in this desolate belt, and some to send home to his sister on Lorraine VII. And the hold of his shabby, converted yacht was about half-full of other saleable metals.
Better still, he thought … hoped, rather … that he had seen trace enough to think there could be a diamond “pipe” here on this rotten planetoid, which would make him slightly richer than the revered Joseph Smith.
If this belt was indeed part of an exploded planet, God hadn’t blown it up nearly enough, Herndon thought sourly, looking out into hard blackness, and thousands of spinning dots, not stars, dimly lit by the system’s dying sun.
But then, if God hadn’t blasted it, there wouldn’t be any miners in the system, wouldn’t be any fissionable ore in Herndon’s carrier and ship, and Herndon himself might still be back teaching basic chemistry on Lorraine.
He often thought of the image people had of deepspace miners — brawny, bearded, quick to brawl, profane.
Herndon may have had the beard, but little else. In fact, he’d grown it to not look entirely like the image of a professor, which stereotype he did resemble.
He’d quit teaching, dreaming of riches, and followed the rush into this system. It’d been six months of the hardest, most dangerous work he could have imagined. If he wasn’t carefully placing and blowing charges, ever aware of the likelihood he’d blow himself to flinders as a self-taught powder monkey, he was breaking big rocks into little rocks with a powered drill, then checking them with his belt analyzer. Not to mention keeping himself somewhat fed, and his ship from expiring in a smolder of circuitry.
He considered what he’d do if there were diamonds on this stupid rock.
Real riches.
He’d put his ship in the shop, have its rotten, hiccuping secondary drive rebuilt, first.
No. He’d just find some other duckling, fresh into the Foley System, and convince him the bucket was just what he needed to go mining. Just as another miner had trapped Herndon.
Then he’d buy another ship, and …
No. He’d buy out his contract, and, if there were enough money, just retire. No benders, no jags, just a chance to go somewhere quiet, somewhere with a big computer, and he’d spend the rest of his life happily researching the break between alchemy and real chemistry.
Maybe a planet with a bi
g library, a big computer, and some nightlife. Professors didn’t have to be reclusive, especially not rich professors.
Something like Trimalchio IV, which he’d seen on the vids, heard stories about its decadence, never visited.
His mind drifted, though he never lost his balance, bounding in ten-meter leaps toward the ship. Showgirls. Tall showgirls. Tall, blond showgirls. Or maybe brunettes. Smiling, barely clad, to be wooed with a handful of diamonds into impossible lusts.
At least he’d had brains enough to register a claim on this jagged piece of stone as soon as he’d brought in the first load of ore, so he had all the time in the world to pick its bones, dreaming all the while of wealth.
He slid open the cover of his ship’s exterior control panel, touched a sensor.
The cargo hatch slid open. He pushed the carrier inside and dumped the ore into a expandable hold.
He closed the hatch from the inside, and went into the hold’s airlock, cycled it.
The inner lock door opened, and Herndon unsealed his faceplate, winced, as always at the, well, reek. A few hours on the dry, recycled suit atmosphere, and he’d forget just how bad the cabin smelled, a mixture of bad cooking, and human odors.
He decided he could allow himself one slivovitz, no more, after he checked to make sure the ship hadn’t developed any more mechanical surprises.
Sitting, very much at ease in one of the control room’s two acceleration chairs, was a large man, beard trimmed like a dandy.
He lifted the blaster in his lap, pointed it at Herndon.
“I coulda just grabbed the ship, and left you to breathe space, y’ know. But I’m a kindly man.”
Herndon had heard of highgraders, had friends who’d been robbed.
He’d determined this wouldn’t happen to him, and had bought a pistol when he’d last resupplied, clipped it under the chart table.
He put a smile on his face, lifted his hands, then dove, twisting, for the table, two meters distant.
He never made it.
The bearded man cursed, shot him twice in the side. Herndon crashed into the table, headfirst.
“Goddamit, you didn’t have to go and make me do that,” the bearded man complained, wrinkling his nose at the stink of burnt flesh.
Dmitri Herndon lay perfectly still, made no answer.
