The Rim Rebels

by Zellmann, William

  Cony's answering grin was genuine and friendly. "Definitely. Well, Captain, I'll be glad to help. As soon as your cargo is on the ground, I'll see to it that your Customs and Tariff clearances are signed immediately. I wouldn't want Jon expiring from frustration because his bookchips are sitting in a bonded warehouse." His grin remained, but his eyes hardened slightly, "You don't have any contraband in there, do you?" His tone was light, but his slight emphasis on "contraband" told Jirik that he was well aware of the smuggling affair.

  Jirik kept his tone equally light, however. "No, sir. I haven't done a lick of smuggling for one hell of a long time!"

  Cony threw Jirik a piercing look, then relaxed slightly. "Of course not, Captain. With a fine ship like this one, you don't have to!" To Jirik, the jovial tone rang slightly false. He was growing tired of the verbal fencing, and was relieved when the work skid and crew's arrival interrupted it.

  With Jirik's supervision, the longshoremen made short work of unloading the containers of light but bulky bookchips. True to his word, Cony got all the clearances signed immediately, and within hours the load of book discs was on its way to the Library.

  As Cony was preparing to leave, he waved Jirik over. "How soon do you plan to lift, Captain?" He asked. Cony's question was offhand, but the tenseness in his body revealed its importance.

  Jirik shrugged. "I'm not really sure. I'm signing off my temporary Astrogator here, and, of course, my regular crewman will need to settle in. I'd say a few hours, not more than a local day." He grinned again. "If those other eight librarians are as impatient as Mr. Fanlin, I'll feel guilty for every hour's delay."

  Cony relaxed slightly, but the corners of his mouth turned down. "Surely there's not that much hurry, Captain. Why not let me buy you dinner in town? We can let Jon crow about his loot!" The lightness of his tone was belied by his serious expression. He obviously did not want the Lass to lift off for at least a day, and Jirik knew why. Cony needed time for his men to recover Via's report and strip any recordings from her spy-eyes.

  "I appreciate the offer, sir," Jirik replied, "But I think that the other crewmen have arranged some sort of reunion celebration for our Astrogator. And then, of course, we do want to lift as soon as possible."

  Cony's expression remained casual, but his eyes were furious as he tried frantically to maneuver the crew into leaving the ship, or remaining on Boondock. Jirik, however, was adamant, and Cony finally permitted himself to be ushered out the lock. Jirik breathed a gusty sigh of relief, but he knew that he hadn't heard the last of Cony, or his attempts to recover Via's nonexistent reports and the spy-eyes

  As soon as Cony had left, Jirik and Kontar went to the Spacers Guild office to complete his sign-off. When Jirik returned, he found that he had received several vidphone messages from Fanlin. Sighing resignedly, Jirik called the man back Fanlin was visibly agitated, and began speaking before Jirik could even get in a "Good morning"

  "Captain!" Fanlin almost shouted, "Thank heaven. I'm so glad you called! Albet tells me that you're planning to lift, or shove off, or whatever it is you spacers do. You can't leave! Not so soon!"

  Jirik smiled politely. "'I'm afraid that I must, sir. Our offloading is complete, as is our reprovisioning. Besides, there are eight of your compatriots waiting as anxiously as you were for their shipments."

  Fanlin's expression was stricken. "But, Captain! Albet tells me that you won't be back here again. You must permit us to show our gratitude for completing a very hazardous voyage for our benefit!" He looked shrewdly from the vidphone screen. "Yes, I know, you tried to pass it off as routine. I may be a bit naive but I'm not naive enough not to guess that you were in great danger, and that completing your mission required great bravery and skill. You deserve a large bonus and a hero's welcome."

  His expression turned rueful. "I'm afraid that I'm unable to offer the bonus, but I have every intention of providing the warmest welcome that you've ever experienced. You know," he added, "You and your crew are planetary heroes. Once Albet assured me that it would not compromise your safety, I released the information on your mission, planet-wide. The entire population of Boondock City wants to welcome you and thank you. Surely you can't disappoint them!"

