“In California . . .”
“What?”
The memory wouldn’t come.
We wandered back to the room where Glyer was still hassling Massoglia. We watched for a bit. They’d shot him with a truth drug. Veritas isn’t proprietary; all of the tax agencies have it. Massoglia was babbling all his secrets, if he had any.
Office work can be entertaining at the IRS. They bring in famous writers and singers for audits and get them to dance through hoops, perform or lecture or autograph. Here, it’s too much like work.
“Marion’s backpacker,” Woody whispered, “must have been carrying a bomb. We’ve got no protection at all against a suicide bomber. How’d he get there? He didn’t come in the Director’s flight car. He couldn’t have walked in, could he?”
I said, “Flight belt.”
“Did you see any other fliers?”
“No. I got to dinner a little late.”
“If he’d walked in, the guards would have stopped him. Hey.” He pointed as Glyer puffed a mist into Massoglia’s face. The dealer would go home with no notion of where he’d spent the last six hours.
“Amneserol. Give a guard a little less than the standard dose, he’ll lose an hour’s memory of hanging out in the woods.”
I nodded. “He’d still have to come in with a flight belt. We’ll find it ditched somewhere.”
Woody didn’t answer.
Woody left after work. In an hour and a bit he’d be back in Portland with his wife.
I called the secret hospital, but Marion was asleep. I decided to stay in Washington. I booked a room in the Watergate, the part above ground, then went to the Smithsonian. I’d get them to open the back rooms. They’ve got more stuff stored than most taxpayers would believe.
I stopped in the gem display rooms to look at a gorgeous footbath-sized chunk of malachite. The legend said that it had been given to Spiro Agnew when he was Nixon’s Vice President. I looked around . . . and she was looking over my shoulder. Pretty, middle-aged, curly brown hair.
“I love malachite,” she said. She was wearing a T-shirt under an open jacket. The shirt bore a symbol like a propeller with too many blades.
I said, “So do I.” I’d been thinking about pulling rank on the Smithsonian clerks. Sometimes they’ll let a tax man go home with something.
She said, “It’s too heavy to carry and too big to stick under my suit jacket, and we’d need a distraction.”
“Have dinner with me, and we’ll come up with a plan.”
She looked me over. “Okay. I’m Winnifred. Have you got a car?”
“No.”
“I do.”
Back in the Watergate, I got us drinks from the minibar—miserably poor stuff—and ordered a room service dinner. We talked a little. I spun the usual tale, not hiding that I was a tax man. But Winnifred, I thought, was being evasive.
Presently a waiter knocked. Winnifred stood briskly and went to the door. I was startled enough to remain seated. I was feeling the liquor, too.
She signed the check and got rid of the waiter. “I’ve given you a Mickey,” she said.
She must have used a lot. I was feeling the effects despite the garnetine. I stayed seated. “That symbol,” I asked, waving my arm wildly, letting the words slur. “What’s it mean?”
“Prop Thirteen. Aren’t you out yet? Proposition Thirteen was the law they passed in California in nineteen seventy-eight, that dropped property taxes back to normal levels and kept them there. We use it as a symbol for—Why am I saying this?”
“I put a little something in your drink, too.”
She broke into a delighted smile. “I knew it!” she crowed. “You bastards have got an actual, working truth serum, just like in the pulps! How long does it last?”
I grinned at her. “It’s permanent. Can you imagine what would happen if that ever got loose among the taxpayers?”
“Congress first. Then the Supreme Court.” Winnifred was beginning to babble. “There’s nothing in the Constitution about abortions and evolution and, and, they bloody well knew it. Then give it to the media. Then—” She lost some of her smile. “Everybody. How could you stop? Bomb the rivers in the Muslim countries with truth stuff so the ones who can read can’t lie about what’s in the Koran.”
Damn, I was thinking of hiring her! I liked the way she thought. But—“Winnifred, what were you going to do with me?”
“Hang you from a lamppost.”
