by Larry Niven
"Hrrr. Opal boarded the ship with you."
"What was in the package?"
"She was the package."
I tried to control my surprise. "Did you see her get on?"
"Yes. I watched until the ship left. Her safety was my responsibility."
"Tell me what you know, about Opal, about anything that might be important."
He turned over a paw and studied his extended talons. "Dr. Stone is senior vice president for finance at the Consortium."
"Dr. Stone?" My eyebrows went up. I had assumed she had a bodyguard because she was a holo actress. Now I knew better, and the news wasn't good. I was in way over my head. It occurred to me that she hadn't said a word to me in the entire encounter in the Constellation. Had she said anything on board Elektra?
"Where was she going?"
"Jinx."
"And when she got to Jinx?"
"I do not know that."
"Do you usually go with her on trips?"
"Sometimes. At other times not. I am not privy to the details of her business arrangements."
Another advantage of kzinti bodyguards is their lack of insight into the subtleties of human interaction. Opal Stone, what were you doing that you needed some desperate singleship pilot to take a brain blank? I might have refused to take her if I knew who she was. Relations between the Consortium and us independents are hardly smooth. And why didn't she take a Consortium ship?
I needed the money badly, but if I'd thought a little more carefully I never would have taken the job. A brain blank is just too serious. I'd counted on myself to be smart enough to not get into exactly this kind of trouble. Obviously I'd been wrong. Whoever framed me had done a good job.
Whoever had framed me. When I put it that way there was only one answer. Opal Stone worked for the Consortium, at war with the rockjacks and controlled by Reston Jameson. The room had a vidwall and on a hunch I pointed up Reston's last interview. It was dated yesterday, and his image filled the screen.
". . . very upset about this. This man already has a record for smuggling. I have being saying all along that the cost of allowing these fly-by-night singleship operators . . ."
I muted the audio and pointed texttrans along the bottom of the image so I didn't have to listen to his voice. He mentioned me by name and the thrust of his argument was the same as it always been. The major lines could handle cargo and passengers, the major exploration companies could handle prospecting and mining, and the murder of Opal wouldn't have happened if only . . .
I switched it off in disgust, unable even to read the text. He was going to use me as an excuse to shut down the singleships. I couldn't believe he was holding my smuggling record as a strike against me. Every pilot smuggled, it was practically expected.
"I smell your tension, Dylan Thurmond." Bodyguard wrinkled his nose in way that suggested my tension didn't smell very good.
Would Reston Jameson kill one of his own senior directors? It didn't seem likely, but the only other explanation was that I had killed Opal myself and I wasn't willing to accept that one. "I think I know what's going on." Who else could have sent her to Jinx?
"Enlighten me."
"Reston Jameson kills Opal and get me blamed. He uses the public outcry to shut down the independent operators. The immediate target is singleships, but it's the rockjacks he's after, of course." I shrugged. "Simple." Simple to say, probably impossible to prove.
Bodyguard laid one ear flat. "I am unconvinced."
"Grant for a second I didn't do it. Can you think of a better motive?"
"Yes." He wasn't believing me.
"What if she was challenging him for power in the Consortium?"
"Irrelevant. I now have two suspects. Convince me that Reston Jameson is guilty and I will kill him instead of you."
I watched him for the rippling ears that would show he was joking, but he was dead serious. He wouldn't care that an attempt on Reston Jameson's life would almost certainly end his own. Kzinti were like that. Nor would he hesitate to kill me if he decided he wanted to.
"Help me find the truth and you can act with confidence and honor."
Bodyguard's lips twitched. "What do monkeys know of honor?" His claws edged out reflexively. "It seems our interests are aligned, Dylan Thurmond."
I took that as agreement. "Something went badly wrong. I must have anticipated problems when I got back. I would have made some kind of record to protect myself from exactly this circumstance."
"What sort of record?"
"Elektra's log is the most obvious answer, but perhaps that's too obvious. There are wheels within wheels here. Somewhere only I would look for it." I thought for moment. "I wrote her name on my palm. There're a few places on the ship I could think of."
