Starfist - 14 - Double Jeopardy

by Dan Cragg

  There was grumbling in the formation and had been ever since Teeter had told his men what they were going to be doing. Now the grumbling grew louder. Private Moringa broke formation and stepped forward to stand in front of the platoon facing Teeter.

  “Sir,” Moringa said loudly, “you had us working like animals. You had us working with the animals. We demand to know why! And disciplinary action for drinking while you were away isn’t a good enough reason, not for working with the animals it isn’t.”

  “That’s a reasonable question, Private,” Teeter answered. “I’m sure you’ve heard the rumors about a Fuzzy uprising. Maybe you’ve dismissed them as just that, rumors. Well, they aren’t. The Fuzzies have attacked at least eight mining camps and wiped out three of them.” He paused to let that sink in before continuing; “Every one of those camps, including the three that were wiped out, were bigger and more strongly defended than this one. The Fuzzies that attacked those camps were armed with projectile rifles, explosives, and gas.

  “That’s why we just put in two hours with everybody available working to reinforce our defenses, and why we’re going to put in as much time as necessary, men and Fuzzies working together, to make Mining Camp Number Three Thirty-one as defensible as possible.

  “Gentlemen, when the Fuzzies attack here, I intend to beat them off.” He looked from man to man in the formation. “Any more questions?”

  “Yes, sir,” a voice in the formation called out. “What are we going to use to make sandbags?”

  “I’ll come up with something.”

  The Fuzzies had begun chittering among themselves when they were broken into teams with the men instead of being returned to their cages after their meal, and the chittering continued despite the efforts of the men to make them shut up. The volume and intensity of the chittering increased when Teeter said that three mining camps had been wiped out. Now, abruptly, the chittering stopped.

  Teeter noticed that the listless milling of the Fuzzies had drawn them closer to the formation and that some of them were now behind the platoon. Then one Fuzzy drew itself fully erect and began walking toward him. A second joined the first. Then a third dropped to all fours and scampered to join the first two.

  Teeter watched them with interest. He wasn’t concerned that the Fuzzies were going to attack. Sure, they had hard, strong claws evolved to grub for insectoids in the hard dirt of Ishtar, and strong, sharp teeth to crush carapaces and cut through tough tubers. But they were too weak to be a threat. A fully healthy Fuzzy was stronger than a man of equal size, maybe even a somewhat bigger man. But they were deliberately kept on short rations, generally not enough to kill them from starvation—although one did occasionally die from malnutrition and overwork—but to keep them too weak and discouraged to attack and defeat their armed overseers.

  The three Fuzzies, each a full head shorter than Lieutenant Teeter, stopped an arm’s length in front of the camp commander and stared at his face in such a way that he wondered if they could see his eyes through the faceplate of his helmet.

  Teeter thrust an arm out, pointing at the cages. “Go!” he snapped. Just like dogs, the Fuzzies understood a few human words, and go was one of them.

  The Fuzzies didn’t turn their eyes from him for a long moment so he drew his sidearm to emphasize his order.

  Then one of them screeched, a sound Teeter had never heard before.

  The Fuzzy that screeched lunged forward, slashing at Lieutenant Teeter’s open armpit with its claws. The one in the middle leaped at him, striking his chest with hands and feet, jamming its open muzzle up under his helmet, biting and chewing at the sealed neck of his uniform. The third Fuzzy swung around and slashed at the backs of his knees, ripping through the material and gouging into his flesh, tearing the tendons that held his legs together.

  Lieutenant Teeter could barely scream as he thudded backward to the ground.

  He never saw the rest of the Fuzzies fall on his men, never heard Corporal Sinvant’s sidearm fire at the attacking Fuzzies, never heard the shouts and screams of his men as they tried to fight off their attackers before falling under their weight and slashing claws and biting teeth.

