Masters of the Galaxy

by Mike Resnick (ed)

  The police showed up a few minutes later. They raced Andy off to the hospital, and I spent the next four hours telling my story over and over again. Finally enough eyewitnesses testified that I’d shot Beatrice Vanderwycke in self-defense that they had to let me go.

  I rushed to the hospital to see how the kid was doing. He was in surgery, and six hours later they guided the airsled out. It was two days before he woke up, and he wasn’t the same Andy Vanderwycke I’d been traveling with. His eyes were dull, his face expressionless, and he didn’t speak.

  I asked his doctor how long it would be before he recovered.

  “He took the full force of a sonic pistol in his head at a range of perhaps two feet,” said the doctor. “It’s burned out half his neural circuits.”

  “When will he be himself again?”

  “Quite possibly never.”

  “He’s just going to lie there and stare for the rest of his life?” I asked.

  “In time he’ll respond to his name, and be able to locomote and feed himself. Eventually he’ll comprehend about thirty words. There’s a always a chance that he’ll recover, of course, but the odds are not in favor of it. You have to understand, Mr. Masters—he’s lucky to be alive.”

  I stared at the kid. “I wouldn’t call this luck,” I said bitterly.

  I had one last stop to make, one loose end to take care of. I went to the coffee shop by the stadium, waited until the men’s room was empty, and made sure the cube was still there. I had every intention of turning it over to Ben Jeffries, but first I wanted to be certain Andy would be taken care of once he got his hands on it.

  I caught the next ship to the Corvus system, and a few hours later they passed me through the security checkpoints on the Jeffries estate and ushered me into the mansion.

  I cooled my heels for a few minutes in a library that was filled with unread books and unwatched cubes, and then was summoned to the study. Jeffries, all steel and gray, was waiting for me.

  “I heard you had some trouble on Odysseus,” he said. “I lost three men there.”

  “Yeah, it got messy.” I paused. “I’m afraid I’ve got some bad news for you.”

  “You don’t have what I need?”

  I blinked. “I’m talking about your son. He took a shot meant for me. There’s every likelihood that he’s going to be a vegetable for the rest of his life.”

  “I don’t give a shit about that!” he snapped. “I need to get that murder warrant quashed so I can get to Odysseus! Do you have any idea what he learned on Rabol?”

  You son of a bitch, I thought. Your kid has been turned into a potted plant getting the proof you need, and all you care about is picking up some loot you left on Odysseus twenty years ago.

  It was time, I decided, for the guardian angel to perform one last duty.

  “He said he could prove that you were innocent of the murder on Odysseus,” I said. “But he was shot before he could tell me the details or make any record of them.”

  “So I’ll talk to him and find out.”

  I shook my head. “He won’t know you or understand you. His neural circuits are blown.”

  “Is there any chance he’ll come out of it?”

  I shrugged. “Who knows? There’s always a chance.”

  “All right, Jake,” he said, pulling out a wad of bills. “I told you I’d pay you if Betty didn’t. This will cover your time and expenses. Our business is done.”

  His men escorted me back to the spaceport and stayed with me until the ship took off. By the time I’d reached Odysseus Andy Vanderwycke had already been transferred to the most expensive, most exclusive facility on Deluros VIII.

  That was three years ago. I haven’t seen or spoken to the kid since they took him away. I stop by the coffee shop every few months to make sure the cube is still there. If the medical team on Deluros VIII can fix Andy, I’ll turn it over to his father. And if not…well, one of these days I’ll take the kid on a little trip to Rabol and see if they can straighten out all the crooked wiring and fuse some loose connections. I’ll also remind them that there are a couple of areas that are better left alone.

  Who knows? Maybe one team or the other can pull it off. After all, aren’t angels the harbingers of miracles?

  A LOCKED-PLANET MYSTERY

  He looked exactly like a purple beachball with legs. I’ve seen stranger, but not many.

