“I understand, Fred, I really do,” Ken said, hiding his exasperation. “But look, there’s a computer outlet right here in the Hall. Just let me have a chance to check the brand numbers. Won’t take long and these could be evidence.”
At the word “evidence,” Horstmann froze. Poldep investigations were the bane of any licensed trader. They meant unavoidable and unlimited delays. He narrowed an eye at Ken. “Well, so long’s it’s only just across the Hall. But I didn’t get ’em illegal. You know we don’t deal in bad merchandise.”
“I know that, Fred. Thanks.” Under Horstmann’s baleful gaze, Ken switched on the terminal and keyed in his user code. Ken watched the trader out of the corner of his eye until he got involved in a deal and temporarily forgot about Ken and evidence.
If these were horses that had gone missing over the past few years, then he—and other ranchers who said they’d had periodic losses—might be able to break up this new spate of rustling. That is, if they could also solve how the rustlers were getting past the security satellites. Having solid evidence to show Poldep would ensure their cooperation. And prove ranchers hadn’t just been careless in pulling up ssersa or keeping proper track of their stock.
Ken had to think hard to remember when he first lost track of a horse for which a carcass had never been found. Even mdas left the skull and hooves and occasionally scraps of hide and bone fragments. It had to have been five or more years ago. He called up his records for a date ten years back when the horses were rounded up for their annual checkup. Now he remembered. In late summer, one of his stallions hadn’t come home, a big powerful bay who’d sired a fine few foals before he disappeared. Buster he’d been called. Ken initiated a search for that name.
The screen blanked and was replaced with the “One Moment Please” graphic. Ken twitched impatiently while the search went on. In a few minutes, the screen cleared, then filled with name, description, and freeze mark. Ken jotted the number down and started flipping through the hides, trying to find a match. He didn’t.
“I’m doing this backward,” he told himself. He blanked the screen and began to type in the numbers on the Zapatan hides and asked for matching data.
The program, in the way of all computer inventory programs, was painfully slow. Each query consumed several minutes, having to access data from the master mainframe on the other side of the planet. Fretfully Ken drummed his fingertips on the console and glared at the cheery graphic. When the screen changed, he pounced on the keyboard.
“There! Cuddy, two-year-old, sired by Maglev out of Corona, black and white pinto, gelded.” Ken slapped the hide, pleased. “Six years ago, eh?” He hit the key to copy and print the document, then flipped Cuddy’s hide over to the next one. His hand was arrested in midair as he glanced from the hide to the screen and back again. This was an Appaloosa hide, leopard Appaloosa at that, small black flecks on white. “Wait a minute! This didn’t come off Cuddy.” Undeniably the file said pinto, but the skin was white flecked with black.
Ken sat back in the chair with a thump. Not that a pinto could change its spots to leopard Appaloosa. He checked the brand numbers again but the figures tallied. Could Lon or Todd have entered the freeze brand to Cuddy’s file? He felt a spurt of righteous anger over such sloppiness. But neither Lon nor Todd was prone to be slipshod. Not about recording the correct markings. He frowned. He didn’t have many Appies. Kelly’s father liked the breed. But the freeze mark was his, not Vic’s. Perplexed, he turned to the next one, a bright bay with a white saddle mark shaped like a parallelogram just below the freeze brand.
The brand designated a two-year-old chestnut with no saddle mark. Could there be a glitch in the system? Could the computer be scrambling his files? He’d have remembered a leopard Appaloosa and a bright bay with such a distinctive saddle mark. These were totally unfamiliar animals. He needed a control.
He entered the markings from a horse he knew better than any other animal on Doona, his mare Socks. She was Reeve Ranch entry #1. Socks was elderly now, but still willing to go out for a ride in fine weather. Data scrolled up, and Ken went straight to the description of the animal. This one was all right. It was the mare, all the way down to her four white socks. So what was wrong with the other files?
He brought up again the first two he had tried, wondering if solar flares had interfered with the satellite transmission of data from Treaty Island Archives the first time. To his chagrin, they remained unaltered and the hides still bore marks of horses he didn’t recognize.