"Then we should get on the ship, Dylan Thurmond."
We tubed over to the hangar bay. I could get on my own ship without disturbing the police seals over the airlocks, but when we got there we found not just seals but guards. That was a setback I probably should have expected, the Goldskins were taking no chances. Instead of crawling on board through the drive inspection ports we went up to the Constellation and got a table with a sound damper, and I tapped into the ship on my beltcomp. I wasn't really surprised to see the log empty for the last three weeks, that was expected for this kind of mission. I was slightly more surprised to see the automatically recorded navigation journal also blanked. The same was true of the engine logs. As I tabbed through Elektra's records more and more information was missing. There was only one person who had the access codes to do that. Me.
I tabbed over to Ceres flight control to check their records. They had logged Elektra departing and returning, and had her course plotted by transponder tracking to the edge of the singularity into hyperspace and then back again three weeks later. I was a little surprised at that, with all the secrecy I would've expected to have flown with the transponder off. That would be the course the Goldskins were having the Navy search. They had the radar and computing power required to track a pebble if they knew its start vector. If Opal's body was out there, they would find it sooner or later. They'd be in communication with the authorities on Jinx to get a similar search done there. Neels' promise to find her had teeth in it.
Which wasn't a very warming thought. Why are you worried? You didn't kill her. I wasn't sure I believed that anymore. Her blood was on Elektra, that was proof she'd been there. If someone is on a ship when it leaves and isn't there when it comes back the odds that they will be found alive are zero. A frame by Reston Jameson was enough of a theory to keep Bodyguard from killing me immediately, but it really didn't seem to fit the evidence. He was certainly seizing on the incident to press his agenda, but that wasn't enough of a motive for murder.
I went back to Elektra's systems and systematically went through every log file. Internal and external video, audio, communications log, they were all blank except one, engineering systems. Elektra monitors her own vital signs automatically, and for some reason that data was still intact. Unfortunately it was unlikely to hold any relevant information. I scanned the entries anyway, and saw only the activity you'd expect to see for a three-week round-trip, air pressure nominal, cabin temperature, fuel flow, power flow, gravity levels, coolant temperature and pressure; there was nothing unusual there. Evidence perhaps that the trip had been made, but little else.
Except one thing. There was a small blip upward in cabin pressure right before departure. That was normal, because once I had the locks sealed I valved liquid oxygen inboard to pressurize the cabin and make sure it held steady against any possible leaks. There were the normal slow waverings in pressure as the cabin temperature and other variables changed, and finally there was another blip downward at the end of the three weeks. That was when the ship was back in the bay and I vented the cabin to equalize pressure inside and out. If Opal Stone had gotten out at Jinx, or anywhere, that pattern would have cycled twice, once for each leg of the trip. And if she'd left through the airlock in space the
re would have been the small but distinctive up/down pressure blip caused by the airlock cycling.
So if she hadn't gotten out at Jinx, and she hadn't gone through the airlock, where had she gone? And how did her blood get all over Elektra? I went over the rest of the life-support data and found another anomaly. The CO2 scrubbers had been working half again as hard as I would have expected them to for two people. Had someone else been aboard, stowed away perhaps? Had that person killed Opal and then vanished along with her body? That made no sense.
"What are you learning?" Bodyguard was growing impatient.
"Nothing." I pushed the beltcomp away. "The log is blank. There are some question marks in the system records, but nothing that will lead us anywhere here." I briefly outlined my findings.
"Hrrr. We need progress, human."
I leaned back and looked up through the dome at the eternal and indifferent stars. "We have to speak to Reston Jameson."
"I remain unconvinced of his involvement."
"We have to talk to him to find out."
"Hrrr. This will be difficult."
