The Cunning Blood

by Jeff Duntemann

  The jorg vanished into the warren beneath the Illinois, and at some point Peter and his captors left the vehicle behind. Peter thought he knew the building fairly well, but there was a lot of building to be known—and a fair amount of it was "black" and off-limits to junior SIS staffers.

  After much traipsing through gray-walled halls, the contingent took a very long ride in a very small elevator. Peter watched the digital indicator stop at 491. This was executive country; the spooks were several hundred flights downstairs.

  Outside the elevator was a plain anteroom. The two gray-uniformed men removed the bozo from Peter's nose and handed him off to a single SIS guard with an automatic sidearm.

  "Don't try anything," the talkative one said as the pair vanished back into the elevator. The guard walked him through a door, down a hall, and through a second door.

  One entire triangular wall was glass, facing east. Peter blinked in the brilliant dawn light. The room was done in classic Wright style, geometric with an equilateral triangle motif, all in warm reddish hardwood. Once his eyes grew accustomed to the light, Peter saw two women in the room, standing by a silver breakfast cart with coffee cups in their hands. One was in the nondescript gray office uniform of the SIS.

  The other was the Governor General of America.

  |This is getting weird, 9,| Peter subvocalized.

  Ride the wave. I have ceased to discover reasonable speculations.

  The two women set their cups down on the cart and approached him, smiling. "Welcome, Peter," said Governor General Sophia Gorganis. She shoved a lock of black hair streaked with gray behind her ear. "If you promise me you'll behave I'll have Randy take off that muff. I was told you won't have had breakfast."

  "I'll do almost anything for a cup of that coffee, Ma'am," Peter said, "including behave. Assuming you'll take the word of a convicted murderer."

  "You were convicted of murder, not perjury. I've known a few murderers, and they were refreshingly honest men. I'll have a murderer in for coffee over a politician any day."

  Gorganis nodded to the gray-uniformed guard, who unlocked and removed the muff binding Peter's arms in front of him. The governor waved at the cart, and Peter had to restrain himself to keep from breaking into a run.

  The pair followed him to the cart. Peter drained his first cup of coffee without turning around. Black—and cool enough to gulp without hesitation. Even hot water was out of fashion in these risk-averse times. Peter poured a second and turned to face his hosts.

  Sophia Gorganis was tall, and heavy-boned, with shoulder-length black hair full of waves streaked with gray. Her face was long and unattractive, her lips and nose sabotaging any attempt at grace. No one dared call her ugly, though Peter was certain a great many people, men in particular, thought in that direction.

  She wore her customary black skirted suit and dark stockings, right lapel holding the Star Service galaxy and a pin in the shape of a silver sword. Peter knew from twenty years of news on the stone that she was the child of a poor family of Greek heritage in New Jersey, and had risen through SIS ranks first as pilot, then starcraft captain, and finally director, at last appointed Governor General of America at age 46. Unmarried now at 51, she was fanatically athletic, and fond of challenging much younger men to games of racquetball or tennis that they invariably lost. She had abundant charm, and was wildly popular with both Americans and the world at large.

  Peter reluctantly admired her, at least in part because she seemed to buck the trend of considering all risk unacceptable. She had been willing to take SIS starcraft farther than anyone else had ever dared go, at least once to a system so far from Sol it had yet to be identified on star charts. She had been a champion of continuing star travel even after starcraft began to vanish, and had only reluctantly supported Ottawa's order halting all further exploration after the fourth great ship had disappeared without a trace.

  Besides, she was an American, and not another damned Canadian import.

  "Allow me to introduce a very important colleague of mine. This is Geyl Shreve, Field Intelligence Agent for the American region, currently on special assignment to my office."

  Peter nodded and hurriedly swallowed a bite of danish. "Honored. Thanks for breakfast, by the way. I missed supper too. Was too busy reading about Hell."

  Geyl's smile grew slightly pained. In contrast to the Governor's Mediterranean complexion and Rubenesque figure, she was short, slim, and pale, with shoulder-length blond hair. "Must we call it that, Peter?"

