Free Stories 2014

by Baen Books

  The conversation between Tam and her visitor had fizzled into trivia, but Tam’s anxiety about this Trueborn’s mission hadn’t shrunk a micron.

  She asked Jamieson, “Why would a crummy table game fix report bring an expert like you all the way out here from Earth?”

  Jamieson’s smile flickered, but only for a heartbeat. “Actually, it didn’t. Bring me from Earth, that is. I had just come in to the Mousetrap aboard the Valley Forge, headed home. Then word of your report caught up with me. Iwo Jima was outbound for Funhouse fifty minutes later. You know I had to sprint for that connection!”

  Hair stood on Tam’s neck. “I do?”

  “Your dealer’s license says you were born and raised in the Mousetrap.”

  Crap. Jamieson’s doctorate and smile notwithstanding, he was, after all, a kind of Trueborn cop. And cleverer than he looked. He had managed to not answer her question to him, but flipped it into a question that let him test her.

  Tam shallowed her breathing, kept her eyes on the road, “Oh.” She smiled. “Yep. Third generation ‘Trap rat.”

  “Welder. Is that a common name in Mousetrap?”

  Actually, it had been picked for her because it was the most common.

  She nodded. “My grandfather emigrated as a cutter’s apprentice during the Buildout.”

  Tam Welder’s legend was respectable, yet generic. So far it had bought her the anonymity the Trueborns had promised.

  Jamieson laid back against his headrest and closed his eyes like a weary traveler. Maybe because she had passed his test. Maybe because she was paranoid and it wasn’t a test at all.

  Five minutes later, Jamieson sat up with a start when Tam turned off the parkway onto the seedy strip of grind clubs, slot shops, and package stores that she drove by when she was going to work each day.

  She sighed. “If Lucky U Parkway’s the class of Funhouse, the Monster Mile, well, isn’t.”

  Jamieson pointed at the sign above the pre-fab domelet on the right and read aloud. “Bug Tussle?”

  Beneath the sign’s undulating neon letters hung a klearsteel globe bigger than the electrobus. Inside the globe a man-sized crimson scorpion and a bear-sized, tiger-striped spider lunged at one another, kept apart by a transparent partition that bisected the globe. The giants’ attacks swung the globe beneath its mounting. A bleary knot of men stood alongside the road, drinking from plastis, swaying beneath the globe and taking in the free show.

  The flatscreen beneath the animals announced ever-changing pari-mutuel odds – the scorpion currently was favored 5-2 - and promised “Admission Includes Monster Mile’s Longest Buffet!”

  Tam said, “The Coliseum’s the top of Funhouse animal pari-mutuel. The bug houses are the bottom. But admission’s cheap, and they’re always open. They’re considered good entertainment value for the money.”

  “To say nothing of the buffet.”

  “The bug houses can afford to give stuff away. They actually collect bounty from the government for taking bugs out of circulation. The winners eat the losers, so feed costs the owners nothing. And the bugs are naturally competing predators, so there’s never danger of peace breaking out when the bell sounds.”

  “Efficient. Yet so classy.”

  They passed five slot parlors before Tam swung the bus into Merlin’s cracked and weedy lot and parked in front at the “Courtesy Bus” sign.

  Jamieson craned his neck at the holo generated lettering that floated above the casino’s roof, bright even under the afternoon suns.

  “So this is Merlin’s House of Cards?”

  The name faded and Tam’s smiling image, wearing the evening shows’ blue velvet sorceress robe, replaced it. Onscreen she spun, the robe flowed, and nobody could tell it was a cut down bathrobe. She produced cards in fans and fountains from her finger tips, transposed them into stacks of chips, then cascaded more cards from one hand to the other.

  The video cycled back to the casino name, and Tam shrugged at Jamieson. “I deal at the center stage table as a novelty act. Card manipulation and sleight of hand magic, mostly. Simple escapes, a couple illusions.”

  Jamieson eyed his ‘puter, glanced around the parking lot. “Noon and the place is full! Unless those cars belong to the help.”

  “The matinee draws. So we all have to park out back.” Tam shrugged again. “But if the crowds ever start shrinking, Merlin’ll replace me with a piano bar.”

