The Scoundrel Worlds: Book Two of the Star Risk Series

by Chris Bunch

  Jasmine introduced herself to Fall and, since there was no particular reason she could see to conceal her mission, explained that she’d be interested in any information in these letters that might help Star Risk in freeing Sufyerd.

  “No doubt you would,” Fall said. “I’ve heard of Star Risk, and have tentatively assigned two reporters to investigate. The only reason I’m holding back on publishing your identities is I’m not at all sure how we want to play you people.”

  “Play?” Jasmine asked.

  “Yes. How does your presence help or hurt keeping the peace between Torguth, Belfort, and Dampier?”

  “I didn’t know,” King said, trying to keep sarcasm out of her voice, “there was any purpose in reporting events except they happened.”

  “A very old-fashioned approach,” Fall said. “Today’s journalists must choose a side, choose an issue, or risk being left out of the hue and cry.”

  “Oh,” was all Jasmine could manage.

  “As for your being able to access these letters,” Fall said, “I’m afraid that will be impossible, even though I personally believe Sufyerd to be innocent, and would hate to see the execution of an innocent man … assuming, of course, that he is innocent, since all of us should learn not to trust our instincts.”

  “We’ve satisfied ourselves that he is,” King said.

  “A good journalist must stay above such judgments until all the facts are clear,” Fall said primly.

  “But you just said …” King let her voice trail off.

  “No,” Fall said firmly. “The correspondence between Premier Ladier and Miss Hyla Adrianopole must remain secret, until we begin publishing it within the next several weeks or so, and then all shall be revealed.

  “By the way,” Fall continued, “I heard rumors that there was a gun battle in a restaurant across the river between some off-worlders and some of” — he lowered his voice and looked around, without being aware of it — “those who call themselves the Masked Ones. Do you happen to know anything about it?”

  “Not at all,” Jasmine said. “But if you’d go back to the Sufyerd matter, is there any reason that I could not look at those letters … just the ones that pertain to our client … to give us a lead in finding the real culprit, the real traitor?”

  Jasmine remembered the way von Baldur had taught her that a journalist never gives anything away, but only trades.

  “In exchange for which we would be willing to give your holo an exclusive when we uncover this person.”

  Fall hesitated.

  “That’s tempting,” he said. “But I must tell you that I do not have possession of these letters … and, by the way, the most interesting ones come from Premier Lädier. Miss Adrianopole seems to have been far more careful in what she was willing to commit to writing.

  “No. The first thing I realized was how easy it would be for someone to break in here, in the wee small hours, perhaps, and then we would be without a string to our quiver.”

  “The first thing I would’ve done, in your position, is to make copies of the correspondence,” Jasmine said, in spite of herself.

  “That, of course, was done,” Fall said. “And those copies distributed to responsible hands. The originals, however, were deposited in yet another — ”

  The door to his office banged open.

  Jasmine turned, saw the woman who’d been in the outer office.

  “You bastard!” she near shouted. “You betrayer! How dare you even think of publishing my letters!”

  “I gather,” Fall said, seemingly undisturbed, getting to his feet, “you are Miss Hyla Adrianopole.”

  “I am … and you are a traitor to your planet, to your solar system, to everything you ought to hold dear.”

  King was thinking Adrianopole was getting a bit histrionic, then noted the woman’s hand was scrabbling in her rather large handbag.

  “Now, please be calm, Miss — ”

  Adrianopole, screaming wordlessly, pulled out a rather large handgun.

  “Wait!” Fall shouted, and King braced for a dive for the gun. But it was too late.

  The blaster slammed three times. All three bolts struck in the center of Fall’s chest. An enormous amount of blood spattered on the desk in front of the editor, and more blood sprayed on the glass wall behind him.

  Fall gurgled, was dead, and went down.

  “You shitheel,” Adrianopole shouted, aiming again at the top of the corpse’s head.

  But King knocked her hand up, and the fourth round punched a fist-sized hole in the ceiling.

