Angel of Destruction

by Susan R. Matthews

  And without a speed machine to remind him, howsoever briefly, of the freedom of the stars, Hilton was not sure he could survive; so he took a deep breath and composed himself, and walked on.

  It was easy enough to find the Factor’s front office, even though Hilton hadn’t been there before. There was a man behind a desk with a high counter, and another man sitting by the beverage server having a flask of the leaf-based beverage that Combine people drank by preference — rhyti, that was right. It smelled like flowers to Hilton, but his aunt liked the stuff.

  “Good-greeting. My name is Hilton Shires.” The man at the desk had watched him come in; clearly the doorkeeper, so Hilton spoke to him first. “I have an appointment for an interview.”

  Out of the corner of his eye Hilton saw the other man present put down his flask of rhyti and stand up. The doorkeeper nodded at the second man, but he was speaking to Hilton.

  “Yes, Shires, you’re expected. This is floor manager Dalmoss. Factor Madlev has asked the warehouse foreman to interview you, you’re to go with Dalmoss to find him, if you please.”

  Well, Hilton had found the prospect of talking to Factor Madlev himself about a job a bit awkward. He was just as glad he would be talking to a foreman; the less overall power the foreman had in the organizational structure of the Combine Yards, the less keenly Hilton expected to feel the gap between what the foreman had the power to dole out and what he himself could expect or hope to be offered.

  Something like that.

  “Dalmoss Chzagul,”, the floor manager said, coming up to Hilton. Then, unexpectedly, Dalmoss offered his hand to clasp in the Langsarik fashion. Hilton didn’t particularly need to clasp hands with any non-Langsarik, but it was a nice gesture and would be rude of him to ignore it, so he took Dalmoss’s hand and clasped it politely.

  “Pleased. Hilton Shires. Thank you for seeing me.”

  Dalmoss seemed as willing as Hilton to call the gesture complete and break contact, but that was entirely fair as far as Hilton was concerned. “I’ll be honest with you, Shires, it’s not my idea.” But the admission was merely frank, and not challenging; Hilton could find no cause to take offense. “Still, we need help. I can grant you that, without hesitation. Let’s go find the foreman; he said he might be in the meal-room this time of the morning. We’ll check there first.”

  It was a way of giving him a tour of the facility, maybe. Hilton looked around him with interest as Dalmoss led him through the administrative offices, across a load-in dock, past the great hulls of not one but three freighter tenders being off-loaded, and finally out into the street and down a half a block to a subsidized meal-room, where Dalmoss paused in the foyer to scan the crowded hall.

  “Look at all these people,” Dalmoss suggested. “You can see our problem. We keep on picking up freight. We’re running out of capacity to handle it.”

  Hilton followed Dalmoss’s lead in looking around him politely. It was very candid of Dalmoss to make such remarks when they both knew that the reason the Combine Yards were picking up freight was that the Okidan Yards and other yards before it had lost capacity, and the freight had to be handled somewhere. The Okidan Yards hadn’t merely lost capacity, of course. The Okidan Yards had lost its staff and its plant, and there was a lot of gossip that blamed Langsariks. Hilton knew the gossip was baseless. It was still an awkward situation to be in.

  Who was that over there by the far wall?

  Kazmer Daigule, sitting at table with some people Hilton didn’t recognize — discussing terms and conditions of hire, clearly enough, public meal-rooms being convenient meeting spaces for people without offices to call their own. Such as Sarvaw mercantile pilots.

  So Kazmer was here to run a Combine cargo.

  That would explain his refusal to come right out and say what he was doing here. Kazmer was Sarvaw. Hilton knew what Kazmer thought of the rest of the Dolgorukij Combine — or at least he knew what Kazmer had to say about other Dolgorukij.

  “I don’t see him here,” Dalmoss said. “Something you need to know about the foreman, Shires. He was at the Okidan Yards when the — when it was hit. He’s only been back at Charid for two days, still in med-assist; so it’s hard for him to get around, or he’d have met you himself. You can thank him for your job. He saw your name on the resource list and grabbed for you.”

