A Fighting Chance

by William C. Dietz

  Vanderveen looked inside. She saw the predictable wall seal, a desk, and two guest chairs, one of which was clearly intended for use by Ramanthians. As for the man himself, he was laid out on the couch with a half-empty bottle of booze on the coffee table beside him.

  Vanderveen placed her carry-on on the cluttered desk before making her way over to the couch. Then, having pinched Price’s nostrils together, she waited for the natural reaction. He awoke with a splutter. “What the hell? Who are you?”

  “I’m your new boss,” Vanderveen answered sweetly. “Now get up off that couch. This may be the ass end of nowhere—but you’re getting paid. And that means you’re going to work. Understand me?”

  Price swung his feet over onto the floor, winced, and stood. He looked embarrassed. “Sorry about that . . . It isn’t the way it looks.”

  “Oh, but I think it is,” Vanderveen countered, as she sat in a guest chair. “I read your P-1 file. And the previous consul rated you as ineffective—and ordered you to seek help for what he called ‘a serious drinking problem.’”

  Price was seated behind his desk by then. He was in need of a haircut, had a bulbous nose, and there was at least two days’ worth of stubble on his cheeks. Resentment could be seen in his bloodshot eyes. “Consul Zachariah had it in for me. And, if you’re such a hotshot, how come you’re here?”

  Vanderveen smiled grimly. “I’m in the official shithouse just like you are. The difference is that I’m sober. And planning to work for a living. Go to your quarters, get cleaned up, and come back. Or, if you prefer, submit your resignation. It’s all the same to me.”

  There was a long moment of silence. Then Price stood and stalked out of the room. Vanderveen got up, went over to the desk, and pressed a button. “Nina?”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  “Please contact all of our people and inform them that there will be a staff meeting at 1500 hours. Do we have a conference room?”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  “We’ll meet in the conference room then. And Nina . . .”

  “Ma’am?”

  “Please keep your pistol in a drawer.”

  Vanderveen’s airtight trunks were in her residence when she arrived. The two-bedroom, two-bath suite was larger than she had expected or needed. And while a latticework of crisscrossing laths had been installed over the bedrooms and both baths in place of a ceiling, Vanderveen felt somewhat exposed as she struggled to peel the skinsuit off and took a shower. After toweling herself dry and donning a fresh set of clothes, it was time to go down and confront her staff.

  The conference room was large enough to accommodate three times as many people. Ralph had been stationed at the front desk, so Crosby could attend. Price was present as well. He looked better. But Vanderveen could see the brooding hostility in his eyes.

  There were only two other staff members. They included a technician named Hiram Wexel, who was responsible for keeping the consulate’s electromechanical systems running, and a very junior FSO-5 who had clearly been doing most of the vice consul’s work. Her name was Missy Sayers. She had dark shoulder-length hair, a pinched face, and all the hallmarks of a workaholic. A trait Vanderveen planned to take full advantage of.

  The staff members were given an opportunity to introduce themselves, with Vanderveen going last. She made no mention of being in the State Department’s penalty box and knew she didn’t have to. That was obvious. The trick was to convince the men and women on her staff that they could accomplish something in spite of the circumstances they found themselves in.

  So once the introductions were complete, Vanderveen asked each staff member to comment on their needs and activities. Price said Vanderveen should request more staff. Crosby said things were fine. Wexel was in dire need of spare parts. And Sayers wanted to know how her reports had been received at the State Department. Vanderveen replied by saying, “What reports?” and looked at Price.

  The vice consul frowned. “The people on Algeron have enough to do without reading the drivel submitted by an FSO-5 on Trevia.”

  Sayers, who had clearly been told that her reports were going in, looked crestfallen. Vanderveen made eye contact with her. “Do you have copies?”

  Sayers nodded miserably.

  “Please resubmit them to me by 0900 in the morning. I will read every one of them from beginning to end. And, if I think they have value, you can rest assured they will be sent to Algeron. Okay?”

  Sayers avoided looking at Price. She forced a smile. “Yes, ma’am. Thank you.”

