by Bill Adams
“Half the shipment went through, and half our brothers returned for reassignment. As for the rest—Condé said that the order had been cut back, and that he needed to extend the contract on the other four platoons to guard the overshipment until he’d disposed of it. Again, the pay was good. But there was something fishy about it, especially as the months dragged on…So the shipment was diverted here,” he asked Principato, “and you were reassigned to guard the lake entrance?”
“That’s what they told us,” the merc said. “We been stuck down this hole for months—’cept to go hunting. Our major said the extension option had been invoked ‘automatically,’ so we’re all, like, volunteers. Usual bullshit, but up till then, no hassle.
“Then this construction company arrives, with enough equipment to build a city, and starts parking recon satellites in orbit. Turns out we’re trespassers, have to keep under cover. The client sneaks in with a dinky little boat-shuttle. Two hundred of us stuck here, and he only hauls out two lieutenants. A month later, we hear from them. The client has connections with the local militia navy, see, and he’s faked up some militia records for our two lieutenants that put them at the head of the line when the construction company starts recruiting for experienced communications officers. So now our lieutenants are running the defense satellite radios, and we can talk to them on a tight beam from the forest without the construction guys catching on. And of course, they’re in a position to keep any messages from getting outsystem, if necessary.
“That was the good news, see—but the client had no fucking intention of pulling us out. He was setting us up to run an op! By this time, everybody’s screaming to Lieutenant Schultz—he’s the site steward—to get us a field rep and renegotiate our contract. He talks the major into making the looeys in orbit send back word to the union, somehow.”
“The injection should take effect almost immediately,” Mishima said, feeling the soldier’s pulse. “You’ll be able to get around fine at first, but the puncture wound will stiffen up this leg later—but go ahead. They sent back word about what?”
“About what’s going on. Sir. See, the client’s asking us to keep on guarding this cavern, says it doesn’t matter about the construction crew topside, says they’re the trespassers, and that the militia navy is going to kick them out in a few months. But at the same time, he sets the major to drawing contingency plans for a seize-and-hold op against them. And we knew there was something wrong with that—the looeys tell us some senator owns this planet.
“The whole thing’s crazy. Like the government’s fighting itself. We wanted the union to get the straight dope. But we never got a reply.”
Mishima glanced at me and explained to us both. “The dispatch that reached the Brotherhood had passed through various hands, and miscoding had ruined much of it.
“We knew that the original contract had been extended, and that our men were under cover in disputed territory. We knew the name of the planet, and even the general area of the hiding place. What we didn’t know was a safe way to make contact—without going through the client. And the client’s judgment was just the thing in question; we had to go behind his back and talk directly to our men in the field. I was chosen. The executive grievance committee has given me a blank check to…rectify whatever mistakes have been made.”
And suppose their client had involved them in a politically dangerous contract? Wouldn’t Mishima want to eliminate any civilian witnesses to that fact? This put a new light on Lagado’s death, and for that matter on the incident Ariel had mentioned…But there was no point in making an issue of that now.
“How did you infiltrate Senator Mehta’s team of archaeologists?” I asked.
“That was easy. A database search of passport clearances for the Blue Swathe turned up the real ‘Mishima Ken’ while he was still en route. He was in fact a geologist the senator had met at a party, another amateur at archaeology, but we forged a new letter of introduction that made him out to be a military historian, since I have published a few papers in that field. The real Mishima took ill, missed his travel connection, and was replaced by me in quarantine.”
“Is he better now?”
“In an existential sense…I was in a tricky position, however. I had to accomplish my mission and leave before the senator—who would know me for a fraud—arrived on a visit. And I had to somehow cripple the archaeological effort, which was searching the same general area where I knew the brothers were hiding. This, despite the fact that Condé might well infiltrate his own agent into the dig, someone at slightly crossed purposes to me…I don’t think I can convey all the complexities of the situation.”
“I grasp it, somehow,” I said. “So you searched the woods for Brotherhood scouts and hunters—who’d be doing their best to avoid all contact—and meanwhile sabotaged the archaeologists’ Otis system to slow down their own search.”
“Yes.”
“Then I arrived, with Velasquez.”
“Yes. As we know now, Velasquez was Condé’s agent. Back in the statue chamber, you said something about his signaling to men in the marsh?”
“I believe that’s what he did,” I said.
Mishima looked to Principato.
The mercenary had been sitting quietly, his head cocked, listening to the sound of the wind in the pipes with the intense but opaque look I’d once seen on the face of an old actor in the early stages of delirium tremens—when he was seeing or hearing things, but wouldn’t admit it yet. It was the first break in his winner’s composure; I thought it strange. Hadn’t he heard that wind noise for hours?
But he’d also followed the conversation. “I don’t know those details, sir. I was with the outside hunters until…most of the time.”
Until, until…until he was put under detention, maybe. I’d placed the name now; Pro and Contra in the statue chamber had mentioned Principato briefly, one of them had called him Sergeant Superman…Yes, he was the one who’d been planning to snatch Foyle. So he’d been on report, isolated from operational details—which meant I didn’t have to worry about his giving away my connection with Condé.