  Jirik shrugged. "I'm afraid that I must. We do have time commitments. Besides, neither my crew nor myself are the heroes of this incident. You are. You're the one that should receive the credit. We merely tried to ask some preliminary questions. It was you who pursued the deal, despite our own reluctance, if you'll remember. It was you who proposed the deal to the authorities on Wayoff, and it was you who overcame our reluctance and got us to contract the shipment. No, sir; you are the hero of this episode, not me."

  Fanlin flushed with embarrassed pleasure. "That's as may be, Captain; but the fact remains that the people of Boondock want to show you their appreciation for your exploit. You really can't disappoint them!"

  The hell I can't, Jirik thought, but he said, "I'm sorry, sir, but we really must lift off as soon as possible. I'll tell you what, though, If you can get a Trivid camera crew over here within the next couple of hours, I'll give them an interview that you can broadcast, thanking them for their kindness, and telling them whom they can really thank"

  Fanlin continued to protest, but he finally signed off gracelessly, after promising the Trivid crew. Fanlin was obviously not a happy man.

  Jirik was little happier as he walked down to the mess deck to join the others. Due to his own close supervision, he was reasonably sure that none of the longshoremen who offloaded the cargo had managed to check for spy-eyes, or for Via's report. But, if they didn't get off-world quickly, he was sure that Cony would find a way.

  The group on the mess deck were engaged in earnest conversation when Jirik arrived. Valt was red-faced and obviously furious.

  "Captain!" he cried loudly as Jirik entered, "Bran and Tor have just been telling me what's been going on! Why didn't you warn us? Those bastards almost killed me just to get me out of the way."

  Jirik pulled up a chair before he replied. "I'm really very sorry, Valt. That damned Alley agent was running things, not me. Believe me, I hated lying to you and Tor, but I felt that I had to. I didn't know that there was any danger until it was too late." He held up his hand to forestall Valt's angry retort before he continued, turning to Bran, "How much have you told him so far?"

  Bran looked slightly embarrassed. "Well, Captain, I'm afraid that we haven't told a very coherent story." He shrugged. "Just bits and pieces, really. We've been jumping around a lot."

  "I still want to know why we weren't briefed from the first!" Valt interrupted angrily, "We're all shareholders in the Lass, and we had a right to know!"

  Jirik nodded soberly. "You're right, Valt. All right, if you want the truth, I didn't feel that I could trust you to keep your mouth shut. Think about it, Valt. Remember how you were spending your off-duty time? Drinking. Getting flashed every night. If I'd told you about Tomys, the terrorists would have known about it within hours. Be honest with yourself. Could you have kept the secret? For instance, can you swear that you told absolutely no one anything about the book deal?"

  Valt's anger began to fade. Valt wasn't overly smart, but he was almost brutally honest, both with himself and with others.

  "I guess you're right, Captain," Valt admitted thoughtfully. "I was drinking a lot, I suppose. To tell you the truth, I guess that maybe I did mention the book deal. But, Captain," he continued in a plaintive tone, "I've spent over nine months on this damned heavy-planet hell of a mudball, three of them flat on my back!"

  Jirik nodded. "I know, Valt, and I'm sorry. But we're not out of trouble just yet. Bran, have you told him about Via and the spying that she didn't do?"

  "Just did, Captain," Bran replied.

  "All right," Jirik resumed, "Then you'll understand when I tell you that we have to get off Boondock quickly! If Cony manages to get someone aboard, and they don't find Via's report, or the spy-eyes that she was supposed to place, he could become very
suspicious. We don't need that." He shrugged, "Oh, sooner or later I imagine that he'll get someone on board, and we'll have to deal with it. But Boondock is Cony's home territory, and I'd rather that it didn't happen here. I'm sorry to break up the reunion, Valt, but how soon can you plot us a course for the rest of the rim worlds, and calculate our first jump?"

  Valt's anger had evaporated, and his expression conveyed only concern. "Oh, three, four hours, I guess. I'm about nine months out of practice, remember?"

  Jirik stood. "All right, we'll plan to lift off in five hours. In the meantime, be careful. Cony's sure to try to sneak someone aboard!"

  "Don't worry, Captain," Bran replied, "The Cargo hatches are battened, and the intruder alarm in the passenger airlock is armed. No one's going to get aboard without us knowing it!"

  Jirik shrugged. "Let's hope not. But, just as a precaution, I'd like one of us near the airlock at all times. Cony might have someone who knows how to jimmy an intruder alarm!"

