EMPIRE: Investigation

by Richard F. Weyand

  “Oh, yes. And the other thing I downloaded was several textbooks on how to be an investigative reporter, how to conduct interviews, that sort of thing. Along with a bunch of videos of interviews which are considered exemplars of the breed, including analysis of the techniques employed.”

  “Oh, good. I almost forgot about that part. I’ve got work to do when we get there.”

  Purny thought about it a moment.

  “Is there going to be a problem about downloading this stuff? I mean, that’s sort of out of character, right?”

  “No. I didn’t want to do it on the Imperial Oath. Imperial Interstellar Lines has had occasional problems with passenger information security, but Grand Terran Lines hasn’t. They’re really picky about it. It may have to do with the number of politicians who traveled the line during the Democracy of Planets.”

  “OK. Well, that makes sense. And I have homework to do.”

  Between hitting the gym and the sims, studying journalist methods and interview techniques, and reading the recent political and crime news from Dalnimir, the three weeks to Earth passed quickly. As they got closer, Purny got excited.

  “I’m looking forward to seeing Earth.”

  “Just another planet, I imagine,” Culligan said.

  “Yeah, but it’s where it all started. Humanity. Right? And it’s still there.”

  “I’m not sure where it would go. I thought you would have seen it before. You were posted in the DP. Groton. Preston.”

  “Yeah, but those are over by Cascade and Nederling” Purny said. “I’ve never been this far east. What about you? Have you ever seen Earth?”

  Culligan shrugged.

  “Yeah, in VR. Just like we’ll see it now, for that matter. It’s not like we’re going down to the surface, or going outside.”

  “Still, it’s different. It’s being there.”

  Culligan chuckled.

  The reality didn’t disappoint Purny.

  “Wow! Look at the size of that moon.”

  “We’re coming in from behind it, so it looks bigger than it is, but yes, that’s a big moon compared to the planet,” Culligan said.

  “It must make navigation a nightmare.”

  “Oh, it does. But it is the best-mapped gravitational field in human space.”

  “Wait. What is that?” Purny asked.

  “The lunar space station.”

  “That’s a space station? It’s immense.”

  “Yes, and it has apparent gravity,” Culligan said.

  “How do they manage that?”

  “It’s tethered to the satellite, and hangs past the equilibrium point toward Earth, so it’s got gravity.”

  “If that ever lets go, it’s gonna make a really big hole on the planet,” Purny said.

  “Yes. That’s why it’s tethered a couple dozen times. They lose one once in a while and have to replace it.”

  “And the Emperor didn’t destroy it in the war?”

  “No,” Culligan said. “It’s primarily commercial. Freight transfers, mostly. I doubt they’d build it now for the same purpose, but, once it’s there, why not use it?”

  “OK, that thing’s crazy.”

  “Let me show you something else crazy. What are the primary languages spoken in human space?”

  “English and Spanish, for sure,” Purny said. “French in Terre Autre. Some German, too, in Baden Sector.”

  “Right. Now look at the planet, and give me an overlay permission.”

  Purny selected the planet view in VR.

  “It looks like any other planet.”

  “Any Earth-like planet is going to look pretty much the same. The good ones anyway. Give me that permission.”

  “OK.”

  Purny gave Culligan an overlay permission in her VR, and map outlines appeared on the surface of the planet.

  “OK, so Europe and Africa are toward us right now. And these are the country borders, as of just before the Great War of the twentieth century. So you said English, Spanish, French, and German, right? What do you see?”

  As Culligan mentioned each language, a country highlighted in color on the map overlay: Great Britain, Spain, France, and Germany.

  “Wait,” Purny said. “That’s it? Those four tiny countries. That’s where those four languages came from?”

  “Yes. Those four small countries fought amongst themselves for almost a thousand years. With all that practice, they got so good at war they conquered the rest of the planet. That’s why those four languages are the major surviving languages today.”

  “They conquered the whole planet?”