  Adrianopole stumbled, almost fell, catching herself with a hand that landed in the pooling blood on the desk.

  “Oh,” she said, lifting her hand. “Oh,” again. She looked at Jasmine.

  “Perhaps,” she said, very calmly, “you’d do me the favor of calling the police.”

  “After you give me that gun,” Jasmine said, afraid to draw her own for fear it would set Adrianopole off again.

  “Oh. Certainly.” She passed the blaster across. “Be careful. It has quite a hair trigger.”

  • • •

  “And I continue to quote from thisyere black-ribbed tabloid,” Goodnight said. “‘A woman in my position, all alone, without a man able to stand beside her, must be able to fight for her rights, to strike out against monstrous tyranny and injustice.’ She really said that?”

  “She really said that,” Jasmine said. “I was standing there. She also said that, quote, ‘in olden times there was the unwritten law, which was used monstrously against women. But I now cite another unwritten law, that gives a woman a chance to defend herself against vile calumny,’ end quote.”

  “I do not believe anyone has ever said ‘calumny’ who wasn’t a univee lecturer,” Grok said.

  “They do,” Riss said, “if they’ve got a speech memorized.”

  “Just so,” Jasmine said. “I wonder who wrote it for her?”

  “Good question. But a better one is, What about those damned letters?” Goodnight said.

  “They’re not in Fall’s office,” King said. “While they were cleaning up the gore, I made a search, as best I could. Fall’s little floor safe was shut, but not locked, and they weren’t in there.”

  “How’d you have time to make sure?” Riss said.

  “I just stole everything in the safe,” Jasmine said. “And went through it outside.”

  “While there was blood all over hell’s half acre?” Riss said. “I’m impressed.”

  “So am I,” Goodnight said. “I think our little Jasmine is starting to grow up.”

  “We’ll have to keep looking for those letters, then,” Riss said. “We don’t need the original. A copy’d do just ducky.

  “I just hope Freddie is doing better than we are right now.”

  TWENTY-FIVE

  Friedrich von Baldur didn’t waste his breath snarling about being sold out by the double or triple agent beside him.

  He turned, crouching, and drove a knuckle-punch up into the side of the man’s neck, who was dead in mid-step.

  One of the two cops shouted something. Von Baldur paid no mind, but was running, zigging, around the sculpture, toward another one about twenty meters distant.

  He was counting, hoping, on two things.

  The first was that these cops would be under orders to take him alive, if possible. A dead spy, at least uninterrogated, is about as worthless as they come.

  He reached the second sculpture, jumped up, and yanked the tiny gun out of its hiding place.

  Von Baldur came down, and snapped a round into the pistol’s chamber, took a two-handed stance, braced against the sculpture.

  He fired, hit the first cop in the chest, switched his aim to the second, and fired again. The man grabbed his stomach, went down.

  Cops who’d been streaming out of the landed lifters went flat, shouting at each other.

  Von Baldur’s second hope, now confirmed, was that these cops weren’t ordinary street bulls, but members of what
ever Torguth called its Counter Intelligence Force.

  Espionage is normally a fairly bloodless sport, except at the end and the lethal chamber.

  These agents weren’t used to being shot at, and seeing their two fellows weltering in their blood froze them for a bit.

  Time enough for von Baldur to run, hard, out of the park, past a gaping oldster on his evening walk, and down a side street.

  Walking the neighborhood before contact had paid dividends. Friedrich had two open avenues of escape — one into a wealthy district, the other into a somewhat seedy workers’ district. He picked the second.

  Rich people see a man running, and they call the police. Workers, more realistically, get the hell out of the way and pretend they saw nothing.

  Von Baldur took the first turning, went up an alley, down another street, then a broader avenue that led, more or less, back toward his hotel. He forced himself to stop running, pocket the gun, and go whistling on his way, just another man on his evening constitutional.

  But the street was fairly empty, and those on it were hurrying off.

  They’d scented police, and were heading for shelter.

