Shadow of Victory

by David Weber

  “This isn’t the kind of conversation I should have with anyone, especially a total stranger, on a public shuttle,” he said. “Assuming, of course, that the conversation was going to go anywhere, anyway.”

  “Actually, public air shuttles are very good places for this kind of conversation,” Eldbrand demurred. “They’ve got video, sure, but I noticed your eyes before you chose the seat. That’s why I said it was in a good position, and it is, isn’t it? You know the pickups can’t get a good look at your lips—that bulkhead by the drink dispenser cuts off the one on the left side of the cabin at row twelve, and the one furthest forward on the right side is behind us. Now, if we were to get up and turn around and face to our left about, oh, thirty degrees, the one hidden in the row twenty-three light fixture could probably get a pretty good angle.”

  Frugoni’s nostrils flared. Swallow’s security forces didn’t waste a lot of time camouflaging their snooping systems. After all, all of them were completely legal under the current inventive interpretation of the Constitution. But Eldbrand had unerringly catalogued all the video pickups which might have provided grist for a lip reader, including the one that had been hidden in the light fixture he’d mentioned. Frugoni had done the same thing before he selected his seat, with an unobtrusive little device he’d acquired from Chief Stephanopoulos, and he wondered if Eldbrand had a matching unit in his pocket.

  “As far as audio systems,” Eldbrand continued, “I’m afraid the ones covering our current zone are suffering from unfortunate interference right this minute.” Frugoni tensed, and Eldbrand shook his head. “Don’t worry. I’m sure someone at Five will wonder if you had anything to do with it, but when they investigate, they’ll find that the gentleman in 21-B is responsible. And if they examine his luggage, they’ll find a small but expensive stash of controlled technology in it. It’s mostly bootleg molycircs and some spyware nanotech, but there are a couple of jammers in there, as well, and one of them, unfortunately, is turned on at the moment. Faulty switch. I’m afraid he probably never even noticed.

  “I suspect he’ll have a hard time explaining that, especially when his employers find the fund transfer from Rappaport Industries. It’s my understanding Rappaport and Tallulah are involved in a bidding war with OFS over Tallulah’s continued control here in Swallow, and I’ll bet the authorities are going to assume he’s involved in gathering information that might be useful to Rappaport. It probably won’t end well for him.” Eldbrand’s smile was cold. “But I wouldn’t lose too much sleep over it, if I were you. He’s a TSE investigator and he’s been smuggling other tech—and mindbender—for years.”

  The growing unhappiness Frugoni had felt as Eldbrand talked disappeared abruptly. Under normal circumstances, he wouldn’t have liked to think about what might happen to someone set up in the fashion the other man had described. But while Frugoni had nothing against anyone willing to smuggle outlawed technology past Tallulah and its Swallowan stooges, mindbender was something else entirely. There were, unfortunately, always people stupid enough to try “just a taste” of anything, even mindbender, but as far as Vincent Frugoni was concerned, people that stupid should be drowned at birth. Mindbender was one of the very few drugs which was outlawed on virtually every planet because of its hundred percent addiction rate and inevitable ultimately fatal side effects. The fact that it had a nasty habit of inducing hyper-violent psychoses in the ending phase of its users’ addiction made the authorities no fonder of it.

  If Eldbrand was telling the truth, then the sooner someone—anyone, even Matsuhito—took the supplier off the street as permanently as possible, the better.

  And if he is a bender-pusher, nobody’s going to believe a single damned thing he says about how that jammer in his bag wasn’t really his, either.

  It was always possible, he reminded himself, that Eldbrand really was a Fiver and that everything he’d just said was a fairytale. It was becoming more difficult to cling to that belief, however. And if the other man really knew as much about his own activities in Wonder as he claimed and he’d been able to identify and make use of the pusher, he was obviously a force to be reckoned with.

  “How’d you know he’d be on this shuttle?” he asked after a moment.