  “Okay,” Vanderveen said. “I can’t say that I have much hope for additional personnel. Not given the exigencies of the war. But if Mr. Price will provide me with some supporting documentation, I’ll see what I can do. Mr. Wexel . . . I hear you regarding the spares. If you would be so kind as to prepare a high-priority request, I will shoot it to the supply people via hypercom. Ms. Sayers . . . We’ll have a talk after I read those reports. I think that’s enough for today. Thank you.”

  Vanderveen returned to her apartment after that and spent the next couple of hours putting things away. Then, having made herself a meal from items that Consul Zachariah and his wife had left behind, she took it out onto a small balcony. It was evening by then, stars glittered beyond the gentle curve of the dome, and she was very much alone. Could she see O-Chi 4? No, Vanderveen decided. She couldn’t.

  Vanderveen spent her first two days on Trevia dealing with a variety of administrative issues and reading the Sayers reports. They were very dense. Too dense to pass up the chain of command without some serious editing. But they were also quite valuable. Because Sayers had not only been out meeting with people in the various subcommunities, she had gone to the effort of documenting everything they had to say and collected copies of news stories sent to them from their home planets. More than that, she had organized the material, cross-indexed it, and written hundreds of annotations. All of which might have seemed boring to Price but was like gold to Vanderveen.

  But Sayers didn’t know that. And being used to the way Price did things, she looked scared as she entered the consul’s office and took a seat at the conference table. “Good morning,” Vanderveen said cheerfully, as they settled in. “I want you to know that I read your reports, and you’re doing an outstanding job. Such a good job that I’m going to put you up for an early jump to FSO-4.”

  Sayers, who hadn’t heard any positive feedback in a long time, looked surprised, then pleased. “Really? That would be wonderful! So the reports are okay?”

  “The quality of the data and the analysis in the reports is outstanding. However, they need to be summarized and submitted with the detail as backup. Once you do that, the reports will be better than okay. I’ll use them as justification for a promotion.”

  Sayers nodded eagerly. “Yes, ma’am. I’ll get right to work.”

  “Good . . . In the meantime, I’m going to need your help setting up a round of courtesy calls.”

  “Yes, ma’am. I would be happy to set them up. Do you have any priorities I should be aware of?”

  “Yes. For obvious reasons, the Ramanthian community is of particular interest to our superiors. And, as I read your reports, the name Hamantha Croth crops up more than once. What do you recommend? Should I begin with him?”

  Sayers was thrilled to be asked for her opinion, and it showed as the light in her eyes grew brighter. “Yes, I think you should. There are a number of interesting things about Croth, starting with the fact that, even though he’s a relative newcomer, the expat community treats him like a well-established leader.”

  Vanderveen’s eyebrows rose slightly. “As measured by what?”

  “He’s a much-sought-after speaker,” Sayers replied. “But as you know, Ramanthians have a tendency to defer to people of superior rank. And when he’s around, the rest of them clam up. So I wondered why.”

  “And?”

  “And I did some research,” Sayers replied. “Some of the locals get news summaries from Hive, which
they keep at their community center for others to read.”

  Vanderveen smiled broadly. “Don’t tell me. Let me guess. You went there and read a bunch of back issues. Or did you? There aren’t many people who can read Ramanthian script.”

  “That’s true,” Sayers replied, “but Ralph can. The news summaries were full of government propaganda. But Ralph found a fractal image of Croth, and we asked Wexel to convert it. And guess what?”

  There was something infectious about Sayers and her girlish enthusiasm. Vanderveen smiled. “What?”

  “His real name is Bebo Hoknar. And prior to the Warrior Queen’s death, he served as her majordomo. It’s my belief that the locals are well aware of that, which is why they defer to him. He’s the most senior ex-official on Trevia.”

  “Brilliant,” Vanderveen said. “Excellent work. But why use a false name?”

  Sayers shook her head. “I don’t know, ma’am. Unless he wants to keep non-Ramanthians in the dark about his identity for some reason.”