  It was over in just a couple of minutes. The surviving Fuzzies—a dozen of them were down, dead or crippled—went from man to man, rending the remains of their uniforms from their bodies and making sure they were all dead. Then they gathered their casualties and filed out through the main gate. They stopped a short distance away to grub for the first decent meal any of them had had since they’d been taken prisoner, and then went in search of a hole in the ground where they could hide until the morning, when they would search for an empty burrow to claim for their own. Then they would send out scouts, looking for others of their kind who were rebelling against their masters.

  It seemed that the Fuzzies could understand more human speech than just a few commands, like dogs.

  The following afternoon, after Mining Camp No. 331 failed to make its morning report or respond to any of the calls made to it, four armed aircraft circled the camp while a MicMac C46 landed a reinforced platoon on the makeshift airstrip outside the camp. A few of the troops threw up when they saw the mutilated bodies of the guards and overseers. Later, digging equipment was brought in to dig a mass grave, and the bodies were unceremoniously deposited in the trench and covered over. The coordinates of the grave were carefully noted for later retrieval of the bodies.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  Chief Warrant Officer Morgan Raidly, 417th Military Intelligence Detachment, studied the Biographical Sheet that Captain Solden, his commanding officer, had just handed him. “Chief, based on the report Jenkins’s source has given us, this guy would seem to have the access we need to recruit him as an agent.” Solden picked his cigar out of its ashtray. It had gone out. He relit it and puffed contentedly.

  The Biographical Sheet did not contain many details about Humbert Parsells. He tended bar at the Free Fire Zone bar in Worthington, a very popular hangout for mercenaries. A holograph of Parsells was attached to the Biographical Sheet. It revealed a heavyset man, probably in his late sixties, salt-and-pepper goatee, auburn hair thinning on top. He was wearing old-fashioned spectacles. The report stated that he was a frequent patron at the Four Whores casino where he enjoyed himself at the poker tables, and at a bordello called Madame Betty’s.

  “So he’s got habits,” Raidly said. He leaned forward and tapped the ash of his own cigar into the captain’s ashtray. It was an Avo 25th Century, forty-two-ring size, a gift from Captain Solden, who was quite free with his cigar supply—especially when assigning one of his agents to a dangerous and difficult task.

  “Yes, he does. Fifth and sixth days he’s off. Set up a bump with this guy at the casino on one of those days.” A “bump” was a carefully arranged casual encounter designed to allow a case officer some pretext to get the attention of a possible source, win that person’s confidence with a good cover story and rapport building, and eventually recruit him to work for military intelligence. It was a delicate and prolonged process but Raidly was experienced in this type of work—and very good at it.

  “‘Khayyam’ fingered this guy?” Raidly asked. “Khayyam” was the cover name of a recruited source who worked as a prostitute at Madame Betty’s. “Whores and barkeeps,” Raidly said with a grin. “They hear more shit than the Senate Intelligence Subcommittee. We don’t know what kind of poker this guy likes to play.”

  “They’re big on Hell on the Humboldt over there. Study up on the game. Or, if you like, become a patron at Madame Betty’s yourself, Chief. Meet up with him there.” Captain Solden rolled his cigar in his fingers and grinned at Raidly.

  “I don’t know about that, sir. I could get to enjoy myself too much, let out that I’m with Confederation military intelligence.” He drew deeply on his cigar and expelled the smoke slowly, grinning back at the captain through the haze. “Unless I get Jenkins’s whore.” Jenkins was the case officer who developed Khayyam. “Literally screw his asset
.” They laughed. “That goddamn Jenkins, he gets all the good assignments.”

  “Chief, I’m giving you this one because I think this Parsells will turn out to be one of our best sources. He hears more shit behind that bar than anyone else on Carhart’s World. You get him on board and we’ll have a pipeline to all kinds of stuff. I don’t need to tell you, Chief, watch your back. If the corporate intel guys find out about you …” He drew a forefinger across his throat. CorpSec intelligence agents were everywhere on Carhart’s World, especially in Worthington, spying on one another, suborning other corporations’ employees, doing everything they could to get the jump on their rivals in the highly competitive business of winning contracts for professional security services.

