The Tejano Conflict

by Steve Perry

  NO FIREARMS ALLOWED, a big sign just inside the door said.

  Jo knew that, so they weren’t carrying any. That was a good idea in a place where somebody might come in rich and walk out poor. Unhappy people with guns could be a problem for management. Most casinos of any kind Jo had been in didn’t allow the patrons to come in armed with projectile weapons.

  In a room full of unarmed people, Jo’s augs and fighting skills gave her an advantage.

  Wink had his knife, and apparently the Bax weren’t worried about that since nobody stopped and told him to check it.

  Interesting.

  They weren’t planning on doing anything in here that needed killing hardware; though Gunny allowed as how she felt naked without something tucked into a pocket, she also had a small knife in her boot. She wasn’t as good with a blade as Wink was, but she was likely better than most anybody else in the place save Jo.

  It would have been fun to watch the reactions if Kay had come along.

  Inside, Jo took stock, looking for the usual strategic and tactical stuff—where the exits and entrances were, the patrolling guards, the layout. The room was essentially a big square, with several pods that included the dealers, players, and equipment. There was a bar and food-service area at the far end, and fresher doors down another wall.

  The lighting was dim and diffused, not what you might expect, given the bright signs outside, but the background noises were what you’d expect in a similar human casino. Balls clattered into slots, dice tumbled on soft surfaces, people talked, laughed, drank, or sat quietly and concentrated on their play.

  Holoprojections flashed numbers over the pods, both Arabic and Chauian, and now and then, a cheer would go up when a number flashed and blinked a brilliant purple.

  We have a winner!

  People everywhere loved to see somebody beat the house. It meant they had a chance to win, too. The house knew this and trumpeted winners; since the odds were in their favor, the more people who played, the more they could win.

  There were maybe eighty Bax at the game tables, half that many humans, and a few Rel.

  Bax musk was thick, like fresh ginger, with something that smelled kind of like wood smoke underlying that, not at all an unpleasant scent.

  There was an area set aside for nonplayers, who could sit or stand and watch the games on monitors or directly, depending. There were fifty people there, again mostly Bax, humans, and a couple of Rel.

  Jo made her way to the observation area, Wink and Gunny trailing.

  The Bax at the entrance to the area smiled, showing some impressive canines. “Six erill each, fem. Currently, the exchange rate rounds that to three New Dollars apiece.”

  Not much of an accent, his speech, but there was a throaty undertone that gave his words a kind of melodic lilt.

  Jo nodded, waved one hand at Wink and Gunny. “Three of us,” she said. She tapped the number into her belt comp.

  The Bax looked at his meter. “Thank you and enjoy your visit to the House of Beroh.”

  Something about his attitude seemed to add an unspoken phrase: you foolish gawking humans . . .

  As they moved past him, Jo took stock of the Bax taking the watch fees.

  He was a head shorter than she was but broader through the shoulders and thicker through the chest. His fur was almost henna-colored, short and smooth-looking. His arms were as big around as hers and the muscles lean, his hands four-fingered, actually two thumbs and two fingers in opposition, and his head and face did look like a wolf, albeit the muzzle was shorter and the prick-ears smaller and tighter. He had eyes the color of amber, with a darker brown center, and the irises were larger than a human’s, no white showing around them.

  There were variations in height and build and fur coloring, some lighter, some darker, but the Bax in here looked much more like each other than did a similar group of humans.

  The three of them found an empty table and sat. “Let’s not forget fugue,” Jo said.

  Wink said, “That’s for my benefit, isn’t it?”

  “If the boot fits . . .”

  What Jo meant was simple: There might be ears or eyes or both tracking them, and better they were circumspect in anything they said.

  They had six names, and four of them were identified as serious Beroh players. Since this was the only establishment in exteetown that specifically catered to such players, chances were one of them might be here. No guarantees, of course, but it was what they had.

  They also had images of the six in their tactical computers, and Jo’s optics, with which she could examine every Bax she could see and compare their stats to those on file. Facial-recognition software wasn’t perfect, but it was close enough for their purposes.

  If they spotted any of their quarry, they would set up on them and wait for them to leave.

  After that, they’d see what happened.

  TWENTY-ONE

  Formentara, on hir way to collect some new gear, heard music. It was some kind of electronic instrument, and whoever was playing it seemed quite adept. It sounded familiar, but zhe couldn’t quite place it. Zhe listened for a moment, trying to identify the piece, and finally got it: Montenegro’s “Prelude” to The Symphony Galaxia.

  Zhe listened, enjoying the performance.

  Zhe had never been much of a fan of pop music, but the classical stuff had a certain mathematical majesty zhe liked. Not hir art, but certainly zhe could appreciate expertise in other fields.

  The piece drew to a close, and curious, she headed that way.

  Gramps sat in an empty conference room, an odd-looking instrument balanced on his lap. It seemed to be little more than a fretboard. As wide as a man’s hand, maybe 115 cm long, ten strings, to judge from the tuning keys at the top end. There was a crosspiece at the base balanced on his legs, and it jutted up past his head at a slight angle to his left.

  “Very nice,” zhe said. “What is the instrument?”