  “Well, maybe we’ll find out,” Vanderveen replied. “Please set up a meeting.”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  “And Missy . . .”

  “Ma’am?”

  “Thank you.”

  The Thraki ship Light Runner landed on Trevia without any fanfare and began to discharge its passengers an hour later. There were six of them, all but one of whom were Ramanthians, the sixth being a Thraki, who remained with the ship.

  The rest, led by a richly robed merchant named Ortu Bacula, were transported into the dome. According to the information provided to the city’s registrar, Bacula and his party planned to meet with local officials regarding the construction of a pollution-spewing factory that would not only create jobs, but complement their efforts to produce greenhouse gases.

  So it wasn’t surprising to the few people who were paying attention when Bacula and his retinue checked into a hotel at the heart of what the local humans referred to as “bug town.” It was a section of the city where Ramanthian cuisine, sand baths, and entertainments were widely available.

  But, contrary to appearances, Bacula was the lowest-ranking member of the party, and one of his servants was in charge. The servant role was one that the War Ubatha had chosen for himself so that while all eyes were on Bacula, he would be free to look for the Warrior Queen. Because, thanks to the information extracted from the Egg Ubatha, the soldier knew his quarry was hidden nearby.

  That didn’t mean the process would be easy, however. Most of the roughly twenty-five hundred Ramanthians who lived in Dome City were exiles, nonconformists of various stripes, or outright criminals. None of them was likely to cooperate with government agents. Especially a group of resident denialists who continued to send antigovernment tracts to Hive and other Ramanthian planets. Though careful not to claim that the Warrior Queen was still alive and living on Trevia, they liked to natter on about how “the memories of our rightful monarch will never die.” The key word being “rightful.”

  Since he couldn’t go door to door searching for the Queen, the War Ubatha would have to use a less-direct approach. And that was to keep an eye on the individuals that a resident intelligence agent thought were most likely to know where the royal was hiding. Then, having identified such a person, the War Ubatha would follow him or her to the Queen’s hiding place.

  To accomplish that, Ubatha had brought a surveillance expert plus a trunkful of very sophisticated equipment to Trevia. Devices which would not only allow his team to remain in the shadows—but greatly increase the number of suspects they could track.

  The first step was to set up a command center in Bacula’s hotel suite. Once that was accomplished, hundreds of tiny self-propelled spy balls were launched into the air with orders to seek out the addresses of the individuals on Ubatha’s list and take up positions inside their homes. The process was delightfully simple thanks to the absence of roofs.

  So, within one rotation of landing, the War Ubatha and his team were not only established but on the receiving end of a steady flow of information. Most of which was mind-numbingly dull. As a result, Ubatha had to take frequent breaks lest the banality of the incoming conversations drive him mad. That was why he was in his room, practicing crosscuts with his sword, when Ras Qwen appeared in the doorway. The surveillance technician was clearly excited. “Sorry to interrupt, sir. But subject Six has a human visitor.”

  Each suspect had been assigned a number by the intelligence agent who had compiled the list of names. The lower the number, the more important that individual was thought to be. And since the agent was also the city’s registrar—he was in a position to know who was who. So a meeting between a human and Six was clearly of interest.

  The warrior followed the technician into the central living area, where a bank of monitors had been set up. “This is the one,” Qwen said, indicating screen three. The picture showed a room decorated to resemble a home on Hive, a Ramanthian functionary who looked vaguely familiar, and a pair of human females. All three were seated.

  Ubatha lowered himself onto a saddle chair and settled in to watch. “Names,” he demanded.

  “The functionary calls himself Hamantha Croth. But his actual name is Bebo Hoknar. He served as the Warrior Queen’s majordomo and fled Hive two days before her death was announced to the public. According to the data supplied by the registrar, both of the animals work for the Confederacy’s consulate. The creature on the far right is Consul Christine Vanderveen. She arrived a week ago and appears to be making a round of courtesy calls.”

  “And Hoknar is at or near the top of her list.”

  “It appears that way—yes.”