I nodded. We sat in silence for a while. The more I thought of it the less likely it seemed Reston Jameson was even involved. Tying him in had been the first half-plausible thing that leapt to mind under threat of having my throat ripped out. The vidwall started showing the news and I watched the moving heads and read the texttrans scrolling beneath them. It was the usual fluff, a flood down on Earth, some struldbrug trapped in a tube capsule for twelve hours, a rockjack killed in a fight with another rockjack. They did the shipping news and then the business section came up. I was bored by then and ready to leave, and then suddenly I was paying attention to the words scrolling across the screen. The Consortium was under investigation for gross financial misconduct. Reston Jameson was under indictment. The information had been provided by his missing chief financial officer, Opal Stone. Suddenly she had a motive to hire a singleship to fly to Jinx and brainblank the pilot. Suddenly Reston Jameson had a motive for murder. On the face of it, it looked like Opal believed he would act on the motivation. My doubts vanished; unfortunately that didn't help my case any. And now she's gone and There Ain't No Justice.
Bodyguard had picked up on the significance of the information as well. "Let us waste no time. If it is Reston Jameson we need to speak to, we need to lay our plans. It will not be easy."
"We could just make an appointment."
Bodyguard rippled his years. "I will watch while you try."
I took out my beltcomp and referenced his office. His secretary answered, a woman as striking as Opal. Evidently Reston liked to surround himself with beauty. It took me under a minute to learn that Reston Jameson was not only not currently available but would remain unavailable to me for the foreseeable future. She managed to convey the message in a manner that combined impeccable style and grace with the warmth and slickness of an iceberg. She was so perfect in her role that I suspected her of being a digital construct, even though I knew a man like Reston Jameson would use a live secretary for the prestige if nothing else.
I snapped the cover shut on my beltcomp. "Now what?"
Bodyguard showed his teeth. "Now we attack." I got the feeling it was the answer he'd been waiting for.
Now we attack. He made it sound simple, logical, inevitable, but I was not a military man, not police trained, nothing. I was a pilot, and all my experience as a smuggler had geared me to avoid conflict, not seek it out. Aggressive action would not be simple, and it certainly didn't seem logical to take on the most powerful man in the Belt. I started to say that but Bodyguard's expression kept me silent. He was a kzin in midleap and wasn't about to brook any argument. For a moment I considered trying to slip away, but the Goldskins would have a tag on my ident and I wouldn't be able to get off Ceres. Running would label me as both dishonorable and guilty in Bodyguard's eyes, and he would track me down and kill me. I was along for what might turn out to be a very uncomfortable ride.
Unlike me, Bodyguard was perfectly comfortable with direct action, and he knew how to carry it out. Phase one of attack is reconnaissance, and our first reconnaissance was to identify where we might intercept Reston Jameson in order to extract a confession from him. It wouldn't be easy. He had his own retinue of bodyguards, human ones, and his own tunnel farm, which would have more than its fair share of electronic sentries. We called up a map and the scope of the problem became clear. There was exactly one entry point to his complex, a private tube station. We couldn't even get a tube car to stop there without an invitation code, and if we somehow managed to clear that hurdle we'd simply be turned around by the guards. We needed another option, and I couldn't see it.
Bodyguard could. He tapped a talon on the map display. "This tunnel farm is on level one."
"So?"
"Hrrr. So there will be surface locks."
"There aren't any marked."
"I have worked for several wealthy humans. I have learned they are tremendously reticent about every aspect of their lives. There will be much about Reston Jameson which does not appear in the public record. Such a man would not build a lair without a back door. There will be surface locks."
I hadn't thought of that, but . . . "They'll be alarmed."
Bodyguard smiled a feral smile. "Alarms can be defeated." I swear he was looking forward to this desperate little venture purely for the challenge.
