The Sagittarius Whorl: Book Three of the Rampart Worlds Trilogy

by Julian May

  The bar was close to Phlegethon’s busy fueling bays, a handy little oasis for transient starfarers and the contraband traders who wheeled and dealed with them. Loud Latin jazz played over an uproar of voices. The place served only human beverages and snacks, and was packed with human, T’tata, and Joru drinkers. Even a few grotesque Kalleyni squatted in a corner where the gravity was turned low, slurping beakers of corrosive White Lightning and shrieking mirthfully at their own jokes.

  I ordered a martini. I hate martinis, but that’s what Joru drink in human dives; martinis with extra olives because that’s the best part of the drink. The aliens poke the gin-soaked fruit through the eating ports of their masks and chew rapturously. I wasn’t ready to suffer that much for my art.

  The bartender said, “Something wrong with the olives?” He was a tough-looking human with a pencil-thin mustache and sallow skin.

  “They are exquisite,” I assured him, “but I am feeling a trifle indisposed. Please direct me to the relief facility.”

  He looked at me funny, as though this were a question I should know the answer to. “In the rear, in the alley. Pay for your drink before you go.”

  The dimly lit alley-passage backed on numbers of other grogshops, cheap cabarets, and modest eateries in the immediate vicinity. It contained two refuse-recycling units, a triplex latrine with an exterior puke-basin, haphazard stacks of empty crates, and a stock-delivery elevator. The latter was in use.

  Leaning against the toilet cubicle near the basin, I fumbled with my mask and moaned, pretending to be unwell, and watched a human worker bring barrels of beer out of the lift and tote them into one of the other pubs. When he was gone I summoned the elevator myself and surveyed the interior. The control pads were labeled with the names of several beverage and food supply outfits located on lower levels. The only Up button wore a little sign that said DOCK G-6.

  Well, well.

  I pressed it and made a short ascent. When the door slid open I found myself in an area where medium-sized freighters and the lighters that served larger starships were discharging cargo and taking it aboard. Roboporters loaded with container pods were zipping all over the place. A human stevedore maneuvered a train of small cars carrying crates of familiar terrestrial booze into a kind of cage next to my elevator and began off-loading them. Unfortunately, he spotted me in the open elevator car.

  “Hey, Joru! Whatcha doing in there?”

  When caught flatfooted in suspicious circumstances, act blotto. “Aargh. I—I fear I am confused by strong drink. I am seeking my vessel, the Julog-Wul. It appears I have come to the wrong dock.”

  “Yeah, well, you get the hell back downstairs and find the right fuckin’ lift. This is a human dock. Joru ships tie up at D-3 and D-4.”

  I apologized and returned to where I had started. Back in La Cucaracha Loca, I treated myself to a shot of Jack Daniel’s. The bartender looked at me askance, since Joru don’t drink whiskey, but I didn’t give a damn. It was celebration time.

  I’d found a way to remove Barky Tregarth unobtrusively from Phlegethon. All I had to do was lure him to La Cuca, slip him a mickey, take him into the alley, lose my Joru disguise, and get us both up to Dock G-6. Makebate’s gig would come for us on autopilot if I summoned it with my phone-link. The dock was so busy that I doubted if anyone in authority would notice another small orbiter craft nosing in among the lighters and picking up two human crew members.

  Yes. It was going to work … provided that Sh’muz and his pirate pal weren’t scamming me.

  I went back to my starship to get things ready.

  I arrived half an hour early for the rendezvous, just because it seemed like a good thing to do, and sat unobtrusively at the end of the bar nearest the front door. The Latin music was less raucous than it had been during my earlier visit. Sh’muz and a formidable-looking entity who was clearly his informant were sitting together at one of the little tables, drinking beer. Y’tata love beer. The maroony had a longneck bottle of Bud, and the large ugly Y in the shiny skipper’s uniform had just picked up his freshly arrived stein of draft and started to drink it down.

  But the brew didn’t suit the alien starship captain’s taste. He puckered up his pasty face in revulsion, slammed the mug down on the table, splashing poor Sh’muz, and roared, “Waitress! This overpriced belly-wash is flat!”