  “Because he’s been on this shuttle every time he came back on-planet for the last sixteen or seventeen T-months,” Eldbrand said. “I’m surprised you didn’t notice him, First Sergeant. The first four times he used it, he was here because it’s the one you always catch. He’s not here to keep an eye on you any longer, of course. That’s why the woman with the purple hair in 6-C is on board. But he knows security’s lax on this flight—after all, he’s seen it from the other side often enough—so he’s been taking advantage of it for his own purposes.”

  Frugoni’s eyes flicked to the purple-haired woman, then back to Eldbrand.

  “Oh, yeah. They’re still keeping at least one eye peeled where you’re concerned.” Eldbrand shrugged. “I expect they’d’ve invited you in for a little talk quite some time ago if not for your military record…and the Nixon Foundation. I don’t know how long Luther and his people will go on poking around here in Swallow, but I doubt they’ll leave before the contest between Tallulah and Rappaport gets resolved one way or the other. His entire team’s basically paid for by a Nixon grant from Rappaport.”

  Frugoni looked at him thoughtfully, then nodded. That made sense, and it explained a few things. The Nixon Foundation was one of those Solarian organizations that did well by doing good. Something like ninety percent of its donations and other funding went into overhead, travel expenses, and bloated salaries, although it did seem a bit more serious than most of its ilk where investigating human rights offenses was concerned. Jerome Luther, the leader of its “fact-finding team” here in Swallow, had actually uncovered a genetic slave ring in the Cooper System, less than a hundred light-years from Sol. Unlike quite a few of the independent newsies Nixon deployed on its fact-finding missions, he had a League-wide reputation for serious digging, and Frugoni and the boys had wondered what brought someone with his media footprint to a backwater like Swallow.

  “You know, Mr. Eldbrand, you seem to know an awful lot about what’s going on here in Swallow for somebody whose accent makes it pretty damned clear that, as we say here, ‘you’re not from around here, are you?’”

  “That’s because my superiors have made a point of learning an awful lot about what’s going on here in Swallow,” Eldbrand replied calmly.

  “And just why might that be? I doubt you’re working for Rappaport, somehow. Don’t tell me there’s a third transstellar in the wood pile!”

  “No, nothing that straightforward,” Eldbrand said. “Let’s just say—for the purposes of this initial conversation—that I represent a sovereign star nation which, for reasons of its own, is interested in supporting worthwhile causes like the Cripple Mountain Movement.”

  “Out of the bigness of its heart, I’m sure.” Frugoni snorted. “Excuse me, Mr. Eldbrand, but I stopped believing in the Easter Bunny about the time I learned to head a football.”

  “I never said the star nation in question didn’t have ulterior motives.” Eldbrand’s tone was mild. “In fact, its motives are about as ulterior as they get. When you’re likely to find yourself in a shooting war with the Solarian Navy, it’s probably a good idea to find anything you can to…distract the Sollies’ attention from you and focus it somewhere else. So my superiors started looking for distractions, and what happened to your sister—and how your brother-in-law and his family reacted to it—was pretty damned visible a few years ago. It even made the mainstream Solly news services; that’s why Nixon sent Luther out here in the first place—ostensibly, at least. The first data search we did on this neck of the woods turned up the coverage, and after that it wasn’t hard to figure out roughly what was going on. Not when you’re prepared to spend enough money and you have the kind of sources somebody like…my superiors have, anyway. And, frankly, money’s not a big issue for us
. Not when we’re looking at the alternative to spending it, anyway.”

  “I’ve seen this game played a time or two before,” Frugoni replied, turning to look out the window beside him. “Usually by some fat-cat corporation trying to muscle in on somebody else’s territory.”

  “Or by OFS,” Eldbrand said quietly. Frugoni’s eyes snapped back to his face, and he nodded. “Our people figured that was why you were already planning to leave the Marines even before your sister was killed, First Sergeant. You didn’t like what happened in Al-Bakiya one bit, did you?”

  “No,” Frugoni said harshly. “And I especially didn’t like the fact that OFS convinced Brisbane and her people that they’d support her and then threw all of them to the fucking wolves as soon as she’d given them the excuse to move us ‘peacekeepers’ into the system.”