  Jamieson furrowed his brow. “But you’d still get by?”

  She snorted. “Get by? Outworlders always get by, Dr. Jamieson. Sometimes we get by with help from friends. Sometimes we get by with a lie, or a mistake. I’ll get by shoveling bug crap if I have to.”

  Trueborn empathy normally extended only as far as other Trueborns, but for an instant Jamieson’s eyes softened.

  Then he was again the inquisitor. “You called this road the Monster Mile. But so far,” He jerked his thumb over his shoulder, “the only animals I’ve seen were the bugs.”

  “The real monster show’s down the road.” Tam pointed over the vacant lot’s trees. “See the dome? That’s Critter Fest. They import offworld exotics to fight local animals. The poor man’s Coliseum. The species aren’t as big or as common. There’s no performance record on most of them, so the outcomes are less predictable.”

  “That makes it popular?”

  “They fill ten thousand seats a night. Biggest draw on Natural Way.”

  “Natural Way?”

  “Monster Mile’s not the street’s real name.”

  Jamieson smiled. “Natural Way. I like that. Not every street name on Funhouse is about gambling.”

  Tam stiffened. In that instant all the little inconsistencies about Jamieson, the uncharacteristically empathetic Trueborn, congealed in her gut. Then the memories that she had hidden away for twenty years flooded back.

  The men with the Trueborn accents who came and sat with Pop and whispered with him. Pop telling her to forget she ever saw them. Then, later, for months, the men with the Yavi accents, who came and left, came and left, again and again. Until they came back with the needle guns. And Pop cold and small and bleeding to death in her arms.

  Now she saw that, like the Yavi who had killed Pop, and like those Trueborns who had recruited him, this atypically modest Trueborn was not who he said he was.

  The ice in her belly swelled and her breathing rasped. She gripped the bus wheel so this Trueborn, or whoever he really was, couldn’t see her fingers tremble.

  “Tam?” Jamieson reached from the passenger’s seat and touched her arm. “Are you all right?”

  She jerked back at his touch, tore open the driver’s door. “I’m late for my show.”

  Trailing her costume over her shoulder on its hanger, she slammed the bus door and ran.

  Merlin himself held the left door open for her, while Oscar the bouncer held the right. Merlin, his star-studded cone hat drooping, scowled through his fake beard. “You’re on in four minutes! Don’t be late tonight!”

  She brushed past him, tugging the loaded prop vest over her head, then covering it with her robe. “I’m taking tonight off. Have Maya cover for me.”

  Her boss dropped his jaw. “Oscar’s kid? Maya couldn’t vanish a frog with a hand grenade!”

  Tam turned back, winked at Oscar. “She’ll do fine.”

  Four minutes later the house lights dimmed, except for the main down-spot above Tam’s center stage table, and except for the pencil spots that lit the tiers of game tables that ringed the stage. The table ‘bots kept on dealing, and winning, while she performed.

  As Tam swept down the center aisle and mounted the stage, producing and re-vanishing card fans as she moved, the voiceover boomed above the fanfare, “This afternoon’s presentation employs no holography, magnetic levitation technology, or electronic augmentation. For the next thirty minutes, what will baffle and delight you is simple magic, the universe’s most honest lie.”

  Tam sleep-walked the show, mind racing as her heart pounded.<
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  She transformed a customer’s empty high ball glass into shrink-wrapped packets of 5-titan chips, then tossed the packets to the audience. As she did, she spotted Jamieson, seated front row left, smiling and applauding every vanish and production.

  It surprised her that his smile comforted her. Was this how the Trueborns had recruited Pop? Pop himself always said “First, make a friend. Then make a deal.”

  She flipped and flourished decks in front of the four spectators at the stage table, conjuring buffs who had paid to watch her work up close. She dealt a winning hand to the slim man in seat two, because he wore a strap banded antique watch. As she pushed his chips to him she misdirected him with her touch and a smile while she unfastened the band. When she palmed his watch, the audience, watching the slowmo overhead replay, roared. But the mark, even though he must have been expecting something, never felt a thing.