  Peter finished the danish and nodded in Geyl's direction. Geyl's SIS blouse was quite full for one so thin. "That's what it is. That's where I'm going. Unless you two called me up here to let me off."

  I would recommend less aggression. This is the American ruler. We still don't know if the Society is involved somehow. The Governor General does not ordinarily pardon common criminals.

  The Governor smiled. "I see you're a direct kind of guy, but I saw that on the clip that the blimps took. That's a big part of why we chose you. That, and your service with the SIS back ten years ago." Gorganis refilled her cup and went around to a large redwood desk with a surface composed of hundreds of wooden triangles, merged into a single slab with a glass-smooth finish. She sat down and crossed her hands on the desk. "We don't often see an SIS boy go bad, and privately, I think you got a bum deal. I think I might have kicked the little shit's balls in myself, though I would have left his brains intact. So I'll be direct too: You're right. I'm prepared to offer you a way out of Hell."

  It was said with Gorganis's well-known politician's flair for drama. Peter found his hackles rising. "In exchange for what?" What indeed? In exchange for testifying against his Society? For turning in Cy and Ron and Ray? For handing over a sample of Version 9 to 1Earth?

  "In exchange for successful completion of a temporary assignment with the SIS. To go to Hell. And come back again."

  "Nobody's done that in 200 years."

  "Who better to be the first than you?"

  I am relieved.

  |Maybe they've got some new two-way lander or shuttle they want me to fly for them,| Peter subvocalized. |Better to risk a condemned man than a citizen, huh?|

  You would enjoy that.

  "I assume this isn't just a stunt," Peter said to the Governor. He realized that if it were just a test run of some new spacecraft, there would be no reason for politicians to become involved.

  "Hardly. It's a matter of importance. The assignment is pretty simple, though. You're to be a bodyguard. For Geyl."

  Peter's spirits fell. It was Geyl's mission, then, and he was hired muscle.

  "An intelligence mission?"

  "Peter, it is," Geyl said, "but I'll handle that part of it. We're going down under assumed identities, as transportees. We'll be posing as a married couple convicted of double murder. There are very few women at OVODS. We felt that having a strong male with SIS training on the team would improve my chances of finding what I need to know and then getting clear."

  "So what are we looking for down there?"

  Silence reigned for several seconds. The Governor spun her coffee cup on the polished redwood. "We can't tell you."

  Geyl took a half-step forward. "Peter, it's classified. And you're hardly a good security risk."

  "Ok. Then how are we getting back?"

  "That's classified too."

  The Governor stood. "The whole thing is classified, Peter. But I'll be blunt. The less you know, the better care you're likely to take of Geyl. The way out of Hell will be in her head alone. I'd guess that'll motivate you to keep her head from getting perforated. She'll tell you all you need to know at the right times. Geyl's been in the SIS since she was 18, and that was eighteen years ago. She's been an agent half her life, and is probably the best we've got." Gorganis's eyes were fierce.

  Eye contact was the sort of conflict Peter liked; he took the challenge and returned it. "Hey, I was in the SIS. Tell me what to look for and I'll bring it back for you in jack time. There's onl
y a handful of women on Hell—and several million murderers, armed robbers, and miscellaneous thugs. She'll stick out like a sore thumb. You need a man for this job."

  The governor pursed her lips. "Mmm. If I had one I could trust…maybe. Your point's good. But my decision's been made, and I don't feel like posting the parameters for you. So there's my offer. Do the job, get back, and you're a free man. Deal?" Sophia Gorganis leaned across her desk and extended her hand to Peter.

  Peter crossed his arms and looked at the floor. "No thanks."

  "Peter…"

  "Forget it. I'll go to Hell and stay there before I become somebody's pet guard dog."

  No one spoke for some time. Geyl looked at the floor and her simple gray pumps. The Governor General sat down again. Her smile remained, but Peter thought it was now a poker smile, with all the cards in her hand. She pressed one of the triangles comprising her desktop, and a tombstone rose silently from beneath it.

  "Is that your decision, Peter?" the Governor asked.

