Smiling slightly at this minor victory, Kinsolving knew it would be only a matter of waiting, patience and humoring the Lorr before he got to see Ala. Not for the first time Kinsolving silently thanked his professor in xeno relations for the tough semesters and the needed experience gained in dealing with aliens.
“Watch Commander?” Kinsolving asked.
The Lorr seated behind a desk that seemed more a single plank set on two sawhorses glared at him. Kinsolving repeated all he’d said before, offered to fill out the paperwork, complimented the alien repeatedly — and an hour later was shown into a small, bare cell where Ala Markken sat cross-legged on the floor.
“Ala!” he exclaimed. He bit back his outrage at the conditions until the watch commander had left. To complain would only worsen the woman’s stay. “This is awful!”
She had been stripped to the waist and a solid steel chain fastened firmly about her middle. The end of the chain had been bolted into the wall. Ala could stand and move almost a meter before coming to the end of her bonds. Of sanitary facilities, Kinsolving saw none.
“First time to visit a Bizzie holding pen?” she asked. The anger and bitterness he’d expected were seriously absent.
“I’ll try to get you some furniture — and free from the chain. God! They can’t do this to you.”
“It gets cold in here at night, being naked like this,” she said, folding her arms over her breasts. “But there’s nothing sexual about it. Not with the Lorr. They treat all their prisoners the same. That’s what our treaty with them says.”
“What about sanitary facilities. They must … ”
“They let us use the facilities down the hall twice a day. I have to plan.” She smiled weakly. “But then, what else do I have to do?”
“I’ll do something. Get you out. There has to be bail. Why hasn’t Humbolt bailed you out?”
“There’s no bail in the Lorr legal system. Anyone arrested is assumed guilty, so why let loose preconvicted felons? Besides, darling Bart, I have been tried and convicted. You remember the trial?”
“There must be an appeal.”
“We’re dealing with Bizarres,” she said. “We don’t share the same criminal systems.”
“You don’t need to be insulting to them. This is all — it’s a mistake. I’ll take care of it.”
“Why?” she asked, cocking her head to one side. Once-lustrous hair fell in grimy ropes and her face needed a good washing, but her eyes were still sharp and clear — and accusing. “You’re talking to the woman who tried to kill you. I stole all that ore. I’m a desperate criminal, not your lover.”
Kinsolving went to her, dropped to his knees and threw his arms around her. For an instant, she resisted, then relaxed and flowed against him as she always had before. Her body shook and salty tears dampened his shoulder. But when she pulled away, she had herself under control once more.
“Why are you here, Bart?”
“I love you. I don’t know why you stole the ore. I don’t even care.”
“And trying to kill you?”
“Why, Ala? You must have had a reason. Explain it to me. Make me understand. I want to try.”
She pushed entirely free of his arms and sat with her bare back pressed into the cold stone corner of the cell. Her dark eyes fixed on his and she said in an even voice, “You have so many endearing qualities. I do love you, Bart, but you can’t understand. You just can’t. It’s not in you.”
“Please.”
She heaved a deep breath and her eyes dropped. “All right. You wondered what I did with the thousands of kilos of ore I pirated. It went off-planet on IM’s regularly scheduled ships. I was ordered by IM to steal the rare earths.”
“To avoid paying the Lorr their duties and severance taxes? But that’s a minor expense compared with the benefit of the metals.”
“I didn’t expect you to understand.” She heaved another deep sigh. “IM doesn’t want the Bizzies to know how much we are really lifting. If they did, they’d close down the mines to prevent us from building more starships.”
“What do the Lorr care?”
“Not just the Lorr. All the Bizarres. They want to hold Earth back. They want to keep us humans a second-rate race. But we won’t let them. The extra samarium is going into stardrive engines they know nothing about. We’ll expand and beat them at their own game!”
Ala’s passion couldn’t be denied. A flush tinted her cheeks, and her eyes now blazed with the fanaticism of a religious convert. One of the strongest influences on Kinsolving and his view of the universe came from Professor Delgado’s xeno culture course. Everything he held to be an indisputable fact he heard Ala Markken denying.
