Caveat Fuzzy

by Wolfgang Diehr

  “Sound practice,” Grego replied.

  Once in the lounge, everybody took a seat: the Zarathustran crowd on one side, the Freyans on the other, and Morgan, Thor and the captain in the middle where they could comfortably address both parties. Gus noticed that the room was decorated in High Freyan. Instead of form-fitting chairs and sofas, it was done up with fur-covered bench seats with down cushions. Wood, animal hides and native Freyan tapestries dominated the room. The only concessions to Terran technology were the viewscreen, an automated wet bar in the corner and a service robot that stood near the bar. Once everybody was seated, the robot became animated and moved from person-to-person taking drink orders.

  Morgan waited patiently as the drinks were brought to everybody. The robot also laid out a selection of pretzels and mixed nuts, of Terran and Freyan origin, on the tables in front of the bench seats.

  Gus accepted a tall glass of bourbon, which evaporated almost instantly and was quickly refilled.

  The Freyans, Gerd noticed, avoided alcohol and accepted fruit drinks and snacks that looked like tiny sausages.

  “Okay,” Ben Rainsford said, “Since my tact has already been called into question, I’ll address the damnthing in the room. Johann, how did this happen to you and your people? And why do you speak German?”

  Johann smiled showing an impressive array of very large white teeth. “I appreciate your directness, Herr Governor. You would fit in well with my brethren. Our Gross—, eh, grandfathers were originally from Freya, ja, but they were criminals and outcasts. When the Chartered Magni Cooperative came to Freya looking for miners, several princedoms struck a bargain that allowed them to empty out their dungeons and cull the more destitute members of their provinces. The princes were paid handsomely, I have learned, but wanted to keep this thing quiet. Der Grosskönig, eh, the Great King would not have approved at that time. This suited the CMC as the Federation would also have objected. So, our…grandfathers were taken to Magni and made into slaves.”

  “Not everybody in the CMC knew where the workforce came from,” Morgan interrupted. “This plan was hatched by the then head of Labor Division and kept quiet. His successors were handpicked for their, oh, let’s call it moral flexibility.”

  “How could the CEO not know about this?” Rainsford asked.

  “There is a great deal a CEO doesn’t know, Ben,” Grego answered. “I hate to admit it, but I rarely look into any division’s activities until a problem comes to light. I depend on the division heads to run their sections and report to me their progress.”

  “Like you depend on me and Marshal Fane to keep you up on things, Ben,” Gus added.

  “I see,” Ben said thoughtfully. “Johann, please continue.”

  “Danke schön. As you may know, Magni is a heavy gravity world while Freya has slightly lower gravity than your Terra. Many of the slaves died from the hard work under such conditions. After almost a thousand deaths, an outside genetics company was contacted and they began experimenting on the survivors. Many more died as a result, but eventually, well, you see the success before you.”

  Success, thought Rainsford with disgust. “How many of you are there, now?”

  “A little over two thousand, Herr Governor.”

  “That’s all?” Gus asked without thinking. “How many did they start with?”

  “Over five thousand men and women,” answered Morgan. “The genetic manipulation caused a lot of non-viable births, lethal mutations and just outright deaths on the table. Only the strongest…and luckiest, survived.”

  The room fell silent for several minutes. Grego and Gerd downed what was left of their drinks and gratefully accepted a refill that quickly vanished. Gus forgot he even had a drink and didn’t notice when it was topped off. Rainsford lifted his glass as if to take a drink, and then put it back down untouched.

  “How…how did you…?”

  “Ah! How did we escape?” Johann chuckled. It sounded like a damnthing was choking. “The geneticists did not do such a good job on us. The changes they created within us held true for two generations. Then a baby was born that looked like one of you. Then another. Every year fewer of the children born look as we do.” Johann waved a hand in a sweeping motion that indicated the altered Freyans. “In a few more generations, we may all look as our ancestors did.

  “When the first one was born, we hid him from our masters. This was easy since they rarely involved themselves in our private quarters near the mines. And no, there weren’t any attempted rapes of our women. A female who can easily lift an aircar power cartridge with a single arm is not to be trifled with, I think.”