  “Back it up. I want to see it from the beginning.”

  Qwen complied. Ubatha watched and listened as the pleasantries came to an end and the real conversation began. And it was painfully mundane as the Vanderveen animal probed Hoknar for information, and he fended her off. “She knows something,” Ubatha observed. “Or believes she does.”

  “Perhaps,” Qwen allowed. “But if so, she isn’t getting anywhere.”

  And that was true. Because fifteen minutes later, as the humans got up to leave, nothing of any real consequence had been said. “Sorry, sir,” Qwen said, as the visitors left and the door closed behind them. “I thought we were onto something.”

  “Quiet,” Ubatha ordered, as a female Ramanthian shuffled into the picture. The Egg Hoknar? Yes, the warrior thought so.

  “What did they want?” the Egg Hoknar inquired.

  “It was a courtesy call,” Hoknar answered. “But the new animal seemed to be after some sort of information. We must be very careful. What if the animals were to learn the truth? There’s no telling what might happen.”

  “Come,” the Egg Hoknar said. “Your lunch is ready.”

  Ubatha felt the slow, pleasurable flush of victory as the couple shuffled out of the room. He still didn’t know where the fugitive Queen was. But he knew whom to ask.

  Thanks to the spy ball in Hoknar’s home, the War Ubatha was very familiar with the expat’s habits. So the home invasion took place at two in the morning. A time when both of the Hoknars would be sound asleep.

  It took less than a minute for Qwen to neutralize the alarm system and pick the lock. A few moments later, Ubatha and his team were inside. It was a simple matter to enter the bedroom and turn the lights on. The couple was sleeping on floor bolsters facing the door. Hoknar awoke with a start and was trying to get up when Ubatha placed a foot on his back.

  Meanwhile, the Egg Hoknar did something completely unexpected. She reared up, produced a pistol, and fired. The bullet nicked one of the troopers. So he shot her in the head. She collapsed in a heap.

  “You fool!” Ubatha said, and brought a closed pincer around. There was a loud clack as chitin made contact with chitin and the soldier staggered backwards. Suddenly, some of Ubatha’s leverage, not to mention a possible source of information, was gone. There was one benefit, however—and that was Hoknar’s rea
ction to his mate’s death. Judging from his body language, he was both shocked and terrified.

  “Check to see if the noise woke anyone up,” Ubatha ordered. “Take Hoknar into the eating area and secure him to the table. But leave his tool arms free so he can talk.”

  Troopers were busy tying Hoknar to the table when Qwen returned. “There isn’t any activity in the area, sir. If other residents heard the Egg Hoknar’s shot—they didn’t recognize the noise for what it was.”

  “Good,” Ubatha replied. “Stay out front. Let me know if you see anything.”

  With his subject secured to the table, Ubatha was ready for the interrogation. By pulling a chair around, he could sit only inches away and stare into Hoknar’s face. “This could be quite painless,” Ubatha said. “And that would be my preference. Your name is Bebo Hoknar. Not Hamantha Croth. You served as the Warrior Queen’s majordomo. And shortly after she left Hive, you left Hive. And followed her here. That much is obvious. And admirable in a way . . . because loyalty is a virtue. But there is something else to consider. And that is loyalty not to a single person but to our entire race. So tell me where the Queen is, and we will leave you in peace.”

  The last was a lie, of course. Because Ubatha had no intention of allowing Hoknar to live. But it was necessary to lie in order to achieve a higher purpose. Hoknar blinked rapidly. A sure sign of stress. “I don’t know what you’re talking about. Truly I don’t.”

  Ubatha tilted his head in a way that signaled pity. “Your egg mate is dead. Who will arrange for her funeral once you’re gone?”

  “I would tell you if I knew,” Hoknar insisted pitifully. “But I don’t.”

  “Okay,” Ubatha responded. “Perhaps what you say is true. But my duty is clear. I have to make sure.”

  Then, looking up at one of his troopers, Ubatha gave the necessary orders. “Tape his beak and remove his wings.”