“No.” Even during the interbureau wars, we never hanged a tax man in public. It’s far too likely to start a trend. “The others, you never did that.”
“It’s time.”
“You’ll see weapons you never dreamed of,” I said. We glared at each other. “How did you set off that explosion in Oregon?”
“Our man hiked in with a bomb. Sequoia National Park, after all, and you don’t have to stick to the trails. He had an amnesia drug we got off an IRS man, for the guards.”
“How did you talk him into it?”
Her face screwed up in hatred. “You did. He lost everything to taxes.”
“And the others? Drowning, poison—”
“And strokes! The Customs people have something that will cause a stroke a few days after you take it. You people have endless miracles, Mel, some evil, some wonderful. Why not share?”
“Not enough to go around,” I told her.
“We . . . not we . . . you went to the Moon in 1969, and built a base, and stayed. Where do you launch from?”
“The Saturns launch from Kennedy, at a base that’s supposed to be closed. Closed to us, too,” I said bitterly. “Nobody gets to Lyndon Base but IRS people.”
“And the freeway system under Beverly Hills, and the Caspian lakes full of beluga sturgeon—and then you put luxury taxes on food. How can you justify it?”
I sighed. “Winnifred, have you ever read the newslet ter they put out just for funeral directors? ‘The bereaved have a deep need to spend more money than they can afford. It ameliorates their grief.’ Or listen to anything the nurse and teacher unions tell themselves. It’s just incredibly easy for anyone to believe he deserves more than he’s getting. What if you did get to keep all you make? What would you spend it on? Look what you buy with it now!”
She glared. “We’ll take you down. You can’t keep drowning us in paper forever.” With Veritas in her, she had to mean it.
“I’m sorry, Winnifred.” I got up, and she got up, but I was faster.
I was looking out at the dawn when she woke. She sat bolt upright in bed and stared at me. “Oh, God, who are you? I don’t remember anything.”
“We were picked up by a flying saucer and got to know each other that way. How about breakfast?”
Puzzled look. I said, “Kidding. It was the Smithsonian.”
She left cheerful. We’d exchanged phone numbers. She thought I was an accountant for Wachovia.
And I took the elevator down to Minus Forty-Two.
She hadn’t known as many names as I’d have liked. Even so, when I turned my list of the Prop Thirteen Gang over to Woody, we’d have something to trade with IRS. Maybe I’ll see the Moon before I die.
Larry Niven has written science fiction and fantasy at every length, and weirder stuff, too. He lives with his wife of thirty-six years, Marilyn, in Chatsworth, California, the home of the winds.
KYRI’S GAUNTLET
Darwin A. Garrison
KYRI TRELLAN CLOSED her eyes and leaned back against the warm plastic of the air supply duct, breathing out a long sigh and trying to let go of the nervous knot in her stomach.
The end of supply duct four had become her hidden sanctuary less than a day after she had arrived on Cross-road Station. Here, far above the hustle and bustle of the freight and passenger decks, she could find a cool breeze and a measure of quiet. The scents of flowers and food plants arriving with the freshly recycled air from hydroponics soothed her nerves. When she closed her eyes, she could imagine herself laying on her favorite grass
y hill on Escaflow, listening to the birds in the maples.
“They should be on this one,” said a soft, childlike voice inside her mind. She felt the tickle of tiny claws against the skin between her breasts as Eperr, her bonded Nlyx, stirred and began to climb up to his “look out.” She opened her eyes and glanced down in time to see his tiny, hamsterlike nose and twitching whiskers poke out of the button loop in her blue coveralls to peer through the grate at the end of the duct. Kyri smiled in spite of her nerves.
“Ever the optimist, eh?” she asked out loud as she turned her head to watch the Merlin’s Pride drifting toward docking clamp number seven. Her spot at the end of the duct also provided a spectacular view of the three-story-tall transplast panels that converted the hulking freighters into glittering technologic koi floating within the infinite black aquarium of space.