  Gerd considered the weight of a power cartridge in Zarathustran gravity, then accounted for the weight difference on Magni and was suitably impressed.

  “We raised the boy and taught him as much of Lingua Terra as we could glean from the masters—”

  “I’m sorry to interrupt, but why do you all speak German?” Gus asked. “I assume that you all do.”

  “Ja. This German is an uncommon language among your people. The masters taught us that so we could not be able to speak with any who might discover us. They even gave us all German names and demanded that we do so for our children. But we still taught Sosti to our young, and that proved our salvation. We also kept our Freyan surnames, though the masters didn’t know this.

  “When Rheiner, the human-looking boy, was old enough to pass for an adult man, we selected the overseer that looked the most like him. We killed the overseer, then gave his clothes and papers to Rheiner. Rheiner simply walked out and nobody noticed.”

  “Where is this Rheiner?” Grego asked.

  “He is with the others waiting to see if this world will have us. They all wait on Gimli, now. Where was I…ah, ja. Rheiner spoke very little of your Lingua Terra, but he could read the signs that showed the way out of the mines. From there he went in search of weapons. We had no idea that other humans might be willing to help us, so he had planned on avoiding them. Until he heard two men speaking Sosti, that is.”

  “That was Captain Zeudin and myself,” Morgan said. “We had been on Magni for about a month at that time. I, of course, was looking for a lead on my father, so I invested enough money in the Chartered Magni Company to get access to their files. That’s when I noticed Rheiner watching us. At first I thought he was a company spy. I was going to have strong words with the CEO about such sloppy surveillance.”

  Rainsford interrupted, “Wait. You were mad about how sloppy the spy was, but not that he was spying?”

  “Of course not. I didn’t mind when Akira spied on me for Victor, either. It is all part of the game.” Morgan winked at Grego, who winked back. “So, I motioned for Rheiner to come over to me and he turned and ran. Right into Thor Folkvar, here, who also thought he was spying and was going to have a word with him about it.”

  “He knocked the wind out of me, but I managed to grab him before he could get away,” Thor said. “He looked mainline human, but his muscle density was that of his father’s people.”

  Gus sized up Thor Folkvar and figured anybody who could knock the wind out of that mountain of muscle was someone to be respected.

  “Thor brought him over to me and we tried to question him, but he wouldn’t speak. That is, until the captain spoke to him in Sosti. Then he just gushed out everything. He figured he was busted and headed back to the mines, so he went for broke. Once I had the whole story, I sent Capt. Zeudin to the nearest planet with a Terran Federation Naval outpost. I stayed on Magni until he got back with the cavalry six months later. During that time I made Rheiner my personal aide and taught him Lingua Terra. Since we both spoke Sosti, everybody thought I brought him with me from Freya and didn’t give him a second glance. Once the TFN arrived, they arrested everybody and his kid sister, put them all under veridication, tried the guilty parties and shot the lot of them.

  “Most of the scandal was kept quiet, but the stock still dropped like a lead balloon. Stockholders were bailing out left and
right, which drove the stock value down even lower. That’s when I stepped in and bought up every share I could lay my hands on. I now control enough stock that I can have my way at every vote. I browbeat the remaining stockholders into passing a restitution program for the freed slaves. Every last one of them got about one hundred and fifty years of backpay plus a hefty relocation bonus.” Morgan looked at Rainsford. “That’s where most of the five hundred million sols for Epsilon Continent are coming from.”

  “I think you should buy Zeta, instead,” Grego said. “Tell me, Johann, what will your people do to support themselves once they make a home here on Zarathustra?”

  “We have much money from the backpay. We know that will not last forever, so we will work,” Johann said. Grego asked what kind of work. “The men are all trained miners, of course, and the women used to grow the crops and raise the meat that fed us. Much of the food we grew was taken by the Company, but we still ate well.”