  • • •

  Von Baldur peered around a brick wall. The neighborhood had improved — he was less than ten blocks from his hotel in a straight dash. He’d cut across this street, down an alley, and zig his way to home and …

  And three cargo lifters landed in the center of the street. Cops in riot gear debouched, formed up in line, and swept toward him.

  Von Baldur took to his heels, cursing under his breath. The whole damned Tristan police force was out now, with nothing better to do than look for Friedrich.

  Obviously, he thought morosely, L’Pellerin and his DIB hadn’t been very successful at inserting agents here on Torguth, or these flatties wouldn’t be spending so much time after him, clearly excited at the thought of actually finding a real Damperian spy.

  At least it was dusk, getting dark.

  Von Baldur rounded a corner, then went back the way he’d come. Yet another line of cops was sweeping toward him.

  He went down an alley, through somebody’s back yard, into another street that, thankfully, didn’t have its complement of police.

  Yet.

  By then it was full dark, and von Baldur was trapped. He crouched behind a reeking garbage can, and looked down two blocks, at a police line. Behind him, nearing the mouth of the street he’d just left, was another swarm of the bastards.

  It looked as if he was well and truly cornered.

  There were too many for him to be able to shoot his way through. Besides, he’d rather take his chances on arrest and trial rather than being gunned down as a cop killer, although he was already at risk for that.

  There had to be a way out. He found it, although it was about as degenerate an escape as could be gined.

  Von Baldur took out his pistol, buried it deep in the garbage can along with the wig, then crept across the street toward an open, lit window. He slipped into the shabby yard, and to that window.

  Inside, a young boy, about eight, was getting undressed and into his pajamas. Von Baldur pressed himself close against the window, steaming it up with his breath.

  Behind him, he could hear the soft boot heels of the oncoming police and muttered orders. Perhaps, just perhaps, they’d move right on past him, and he’d be able to —

  “Hey!” the shout came. “Lookat that?”

  “What … I got him … that old bastard!”

  Running footsteps. Von Baldur turned, pretending surprise.

  “Hello, officers, I was just — ”

  “Friggin’ pervert,” one of the two cops rushing him growled, and a gasgun hissed.

  Von Baldur held his breath, but still caught enough of it to drop him, swimmy-headed, into near unconsciousness.

  • • •

  “Whacher got?” the desk sergeant said.

  “Goddamned peepin’ torn,” one of the two cops dragging the limp von Baldur into the station house said.

  He was coming groggily back to consciousness.

  “We were out on that sweep, looking for that spy, and spotted this creep eyeballin’ a little kid getting naked,” the other cop said.

  “Bastard,” the desk sergeant spat. “What’d he have on him?”

  “Not much,” the first cop said. “Just a few credits.”

  The big wad of money von Baldur had when the cops jumped him had somehow vanished. Von Baldur felt anger, then tucked the emotion away with the other things he could brood on when he was sleepless. Besides, it wasn’t really von Baldur’s money, but Reynard’s.

  “Any ID?”

  “Lemme see here.”

  Von Baldur felt his pockets being rummaged through.

  “Yeh. A passport. He’s some kinda offworlder. From … Hastings.”

  “Never heard of the place,” the desk sergeant said.

  “We’re charging him with violations of PC 2418, Attempting to corrupt a minor; PC 2287, Child pornography; PC 1243, Resisting arrest; PC 090, Attempting to mislead an officer performing his duty,” the second cop said.

  “That’s pretty good,” the desk sergeant said. “I’ll think up some others. You two want to pitch him in a holding cell, then get back out with the rest of the shift.

  “There’ll be big, big points for anybody nailing that spy. A lot bigger’n for this pervert.”

  “We’re on our way,” the first cop said.

  • • •

  There were four others in the holding cell, which was bare except for a stainless steel toilet, a washbasin, and a dozen mattresses and folded blankets on the floor. Three of the four were conscious.

  “Got a baby-raper here for you to play with,” the first cop said, and closed and locked the cell. “Nice offworlder.”

