No, they needed to follow the trail. Major conspiracies are not broken up in pieces. If you try, the pieces that remain coalesce and re-constitute themselves. To be really successful—to end an active conspiracy—it was necessary to wrap it all up at once, from the head down to the tail.
A tall woman with short curly hair was drinking beer at the bar with four other people, three men one other woman. Michael liked her looks: broad shoulders, long legs, animated face with a wide smile. She laughed at something one of her friends said, drained her stein and nodded when the bartender asked if she wanted another.
“She likes you,” Anson said.
“You think?” Anson might be right. She wasn’t being subtle about it. Her eyes, direct and appraising, had drifted his way more than once.
He looked at her and gave a tentative smile. She smiled back and raised her stein in a salute, then took a drink. Should he?
Why not?
He rose to his feet and walked over to the bar. “Excuse me, Miss,” he said, “but might I ask your name?”
She looked him up and down, and smiled crookedly. “Francis Holder,” she said. “My friends call me Frankie.”
He nodded. “My name is Luciano Barrad,” he said.
A finger tapped him on the shoulder. He turned. A very large young man stood there, wearing coveralls that looked military but without any insignia. He looked angry. “Frankie’s with me,” he said. “Go away.”
Michael sighed. Only the young and the stupid enjoyed fighting in bars, or the not so young and the very stupid but he objected on principle to letting some strutting bull push him around. He shrugged and glanced at Frankie.
She frowned at the young man. “Jamie, we all came here together. This is just a drink after a day’s work.” She indicated the other young men and women in the group, who by now were staring at Michael. None of them looked overly friendly. “That’s all it is.”
The young man drew a slow, deep breath, then seemed to deflate. He turned his back to Frankie and Michael and leaned on the bar. “Give me another beer,” he said to the bartender.
“So,” Michael said. “Can I call you Frankie?”
“Are we going to be friends?” she teased.
“I sincerely hope so.”
She grinned. “Then please do.”
It might have been experience or it might have been native talent. Maybe both. Whatever it was, Frankie Holder kept a wide smile on her face, moved like a slippery eel, moaned in a soft delighted lilt and seemed to know without a word being said just what he liked best.
He had trouble keeping up with her but he followed her lead and was more than happy to try.
Finally, she collapsed, panting, snuggled up to his side, laid her head on his shoulder and said, “Wow.”
Really. She looked a lot like Marina Simmins, now that he thought about it, at least the general outline. He felt a pang of sudden loss and realized almost with dismay that his memories of Marina had become so distant, almost vague. Her face used to swim in front of him every minute of every day. Now? He had trouble picturing her. He shook his head. Maybe it was for the best. He hated to even think it, but maybe it was. Let the dead rest, after all, and Marina Simmons had been dust for over two thousand years.
Frankie looked at him, then grinned. “You okay?”
“Oh, yeah,” he said.
“Good.” She yawned. “You want to go again?”
“Let’s get some sleep, first. We can do it in the morning.”
She lay her head down on the pillow with a sigh. “Fine by me.” Within seconds, they were both asleep.
He awoke six hours later disoriented, hard as a rock, to find Frankie on top of him, sliding back and forth, softly moaning. “Oh, God,” he groaned and then, suddenly, he arched upward and felt his head swirl as he emptied himself inside her.
She gave a soft cry and stopped moving. “You liked that?”
He looked at her, slim and taut, with medium sized breasts that stood up high on her chest, and dark, puckered nipples. He reached up, squeezed one with a thumb and forefinger, which brought a satisfied little moan from deep in Frankie’s throat then he grinned and let his breath out slowly. She leaned over and nuzzled his lips, then carefully rose to her feet and stretched by the side of the bed. “I need a shower.”
“I’ll join you,” he said, and she grinned back at him.
