Another Word for Magic

by Mackey Chandler

  Jean quietly thanked him and put his napkin to his mouth like he had a bit of something objectionable he wanted to be rid of and placed his napkin on his plate. Kamala was observant and it didn’t make sense to her. He’d have done that before speaking with their server not after. She frowned but Jean wasn’t looking at her.

  Lee was asking if anyone wanted another drink after Clarke cleared the table when Jean stood up to go visit the washroom. Kamala raised a forestalling hand to Lee who was still trying to talk to her. That cut Lee off mid-sentence so abruptly it made everyone look. Kamala reached over and picked up the napkin Jean left on his plate. The little silver egg that fell out hit the plate with a tiny >tock<. It might as well have been a brick in the sudden silence. They all looked at it lying there, inexplicable, and out of place. Jean, knowing what it was recovered first and moved quickly.

  Jean spun around to get away from the table and found Kamala’s foot hooked around his ankle. He went sprawling on the floor. Kamala got up to the other side of her seat and turned to face him as he rose. He tried to step around her, and sucked his gut in, and jerked back as she made a lunge with the steak knife she’d stolen at lunch. It was lovely fencing form with one leg trailing and her other hand tucked behind her. It would have run him through if she had a decent foil but the steak knife was far too short. He was trying to get around her again on the side away from the table when Sally smacked him loudly across the back of the head with the Champagne bottle. It didn’t break but he went flying face down as slick as a ship being christened goes down greased ways.

  Everybody was watching the two Earthies go at each other in shock. They missed Jeff reaching across to tip the little metal egg in his water glass and rushing to the balcony doors. Strangelove put out his hands to take it but Jeff put a hand out like he was going to stiff-arm him out of the way. That was ridiculous but Strangelove stepped out of his way. By the time Jean was knocked senseless on the floor he was coming back in and slamming the sliding glass door shut. He locked it and stood with his hand on it intent on preventing anyone else from opening it.

  April was the first to see Jeff was out of place and looked a question at him.

  “It’s some kind of a bot,” Jeff said. “Probably an assassin bot. I have yet to see any of them that are waterproof. It had to be on some kind of delay and would open up when he was off in the toilet. I’m so sorry, Lee. April or I was probably the target and put you at risk.”

  “No,” Strangelove said very forcefully before anyone else could speak. “He wasn’t trying to get around Sally to Jeff. He was trying to get through Kamala the other direction to Lee. She was the target.”

  They all looked at Lee.

  “Oh, yeah. I had that figured out before he got off the floor,” Sally said.

  “Welcome to the assassin survivors club,” Jeff said with dark humor.

  “You should have handed it off to me and allowed me to take the risk,” Strangelove told Jeff. “That’s my job and what I’m expected to do.”

  “I didn’t have time to stop and explain why it needed to be outside,” Jeff said.

  It wasn’t exactly an apology but Strangelove nodded.

  “What do you expect it to do?” Kamala asked, looking over Jeff’s shoulder at the water glass on the balcony. So far, the little metal egg was as innocent as an olive in a martini.

  “If it opens up to deploy legs or wings it will probably short out and that will melt or vaporize the whole thing. It will probably do that just by a good soaking if it doesn’t activate soon. Even if it is waterproof and survives activation, I doubt it can get through this,” he said tapping the door glass. “We made sure the glass was all bullet-proof when we leased. We’ve had the experience of these sorts of bots trying to get to us.”

  By this time all of them were crowded around the doors looking at the glass on the balcony. All but Clarke, who Strangelove directed with hand signs. He was turned half away keeping an eye on Jean.

  Anything out on the balcony quickly attracted some of the little fliers. They were annoying if you tried to eat out there, always hoping you’d drop some scrap or leave a serving dish uncovered. Lee suspected some other hotel guest must feed them to keep their interest so active.