  “And you’re wondering if my superiors would do the same thing with you.” Eldbrand nodded again. “Frankly, I thought that might be a problem for you. So one of the reasons I’m here is to do my best to convince you that won’t happen here. I expect you to be a hard sell. I hope so, actually; I prefer working with people who have functional brains. But the truth is, we have every reason to want you to succeed…and every reason not to get known as the sort of people who do the kind of thing OFS did to Andrianna Brisbane and the Al-Bakiyans. I’m afraid we won’t get to that bit until we reach the ‘I’ll-show-you-my-cards-if-you’ll-show-me-yours’ stage, but I think once we do, you’ll understand why I genuinely believe you’ll decide we can be trusted.”

  “And if I don’t decide anything of the sort?”

  “Then I get back on my ship and head home, no harm, no foul.” Eldbrand shrugged. “You’re only one of several star systems we’re looking at, to be honest. Given Tallulah’s record, we’d be particularly happy to see it taken down, but we’re in no position to be pursuing purely altruistic options. So if you and the Allenbys aren’t interested, we’ll wish you well and go looking for someone else to help.”

  “I see.”

  Frugoni leaned back in his seat, the book reader open in his lap, and contemplated his seatmate thoughtfully for the better part of two minutes.

  “You’ve got my attention, anyway,” he said finally. “I’d dearly love to know how you came by all your in-system information. Maybe I’ll even find out. But you’ve impressed me, which I’m sure is what you had in mind, and your offer certainly sounds worth at least investigating. But I’m sure you understand I can’t—and won’t—try to speak for anyone else without checking with them first. So who—besides ‘Harvey Eldbrand’—do I tell them we’re talking to?”

  “That’s one of the things we find out when we get to the I’ll-show-you-my-cards stage,” the other man said. “For now, if you don’t want to call me Eldbrand, how does…Firebrand strike you?”

  SEPTEMBER 1921 POST DIASPORA

  “I can understand why you might be a little…puzzled. And obviously it wouldn’t be very smart of you to simply take my word for it that I’m one hell of a nice guy. On the other hand, we’re not going to get anywhere if we both just stand here with the pulsers in our pockets aimed at the other fellow.”

  —Damien Harahap to Tomek Nowak,

  Lądowisko, Planet of Włocławek

  Chapter Nineteen

  “Good afternoon, Ensign Zilwicki.”

  Helen turned towards the voice as the maître d’ showed her into the restaurant’s main dining room. Quillen’s was one of the city of Thimble’s better eating places, and its prices reflected that. But it was also close enough to both Governor Medusa’s mansion and Augustus Khumalo’s dirtside headquarters to be popular with the Navy.

  “Lieutenant Archer,” she said, nodding courteously to the red-haired, green eyed senior-grade lieutenant. He was seated at one of the restaurant’s prized corner tables with one of the few people in Spindle Helen had gotten to know fairly well, and she smiled at his companion. “Ms. Boltitz.”

  “Would you care to join us?” Archer said. “We’ve only just placed our orders.”

  “Thank you, Sir,” she said, although she had to wonder if she’d have been inviting any third wheels in his place. Admiral Gold Peak had been back in Spindle for less than two full days, after all, and she’d spent most of the first day coping with the results of the Battle of Manticore. Helen knew how much Commodore Terekhov had hated telling her about it, and Archer, as her flag lieutenant, had been just as frantically busy as his boss. He couldn’t possibly have had the time to pick up the social threads here in Spindle, and if she’d been male and had a friend who looked like Helga…

  Be nice, Helen, she cautioned herself. After all, he is Admiral Gold Peak’s flag lieutenant. There could be all kinds of legitimate business reasons for him and Helga to grab a quick lunch together. She snorted mentally at the thought. Oh, I’m sure it’s “just business”!

  “What’s this ‘Ms. Boltitz’ about, Helen?” Helga asked with a raised eyebrow as the maître d’ pulled out Helen’s chair. “Have I offended you somehow?”