  “Sleep tight,” the second cop mocked. “And keep one hand over your butt, although I don’t think that’ll help any.”

  The first cop laughed. “Hell, maybe you’ll meet your new boyfriend here.”

  Their footsteps went down the hall, and the door clanged shut. Von Baldur went to one of the unoccupied mattresses and sat down.

  The jail smelled about like most of the ones he’d been in over the years.

  One of the three conscious prisoners was a truck. The second was medium-sized, but had enough scars to prove he didn’t mind a good brawl. The third was wizened, small. Von Baldur immediately knew him to be the instigator.

  “A kiddie-shafter,” the little one said. “Nobody likes those.”

  Von Baldur didn’t answer.

  “Comin’ in from some offworld … maybe some armpit like Dampier, where they ‘lows things like that,” the truck growled. “Oughta be taught how Torguth treats people like you.”

  The medium-sized goon nodded excitedly.

  Von Baldur sighed, got to his feet.

  “Maybe you wanna take down those pants, nice fancy like they are,” the little prisoner said. “Don’t want to get bloodstains on them.” He giggled.

  Von Baldur smiled, and stepped toward the biggest goon. Without buildup, he kicked him hard in the kneecap.

  The man yowled, grabbed his leg, started hopping around.

  The medium-sized man found a rather wobbly martial arts stance, instepped toward von Baldur.

  Von Baldur waited until one foot was in the air, sidestepped, came in on the man’s off side, and gave him a gentle push against his axis of movement. The man stumbled, fell against the small man.

  Von Baldur came in fast, hit the medium-sized man very hard with the back of his fist in the face, spread his nose from his eyebrows to chin.

  Friedrich didn’t stop moving, but spin-kicked the big man in the side, heard ribs crack. He hit him hard twice in the gut, and the man went down.

  “Now, shortie,” von Baldur said. “Are we going to continue this nonsense, or am I going to be allowed a night’s sleep?”

  The little man, shaking his head rapidly, was backing away, holding his hands up.<
br />
  “Then go sit down and shut up,” von Baldur ordered.

  • • •

  The lawyer eyed von Baldur with distaste. “I have no idea how your crime is handled on your home planet, Lord William. But it is dealt with most severely here.”

  “Is it not alleged crime?” von Baldur asked.

  The lawyer shrugged. “The evidence the police will present is most conclusive. However, I shall do what I can do.

  “You should be aware that the maximum penalty for your offense is five years penal servitude, mandatory, plus anti-testosterone injections to ensure you’ll no longer be a threat to society.”

  Von Baldur covered his wince. Maybe his brilliant plan wasn’t as brilliant as he thought.

  “But there is a possibility,” the lawyer mused. “Hmm. Yes.”

  • • •

  The judge glowered at von Baldur.

  “Were you not a citizen of a foreign world, I would be delighted to pronounce sentence on you after you were found guilty.

  “But Torguth does not have the time or energy to deal with foreign trash.

  “You are hereby ordered deported, and turned over to an appropriate Alliance official when one arrives in this system. You will be held on one of our orbital stations until then, or, if no official presents himself within a reasonable time, to be put on the first transport headed in the direction of your home world, under custody.”

  • • •

  Von Baldur looked at the ruins of his suitcases and new wardrobe that’d been delivered to him in the spaceport holding facility. Someone who clearly didn’t like pedophiles had gone through his clothes and what wasn’t ripped had been despoiled.

  However, he wasn’t that disappointed. The lifter taking him to the airport had wire mesh over its windows. Loose wire mesh. Von Baldur now had bits of heavy wire hidden about him that would make an ideal lockpick to open the manacles and leg irons he was held in.

  And no one had torn the padded ends off his new suitcases. Von Baldur had replaced the padding with credits. Also, the suitcase bottom that had held the four punch-out pistols hadn’t been taken away. There was still one gun to be punched out, and there was still ammunition in the case handles, although he didn’t think he’d need it.