  There were soon four of the little pests sitting on the rail. The little device didn’t flash in a discharge as Jeff expected but instead emitted a stream of bubbles. The motion motivated one of the fliers to launch off the rail to claim it before his fellows. He spread his wings and dropped on it but instead of a graceful landing he fell flat on his face with wings still spread, unmoving.

  “Oh crap, it’s a chemical weapon,” Jeff said.

  The fliers on the rail got unnaturally still and one by one fell off.

  “Probably a neurotoxin,” Strangelove agreed.

  “And it was going to kill us all while he was in the restroom,” Kamala realized.

  “That means it won’t be persistent and he expected to be able to sit and wait for it to disperse in a reasonable amount of time,” April said.

  “I vote we throw the son-of-a-bitch off the balcony,” Kamala said.

  Everybody looked at her in shock at how blood-thirsty and crude she was suddenly.

  “Oh, come on. Like none of you have ever killed anybody,” she told them. “But if you want to wait until he regains consciousness to toss him that’s fine too.”

  “Not going to happen,” Clarke said, feeling on Jean’s neck for a pulse. “He’s a goner.”

  “Crap… we can’t cap him now,” April said.

  “Throw him off anyway, just to make sure,” Kamala insisted.

  Sally still had the Champagne bottle in hand and lifted it to check the level. There was still quite a bit. She hadn’t spilled much wielding it as a club.

  “Why don’t we sit back down?” Sally asked Kamala. “There’s still a glass for each of us and you can tell us how you came to hold Jean in such intense dislike.”

  “Pour,” Kamala agreed, returning to her seat and started her story.

  “So, we agreed at the end of lunch that it didn’t matter if either of us was an agent,” Kamala eventually said after describing how Jean was paranoid about surveillance and alarmed her by blocking her door at their rooms.

  “I did warn him that even if he was a spy, he’d regret it if he interfered with my mission,” Kamala explained. “Since we got off to such a bad start, we didn’t speak or get together again today until we came up here. I stayed in and napped to get on the local clock and was happy he didn’t call. I had no idea he’d try to casually kill me and everyone else in the room to accomplish his mission. But I had enough reason to distrust him to keep my knife from our meal together. You can send it back to the kitchen,” she told Clarke. “I don’t think I’ll need it again.”

  “They had to substitute this fellow for the French representative sometime before you went to Central,” Jeff figured out. “Where would they have had an opportunity?”

  “We all met up at Whoops,” Kamala said. “North America still has an interest section there. I guess your sovereign didn’t want to risk relations with the other nations by going in and cleaning them out.”

  “Whoops?” Sally asked.

  “World Peace Station,” Kamala said. “Nobody calls it that. International Space Station Three would have been just as bad a name. When do you stop adding numbers? I’d bet the real French fellow is as dead as that one,” she said, nodding at Jean, “and in storage, until they can dispose of him.”

  “That seems likely,” Jeff agreed. “Anybody object if I send pix of Jean to one of my own intelligence people on-planet and ask if he knows him?”

  Nobody objected, so Jeff took pix with his spex recording and sent it to Jan.

  “He’s not familiar to me, but I’m more Eurocentric. He seems to be in an awkward repose,” Jan said tactfully. His tone made it a question.

  “That’s because he’s freshly dead,” Jeff said bluntly. “No need for condolences.”

&nb
sp; “I know a fellow here with North American connections. May I forward it to him?”

  “Sure, go ahead,” Jeff agreed.

  “I’ll pass through the sound. No need for him to see you,” Jan said.

  “Hey, Sam. I’m calling for Mel. Can you ID this fellow for us?” Jan asked.

  “I don’t know him. Hang on while I call Bill.”

  Jeff, April, Lee, and Strangelove all traded surprised looks around but said nothing. They all had a history with Sam and Bill and had no idea Mel or Jan even knew them. They’d have recognized him just from his voice.

  Bill was in the room so rather than forward the file Sam just called him over.

  “Hey, can you take a look at this mug and tell Jan if you know him?”