  Dalmoss had started to move again; Hilton had to keep up. “That’s flattering. If confusing. What’s one Langsarik among others? You know what I’m saying.”

  Dalmoss grinned. Hilton was beginning to think he liked the man. “I wondered myself. Feraltz insisted. Said you had the leadership skills we were going to need in the remote warehouse. You were an officer? If you don’t mind me asking.”

  “ ‘Was’ being the pertinent word. Yes. Junior officer. But these days I’m just another unemployed Langsarik, like the rest of us.”

  That was unfair, maybe. There were plenty of jobs for Langsariks at Port Charid; that was one of the reasons the Bench had settled them there, after all, to be Port Charid’s very own captive labor pool. There were all the nasty, difficult, soul-wearying, low-paying jobs anyone could want available.

  “A cut above the rank and file, even so. We’re expanding. Fisner will tell you all about it — he said to try Receiving if he wasn’t having first-meal.”

  Fisner Feraltz.

  The name seemed familiar, somehow.

  Dalmoss moved quickly, and there was a lot of territory between the meal-room and the receiving floor. A man could clearly get his exercise, working here.

  Hilton had heard about warehouse operations, and he had an idea of their size from living near Port Charid; but he’d never been so deep inside of a major mercantile complex before. The receiving floor was the size of an asteroid warehouse, it seemed, and there were more freighter tenders there, four of them.

  Four.

  Hilton let his eyes rest on the great beasts that Port Charid used to ferry cargo between the surface and the freighters in orbit, the ships that were too large to land and lift except from the yards in the Shawl of Rikavie, where the gravitational pull was minimal.

  Four freighter tenders.

  He’d seen passenger shuttles that would carry maybe a thousand souls, at least for two days or so, and these freighter tenders were even bigger than a mass passenger ferry. He slowed to a stop without noticing what he was doing and stared at the ships hungrily; then Dalmoss’s voice called him back to where he was.

  “There’s the boss,” Dalmoss said. “Over there. On the crate, by that mover. Come on.”

  Those freighter tenders might as well be crates themselves. He’d not be allowed to so much as move them into orbit, if he was allowed onto them at all. Hilton pushed his wild fantasies firmly into a comer of his mind and followed Dalmoss to where a man of Hilton’s approximate age was sitting on a crate, waiting for them.

  Fisner Feraltz only half sat on the crate, his right leg stretched out straight and resting on the floor, covered in bracing. A little more to the fleshy side than Hilton himself was, perhaps, but then it wasn’t as if the food in settlement encouraged overindulgence.

  “Hilton Shires, Foreman,” Dalmoss called. “We missed you in the meal-room, sorry.”

  Feraltz waved the apology off with his left hand. The right hand was braced stiff. “My fault, Dal, I didn’t make it to first-meal. Too much effort. Hilton Shires? Fisner Feraltz. Excuse me if I don’t offer my hand.”

  He was a lot more informal than Hilton had expected, which came as a relief. “Quite all right. When in Combine Yards do as Combine does, after all. Thanks for the opportunity to interview.”

  Feraltz beckoned him closer, so that he could speak more quietly Hilton supposed. “My pleasure, Shires. I owe a debt of gratitude to your family, but I’m keeping quiet about it. Sentiment isn’t very supportive of Langsariks in Port Charid just now, I’m afraid.”

  Feraltz.

  Of course.

  Dalmoss wasn’t looking surprised, so it apparently was
n’t a particular secret; but Hilton could certainly understand why Feraltz might want to avoid calling attention to his personal history, just at the moment. To have spent a year with Langsariks was probably about the same as having been raised by wolves, as far as Feraltz’s fellow Dolgorukij were concerned.

  “So. Look at this, Shires.” Feraltz’s gesture took in the entire sweep of the receiving area, the tenders, the work crews, the load-in cranes. The crates. “The Combine Yards are picking up the slack for lost capacity elsewhere in system. We’re going to have to make some pretty significant increases to accommodate the overflow. There’s new facilities under construction — ”

  Hilton knew that. The Combine’s new warehouse project had been one of the first things Port Charid had drawn on its new Langsarik labor pool to get started.