“Exasperating,” Mishima said. “I saw the signal flare that night, but by the time I’d picked my way through the marsh, the brothers were gone.”
“So you guessed that one of the new arrivals belonged to Condé,” I said. “Is that why you sabotaged my flitter?”
Mishima didn’t turn a hair. “Ah, it was sabotage, then! I wondered why Velasquez looked so suspicious when I surprised him coming out of the craft that morning. And now that we know he was Condé’s man, it makes sense that he would try to kill you. You were about to fix the Otis system, and help the archaeologists find the hideaway; in the event of your death, he could claim certain powers as your deputy, maybe shut down the dig entirely. Let me guess—was it he who accused me?”
“Yes,” I admitted. I could hardly correct the false assumptions in his story.
“But I would have been crazy to kill you,” Mishima went on reasonably. “If you’d been bribed to act as my client’s agent, well, we still had hopes that Condé’s contract was a legal one; I wasn’t going to shut it down otherwise. If you were a genuine official, an assassination would just make political trouble for my Brotherhood, the sort of thing I’d been sent here to head off. And if you weren’t genuine—what else could you be except a Shadow Tribune? Only an imbecile or a lunatic wears Column whites without permission, but the Tribunal can do what it wants. Killing a Tribune would be even more political than killing a commissioner.”
“If you were so anxious to stay on the good side of the Consultancy,” I said, “why didn’t you identify yourself in the statue chamber, as soon as the shooting started?”
“I would have,” he replied. “You’d searched my tent earlier, so naturally I thought you were on to me. Then, after Velasquez was killed, you announced your mysterious political duties and told me not to leave until the others had gone. I thought you were simply getting the civilian witnesses o
ut of the way. As you may recall, I headed back to the statue chamber—to represent the union in the frank discussion I was sure you intended us all to have. It was quite a shock to discover that you’d arranged something else. Open war, shoot on sight, and the brothers likely to kill me before I’d get a chance to identify myself.
“Then, in the graveyard, you revealed that my brothers here were out of control, mixed up in some plot to assassinate a senator. I decided to match your discretion. If you ever did admit your membership in the Tribunal, I’d come clean, too, and offer my assistance. But if you were something else—say, a genuine sub-commissioner of alien antiquities, swimming way over his head and pretending to more knowledge and authority than he had”—he shrugged apologetically—“then revealing myself to you would only limit my options. I decided to keep traveling with you; I’d protect you and the civilians—build good will—until I saw a chance to talk with my brothers. Before I could negotiate amnesty or reparations, I had to know what we were guilty of.”
“And you haven’t had a chance before now?” I asked.
“Think about it!” he said. “You heard that identification routine, how complicated it is. It was never intended to be used on a battlefield. If it weren’t for our ‘speaking tube,’ I’d have had my head blown off before I could say the first line.”
He took a deep breath. “But now here we are, everything out in the open.” He turned to Principato. “Just what are you guarding on this planet, soldier?”
“Deepspace war machines,” I told him before Principato could reply. “Planet-killers, that sort of thing.”
Mishima looked back at me.
“Don’t pretend you haven’t guessed,” I said. “Condé is a defense contractor, currently under investigation. And way back in the statue chamber, when Piet Wongama gave us that computer report on Level Null—where your brothers were—he mentioned that nearly all the spacecraft hangars down there were occupied. He assumed they were full of ancient Elitist ships, but you and I know differently now.”
Mishima was silent.
“Condé discovered this city long ago, and realized what a great scannerproof storage bay it would be.” I turned to Principato. “When you brought the arms shipment down the lake elevator,” I asked, “was there already a stockpile here?”
The merc nodded. “A regular navy. One of the things that made us nervous.”
“So Condé’s been illegally manufacturing extra war machines, and diverting them here, for years,” I said. “Maybe he honestly did think it was his planet—certainly he didn’t expect Senator Mehta to move in at just this crucial time, when the Senate investigation had forced him to transfer the last illegal load from his factories.”
“But if the arms are illegal, what’s all this talk about the militia navy coming in to support Condé’s claim?” Mishima asked.
“I think you’ve figured that out, too. There isn’t anyone to sell major war machines to, except the Column’s Consultancy. So he plans to use them himself. A coup. Apparently he believes that enough key militia navy officers are still loyal to their old admiral, and will back him. ‘The navy will support the Consultant, if they get the chance,’ that’s what your brothers said in the statue chamber, but the great families who created the Column aren’t crazy about the Consultant’s populist reforms, and they can back Condé with big money. He’d have the advantage of surprise, too, striking from the Blue Swathe—a semiautonomous fringe whose Senator Mehta is one of the Consultant’s liberal allies.” I put some nicely modulated outrage into the big finish: “This is high treason.”
“But if the upper managers of the Column don’t want a Consultant anymore,” Mishima said, “what does Condé get out of it?”
