by Dan Thompson
“You’d be amazed at what crosses my desk,” he said.
By the end of it, Michael was exhausted, and Foshey finally let him go. He patted at the pocket where he had tucked the contact card. “Thank you again, Mr. Foshey. I look forward to seeing you again.”
The older man nodded. “Good luck, Captain Fletcher. No, what is it those Navy boys say? Ah, yes, good hunting, dear Captain, good hunting.”
Winner hugged the gown close to her body while the doctor poked at her back. She stiffened at the poke that hit the bottom sternal rib on her left side.
The doctor stood back and made a notation on her pad. “And how did this happen?”
“I fell down a ladder,” Winner lied.
The doctor frowned. “A ladder?”
Winner nodded.
“Take off the gown.”
Winner glared at her and kept her grip on the paper gown tight.
The doctor sighed. “Look, you’ve chased the last two guys out of here, so I’m all that’s left. Trust me, you’re not showing me anything I don’t see in the mirror every day.”
Winner sighed and pulled the gown forward and off, moving gingerly with a stabbing pain in her side. She sat there, naked in front of the doctor, but she would not meet her eyes.
The doctor stepped back and looked her up and down. “Do you fall down a lot of ladders?”
Winner frowned. “What’s it to you?”
The doctor stepped forward again and poked at Winner’s right hip. “That scar there is not a surgical scar.” She moved her hand up to Winner’s right collarbone. “And I suspect if I ran a scan, this would show an old break.”
Winner shrugged and regretted it. “Whatever. Ladders, doors … we all have a history. Fix me up today and let the past stay where it is.”
The doctor groused but said nothing. She picked up a handheld scanner and ran it along Winner’s left ribs.
“Did I break anything?”
“No, but … shit. Was this supposed ladder made out of chain?”
“Yes. What of it?”
The doctor snorted. “I’m becoming quite familiar with this particular ladder’s victims, but you’re the first woman it’s gone after.”
Winner sighed. “What can I say, I’m an overachiever.”
“Well, you suffered less than some of the others.” She turned away and put the hand scanner back in its drawer. “No breaks, but you bruised the hell out of two ribs and at least three of the intercostal muscles.”
“What do we do about it?”
The doctor shrugged. “Not much we can do but give it a few weeks.” She handed over a tube. “Ice the ribs for fifteen minutes, then spread the cream on. Follow it with twenty minutes of moist heat, and then ice it again for fifteen. Twice a day. It’ll sting, but at least it will keep the inflammation from getting out of control and agitating the surrounding tissues.”
“Anything else?”
She chuckled. “Yeah, tell those dimwits downstairs to switch back to using a rope or a bungee or whatever they were using before. If I see another injury like yours, I’m taking it to station security.”
“I’ll be sure to pass that on.”
The doctor sighed and pulled a sheaf of papers out of a tray by the wall. “Yeah, I’m sure you will. That’ll be a hundred and twenty credits.”
Winner reached over to her pants and pulled a fat roll of bills out of the pocket.
“No,” the doctor said. “Not me. Pay at the front.”
Winner nodded and looked at the bills in her hands. A hundred and twenty wasn’t going to make a dent.
Xavier Foshey stepped into a private booth at Warrick’s. It was the more elite of the two marrow clubs on station, but the main room was not as raucous as he would have expected earlier in the evening. He settled in behind the table just as a woman pulled back the curtain. She was dressed in a flowing lace skirt, high heels, and nothing else. “Did you want some company?”
He smiled at her. Her form was particularly appealing, even for a marrow club. “Perhaps a little later, my dear, but first I’d like a few moments alone with my drink.”
She gave a little smile. “Press the green call button if you need anything.” She left and closed the curtain behind her.
Foshey reached out to the console and held down the red privacy button until it lit up. He sipped at his drink briefly and then pulled a modest computing pad from his valise. He tapped in a few commands, two passwords, and three unlocking patterns. It was now shifted into the alternate identity of one his virtual correspondents.
A man with interests as far-reaching as Xavier Foshey did business with all manner of people, both in and out of the Confederacy. Most of them were real. A few of them were not. These unreal correspondents were particularly useful in that they generated quite a bit of legitimate traffic on their own. They bickered over competing bids, forwarded price quotes, and occasionally even took a minor role in auditing other fictional companies. It was a masterpiece of automated subterfuge.
He opened his special communication software and began to design the wrapper. It was a boring spreadsheet, analyzing the most recent quarter’s shipments of rhodium. However, tucked inside it was another attachment, itself a bit of boring business as well. Foshey selected a white paper on the environmental impact of rhodium refinement. It hid yet a third attachment within, a design document on strengthening stress points in sail generators with tungsten instead of titanium.
He kept it up, going down a total of six layers. Each layer was encrypted and spread through the previous layer in a redundant error-correction pattern. Each layer also included routing instructions for forwarding that attachment to another of Foshey’s virtual correspondents. So, not only was each layer protected from any prying eyes, but it would be virtually impossible for any interested party to trace where the ultimate message had come from.