  “Okay, sir.” Raidly got to his feet. “I’m on it. Well, since this op involves a bordello and a casino, I’m going to give it a code name of ‘Whores, Fours, and One-eyed Jacks,’” he said with a laugh.

  Captain Solden winced. “Very original, Chief, but I don’t think the boys up at the Directorate of Human Intelligence would be amused. Now go, my son, and sin if you have to.”

  The 417th Military Intelligence Detachment operated under the direct control of the Directorate of Human Intelligence of the Ministry of War’s Military Intelligence Agency (MIA). The MIA was the military equivalent of the Confederation’s Central Intelligence Organization (CIO).

  Under Confederation law, the CIO and the MIA were charged to cooperate with each other and exchange information of interest. This did not always happen, because each agency had a different philosophy about how to address potential threats and problems. The CIO liked to handle problems directly with cloak-and-dagger methods using its own assets, while the MIA operated under closer outside scrutiny and could not afford to overreact or try to bury its mistakes. And their respective missions were different. The CIO concentrated on developing strategic intelligence, clandestinely, among the Confederation’s member worlds (and some nonmembers), while the MIA sought intelligence of use to the Confederation’s military forces for actual or potential deployments.

  Carhart’s World, particularly the secondary spaceport at Worthington, was a rich source of information for the military services because the mercenaries who gathered in its bars, bordellos, and bedrooms between contracts had firsthand knowledge of developments in potential hot spots throughout Human Space that might require military intervention. This was known as “prebattle-field intelligence”—exactly what they were hoping to get out of Parsells.

  Mercenaries: It was a dirty word. A mercenary is a privately employed soldier, a member of a probably illicit army. The corporations that provided their services preferred to be called “executive security organizations,” “corporate security providers,” “training contractors,” or some such. Nominally, the employees of these companies weren’t fighters—except in self-defense. In practice, wherever the military or other agents of the Confederation of Human Worlds weren’t watching over them, they could get away with conducting offensive military actions, actions that weren’t allowable in any of their charters. That was why the Military Intelligence Agency collected intelligence on these “corporate security providers” and their cousins in the mercenary business.

  Recruiters for outfits such as Grummans Guards, Secure Hands, Sharp Edge, Tight Hold, and similar outfits did much of their recruiting in Worthington’s bars and brothels. That made the bars and brothels places of interest to military intelligence. Intelligence on how many were being recruited and for where could alert the army to pending problem spots where troops might need to be deployed, or could let the army know where mercenaries might be gathering, with either the same aims the army had or in opposition to the army.

  Raidly was an expert in tradecraft. He could devise a simple, workable communications plan in five minutes, spot a surveillance operation or run one, talk his way past a police cordon, invent defensible cover stories, pretend convincingly to be anyone he wasn’t—a businessman, an artist, a chronic gambler, whatever was required to get a potential source’s attention and eventual cooperation.

  But Raidly’s real expertise lay in his understanding of human nature. He could spot a potential source’s weaknesses and strengths and play expertly on them to gain the individual’s trust and eventual cooperation. Raidly had mastered the techniques of elicitation. He could get anyone to talk to him without even appearing to be asking questions. Once he succeeded in recruiting a source, he convinced that person that they were a “team,” or “colleagues” working for a common good, rather than him as case worker controlling the agent every minute of their relationship. But when he made a promise, usually to protect his source or the source’s family, he kept it. In some cases he had had to remove a source and his family from their native world and resettle them elsewhere to protect them from discovery. He had never lost a source.

  Humbert Parsells was in his late sixties, unmarried, and lived alone. He was adept at mixing and serving beverages, from almost fatally potent drinks, such as Silvasian Toppers, to water; he could mix any kind of solution to the most fastidious standard. When on duty he was the sine qua non of the bartender, discreet, polite, always ready with a calming gesture, a sympathetic word, an understanding smile. People liked to talk to Parsells because he listened and understood their problems and often dispensed good advice. He made a good living from the tips he was given by grateful patrons.

  Parsells hailed from a planet known as Cicero’s, light-years from Carhart’s World. While he could speak Standard English perfectly well, he often lapsed into the patois of his native world because he fancied it made him sound “exotic” and “manly.” When he did that his speech came across as foul as his breath.

