by John F. Carr
They had partnered up again in Utah, a few years later, but split up when he’d lost his share of their assets and some of Bill’s at Bally’s Casino. Bill always did have a fundamentalist streak and believed gambling was a sucker’s game. From all available evidence, including all the trouble it had caused him, Edwin couldn’t disagree. Now that he was about to be as rich as Croesus, he would buy his own casino! After all, the House never loses…
Of course, he still had the Stardust Syndicate after him for a couple of mil, now that he’d missed a couple years of vig. That would be the first debt he’d have to settle after he arrived on Earth and sold the first of his ‘stones.’ Hot damn!
The second thing he would have to do would be to get some regeneration treatments. He wasn’t a young man and, after several harsh years prospecting in the Haven outback, he looked ten years older than when he’d arrived in 2038.
The biggest problem Edwin faced would be getting back to Earth without attracting attention or appearing on any ship’s manifest.
On most civilized worlds, impossible. On Haven, not so difficult. He was on his way to the Golden Parrot Cantina, a combination bar and brothel, which was one of the spacers first stops after Splash Island. There were no passenger starships stopping over on Haven, not even tramp freighters, just the occasional ore vessel or CoDo transport. Haven was the furthest flung outpost among the known habitable worlds, not even valuable enough to be a CoDominium Protectorate.
Edwin noticed a significant coarsening of the transportees since he’d last left Castell City. Haven, apparently, was becoming a favorite dumping ground for the Bureau of Corrections. The poor Harmonies were finding nothing but discord on their Haven. And, from the recent additions to the palisade that now surrounded Harmony Compound, it appeared they’d begun to realize it too. He wondered whose idea it was to build the palisade in the first place—surely not Charles Castell’s.
He shifted so that he could feel the belt pouch he wore under his thermal underwear. If word of what he was carrying ever got out, the Harmonies’ current problems would appear in retrospect to be the halcyon days of summer. He was determined to see that it didn’t get out; at least, until his fortune was made. If the Bronsons took the bait, his name would be listed among next year’s “Fortune 500.”
Up ahead was Docktown and Havenhold Lake. The Golden Parrot was one of the more elaborate above ground buildings, rising up three stories. The walls were made of stone while the wooden false front was designed to look like a Old West Saloon right out of a black and white film. The only things missing were the hitching posts and some horses. Horses, like most luxuries and even necessities, were rare on Haven due to the thin air and birthing problems. He’d never really understood the meaning of “dirt poor” until he’d arrived on Haven.
Inside the Golden Parrot, Edwin bellied up to the bar. Careful to be on the opposite side of the bar from where Roberto DeCastro, the Parrot whoremaster and rumored Company spy, held court. A couple of spacers were talking about the long journey to Haven and the pitiful selection of female company the joint offered. Despite not having been with a woman in three years, Hamilton had much more important things to occupy his thoughts.
It turned out the two spacers were crewman on a Kennicott freighter that had just arrived from Earth with a load of deportees for the mines. They would return as soon as their ship finished refueling at the Ayesha hydrogen-refueling station. He wanted nothing to do with them or their Company.
It took two days of drinking and dead boredom before he ran into the spaceman he was looking for. His name was Tomlinson and he was the Captain of the Bureau of ReLocation transport, The City of New Orleans. Tomlinson, who had a shaved head and a long sorrowful face, found the name both amusing and ironic; they shared several drinks while they swapped puns about the Big Easy. When the Captain was half in the bag, he brought up his proposition.
He led the captain to a table in the corner. “I need passage back to Earth.”
Tomlinson actually grinned, which gave him the spectral look of a death’s-head. “Who doesn’t compadre. There aren’t ten people on this hell-hole who wouldn’t leave if they had the dollars or credit for passage, except maybe that Castell lunatic and his most ardent crazies.”
Edwin was thankful that he’d held back fifty thousand from the stash he’d given Bill Castell to bribe his way onto the Harmony transport ship. Too bad Garner had died, before the ship had left, he might have made something out of this place. “How much are we talking about?”