  “No, but this is sort of a formal venue,” Helen replied, waving one hand at the crowded restaurant about them.

  “And it would have been grossly disrespectful of the Ensign to allow herself to lapse into informality in the presence of an officer of such towering seniority as myself, Helga,” Archer said sternly. “I’d’ve thought you knew that!”

  “How do you fit that head of yours into a beret, Gwen?” Helga asked.

  “It’s difficult…difficult,” he replied mournfully. “I have to have it sized up at least twice a week.”

  Helga chuckled, and he smiled at her, then turned back to Helen.

  “I know we haven’t had the opportunity to really introduce ourselves to each other, Ensign Zilwicki,” he said. “On the other hand, we’re probably going to spend a lot of time liaising with each other, so I thought that it might be a good idea for us to get to know one another. I didn’t realize you and Helga had already met, although given another six months or so it probably would’ve occurred to me that the two of you must have, given what she does for Minister Krietzmann and what you do for Commodore Terekhov.”

  “It probably really would have, Helen,” Helga told her earnestly. “He’s very quick that way for someone with a Y-chromosome.”

  “And you’re grossly disrespectful to someone of my advanced years, Helga,” he said severely.

  “Oh, forgive me!”

  Helen smiled as she unfolded her napkin, draped it across her lap, and reached for the printed menu. She knew they were deliberately using their banter to put her at ease, but it was also clearly natural to them, and she was glad. Helga seemed like one of the nicest people she’d ever met, and the warmth in her eyes when they rested on Lieutenant Archer was obvious.

  Helen allowed her own eyes to consider Archer thoughtfully while she considered what she’d been able to learn about him. Lieutenant Gervais Winton Erwin Neville Archer—no wonder he preferred the nickname “Gwen”—was probably six or seven T-years older than Helga. That made him ten T-years older than Helen herself, although he seemed as unconcerned by that as by the difference in their ranks. He had red hair, eyes as green as Helga’s, and a snub nose. Given that he was a third-generation prolong recipient like Helen, he looked like Helga’s kid brother, but there was nothing “brotherly” about his body language as he sat beside her at the table. He was also, as the second of his numerous given names indicated, a distant cousin of Countess Gold Peak and Empress Elizabeth, although he was obviously—and thankfully—immune to the towering sense of entitlement common to too many aristocrats of Helen’s acquaintance. And, unlike many a Gryphon Highlander, she’d met quite a lot of those aristocrats.

  And he doesn’t have the drawl, either. Thank God.

  A real live waiter appeared at her elbow to take her order and she considered the menu for a moment.

  “Is the Montana sirloin shipped fresh, or has it been frozen?” she asked.

  “At Quillen’s?” The w
aiter looked deeply offended by the very thought.

  “Then that’s what I’ll have, extra rare,” she told him. “Just saw off the horns and show it the fire—briefly. Baked potato with sour cream and chives, and a side salad. Bleu cheese dressing. And do you have iced tea?”

  “I’m afraid not, Ma’am.” This time the waiter looked confused rather than offended, and she shook her head with a smile.

  “Then just bring me a carafe of hot tea, lots of sugar, and a couple of tumblers of ice.”

  “Of course, Ma’am.”

  “Oh, and a couple of slices of lemon, too,” she added.

  “Certainly, Ma’am.”

  He disappeared and Helen looked back to see her table companions regarding her with quizzical expressions.

  “Hey, they’d better get used to serving iced tea,” she said. “I picked up a taste for it from the Graysons I’ve met—like Lieutenant Hearns, Helga—and she’s not the only Grayson serving with us right now.”

  “I can see that,” Archer said. “It’s your cooking instructions that seemed a bit…colorful.”

  “What?” She frowned, then snorted. “Oh, you mean the ‘saw off the horns and show it the fire’ bit?” He nodded, and she chuckled. “Sorry. I’m afraid I’ve been corrupted. That’s the way Stephen Westman always orders it.”

  “Really?” Archer smiled. “Somehow I’m not surprised. Everything I’ve heard suggests Mr. Westman’s a…larger than life character.”