  In that instant the ping struck her again. No longer a confused question in her head. It was a snarl, so startling in its frustration and nascent anger that she sat up stiff, as though she had been slapped.

  She lost her grip on the card fan she was about to produce, and the prop slipped down through her cloak, onto the floor. She toed the cards away with her slipper, then cut the trick from the act.

  Tam stole a glance at Jamieson. He was leaning forward on his elbows, now. He had noticed. Or had he caused it? Before Jamieson arrived she only had had a mystery in her head. Now she had a banshee.

  Pop had gotten mixed up with liars like Jamieson and Pop had died. In that instant Tam decided to follow through with the plan she had half-formed when Jamieson had touched her arm in the parking lot. A half ass plan implemented in time was better than a perfect plan too late.

  Her hands trembled, weakened, so she omitted the handcuff escape and skipped to the final trick before the Lady And The Phoenix transformation closed the show.

  She had to transpose the watch she had palmed, then produce it from the cleavage of the man’s wife, who sat to his right.

  As Tam loaded the watch, she stole a glance at Jamieson. He remained seated, again relaxed, though serious and intent.

  Even before the applause died when the mark got his watch back, Tam climbed, then stood on, the tabletop. She closed her eyes, raised her arms overhead, and the tubular veil floated down from the ceiling and hid her.

  She dropped through the trap door, and even before the veil above dropped to reveal the flapping, squawking bird that had replaced her, she wormed furiously down the tunnel, scraping her palms and knees.

  Normally, when she emerged from the floor trap behind the kitchen pantry, she shed her loaded vest before she reappeared at the bar.

  Today, she ran for the stage door, robe still flapping, like the devil nipped her heels. First, she would put distance between herself and the Earthman. Then she’d think of something. She always did.

  As she dashed through the kitchen she jostled a sous chef, whistling as he walked, and plucked the boning knife from his belt scabbard. He never missed a note.

  Tam burst through the stage door, squinted against the afternoon sun.

  She held her breath against the dumpster’s stink, then rounded the building’s corner, full tilt, car fob in hand, into the employee parking lot. And stopped like she had struck plate glass.

  Jamieson leaned against her car’s driver’s door, arms folded.

  Tam’s mouth hung open as she swung her hand around the fifty cars in the employee lot. “How’d you find my car?”

  He flicked his eyes at her rear bumper. “I narrowed it to the cars with expired tags. Then I bet on the one with the ‘Horn Broken, Watch for Finger’ bumper sticker.”

  “Leave me alone.”

  “You said you’d be forthcoming. But your face onstage said differently.”

  “And you said you were a gambling expert. One honest lie deserves another.”

  “What do you mean?”

  She drew the boning knife, crouched. “Get away from my car!”

  “I can explain.”

  “Oh? Explain why a gambling cop was on Dead End.”

  The Trueborn drew back, narrowed his eyes. “What? I never said I was on Dead End.”

  “There are no casinos to inspect on Dead End. It’s just jungle and giant grizzly bears.”

  Jamieson extended his hands, palms down, nodded. “Okay. Downgraded Earthlike 476 is a primitive. But there are five hundred twelve planets in the Human Union. What makes you think I came here from that one?”

  “I grew up in a starship hub, remember? Hub kids memorize ships and routes like other kids memorize pop lyrics. You said you came to Mousetrap on the Valley Forge. But you still had an upshuttle carryon tag on your bag. The only port where the Valley Forge calls that bounces shuttles to orbit is Dead End.”

  Jamieson nodded. “Okay. You’re a detective. What’s it prove?”

  Tam shook her head again. “By itself? Not much. But a gaming cop who doesn’t know about robot dealing?

  “That’s hardly -”

  “In blackjack a natural’s an ace and a ten point card. A winner. And a seven or eleven shooting dice. But you didn’t even know it was a gambling term.”

  Jamieson sighed, ran a hand through his hair. “Alright. I’m no gambling expert. But the story got me past the Gaming Authority and past your boss so I could talk to you.”

  She snorted, poked the knife at him.

  “It was an honest lie.” Jamieson’s face hardened. “You’re no stranger to those, are you, Tamara?”

  Her breath caught.

