The four-hundred and eighty-pound, heavily-muscled Magnian nodded. “I’m not bulletproof, but I take your meaning.”
“Well, if a human messes with a Fuzzy, he’s going to have to deal with the dog, too. That’s why I signed off on the plan.” Jack finished his tea. “How long before we’re back home?”
Big Thor checked his chronometer. “I suspect we’re already there.”
“I would like a dog,” Thor said to Little Fuzzy. He and Little Fuzzy entered a discussion on the value of such beasts. It ended with Little Fuzzy taking Thor down to the cargo hold to meet some Curtys.
“Planning on adopting your namesake?” Jack asked.
“Maybe. My wife is gone and my children all grown. A Fuzzy companion might be nice to have.”
Jack looked the Magnian’s face over. He looked to be in his thirties. “If you don’t mind, how old are you?”
“Fifty-two. If I had stayed on Magni I would probably look more my age. Lower gravity-worlds don’t seem to affect my skin as much. And before you ask, no, my wife didn’t die. We had a contract marriage and it termed out after three years. We renewed it, once, but after that the wanderlust got the better of me and we didn’t renew again.”
“Oh, well, if you decide to go back to Magni, I don’t think you should take Thor with you….”
Thor Folkvar looked shocked. “Why would I return to Magni? I am a hundred pounds heavier there and suffer back pain every time I go home. Did you know that the average height for a man on Magni is five foot six? Any taller and the gravity messes with your knees and back. It also cuts ten years off your lifespan. My father, two-meter tall beanpole that he was, came from Terra and married my mother, a Magnian woman. Now, here I am too tall to be comfortable on the planet of my birth. Nah. As long as Morgan stays on Zarathustra, so will I.”
Jack refilled his tea and took a sip. The Earl Grey Green was growing on him. “Good to know.” Another thought struck him. “Morgan is the CEO of the Chartered Magni Cooperative. What if he makes Magni his base of operations?”
Thor looked over his stein at Jack, then set it on the bar. “Then I’ll have to find other employment. Magni is a nice place to visit, but I just can’t live there.”
Jack nodded. It was a terrible thing when a man couldn’t go home.
* * * * * * * * *
Gus Brannhard entered the office at his usual 0830, half an hour before the rest of the staff came in. This way he had time to read the newspaper and do a quick scan of the data stream. Gus turned on his desk terminal and scanned for new messages. The serial rapist of Junktown had been killed by his intended victim. Good, that would save him the trouble of prosecuting the bastard. Frankly, Gus figured the man could have been charged with felony stupid if he didn’t realize that even women were armed on colony planets. Gus scanned around hoping for something on the hitman that took out his abductors. Instead, something else caught his attention immediately; it was a message from the late Leo Thaxter.
Curious, and expecting a prank, he opened the message. The face that filled the screen definitely looked like Thaxter, though it could just as easily be Clancy Slade or a digital mock-up; it would take a forensic technician to be sure. Gus listened intently as the image spoke.
“Mr. Brannhard. If you are seeing this message, than I must be either dead, off-planet or back in Prison House. I won’t make odds on which one. Believe it or not, I hold no malice toward you for sending me to prison. I knew what business I was in and the likely results of my line of work. In fact, I am rather grateful that you accepted the plea bargain that kept me breathin’ for another twenty years.
“That said, I have a small present for you. The following video feed was taken the night of Ivan Bowlby’s death. There’s a lot more, but I think you’ll especially like this clip.”
The video feed that followed brought a look of unholy glee to the face of the Chief Colonial Prosecutor. This was even better than catching the hitman.
* * * * * * * * *
Piet Dumont was conscious and communicative in his hospital bed when Colonial Marshal Max Fane and Gus Brannhard walked in with Officers Chang and York. He tried to sit up in his bed but Max motioned for him to stay still.
“We’re here to make sure you heard the news first, Piet,” Max said.
“Oh? I already know that Thaxter is dead, if that’s what you are….”
“No. Not Thaxter, though he did play a part in this,” Gus interrupted. “We are here to arrest Ivan Dane.”
