by Chris Bunch
‘Pour yourself a drink first. Third decanter from the left’s got your brand in it.’ Joshua put the pistol on the table but left his hand draped over the couch’s arm.
The man went to the sideboard, found a glass, and poured a small drink. He did not put ice in the glass. ‘You want something?’
‘I’ll get it myself. In a few minutes.’
‘Aren’t we being a little untrusting?’ Still moving carefully, hands in view, the man sat across from Joshua. There was nothing special about him. One would never remember his face an hour after meeting him. He would fit seamlessly onto any street on any world and never be noticed. He wore casual clothes in quiet colors. The name he’d given Joshua fifteen years before was Cisco.
‘I’m a creature of habit,’ Joshua said. ‘Every time you show up out here in the Outlaw Worlds, life’s got a tendency to get interesting.’
Cisco painted on a brief smile, then took it away. ‘I’ve got something special.’
Joshua made no response. Cisco tasted his drink. ‘I understand you blew a warrant recently. Or was that on purpose for some reason my leak didn’t know about?’
‘You heard right. I slipped. What do you have?’
‘I said this one was special, and I meant it,’ Cisco said. ‘First I’ll give you the terms. Federation Intelligence guarantees all expenses, no questions asked. One hundred K payment on top, even if you draw a blank. You make the recovery intact, we’ll pay one million credits. Delivered here on Carlton or anywhere else you want, in any shape you want. It’s an NQA - no questions asked.’
‘You did say special, didn’t you?’
‘I did. And you’re the only one being offered the contract. ’
‘I’ve heard that before, believed you, gone out, and found every amateur headhunter and half of your operatives stumbling around playing grab-ass in a fog they made up themselves.’
‘You can’t blame me for something like that. You know you can’t always give an operative all the data before you put him in the field. You never did, when you were running someone.’
‘That was during the war.’
‘Maybe mine went on a little longer than yours.’
‘Maybe,’ Joshua said, tired of the fencing. ‘Go ahead, Cisco. Let’s hear the proposition.’
Cisco leaned forward. ‘There’s one Al’ar left alive. He’s somewhere in the Outlaw Worlds.
‘We want you to take him.’
On the terrace outside rain splashed harder. Cisco’s eyes glittered.
FIVE
Wolfe forced control.
‘Hardly a new rumor, Cisco. Surprised that you’re spreading it.’
‘It’s not a rumor.’
‘Look,’ Joshua said, trying to sound ostentatiously patient. ‘Since the war, since the Al’ar . . . disappeared, there’s been stories floating around that they’re still out there. Hiding behind a pink cloud or something, waiting to come back and wreak terrible revenge.’
‘I know the stories. This one’s different, which I’ll prove in a second. But let me ask a question,’ the Federation agent said. ‘They had to go somewhere, right? We were pushing them hard, but it was still their choice, as far as anything I’ve heard. I’ve never believed that crap about mass suicide. Doors swing both ways.’
‘Not this one,’ Wolfe said.
‘Okay,’ Cisco said in a reasonable tone. ‘You lived with them. You were their first prisoner to escape. You were our best source for their psychology. So how do you know they’re gone for good?’
Wolfe hesitated, then decided to tell the truth. ‘I feel it.’
‘I’m not laughing. Explain.’
Wolfe wondered why he was telling as much as he was; he thought perhaps he had to talk to someone, sometime, and Cisco, at least currently, was no more an enemy than anyone else in the Outlaw Worlds.
‘Feel is beyond emotion, but there’s no logic to it; or, rather, it includes logic and uses other senses.’
‘Al’ar senses?’
‘Yes. Or as much of them as I learned.’
‘Part of why you’re so hard to ambush?’
Wolfe shrugged.
Cisco grunted. ‘I was pretty sure you had some . . . hell, “powers” isn’t the right word. Abilities, maybe. Something that the rest of us don’t. Anyway, you’ve got this “feeling.” But I can’t - Intelligence can’t operate on something that vague. We’ve got to be ready for almost anything.
