Masters of the Galaxy

by Mike Resnick (ed)

  “Thanks. I think.”

  “I am sure your problems will resolve themselves in the fullness of time,” said George. “In the meantime, let us relax, share a drink, and talk of other things.”

  “What other things did you have in mind?”

  “Tell me about James Bryson.”

  We spent the next couple of hours talking, and then all the tension and traveling caught up with me, and I decided it was time to go home and get some shut-eye.

  I gave Selina the chocolate the next day. She began asking me about my trip to Ajax. I shouldn’t have been surprised that she knew—after all, the cops monitor the zoomway stations—but while I told her about meeting Elana Mador, I clammed up when she asked me what else I’d done there. It didn’t take her long to figure out I’d learned who killed Max. Since I still hadn’t decided what to do about it, I wouldn’t tell her who the murderer was, and we had one of our monthly disagreements (well, she calls them disagreements; I call them screaming matches), that ended only when she looked around for something to throw at me, couldn’t find anything but the chocolate, and decided to stalk off in outraged dignity rather than part with it.

  When I got back to my office, there was a message from the bank, hidden among all the threats from the landlord and the power company. I checked it out, and found that there had been two different deposits made to my account, one for ten thousand credits, one for six thousand Far London pounds. A minute later George’s image popped into view just a few feet from my desk.

  “Good afternoon, Jake,” he said. “Are you feeling better today?”

  “I felt fine yesterday,” I said.

  “I think what I have to tell you may make you feel even better,” said George.

  “I’m listening.”

  “Thanks to you, I have a new business associate,” continued George. “I believe you know him.”

  “That sure as hell didn’t take very long.”

  “You vouched for him. That was all the information I required.”

  “I didn’t vouch for him,” I replied. “I said he reminded me of you. That’s not quite the same thing.”

  “I admire your sense of humor, Jake,” he said with a guttural alien laugh. “Would you like to know the first piece of business we transacted?”

  “Whatever makes you happy,” I said with a shrug.

  “I have sent Djarabaxtol to Ajax on business, and Mr. Bryson has told Mr. Perrin to remain in Homer for the foreseeable future.”

  Son of a bitch! I thought. You’re trading executions! The local cops will never trace Perrin to you, and the Ajax cops will never connect Djarabaxtol to Bryson.

  “Have you no comment at all, Jake?”

  “I commend your organization for its resourcefulness,” I said, aware that someone somewhere could access a record of our conversation.

  “And you are no longer troubled by your recent problems?”

  “What problems?” I said with a shrug.

  “I am happy to have done you this small service, in exchange for the service you rendered to me yesterday,” said George.

  “Speaking of services, you wouldn’t know who made the other deposit in my account, would you?” I asked.

  “I would be very surprised if it wasn’t my new friend from Ajax.”

  So would I, I thought.

  “He’ll be arriving here in less than an hour to cement our relationship,” said George. “Why don’t you come down and have a drink with us?”

  “That might not be the best idea in the world,” I said. “One of these weeks or months I may have to arrest the pair of you.”

  “And one of these weeks or months we may have to do to you what we will be doing to our two associates.” He smiled. “But in the meantime, I’ve just laid in a stock of Cygnian cognac.”

  “Real Cygnian cognac?”

  “Guaranteed.”

  “I’m on my way,” I said.

  You know, sooner or later friends break their promises, rob you blind, steal your women, and stick you with the tab. But I’ll say this for honorable enemies: they always tell the truth, and their checks never bounce.

  IF THE FRAME FITS…

  There are probably less appetizing ways to spend an afternoon than having lunch with Baro the Grub, but offhand I couldn’t think of any.

  Baro was one of my informants. He lived in the Alien Quarter. I didn’t need anything from him at the moment, but with Baro you had to keep the pump primed because his loyalty didn’t last a lot longer than his lunch, which was purple and wriggling, and screamed bloody murder when Baro held it above his gaping mouth and dropped it in. He knew what I thought of his gustatory habits, so he always made a production about chewing noisily and chatting while his dinner breathed its last.

  He told me about some minor thefts that had taken place in Homer, the capital city of my home planet of Odysseus, and about some contraband no one, including the cops, gave a damn about. It was supposed to be showing up in the Quarter the next day, and I slipped him ten Maria Theresa dollars for information I didn’t want or need. I was about to get up and go back to my office, when a young man in a lieutenant’s uniform walked up to our table.

  “Excuse me,” he said. “Are you Jake Masters?”

  “Yeah,” I replied. “What can I do for you?”

  “Please come with me, sir,” said the officer. “I have an aircar waiting just outside.”

  You don’t say No to officers, not if you want to keep your license, so I stood up. “Catch you later,” I said to the Grub.

  “How many laws have you broken this time?” asked the Grub with an amused inflection in his inhuman voice.

  “Be sure to let me know when your race evolves a sense of humor,” I said. Then I turned to the lieutenant. “Lead the way.”

  He took me to his vehicle, and we skimmed eighteen inches above the pavement for a few miles. I was a little surprised when we went past both police and military headquarters without slowing down. Pretty soon the huge government complex loomed in front of us, and we pulled up to the building that housed Sector Affairs.