“They’re not evil.” He looked at the way Ala was chained. “They just don’t do things the way we do. Different histories, different ideas.”
He paused when she didn’t answer. “Why did you try to kill me?”
“Orders.”
“From Humbolt?”
Ala nodded. Licking her lips and pulling her knees in close to her body, she said, “I didn’t want to, Bart. You’ll never know how hard it was for me to do it. Maybe that’s why you’re still alive. I … I unconsciously didn’t do my best. I made mistakes that allowed you to live.” She smiled a little and added, “I’m glad for that. If only you’d see it our way.”
“So Humbolt shares your twisted view of the Lorr?”
“Of all aliens!” she flared. “You fool! They want to see us eradicated like vermin. I’m not going to let them. Oh, no, I won’t let them! No one who believes in the Plan will!”
“The Plan?” he asked.
“Leave me alone. Go drain the mine. Do what you do best, Bart. Just don’t come to see me again.”
“What’s this Plan?”
Ala Markken pulled her knees even tighter to her chest and rested her forehead on her knees. Kinsolving saw that she’d not speak to him again. He stood, heart threatening to explode in his chest. Calling for the watch commander and being let out of the cell, he left on putty-weak legs. Once, as he went down the corridor toward the alien’s office, Kinsolving had to reach out and support himself. The watch commander swiveled on his strangely hinged knees and simply stared. Kinsolving failed to read any expression.
“Why do you keep her like that? Chained like an animal?”
“She is.”
Kinsolving tried to hit the Lorr, but the alien’s reflexes were far too fast. Kinsolving’s fist missed by centimeters. The Lorr grabbed Kinsolving’s wrist and jerked hard enough to send the human sprawling.
“Leave. Now. What the prisoner told you — believe it. Do not return here.”
“You were listening!”
The Lorr pointed toward the door leading back the way Kinsolving had entered. Kinsolving got to his feet, even shakier than before, and obeyed the silent order. He ought to have realized that the Lorr would listen to any conversation. Ala was a prisoner and therefore denied all rights, even to common decency.
Kinsolving shook himself when he got outside. He couldn’t judge the aliens by Earth standards. Most stargoing cultures treated criminals with more brutality than the Lorr. But in spite of Ala’s order to never see her again, Kinsolving knew he wouldn’t stop trying to free her. She had tried to kill him, she had robbed the Lorr of taxes — and he still loved her. He knew that a few weeks away from Humbolt and IM and Deepdig with him would work miracles. Ala Markken had been duped into this theft, possibly by Kenneth Humbolt.
And if not by Humbolt, then by others high up in IM’s power structure. Kinsolving believed her when she said that the pilfered ore left Deepdig on IM freighters. The Lorr’s surveillance satellite network around the planet would prevent any regular boosting of the rare earth oxides to pirate freighters.
Kinsolving refused to get back into his vehicle. Instead he walked the city streets aimlessly, trying to think, failing at it. Nothing came together properly in his mind. Kinsolving prided himself on logical, orderly thought processes. None of
this seemed logical. Facts were missing. And Ala remained in prison.
Somehow Kinsolving’s path took him to the solitary building where Kenneth Humbolt had established his office. He couldn’t trust the IM director — not after Ala’s revelation of the man’s complicity and guilt — but he needed Humbolt’s cooperation to free Ala. There was no other way.
Starting up the steps, Kinsolving paused and studied the street running perpendicular to the one he’d approached on. A large official Lorr vehicle was parked there. Two armed guards lounged against the fender, trading off-color jokes. Kinsolving shook his head. They might appear more birdlike than humans and have those bizarre amber, pupilless eyes but they were so similar in behavior.
Was he the only human who saw the similarities rather than the differences? What lies had Professor Delgado burned into his brain?
Kinsolving knew they weren’t lies. Delgado had taught the truth, the only way that Earth might assume its place among the older, better established alien races.