He smiled in the privacy of his booth. While he certainly understood the intricacies of such a system, he was glad to have had such a dedicated team build it for him. It was ironic, of course, that such experts in information security had forgotten one of the oldest rules of secrecy: namely, that three people can keep a secret only if two of them are dead. Their education on that matter had been as brief as it had been brutal.
Satisfied with the security of his layered wrapping, he began to compose his true message:
My Winged Lady,
I do hope that your current project is on schedule, because I just received some troubling news from a most reliable source. Your young target was …
Normally, Collins conducted interrogations in a secure naval facility. He would simply have a prisoner brought in by either the military police or the local law enforcement. Arranging it was more a matter of paperwork than guile or surprise.
This was not a normal interrogation.
He waited in the small living room listening to the sounds of passion in the next room. It was not a moment to be enshrined in the Confederate Journal of Military Intelligence, but he waited it out. Eventually, it rose to a crescendo and then subsided. A few whispers of small talk followed, and then the quiet of steady breathing.
The girl came out a few minutes later.
Collins stood, the packet in his hand.
She glanced back and forth between it and his face. “I did what you asked.”
Collins held out the packet. “There’s two thousand in cash, and a letter of introduction to a restaurant in Stonefall. Do not tarry. Your ship is already boarding and will leave in four hours.”
She took it and flipped through the contents. “He’s not a bad guy, you know.”
“I know. He only works for them.”
“Just don’t ...” She took a deep breath and let it out. “Never mind. I’m getting out of here.”
Collins did not stop her. Once she had gone, he secured the door and headed into the bedroom. Alphonse Bertillon lay on his back, naked but for the sheet draped haphazardly over his middle. His left hand reached out loose to t
he empty side of the bed while his right was secured to the headboard by chain cuffs. They were not police grade by far, but they appeared sturdy enough for his purposes.
He opened the drawer to the nightstand and found a small pistol, a Jansky, probably not good for more than a few shots, but he took it anyway. Pulling the chair from the desk, he settled at the foot of the bed and cleared his throat. That got no reaction, so he reached over to the light switch and flooded the room in light.
Alphonse Bertillon jerked awake in his bed, took one look at Collins, and reached for his nightstand, only to find his reach cut short by the chain. He swung his left over to it, but before he could reach the drawer, Collins kicked the foot of the bed.
“Looking for this?” he asked, holding up the Jansky.
Alphonse glared at him but relaxed, pulling the sheet up a little higher. “Who the fuck are you?”
“Commander Samuel Collins, Naval Intelligence.”
Alphonse yanked at the chain again, but it did no good. “I’ll have your goddamned badge for this.”
Collins smiled. “Technically, it’s a silver crescent, not a badge, but I do encourage you to file a complaint. In fact, you should take it up directly with the man who sent me here, Admiral Reese Powell.”
The man shrank back. “Powell?”
Collins nodded. He knew many of the tales about the admiral, most of them patently absurd, but they were useful at times like this.
Alphonse tried to shrug it off and put on a casual air, but his voice still caught when he spoke. “So, what do you and your precious admiral want with me?”
Collins held up a photograph. It was large enough to be seen from across the room, and he had no intention of closing to within kicking distance. “I am looking for this man.”
The look of recognition was immediate, but Alphonse shook his head. “No idea where he is.”
“But you do know him.” He made it clear that this was not a question, even though it was.
“Maybe. I know a lot of people.”
Collins shook his head. “His name is Robert Bishop, and he works for the Yoshido organization. He arrived a month ago, and you had already prepared his new identification, arranged for him by his associates.”
“If you say so.”
“I do.”
They stared at each other for a moment in silence.
Alphonse looked at the cuff on his wrist. “All right, what do you want?”
“The new name.”
Alphonse laughed. “Yeah, right. Names, that’s what I’m the business of. But I only make names. I don’t talk about them. That would ruin my reputation. I’d be out of a job.”
“Or worse,” Collins noted.
“Yeah, you got that right.”
Collins glanced around the room and smiled. Three paintings dominated the far wall, hardly works of art, but their lustful themes were bright. “You know, I didn’t show up here by random chance.”
“What do you mean?”
“I’ve been here for almost two weeks now, asking a lot of questions, making myself a nuisance, gathering all kinds of attention. In fact, I’m being followed by parties both local and widespread.”
Alphonse snorted. “Then you’d better watch your back, Navy man.”
Collins shrugged. “Oh, I’m not too worried. In fact, my investigation is almost complete. When we’re done here, I’m going to walk out the door, swing by the local security offices one last time, and then board a ship.”
“Well, have a nice trip, asshole.”
“If you had someone following me, what would that look like to you? That I had given up, or that I had found precisely what I was looking for?”
Alphonse’s eyes went wide. “You wouldn’t?”