My vac suit was on board Elektra so I had to rent one. It didn't fit well, and the controls were unfamiliar, an uncomfortable reality for a singleship pilot who was used to intimate and instinctive familiarity with every piece of equipment. Bodyguard had his own suit. The surface of Ceres doesn't offer much more than hard radiation and vacuum, people don't go out on the surface unless they have to, but the lock master asked no questions as he cycled us through and we offered no explanations. It was six kilometers over the surface to the area over Reston Jameson's tunnel farm, four horizons of dead reckoning away. Ceres has no navigational satellites, no magnetic field, and no easy landmarks. The soil has been churned up by the countless tracks of men and vehicles over the centuries so even these are no help. What Ceres does have is a gravity field low enough that you can jump forty meters high. We had a tunnel map that showed surface features like solar arrays and ship locks, and those high slow jumps allowed us to identify enough of them to keep our bearings.
It was vertigo-inducing, but it would have been fun if our mission wasn't so serious. It took us only half an hour to cover the distance, and we hit pay dirt immediately. Bodyguard could get twice as high as I could, so he must have seen it as soon as we left the surface lock. We were maintaining radio silence, on the off chance that we needed to, so he kept his own counsel until we were close enough to see it from the ground.
He waved to get my attention and pointed. I followed his talon. It was a ship lock, and it wasn't on the map. For a moment I thought we were lost and had somehow come back to the main hangars. I turned the map to try and orient myself, and then I realized what I was looking at. Reston Jameson's private ship lock.
That surprised me. I've docked at Ceres many times, cleared in and out through Ceres flight control. I knew the approach funnel cold, I knew the obstacles and the beacons, and I could sketch the three-dimensional traffic-control layer cake blindfolded. This ship lock wasn't in the traffic-control plan. Reston Jameson had clout indeed to keep it off the charts. I looked up and picked up the riding lights of a freighter sliding into the main hangar bay, and visualized the curving low-gee trajectory, wondering how they managed to deconflict the flight paths, and suddenly I understood. Ceres' main hangar is at the equator, and approach and takeoff are both west to east in order to take advantage of Ceres' rotation for velocity matching. A ship coming in to Reston Jameson's lock would use the same approach, offset six kilometers. It would be an open secret in traffic control, but no one else would know the reclusive magnate's comings and goings.
It occurred to me that the crimes I was about to commit in order
to clear my name were serious enough to rate to heavy jail time if I was caught. I considered suggesting that we go back, but I thought better of it. If Bodyguard decided I was guilty of killing his client he would track me to the end of the galaxy to put my ears on his belt. I mentally rehearsed throwing myself on the mercy of the court, and followed him toward the lock. The thought crossed my mind that he might have an accident, say with his suit seal. I didn't pursue the idea. I'm not a killer, and that belief had suddenly become important to me.
There was a transpax dome on the surface too, not far from the shiplock, about the same size as Constellation's dome. It seemed Reston Jameson liked to look at the stars himself. I looked up at the star-strewn sky. Watchbird Alpha was sixteen hundred kilometers up there, looking down at me with cameras good enough to pick out an individual in daylight. Somewhere down over the equatorial horizon Delta and Gamma kept their own vigils. I began to wish we'd come at night. I was sweating and couldn't wipe my brow. Dayside Ceres is fifty Celsius, which was enough to make my suit's cooling system run at a steady purr. It was standard night in the tunnels though, and that was what counted. Bodyguard had been unwilling to wait until standard night came into phase with surface night.
I felt dreadfully exposed in the harsh glare on the unrelieved terrain, and I muttered a few choice words about kzinti, after first making sure my transmitter was off. Scream and leap. How they'd ever managed to survive as a species was beyond me. I began to wish more fervently that I'd never taken Opal Stone's contract. Bodyguard seemed completely unconcerned as he took one long, practiced leap to the rectangular outline of a personnel lock. The mechanism was a simple pull bar—it was illegal to have a locking mechanism on an airlock, in case someone got trapped outside. Reston Jameson no doubt could have gotten around that restriction, but it seemed he had chosen not to.
And I knew the reason for that. As soon as the lock cycled, the computer would log it. His security teams would be there in a minute or less. Short of drilling through ten meters of rock and regolith we were no further ahead here than we were trying to access his private tube car station.