Loud voices made Kinsolving hurry up the steps and slip inside the partially opened door, seeking the first refuge he could find. Just inside a sitting room he listened to the argument going on farther down the hall in the room Humbolt used for an office.
“It’s proof, Agent-General. Look at it. Those six are innocent. They were nothing more than dupes.”
“Following orders?” the Lorr demanded.
“They were ignorant. You have convicted the wrong ones. Examine the documents.”
Kinsolving peered about and saw no one. On light feet he went to the opened office door and hazarded a quick glance inside. The Lorr agent-general stood swiveling to and fro on his universal joint knees, fingers rubbing along the side of the folder Humbolt had thrust across the desk.
“Why do you do this?”
“Interstellar Materials does not wish to see innocent employees punished. We have nothing but contempt for anyone stealing from you — and our company.”
The agent-general nodded. Kinsolving saw that his final touch to the argument convinced the alien. Humans would steal from the Lorr, but they wanted revenge when humans stole from other humans. The logic appealed even to Kinsolving.
“We will examine these documents. If they reveal the data you claim, your six employees will be released and compensation delivered in accordance with our established procedures for such inequities.”
“I am certain that IM will wish to contribute any such money to the Lorr to defray the loss caused by our thieving employee.”
“That is another matter.” The agent-general almost caught Kinsolving by surprise. Without a word of leave-taking, he swung about and started for the door. Not wanting to be caught spying, Kinsolving ducked down behind a table and pressed his sweaty back into the wall, trying to vanish. He succeeded enough that the Lorr stalked by him without even glancing down.
When the Lorr exited, Kinsolving heaved himself to his feet and went into Humbolt’s office. He had never cared for the man, but if the director had evidence to free Ala Markken and the others, Kinsolving wanted to thank him.
Humbolt glanced up as Kinsolving entered, an expression mingling surprise and fear on his features.
“Supervisor,” Humbolt said, almost stuttering, “I didn’t expect you so soon.”
“So soon?”
“I left a message for you with — what’s his name? McClanahan. Yes, that’s it. I told him to have you report here as soon as possible. But I just transmitted a code message. He’s hardly had time to decipher, much less contact you.”
“Code message? Did it have something to do with the evidence clearing Ala and the others?”
“Well, yes. Sit down, Kinsolving — Bart. This isn’t easy for me, but please believe me when I say that IM has your best interests at stake in this sorry matter.”
Kinsolving frowned. “What information could you give the Lorr to exonerate Ala?” She had confessed to Kinsolving. He knew she had committed the crimes.
“We decided to trade six employees for one. Wait!” Humbolt cried, holding up his hand when Kinsolving rocketed from the chair. “It’s not like that at all. The documents I gave the Bizzie incriminate you. That’s true. As mine supervisor, you had the opportunity and means.”
“You sold me out?”
“It means freeing Ala,” Humbolt said, shrewdness in his every word.
“And letting me rot in their prison in her place!”
“Wait!” Humbolt’s command froze Kinsolving. “Sit down and keep quiet. Time is important.”
Kinsolving sat down, seething inside at the injustice.
“The Lorr needed someone to pin the blame on. They’d never allow Markken and the others to go free without finding a guilty party. The documents I handed over are fakes, but good ones. Ala Markken will be released; you will be the sole criminal in Lorr eyes.”
“And?” asked Kinsolving, not knowing what to expect.
“And you will be long gone from Deepdig and far beyond Lorr justice. We’re transferring you back to GT 4 immediately. There are other worlds requiring your special talents.”
“How do you intend getting me there? The Lorr control access to Deepdig. Even more tightly now that this ore piracy has become known.”
“We have a ship waiting at the spaceport right now for you. Go directly there and we’ll boost you to a waiting speedster — it’s mine.”
“You’ll tell the Lorr I stole it?”
“A nice touch.” Humbolt tapped out a notation on his console. “That’ll give even more credence to the story. You’ll be back on GT 4, and Ala will join you soon.”
“I don’t like being made the scapegoat for all that’s happened here. I know you ordered her to steal the oxides.”