“In fact, I might even put in a good word for you with the officer of the day. Tell him that you were so helpful, they should be forgiving of any future offenses.” Collins leaned in and grinned. “You don’t think there are any corrupt officers that might let that information slip, do you?”
Alphonse glared at him. “So basically, I’m fucked.”
“Not necessarily. With the right information, I might convince them to arrest you instead.”
“And if ...” he trailed off.
“If you give me a false name? Well, then you will have earned yourself a place on the admiral’s special list. I’m sure you have an array of identities to fall back on, but the admiral’s reach is as long as his memory.”
“Victor Trent, no middle name.” Alphonse motioned to the photo. “The hair will be shorter and darker, and I’m pretty sure he’s no longer on station.”
Collins smiled and stood. “It was a pleasure doing business with you.” He held up the Jansky. “I don’t suppose you have a license for this?”
“Fuck you and your licensing rules.”
“Excellent,” he replied. “Weapons violation and assault. That ought to be good for two or three months.”
He walked out into the living room and fired off several shots toward the sofa, shattering a lamp, two plates, and sending stale pizza flinging against the wall.
He headed straight out after that, glancing to his left only once to insure that the nefarious teen was still following him. He smiled to himself. This kind of interrogation was not nearly so simple, but it was much more enjoyable.
Michael spent the next day racing through details of cargo and passengers. They actually had a full load of both this time. In addition to their through-cargo from Rapoen, Michael had found some time-bonus replacement parts for a manufacturing endeavor on Ballison. With the Sophie’s speed, they could actually get there in time to collect, saving the originator a huge penalty clause for having shipped the wrong parts in the first place.
The passengers were a mixed but boring lot. They had a procurement officer returning home after some livestock conference, a woman going to visit her pregnant sister for the delivery, and finally a priest was heading to Ballison to assist with the audit of a charity associated with the Catholic Church. The businessman and priest paired up in the double room and immediately fell into a lively, if esoteric, discussion on the latest changes in Confederate law regarding the write-down of portable assets. The woman mostly kept asking after the schedule.
“This is her first, and she’s actually carrying it herself instead of an artificial womb like a sensible woman. I really need to be there for the delivery.”
Michael checked the numbers again. “Unless we run into any storms, we should be there in plenty of time.”
“And if we do run into storms?” she asked. “Is your ship big enough to weather them? How much will they slow us down?”
Michael regretted even mentioning it, because it was clear from her questions that she had no idea what tachyon storms were like. He put on his best captain visage, grateful for whatever age the goatee added to his face. “We steer around them, costing us a day at the most, but the latest reports are for smooth sailing the whole way.” He had not actually seen the reports yet, but that was the last thing he wanted to admit to this woman.
Dieter returned early and in good spirits. “I got a mandolin gig at one of the clubs for two nights.”
Michael nodded but worried a little. “Well, as long as it wasn’t for a week.”
Dieter laughed. “You’ve obviously never played at a club.”
“No, why?”
“It rarely pays enough to cover food, let alone a place to stay.”
“Then why were you so excited?”
“More than anything it was a chance to play, to share my music with others,” he said and then leaned in close. “And then to share even more with an adoring fan. It was truly painful to narrow my choices down to only one lady per evening.”
Hector came back with what he described as a glorious find. “A complete set of Arthur Lewis’s work,” he said, beaming. “Not merely his big films, but all of his independent productions, even his three student projects. I don’t know about you, but I know what I’ll b
e doing with my off-hours for the next month!”
Michael congratulated him and made a mental note to look up who Arthur Lewis was. All these dead directors and screenwriters were too much for him. He thought he was doing well to have heard of Anderson, the Caston brothers, and that old Spellbug fellow from ancient Earth.
Winner returned with a pallet of supplies for the galley. “I picked up some of the local spices,” she reported, “and two whole turkeys. We’re going to be celebrating Christmas in style.”
Richard was right behind her. “Christmas? It’s August on the standard calendar.”
She shrugged. “Well, I’m sure it’s Christmas somewhere.”
“I don’t think it works that way, Miss Vargas.”
She glared at him. “Do you want your turkey, or don’t you?”
Michael stepped in. “If you do the turkey as well as everything else, I’m willing to declare Christmas three days in a row if need be.”
They both nodded to him. “Aye, sir.”
Vivian arrived with a bundle of packages. “My daughter Melissa is at Ballison, so I always try to arrive with presents for the grandkids.”
And Carlos dragged in last with only twenty minutes before the official end of liberty. He moved slowly and wore a short-billed cap to shade his eyes.
“Are you well, Mr. Rodriguez?”
“Better than last night, Captain.”
Michael sniffed at him but smelled no alcohol. He had at least sobered up and showered before returning to the ship. “First shift is up. Are you well enough for duty?”
Carlos smiled and gave a half-hearted salute. “If there is sufficient coffee, sir, I am always well enough for duty.”
Michael’s scowl melted, and he pulled Carlos’s duffle from his shoulder to carry it to the man’s quarters. It was an odd little crew, but they were growing on him.
Chapter 15