One by one, Ken compared his records with the freeze-dry markings for each hide in the bundle. When he was through, not one of the hides matched the color description of the horse that should have worn it. It was as if someone had lifted the brands from his horses and transferred them onto someone else’s, a removal that he knew was, if not impossible, then certainly achieved by a heretofore unknown process.
“You get what you want, Reeve?” Horstmann asked cheerfully, coming over in between a spate of deals to slap the other man on the back.
Ken shrugged. “Yes and no, Fred.” A very clever operator was making a profit on selling rustled animals on Zapata Three and, probably, elsewhere. And with Zapatan provenances, surely there was a way of finding out who that clever person was. “When Ali Kiachif arrives, I’d like to talk with him. Had any bids on these hides?” Ken didn’t want them scattered, but he also couldn’t block a sale for Fred just to keep the evidence in one place.
“Well, the Hrruban in the Doona Cooperative of Farmers and Skillcrafters booth sounded interested in them.”
“Look, I’ll give you a deposit ...”
“Against the price? Or just to hold ’em?”
“To hold ’em, Fred. That provenance might be forged.”
“Didn’t look forged to me!” Fred’s eyes widened at the mere suggestion that he’d been conned.
“Nevertheless, you don’t want to sell and then find out the provenance was counterfeit, if you know what I mean.” Ken deliberately used Ali Kaichif’s favorite phrase.
“I know what you mean: fines! Okay. Under the circumstances, Ken, I’ll waive the deposit and put these damned things to one side where no one’ll see ’em. That help you?”
“It surely does, Fred, and I appreciate it more than I can say.” Ken smiled gratefully but he rather suspected that Horstmann might be cutting some sly deals on the side that he didn’t want the senior Codep captain to know about. Normally such a favor cost a lot more than just the breath it took to ask it. “Don’t forget to tell Kiachif that I need to see him.”
* * *
Armed with his curious findings, Ken arranged an interview with the Poldep chief in charge of Doona’s quadrant of the Amalgamated Worlds. Poldep, the enforcement arm of the Amalgamated Worlds Administration, had jurisdiction on every planet which had signed the charter. Sampson DeVeer listened politely to Ken’s theory about rustlers somehow evading the security satellites, but clearly he was finding it hard to believe.
“It’s a very interesting theory, Mr. Reeve,” he said blandly. He was a tall man who had been called good-looking by many women behind his back, because his diffident manner kept them from approaching the man himself. He had broad shoulders and an intelligent face. His wavy hair and moustache were nearly black. “I’d need proof to proceed, you understand. Not just speculation.”
“I have proof,” Ken said, producing the film copies. DeVeer’s casual attitude was beginning to get on his nerves. DeVeer was rumored to be antiDoona, though he wasn’t an active antagonist to the colony. He claimed he was just trying to do his job, and the presence of unknowns like the Hrrubans made it more difficult for him. “These hides have been altered in some way.”
DeVeer tented his fingers, peering through them at the hard copy that Ken had spread out on his desk. “That’s very unlikely, Mr. Reeve. It’s more probable the records were changed. In my twenty years serving Poldep, I have
never come across anyone, or anything, that can produce an undetectable alteration to the freeze-dry-process brands.” His tone was unequivocal.
“Well, someone has,” Ken insisted, indicating the leopard Appaloosa hide which ought to have been black and white. “I don’t run Appies. But that’s my freeze brand. And you know a horse has never been known to alter its hide.”
“Perhaps the skin was dyed?”
“If the leopard Appie had turned black and white, I’d say that was possible, but not probable. There is also no trace of dye according to this chemical analysis of the hide.” And Ken tossed that flimsy across the desk to DeVeer.