Piet searched his drug-fogged memory a moment, then recalled that Dane was one of the people Thaxter shot at the B.I.N. building. “What’d he do? Felonious bullet-catching?”
“He murdered Ivan Bowlby,” Max said with a wolfish grin. “And, we have reason to believe he was involved with the illegal mining operation over on Beta. George Lunt and Ahmed Khadra are bringing over a co-conspirator right now.”
“We also have Thaxter on video giving an account of how Dane orchestrated his jailbreak,” Gus added. “We’re going to clear a lot of cases with this.”
“Son-of-a-bitch. Nurse! Get me a hover-chair, right now.” Piet scrambled painfully out of the bed and shuffled over to the cabinet with his clothes.
Max tried to stop him but was afraid to restrain him. Piet had a lot of stitching on his chest from the operation to remove Thaxter’s bullet and it would be a day or two before they could use the neo-derma-plas over the wound. “Piet, what are you doing? Get back in bed.”
“And miss this arrest? Like Nifflheim I will. Chang, go get that damned nurse and get me a chair. York, help me with my shirt.”
“Better let him come along, Max,” Gus said. “The doc said the bullet didn’t hit anything too vital and he’s more likely to hurt himself if we try to keep him here.”
Piet looked up as he zipped up the jacket. “You better believe it. Hey, where’s Clancy?”
“At home with his family. Asleep most likely, since he works the night shift,” Max said. “There’s talk of the Colonial Medal for Bravery for his actions, yesterday.”
“He earned it,” Piet said. Chang entered the room with a nurse and a hover-chair. Piet sat down and let out a long breath. His chest hurt like all Nifflheim. “Now let’s go arrest us a murderer.”
XXXII
Gerd slammed his fist on the console in frustration. The main computer was still acting up. Joe Verganno was still trying to track the source of the glitch down in the mainframe. His best guess was that a new virus had slipped through the firewalls, which was a good trick considering the sophistication of the computer security systems.
“Careful,” said a voice from behind him. “Those things are expensive as all Nifflheim.”
Gerd turned to see Victor Grego accompanied by Morgan Holloway and Akira O’Barre walking around some of the worker robots. Gerd greeted each in turn, then said, “If a love tap like that can hurt a polysteel encased computer console, then whoever you bought it from saw you coming a light-year away.”
“Actually, it was built here on planet by the Company. Joe Verganno designed it himself. Still having trouble with the software, I take it.”
“Yeah,” Gerd said in disgust. “Without a trained linguist on planet the computer is the best we got, but it just won’t scan and search the database for possible matches. It isn’t programmed for it. Of course the likelihood of the alien language being in the databank is very low, anyway. We need a human, not a machine.”
“Well, if you had taken a few days off like I had suggested, the bugs might have been zapped before you got back. What are you doing here, anyway?”
Gerd slumped in his seat. “For the moment I am a man without a country. I wasn’t back on Beta for five minutes before Jack had to take off and tackle that Fuzzy problem up in Northern Beta. He told me that while I am on the Company payroll I shouldn’t be getting involved and suggested I spend some time with Ruth.”
Grego mentally winced. Jack was trying to push Gerd into taking the Company job and was showin
g that he could manage without him.
“Ruth, on the other hand, spends a lot of her time working with Fuzzies on the Reservation on top of her social work. We managed to spend yesterday morning together, then I got the word that Jack had been taken prisoner and tried to go help. George Lunt ever so politely reminded me that for the time being I was a civilian and had me escorted back to my cabin.”
Morgan smiled and said, “If it helps, I am being charged with interfering with the NPF plus assault on an officer. Major George Lunt, by name. Leslie spoke with Gus and they think I can avoid jail time though the fine will be…what was that word he used?”
“Homeric,” Akira supplied. “Ben instituted a fine table based on the offender’s financial resources, according to Gus.”
That sounded like Ben, Grego thought, champion of the underdog.
“I assume that means it will be a lot,” Morgan finished.
“I think even you will feel the pinch,” Grego said. “Back to you, Gerd. Why didn’t you just stay home with Ruth?”