  Tor jumped to his feet, clumsily in the 1.4G. "I'll do it Captain!" he reddened as all the others turned to him. "I-I mean, I'll take the first watch. I want to tap into the commercial Trivid channels anyway, just to see what's happening."

  Jirik grinned. "If you tap into the commercial Trivid, what you may see is me!" He told the others of his offer to do a Trivid interview for the planetwide net, giving Fanlin the credit for the 1.66 million new additions to the Boondock Library. Bran nodded, and Valt snickered.

  "Yeah," Valt said, "You should've seen the crap that they've been dishing out. This Fanlin guy told everybody that you were noble spacemen running a gauntlet of space pirates to bring the people of the rim millions of volumes of Empire knowledge. Hell, I had to fight my way through a crowd to get to the port. If it weren't for the Spaceport Police, you'd all be up to your eyeballs in hero-worshippers and rubberneckers."

  Jirik nodded. "That's another good reason for us to get the hell off of this rock. C'mon, Valt, let's get to work. I'll give you a hand on laying out the best course." They rose and dispersed to their duties.

  They were two hours from lift-off, and Jirik had just finished the Trivid interview giving Fanlin credit for everything, when the Vidphone chimed. When he answered it, Jirik was startled to find the picture blanked from the other end, and to hear Tomys' voice come from the screen.

  "What the hell are you doing on Boondock?" Jirik asked,

  "Never mind. Come to the office that you used to rent, now!" the little man demanded.

  Jirik was puzzled. "Why? We'll be lifting off in two hours."

  "I know," Tomys replied, "That's why it must be now. It's important!" The small man terminated the connection before Jirik could reply.

  Suspicious, Jirik alerted the others and donned the Spacer Guild's recorder before leaving the Lass

  When he knocked on the door of his old office, Jirik was surprised to hear a woman's soft contralto invite him to "Come in." When he entered, Tomys was nowhere to be seen. The only occupant of the office was a rather small, fat woman whose features, he suddenly realized, closely resembled those of the agent.

  "Don't tell me that it's you!" He said with a chuckle, not wanting to use the agent's name in case he was wrong.

  It was incongruous to hear the agent's masculine voice emanate from someone so obviously feminine. "Yes, it's me. As you probably realize, my cover on Boondock has been blown. It's very dangerous for me here, so I had to resort to these Trivid tricks to see you."

  Jirik was puzzled. "But, why risk it? What could you possibly have to tell me that's worth the risk?"

  Tomys shrugged, causing interesting secondary motions. "I had planned, of course, to shift my operations to another rim world. I did not intend to return to Boondock. But, I have two good reasons for risking it. First, you're still my best hope of blowing this terrorist plot; Second, I had to warn you."

  "Warn me? About what?"

  "I got to thinking," the agent said. "I think I know why Cony wants the Lass, and I think that you and your crew are in deadly danger!"

  Jirik snorted. "Well, if he's going to kill us, he'd better hurry. We lift in less than two hours."

  Tomys shook his head. "No, Captain, he won't kill you on Boondock. You've got cargo to deliver, remember? But, I think that that cargo is what has kept you alive so far. Look, let's stop fencing. Let's go back to before you got here. Cony spends over a year and a lot of credits to lure a large cargo vessel to the rim. Why? I think he wants to arm her and make her a Command and Control vessel."

  Jirik started to laugh, then sobered. "Go on."

  Tomys smiled. "I knew you weren't stupid, Captain. All right, here goes. Those battle comps that you smuggled the software for would almost fill the holds of a Rim Tramp. Add to that the massive communications arrays that a Command and Control ship requires, and there's no ship on the rim that could handle it."

  Jirik nodded. "But a DIN Class Combat Hauler could handle it easily."

  "Exactly!" Tomys continued. "I suspect that the original plan called for luring you out here, then killing you all off plausibly, possibly in some staged free-for-all, and buying the Lass for salvage. But things didn't go right for Cony. First, you sustained damage exiting supralight. Cony had to wait to see if she was repairable, and then probably decided to let you go ahead and finance the repairs.

  "Then, you threw another spanner into the works, by getting a high government official involved in negotiations for that damned book deal. He had to wait, hoping that the negotiations would fail. Fortunately for you, they didn't fail. He must've been furious. After all his work, you were going to be leaving the rim.