  Bill sauntered over, all relaxed, and stiffened like a cat meeting a big dog.

  “That is one dangerous son-of-a-bitch. He does wet work – assassinations – for North America. Tell Jan to stay away from him. I’d say kill him first, but he probably won’t be able to. Is he on-planet?” Bill demanded, visibly upset.

  “He is terminated, as the expression goes, with extreme prejudice. No longer a concern for any of us now. Thanks, Bill,” Jan said and ended the call.

  “Well, that was interesting,” Jan said. “You didn’t see his face but it scared the ever-loving snot out of the man to think he might be on the same planet.”

  “I could hear it in his voice,” Jeff assured him. “He shared Kamala’s assessment of his genealogy too. Thank you for checking.” He didn’t ask how Jan knew the pair.

  “You didn’t warn Jan about those two,” April said.

  “He already knew their North American connection and Jan is no fool. They did just give us useful confirmation. It’s obvious they didn’t know he was on the planet and they didn’t protect him as a fellow North American asset before they knew he was dead. It seemed a bad time to speak against them when they were helpful.”

  “OK, maybe they can be occasionally useful,” April allowed.

  “I doubt you have to worry about him having any backup for now,” April told Lee. It had to be hard enough to sub him for the French guy. There wasn’t time to position support for him ahead by conventional ship.”

  “Thank you,” Lee finally remembered to say to Sally for her intervention.

  “It was obvious he was a baddy,” Sally said, shrugging her shoulders. “The table was in the way for anybody else to get to him.”

  “Derf bankers really are full service,” Jeff marveled. That made Sally smile.

  “You look a little rattled dear. Why don’t we wait and get together tomorrow to talk about registering claims?” Sally suggested.

  “Yes, come back at the twelfth hour,” Lee agreed.

  “That works for me too.” Kamala agreed. “I’m not going to be calm and thinking clearly until I settle down and get a night’s sleep. Thanks. See you tomorrow.”

  After Kamala was in the elevator and the doors closed, Jeff turned to Strangelove with an odd expression on his face.

  “Would you put a watch on her please? I’d like to know if she leaves and where she goes if she doesn’t return tomorrow. Just in case she isn’t what she claims.”

  “Did you run software on her?” Strangelove asked.

  “Yes, but it’s not infallible. Less so with agents. She may have only told us part of the truth,” Jeff said.

  “But you don’t want us to stop her?”

  “No, she might take a notion to go walk off her stress or something and still come back. She might also contact somebody and still return,” Jeff speculated.

  “I’ll put a camera down her hall and watching her balcony,” Strangelove decided.

  “You folks have such interesting, complicated lives,” Sally said.

  * * *

  “That should make Mel a happy client, who feels we are earning our fee,” Sam said. “How did you know that fellow? I didn’t think our people employed that sort of person.”

  “We don’t. I’ve done plenty of inter-agency work and I can’t talk to you about it while there is any chance at all we may end up back on Earth. They’d cap me and have it out of me in no time at all if I ever have to be debriefed. That would be as bad for you as me,” Bill said.

  Chapter 21

  “What do you want me to do with the dead spy?” Strangelove asked Jeff.

  “You know, we’ve tried to be artistic about returning them a few times. I just don’t have it in me to go to all the trouble again. Just dispose of him any way you like. It doesn’t seem to adjust their attitude at all. I doubt we can extract anything from his pad or personal gear. It’s a risk to examine it, so just toss him as is, the safest way possible for your men.”

  “I have two soldiers on the way with a tarp. Clarke could wrap him up, take him down on one of the serving carts, and out the kitchen service entry but I hate to do that past all the kitchen help. He’ll be an obvious package even rolled up.”

  “What would you do then?” Jeff asked.

  “This corner doesn’t have an entry or anything below just landscaping. I’d roll him in the tarp but wait until late at night and toss him off to my guys,” Strangelove suggested.