  “Pretty much everything except China and Russia. It was once said that ‘The sun never sets on the British Empire,’ though its detractors said that was because God himself didn’t trust them in the dark.”

  Purny laughed. Culligan continued.

  “Let me roll it out and show you.”

  The map overlay unrolled into a flat projection, with Europe still matched to the real-time image of the globe.

  “Now look at what they conquered.”

  Countries all over the map shaded in colors to match one of the four. Sometimes they were striped with more than one color. The great expanse of Russia was uncolored, as was China, but almost all the rest of the map was shaded in with the color of one or more of its conquerors.

  “And when the wave of conquest and colonialism withdrew, the languages remained. And that’s why they’re the four major surviving languages today.”

  Culligan looked at her, and she saw him in one of her side-camera channels.

  “I thought you were a history major. PhD in history.”

  “Yes, but not ancient history. Modern history. Interstellar history. Like the Fifty Years War.”

  “Modern? That was four hundred years ago.”

  “Yeah, but it’s way more modern than this.”

  She gestured vaguely in front of her, where she saw the VR of Earth and Culligan’s map overlay.

  “That’s still crazy, though. Just those four little countries. All neighbors. Wow.”

  The Solar Fire resupplied from a freighter that was waiting for it, and dropped and picked up passengers through shuttles from the surface of the planet, all while under way at one gravity of acceleration. Over half the passengers debarked at Earth and were replaced with Dalnimir-bound passengers.

  Purny continued to gape at the planet and its orbital infrastructure until the Solar Fire entered the massive Earth hypergate and disappeared from normal space.

  Dalnimir

  The Solar Fire cut its acceleration back to 0.3 gravities, and dropped out of hyperspace into normal space in the Dalnimir system. It immediately returned to one gravity acceleration, and headed for its first shuttle rendezvous.

  Purny and Culligan were in their first-class suite getting ready to go ashore. Everything had been packed other than the clothes they were wearing ashore.

  “So business attire for going ashore?” Purny asked.

  “Yes. So the hotel pics are good shots. I want people to be threatened by our presence.”

  “Why threatened?”

  “Because I want them to do something stupid,” Culligan said.

  “So guns loaded.”

  “Yes.”

  “That means no more Now! games,” Purny said.

  “Just like on Annalia. Yes, I know. That game is done, now. You don’t need it anymore, anyway.”

  “Oh, you say the sweetest things.”

  He smiled and kissed her.

  “Now don’t start anything we don’t have time to finish,” Purny said.

  Culligan laughed.

  As they waited for the porters to take them to the shuttle, Culligan called up the view of the planet in VR.

  “Look at the planet view for a moment. Tell me what you see.”

  Purny pulled up the planet view as well, and considered it carefully.

  “One thing I notice is it seems greener than Earth somehow.”

  “Ve
ry good. Earth has a relatively large axial tilt for an inhabited planet, and it was winter in the northern hemisphere when we were there. Dalnimir, by contrast, has no axial tilt.”

  “So no seasons,” Purny said.

  “Correct. Which means they have three growing seasons on their arable land, not just one. A normal crop rotation of, say, corn-corn-soybeans takes one year, rather than three.”

  “So in that way, it’s like Julian.”

  “Again, correct,” Culligan said. “The one thing that kept Julian from starvation as long as it did was they had year-round agricultural production. Dalnimir has the same. It was one of the big reasons people were willing to risk the difficult trip to get here when it was originally settled.”

  “That’s a huge advantage, even over Earth.”

  “Yes and no. Earth’s seasons and its large satellite and the resulting tides helped to speed evolution along. It’s one reason we exist at all. And some plants that require seasons simply won’t grow on Dalnimir. All the summer crops and tropical and semitropical plants do quite well, however.”

  “Interesting,” Purny said. “This could be a fun assignment.”

  “Yes, if we survive.”

  Purny raised an eyebrow at him.