Half an hour later, they were drinking coffee in the ship’s galley and eating bacon, eggs and pancakes with a sweet syrup made from a native Solheim berry, when Curly and Rosanna, dressed only in robes, walked in. Both of them stopped for a moment and blinked at Frankie, who smiled at them, then returned to her food.
“This is Frankie,” Michael said. “Say hello.”
Rosanna returned Frankie’s smile. Curly scratched his head. “Hi,” he said, and shoveled eggs and pancakes onto his plate.
Was this awkward? Michael thought that it might be but he wasn’t sure why. He didn’t owe Curly or Rosanna any explanations, that was for sure. Still, he felt a little weird about the situation. Frankie, for her part, seemed perfectly comfortable.
Gloriosa came in next, froze for an instant, gave Michael a questioning look. He looked back at her and said nothing. She shrugged and sat down at the table.
“Frankie, Gloriosa,” Rosanna said. “Gloriosa, Frankie.”
“Pleased to meet you,” Frankie said, and held out a hand. Gloriosa hesitated for an instant, reached out and shook the other woman’s hand. Frankie returned to her food.
One-by-one, the others came in, were introduced, ate breakfast and then wandered off. Finally, Frankie pushed her plate away, stifled a lady-like burp and glanced at her interface.
“Do you have to be going?” Michael said.
She frowned. “Not really. I free lance. I’m on call. My last assignment finished up yesterday morning. I was celebrating with my team last night when I met you.”
“Free lance at what?”
“Security.”
Michael already knew that. Romulus had investigated Frankie’s background as soon as she had entered the ship and had transmitted the information to Michael’s internal sensors. Frankie had served two tours of duty with the Imperial Marines, cashed out and returned home to Solheim a little over a year before. She had an older brother, a younger sister and an extended family, all of whom, like most citizens of the Republic had served in the Imperial forces.
“You want a job?” He wasn’t sure what made him say it. It was an impulse, but looking at Frankie’s lean face and smooth, even features, he suddenly realized that he would really like her to stick around.
Frankie looked at him. “Doing what?”
Fucking my brains out? “Security,” he said, then shrugged. “Anything else that might come up. The ship is automated. It doesn’t need a lot of crew.”
She frowned down at her empty plate. “Huh. Let me think about it.” She rose to her feet. “See you tonight?”
“I hope so,” he said.
She gave him a wide smile. “Me, too.”
“So,” Gloriosa said, once Frankie was safely off the ship, “the new girl?”
“Yeah?” Michael said warily.
“She seems okay.”
“Thank you, Gloriosa. I’m glad you approve.”
Gloriosa looked at him over the top of her cup. “I’ve been worried about you. You are our leader. A leader should have an unsullied mind, free from distractions.” A thoughtful frown crossed Gloriosa’s beautiful, tiny face as she considered Michael’s heretofore insufficient sex life.
“Thank you for your concern,” Michael said. “I will try to keep my mind on the job.”
She grunted. “This is good. I am relieved.”
Romulus’ voice echoed silently in his head, The Golden Queen has made landfall. We have received a message from their Captain. We will meet at hangar fourteen in three hours.
“Excellent,” Michael said.
Chapter 12
The crew of the G
olden Queen were hard eyed and wary. Mostly human and mostly male, they said little, smiled rarely and were all business. Their Captain was tall and stout. He had broad shoulders, with a bushy beard and a large belly, but he was light on his feet and moved smoothly. Michael knew the type. There was a lot muscle underneath the fat. His name was Hiram Meeker.
A tour of duty with the Imperial Navy many years ago, Romulus informed him. A few minor disciplinary reprimands but otherwise his record is clean. His ship is owned by the crew, each of whom is given a share upon joining. Meeker’s share is ten percent, the largest.
A common arrangement for free traders. Men who had a stake in the outcome tended to work harder and be far more disciplined.
