by Chris Bunch
“My own personal belief is that we absolutely should have real free elections one of these years, when the time is right and the populace is sufficiently educated and mature for such an event.
“But until then … matters should stay as they are.” He got up. “To return to the reason for my visit, I thought I should tell you, as, perhaps, thanks for your job of entertaining me … and the people of Delta … that you may have made a mistake, no matter how well paid you’ll be for your services.”
“I don’t see any way to undo my agreement,” Garvin said.
“Neither do I,” Berti admitted, “since you’re more than evidently an honest man. I, on the other hand, would cheerfully find a way to loudly abrogate the agreement. But you are what you are. At least I thought I might give you the chance to be on your guard.
“As I said, all I can offer is a bit of a warning.”
He smiled in a most fatherly manner, bowed, and was gone.
Garvin waited a minute, and Njangu came into his office.
“Not an election this year, nor next year, but by gum your grandchildren will be happy as snot,” Njangu snarled. “Why is it shitheels like that never think it’s the right time for the people to have squat in the way of power?”
“I dunno,” Garvin said. “And howcum there’s wars?”
“What makes me worry,” Njangu said, “are these emergency measures. Like martial law, maybe, which we surely don’t want to get caught up in.”
Garvin poured drinks from a decanter, gave one to Njangu, shot his own back.
“I’m starting to wonder if we might have made a slight error,” he said quietly.
• • •
Director Fen Berti got into his lim.
“Back to our ship,” he ordered, and the lifter silently came off the ground.
“Well, sir?” his supposed driver asked.
“An interesting young man. Most subtle for his years. He only looked twice at where I assume some sort of pickup was hidden in the wall spaces,” Berti said.
“A very nice young man, who’s playing politics and has men looking for data on the Confederation.
“I think it might be wise to find out a bit more about him and his circus.”
• • •
“I know our cooks are the best recyclers in the universe,” Darod Montagna said. “But it sure is nice to get out and eat something that isn’t seasoned with what used to be your own sweat.”
“How genteel. How ladylike. How guaranteed to spoil my appetite,” Garvin said. He poured what remained of the bottle of wine between their glasses, and, unobtrusively, the busboy was there to take it away and the sommelier to provide another.
“Oh, I’m just so sorry,” Darod said, staring pointedly at the bony remains of a fish on Garvin’s well-polished plate.
“I kept eating just for politeness,” he explained.
“I thought I’d never get another chance at that dinner you promised,” Montagna said.
“I’m always a man of my word,” Garvin said. “Sometimes the word is just a tiddly slow.”
He looked around the restaurant. It was quite a place, a polished wooden ocean ship that had somehow been transported to the lake near the field Big Bertha was parked on. Its waiters wore white gloves, liquids were served in real crystal, and there were actual tablecloths.
“It is nice to get out,” he said. “I was starting to think everything smelled like elephant.”
“Speaking of being indelicate,” Darod said. She put a hand on Garvin’s, and he let it stay there. “I was most impressed by your command presence the other morning.”
Garvin held back laughter. “You just said that to make me blush.”
“Oh no,” Darod said. “I already saw you blush, and I must say you do a very thorough job of it.”
She giggled.
• • •
Garvin yawned as he took the lifter off from the lot beside the moored restaurant ship.
“And so back to grim reality.”
“I guess so,” Darod said, then pointed. “Not yet … unless we have to. See that point, way up there? And there’s two … no, three moons out. Can you land up there?”
“With a bottle of that wine in me, I could land on the head of a pin and dance.”
“Just put us down on the big rock,” Darod said. “Dancing might be for later.”
Garvin brought it in skillfully, surprising himself, and set it down.
They sat in silence for a few minutes, contentedly looking at the moons, the silver lake below, the lights of the ship.
“For some reason,” Garvin said, a bit surprised that his voice was a bit hoarse, “I feel like kissing you.”
“That can be arranged,” Darod said, turning to him, and her mouth opened under his.
Some time later, her formal dress slid down about her waist, she found herself in the lifter’s huge rear seat, looking up at Garvin.
“Perhaps you’d lift your hips?” Garvin said.
She obeyed.
“You’ll notice,” she said, “no underwear, meaning I was hoping something like this or maybe just this was going to happen.” Then she gasped.
• • •
“I hope you know what you think you’re doing,” was Monique Lir’s only comment when Darod Montagna bleared into her compartment the next morning just after dawn.
“You hope,” was Darod’s only reply.
• • •
“Well, well, well,” Njangu said, pushing the holo screen to Garvin. “Guess who’s a man of his word, a worthy candidate for public office.”
Garvin ignored the pics, scanned the readout. Candidate for Premier Dorn Fili was pleased to announce that Circus Jaansma had joined his campaign, at least so to speak, for they’d be doing benefits and charitable appearances for various worthy causes.
“So much for letting the votes make the correct assumptions,” Njangu said.
“Problem?”
“Flip the page,” Njangu suggested, “and read the top two stories.”
Garvin did. One was of a bombing by “unknown terrorists” of one of Fill’s campaign headquarters, the other was the savage beating of three of his precinct walkers.