“Well, it is the last ship in from the jump point and they did say they would be coming on this needle.” Kyri shook her head and thanked fate once again that Nlyx could only interface directly with the speech centers of human minds, although the empathic abilities of her gen gineered companion could complicate things at times. She hoped that he would write off her doubts about their possible “alliance” to her overall worry.
“You need a bit of skepticism, Eperr,” she suggested gently as she rolled onto her hip to watch the freighter’s final approach to the ring. “You’re too trusting at times.” The lessons of Escaflow had been burned into the soul of the Coven, if not the childlike Nlyx.
Eperr’s empathy colored his next thought-words with a tinge of righteous indignation. “I’m not a child anymore. I know not to blab about the gauntlet to them.”
A brilliant red light flashed to life above the Merlin’s air lock, accompanied by an intermittent siren. Between the claxon calls, a vaguely feminine synthesized voice called out, “Ship arriving, stand clear.” Stevedores three levels down from the duct shook themselves from their waiting positions, to man a bewildering array of loaders and haulers. Kyri watched the choreography of commerce swing into action as the main cargo hold opened up to the dock. Beyond the transplast, a slender gangway swung through the vacuum to align itself with the passenger hatch.
“I’m not worried about ‘blab,’ Eperr,” she told the Nlyx as she extended a finger to scratch the feather-soft fur of his head. “There are just far too many ways this charade could go wrong. The last thing we need right now is to expose ourselves to people like them.” She lifted her finger from his head and gestured through the grate toward a pair of “special” customs officers in their new black-and-silver uniforms. The two swaggered up the loading ramp to meet the hand-wringing master of the Merlin’s Pride. She did not envy the ship owner the bribes he was going to have to pay.
“But this was your idea!” protested Eperr. Kyri sighed. That was the problem bonding with Nlyx: they lost all objectivity where their “partners” were concerned.
“Yes, I know,” she whispered as passengers began moving down the gangway and into the station, “but it seems a lot more dangerous in the doing.”
The Coven had survived by being “dead” and staying invisible to the internal security bureaus that the Oligarchy had corrupted prior to seizing power in the Senate. Their home had burned so that they could survive. No matter how clear their course seemed, she still could not help but question if what she was doing would prove to be the right thing in the end.
Kyri had a clear view of customs desk and old Thanus’ bald pate. Although the Oligarchy had moved quickly after their coup to replace key people in the bureaucracy, they certainly did not have enough resources to take all the grunt positions as well. So, not only had Thanus kept his job and his faded uniform of gray with its dark blue seams, but Kyri and her friends had kept their gateway on and off the station. That relationship, along with a couple of carefully placed bribes, made sure her “guests” would be assured of getting through customs without undue “New” Senatorial scrutiny.
She leaned back against the wall and watched idly as the inevitable queue built up in front of Thanus’ station. The first couple through the turnstiles carried a baby wrapped in a partially opened enviro-cradle. As well, they were lugging more carryon items than a small infantry platoon. Kyri almost laughed at Thanus’ rigid posture of dismay as they began setting parcels on his rickety inspection table. Next in line was a man wearing a black pinstripe jumpsuit, carrying nothing more than a handheld data assistant. Thanus waved him through perfunc torily. After that, a portly woman with a massive bleached hairdo and a bright red synth-silk dress two sizes too small for any single dimension on her body swayed up to the table. Kyri laughed as the woman twisted and swayed in an apparent effort to get Thanus to look down the front of her dress. The old man was not having any of that, though, and made her empty the contents of every bag she carried.
As the now-disheveled woman stomped away from the table, Kyri’s “guests” appeared at the turnstile. Legionnaires. There was no mistaking the pair, a man and a woman, despite their civilian clothing and discreet clothes and hairstyles. Although the angle was poor, she still estimated that they towered over Thanus by at least twelve centimeters each.
“Eperr? Can you give me a read on Thanus? I think he may be losing his grip.”
Tiny, tickling movements stirred beneath her shirt as Eperr readjusted the aim of his nose.