Tomlinson looked at him as if he were seeing him for the first time. “A paying customer! We don’t get many of these out here.”
Edwin nodded.
The Captain pulled at his eyebrows, about the only hair left on his face, while he thought of a price that would make a good profit without chasing off a paying customer; each thought written on his face as it went through a series of contortions. “It’s not just passage you know. We’ll have to outfit a separate compartment so none of the crew know you’re aboard. Then there’s food and the little bite for the custom’s officer when we reach Luna. How about twenty-five thousand American dollars, or five thousand CoDo credits. Or four hundred thousand rubles?”
“Dollars, my friend. Twenty-five thousand of them, my entire stake. Let’s shake on it.”
A look of pure greed showed on the Captain’s face until he realized he was giving too much away: “You civilians just don’t realize how little the CoDo pays for the important work we do.” He paused to hiccup. “We’re humanity’s guides to the stars….”
Edwin elbowed him. “Oh, we do hold you in high esteem. Remember, I came in on a former freighter impressed into transportee service. I’m sure the journey back to Earth will be first class all the way. By the way, do you play chess or backgammon?”
“Ahh. We play backgammon, but for chips.”
“It’s going to be an interesting journey, my new friend!”
2042 A.D., Earth
Thomas Erhenfeld Bronson sat at his desk on the top floor of the Dover Building, one of the three tallest skyscrapers in Manhattan, rifling through the file on Edwin Albert Hamilton. He paused to rub his chin thoughtfully: What kind of scam is Hamilton trying to pull off?
Through the offices of Murchison, Abbott and Chen, Ltd., one of the City’s leading law firms, Hamilton had secured an appointment with him, CEO of Dover Mineral Development, at 1400 hours. Normally, he wouldn’t have seen Hamilton, even with the law firm’s advocacy; however, the enclosed photo of a most unusual gemstone—called a “shimmer stone”—had whetted his curiosity. The gem had an unnatural iridescence that showed through even in a 3-vee photo. It must be positively pulsating, he thought, in real life. I must have one!
Erhenfeld pulled out a printout of the a purchase order from Tiffany & Co.; it was for five million credits for one six-carat “shimmer stone” paid to Edwin Hamilton. His mouth began to water.
He had his best troubleshooters search every data base known to man for any information on or relating to shimmer stones, but they had all come up with nothing. No one, including the top gem experts, had ever heard of them: “Shimmer stones, what are they?” All evidence pointed to an off-world source—but where? That was the question. There were some forty known inhabited worlds, not counting asteroids, planetoids and lifeless planets. The gem could have come from any one of them.
He had sent the firm’s best agents to collect all known information on Edwin Albert Hamilton. The resulting dossier was as sketchy as the man’s life and reputation: Edwin Hamilton had grown up in Alberta, Canada, born in the year 1981 to working class parents of Scott-Irish descent. His school career was undistinguished and incomplete; he was thrown out of secondary school, a year before graduation, due to gambling on school grounds. He’d been an indifferent student with numerous disciplinary infractions.
There were no records on him for the next five years; apparently he had managed to live under the bureaucratic radar—no easy accomplishment in the
se times. He first “reappeared” in 2003 in an arrest record in Boulder, Colorado where he was picked up, but not convicted, for mail fraud. Apparently, he’d been selling fake mining shares to gold mines he didn’t own. Edwin had several other apprehensions for small time cons, only one of which, in Las Vegas, Nevada, for rigging slot machines, had resulted in a conviction. He’d spent two years and six months (with time off for good behavior) before being released in 2006. Two years later he was tried, but not convicted, for selling fraudulent stock in a uranium mine in Utah; he was released when the victim, a wealthy doctor, refused to press charges.
The last “record” of Hamilton and his exploits was his gambling debt to the Stardust Hotel Casino for a quarter of a million credits in September of 2037. After selling his Los Angeles house for three hundred thousand dollars, he had disappeared with the money almost six years ago. There was no record of him having obtained passage on any plane or spaceship on or off Earth. Edwin had vanished into thin air, despite the best efforts of the Stardust Syndicate enforcers to track him down.