“Not good,” Garvin said. “I think, between that moron wandering loose inside Big Bertha who wanted to play with our pussies … he is, by the way, indeed going to live, unfortunately, as Jill predicted … and this, we better start being a little more concerned about security. Ideas?”
“Yeh,” Njangu said. “Pull everybody in I&R who’s not a kinker onto security. Double the gangway guards … no, triple ‘em. Put a roving patrol out around the ship.
“Cancel your idea of putting up that smelly tent for the show. Only let the midway outside the ship, and keep roving patrols through it. If Sopi loses a few of his crooked grafters, that’s tough titty for him.
“Have either an aksai or Nana boat ready to launch on short notice if they try a heavy hit.
“From now on nobody goes into town or anywhere alone, and if there’s enough of them going to make a target, they’ll have to have a security tail gunner.
“Other than that,” he finished, “it’s just lovely life as usual.”
• • •
That night, there was a bit of a clem on the midway, set up just outside Big Bertha, and all but two of the gangway sentries were drawn into it, to Njangu’s later wrath.
Then those two guards were distracted by four happy drunks who wanted to serenade them.
No one noticed the unobtrusive figure slip up to one of the ship’s fins, take a chest-size centimeter-thick pad, anodized to exactly match the ship’s skin color, from his coat, and hold it against Big Bertha. The epoxy bonded the pad to the ship’s fin instantly, and the man went away, as anonymously as he’d come.
• • •
Monique Lir muttered obscenities as she tracked the dozen squealing women through the shopping district. She swore this had been either Garvin or Njangu’s idea of a joke.
If someone had told Monique the only reason she went unnoticed was because of the brazen display of the showgirls, she would’ve most likely spat in their eye, or perhaps broken an arm or two.
As it was, she concentrated on her duty, eyes moving back and forth constantly behind very dark wraparounds, watching for anything, one hand on the grip of the heavy blaster hanging from a sling under her very stylish, very useful, long coat.
The dozen had just stopped to admire the holos swaying through the air outside a boutique when Monique saw the man, small, shabbily dressed, dash from a recess, saw the gun in his hand come up, and fire once.
Lir heard a woman scream in agony, but paid no mind to whoever was hit. She shed the coat, had her blaster up, safety off.
The man spun, about to run, and saw Lir and her gun.
“Stop!” she shouted. “Freeze!” knowing assassins must be taken alive.
But the man’s gun was lifting, aiming, and she pulled the trigger.
The bolt took the man in the middle of the chest, spinning him back across a concrete bench.
The crowds were screaming, running, women and men going flat, and there were alarms howling.
Lir paid no mind, quickly went thorough the corpse’s pouch, took everything, then was up and running, leaving the blaster across the body.
• • •
“Thanks,” Njangu said, shutting off the com and turning to Garvin. “The showgirl … her name was Chapu, by the way … just died.”
“Bastards,” Garvin said, sorting through the contents of the shooter’s pouch.
The com buzzed again, and Njangu took it, spoke briefly.
“That was Fili,” he said. “Expressing his sympathies, even though he’s sure it had nothing to do with politics or him, just some mental case.”
“Yeh,” Garvin said, flatly.
Njangu picked up the com, told the ship’s com center to hold all outside calls, but log them, joined Garvin in examining the meager contents of the pouch.
“Too much money,” he murmured. “Nice crisp credit bills, nonconsecutive numbers. A for-hire job. Ho. What’s this. A com number?
“Maybe his bosses forgot to shake him before he went out, eh?”
He went back to the com, told the center to connect him with that number.
“It’s NG,” he reported, said into the mike, “try the old code of adding one or subtracting one number.” He waited. “Nothing connects going down one. Try up one.” Again, he waited, then swiftly broke contact. “Here we go. Add one number, and we just happen to get a voice that says ‘Constitutionalist District Four, Maya speaking.’
“Sloppy, sloppy work.”
“Yeh,” Garvin said.
“You know,” Njangu said, “in a properly run democracy, that wouldn’t be anything more than minor evidence.”
“Which is why I’m damned glad I’m not running a democracy,” Garvin said grimly.
CHAPTER
8
“Sorry to hear about your casualty,” the slender man with the carefully trimmed moustache said to Erik Penwyth. He wore an expensive but somewhat shabby civilian suit like a uniform.
“We circus people don’t think like you soldiers,” Erik drawled. “We don’t take what I suppose you call calculated risk into account. P’raps we should, though,” he softened his response, burying his flash of anger. “Considering some of the risks taken.”
“But I gather the woman who that madman shot was no more than a decoration,” the man said. “Hardly someone who gets in a cage with monsters.”
“I guess we all die, sooner or later,” Erik said. “Here. Stand you a drink?”
“Thanks,” the man said, and motioned to the human barkeep. “Whiskey. And a glass of charged water.”
Penwyth nodded to the bartender to refill his brandy and ginger, although he was still getting used to the local brandy, better than anything native to Cumbre, and the mix, far gingerier than expected.