  “That’s our top-line house microbrew,” the overworked human server said over her shoulder. “You want more carbonation, blow bubbles in it. Just be sure you sue your north end—or I’ll have our bouncer cork you so tight you’ll never whistle ‘Dixie’ again.”

  This provoked general merriment among the non-Y’tata patrons. A human starship crewman called out, “That’s telling him, Gigi! Fuckin’ Y bum-tootler.”

  Actually, members of the intestinally challenged race frequenting La Cucaracha Loca that night seemed mostly to be on their good behavior. No alien flatus defiled the atmosphere, which smelled of tobacco smoke, grass, hops, popcorn, bacon sandwiches, and the odd but not unpleasant aroma of Kalleyni slime. But storm clouds, so to speak, were on the horizon.

  “Insolent human shitwit!” yelled the Y’tata skipper to the starman, surging to his feet and flipping up the back of his copper-studded vest in challenge. “Step outside and I’ll toot you right off the friggin’ asteroid!”

  A barroom brawl wouldn’t serve my purposes. I rapidly pushed my way to the scene of the confrontation and placed myself between insulter and insultee. Even though I’m a Joru midget, I was considerably larger than either the Y skipper or the human starship crewman with the big mouth.

  “If you please, dispenser of beverages!” I thundered to the barkeep, waving a large-denomination bill. “Serve both of these worthy entities some Pilsner Urquell. Include a thirty percent gratuity for yourself and the female server, and let tranquility and good fellowship be restored.”

  Gigi the waitress brought open bottles of the pricey premium brew with crystal glasses upended over the mouths. She handed one to the appreciative human spacer, who said, “Wow! I always wanted to try this stuff.”

  I appropriated the second Urquell and sat down at the table of the two Y’tata. “Allow me to do the honors, Captain,” I said suavely, easing the golden liquid into the tilted glass and creating a moderate head of creamy foam. “I pray you will enjoy this most excellent variety of beer with my heartfelt compliments. It is brewed only in a single city on Earth.”

  The skipper glared at me suspiciously as he reassumed his seat. It took the Pilsner glass from my hand, upended it, and downed the beer in a single heroic chug. “Good bubbles. I’ll have another one, Joru.”

  I signaled Gigi, who nodded and went off.

  “This is Captain B’lit,” said Sh’muz. He’d turned a whiter shade of pale during the face-off and his voice still quavered slightly.

  “I am Gulow,” I said. “I hope to do business with you tonight, Captain.”

  “How much is it worth to you?” the skipper inquired insolently.

  I lowered my voice almost to the point of inaudibility. The other bar patrons were ignoring us now that the danger of a pong assault had abated. “If you are truly an acquaintance of the human trader Barney Cornwall,” I said, “and are able to introduce me to him promptly, so that I may offer him certain rare merchandise, I will vouchsafe an appropriate emolument.” I named a sum that made Sh’muz gasp.

  “Double it,” sneered B’lit, “and you got a deal.”

  “The aforesaid generous price is firm,” I said stonily. “Vulgar haggling is beneath the dignity of the Joru.”

  “Cheapskate,” muttered B’lit. His second Urquell arrived and he took his time pouring and sipping it. Finally: “How do you figure to pay?”

  “By means of preloaded blind EFT cards issued by a human financial institution. Once activated, the cards are negotiable on any human world and many alien ones, with no questions asked.”

  “Hmm. This rare merchandise you want to sell to Cornwall …” The skipper was el
aborately casual. “You got it in there?” A pink claw pointed at the locked metal case hanging on my baldric.

  “Certainly not,” I said. “The most valuable thing I have to sell, Captain B’lit, is information. And it is most securely guarded. As is my own person.” I let him see the arm holsters up my sleeves. “Do not take me for a fool. Furthermore, I will require proof of Barney Cornwall’s identity before I pay you.”

  “Ask him yourself, you Joru prick,” the Y skipper said. “He’s sitting over there in the corner. He owns the goddamn joint! C’mon—I’ll introduce you.”

  The two Y’tata and I moved through the closely packed patrons. The man in the corner had an unusual area of empty space around his table. He sat with his back to the wall, nursing a stein of microbrew, and watched our approach with an ironic smile.

  It was a setup. But what kind? I decided I’d have to carry on according to plan.