I shrugged. “The Blue Swathe, maybe. In a way, returning it to the Column. ‘I have wiped away the Swathe’s democratic Sodality,’ he can tell them, ‘but if you acknowledge me as your satrap, I will give you more direct control over the Swathe than you ever had before.’ That sort of takeover is an old story in the fringes, isn’t it? Especially in fringes like the Blue Swathe, where too many of the old Federalist liberties still prevail. That’s why you’ve been playing your cards so close to your chest. You thought Condé just might pull it off, in which case, why shouldn’t your union collect a fat fee for helping out?”
He said nothing, and I realized I’d better keep talking, and make it good.
“But the plan is doomed to fail. His arms stockpile has been discovered, months before the planned revolt within the militia. He can’t move it without revealing himself to the senator’s people. His only chance is to take the entire planet when the senator is himself present, and stall events for a month or two with forged messages from the senator. That was the plan I heard being improvised when I eavesdropped in the statue chamber. It’s an act of desperation, and it’s based on the idea that the Consultant is not yet aware of Condé’s activities.”
“But isn’t that the case—except for you?” Mishima asked.
“That would be a very dangerous thing for you to believe, Colonel M—You’re still calling yourself Mishima?”
He shrugged. “Names are just tokens.”
“So are you; so am I,” I said. “Tokens in a chess game that the Consultant has already played out in his head.” I made my own mental moves, at top speed. “Look, I know everything that’s passed between Condé and Mehta since they were in the Column’s new navy together, almost a hundred years ago. Every detail, down to the way Condé cracks his knuckles and Mehta clears his nose—I know why and where their feud began. I have been briefed on Condé’s resources, allies, and probable timetable. The fact that I was sent here to work through the archaeological dig should tell you that I already knew where to look for his base. Because Condé is a new navy veteran, and a popular militia admiral, I was supposed to handle the matter discreetly, gather evidence for a secret trial. But if I disappear, if I do not file my regular report this weekend, a preemptive military strike has been planned; the units are already in place.
“The Consultant and a majority of the great families have chosen to stand by their senator, libertarian though he may be. Anyone on the wrong side of the street when the parade goes by is going to get run over, and elephants will shit on him. Do I make myself clear?”
“Commissioner,” Mishima said, raising both hands in a placating gesture, “the Iron Brotherhood’s part in this fiasco is nothing but an appalling mistake. Our field commander has exercised unbelievably bad judgment—if he hasn’t simply been suborned. Clearly, Condé has deceived the union. You know we would never do anything to jeopardize our charter or destabilize the peace of the Consultancy. We are a service business, not a criminal gang.”
My gorge rose; I thought of all the human beings the Iron Brotherhood had burned, shot, pulped, chopped, and vaporized for money. They’d be calling themselves “population processors” in a minute. “So?”
Mishima put his hand over his heart. “I hereby declare Condé’s contract void.”
He and Principato smiled at me blandly, with the eternal innocence of soldiers and cops everywhere. The wind hooted.
“That will hardly satisfy the Consultancy,” I said. “And if the senator is assassinated, the Brotherhood will be held criminally responsible.”
“All right,” Mishima said, trying another hand gesture: openness and candor. “Let me offer a deal. I’ll shut down this op, and turn its command over to you. Once in communication with my home office, I’ll arrange for the Brotherhood’s spies to help the Consultancy run down any other conspirators or caches of matériel—gratis. All the Brotherhood would ask in exchange is immunity from any criminal charges, damages, and civil liability arising from this affair.”
“I can’t make promises for the Column,” I said—by this time oblivious to the truth of it—“but work it out for yourself. I’m the only chance you have of obtaining leniency, and if I am killed, or fall into Condé’s hands—you lose it.”
Mishima nodded and kne
lt next to his comrade. I walked about, stretching my legs. The humidity and stench remained oppressive.
“I’ve got to work my way up the chain of command to your chiefs,” Mishima told Principato. “That old initiation code is too unwieldy. Give me any operational passwords you know. What field protocols have been assigned?”
“What? I mean, none, sir.”
“None?” Mishima stood up.
“No, sir. There’s no official operation yet. We didn’t need any passwords in the elevator shaft, and op codes won’t be assigned until the day before we hit the construction camp.”
“You got by well enough with him,” I said to Mishima.
“A lucky break, I told you—talking through the pipe. An operational password is short and sharp, one syllable that says live or die.” Mishima walked over to where I stood, halfway toward the rear of the cave. “Commissioner, I’ll do anything to show the union’s good faith. Or continue to, I should say—I’ve already saved your life once.” He lowered his voice. “I wouldn’t stop at killing my own brothers, if necessary, to shut down this operation or protect you.”
“Not just me, the civilians, too,” I insisted. “They’re under my protection, and I’m deputizing you.”
He shrugged. “It is all one.” He held out his hand. I took it and we shook. Principato was already up and testing his leg.
“Now let’s get the hell out of here,” Mishima said. “Principato, the way out is north, over the top of this rockpile. We’ve rescued you as assigned, and I don’t want to stay long enough to find out what from.”
Right on cue, the quake struck. It was the same loud rumbling, the same sense of being helpless in a huge, trembling hand—but this time it lasted a whole minute, and the floor tilted a few inches beneath us. The others bobbed and balanced, but I lost my footing and crashed into a wall three meters away, next to a large pipe opening.