  He waddled into my office and stood there, swaying slightly as if waiting for someone to come over and bounce him.

  “Mr. Masters?” he said.

  I did a double-take at the sound of his voice. Almost all alien races use a t-pack that translates their native language into a cold, emotionless Terran, but this beachball had evidently learned Terran, and even two words into it I could detect not only a thick accent but also a sense of urgency.

  “Yes?” I said, leaning my elbows on my desk, interlacing my fingers, and trying to look confident and impressive.

  “I require your help, Mr. Masters,” he said.

  “That’s what I’m here for,” I replied, trying to make it sound like I said it a dozen times a week. “What can I do for you?”

  “A murder has been committed on Graydawn.”

  “Graydawn?” I repeated. “I don’t believe I’ve heard of it.”

  “It’s in the Alpha Gillespie system,” said my visitor.

  “That’s forty light years from here,” I noted.

  “Forty-two, to be exact.”

  “Okay, a murder’s been committed on Graydawn,” I said. “What has that got to do with me?”

  “I just told you: I need your help.”

  “I’m a private investigator working on Odysseus,” I said. “You need to talk to the Graydawn police force.”

  “There isn’t one.”

  “On the whole damned planet?” I said, frowning.

  “May I sit down?” he said. “I can see that this will require an explanation.”

  “By my guest,” I said, wondering how he was going to fit into one of my office chairs.

  He lowered himself gently to the floor. I couldn’t see him over the desk, so I walked around and perched on the front of it.

  “I suppose I should introduce myself first,” he said. “My name is Mxwensll.”

  “I think I’ll just call you Max, if it’s all the same to you.”

  “That is acceptable,” said Max. He paused, as if trying to order his thoughts. “I live on Alpha Gillespie III.”

  “Graydawn?” I asked.

  “No. Graydawn is the seventh planet in our system.”

  “Okay, you’re from Alpha Gillespie III. I assume you have a catchier name for it?”

  “Yes, but that’s not important,” said Max. “The important thing is that there’s been a murder on Graydawn.”

  “So you said.”

  “And I’m in charge of it.”

  “Why?” I asked. “You already said you don’t live there.”

  “No one does.”

  “Then how could there be a murder there?”

  He made a sort of face and snorted little blue puffs of vapor. “I’m not saying this well.”

  “Just calm down and try to put your thoughts in order,” I said. “I’m going to pour myself a drink while you do.” I paused and stared at him. “I don’t suppose you…ah…?”

  “No, thank you. My metabolism cannot handle human stimulants.”

  I poured a short one into a plastic cup, then sat back down on the edge of the desk. “It might work better if I could ask you a few questions, Max,” I suggested.

  “Please do,” he said gratefully.

  “Let me make sure I’ve got this straight. For starters, is Graydawn inhabited?”

  “Not exactly.”

  “Max, either it is or it isn’t.”

  “It depends.”

  “Okay, so much for me asking questions. Maybe you should go back to explaining.”

  “Graydawn is an uninhabited chlorine world, by which I mean it possess
es no native life forms. But at the chairman’s request, the Braaglmich Cartel built a domed corporate retreat there about ten years ago.”

  “For oxygen breathers?”

  “Yes.” He shifted uncomfortably, and I couldn’t tell if it was caused because he was sitting on the floor or by what he was about to tell me. “The chairman was about to retire. He had chosen his successor, and he invited the cartel’s five vice presidents to the Cartel’s Graydawn retreat to meet and become acquainted with their new chairman. Evidently everything went well for the first two days. On the morning of their third and final day there, the retiring chairman took them out beyond the dome to see some unique rock formations. While they were out in the chlorine atmosphere, he collapsed, seemingly from a heart attack or stroke, and was dead before they could carry him back into the dome.” He stared at me. “Have you any questions yet?”

  “Not yet,” I told him.

  “His health had been deteriorating, so it was not a surprise to his companions. For the past few years he has always had a doctor in attendance, and it seemed a mere formality for the doctor to examine him and determine the cause of death.”