Meeker’s crew opened each crate and inspected the contents before taking possession. Payment was partially given in credits and part in trade goods, which had all been arranged in advance. Three men, one tentacled Rigellian and one very large, muscular woman with short, spiky hair wrestled the cargo into the hold, then carried out seven new crates and piled them up under the ship. Trailer drones lifted the crates on fork lifts and carried them up the ramp into a truck. “Here’s your receipt,” Meeker said. “Nice doing business with you.”
“You sticking around?” Michael asked.
Meeker shook his head. “No. We have to get going. We take off in an hour. We’re behind schedule.”
“Why is that?”
Meeker frowned. “There was a quarantine on Forest Glenn, our last stop, a strain of mutated leprosy. Everybody had to get vaccinated and they wouldn’t let us leave until the incubation period had passed.”
“Tough,” Michael said.
Meeker grunted. “So, we’re heading out. Good luck.”
“Same to you.”
They got into the truck and drove off. “That was easy,” Anson said.
“What do you think is in the crates?” Michael said.
Anson shrugged. “Not our business, is it?”
Michael smiled. “Well, actually it is, but Solomon Towne doesn’t need to know that.”
Anson smiled back.
As soon as they arrived back at the ship, they scanned each crate, all of which were supposed to contain exotic spices. Most of them did. Two of the seven, however, contained bags of something very different. Anson sighed. “So now we’re drug runners. My mother will be so proud of me.”
“Someday she’ll understand,” Michael said. He grinned. “So now we follow the trail. At least we have something to go on.”
Anson shrugged. Organic microdots were silent and almost undetectable, inert until they were activated. A start. It wasn’t what they had hoped for but it was progress. Michael allowed himself to feel some small satisfaction at the thought.
Frankie arrived back at the ship in the early evening. Michael felt something inside untwist at the sight of her. She grinned at him and held up a bottle. “I brought something you might like.”
“What is it?”
“It’s called fire-wine. We make it from a very rare berry that grows on the slopes of only a few mountains in the Southern continent. At harvest time, the workers suspend themselves from ropes in order to pick the berries. A species of large carnivorous birds nest in the crags near the vines and sometimes they attack the workers. It’s very dangerous work.” She grinned. “Fire-wine is expensive.”
“I’ve never heard of it.”
She cocked her head to the side. “I thought we would celebrate my new job.”
He looked at her and felt a slow smile sliding across his face. “Yeah,” he said. “That sounds good.”
“So, when do we leave?”
“As soon as you get settled in.”
“I already told my family. I can inform the agency from here. There’s nothing else for me to do.”
He cracked open the bottle and poured them both a generous glass. “Excellent.”
To Michael’s dismay, however, Frankie Holder decided that formally moving in with the Captain would not be a good idea. “Let’s be professional about this,” she said. “Things have gone pretty fast. This wouldn’t be a problem if you were leaving and I was staying behind but now the situation is different.
“Also, you’re the Captain. How does it look for a member of the crew to be fucking the Captain?”
“It’s none of their business,” Michael said. “It’s my ship.”
“No?” She gave him a long, level look. “Maybe it isn’t, but I would like to be respected. Don’t you think that they might resent what they see as favoritism?”
“What favoritism? There isn’t going to be any favoritism. I’m going to work you harder than everybody else.”
“See? You’re already treating me different.”
Michael sighed. She did have a point. He didn’t like it but he didn’t have the heart to argue.
“Don’t worry,” she said. She patted him on the cheek and fixed him with a long, lazy grin. “We’ll still find a little time to be together, if that’s what you want.”
Even in biological years, Michael was no longer young. He had long since learned to discard the idea of love at first sight, but he had also long since learned to seize the moment and take advantage when opportunity presented itself. It had been many years since Michael Glover had felt like a giddy schoolboy and frankly, he relished the feeling. He felt alive.
He laughed softly under his breath. No, he couldn’t argue, and maybe Frankie was right. She wasn’t going anywhere. Sure…take it a little slower. Why not?