  “ — but we’re not staffed for it, and I need someone with prior management experience to help us grow. I’ll need to start you on the entry levels, of course, so you can familiarize yourself with the administration of this kind of an operation.”

  It sounded good.

  “I don’t have any prior management experience.” It sounded a little too good. All right, Feraltz felt he owed something to Aunt Agenis’s extended family for saving his life and getting him safely back to his own people, even though it had taken them a while. Hilton still wanted to be sure that Feraltz wasn’t overestimating his ability, in his desire to be accommodating. “I was a lieutenant. It’s people like my aunt who actually ran things.”

  He’d commanded raids, successful ones, but he wasn’t about to make a point of that. Not here. Very poor taste.

  Feraltz shook his head, rejecting Hilton’s disclaimer. “I know what your position was, and I think the skills are transferable. I’d like you to accept an entry-level position in order to train for assistant floor manager, looking forward to the time when the new facility comes up to capacity. I can’t promise anything, but I’m confident you’ll demonstrate the qualities we need. Will you consider my offer?”

  It really wasn’t an option. He needed the job.

  “I’ll be happy to accept your offer, Foreman. I appreciate the opportunity to come work for the Combine Yards and learn about warehouse management. I see it as a long-term investment. And I’m not going anywhere.”

  Maybe he shouldn’t have said that last bit. It sounded a little bitter, a little petty. He’d only make things worse if he made a fuss about it by qualifying or rephrasing, though, so he bit his tongue firmly to shut himself up, and waited.

  Feraltz smiled sympathetically, while Dalmoss — his arms folded across his chest — looked at the floor, smiling as well, and scuffing his foot against some unseen object by way of making a show of going along with the joke.

  “I understand perfectly,” Feraltz said. “Dockman’s wages to start, Shires; you’ll report to Dalmoss here, you can discuss your shift with him once you’ve done your in-processing. Do we have a contract?”

  Dockman’s wages were better than the day laborer’s rates usually offered to Langsariks. Maybe Feraltz was serious about his plans; one way or the other he was certainly making it much easier for Hilton to commit himself to regular employment than Hilton had expected.

  “Contract,” Hilton agreed. “Thank you, Foreman. Floor manager.”

  Dalmoss had waved someone over, and the man approached them with a look of genial curiosity on his face. “This is Ippolit,” Dalmoss said. “Ippolit, Shires is coming on to join receiving and inventory. Would you take him out to personnel, please, they’re expecting him.”

  Were they, indeed.

  But the prospect of dockman’s wages went a long way toward sweetening any residual difficulties Hilton might have experienced on that account; and he followed the man called Ippolit away to the personnel office, not so much happy as relieved enough to feel almost as though he were.

  ###

  Fisner Feraltz watched Shires leave with Ippolit. Dalmoss was unhappy; Fisner knew it. He could tell.

  “Was it prudent to remind him, firstborn and eldest?” Dalmoss asked, his voice pitched low enough to guard against anyone eavesdropping by accident. “He may speculate.”

  “He may.” Fisner could afford to accept a portion of the rebuke from Dalmoss; it was no challenge to his authority. “But he’s the Flag Captain’s nephew. To not have at least mentioned it would look like ingratitude. He might have wondered why I’d not allowed the obligation.”

  Dalmoss thought about it for a moment, time Feraltz used to adjust his position on the crate. The bracing was awkward. He was having a hard time adjusting to it.

  “I understand. Yes,” Dalmoss said. Fisner knew that what Dalmoss understood about Fisner’s history with Langsariks was not the whole truth, but that was the way it had to be. No one could know the true depths of his shame: that was between him, and the Angel of Destruction, and the Holy Mother. “Does the bracing trouble you, firstborn and eldest?”

  Well, yes, it did. But Dalmoss’s anxiety could be traced at least in part to the fact that it had been Dalmoss who had fired the round that had injured him.