  “Let me guess,” I said. “It wasn’t his heart or a stroke.”

  “How did you know?” asked Max.

  “You wouldn’t be here if it was.”

  He sighed. “It was death by asphyxiation. We assumed that there was a mechanical malfunction to the protective suit he was wearing outside the dome…”

  “You said ‘we’,” I interrupted him. “Could you explain that, please?”

  “My world is the only inhabited planet in the system,” said Max. “At least when no one is at the retreat on Graydawn, so we are responsible for all the planets.”

  “Okay,” I said. “They reported an unusual death to you and you went there to investigate. Then what?”

  “Then we asked the vice presidents and the newly-anointed president to remain on the planet until we could certify that the suit’s malfunction was accidental.”

  “Which you couldn’t do?”

  “It had been tampered with.”

  “No question about it?” I said.

  “None.” He made another face. “My world doesn’t even have a police force. I am one of the Order Keepers, but crime is very rare among my race and homicide is all but unknown. We have not had a murder in 189 years, Mr. Masters, and that one had mitigating circumstances. We simply have no experience in dealing with this type of situation.”

  “What about the muscle?”

  “I beg your pardon?”

  “You said the new chairman and the five veeps were on the planet. Now, even I have heard of the Braaglmich Cartel. It’s huge. You can’t tell me that each of those executives didn’t come equipped with his own security force.”

  “At the request of the retiring chairman, they remained in orbit during the meeting,” answered Max. “Only the six principles were allowed to land. A private shuttle transported each of them from their ship to the surface. Then, once I was informed of the murder, I knew I had to lock down the crime scene preparatory to bringing in an expert such as yourself, so I ordered them to remain in orbit and not to land.”

  “It sounds like you’ve got your hands full,” I said, trying my best to sound sympathetic. “But why seek me out? Why not just go to the Odysseus cops? I guarantee they know a little something about murder.”

  “That was the first place I went,” answered Max. “But Alpha Gillespie is a neutral system, and your Democracy is at war with the Thrale Coalition.”

  “So?” I said, wondering what his point was.

  “We trade with both sides, and the Coalition has threatened military action against us if we have dealings with any branch of the Democracy’s government—and they define the police as such. I explained my plight to the police, and they recommended you.” He looked at me hopefully. “They said you used to work in their homicide division before you became an independent contractor.”

  “Yeah, I worked homicide, and vice, and robbery,” I replied.

  “So will you help us?” asked Max. “We will put ourselves at your disposal and do whatever you tell us.”

  “Not interested,” I said.

  “Is there a reason?”

  “Lots of them,” I replied. “First, I hate chlorine worlds. Second, one of my specialties is finding missing persons, which occasionally takes me into the Thrale Coalition’s territory; I don’t need them mad at me for helping you. Third, you don’t know it yet, but all you really need is a good forensics team. With the equipment they’ve got these days, they’ll take a microscopic bit of DNA or the alien equivalent, or maybe some trace elements taken from the crime scene, and ninety-nine times out of a hundred they’ll identify the killer before the day’s over.”

  “They work for the government,” said Max glumly.

  “Not all of them,” I replied. “I’ll give you some names.”

  “You’re what we want!” insisted Max, looking like he half-thought I might take a swing at him for his outburst but determined to get what he came for.

  “I’m sorry,” I said, “but I’m still not interested.”

  Max stood up, looking for all the world like he was getting ready to run, or at least duck, if I lost my temper. “We checked you out after the police recommended you,” he said in an unsteady voice. “You are 13,407 credits in debt. If you will accept the assignment, we’ll pay off all your debts and give you four thousand credits more.” He studied my face. “Are you getting interested?”

  I did some quick mental math to see how soon they’d be throwing me out of my office and canceling my vidphone ad.

  “Make it five thousand and you pay my own forensics expert and it’s a deal.”

  “Done!” said Max.