  “One thing we’ve learned for sure is they play politics for keeps on Dalnimir. It could get rough.”

  “Well, we’ll take it as it comes, I suppose,” Purny said. “One nice thing is we don’t have to do all our research undercover.”

  “That’s right. Our covers are as investigators, so we should be talking about what we’re finding. If we’re under surveillance, that just means we’re fulfilling our covers.”

  “Which will just make them more nervous.”

  “Correct,” Culligan said. “And more likely to do something stupid. We just have to make sure we survive it.”

  The shuttle trip down to the planet was without incident, and, as they were first-class passengers, Grand Terran Lines shipped their luggage ahead to their hotel, the Capitol View in downtown Stolits.

  “We may have a problem, sir,” Dalnimir Bureau of Police director Timothy Dennler said.

  “Well, deal with it, Tim. Don’t bother me with it,” Dalnimir Planetary Governor Hugh Knowlton said.

  “It may not be that simple, sir.”

  Knowlton sighed.

  “So what is it this time?” he asked.

  “A couple of new arrivals on Dalnimir. We x-rayed their luggage, and, well, sir, they’re carrying some unusual things.”

  “Like what?”

  “Like nearly a thousand rounds each of pistol ammunition,” Dennler said.

  “Which is legal anywhere in the Empire.”

  “Very specialized pistol ammunition. They look like small-caliber platinum expander rounds.”

  “So?” Knowlton asked.

  “That’s some very expensive ammunition. And no guns show up in the x-ray.”

  “So they’re carrying their personal-defense weapons. Also legal anywhere in the Empire.”

  “There’s also a lot of other things we can’t identify from an x-ray,” Dennler said. “Vials, and hypodermic needles, and the like.”

  “OK, so we have a couple of rich people who have medical problems. So what?”

  “One of them is an investigative reporter for Galactic News Service. Does political exposé and scandal pieces. On corruption, mostly. And her husband is a retired university professor in sociology whose major field of study is crime and law enforcement. They came here all the way from Annalia, with Dalnimir as their final destination.”

  “Oh, shit,” Knowlton said. “Yeah, that does sound like trouble. Well, keep an eye on them. Let me know if they do anything I need to worry about.”

  “You don’t want me to do anything now?”

  “No. Not yet. Let’s not create a problem if we don’t have one.”

  When Purny and Culligan got to the hotel, they were booked into a high-floor suite looking down the Stolits Mall toward the planetary capitol building about two miles distant.

  “Well, that’s a pretty view,” Purny said.

  The porters from Grand Terran Lines showed up with their luggage, and put it all in the living room of the suite under Culligan’s supervision. When they had left, Culligan opened his small trunk – the one from Sam, on Alexa – and pulled out a small square of cardboard. He held it up to Purny.

  “What’s that?” Purny asked.

  “X-ray dosimeter. They x-rayed our luggage.”

  In VR, Purny asked, “Should I get upset about this?”

  Culligan answered in VR, “Yes, we’re probably under surveillance.”

  Purny walked over to look at the dosimeter.

  “Are you shitting me? That’s outrageous.”

  “It’s been in the last few hours. It read zero when the porters picked up our luggage on ship.”

  “Well, let’s see what Grand Terran Lines has to say about that!”

  With QE radio, there was no reason to call the local office of Grand Terran Lines. Purny could call the headquarters, on Earth, and she did. First-class passengers had their own customer assistance line. Purny also opened a management channel in her VR to Culligan so he could watch.

  “Yes, may I help you?” the pleasant woman asked.

  The embroidered badge on the Grand Terran Lines uniform of her avatar read ‘Susan.’

  “Oh, you sure can. I want to know why you x-rayed our luggage.”

  “Ma’am, Grand Terran Lines does not x-ray passenger luggage.”

  “Well, someone did, and they did it while our luggage was in your custody.”

  “Are you sure, ma’am? How do you know?”