“Because Ruth isn’t home. She’s here in Mallorysport doing her social work. Id, Syndrome, Superego and Complex all marched off to war yesterday before I knew what they were up to, and I couldn’t get through to George to find out what was going on, so I came in with Ruth. Once here, I had nothing else to do, so I came back to work.”
“Aren’t you worried about your Fuzzies?” Akira asked. “They could get killed fighting those other Fuzzies.”
“Fuzzies don’t kill each other the way humans do. And the res crowd has human weaponry and training. Was I worried? Yes. So was Ruth. But Fuzzies have been surviving oomphty-thousand years without us Big Ones, and I have to trust them to do what they think is right.”
Jack has rubbed off on Gerd, Grego thought.
“And I seem to recall hearing that all the Fuzzies went off in a Big One’s private spaceship,” Gerd added, as he looked over at Morgan.
“Ah. Yes.” Morgan actually looked a little sheepish. “If you haven’t heard back yet, they are all fine. There were a few fatalities, but none of yours or Jack’s family.”
“Actually, I got the word last night. It saved you from being in another duel,” Gerd added lightly. “I wouldn’t be able to concentrate on this,” Gerd tapped the metal plaque from the rocket, “if I didn’t know my family was safe. At the very least I should probably pop you one.”
Morgan rubbed the bruise on his jaw. “Ah, my esteemed father has already attended to that.”
“Why not let Morgan take a crack at translating the plaque?” Akira suggested. “He speaks several languages.”
Gerd sat up and took notice. “You do? Like what?”
“Well, aside from Lingua Terra there’s Sosti, the Freyan tongue, Khooghra, Ulleran, Latin, German, ancient Martian, Barsoomian…”
Grego interrupted, “Barsoomian?”
“Yes, Victor. It was a pledge requirement in my fraternity back at Mars University. It is an artificial language comprised of words culled from a variety of fantasy books about Mars and mixed in with some ancient Martian.”
“He also had to dress up as John Carter of Mars for the frat parties,” Akira added, with a laugh. “You should see the pictures—”
“Which they won’t,” Morgan interrupted.
“I had to learn Yiddish for my frat on Terra,” Grego said. “Barsoomian must have been a breeze compared to that. Well, hell, Morgan, take a crack at it. Gerd, any objections?”
Gerd had none and produced the metal plaque from the rocket. Morgan looked at it, turned it around and traced some of the symbols with a forefinger.
“Interesting. These are the Freyan symbols for ‘emptiness’ or ‘void’.”
Grego and Gerd looked at each other in surprise. “Freyan? You think this artifact is from Freya?” Gerd asked.
Morgan shook his head in negation. “Not at all. Look hard enough at any two languages and you might find some symbols in common.” Morgan looked harder at the writing on the plaque. Some of it was still obscured by corrosion. “If I didn’t know better…well, I am a little rusty, but this looks like Martioform. This here, after ‘void’ is the Martian suffix ‘hulva’, meaning ‘study of.’”
“Void study,” Gerd said. “Space exploration! Do the Freyans and Martians apply the same meaning to that symbol?”
“Almost,” Morgan said. “In Martian it means ‘space.’ In fact, the symbols for dirt, fire, water and air are very similar in the two languages. That’s about it, though, between Sosti and Martioform. Oddly, there are some Cyrillic symbols with equivalents in Sosti…. ”
“Can you translate the rest of the plaque?” Grego prompted.
Morgan returned his attention to the artifact. “Well, with what I can make out, and assuming that this is, in fact, Martian, then it says, roughly, ‘Space Exploration Craft Sooleesh One.’ That’s all I can get without the rest of the corrosion being cleaned off. ”
“Sooleesh?”
“King of the ten gods of ancient Mars, Akira,” Morgan explained. “He was a sun god, basically, like Apollo or Ra Amon on Terra or D’rhalum on Freya.”
Grego’s eyes went wide. “This rocket is the Martian equivalent to, what, Apollo One back in Terra’s early space exploration days?”
“Apollo Seven, actually,” Gerd said. “Apollo One never made it off the ground due to a disaster on the launch pad that killed the crew. This ship clearly made it off-planet.”