‘Hell, we’ve probably still got contingency plans tucked away somewhere in case Luna attacks Earth-gov.’ It was about as close as the agent could come to a joke. Joshua allowed himself to smile to acknowledge it.
‘Set that aside,’ Cisco went on. ‘What put us in motion was the market in Al’ar artifacts. You know there’s a ton of people out there collecting anything and everything that’s claimed to be Al’ar?’
‘Happens after every war,’ Wolfe said. ‘The winner collects stuff from the loser and the other way around. I’m not surprised.’
Cisco moved a hand toward his pocket but stopped as Wolfe’s hand touched his gun. After a moment Wolfe nodded. Cisco, moving glacially, took out a small egg-shaped stone, gray, with flecks in it.
‘This is the current hot item. Asking price starts at a mill - and goes up. It’s a -’
‘I know what it is,’ Joshua interrupted.
Cisco handed it to him.
As Joshua touched it, the gem sparkled, sending a dozen colors flickering against the walls. He held it for a moment, then passed it back to Cisco.
‘It’s a fake.’
Cisco blinked in surprise. ‘You’re probably the only one - outside of an Al’ar - who could tell that. It is. Our labs have built about twenty of them. We’ve been using them for stalking-horses.’
‘Any luck?’
‘None. All we’re getting is real collectors, guys who want a Lumina to finish off their collection. If the Al’ar used flags, they’d want one of those, too,’ Cisco said.
‘Why do you give a damn about anyone who wants to buy stuff like this and what’s it a cover for? Or what else is somebody getting into that interests the Federation?’
‘I don’t know,’ Cisco said. ‘Those were my orders. Look for anybody after a Lumina.’
‘So whoever your boss is really looking for must have the same ability I’ve got - to spot a phony Lumina. Or else you would have nailed someone besides souvenir hounds.’
Cisco started. ‘I hadn’t figured that out yet,’ he confessed. ‘I forgot . . . you were pretty good at systems analysis.’
‘So you’re drawing blanks on one end and looking for this mythical Al’ar on the other, which is where you want me. How am I going to know where to look - if I take the commission?’
‘I’ll give you everything FI has.’ Again Cisco’s hand slowly moved to his pocket, took out a microfiche, and handed it across. ‘That’s the summary. I’ll give you the raw data if you want.’
‘I do. What did this give you?’
‘We’ve worked various directions. The only one that seemed to give us anything were these Lumina stones. We’ve found four so far.
‘There’s a second commonality. All four show up within a given time frame and in a logical order, as if someone was going from world to world and selling these stones or possibly putting them into a network that’s already been set up.’
‘That’s a thin supposition,’ Joshua said. ‘But say it’s valid. Why me? This kind of detailed work is what your paper shufflers and door knockers do best.’
‘Right,’ Cisco said, his normally flat voice showing sarcasm. ‘What an excellent idea. To have a whole group of people, who’ll sooner or later be identified as Federation Intelligence, wandering around out here bellowing, “Anybody seen an Al’ar?” What sort of rumors do you think that would start?’
‘Point conceded,’ Joshua said. ‘But still not enough for me to come in.’
‘Next I want to show you some film. I can’t let you keep it, and I won’t even let
you put your hands on it for fear I’ll walk out with a switch. Where’s your projector?’
Joshua rose, went to a wall, and touched a sensor; vid gear emerged. He pressed buttons. ‘It’s ready.’
‘Before I show you what we’ve got, let me give you another bit of data. Maybe you don’t know it, but we’ve got all of the Al’ar capital worlds under surveillance, including Sauros, your old stomping grounds. If it wouldn’t draw attention, we’d have them under fleet interdiction - assuming we’ve still got enough ships in commission to mount a blockade.’
‘I didn’t know that.’
‘The given reason, even to our own agents, is we’re trying to prevent looting until the Federation decides what to do with these planets. The Al’ar had some weaponry we still don’t understand, even after ten years.
‘But that’s not the real reason. We put the coverage on because of that damned rumor about the Al’ar being alive.
‘Our surveillance is both passive and active pickups. What you’re going to see comes from an active bird. Offplanet sensors picked up an inbound ship and decided it was on a low-profile orbit, not wanting to be seen. That aroused some interest.