“Mr. Reeve,” DeVeer said again patiently. “These are negative proofs. You have the hide of a horse that you say you never owned with a brand to an animal you did.” He held up a hand to forestall an outburst. “I know that rustling has been an ongoing problem on Doona. I’ve investigated several cases myself. The freeze-brand system was developed to prevent rustling. I’d say it has. Now you come along, wanting to contest the validity of that excellent system. Frankly I don’t think this is a case of rustling. Maybe you should look a little closer to home, where some people might have a chance to duplicate your brand on strays that they can legally sell off-world. Doesn’t your son have regular access to spacegoing transport?”
Ken barely kept himself from reaching across the desk and planting his fist firmly in DeVeer’s face. “Are you suggesting that Todd has rustled horses from the ranch he will one day inherit?”
“Inherit might be presumptuous, Mr. Reeve, but the opportunity is there ... Now, now, look at this objectively, Mr. Reeve. I’m trying to clarify a perplexing set of facts. I’m not speaking with any intent to offend. Let me put it to you this way. If, for example, you had a horse, a living one, with a brand matching one of these stolen hides, I would have a lead to investigate ... a duplication of numbers, which is a possibility. An honest error at branding time when you got to handle a lot of foals. Or if you know who had bred this leopard Appaloosa, I’d have another lead. And if you knew how these brands could be altered, which is something I’ve never heard of, then we really would have a cause for an immediate and intensive inquiry. As it is, we have nothing to go on but unlikely speculation and possible data base errors.” He stood up, indicating the interview was over. “I assure you that, if you come to me with something concrete—even one piece of evidence—I’ll be glad to listen.”
* * *
Ken got most of his anger blown out of his system on his way back to the ranch. Any Poldep inspector worthy of his rank would have seen the anomalies in hides with inappropriate markings. Data base errors! Duplication of freeze-brand numbers! That had never happened, not in the twenty-four years he’d been breeding horses. Nor had it happened to any other rancher, Hayuman or Hrruban.
That sly dig about Todd inheriting being presumptuous. Presuming what? That Todd would be found guilty and sent to a penal colony and denied the right to inherit colonial land anywhere?
Ken made himself calm down and warned himself not to even consider such an outcome. It was dark when he reached the ranch and the lights blazed out a welcome on the flower beds Pat had labored so long to surround the house. He was glad to see Kelly had been invited over for dinner again, but he hoped Pat wouldn’t be silly enough to push Todd. That lad didn’t push! He stood his ground and he was doing it now with courage and fortitude. Ken was prouder than ever of his son.
The moment Ken started recounting his discovery, Pat put dinner on hold and, instead of the meal, the big round table was spread with the hard copy. Ken had talked Fred into letting him take two of the hides home and he’d stopped by the vet lab to borrow a microscope for a good look at the hide marks.
“This is a real stumper,” Todd said, looking up from his turn at the microscope. He gestured for Kelly to take a turn at the eyepiece. “There’s no shadow of an original freeze mark. I’d swear this one was the first one, and genuine. Only it can’t be. ’Cause Cuddy was a pinto, not a leopard Appie.”
“Could they have used a chemical to neutralize the original brand mark?” Pat asked, studying the printout of the descriptions of the horses whose numbers had appeared on the wrong hides.
Ken shook his head. “There’s no chemical that can do that.”
“A laser?” Robin asked brightly, sure he’d come up with the logical solution. “That looks like chemical burns sometimes.”
“Black magic is the more likely answer,” Kelly said in a gloomy tone, leaning back from the microscope. “I’d swear that was genuine and the only mark that hide had ever worn.”
“You raise Appies, Kelly,” Ken began.
“Yeah, but we don’t sell our leopards. You know that. And if one of ours had gone missing, you know that Dad and Michael would have combed the planet to find it.”
Ken knew that was true enough.
“Todd, I got a job for you,” he said, placing an arm about his son’s shoulder. “We’ve got to get all the other ranches to let us do a read-only search of missing stock and the brands they wore. If we find a missing horse wearing one of those brands,” and he pointed to the lists, “we’ll have some solid evidence to give DeVeer.”
With a wry grin, Todd said, “The old fogey didn’t suggest that your son might be using his ol’ dad’s legitimate brand marks to sell stock off-world, did he?”