  “I haven’t had a Sector Affair in months,” I said. He gave me a look that said Baro wasn’t the only one who needed to evolve a sense of humor.

  “Follow me, please,” he said, and walked into the building without giving me another glance.

  I fell into step behind him, and we took an airlift to the fifth floor. It was pretty posh; even the reception area smelled of clout.

  “This is Mr. Masters,” announced the lieutenant. He turned on his heel and left, as an elegantly-dressed middle-aged woman approached me.

  “Please come with me, Mr. Masters,” she said pleasantly. I noticed that no one had given me their names, but when you’re dealing with diplomats and the military you don’t ask too many personal questions. Besides, they were just handing me off like players in a murderball game. I figured when someone finally introduced himself I’d arrived where I was supposed to be.

  It didn’t take that long. We walked down a long shiny corridor, with unconcealed Spy Eye holo cameras everywhere, and finally came to the huge office at the end of it. The door sensed our presence and vanished. She indicated that I was to walk through. I did so, and the door immediately closed behind me.

  There was one man and one desk in the office, and although neither of them could be considered undersized, they looked undersized because of their surroundings. There were a number of alien artifacts that made no sense sitting on pedestals, and bonded to the wall was a genuine Morita that probably cost half what the entire building had cost to build. I didn’t have to be a genius to conclude that it was the property of the man I was facing, rather than the Department of Sector Affairs.

  His face looked familiar: thin, clean-shaven, with graying red hair, a distinct widow’s peak, and mildly bushy eyebrows. Not that I’d ever met him—I was reasonably sure we didn’t travel in the same social circles—but I’d seen him on various newsdisks and holocasts. I didn’t remember hi
s name, and it was clear that he was going to be disappointed when I didn’t gasp in amazement and go all weak in the knees in his presence.

  “Mr. Masters?” he said at last, wiping a microscopic smudge from the empty surface of his gleaming desk.

  “Call me Jake,” I said.

  “I am very glad we found you so easily, Mr. Masters,” he said, and I decided that if his name was Smith, he probably called his wife “Mrs. Smith”, even in bed.

  “I wasn’t hiding,” I replied. A mirror caught my eye. It was bonded to the wall, amid all the artwork. It was a dumb place for it, and I knew it had to be a two-way, that someone on the other side of the wall was watching me through it, just in case.

  “I’ve summoned you, Mr. Masters, because we have what one might call a situation,” he said.

  “What would you call it?” I asked.

  He gazed coldly at me. There were clearly specific rules to this game, but no one had clued me in on them. Finally he shrugged.

  “I am William Henshall, Secretary of Sector Affairs.

  “I know that,” I replied. I didn’t tell him that I’d known it for about three seconds.

  “Let me get right to the point,” he said, and it was clear I wasn’t of the proper class for the courtesy of small talk. “We have need of your services.”

  “We, or you?“ I asked.

  “I meant what I said.”

  So it wasn’t a straying wife. I already felt sorry for the poor woman.

  “Fine,” I said. “I just find it difficult to visualize the Department of Sector Affairs needing a private detective.”

  “Personally, I agree with you,” he said, an expression of distaste on his face. “I argued against it.”

  I’m sure you did, I thought. He didn’t look like the kind to get caught with his hand in the till. I wondered what it was he didn’t want me looking into.

  “I’ll lay it out for you as simply as I can, Mr. Masters,” he continued when it was obvious I wasn’t going to say anything. “Have you ever heard of Keladroon II?”

  “Nope.”

  “Perhaps by its informal name, which is Purplehaze?”

  “I’ve heard of it, or maybe seen it in some holo or other,” I replied. “I’ve never been there.”

  “The Democracy has an embassy there,” said Henshall.

  That was no surprise. The Democracy had embassies on thousands of worlds, and Odysseus was part of the Democracy—a very tiny part—but I couldn’t figure out what an embassy sixty or seventy light years away had to do with a private detective. Whatever happened there, embassies had security forces out the wazoo, so why was he talking to me?

  “One Standard day ago there was a murder there.”

  He looked like he expected me to say something. All I could think of was “Oh”, and I was sure that would just annoy him, so I stood still and waited for him to keep talking.

  “A very important Tjanti was the victim.”

  That made it interesting, but I still didn’t know what it had to do with me.

  “As you know, Odysseus has had numerous military incidents with Tjant over the past few years. They were not exactly wars, but the two planets decided it was time to sort things out. We organized a week-long meeting in the Democracy’s embassy on the neutral planet of Keladroon II.”

  “An unofficial peace conference for an nonexistent war,” I suggested wryly. And of course, if the two spoiled kids didn’t sort out their problems, then Odysseus’s big brother—the Democracy—would take them both out behind the woodshed and impose a solution that neither side would like. It had happened often enough among minor worlds like Odysseus and its neighbors. The Democracy thought and planned in huge, galactic terms. and it resented annoying little disturbances like ours.

  “Yesterday Mglias, Tjant’s chief negotiator, was found murdered in the embassy.”

  “So someone killed a Tjanti bigwig on Purplehaze,” I said.

  “In the Democracy’s embassy,” said Henshall.