  “We carry x-ray dosimeters in our luggage, and they read zero four hours ago when your porters picked the luggage up from our cabin aboard the Solar Fire. Now they show a radiation exposure equivalent to an x-ray.”

  “Perhaps it was cosmic radiation, ma’am.”

  “At that level? Look, I don’t need excuses. I want to speak to your supervisor.”

  “Very well, ma’am. It may be just a moment.”

  Purny waited until the supervisor appeared, a man of about forty whose badge said his name was ‘Steve.’

  “Yes, ma’am. I’m told you believe your luggage was x-rayed.”

  “Oh, I don’t merely believe it. I have proof of it. X-ray dosimeters that read zero when your porters took my luggage four hours ago.”

  “Ma’am, Grand Terra Lines does not perform or permit the x-ray of passenger luggage.”

  “So you people keep telling me, despite the proven fact that you’re wrong. But I’ll tell you what. I’m an investigative reporter for Galactic News Service. Galactic News Service is a Stauss Interstellar company, and Stauss Interstellar owns a significant interest in Grand Terran Lines. A controlling interest, as I recall.

  “Now, either look into this and get me some answers, or I’ll both raise hell up my chain of command – to Dieter Stauss himself, if that’s what it takes – and write an expose article about how Grand Terran Lines is x-raying passenger luggage without notice or leave, in violation of Imperial Law. So escalate this – I suggest through your legal department – and get me some answers, or I’ll get them the hard way. Understand me?”

  “Yes, ma’am. I will escalate the issue as you suggest.”

  “Thank you.”

  Purny cut the connection.

  Culligan, who had watched the whole thing in VR, played dumb.

  “So what did you do?”

  “I gave them a piece of my mind. I also told them if they didn’t get me some answers, I would get them myself. I threatened not only to write an exposé article on Grand Terran Lines illegally x-raying passenger luggage, but to take it up my chain of command to Stauss Interstellar, even to Dieter Stauss himself. And who’s the controlling shareholder of Grand Terran Lines?”

  “Dieter Stauss?”

  “None other.”

  “What did they say?”

&n
bsp; “They said they would look into it. What do you want to bet I don’t hear anything?”

  In VR, Culligan said, “Suggest we sweep the hotel room.”

  Purny looked around the living room of their suite.

  “Well, if they’re x-raying our luggage, how much do you want to bet they’re monitoring our hotel room?”

  “Oh they couldn’t be monitoring all the hotel rooms in town,” Culligan said.

  “I didn’t say they were. But somebody decided to put us in this hotel room. Come on. Let’s sweep it.”

  “All right.”

  Culligan huddled over his trunk to block the view, and pulled an electronic sweeper out of one of the hidden compartments. He pulled the antenna out and started sweeping the walls.

  “Here’s one.”

  Purny went over to look at the little pickup embedded in a wall decoration. Culligan handed her a pen knife out of his pocket and she dug it out, leaving it dangling on the wire.

  Culligan kept sweeping. He found three more in the living room, including one in the lamp on the side table and one in the ceiling fixture. Purny laid each one bare in turn.

  Culligan moved on to the bathroom, where there was one embedded in the decorations around the wall mirror. Purny again dug it out.

  Culligan worked on the bedroom last, and found a total of three, with views of the bed and the sitting arrangement. Purny dug those out as well. Then Purny went around the hotel room with a camera, documenting each of the audio/video pickups they had found.

  At the last one, she looked right into the camera, waved, and said, “Hi, fellas. Better tell your boss we’re coming for him and his friends. Maybe they want to get out of town while they still can.”

  In VR, Culligan said, “Call the hotel. Get the manager up here. Raise complete hell.”

  “This is completely nuts,” Purny said aloud. “Bugged is one thing. This room is infested. I’m calling the hotel manager.”

  Purny placed a call to the front desk and asked to see the manager, in her room, immediately.

  When the manager arrived, Culligan waved him into the room.

  “Yes, madam. My name is Ralph Jurgens. I’m the day manager. Is there some problem?”