As we explored the west end, we started hearing voices and music. We followed the sounds around a corner and found a crowded bar. Staring through the window, I saw several Marines. They had removed their helmets, which sat on the table. When I scanned the helmets, I recognized the names from my platoon.
“This must be the place,” said Lee.
“I hope they have food,” I said. I opened the door, and dozens of Marines turned to greet me. Sitting in the center of this ungodly pack, happily waving a cigar as he spoke, was Master Gunnery Sergeant Tabor Shannon.
One private placed his helmet over his head so he could read our identifiers as we entered. “It’s Lee and Harris,” he said to the others.
“The illustrious honor guard has finally found its way,” Shannon said. “Hello, Lee. Hello, Harris.”
“Sergeant,” I said.
“I’ll get the drinks this time,” Lee said.
“I don’t get it,” I said as I started to sit down. “Are we on duty or off?”
Shannon smiled behind his cigar, then uttered a few curses. “On duty. Klyber is using us as”—he considered for a moment—“as a diplomatic bargaining chip. He wants to show the locals how easy it would be for this visit to turn into a long-term occupation.”
“Drinking sounds like a good occupation to me,” one private said.
“Not occupation as in job, moron!” another private said.
“Oh,” the first one responded.
“That’s the kid that found the bar,” Shannon said, pointing at the private with his cigar. “He’s been soaking up beers for hours.”
“So, are we on our best behavior?” I asked.
Shannon smiled. “In this case, bad is good.” He nodded at the drunk private. “This boy’s going to empty his stomach somewhere, probably right outside that door. Usually that would get him a night in the brig; but tonight, it will go unnoticed. Klyber wants to show the respectable politicos of Rising Sun just how much they don’t want us around. A little puke leaves a lasting impression.”
Shannon leaned forward. “Harris, did you know you have a friend in town.”
“A friend?” I asked.
“Yeah,” said Shannon. “It appears that the Japanese are not the only ones keeping their bloodlines pure on this rock.” Shannon turned and gazed toward the far side of the bar. “That guy was asking about you.”
I stood up and looked around the room. At the other end of the building, Ray Freeman sat with an untouched beer. The top of the table was level with the tops of Freeman’s thighs. He looked like an adult sitting on children’s play furniture.
“Know him?” Shannon asked.
“I know him. His name is Ray Freeman. He’s the mercenary I met on Gobi.”
Freeman looked over at me from his table. His eyes had their same dark intensity, but his mouth formed a cheerful smile. The overall effect was unsettling.
“You would not believe how much they charge for a damn beer,” Lee said as he returned with two huge mugs. “For these prices . . .” He saw me staring at Freeman. “Friend of yours?”
“That’s the mercenary that Admiral Brocius sent to Gobi,” I said.
“Looks dangerous,” Lee said. “Are you planning on talking to him?”
“He doesn’t talk much,” I said. “But I am curious about what he might have to say.”
“I’m coming with you,” Lee said.
“Do you think he wants trouble?” Shannon asked.
“If Ray Freeman came looking for trouble, I doubt I would have made it to the bar alive,” I said. “He’s worse than he looks.”
“I don’t know how that could be, Harris,” Lee said. “He looks pretty bad.”
Freeman stood and smiled down at me as Lee and I walked over. “Well, hello, Wayson. Been a long time. How is life in the Corps?” His voice had an overly friendly quality. First Barry, then Klyber, then Freeman. It was my day for seeing painted smiles.
“Is he always this chatty?” Lee asked over the interLink.
“What brings you to Scutum-Crux?” I asked. Freeman sat down and waved to the empty chairs around his table. Lee and I joined him. We must have looked odd, two men in combat armor sitting beside a bald-headed giant.
“I’m here on business,” Freeman said.
“Anybody we know, Mr. . . .” Lee let his voice trail off.
“Sorry,” Freeman said, still sounding friendly. “Call me Ray.”
“Vince Lee.”
“I guess Wayson has told you what I do.”
“Sounds as if you do it well, too, at least if everything Harris says is true.”