  The man who might have been Hamilcar Barca Tregarth didn’t look at all like the doddering centenarian I’d envisioned. In fact, he might have been fifty years old or even younger, with shoulder-length brown hair and unlined, rather handsome features. If he really was the man I was looking for, he’d been very extensively—and expensively—rejuvenated. He wasn’t tall but his build was solidly muscular, shown to advantage by a tailored jumpsuit of dark blue leather, zipped open to the waist to reveal a trendy fishnet T-shirt. Around his neck hung a heavy platinum chain with a large pendant. When we were closer, I was able to identify the stone in the pendant as an exotic fossil the size of a plum. I’d seen its like before, in the Perseus Spur …

  “Hey, Barney,” said the Y skipper.

  “Hey, B’lit. Been a long time.”

  The Y’tata winked one piggy red eye. “This is the guy.”

  I did my Joru thing. “Do I have the pleasure of addressing Barney Cornwall?”

  “Pleasure?” The man in the blue jumpsuit gave a hard laugh. “We’ll have to see about that.”

  “Before we go any further,” I said firmly, “I must tell you that a certain associate on my home world recommended Trader Cornwall as the person most likely to know the true value of … certain extremely specialized goods I am offering for sale. You must forgive me if I verify your identity.”

  “What!” B’lit exclaimed. “You want a DNA profile? It’s Barney Cornwall in the flesh, you Joru dipstick! Every bigtime freebooter in the Sag knows him. Now pay me!”

  “Me, too,” Sh’muz whispered. “Please?”

  I took a pair of EFT cards out of my baldric and programmed them with the agreed amounts, flapped a wait-a-bit paw at the two Y’tata, and addressed the man at the table. “There is a simple way to prove you are Barney Cornwall. Please tell me your other nickname.”

  His dark eyes turned to slits and I felt a brief touch of uneasiness. But after a prolonged pause, he smiled again and said softly, “Some people call me Barky.”

  “The very answer I had hoped for! Thank you for enduring my necessary gaucherie in a civilized manner.” I handed EFT cards to each of the Y’tata. “And now I must insist that you two entities depart forthwith.” Sh’muz scuttled off, but B’lit continued to stand there, smirking insolently. “Go!” I roared. Grabbing the copper epaulets of his uniform vest, I spun him about and gave him a propelling knee in the backside.

  Bad move. He laughed, then retaliated as only a Y’tata can, strolling out of the place in a fusillade of farts as patrons rushed to get out of his way, groaning and cursing. But an instant later some sort of powerful exhaust fan kicked in and quickly sucked up the reek. I suppose there was a special sensor for social errors in this sort of place. The bartender cried, “Drinks on the house!” and any potential exodus was nipped in the bud.

  Barky Tregarth was unperturbed. He indicated the seat opposite him and said, “Sit down.” When I did, he stared at me in silence for several minutes, finishing his stein of beer. Then he gave a little nod, as though satisfied by his inspection, and placed a small object on the table between us.

  It was one of the biocontainers of doctored PD32:C2 I’d handed out to the arms dealers the day before.

  “Terrific bait!” he said. “The real thing. I had it checked out. And that’s a damned good xeno disguise, too.”

  My innards turned to ice. I sat without moving. He’d made me as a human and a fraud, probably knew I was Ram Mahtani’s mystery client. But did he know who I really was? And was there still a chance I could pull off the abduction?

  He continued, “I knew you were looking for me as soon as your Y’tata bud contacted Captain B’lit yesterday. I had to check you out, after a warning that I got from a friend on Earth, so I had one of my people zap your paw with a diagnosticon in the seventh gun shop you visited yesterday. A medical body scanner, you know? You never noticed the gadget sitting on the counter. It said the skin of your hand wasn’t alive. Imagine that! So you’re not a Joru, and there’s no new source of PD32:C2, and I’m kinda pissed off ’cause I was really hoping somebody had the fuckin’ key to El Dorado for sale.”

  “There’s still a lot of money to be made,” I said, and started to open my baldric pouch.

  “Hold still,” Barky hissed. “You wouldn’t be dumb enough to reach for a gun, would you? An associate of mine at the table behind you has you targeted. And I know about the Kagi and the Ivanov stashed up your sleeves.”

  But do you also know about my body armor? And my force-field generator?

  “I’m reaching for another EFT card,” I explained. “A very friendly sort of weapon. May I?”