  I reached out to shake on it. He stared at my hand as if it might bite him, and then he reached out his own three-fingered hand. It trembled when I grabbed it, but he didn’t pull it away.

  Max had been so certain he was going to hire some human that he’d retro-fitted his ship with a pair of very comfortable human chairs and programmed his various computer systems to speak Terran.

  We’d just taken off from Odysseus when the navigational computer announced that the trip would take seven hours if we made use of the MacNaughton Wormhole, or 183 hours without. Max insisted that I was in charge of all aspects of the investigation, including captaining the ship, so I told it to enter the wormhole, and get us to Alpha Gillespie VII as fast as possible. (Well, first I told it to get us to Graydawn, but like most unofficial names, it wasn’t in the data bank.)

  “All right, Max,” I said, swiveling my chair and turning to him. “Time to fill me in.”

  “I thought I did.”

  I shook my head. “All you did was tell me what happened. Now I need some details. Who’s alive, did anyone show up much earlier than the others, are they all oxygen breathers, do they have names?”

  “Oh,” he said. “I guess you need to know all that, don’t you?”

  “Well, there’s always a chance the killer won’t run up to me and confess the second I get there.”

  “That is sarcasm, is it not?” asked Max. “I mean, killers are not inclined to run up to policemen and confess, are they?”

  “Wrong time of year,” I said.

  “But you don’t know what time of year it is on Graydawn.”

  “That was more sarcasm, Max,” I told him. “Give me the details, please.”

  “Yes, Mr. Masters.”

  “And call me Jake.”

  “Isn’t that too informal?”

  “I’m an informal kind of guy,” I replied. “Now how about some details, Max? For starters, what exactly does the Braaglmich Cartel do? I know they make spaceships, and I know they own about a quarter of the Democracy’s pharmaceutical industry, and I’ve seen their name a bunch of other places.”

  “They also dominate a number of retail industries, dealing in basic human needs—soap, foodstuffs, things like t
hat.”

  “They must do pretty well,” I offered. “Not everyone needs a spaceship, but two trillion men and women need to eat and wash. Now tell me about the suspects.”

  “The five vice presidents are each in charge of the Cartel’s operations in major areas of the galaxy: the Rim, the Inner Frontier, the Outer Frontier, the Democracy, and the Thrale Coalition.”

  “So one of them is a human and one is a Thrale?” I asked.

  “Yes, Jake.”

  “And the other three?”

  “They, plus the new chairman, are all members of the Gaborian race, which is native to Beta Sanchez IV.” I didn’t say anything, and he stared at me for a moment. “Don’t you find it unusual that four of the six executives are Gaborians?”

  “Only if the late chairman wasn’t a Gaborian. People—beings, make that—tend to associate with their own kind. And to hire their own kind as well.”

  “He was a Gaborian,” Max confirmed.

  “Figures,” I said. “And I assume that Beta Sanchez IV is neutral?”

  “Yes, Jake.”

  “Okay, so which one’s the new head honcho?” I asked.

  “I beg your pardon.”

  “A vice president got elevated to the chairmanship. Which territory was his and who replaced him?”

  “She was elevated over all five vice presidents, Jake.”

  “Sleeping with the chairman?”

  “The chairman is dead.”

  I sighed. “Was she having an affair with him?”

  “An affair?” he asked, frowning. “You mean a public celebration?”

  “I mean did they indulge in a sexual liaison?”

  “I have no idea,” answered Max. “But I do know some things about Gaborians. They are not as neurotic about sex as humans. A sexual liaison would hardly constitute a killing offense.”

  “Would it constitute a reason for promotion?” I asked. “In other words, if the new chairman achieved her position through sexual rather than business skills…”

  “I hadn’t thought of that, Jake,” admitted Max. “But it is an invalid premise. Her rise through the corporation has been meteoric, and justified by her record wherever she has been. She has been innovative, creative, and above all, wildly successful.”