“I suspect Corporal Harris has exaggerated the story,” Freeman said.
“He might have,” Lee said. He removed his helmet. “No use letting my beer get warm. You’re not drinking yours?” The head on Freeman’s beer had gone flat.
“Actually, I only bought the beer to help me blend in,” Freeman said.
“I don’t think it’s working,” I said. “So is your target in the bar?”
“No, I came here looking for you. I heard your platoon was stationed in Rising Sun. This seemed like the best place to watch for you.”
“What a coincidence,” I said, not believing a word of it. “Both me and your target came to the same planet.”
I took off my helmet and took a long drag of beer. “Are you still looking for Crowley?”
“I have a score to settle,” Freeman said, “but that is not why I am here. I bumped into another friend of yours from Gobi earlier today. In fact, he’s staying in the hotel across the street.”
“Really?” I said. I took another drink, nearly finishing my beer. “Who is it?” Names and faces passed through my mind.
“I was hoping to surprise the both of you,” Freeman said. “You know what would be funny, you and Vince can trade helmets, and we can surprise the guy. You know, so you don’t have that identifier . . . just in case he’s wearing his helmet.”
Lee and I looked at each other. As far as I knew, the only people in Rising Sun with combat helmets flew in on the Kamehameha . Freeman had some scheme in the works, but I could not think what it might be, and I did not trust him.
“That doesn’t sound like such a good idea,” I said.
“Nothing is going to happen to you, Wayson,” Freeman said, sounding slightly wounded. “It will be fun.”
“Who are we surprising?” I asked.
“You wouldn’t want me to spoil the surprise.”
“I don’t mind trading,” Lee offered.
“Tell you what,” Freeman said. He dug through his wallet and pulled out a bill. “It’s worth twenty bucks to me to have you guys trade helmets.”
“I don’t know about this,” I said. The more Freeman tried to act breezy and conversational, the more ghoulish he sounded. I wanted to warn Lee over the interLink, but he had removed his helmet.
“You still don’t trust me?” Freeman said.
“Twenty dollars?” Lee asked. He gulped down his beer. “What can it hurt?”
“Thanks,” Freeman said, sounding pleased. “I’ll pick up your next round, too.”
“Don’t worry about it, Harris,” Lee said. “I’ll just head back with the rest of the platoon.”
Lee’s hanging back with the platoon sounded good to me. I could not think of any reason why Freeman might want to hurt Lee, but I still did not trust him.
Lee grabbed my helmet, and I took his.
“Look, Wayson, I need to pay the check. Why don’t you head across the street, and I’ll meet you in the hotel lobby.”
I took one last look at Lee, then put on his helmet. “Damn,” I whispered. Whatever he’d eaten for lunch had left a foul-smelling ghost in his rebreather. I got up from the bar and walked toward the door. Shannon and a few other soldiers waved as I left.
The street was completely empty by that time. I checked for cars, then trotted across the street to the hotel.
The outside of the hotel was built out of that same t
hick crystal—very likely an indigenous mineral of some kind. The lobby, however, was not so elegant. Poorly lit and cheaply decorated, it had metal furniture and a scuffed-up check-in desk. The unshaved clerk at the desk watched me as I entered the lobby, but said nothing.
“Let’s go,” Freeman said as he joined me a few moments later. He no longer smiled or wanted to talk, that was the Freeman I knew.
“So who are we here to see?” I asked.
He did not answer.
“Is it Crowley?” I asked.
“Not Crowley,” Freeman said.
Rather than take the elevator, Freeman ran up the stairs. We entered a dimly lit stairwell and climbed twelve flights. “You’re still charming as ever,” I said, as we reached the top.
Freeman pulled his handheld computer from his pocket and looked at it. “Hurry,” he said. “Your pals are getting ready to leave the bar.” He held the monitor so that I could see it. Apparently he had placed a remote camera under his seat. Looking at the monitor, I saw Shannon standing up. Some of the other men were already wearing their helmets and heading for the door.