  “That would be much more private and make Kamala happy too. Do it,” Jeff said.

  “That’s good. We’ll wrap him and leave him out on the balcony until then.”

  April looked at Lee sitting silently. She might be as rattled as Kamala.

  “Are you OK dear?” she asked, worried about her, not flippant like Jeff.

  “No, I’m seriously annoyed. I’d like to hold North America accountable, but without a live spy to put under the cap, I don’t feel I can act on it. They have however used up any small patience I once may have had with them in the future.”

  “Yeah, that’s where a lot of us have been mentally for years,” April agreed. “But we feel most of their population is innocent, held hostage by their system.”

  “Don’t worry,” Lee assured them. “I would work from the top down.”

  * * *

  Lee didn’t order up a luncheon for Sally and Kamala. Noon was the tenth hour in Derf time and she wanted a short meeting. She had other things to do.

  She was feeling somewhat more charitable to Kamala since Strangelove reported she did nothing untoward overnight. She had defended Lee even if Sally ended it.

  She let Sally present all the forms and explain what languages they used. She showed some existing contracts and how they worked. Sally finished up and nodded to her.

  “That’s the nuts and bolts. Now you probably have some policy questions,” Lee invited.

  Kamala looked puzzled. “This doesn’t address anything about the kind of claimant. It just has a blank line. Is it all the same for a company, partners, or a sovereign state?”

  “Same rules, same contribution to register,” Lee agreed. Your relationship with your government is your business. I’ll predict that if a state taxes their explorers excessively or limits their activities they won’t have any explorers under their flag pretty quickly.”

  “You’ve almost reversed the payment percentages,” Kamala said. “Can you really afford to keep records, publish discoveries, and send ships to intervene if somebody challenges ownership for twenty percent?”

  “I had Sally here, and the bank, model the payments for me. They have a wealth of practical experience with economics. I don’t think you realize how much was flowing to Earth’s economy. Earth is so big it could absorb it. It’s so big it needed it to sustain it. The global standard of living depended on that wealth. Still does for that matter and I don’t see any good end possible there. People are going to be poorer all over the Earth.

  “Even archiving records on three planets is dirt cheap now. Similarly, we will post new claims on all the big hab or planetary nets. So, publicity is cheap too. If you are a supporting member of the Society all our news will be available or sent to your com address. Our new star drives are much cheaper than the Earth versions
. They’re going to get even better and cheaper soon. I expect to have a sizable war chest in just a couple of years. If it gets too big, I might have to set up an explorer’s aid society or give dividends to the Little Fleet crew.

  “Notice, we aren’t taking title and controlling development or letting bids for infrastructure. It’s not our claim. All those expenses are on the owner to bid out and manage, so the fee reversal makes sense. They develop and we get a passive fraction.

  “People also know I have the support of my father Gordon. You may not know much about interstellar conflict but nobody wants to deal with him as an adversary. The Fargoers were relieved beyond measure when we got Fargoer citizenship. North America found that out, and they are about to get a sample again because we are going back with a fleet to repossess Providence soon. They cut off our fifteen percent and I’ll re-register it in our system since they defaulted on us.”

  Kamala looked shocked. “Is that why they were trying to kill you?”

  “I doubt it. You are the first person outside our inner circle I’ve told our intentions. They had plenty of animus from the war and that we established another registry. Expecting us to reclaim Providence credits them with more imagination than I’d easily believe.”

  “I wish you hadn’t told me about Providence,” Kamala said. “I’m afraid my people will leak it and cause trouble for you.”

  “I’m going to make it happen faster than they could do anything about it. But you don’t have to tell them if you don’t want to,” Lee said.

  “No, they won’t cap me but they have good enough software and expert enough staff that they’ll have it out of me when they debrief me. They have a huge baseline on me.”

  “Don’t worry about it,” Lee assured her. “We’re going to take it in any case. Heather has reduced their fleets to the point now it would be foolish to try to muster a force against us.