With interest of ten percent per week, his debt had grown to over two million credits. By all accounts, Hamilton was a degenerate gambler and confidence man. Without the shimmer stone photo, Erhenfeld wouldn’t have used the man to polish his shoes.
Hamilton had used half the credits he’d received from the sale of the shimmer stone from Tiffany to pay of his Stardust debt, which showed he had more brains than he would have expected from the man’s record to date. Then he’d hired the Pinkerton International Detective Agency to protect him and his privacy. Only the CoDominium Intelligence Bureau or the CD Internal Affairs Division could successfully breach Pinkerton security, and the last thing Erhenfeld wanted was governmental meddling in this affair until he knew whom and what he was dealing with. There was a time and place for wet work….
From the itch in his palms, Erhenfeld knew there was big money involved. And he wanted to make sure that it stayed in Bronson family hands. As one of the youngest scions of the Bronson clan, he knew a big score could set him up for life—even prep him for an eventual seat in the Grand Senate. The Bronson family rewarded success, just as it eschewed failure.
He heard his secretary’s voice in his mastoid implant, “Sir, your visitors are here.”
“Let them in,” he sub-vocalized.
Hamilton, a weathered but solidly-built six-footer, came into the office followed by his legal representative, Harvey Chen—the Old Man and one of the founding partners of Murchison, Abbott and Chen, Ltd. Chen didn’t look a day over fifty, but Erhenfeld knew he was eighty-eight and had been through regen twice. He also only made personal appearances these days for the firm’s most important clients. He revised his opinion of Hamilton upward.
Erhenfeld, with a smile, put out his hand for a handshake. Hamilton was wearing a very expensive and well-tailored Armani suit and he looked him back right in the eyes. His grip was firm, but not too firm, and contained no moisture. “Welcome to Dover Mineral Development, Mr. Hamilton. You too, Harvey.”
Harvey Chen nodded and they both took their seats, which were a few inches shorter than his own chair.
He sat back down, asking, “What can I do for you Mr. Hamilton?”
“I’ve got an unusual proposition for you, Chief Executive Officer Bronson.”
“Call me Erhenfeld,” he said with a smile. “We’re all friends here, Edwin. Isn’t that right, Harvey?”
Chen nodded.
“Good,” Edwin Hamilton replied, as he stood up, with a winning smile of his own. He reached into his coat and removed a small suede pouch, then leaning over he placed it on the desk.
Erhenfeld could barely keep his hand from shaking as he picked up the warm pouch and felt several marble-sized objects.
“Open it, Taxpayer Bronson,” Hamilton said with a knowing smile.
Erhenfeld fumbled with the leather thongs until he had the pouch open; he carefully let the three gems spill out. It was all he could do to keep from gasping as three slightly irregular shimmer stones plunked into his hand. The three stones were each a different color: rose, verdant and turquoise, but all three had a vibrant rainbow sheen. He noticed a rapid pulsing quality, just as it hit him that the shimmer stones were the three most beautiful objects he had ever seen. He couldn’t tear his eyes off them.
“Be careful, Taxpayer,” Hamilton said, with a knowing tone. “Up close shimmer stones have a hypnotic quality that can turn minutes into hours, if you’re not careful.”
Erhenfeld jerked his eyes away and looked up at the two men. Both were staring back with an understanding grin.
“I’ve never seen their like. How much do you want for them?” he asked without thinking.
“That’s a good question,” Hamilton answered. “However, these aren’t for sale. They’re just chips off the big boulder. Still, it took me almost three years to find them.” He paused to smile. “Although, they were not what I was looking for. Pure serendipity, since I was searching for platinum or gold.”
“Where did you find them?” Erhenfeld asked, the words coming unbidden from his mouth. He had to shake his head; it was as if he was still enthralled by the shimmer stone spell. He was losing his edge. From now on, he would have to be careful; besides being beautiful, the shimmer stones could be dangerous, too.