We entered a red-carpeted hall with numbered doors. Freeman stopped under a hall light. He pulled a pistol from under his chestplate. He walked to room number 624. Pulling a key chip from his pocket, Freeman unlocked the door and let it slide open.
The only light in the room came from the glare of the street outside. We crept along the wall. We had entered a suite. Freeman pointed toward a bedroom door, and I stole forward to peer inside.
Looking across the room, I saw the pale moon through the top of a window. Someone was crouching beside that window, spying the street. I could only see his thick silhouette. In this dim light, he did not look human.
“He’s watching the bar door,” I whispered inside my helmet.
Using his right hand, the man brought up a rifle with a barrel-shaped scope. I had used a similar scope in training camp. It was an “intelligent” scope, the kind of computerized aiming device that offers more than simple magnification. “He’s looking for . . .”
Then I understood. I sprang forward. Hearing my approach, the sniper turned around and started to raise his rifle. By that time, I had leaped most of the way across the room. I grabbed the rifle, spun it over my right hand, and stabbed the butt into the assassin’s face. The man made an agonized scream and dropped to the floor.
I removed my helmet and went to the window. Raising the rifle, I looked down at the street through the scope. Most of the men from the platoon stood outside the door of the bar. The intelligent scope had an auto-action switch set to fire. The scope read the identifier signals from our helmets. The scope would locate a preset target, and the rifle would shoot automatically. In the center of the pack, Corporal Vincent Lee was clearly identified as Corporal Wayson Harris—me. The scope made a soft humming noise as it automatically homed in on my helmet.
“You owe me twenty bucks, Harris,” Freeman said as he switched on the lights.
Lying dazed on the floor, the sniper moaned. One of his eyes was already starting to swell from the impact of the rifle, and blood flowed from the bridge of his nose. He reached up to touch his wounded face, and I noticed that his arm ended in a stub.
“Well, hello, Kline,” I said.
CHAPTER NINE
Ray Freeman trusted the Rising Sun police enough to let them put Kline in a holding cell, but he insisted on watching that cell until military police signed for the prisoner. Freeman’s wait would have been none of my business except that Captain McKay ordered me to remain with Kline until the MPs arrived as well. So the station captain placed a couple of chairs near Kline’s cell and told us to make ourselves at home.
For me, making myself “at home” meant removing my helmet. Freeman made himself at home by pulling out a twelve-inch knife that he had somehow slipped past station security and cleaning his fingernails. The knife looked deceptively small in Freeman’s large hands.
Admiral Klyber arrived with an intelligence officer as the first traces of sunrise shone through the wire-enforced windows. I jumped out of my chair and saluted, but Freeman remained seated. A slight smile played across Klyber’s lips as he regarded us. He returned my salute, and said the perfunctory, “At ease, Corporal.”
I was technically out of uniform. Looking down at my helmet, and feeling guilty, I said, “Sorry, sir.”
“Not at all, Corporal. As I understand it, you caught the prisoner while you were off duty.” Klyber then turned to face Ray Freeman. “I understand you were instrumental as well.”
Freeman said nothing.
“Sir,” I said, not wanting to contradict the senior-most officer in this part of the galaxy, but determined to set the record straight.
Klyber interrupted me. “This is Lieutenant Niles, from Naval Intelligence.”
I saluted.
He saluted back. “That’s your bubble?” he asked, pointing to my helmet.
“Yes, sir,” I said. Bubble , short for bubblehead, was Navy slang for Marines. And it was indeed mine. Lee and I had traded back after we caught Kline.
“Would you mind if I borrowed it? It could prove useful during my interrogation.”
“Yes, sir,” I said.
He took the helmet and excused himself.
“Why don’t you stay for the interrogation,” Klyber said, as Niles walked away. Freeman and I followed the admiral into a small dark room in which four chairs overlooked a bank of medical monitors and a large window. As we sat, a light came on at the other side of that window. Two policemen led Kline into the interrogation room and sat him on a small metal chair.