  He inclined his head and I pulled the little slip of plastic out and passed it across the table. It was Adam Stanislawski’s last minute contribution to the war chest. Barky Tregarth’s eyebrows rose as he checked the load readout. “A nice sum. Not El Dorado, but … nice. What do you want?”

  “Information only. Confirmed psychotronically.”

  He laughed. “I’m just a gunrunner and innkeeper. Moderately prosperous in my old age. What do I know worth that kind of money?”

  I leaned forward and pointed to the pendant hanging around his neck. “Where did your jewelry come from?”

  He sat stock still, then said, “So that’s it.”

  “I’ve seen that kind of fossil before, on the planet Artiuk, a Haluk colony in the Spur. Some of the local officials and other dignitaries I met on a visit there wore the pendants as badges of honor. But you didn’t get yours in a Haluk Spur colony, did you, Barky?”

  “No,” he said calmly.

  “It was given to you in the Haluk Cluster, wasn’t it? That’s why you were so anxious to redeem it from Clifton Castle, the fence who lent you the money you needed to escape from Tyrins, thirty-five years ago.”

  “You seem to know a lot about me.”

  “I have no animus against you. I’m not at all interested in your shady business career. But I do want to know what you saw when you visited the Haluk Cluster. I want any information you have on their population density, the total number of inhabited planets, the demographic pressures that drove them to emigrate to the Perseus Spur. I want to know how big a supply of transactinide elements they have out there in their cluster, and how they mine ultraheavies, given their inferior technology. And I’d like to know what they’re doing here, in the Sag.”

  “Who are you?” Barky Tregarth asked.

  “My name isn’t important, but I do have some important friends. One of them is responsible for the stake on that EFT card. I believe that the Haluk are still hostile to humanity and plan to invade our galaxy. Part of their strategy involves attacks on our starships. That’s going on right here and now, in the Sagittarius Whorl. Haluk bandits are hijacking transack carriers, and Sheltok Concern is doing a big cover-up, pressured by other members of the Haluk Consortium who do business with the aliens. The Haluk scheme for domination also involves infiltration—a conquest from within. My friends and I have proof that Haluk masquerading as human beings have wormed their way into the Hundred Concerns. They may ev
en have spies in our government. We need more evidence to support our contention that the Haluk represent a serious threat to human security. When we get it, we’ll put it before the Commonwealth Assembly. Public opinion will force the Delegates to reexamine the Haluk nonaggression pact and their trade treaty.”

  Barky was still holding the nonactive EFT card, doing the old gambler’s trick of “walking” it from one finger to another. “Politics!” He gave a bleat of derisive laughter. “Fuck that. I’m a Throwaway—a noncitizen. The Commonwealth says I don’t exist. Why should I give a hoot in hell if blueberry raiders heist trans-ack carriers? In the Sag, Sheltok charges stargoing aliens and independent human operators twice as much for fuel as it charges Concern ships. So the Haluk even the score, with a little help from the Y’tata. Big deal.”

  “I think they’re planning to wage war, Barky. Interrupting our supply of vital fuel elements is only part of their strategy.”

  “That’s a crock of shit. The Haluk want to trade, not fight.”

  “Are they buying weapons from you?”

  “Sure! It’s no big thing. So do the real Joru, and the Kalleyni, and the Y. I’m the biggest gun-peddler on Phleg. And you know where I get my merchandise? From Carnelian, and from over a dozen other Concerns who wink at contraband trafficking. What do those corporate ass-wipes in Toronto care where the stuff goes, as long as the price is right? As for your war idea, I think it’s crapola. There aren’t enough Haluk fighting ships in the Sag to wage war on the Kalleyni fruit fleet—much less the Human Commonwealth.”

  “Do you know how many Haluk ships are operating here?”

  He held up the EFT card between two fingers. “Will the blueberries know I sold ’em out if I talk to you?”

  “No,” I lied. “Whatever I learn from you will only be used back on Earth. For political purposes, as you said. My friends and I have no interest whatsoever in shutting down your Phlegethon operation or halting your trade with the Haluk. Even if we did, how could we? The asteroid is Sheltok property. CCID and the Secretariat enforcers have no authority here unless Sheltok grants it. That won’t happen.”