Humbolt’s face hardened. “There is no other way to free her. Or would you rather allow her to die in the Bizzie jail? She drew a forty-year sentence.”
Kinsolving sat speechless. He’d never heard the sentence, just the guilty verdict. He couldn’t allow Ala to spend forty years in such conditions.
“She tried to kill me,” he said in a voice almost too low for Humbolt to hear.
“An unfortunate business, that,” said Humbolt. “But you really have no other choice but to go directly to the spaceport. My scheme has been set into motion. The agent-general is not likely to believe me if I tell him the documents he has are all forgeries, not when it means a jail term for me. Forgery and lying to a Lorr senior field officer are both felonies.”
“She’ll be along soon?”
“Within a month or so,” Humbolt assured him.
“I don’t like this. I don’t like my name being smeared.”
“You’ll like prison even less if you don’t hurry. Go, Bart, go! Now!”
“Who do I contact?” Kinsolving asked.
“A man named Cameron. He’s waiting for you,” said Humbolt. The director rose and thrust out his hand. Hesitantly, Kinsolving shook it.
“Go. Hurry,” urged Humbolt.
“Cameron?” asked Kinsolving, still unsure.
“Ask for no one else.”
Kinsolving left at a run. It all made sense. Humbolt covered his part in the ore theft by pinning the blame on Kinsolving. But to IM it made no difference since if Ala was to be believed, the company ended up with all the rare earths. Kinsolving might even be greeted as a hero. The Lorr would have been thwarted and all IM personnel freed from their stinking jails.
But Barton Kinsolving still worried. He felt he was missing something.
CHAPTER NINE
Barton Kinsolving drove too fast, taking turns in the road with reckless abandon, but the pressure of time weighed heavily on him. He had misjudged Humbolt; the director actually cared about his employees. All his employees. Although Kinsolving didn’t like being the one to carry the guilt for the thefts at the mine, he thought over Humbolt’s scheme and decided it was workable.
The Lorr would never release Ala and the others without a bigger criminal in custody.
/> Kinsolving had to be that criminal.
He tensed as the vehicle skidded and ran over the edge of the roadway. For an instant the repulsor field faded when it failed to find the flat surface it expected. Auxiliary power cut in and held the vehicle up until Kinsolving wrestled it back onto the roadway. When the familiar hum returned and the whine vanished, he accelerated once more. He could have put it on automatic but the safety limiting circuits wouldn’t have allowed such a breakneck pace.
Kinsolving trembled at the need to get away from Deepdig. The spaceport came up suddenly as he topped a low rise. The complex spread out for kilometers toward the east and north, most of it belonging to Interstellar Materials. Several of the stubby dark gray carbon-composite-hulled shuttles stood at the near side of the field, their blue and gold trident-and-star insignia gleaming in the pale sunlight.
Slowing slightly, Kinsolving guided the vehicle to a spot where the Lorr guards at the field wouldn’t notice his approach. A dozen or more roads led into the field, most of them normally filled with heavy ore transports from the two rare earth mines. Those the Lorr guards checked for exit permits and tax stamps. Individual vehicles mattered little to them.
For that Kinsolving thanked his lucky stars.
He pulled up next to a corrugated shed and idled the vehicle. He wouldn’t need it again. Kinsolving closed his eyes and mentally pictured the shuttle launch, the heavy pulsed laser beamed against the shuttle’s underside splash plate, the entire vessel surging higher and higher until it reached orbit. From there it would be a matter of an hour or less to rendezvous with the speedster that had brought Humbolt from GT 4.
“Hey, you can’t park there,” came a querulous voice. “Move it or I’ll dismantle the damn thing.”
Kinsolving jerked, torn from his reverie. The mechanic approaching carried a small electronic circuitry work kit in one hand and a large torsion wrench in the other.
“You deaf?”
“I don’t recognize you,” Kinsolving said. “I’m supervisor at mine number two.”
“Kinsolving?” the man asked, his attitude changing. “Sorry. I’m new here. Just got in a few days ago. Name’s Cameron.”
The Stellar Death Plan (Masters of Space Book 1) Page 7