  "Worse yet, word of the deal had leaked out, and he knew you would be running a pirate gauntlet and might not make it back. All that he could do was make sure that one of his people went with you, and hope that you made it.

  "After all the time, effort, planning and money that he invested, these last nine months must have been agony for him. Now you're back on the rim, and I think that he wants to pick up where he left off, with one possible exception."

  Jirik was grim. "Okay, drop the other shoe. What possible exception?"

  Tomys' grin was clearly his, despite the elaborate disguise. "I suspect that he's discovered that there is a severe shortage of captains and crews with experience in vessels as large as the Lass. Especially captains and crews who are 'politically reliable', to use an old phrase."

  Jirik shifted irritably in his chair. "I appreciate the warning, but is there another point to all this? If not, I've got to get back and warn my crew."

  "Yes, there is." Tomys' tone had turned cold. "I think that the smuggling was as much a test as a mission. I think that he wanted to see if you could be bought. I suspect that when you deliver the software and weapon specs, you'll be approached to supervise the arming and refit, and captain her as Cony's C-and-C ship. After all, you've shown yourself mercenary enough to smuggle for money, despite a million-credit deal. I think that he'll want to see if you're mercenary enough to commit treason for money."

  Jirik snorted. "I'd have to be a fool to get involved in a deal like that!"

  Tomys shrugged. "If you don't, I don't think that he'll let you leave Wayoff alive. That is your last port of call, isn't it? Wayoff?"

  Jirik nodded glumly. "Yeah. That's where we're supposed to collect our payment. Something tells me that you're about to make me a proposition."

  Tomys' genuine grin was back. "You're right. Oh, I know that your damned Guild lawyers told you that I can't force you to risk your ship or crew. They're right. I can't do that, without written authorization from the Alliance Council. But, maybe I can make you see that your best chance of surviving Wayoff is to help me."

  He shrugged. "I'll freely admit that without your help, It'll probably take years to pin Alliance charges on Cony and his friends; and I don't think that we'll have years. I've talked to the Council, and they've given me carte blanche to deal with this threat. But, they stopped short of giving me that written author
ization. The only option that I have is to hope that I can make you see that my best hope is also your best hope. If you refuse Cony's offer, I think that you'll all be dead within a local day."

  "So, you don't want me to refuse." Jirik's tone was ironic "What makes you think that our chances of survival will be better on some hidden terrorist base than on an open planet?"

  Tomys ignored the ironic tone. "I believe that I've worked out a way to follow you to that base. Once we've located it, I've got an Alliance Battle Cruiser with embarked Marines standing by."

  Jirik snorted. "You can't follow a ship through Supralight. And we won't be able to transmit the coordinates, because unless he's a total idiot, he won't give them to me. He'll put a Terrorist Astrogator aboard, and probably others as guards. I would, and he's certainly no stupider than I am!"

  Tomys nodded. "I agree. I said that I believe that I've figured out a way. Alliance experts are evaluating my scheme as we speak. By the time you make your other deliveries, we'll know for sure. I need you, Captain; and I need you alive. Please believe that if this plan fails, I honestly think that there will be civil war on the rim."

  Jirik shrugged. "Oh, I believe you. I'm just not as sure as you are that we can stop it. But, it does look as if we're dead if we do, and dead if we don't. I'll put it to my crew.You know that I've recorded this conversation?"

  Tomys nodded. "Of course. Play the recording for your crew, by all means. I'll be contacting you before you land on Wayoff."

  "Just a moment," Jirik interrupted what sounded like a dismissal. "There's something else. The reason that we're lifting so soon is to keep Cony from finding out about Telson's doublecross on his own territory. But, he's bound to find out eventually that his spy didn't spy. Do you have any suggestions?"

  Tomys looked thoughtful. "I'd say play it straight. You had no idea that Telson was a spy. She was standoffish, so you don't know anything about her other than what was in her record. Be surprised if Cony, or one of his henchmen mention Telson. All you know is that she signed off on Alpha, looking for a berth headed as far from the rim as possible. I'd also suggest that you make no attempt to prevent the terrorists from finding out at your next port. What is it, by the way?"