The journey back to Dancy went without incident. The crates were picked up by a waiting truck at the port of Terra Nova. The microdots that they had placed on the wood, however, proved, in the end, to be useless. The crates were moved to a warehouse, unloaded and then shredded, along with the microdots, to be sold for wood pulp. The truck had been followed by minidrones but the warehouse connected by a series of tunnels to at least five other storage facilities. Since the drones were unable to penetrate the buildings’ security, they had no way to track the cargo. For all they could determine, it might have been still there. In any case, so far as they were concerned, it vanished.
“Annoying,” Anson said, “Very annoying…and disappointing.”
Michael nodded. “You have to be flexible. Sometimes things don’t work out.” He considered for a long moment. “Alright, here’s what we’re going to do.”
Chapter 13
Though he did not know who had possession of his erstwhile cargo, nor where it might have gone, a large sum of money had already been deposited into Luciano Barrad’s imaginary account. According to Solomon Towne, this was his share of the voyage’s profit. He had no choice but to take Towne’s word that it was the agreed upon percentage. The money was nowhere near enough to relieve him of his imaginary debts nor to pay off the imaginary mortgage on his ship, but it was a start. It was enough to maintain the fiction of his imaginary lifestyle.
The villa that he rented overlooked the blue waters of Verity Bay. Far in the distance, waves broke over a sandbar. On the near side of the sandbar, the water was calm all the way to the beach, which was covered with golden sand. On the horizon, the sun was a golden-orange ball.
“A lovely sight,” Lydia Prescott Jones said. Lynette Chapman and Jeremy Baylor hovered at her side, both young, well-dressed and beautiful.
“Yes,” Michael said. “I was lucky this place was available.” He glanced at Lydia’s two shadows. “I’m curious about your servants,” he said.
She gave him a sly smile. “Aren’t they a treasure?” Both stood silent and expressionless.
“Do they ever speak?”
“If I want them to.” She glanced at Gloriosa. “You also have excellent taste in servants. Perhaps we could share them some day.”
Michael allowed a slow smile to spread across his face. Gloriosa blinked. “Perhaps,” Michael said. Neither Lynette nor Jeremy displayed the slightest reaction.
Lydia gave him a small nod, smiled and wandered away to speak with ano
ther guest. Michael frowned at her back and watched her go.
Lydia Prescott Jones and her brother had both responded positively to Michael’s invitation. A large party would have been greeted with derision. Michael—or Luciano Barrad—was not a member of the aristocracy, after all, and he was almost a stranger to this world. A ball would have been beyond his station, presumptuous in the extreme. A small party was different and appropriate. A few friends and acquaintances to show his gratitude for the opportunity he had been given. That made sense.
Curly and Andrew Sloane, both dressed in servants’ uniforms, circulated with trays of sparkling wine and hors d’oeuvres. Rosanna manned the kitchen, along with three sous chefs hired for the occasion. Richard Norlin, seated at a keyboard in the parlor, played music. Two of Henrik Anson’s marines, plus Marissa and Matthew Oliver, provided discreet security, standing guard at the four corners of the spacious house. Gloriosa stayed by Michael’s side, attentive and silent, expertly playing her role. Anson and Frankie Holder posed as guests, introduced by Michael as old friends newly arrived on-planet. Since nobody else knew them, and since both were tall, well-built, rarely smiled and carried themselves with a watchful air, it was assumed that both were additional security—which of course they were.
Portable scanners had been inserted into the walls of the lobby. All of the entering guests and servants went through them. The information that the scanners gathered would be reviewed later, after the guests had taken their leave.
“A pleasant evening,” Lord Devlin said. “The food is excellent.”
Michael bowed. “Thank you for coming. I hope that it will continue to be so. Rosanna is a genius in the kitchen.”
Devlin knitted his brow. “She’s not a local, is she? Where did you get her?”
“A world very far from here. She and her husband”—he waved a hand at Curly—“wished to travel, and I took them both on.”
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