“Hm,” said Eperr noncommittally. “Yeah. Okay. He’s . . . he’s confused. Little off where he expected to be. Nervous. No panic yet, though.”
Kyri let out a sigh of relief. “Thank goodness for that, at least. What about the Legionnaires?”
“The two big ones there at the table? Is that them? Wound tight. Kind of cold on one hand and hot on the other. Sort of like explosives waiting for a detonator, I’d say.”
“Oh, rapture. Let’s hope nothing sets them off.”
She and Eperr watched as the two soldiers presented their papers to Thanus, who took them with only the slightest nervous shake of his hand. They placed their small bags on the table and opened them while the clerk checked and stamped their documents. A few words were exchanged back and forth, broken by a pause to allow Thanus to clear his throat, after which the old man waved them through with one hand while beckoning to the next person in line with the other.
“Time to move, then,” Kyri whispered to Eperr as she shifted back away from the grate to scurry down the duct. The first step was complete. How had one of her friends put it in their planning sessions? Something about how to eat a vat of bovine protein . . . one bite at a time . . . that was it. She grabbed the side rails of an access ladder and slid down to the maintenance hatch at the base of the feeder duct. With a twist of the dogging lever, she pushed open the reinforced door just a crack. The Legionnaires walked by the open end of the service corridor, sticking out in the general flow of humanity along the main causeway. She slipped out of the side passage and into the crowd, trailing the pair while doing her best to remain anonymous in the human herd.
Eperr’s empathy proved instrumental in tracking the two once he had their mental “flavor.” Their charges proved quite adept at ghosting down random corridors and between various bits and pieces of dock equipment and detritus. Without the Nlyx, Kyri certainly would have given herself away trying to keep them in sight. Even so, by the end of the hour, she was forced to think beyond tracking the pair into anticipating their actions.
“These two have had some training,” she muttered as she threaded her way between two scuffed fork-walkers. This tertiary corridor would allow her to arrive at the designated hostel ahead of her charges.
“You would know,” Eperr agreed enthusiastically.
“Hush,” she said as she squeezed the loop of her shirt closed in front of the Nlyx as she peered around a corner. “I never completed the courses. I know just enough to understand how stupid I am.” A muffled feeling of sulking floated across her consciousness as she stepped out from an access hatch that offered an excellent view of the hostel entra
nce. Kyri leaned back into the shadows left by a strategically inoperable light fixture and considered her insight.
She let out a sigh of resignation. She had expected military intelligence and had even planned for it. Still, after seeing how well they practiced their craft, she felt another twinge of panic. The threads of the plan started to feel slippery in her mind.
“Quit worrying,” Eperr chided her. “You’ll give me an ulcer.”
“You? What about me?”
“Your stomach is bigger.”
“What the hell does that have to do with it?”
“You can tolerate more stress. A poor, tiny creature like me has a lot less surface area to spread worry around in. My mother always said . . .”
“Your mother tried to eat you when you were ten days old.”
A haughty psychic sniff filled her mind. “I bonded more in ten days than you did in ten years. Anyway, she said . . .”
“Hsst!” Kyri warned him, thankfully breaking off his trip down memory lane, which was a shorter walk for the two-year-old Nlyx than it was for Kyri. “They’re here.”
The two Legionnaires appeared from the left of the opening, glanced at the entrance of the hostel, then back at each other. With a nod, the man walked into the portal. The woman slipped to the left out of Kyri’s sight.
“What are they doing?” the Nlyx pleaded, squirming in his pocket and climbing up to his “porthole” in Kyri’s blouse.
Kyri shifted down the corridor a bit to hide behind some empty foam crates. “I think they’re being careful.”
The two coconspirators sat in nervous silence, watching the far door of the hostel. After five tense minutes, the male Legionnaire left the building and turned right, the same direction his female companion had gone.
“Do you want to follow them?” Eperr suggested eagerly. His enthusiasm for playing spy was starting to get on Kyri’s nerves. So, rather than answer him immediately, she squashed herself against the wall.
Under Cover of Darkness Page 4