  “In the Democracy’s embassy,” I repeated. “I’m sorry to hear it, but why are you telling me?“

  “We find ourselves with a bit of a situation,” he said. Diplomats love the word “situation”; it sounds much better than saying they’ve fucked up or they’re in deep shit. “Since we are still theoretically at hazard with Tjant, they naturally do not want this to be a human-led investigation, especially since it happened on our turf, so to speak.”

  “So turn it over to the Purplehaze cops.”

  “We can’t.”

  “Don’t tell me they’ve never investigated a murder before,” I said.

  “Of course they have!” he snapped.

  “Then what’s the problem?”

  “The Democracy will not permit the Droons or the Tjantis”—the natives of Keladroon II and Tjant—”free access to the embassy. They have too many sensitive files than cannot fall into alien hands. They won’t allow them to ransack their computers searching for clues.” He paused. “So we were at an impasse. The Tjantis would not accept an investigation performed by the human security staff, and we will not allow non-humans to prowl through the private areas of the embassy.” He paused and stared at me, as if trying to convince himself I wouldn’t start drooling and scratching myself momentarily. “Finally the Tjantis came up with a compromise.”

  “A compromise?”

  He grimaced. “You.”

  “Why me?” I asked. “I’ve never been to Purplehaze or Tjant, never met a native of either.”

  “You seem to have developed a bit of a reputation,” he said, shifting his weight uncomfortably as if my reputation was accompanied by a very unpleasant odor. “You solved a murder on Greydawn a year or two ago, and it is also known that you took on an alien partner shortly thereafter.”

  That was Max, who resembled nothing more than a purple beachball. A short-lived one. He was murdered less than two months after we started working together.

  “It has also not escaped their attention—or ours—that you seem to move freely among the criminal element in the Alien Quarter.”

  “That’s because they trust me.”

  He tried to hide a look that said being trusted by alien criminals should be a flogging offense, and didn’t quite succeed. “So I’ve been told.”

  “Well, I’m flattered,” I said, “but I don’t know anything about the other two races, I’ve never been to Purplehaze, and no matter what assurances I’m given I suspect I won’t have any more freedom within the embassy than an alien cop. So with all due respect, I think I’ll politely decline your offer.”

  “It’s not an offer,” said Henshall quietly. “You’re going, period.”

  “I’m glad you think so,” I said pleasantly, “but I’m not one of your employees. I can say no to any job I don’t want.”

  “Can you stand a close audit by the Taxation Bureau?” he asked.

  “I don’t make enough to worry about it,” I said.

  “You’re going to make even less,” he said, “because if you walk out of here without accepting this assignment, you’re also walking out with an indefinitely suspended license.”

  “I’ve been threatened by experts, Mr. Henshall,” I said.

  “Mr. Masters, you just became a security risk. Your license is hereby revoked, there are three security men outside my door waiting to take you to a detention cell in the basement for eventual questioning, which may or may not take place this year, and all your assets will be frozen within the hour.”

  “You just make me proud all over to be a human,” I said.

  “If, on the other hand, you will accept the assignment, you will be supplied with transportation, all your expenses will be paid, and the sum of ten thousand credits will be deposited in your bank account the moment you land on Keladroon II.”

  “I don’t trust credits,” I said. “Make it the equivalent in Maria Theresa dollars or Far London pounds.”

  “Maria Theresa dollars it is,” he said.

  “A
ll right,” I said. “I’ll take the job.” As if there was ever any doubt after he started flexing his clout.

  “I had a feeling you would,” he said smugly.

  “And I hope to hell when I find the killer, it turns out to be your illegitimate son.”

  “Get out of my sight!” he snapped.

  I walked to the door, it sensed my presence and vanished, and three security men—he hadn’t been lying about that—escorted me to my apartment while I packed a bag, and then to the spaceport. An hour later a small military ship took off with me as its only passenger, and two hours after that we entered the MacDougal Wormhole, which would let us out within half a light year of Purplehaze, just in time to miss dinner.

  The embassy wasn’t that impressive compared to some I’d seen holos of. You could probably fit more people into the boxing arena back on Odysseus, and it had a few less windows than the Governor’s Palace. Still, it was nice to know our tax credits weren’t wasted on medical R & D or anything silly like that.

  The place reeked of protocol. There were security men everywhere, each of them snapping off the kind of salute you tend to see only in holos. Bureaucrats in formal wear—the higher up the pecking order, the more formal the dress—abounded. There were local police—Droons—but they seemed to understand that they were just there to stop jaywalkers and the like.

  I showed up a little after nine o’clock at night, local time, and was introduced to a dozen forgettable men and women who bowed obsequiously and smiled ingratiatingly, so I knew instantly that they were the service staff. One of them showed me to my third-floor room, while another carted my luggage up there. There were airlifts galore, but we used the winding staircase. I assume the purpose was to impress me; it didn’t work half as well as a first-floor room would have.

  As I was unpacking I noticed a human butler standing in the doorway, staring at me.

  “Am I doing it right?” I asked, hanging some clothes in the closet.

  “The Ambassador would like to see you at once,” he said.

  “Sure,” I said. “Send him up.”