  "It is."

  "Then we need to talk about something else." Sophia Gorganis turned her attention to the stone. "Bring up the file on Aliotta Air Courier Services, Inc."

  Peter froze.

  "You've worked for Cyrus Aliotta ever since you left the SIS. He must have some reason for keeping you, even though you have a reputation for aggression and recklessness. My guess is it's your remarkable trip times. You can get the goods from Chicago to Buenos Aires faster than just about anybody, judging from your log records. You shave your tolerances on every regulation until there's no margin at all between you and violation."

  "But I'm always on the right side of violation. You've got the log."

  "I do. And how sure are you that you're always on the right side of violation?"

  "I wouldn't do anything to get Cy in trouble."

  Gorganis peered down her nose at a line on a window displayed on her tombstone. "Then what were you doing on July 14, 2371? You averaged Mach 4.69 from Chicago to Rome. Which means you spent considerable time over Mach 5. The C-404 you were flying is rated Mach 4.75 peak. Beyond that you can't necessarily keep the generator rings from melting."

  "I wouldn't do that!"

  "The log says you did."

  "1EAA would have shut us down as soon as I returned the aircraft to Chicago!"

  "We don't prosecute every violation—though some think we should." Gorganis leaned back at her desk and crossed her arms. "I have six more violations on file for you, as bad as that one or worse. They're all right here." She tapped the window on the tombstone, which expanded to fill the full view.

  Peter clenched his fists. "I get it. It doesn't matter if those violations never happened."

  "Can you prove they didn't?"

  "The logs have the last word. And they're just files. Somebody who wanted to could forge entries—if they were big enough."

  Sophia Gorganis stood, her wide lips pursed. "You could challenge the entries in court. One at a time, of course. But what we have here is enough."

  "Enough…for what?"

  "To shut down Aliotta Air Courier Services. Today."

  You know what comes next.

  Peter sighed, and slammed his right fist against his left palm. "Unless I take the job."

  "Bravo. You're smarter than you look."

  "Now I know why you'd rather have coffee with a murderer than a politician. I think I would too."

  "I'll call that a backhanded compliment. So what's your decision?"

  Geyl, silent through the length of the Governor's blackmail, spoke. "Peter, you were in the SIS. You know that certain things are just too important to share except on a need-to-know basis. Please understand. We need to do this. When the time is right you'll know it all. I promise."

  Peter looked back to the Governor. "Cy's been awful good to me. Grounding him would kill him. It's not much of a decision anymore." He put his hands in the prison jumpsuit's pockets. "I'll do it."

  The Governor rose behind her desk. The tombstone retreated into its slot. "Good man. Now, we accelerated the schedule on the fold to Hell. It's going to happen tomorrow night. The rest of today you're to stay up here and Geyl will go over what details we can share. I have a small apartment through there—" she pointed at a redwood door at the opposite end of the office "and that's where you'll stay tonight. By then you'll know too much to go anywhere unsupervised. It's pretty plush, so take advantage: Have a shower, use the sauna, get some rest. I'll have dinner sent up. Tomorrow morning Geyl will meet you here, and the two of you will become murderers and ship out for orbit from O'Hare. That's about all I have to say." The Governor headed toward the door through which Peter had entered.

  "Well, I have one more thing to say before you go. When I get back here, Cy had better still be flying."

  "Or?" Sophia Gorganis' eyebrows rose.

  "Or I'll kill you. And then the Canadians can send me right back to Hell."

  You never learn, do you?

  The Governor laid her hand on the doorknob, and chuckled. "You're just so much fun, Peter. Good luck. Bring my Geyl back alive and intact." With that, she was gone.

  For the rest of that day and well into the evening, Peter and Geyl sat at a small desk near the glass wall overlooking the spires of central Chicago, and beyond them, Lake Michigan. Geyl summoned checklists, summaries, scenarios, and other data from a palmstone and drilled Peter in their importance.