  “It’s an annoyance, I admit.” And there were drugs for annoyance, as there were drugs for pain. He’d told the Bench Specialist that he was an Abstainer, but he’d had reason for that deception that did not extend so far as actually to abstain from medication required to heal flesh, knit bone, and ease one’s way through life generally. “But a minor one. And it puts our purpose forward.”

  It was very convenient if others thought him to be Abstaining, of course.

  It could only increase the effectiveness of his deception if people who saw him at all only ever saw him obviously crippled, dependent upon the medical brace to support a clearly only slowly healing frame.

  Dalmoss nodded. “I’ll go arrange for a team meeting, Foreman. To introduce our new employee. We start him on inventory, I believe.”

  Yes, so that it would be creditable to claim that Shires had learned to manipulate the inventory systems. Not only to learn the location of cargo to be appropriated, but also to hide stolen goods within the Combine Yards themselves, so that when the Bench finally sent troops to Port Charid to search, the evidence of Langsarik predation would be utterly damning. Unchallengeable.

  “You have nothing with which to reproach yourself, Dalmoss.” Since they both knew what they needed to do with Shires, Fisner decided to address the other issue instead. The one that had been there, unspoken but near palpable, hanging in the air between them since Fisner had returned from the hospital in Nisherre. “All went as expected, as hoped. As planned. Believe me, next born and second eldest. From my heart.”

  Dalmoss could not but accept his superior’s assurances, whether or not he seemed fully convinced by them. “Just as you say, then, eldest and firstborn. I’ll be going to call my crew meeting, with your permission.”

  Fisner was not concerned. Dalmoss would learn that Fisner spoke only plain truth.

  Dalmoss had not done him any injury, even though Dalmoss’s shot had injured him.

  Dalmoss had made it possible for the plan to go forward: and Fisner had nothing but gratitude to him, for that.

  Chapter Two

  The rendezvous had been set for a public cafeteria deep in the warehouse district — a fine anonymous place for a plot, Kazmer told himself, pausing on the threshold to take in the scene. The morning meal line was beginning to slow down, and the room was neither so full that people could not sit apart without drawing attention to themselves nor so empty that individuals stood out against the general void. There was too much ambient noise to fear a directional sensor, but not so much that a man would need to raise his voice to make himself heard.

  It was near perfect.

  Kazmer paid for a breakfast tray and carried it over to one of the tables at the far wall. Third from the left, he’d been told. There were people there already; but none of them looked like Langsariks to Kazmer.

  He sat down with his back to the wall, facing the entran
ce to the meal line. The woman who had moved over on the bench to make room for him eyed him with mild curiosity; then she spoke.

  “It’d be Kazmer Daigule. Mercantile pilot. Didn’t you carry some kennels of Clement’s spotty dogs to Julerich, last year?”

  Maybe he had, and maybe he hadn’t. He took a drink of his morning brew and grimaced, reaching for the syrup packet on his tray. Sometimes the only thing to do was to syrup the stuff up and get it down somehow. A man needed his morning drink to help him get started on his day’s work.

  “What’s your interest in spotty dogs?” he retorted, but mildly. “There are worse cargoes. And I know, because I’ve carried them.”

  There was an older man seated across from Kazmer; that would be the ship’s master, Kazmer guessed. He had an accent that Kazmer couldn’t place, but it wasn’t any of his business.

  “You can do better than spotty dogs, pilot. There’s a chance of a cargo to leave from the Shawl soon, and a good market even for goods whose documentation might not be quite perfect.”

  So far, so good, but there was no sense letting down his guard before he was sure of his surroundings. “That’s as may be. But it takes more than a pilot to move cargo.”

  The completely undistinguished person on the other side of the woman to Kazmer’s left leaned forward, and looked directly at him. “Not too many more, if someone else does the load-out. There’ll be resources on-site to transfer cargo, and I can get a ship packed and ready in three hours or less. Guaranteed.”

  “I can vouch for it,” the man on the other side of that man said. “I’ve seen it happen.” And Kazmer — looking down to the end of the table — got confirmatory, conspiratorial nods from the three other people at the foot of the table besides. All right.