  When off duty, Humbert Parsells enjoyed women and cards, and it was through those pastimes that Morgan Raidly planned to get at him.

  Every week Parsells spent sixth night at the Four Whores casino playing a popular poker game known as Hell on the Humboldt. It was a variation of the much older game known as seven-card stud. It was played by dealing each player two cards facedown, “hole” cards, and then five more consecutively, three on the deal called the “dump,” and then one each in succession known as the “screw” and “Hell on the Humboldt,” which was the last card in the series. The players bet on each deal.

  The name derived from the luxury starship, the Humboldt, which once plied the commercial routes of Human Space, affording even the lowliest laborer in the mines on a dozen worlds the opportunity of a sumptuous cruise complete with excellent entertainment, the best food known to man, comfortable accommodations, and around-the-clock high-stakes gambling. The Humboldt eventually collided with a piece of space junk and more than twenty thousand lives were lost, making it the greatest space-borne disaster in history. Supposedly at the time of the disaster a huge tournament was taking place involving a seven-card poker game. The pot was said to have been stupendous. The last card had been dealt and the players were placing their final bets when the ship was struck. Ever after the game was known among gamblers as “Hell on the Humboldt.”

  It took Raidly two weekends before he was able to contact Parsells. That night Parsells was sitting with four other players at a game of Hell. When one of the other gamblers dropped out, Raidly took his place opposite Parsells at the table. It was a conservative game with a buy-in of one hundred credits and a limit on bets of no more than that. After brief introductions, the playing resumed. Money shuffled back and forth and as the game proceeded, each player became more gregarious, all except Parsells, who sat there with a silent poker face. Raidly watched Parsells carefully. Parsells was not a very good player. Raidly won some hands and slowly his pile of chips grew.

  Raidly waited patiently until he could go head-to-head with Parsells, draw him out, give them something to talk about later. He got his chance after about an hour. From the five cards displayed on the table after the Hell, Raidly felt pretty confident Parsells was betting a spade flush. In his own hand Raidly had three kings and
two fives, a full house, a sure winner. Parsells raised a hundred credits. The other players dropped out. Raidly called. “Show me what you got,” he said.

  Parsells laid out a king-high flush. “You win,” Raidly announced, feigning disgust and tossing his hand facedown into the discards. It was no one’s business what was in Raidly’s hand, since he had folded it. The dealer scraped up the cards and Raidly shook Parsells’s hand. “Good hand, Mr. Parsells, and that’s it for me, gentlemen.” He picked up his remaining chips and bid good evening to the other players. Raidly had deliberately given up the winning hand. Now he had something to talk to Parsells about. Keeping an eye on the game, Raidly took up a position at the bar and waited. In order to cash in his chips and leave the casino, Parsells would have to pass by him at the bar and that was when Raidly would accost him. Raidly nursed his drink for two hours before he got his chance.

  “Hey, there, old man, have a drink with me,” Raidly said, reaching out and touching Parsells on the arm as he passed by. “Least you can do after taking all my money.”

  Away from the poker table, relaxed and convivial, Parsells proved to be quite a talker. They had several drinks. Raidly, equipped with phony business cards and brochures, represented himself as a military hardware salesman on Carhart’s World. The contact numbers on his cards and brochures were monitored at the 417th MI Detachment to maintain the cover. He was convincing. Parsells agreed to have lunch with Raidly two days later. Their next two meetings were known in the trade as “developmental” meetings, as Raidly built his rapport with Parsells and got a firm understanding of his motivations. On their third meeting Raidly announced who he really was and conducted a recruitment pitch. It was easy. For a thousand-credit sign-up bonus and a thousand credits a month (all he was authorized to offer), all Raidly wanted Parsells to do was tell him what he’d heard his patrons talking about around the bar, do nothing out of the ordinary, just keep his ears open. Parsells needed the money. Not all his poker sessions were as profitable as the one with Raidly. And whores were expensive.