“That’s the real question, isn’t it? These baubles, “Hamilton paused to point to the three shimmer stones nesting on Bronson’s desk, “are just trifles in comparison to those waiting to be found. It’s location, location, location….”
Erhenfeld nodded. “I could just put out a tracer and check every off-world passenger and freighter manifest and find out your last port of call.”
Hamilton laughed. “And find nothing! If you haven’t done that already, you’re not half the man I believe you are.”
He nodded reluctantly. “You’re right. I know that if their source is unknown, the stones will be even more valuable. I also understand that someone in your position would find it difficult to return to their source and recover more stones.” It was his turn to smile.
Hamilton nodded. “That’s the chance I’m taking…that we can make a deal. If not, I’m sure someone at Kennicott Metals, Alcoa, 3M or Anaconda Mining will be interested.”
“I could ensure that both of you never leave this building,” Erhenfeld returned with a smile.
Chen shook his head as if he were dealing with an obstinate boy. “Thomas Erhenfeld Bronson, you know better than to make empty threats. A man in your position, what would your uncle, the Grand Senator, say? If we’re not out of the Dover Building in two hours, we have engaged a Pinkerton strike team to ‘extract’ us regardless of casualties.”
Bronson threw out his hands. “Can’t blame a man for trying. Edwin, how much do you want for the planetary and GPS location of your shimmer stone mine?”
“After that little bluff, the price just went up fifty million credits. I want two-hundred and fifty million CoDominium credits upon my signature and 2.5 percent of all royalties from the sale of any and all shimmer stones for the next one hundred years.”
“You’re talking billions in royalties—that’s highway robbery! Dover never gives royalties to prospectors—that’s Company policy.”
“Then you’d better change your policy,” Chen added, his eyes as hard as flint. “Or you’re never going to see another shimmer stone.”
“Let me think this over,” Erhenfeld said, lowering his head. He knew that if he made this deal he would be criticized by all the younger family members as well as those older ones who’d yet to make their mark. But what would his Uncle say? In his heart, he knew exactly what the Grand Senator Adrian Bronson would say if he let this deal slip between his fingers, no matter what the cost: You’re a complete idiot, nephew! Proof that your father’s years in space permanently damaged his gametes. Maybe it’s time to put you in charge of the borloi fields on Tanith.
Erhenfeld shook his head and said, “Two and-a-half percent is to
o high. I might be able to talk the Board into one and-a-half and two hundred and twenty-five million CD credits.”
Edwin rolled his eyes. “What the Hell, let’s compromise. Make it two percent—agreed?”
“Yes,” Erhenfeld answered, “Let’s shake on it,” holding out his hand.
Chen stood up and took out his micro-recorder and identity vericator. “We’ve got a deal,” he said
Edwin nodded and shook his hand. “I knew we’d come to an agreement. There’s too much on the table for both of us.”
“Now, where are the shimmer stones located?”
Chen shook his head. “Sign these papers, first.” He pulled out a thick sheaf of papers and made quick notations as to the selling price and royalty percentage. “I’ve got my portable Iris-ID and Notary Seal.”
“Would you like refreshments, I can call my secretary?”
They both declined.
He took the packet and began to read every word. It took him almost an hour and he called his secretary in to record and witness the signing and verbal agreement. When every ‘t’ had been crossed and ‘i’ dotted, he asked, “What planet are they from? And if you say Earth, I’ll shoot you myself!”
Hamilton, who was working at keeping a big grin off his face, said, “Haven.”
“Haven! We’ve got our own operation on that frozen iceball at Stafford’s Camp. I can’t believe it—somebody’s ass is going to be in the wringer. I’m paying you two hundred and twenty-five million Cs because someone in the Company didn’t do their job.”
“Oh, they would have found them eventually. My placer mine, by the way, is where the River Jordan meets the Miracle Mountains at a little hamlet the Harmonies call Purity. The coordinates are all in the document.”
Erhenfeld just shook his head. Then he looked up at Hamilton. “Remember, the most important part of the agreement is to keep their location secret. The one thing none of us wants is a shimmer stone rush on Haven.”