I must have been far too rough on Kline. No one had bothered to clean the dried blood from where I’d struck his face with the butt of the rifle. His left eye was swollen shut and purple. It looked wet and badly infected.
Niles entered the room carrying a large canvas bag in one hand and my helmet in the other. The policemen tried to cuff Kline’s arms behind the back of his chair, eventually closing one manacle around his left wrist and the other around his right elbow. As they did this, Niles arranged several objects on a small table near the door. The policemen prepared to leave, but Niles intercepted them and whispered something. Niles smiled as they left the room, then he turned to Kline, and said, “You make a pathetic assassin.”
“This is all a misunderstanding. An assassin?” Kline said. With his thick tongue, the S’s in “assassin” had a harsh sound—“azz-azin.” “I came here for a vacation. I thought I might do some hunting on Lake Pride.”
“And this is your rifle?” Niles held up Kline’s rifle and peered through its scope.
“It’s for hunting,” Kline said.
“You sound like quite the sportsman, Mr. Kline.” Niles was terse but not unfriendly. He placed the gun back on the table, then walked over to Kline, who shifted his weight on the small metal chair. “Is it Kline or Mr. Kline?”
“Kline.”
“I am asking if Kline is your first or last name.”
“Only one name, I am afraid.” Kline sounded distressed.
“Oh,” Niles said. “So you are an Atkins Separatist. As far as I know, only two kinds of people go by a single name—Morgan Atkins Separatists and professional musicians. If your right hand is any indication, I assume you are not a musician.”
“The term is ‘believer,’ not ‘separatist,’” Kline said in a sullen voice.
“My mistake,” Niles said.
“Tell you what, Kline. Let’s try an experiment. Let’s pretend that I am you, and you are . . . Let’s say that you are a corporal in the Marines. We’ll pretend that you are Corporal Wayson Harris, for instance. Are you with me so far?”
Kline shrugged. “I don’t understand the purpose of this?”
“Maybe this will help,” Niles said, lifting my helmet from the table.
“This is Corporal Harris’s helmet.” Niles stuffed it down over Kline’s head. Short and round, Kline was not made for combat armor. The circ
umference of his skull was slightly too large; but with some force, Niles managed to slam the helmet in place. Kline screamed as the lip of my helmet raked down across his wounded eye.
“Looks like a good fit,” Niles said.
Kline slumped forward in his chair, hyperventilating. Only the restraints around his arms kept him from falling to the floor. “What are you doing?” he moaned.
“My experiment,” the Intelligence officer said, sounding slightly offended. “You remember, we’re conducting an experiment?
“On the arrest report, it says that the scope on your rifle reads a frequency reserved for military use. That makes this scope contraband, and smuggling contraband between planets is a federal offense. And it gets worse. The report says that the auto-switch on this scope was set to go off when it located a specific signal. Now, why would the scope on a hunting rifle be set to read identifier signals in the first place? I’m sure this is all a colossal mistake.”
Kline said nothing.
“According to the police, that specific signal would be the identifying code broadcast by Corporal Harris’s helmet . . . the helmet you are wearing at this very moment. That would mean you came to Lake Pride hunting Corporal Harris.
“Me, I don’t believe that a law-abiding fellow like you came to Rising Sun hunting another human being. So here is my experiment.”
Niles picked up the rifle and walked behind Kline’s chair. “First, I will load this rifle.” He drew back the bolt. Deliberately fumbling the bullet so that it clanged against the barrel of the rifle several times, he slid it into the chamber and locked the bolt back in place.
“Now let’s see what happens when I hit to auto-switch and point the gun at that helmet you are wearing.”
“Don’t!” Kline shouted.
“A problem with my theory?”
“You’re going to kill me!” Kline’s voice bounced and fluttered. He was crying inside the helmet.
Without a word, the Intelligence officer removed the bullet from the rifle and pocketed it. He placed the rifle back on the table, then wrenched the helmet off Kline’s head. The prisoner whimpered and sat with his chin tucked into his flabby neck.
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