  Grego nodded. “A well-fed worker performs better. At least those bastards understood that much. If you are still willing to work as miners, then Zeta Continent is the better choice. The CZC already has a mining operation there and I would be willing to sell it to you for two hundred million sols. Zeta is big enough for your people to settle on, raise cattle and crops and build a sizable community. Much larger than your current population. I am sure Ben could come down on the price for the land since it is much smaller than Epsilon, and I’ll even forgo the leaseback fees.”

  “You’re willing to sell the mine on Zeta Continent?” Gerd asked. “What do you get out of it? It is certainly worth a lot more than two hundred million sols.”

  “Yes and no. The mine on Zeta is peanuts to the company and we lost a lot of the workers when they flew off in company cars to stake out some free land. Some of them are in Prison House for aircar theft, while others took the next spaceship out when the wanted posters were posted. The mines have been barely worked since then. Even the influx of new colonists hasn’t offset the personnel loss. Trained miners are hard to get on a planet with this small a population. So, we sell it to Johann’s people, buy the output from them and actually make more money than keeping it with a skeleton crew. I’m sure I can sell that to the stockholders.”

  “This one is sold,” Morgan said.

  “Wait,” Rainsford said. “I am in favor of Victor’s suggestion, but why don’t you all just go back to Freya?”

  “Looking as we do?” said Johann. “Freyans are somewhat…um…?”

  “Xenophobic,” Morgan supplied.

  “Ja, xenophobic. Humans are acceptable, barely to some, but we would be seen as monsters.”

  “Plus there is the embarrassment to the princedoms who sold their people into slavery,” Morgan added. “Family honor means a great deal to Freyans in general and to the nobility in particular. So much so that they also paid a significant amount of money to keep the matter quiet.”

  “You blackmailed them?” Gus asked. His already high opinion of Morgan went up a notch.

  “I demanded reparations,” Morgan countered, smiling, “both monetarily and in chattels. That’s where the menagerie downstairs came from. There are another few loads of that coming, also. Not just animals, but seeds for Freyan plants as well.”

  “So you plan on recreating Freya on Zarathustra,” Gerd observed. “That’s why you need the whole continent. Otherwise there could be damage to the planet-wide ecosystem.”

  “Herr Grego, I think you have a good plan,” Johann said. “My people do not object to hard work, only to being slaves.”

  Ben Rainsford, Colonial Governor of Zarathustra, sat quietly for several minutes. He whispered something into Gerd van Riebeek’s ear, then Gerd whispered something back.

  Finally, he announced, “Willkommen auf Zarathustra, meine Freunde.”

  XVIII

  The synth-mask was uncomfortable. Leo Thaxter’s beard itched like crazy and he sweated profusely. He could have shaved the beard and bought the higher grade air-permeable mask, but he didn’t want to wait and he would need the beard afterwards to maintain his cover identity. He also had to get a new gun on the black market to avoid even the remote possibility that his old one could be traced back to him. People believed he was off-planet and he wanted to keep it that way.

  Thaxter stood across the walkway from the B.I.N. waiting for the chance to enter the building unnoticed when Brandon Murdock and several men came out through the front door. Thaxter recognized a couple of them as his own former employees. That might be useful, Thaxter thought. A good general always earned the loyalty of his men by treating them well and keeping his own expectations realistic. Thaxter always thought of himself as a good general and acted accordingly. If, for some reason, he couldn’t count on their loyalty to their former boss, he could always count on their fear. He had enough on every one of his old crew to send them to Prison House until Fuzzies developed nuclear fission.

  Thaxter decided to approach one of the men later and remind him where his loyalties lay. A spy inside Dane’s operation would be very useful. First he had business in the B.I.N. building.

  Back when Ivan Bowlby first came to Zarathustra, Thaxter had helped him get set up in the entertainment business, mostly because Thaxter didn’t want to run the prostitution rackets. He had no moral objections to securing the services of a professional, just no interest in being a glorified pimp.

  Bowlby had previous experience in this area before he was run off of Odin, so he was the perfect man for the job. After he got the prostitution rings established, he branched out into illicit drugs, and then the semi-legitimate arena of adult films and magazines—then television and movies.