  “Chapman Stick,” he said. “Played by tapping the strings.”

  He tapped out a melody to demonstrate. “You can do the lead or chords with either or both hands.”

  “I didn’t know you played.”

  “I usually do it in my quarters with earphones.”

  “You do it well.”

  He shrugged. “Not compared to people who are really good, but I enjoy it. I try to get in an hour a day when I can. I should be doing at least twice that.”

  “How long have you been at it?”

  “Thirty-three years.”

  She did the math. Hour a day, call it fifty weeks a year, thirty-three years . . .

  “You have your ten thousand hours, right?”

  He smiled. “Yep.”

  That was the old Anders Ericsson Postulate: To become an expert at something, you needed about ten thousand hours of mindful practice at it. In reality, it didn’t always work that way, you had to allow for genetics—all the practice in the world wouldn’t make you taller, say—and other factors, like natural bent and desire, could shorten the time necessary, but it was a good starting point for many activities.

  “Why continue to practice so much? I mean, you have it down by now, yes?”

  “There was famous musician a hundred years back, a master of this.” He hefted the instrument. “This guy was interviewed when he was ninety-four; he was still practicing five or six hours a day. The interviewer said, ‘You are one of the most accomplished players to ever hold the stick, you have been doing it for more than sixty years. Why do you feel the need to practice so much?’

  “And he said, ‘Well, I think I’m finally starting to get the hang of it.’”

  Zhe laughed.

  “You are really good at what you do,” he said. “And apparently more adept at violence than I knew.”

  “Word gets around.”

  “Yep. Does that decre
ase in any way your desire to keep doing what you love?”

  “Point taken.” Zhe paused. “If you didn’t work as a soldier, if you had more free time, would you play it more? To the point of doing it professionally?”

  He thought about it for a couple of seconds. “I don’t know. On the one hand, it would be interesting to see how far I could go; on the other hand, doing it as a job might change how much I look forward to doing it. Now, I do it because I want to, not because I have to.” He paused. “I knew a guy once who was a commercial artist. He came up with a design that became very popular and made him rich. One day he looked up and realized he wasn’t having as much fun doing art as he once had, so he quit. Went off to brush up his chops on the piano, got pretty good at it, and became a musician. He never made nearly as much money doing that, but he loved it, and he had enough in the bank, so he didn’t have to worry if the gigs paid much.

  “For me, it’s a moot point. I haven’t put by enough to retire yet, and I love soldiering, too. Comme ci, comme ça.”

  Zhe nodded. “Well, sometimes those choices present themselves. Good to have considered it, in case it ever does.”

  “Sure. When my ship comes in, I might just become a traveling bard and sing and play about the exciting lives of corporate army folk.”

  “Stranger things have happened,” zhe said.

  – – – – – –

  Fugue:

  “I’m glad we came, this is really interesting,” Jo said. Got one!

  Wink and Gunny glanced at her.

  “You remember that fellow on that planet not long ago who took a dislike to our furry friend?” Jo said. She was speaking of Ganesh, the Rajah’s security head. He was a largish fellow, and xenophobic to the core. He had taken it upon himself to express such to Kay. That had not been a good idea.

  They both nodded.

  “If he had a slightly smaller brother, what do you think he would look like?”

  The tallest Bax in the building stood security at one of the pods toward the south wall. His fur was a bit darker than most, and Ganesh’s hair had been dark.

  That clue should be enough to mark him for Wink and Gunny.

  “Ugly, I would imagine. Why bring that up now?” Wink asked, to keep the fugue going.

  “Oh, no reason, just an idle thought. It’s not really him I was recalling, but the guy who he usually parked himself behind.”

  That was a tad obvious, but even so, anybody listening to their conversation wouldn’t have any context to make it work. Wink and Gunny did.

  Look at the Bax sitting in front of that big guard over there.

  Gunny said, “Huh, yeah, I remember him. He came from a big family, right?” That’s one. Any others?

  “Huh. I thought he was an only child.” Nope, just the one.

  Wink said, “My, look at the time. As much as I’m enjoying this, probably we should think about heading back to the hotel. It’s getting late.” One is better than none, let’s collect this guy.

  “You’re right. A little while more, we don’t want to miss seeing the night’s big winner.”

  As soon as he leaves, we follow him.

  Anyone who might have listened to this conversation should not be able to make heads or tails of it; no way they could interpret it to mean the three of them were going to tail and maybe kidnap a Bax now in one of the pods gambling. They might think the three humans were passing strange, given a trialogue that seemed so disjointed, but there was nothing actionable there. They spoke of something that happened somewhere to somebody but without any names to any of those things. Completely meaningless.

  Crazy, those humans. Who knew what they were up to at any given time?

  – – – – – –

  “Soon” was a relative term, but the Bax in question, whose ID offered his name as Titkos Napló, ran out of money or desire about an hour later. He stood, stretched, and by the time he started for the door, Jo, Wink, and Gunny were already moving. Gunny moved faster, managed to get ahead of the Bax, with Jo and Wink falling in behind.

  If the Bax security wondered about one human hurrying to get out the door before her companions, they didn’t show any evidence of it.