‘By the time the bird launched, the ship was on the ground. One . . . person came out as our craft was incoming. Here’s the pickup.’
Cisco put a disk into the vid slot, and the large screen flashed to life.
The tiny robot Cisco had called a bird flew at low altitude through the streets of an Al’ar city. Wolfe thought he remembered some of the buildings, even though time and weather had already begun to shatter their radiant delicacy. He repressed a shudder.
‘Now the bird’s coming into the open, into one of the Al’ar parks,’ Cisco said.
‘They weren’t parks,’ Joshua said absently. ‘Call them . . . reaching-out centers.’
‘Whatever. Pay attention - the shot only lasts for a few seconds.’
The screen showed a medium-sized starship sitting on its landing skids. Wolfe didn’t recognize the model but guessed from its design that it was civilian, most likely a high-speed yacht. The port hung open. As the robot soared closer, Wolfe saw movement, and the port closed. The bird had almost halved the distance when the starship’s secondary drive activated, and the ship lifted under full power. It roared across the open ground, gaining speed as it went. Wolfe saw the shock wave ripple from its nose, wrecking small buildings as it smashed overhead. The ship pulled into a climb, then appeared to vanish as it smashed toward space.
‘Just out-atmosphere, it went into N-space before we could even think about putting any E-tracers on it.’
‘Somebody has very fast reactions,’ Joshua said.
‘Or some very developed “feelings,”’ Cisco said dryly. ‘Now, here’s the blowup of the air lock area.’
Even with the resolution, the picture was still very grainy. It showed the ship’s lock, and now Wolfe saw someone moving slowly, as if underwater, up the ramp into the ship.
‘Too far,’ Cisco muttered. ‘Let me run it back.’
The figure backed down the steps, then turned and walked out a few feet into the open ground.
Cisco froze the frame. ‘Well?’
The being on-screen wore no spacesuit but a plain coverall with a weapons belt. It was very tall and thin, almost to the point of emaciation. Its face looked like a snake’s seen from above, eyes vertical slits, nostrils barely visible holes.
Joshua found himself shaking uncontrollably.
Cisco blanked the screen.
‘Now,’ he said, noting Wolfe’s reaction, ‘Now will you go out there and take that Al’ar for us?’
The exercise room was mirrored like the one on Wolfe’s ship. The mirrors showed nothing at all.
Outside, dawn was close, and the last of the night’s rain clouds scudded overhead.
There was a shimmer in the mirrors, and Joshua reappeared. He held the Lumina in front of him in both hands.
He looked at his multiple image closely. No strain showed on his face.
He stared into the Lumina, and once more his image shimmered, just as he lifted a foot to take a step. There was nothing to be seen for an instant, then he returned to full visibility.
He nodded once, then went to his bedroom to pack.
SIX
‘Anything to declare?’
Joshua shook his head.
The customs officer put on a smile like a cruising shark, said ‘Welcome to Mandodari III,’ and kept a close eye on the detector screen as Wolfe passed through.
Wolfe went to the lifter rank and slid into the backseat of the first craft, putting his black nylon case beside him.
‘Where to?’
‘Acropolis Hotel,’ Wolfe said. He’d chosen it from a list the liner’s steward had given him. As the lifter rose, he turned, looking back. It was an old habit.
The hotel was as advertised, large, intended for the upper-end business traveler, unlikely to pay much attention to Joshua’s comings and goings. It had been built just after the war in anticipation of the peacetime boom that had never come to Mandodari.
Joshua ’freshed, made a vid call, and found he was expected. He went down to the lobby and outside, ignoring the doorman’s inquiry. He hailed another lifter, got in, and gave the address of a restaurant he’d chosen from the hotel’s courtesy list. At the restaurant he used their com to call a second lifter and gave that driver the address he wanted.
For a change, the man was no more in the mood to talk than Wolfe was. Joshua concentrated on the city.
Mandodari III wasn’t dead, but it was hardly healthy. During the war it had been one of the Federation’s biggest fleet ports, close to the Al’ar sectors. It had been hit by raids twice, and Wolfe saw at a distance the shattered hills where something big had gone off.