Ken wasn’t quite quick enough to mask his annoyance and dismay at Todd’s droll query.
“What’ll they think of next to hang on Todd’s neck?” Kelly demanded indignantly. “As if you could fit one horse in the Albatross, let alone seventeen or twenty!”
Ken snapped his fingers. “Damn, now why didn’t I think of that factor?”
“You were probably far too mad to do so,” Pat said, raising her eyebrows in amusement.
“You’re right about that. Now, let’s get back to work. Robin, have you had a chance to find out who’s missing stock?”
Robin produced a flimsy from his pocket. “And Mr. Hu said a rancher named Tobin’s been complaining that some of his stock has run off.”
“Let’s get details on those animals, then, and not just freeze brands, but full descriptions and markings.”
“Maybe Hrriss could ...” Inessa began, and then clapped her hands over her mouth, her eyes big with regret at mentioning that name in Todd’s hearing.
“You can ask him, Inessa,” Todd said evenly. “You’re not under any restraint. Find out if Hrruban ranches are missing horses, too. Maybe the rustling’s only aimed at Hayumans.”
“You can’t possibly mean to imply that Hrrubans would stoop to rustling?” Kelly asked, regretting the statement the instant the words were out of her mouth.
“They’d be the last to rustle hrrsses,” Todd said, whimsically using Hrriss’s pronunciation. “But someone might like to make it look that way.”
“Good point, Todd,” Ken said. “Now let’s ...”
“Let’s have dinner,” Pat interjected, “before it’s spoiled. The hides will keep.”
* * *
After dinner, in which theory and speculation were rife, everyone went off on their designated searches. Robin took the family flitter and zoomed away to visit the Dautrish farm. Kelly went off in hers, promising to do a thorough search of the Solinari records and see if perhaps the leopard Appie had been bred by another rancher. Ken used the office system to double-check his records at source and Todd settled in at the computer terminal in his room.
He put up a mail message to the hundreds of ranches on Doona, asking permission to do a read-only on their stock files, and leaving his user number and name as the signature. Then he put a control list of the numbers and hides that his father had gone through. Before he finished that, three ranchers had flashed back permission. First he listed missing stock, by number and description. He set up a separate file to isolate description matches. When he thought of
going to Main Records to obtain numbers of hides returned to Doona for leather processing, he used the ranch number, in case his was unacceptable to Treaty Island. He berated himself for the growing paranoia he sensed as a result of his house arrest, but he needed this information too badly to wish to be denied access.
He didn’t dismiss the possibility that someone had made illicit use of the Reeve Ranch freeze-mark files. And although rustling had been an ongoing problem for ranchers, that sort of illegal entry smacked of a very long-term effort. Rustlers were in and out, making a quick profit from their hauls. They certainly wouldn’t plan so precisely how to confuse records and an entire, viable industry. Or would they?
It was that leopard Appie hide with a blatantly Reeve brand that really baffled him. He knew he couldn’t rest until he’d found where that horse had been bred and who had owned it.
As he was to discover in the next few days, lots of people had missed horses that they never traced, never found the carcass of, and had never bothered reporting. Every rancher expected to lose a few to natural calamities. But the more he looked, the more he came to realize that no ranch had lost as many over the past ten years as the Reeves.
Branding an animal with some other ranch’s ID simply wasn’t the sort of practical joke ranchers played on each other. Not by the dozens, certainly.
While one bay hide could look like another bay hide, swirl marks were taken when an animal was registered. Broken-color horses were far easier to identify from their birth diagrams, which plainly indicated the shapes of the darker hair.
Then a thought struck him. Maybe these weren’t Doonan horses at all. At least the ones whose hides Ken had found. Maybe that was the deception: horses stolen from another planet marked with Doona brands to satisfy innocent purchasers. No wonder there was a Zapata provenance. When he discovered how many colonial worlds bred horses, with vast herds far too large to be individually marked, Todd decided he’d leave that option till last.
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