  Geyl was assuming the role of Gina Novilio, an insecure wife who had married Peter for his strength and bluster and taken his name in the old fashion. Peter Novilio would be Peter Novilio—Geyl would all but admit that she didn't trust him even so far as to assume a new name. In her cover scenario the pair had hatched a plot to quietly murder Gina's parents to accelerate their inheritance, which amounted to approximately three million globes and several pieces of real estate. The murder occurred at a summer home owned by the parents. While the two elderly people slept, Peter quietly entered the home and broke the necks of both father and mother in their beds. He then left the house and broke in again using a pry bar. The scheme might have worked except that Gina had become hysterical during routine questioning, arousing the suspicion of PS investigators. Under further pressure, she had confessed.

  It was a reasonable cover, at least for an ostensibly one-way trip to Hell. Peter was forced to admit that Geyl had a head for planning. His objection, as always, was that her plans were based on very broad assumptions about conditions on Hell.

  "You seem to think we're not going to be shut up in cellblocks there. Care to tell me why?"

  "Classified."

  "You know some things about Hell that nobody else knows, looks like."

  "Peter, that's our job! We're SIS—we protect the citizens of 1Earth from unusual threats."

  "How much time do we have until the pickup?"

  "As much as we need. It could be as much as a year."

  "So you've got a way to signal from Hell."

  "I didn't say that."

  "Dammit, Geyl! I worked for SIS! You can give me a little more than three crumbs and a napkin!"

  Geyl kicked back in her chair and sighed. "You're now a convicted murderer, and that's real-life. The Governor had to blackmail you to get you to sign on. I'd say your loyalties are pretty shaky. Prove yourself to me on this mission and I'll start fleshing out the situation."

  Peter reached out across the desk and folded the palmstone closed with a very audible click. "You know, I'll bet I wasn't your first choice for this mission. I'll bet I wasn't your choice at all."

  He saw anger in her then. "None of that is any of your business."

  "Hey, just making theories. I'll bet you had somebody else picked out, somebody still active in the Service, maybe somebody you wouldn't mind getting locked up with for a long time if it came to that."

  She glared at him with an unexpected fierceness, but her face flushed nonetheless. "I choose not to continue this conversation."

  "Suit yourself. Keep in mind that
the less you tell me, the more I'll try to figure out on my own. Trust works both ways. If I turn up something useful, my first impulse won't necessarily be to share it with you."

  The door swung wide at that point, and an armed guard rolled in the dinner cart. For some time they ate in silence. Peter was in a state of high agitation. He stood by the five-meter-high window, watching shadows lengthen into night across the center of the American capital. He gnawed a chicken leg by the window while Geyl ate quietly at the desk with eyes downcast.

  "You know, Geyl, something's fishy about all this. ZTV was passed over two hundred years ago. 1Earth now sends almost a hundred thousand people to Hell every year. And what's the violent offense rate? Flat."

  Actually, it's rising steadily. The government fudges the definitions every so often to make it look like nothing's changing. Occasionally someone tries to shed some light on the stats but the reports are suppressed. They're good at that.

  Geyl refused to look at him. "Violence is hereditary."

  "Not true. If it were, the rate would be going down, because you're sending all the bad genes to Hell. Did you ever stop to wonder if the cure was worse than the disease?"

  "Don't be ridiculous."

  "Ok—then maybe the cure is the disease!"

  "Peter! The best minds in the world have been working on this problem for two hundred years!"

  Peter turned around and hurled the chicken leg across the room. It struck the door and left a greasy smear. "The best female minds—all of whom write it off as a male problem and think of more excuses to keep men out of positions of responsibility. 68% of all elected and appointed offices and judgeships are held by women. Little boys who pick fights on playgrounds are blacklisted from public office for life. 38% of men are ineligible for public office under ZTV. Guns are illegal in private hands. The government classifies every other word in the dictionary as an unjustifiable risk. And people are still killing each other. It's not working! Doesn't that ever bother you!"

  "I will not have you screaming at me! I will not!" Geyl drew herself up to her full height and glared at Peter. "I will be back here in twelve hours. You and I are both going to…to Hell tomorrow, and if you ever want to come back you'd better get with the program!"