  Wink peeled off and headed for the rental cart, parked nearby. Two reasons for that: If the target elected to ride, they could stay with him; plus, the lockbox in the cart’s luggage compartment had in it three small pistols. When you were about to get active, weapons were a good idea.

  He reached the cart, removed the bag with the handguns in it, and climbed into the driver’s seat. He waved the electric motors to life and engaged the drive. It was a four-seater, and no different from thousands of others on the road.

  “Looks like he’s going to catch a cab up ahead,” Jo said over their com.

  “Ah’m slapping a bug on it in case Doc can’t get his slow ass over here in time to keep visual contact.”

  “I got the cart,” Wink said. “I’ll be there in thirty seconds.”

  “So you say,” Gunny said.

  He saw Jo on the sidewalk ahead, pretending to look into a shop featuring items of interest to Emov. Twenty meters ahead of her, Gunny walked in Wink’s direction.

  Behind her, a two-person autocab pulled out from the curb.

  “Come on, Wink, you slow as molasses in a blast freezer!”

  “Keep your pants on, I’m right here.”

  Jo got in first, moved into the back, as Gunny arrived and slid in next to Wink.

  “Go,” Gunny said.

  “You want to drive?”

  “Ah would, but you’d probably break your leg trying to move over to swap seats.”

  He shook his head. “No wonder Gramps gives you so much shit.”

  Jo smiled. “Doctor, if you wouldn’t mind? The cab is moving.”

  “I got him. Day I can’t follow a speed-governed autocab, I will give up my license to drive.”

  – – – – – –

  The cab stopped a short distance later, in front of a plain-vanilla multiplex three stories tall. It was late enough that there weren’t a lot of pedestrians on the walks.

  “Not a walker,” Wink said. “Less than a kilometer. That a species trait or personal?”

  “You ever consider actually reading a b.g.?”

  “Dear Gunny, why would I when there are so many people willing to tell me what it says and feel smug in the doing of it? Need to know and duplication of effort and all.”

  Wink pulled over before the Bax alighted. Gunny and Jo got out quickly and started moving.

  “Let’s go, Gunny,” Jo said. “We don’t want to let him get inside.”

  “You need my help?”

  “Just move the cart up and be ready to roll once we collect M. Titkos Napló.”

  “I live to serve.”

  Jo and Gunny alighted and moved across the street, angling to cut off the Bax, who was taking a more direct, but slow path to the front of the plex.

  Jo called out: “Citizen Bax! A word?”

  Napló turned. “Yes?”

  “My comrade has never met a member of your race, would you be so kind as to allow us to take a holograph with you?”

  The Bax smiled his wolfish smile. “Why, I would be honored.”

  Gunny moved over to stand next to the Bax. Jo backed up a step and pointed a small camera at the two of them. “And . . . your father is a rhinoceros . . .”

  Napló looked puzzled, as well he should, and Gunny hit him over the right jugular vein with a blue popper.

  Pssht!

  Napló snarled, showing impressive canine teeth, and took a swipe at Gunny, who had already danced backward.

  “Hey, over here!” Jo said. “Look what I have.”

  He spun to face her as she pulled her pistol, holding it down by her leg. “Don’t move,” Jo said.
<
br />   Napló blinked, swayed, and would have collapsed, but Jo got there in time to catch him. She tucked the pistol back out of sight.

  Gunny didn’t offer to help; she knew Jo could carry him on her own.

  A couple of passersby on the walk glanced their way.

  “Our companion overdid it at the pub,” Gunny said. “Can’t hold their liquor very well.”

  Gunny pulled the seat back, and Jo shoved the unconscious Bax into the cart.

  “Good evening, fems,” Wink said. “Your companion appears to have overdone it at the pub.”

  “Just drive,” Jo said.

  TWENTY-TWO

  It was late, or early, depending on how you viewed it, and traffic was light. There wasn’t anybody following them, as far as Wink could tell. He made a series of random turns, watched his rearview cams, no sign of a tail.

  Of course, that only spoke to direct visual surveillance, and in this day of implants and augmentation, because you couldn’t see somebody, it didn’t mean they weren’t there, tracking you via LOS or radio or even a satellite twenty thousand kilometers up. Somebody could have an on-demand transmitter that would be inert until a specific frequency painted it, so you couldn’t detect it with a scanner until it was too late; the device could be tiny, made from organoplast components, and running off biological juice, hidden inside a bone, so it would take a vigilant search to pick up on a standard ARI or MRI scan.

  They didn’t have an ARI or MRI machine on them . . .

  Napló, snoozing there in the back, might simply be a plain-vanilla Bax citizen, innocent as a newborn kitten and as far from being wired as somebody could be.

  Much more likely, he was what Gramps’s AI had pegged him as: a probable spy. If so, he wouldn’t be complaining to the local authorities about being kidnapped, which was good for them. And also as such, somebody keeping tabs on him was not unlikely.

  They needed to know and deal with it if the latter was true. And while they could run a wide-frequency jammer to block any signal an implant in the Bax might be narrowcasting, that would block their own implants. Plus, if somebody showed up, that would make the case for M. Napló here being more than he seemed to the casual gaze. Knowledge was power.