“Then the question is: how did a spaceship with no hyperdrive travel over seventy-two light-years and crash here?” Grego looked at the rocket. It was clear even to a simple businessman that it wasn’t designed for deep space flight.
“I guess we’re back to the worm-hole theory,” Gerd said. “This is a fantastic find! The Martianist movement will go nuts over this.”
“And that’s why they’ll never hear about it.”
Grego, Morgan, Gerd and Akira all turned to the new voice. It was Lt. Commander Pancho Ybarra accompanied by Commodore Napier.
“You just dug up the Federation’s worst nightmare; something to give credence to the crackpot theories the Martianists have been spouting for the last hundred years,” supplied Napier. “The Martianists have been growing in numbers and are on the verge of becoming a political power. Something like this would be just the shot in the arm they need to achieve that goal.”
“So what?” Akira interjected. “How are they different from any other political group?”
“They have a lot of strange agendas, Miss O’Barre,” Pancho said. “Like moving the seat of the Federation Government to Mars, terraforming Mars to be habitable again, changing all the history books to reflect the Martian Origin theory….”
“That last will raise all kinds of Nifflheim with the Religious Right, Christian and Muslim, much like the Darwin debates back in the Pre-Atomic Era,” Napier added. “Wars have been started with far less provocation. The facts that a Martian spaceship landing here does little to prove Terrans originated on Mars won’t even be considered. It will be a political and religious nightmare.”
The room fell silent save for the background noise of the robotic crew cleaning the interior of the rocket.
After several heartbeats, Gerd spoke up. “We may have one of those here on Zarathustra if we can’t provide a plausible explanation for this rocket being here. Ivan Dane is challenging the legitimacy of the current government based on a ‘Fuzzies landing here from space’ theory.”
“Which could tie up Company assets for years while the courts decide who gets to administer the planetary holdings,” Grego added. “This rocket came from somewhere, and if it can’t be from Mars or the Planet of the Fuzzies, then where did it come from?”
“Any chance we can blame it on a Martianist conspiracy?” Gerd offered. “Do they have the resources to pull off a hoax this big?”
Commodore Napier considered it, then said no. “Nobody would buy it and the Martianists would demand access to the artifact to prove they had nothing to
do with it, which we would have to allow for legal reasons. Five minutes in a veridicator on live television would kill that plan, anyway.”
“So we need a scapegoat who isn’t in a position to fight back,” Grego said. “Personally, I would like to blame this all on that Ivan Dane, or even Hugo Ingermann.”
“Dane would be a good choice, but right now he has too much support on Zarathustra,” Pancho said. “Besides, it wouldn’t be ethical to frame an innocent man.”
“Innocent,” Gerd snarled. “He just hasn’t been caught out, yet.”
“He may yet get caught with his hand in the cookie jar,” Grego said. “If so, we can hang it on him. If he is pulling something, he won’t dare let himself be put under veridication and prove it. Too many other crimes might come to light. And refusing to answer under veridication just makes him look guilty, anyway.”
“Assuming he is, in fact, crooked and not just misguided,” Pancho added. “Some people actually believe the idiotic drivel they spout. There are even psychoses for it.”
“Well, we’ll just brand this a hoax and let the chips fall where they may,” Napier pronounced. “The rocket will be taken to a secure location and mothballed or studied. Your names will be logged as the official discoverers, then placed in a sealed file for a time when it can be safely revealed for what it truly is.”
Grego shook his head. “If this rocket disappears, then we’ll have even bigger problems. We need something for experts to examine and the public to tear apart or people will scream ‘cover up’.”
Commodore Napier, nobody’s fool by any standard, caught on instantly. “Okay, Mr. Grego. What will it cost for you to build us a fake rocket? And it has to be believable, at least at first.”
Grego smiled that too toothy grin of his and pulled an estimate off the top of his head. It was Homeric.
XXXIII
Ivan Dane lay in his bed under sedation. While his wounds were relatively minor, he complained so much about the pain that the doctors finally relented and put him under, much to the relief of the nursing staff. As such, he was completely oblivious when Marshal Fane, Gus Brannhard, Piet Dumont and officers Chang and York entered his room to place him under arrest.
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