With the war’s end and demobilization, Mandodari III had begun to decay. The streets were potholed and unswept, and the buildings on either side were boarded up or just dark, vacant, their owners not even bothering to pull down the last, despairing LIQUIDATION SALE banners that flapped in the dusty breeze blowing across the city. The people he saw wore the styles of the last year or last decade and were intent on their own business but in no particular hurry to accomplish it.
The lifter went into the hills that ringed the city, past mansions, some empty, some occupied. It grounded outside one, and Wolfe paid the man off.
It was a vastly gardened estate, high-walled with spear points atop the wall, studded with security sensors. Far up a winding cobbled drive was the main house, white-painted with a columned porch, big and square enough to be an institution.
Wolfe touched a com panel and announced himself; he heard a hiss, and the gate opened. As he walked up the drive, he saw movement from the corner of his eye and noted two auto-sweep guns tracking him.
The door opened, and a woman invited him in. ‘I’m Lady Penruddock,’ she said. ‘Mister Wolfe?’
Joshua nodded.
The woman was about ten years younger than Joshua, beautiful in a chilly way. She wore an expensive-looking skirt and off-the-shoulder jacket in gray and a dark red blouse that fastened at the throat. Her low voice suggested that she knew quite well what she wanted and most often got it.
‘You don’t look like one of my husband’s usual visitors,’ she said.
‘Oh? What do they look like?’
‘There’s an old word. Drummers. It generally meant -’
‘I’ve heard the term.’
‘They’re men who’ve gotten something that is more than they are, more than what they should have,’ Lady Penruddock went on, ‘and want to sell it before they’re found out.’
Joshua’s lips quirked, looking enough like a smile to show acknowledgment.
‘I was going out,’ the woman said. ‘But you might be . . . interesting. I think I’ll stay. My name’s Ariadne. Wait here. I’ll get Malcolm.’
Her footsteps tapped away across the marble. The mansion’s foyer was huge. One wall was hung with the
heads of game animals. Joshua recognized a few of them: an Earth Kodiak bear, an Altairan phract, a Jameson’s beast from Nekkar IX. On the other wall was an alcove occupied by a twenty-foot-tall rearing six-legged monster Wolfe had never seen before. He walked closer and admired the taxidermy. He noticed a small square in midair that fluoresced green, barely visible, like a holograph. He touched it.
The creature shrilled rage and slashed at him. The heavy rifle was coming to his shoulder, and he almost stumbled on the green, slimy stones of the planetoid, stepping back . . . and the beast was still once more and Joshua was in the mansion’s alcove.
‘Clever,’ he said softly, then frowned and put his hand back on the sensor.
Again the monstrosity came for him, but Joshua paid no attention to it or to the rifle the diorama had given him. Instead, he looked about the canyon he appeared to be in. He looked up at one crag. That was where the shooter, and pickup, had actually been. He smiled, real humor on his face, stepped away once more, and returned to Judge Penruddock’s mansion.
The judge was just entering the room, his wife behind him. He was a large, bluff man in his late sixties, white hair carefully coifed, body well tuned. He wore dark, formal clothing, as if to remind everyone of his former profession.
‘Mister Wolfe,’ he said. ‘I am truly pleased to meet you.’
‘Judge,’ Joshua said.
‘I see you were “in” my little device,’ Penruddock went on. ‘I’ve got half a dozen more like it around the house, but that’s my favorite. I came around the path, and the bastard was waiting in ambush for me. Almost got me before I touched a round off.’
‘Indeed,’ Joshua said, and his smile came and went again.
‘Ariadne,’ the judge said, ‘Mister Wolfe is one of the heroes of the Al’ar War, although not the sort the public heard much about. He’s also the man who recovered those jewels that bastard stole from us.’
‘Ah.’ Lady Penruddock’s gaze was assessing. ‘I sensed he was something . . . special.’
‘That’s a good way to describe him, and we’re honored to have you here, sir. Come to my study. We can talk there.’