  Bad enough that Jamieson was a liar. Worse, he knew she was, too. She had feared this from the moment Merlin told her a Trueborn official was coming to see her. Really, she had feared this since the day Pop died.

  Tam blinked. “What are you talking about?”

  “I’m talking about,” Jamieson said, “A Yavi refugee in Mousetrap who supports himself and his daughter as a pickpocket. Who believes the Cold War has good guys and bad guys. And who believes that working against Yavet and for the good guys is an honest lie.”

  The tears welled, blurred her vision as the knife quivered in her hand. “You bastards sucked Pop in. But you didn’t protect him from the Yavi when they figured out he was a double for you. Then to make up for it you stole what was left of my crummy life and gave me this crummy one. Traitor’s daughter dies aboard a starship, gets buried in space. Tamara Welder gets dug up on Funhouse. You said you’d never bother me. Which is now officially one more lie.”

  Jamieson shook his head. “That wasn’t me. I’m not even that kind of spook.”

  Tam flexed her fingers on the knife’s handle and her lip quivered. “Then what kind of spook are you Jamieson? If that’s even your name.”

  Jamieson sidestepped away from her car, hands still raised. “Tam, this isn’t about the Cold War.”

  She tossed her head. “For Trueborns and Yavis everything’s about the Cold War.”

  He stretched a thin smile. “It’s more important than the Cold War. At least to me. And, if I understand you, to you, too.”

  She rolled her eyes. “Go ahead. This should be good.”

  Behind them, the kitchen door opened, a busboy stepped out, and lit a tobacco cigarette.

  Jamieson eyed him. “Can we continue this somewhere private?”

  Tam shifted her weight, stared at the Earthman. If Jamieson was the kind of spook who had recruited Pop, he would have pulled a gunpowder pistol on her by now. And as long as she and Jamieson stayed around Merlin’s, Oscar the bouncer was only a shriek away.

  Tam waved the spy away from the car, lifted the driver’s door, then she motioned Jamieson to sit in the driver’s seat.

  With her knife pricking his throat, she tugged his wrists so that one was atop and one beneath the steering wheel rim. Then she dug in the pocket of the loaded vest beneath her cloak until her fingers closed around the handcuffs. The real cuffs, not the breakaways. Tam locked Jamieson to her car’s steering wheel.


  Then she swung down the driver’s door to close him in, slipped into the front passenger’s seat, and darkened the dome glass so they weren’t visible to onlookers.

  She faced Jamieson across the center console. “There. Private.”

  Jamieson rattled the cuffs. “Seriously? We couldn’t just go for coffee?”

  “You might poison mine. Talk. I’ve got another show in an hour.”

  “What do you want me to say?”

  “Something true would be good.”

  Jamieson squirmed in his seat. “Okay. Truth. You asked me what kind of spook I am. The research kind, I guess.”

  “Researching what?”

  “That trick you did, where you read that guy’s mind?”

  “I forced a card on him. You do know telepathy’s not a real thing, Jamieson?”

  “Do I?”

  She paused. “You’re saying maybe those pings came from somebody?”

  Jamieson nodded. “Not maybe. And not some body. Some thing.”

  Tam smirked. “Magicians lie for a living, Jamieson. You’ve gotta do better.”

  “Tam, the reason I was coming from Dead End is that I work there. I’m a xenobiologist. And kind of a diplomat.”

  “Ambassador to the man-eating grizzly bears?”

  “In a way. The grezzen aren’t just alien bears. They’re the only other intelligent species in the known universe. And they’re telepaths.”

  Tam’s mouth formed an “o.” “You’re serious? We just found this out?”

  “We’ve known for years. But the grezzen don’t trust us as a species.

  She smiled. “They really are intelligent.”

  “So we keep their true nature quiet because that’s the way they want it.”

  “While the government uses them to read all the rest of our minds.”

  Jamieson shrugged. “There are benign applications, too.”

  “All of which has what to do with me?”

  “Three months ago poachers on Dead End managed to kill a female grezzen. Quite a feat of arms, by the way. Even a female weighs nine tons grown, and can still sustain sixty miles per hour while gravid. We recovered her body, but we think the unborn cub was extracted alive, and smuggled off the planet.”