  Thaxter, while not involved with the day-to-day activities of Bowlby’s enterprises, was still a silent partner and knew almost every secret Bowlby had: like the hidden cameras spread all over the building, the covert passages that allowed him to slip in and out of any room unseen, and especially the hidden safe in the basement where Bowlby stashed his cash.

  When the new colonial government was established, Bowlby became concerned that taxes, particularly income taxes, would be close behind. Zarathustra was too small a planet for any decent money-laundering schemes to be installed, so instead he made a point of keeping the legal enterprises separate from the illegal ones. Occasionally, he would pump up the profits of magazine and film sales with the drug and prostitution money, but for the most part, he would just stash any cash he couldn’t account for. Like most less than attractive men with poor social skills, Bowlby planned to get as rich as possible, then retire to Freya in the hopes of finding a beautiful woman to settle down with.

  Thaxter had always laughed about that. Freyan women were the target of losers the galaxy over. Nobody ever considered the possibility that they might have somewhat higher standards for marriage than some punk with a few bucks.

  Thaxter entered the B.I.N. building through the front door. There was at least one secret entrance going in, but Thaxter had never learned where it was. He’d had no need to go back when he was still a free man. On the way he was asked to sign a petition for the recall of Colonial Governor Bennett Rainsford. Thaxter ignored the woman with the clipboard and kept going. While he wouldn’t mind seeing Rainsford kicked out of office, any petition would be computer-scanned for authenticity, meaning his handwriting could give away the fact that he was still on-planet. He took enough of a chance signing for the cabin and the spaceport locker in Clancy’s name.

  Once inside the building, Thaxter took the first hallway to the left, then into the first men’s room on the right. Looking about quickly to be certain nobody else was using the facilities, he ducked into the last stall and locked the door behind him.

  Feeling around on the graffiti covered wall, Thaxter found the faint round depression under a legend that proclaimed KILROY WAS HERE and pressed hard. A six foot by three foot section of the wall opened to reveal a dark passageway. Thaxter had to duck down a bit to get in. Once through the entryway, he press
ed a glowing blue button and the wall sealed itself up and a series of lights came on. Thaxter followed the lights to a set of stairs that went down. The bottom was at least two floors below the ground floor and became a hallway. He idly wondered if the same guy who made the passage from the CZC building to the ‘Last Chance Bar’ in Mallorysport had built the secret passages for Bowlby.

  At the end of the hall was a blank wall. Thaxter cursed softly as he felt around. The new wall had to have been installed after he went to prison. After a few minutes of rubbing his hand over the wall, he found a faint depression like the one from the men’s room. Instead of opening a section of wall, a panel slid sideways to reveal a viewscreen and several nozzles.

  The viewscreen came on to reveal Ivan Bowlby’s pudgy face with the pencil thin mustache and goatee. Bowlby thought the facial hair made him look like a movie producer though Thaxter thought it made the man just look stupid. The image on the screen spoke.

  “Only two people know of this secret passage,” he said. “Myself and Leo Thaxter. Leo is in jail. However, if it is you, Leo, then I assume you have escaped and I am either helping you get off-planet, or I am dead or incapacitated. Place your hand on the scanner”—another panel slid over and a scanner plate dropped down. Behind the plate was a small globe, similar to the ones used on poly-encephalographic veridicators— “and answer each question truthfully. If you lie, this passageway will fill up with toxic gas, killing you before you can escape. Attempting to leave before answering the questions will trigger the same result.”

  Ivan watched too many of his own spy shows, Thaxter decided. He placed his hand on the scanner.

  “State your name,” the viewscreen said.

  Thaxter said quickly, “Leo Thaxter.”

  The globe in the wall glowed blue. Damn, thought Thaxter, it is a veridicator.

  The screen flickered, then Bowlby’s face returned. “Good for you! If you were a cop or Raul Laporte, Spike Heenan or, worst of all, Hugo Ingermann back on-planet, you would be dead, now. Am I dead?”