The man took his drink, lifted it to Erik.
“As we used to say … here’s to a nice, neat war, with quick promotions.”
Erik smiled, drank.
“Although,” the man said, “none of us in the Club have ever seen a real war.”
The Armed Forces Club’s walls were decorated with old weaponry, regimental banners, holos of stiff men looking proud.
“Just riots, a few raiders, every now and then a district or a world deciding it can go on its own and needs reminding about the proper order of things,” the man said. “Oh, by the way, I’m Kuprin Freron. Retired Tousan, last duty assignment with the General Staff.”
“Erik Penwyth. I’m one of the publicity hounds.”
“I know,” the man said, started to go on, changed the subject. “What will your people do about the tragedy?”
“What should we do?” Penwyth said carefully. “The killer was some lunatic who killed our trouper, then got shot down by an unknown civilian. That’s what your holos say, anyway.”
Freron raised an eyebrow. “I wonder about that quote unknown civilian end quote. We have very stringent gun laws here on Delta … although it certainly never seems to stop a criminal or one of our political thugs from arming himself with anything he wishes for his villainy.”
“Crooks everywhere generally don’t worry about breaking small laws,” Penwyth said. “But I still don’t understand what you’re saying.”
“I just thought that you offworlders might have your own … resources … when trouble happens, which is good, since I doubt if our authorities will do anything about searching for the people everyone knows are behind this bloodshed.”
“Perhaps we do,” Penwyth said. “If so, they’ve never told me about anything like that. By the way, you said you know me, but I don’t remember us having met.”
“We haven’t,” Jabish said. “I heard about your show, and the largesse your circus has extended to some of the charities the Club supports.” He glanced to either side, saw no one was close, dropped his voice. “I’ve also heard that you’ve been inquiring about the Confederation.”
“Surely,” Penwyth said, alarms going off. “We’re loyal citizens … although it’s certainly been a long time since we’ve been able to show our loyalty. Traveling people like order. And, speaking personally, I’m most curious how something that huge can vanish, seemingly overnight.”
“Soldiers also like order,” Freron said. “You know, I was lucky enough to do an intelligence course on Centrum itself a long time ago.
“And one of my jobs on the Staff, before the damned politicians decided there was more profit going our own way, was liasing with the Confederation attachés.”
“Interesting,” Erik said.
“I thought so at the time,” Freron said. “And think so now, as I’m considering writing my memoirs.
“Because I kept thorough records. Very thorough records of everything I encountered dealing with the Confederation. But right now, it seems that no one is terribly interested in these anecdotes of the past.”
“I always was, as a kid,” Erik lied. “Somehow adults always had better things to talk about than us lads did.” He wondered where the word “lads” had come from, decided that was the kind of word Freron would use. “But you said something about keeping records?”
“I did, and I suppose that was illegal, then, since a lot of the Confederation material I have was fairly classified then.
“Now it’s just dusty fiches, although some might find it interesting.”
“Such as?” Penwyth said, wishing to hell he had a bug detector in his pocket to see if Freron was Tiborg counterintelligence, trolling.
“Oh … historians, perhaps. People who’re making the Confederation a subject of study, for whatever reasons. People who’re well funded, si
nce my pension hardly extends as far as I’d like.”
“T’ousan Freron,” Erik said, waving to the bartender. “You interest me greatly. Perhaps we should find a table and discuss this matter.”
“Call me Kuprin.”
• • •
Garvin was rather pleased that about half of his circus quietly came up and asked if he was going to do something about Chapu’s murder, and if so, could they help.
He was, but he only needed nineteen, all chosen from I&R. They boarded one of the circus lifters in the late afternoon and flew into the capital, landing very quietly, on the roof of a building overlooking Constitutionalist District Four headquarters. High above, two aksai were flying cover, Dill and Alikhan as pilots.
Four soldiers, the best Shrike gunners in the Force, their modified missiles hidden in innocuous-looking cases, plus their gun guards, went down from the roof and found firing positions in alcoves and alleys.
Six others, lugging Squad Support Weapons, the tripod-mounted blasters, and their assistant gunners went to firing locations near the three entrances to the precinct building, under Lir’s direction.
Then they waited, ducking into cover anytime any of the planetary police lifters came past.
Garvin and Njangu had chosen to land just after normal quitting time.
“That’ll let the innocent, which means the small-scale sorts, get out before the fun starts,” Garvin had said.
“What, just to be cynical, about the secretary whose boss ordered her to work late?” Njangu said.
Garvin looked at him coldly.
“Sorry,” Yoshitaro said. “I didn’t mean to throw shit in the game.”
It was just dusk, and about a third of the windows across the way were still lit when Garvin opened the com to his troops.
“Shrike element … fire as instructed.”
Two of the missiles were aimed at the fourth story of the five-story building, the other two at its mid-section.
Launchers whooshed, and the missiles arrived before their sound. The explosions sent shock waves across the capital, shattering windows for blocks. The building rocked, and its façade cracked, fell toward the street, forcing one SSW team to run.
Flames flickered from three floors of the building.