by C. J. Ryan
“Lovely lady, Jill,” Opatnu said. “Not the equal of her even lovelier boss, of course.” Opatnu stepped back a pace to take a better look at Gloria, who was wearing nothing but a silver-and-blue pareu, fastened with a turquoise brooch.
“Her lovely boss,” Gloria said, “wouldn’t want to get in the way of anything.”
“I think Jill understands the situation.”
“Nevertheless, I don’t want people who work for me to think I’m interfering in their love life.”
“Laudable of you. Still, allow me to point out that Jill is not here tonight and doesn’t need to know anything about this.”
“True,” Gloria agreed. “You know, I think I’ve done my quota of schmoozing for this evening.”
“Strangely enough,” said Opatnu, “so have I.”
GLORIA AND ELI SAT NEXT TO EACH OTHER ON a sofa in her suite, sipping expensive brandy, following an explosive interlude in her bedroom. Sex with Eli, augmented by a little jigli and Forty-eight, was a searing, incandescent experience, like nothing she had ever done before. Even Charles had never matched Eli’s volcanic sexuality, although she wondered what Charles might achieve with the aid of Forty-eight. She might have a chance to find out, she discovered, when Eli offered her a present.
He pulled a handful of lozenges from his pocket and carefully deposited them on the coffee table—half a dozen purple pills, and as many green ones.
“Forty-eight,” Gloria cried in delight.
“Purple’s the Forty-eight,” he explained, “and green is the neutralizer. Just in case. Enjoy.”
Gloria gave him a kiss, then picked up one of the purple lozenges and examined it. “Back on Earth,” she said, “I was told that it wouldn’t be ready for full distribution for at least another six months. Do you know if they’ve been having problems with it?”
“Some, from what I hear. In spite of the warnings, some people get carried away and crunch down on it. There have been some deaths reported. I gather that there’s some debate about whether they should routinely give out the neutralizer along with the Forty-eight. That might just encourage people to go ahead and crunch down. Anyway, I expect they’ll get it all sorted out before long, and you’ll be able to get Forty-eight on Earth and throughout the Empire. In the meantime, just be careful with it.”
“I’ll think of you every time I use it,” Gloria told him.
“I can’t imagine a greater compliment,” he said. Opatnu pulled her closer and kissed her.
Before they had broken, the outer door of the suite opened, and in walked Petra and Jill. Gloria saw the sudden look of hurt on Jill’s face, but was immediately distracted by the look of triumph on Petra’s.
“We got it!” Petra declared. “We know where they took the weapons!”
THE SAME HIGH-POWERED GROUP AS THE PREVIOUS morning had assembled in the conference room at Gibraltar, and Gloria watched with a feeling of pride and accomplishment as Petra stood and delivered a summary of her findings. Her assistant looked smart, sexy, and confident in her gray skirt, blue blazer, and half-unbuttoned white silk shirt. After the way things had worked out with Pug Ellison, Gloria was glad to see Petra rebound so quickly. Not many Thirteens ever got the chance to brief Norman Mingus.
Petra stood next to a large display screen and explained her search strategy quickly and efficiently, then turned to describe what was on the screen. “This is a representation of the local region of space, centered on New Cambridge,” she said. “After the first stage of our search for possible routes for the thirty-one trips by those seven freighters in the final four months of 3163, this is what we wound up with.” The screen suddenly blossomed in a profusion of arcing red lines that looked like the tracks of subatomic particles in the beam of a high-speed collider.
“Three hundred and fourteen possible routes,” Petra said. “Then we looked for planetary systems that could have been visited at least three times.” Petra clicked a key in her palm pad, and most of the red lines on the screen disappeared. “That brought us down to thirty-seven possible destinations. However, if you look at each individual route, you find that eighteen of them don’t make sense, practically speaking. This one, for example, goes out ninety-six light-years, then doubles back on itself fifty-three light-years, then out again twenty-seven light-years. It seemed unlikely that anyone would plot such a path, so we discarded such cases.”
The screen responded to Petra’s command, and nearly half of the remaining traces vanished. “That left us with nineteen possibilities. But eleven of them plot courses in the direction of Ch’gnth territory. It’s highly unlikely that anyone would have gone in that direction in the fall of 3163. Even after the Empire victory at Savoy in September, the Ch’gnth still had plenty of power in the region. It would make no sense to transport the weapons to a place where they might fall into the hands of the enemy. In addition, I doubt that Bartholemew would have risked his ships that way. So now, we were left with just eight possible destinations.”
Gloria noticed that the people around the table were beginning to lean forward slightly. Petra had their complete attention.
“Of the remaining eight,” Petra continued, “I eliminated Halcyon. It seemed unlikely that they would transport the weapons from one big, busy, well-regulated port to another. And although it’s smaller than Halcyon, I eliminated Ifni for the same reason. Two more, I eliminated because they were too small. Parker’s Planet has nothing on it except a minor Imperium mining operation. And St. Regis is just a tiny Catholic utopian community, centered around a monastery. Bringing the weapons to either place would have attracted too much attention. So now, we’re down to just four.
“Each of the four is an uninhabited planetary system. They don’t even have names, just Imperial Survey numbers. This one,” Petra said, tapping a spot on the screen, “has no terrestrial planets, just gas giants and some very small moons. And this one is a variable star that flares up every sixteen months. It didn’t strike me as a likely destination, so I eliminated that one, as well.”
Petra paused, glanced quickly at Gloria, then continued. “Of the remaining two, this one, GAC 4361, has two terrestrial planets. But one of them is a Venus-clone, and the other is smaller than Mars, very cold, and has almost no atmosphere. Which brings us to GAC 4367.”
A single red dot remained on the screen. “The third planet from this star was first surveyed by the Terrestrial Union nearly nine hundred years ago. It’s a scumworld.”
As humans advanced into the galaxy, they had discovered that life was quite common, but usually not very interesting. On most planets where life had evolved, it was similar to the sort of life that had dominated Earth for more than three billion years: pole-to-pole mats of one-celled, blue-green algae. They came to be known as scumworlds.
“As you know,” Petra said, “in the early era of human expansion, prime real estate was hard to find, and the old Terrestrial Union embarked on an ambitious program of terraforming. Scumworlds were considered candidates because the algae had created an oxygen-rich atmosphere. Anyway, the Union established a small, preliminary base on GAC 4367-III in 2297. Not much was accomplished, terraforming went out of vogue, and the base was abandoned in 2349. As far as we know, that base is still there. It’s just forty-three light-years from New Cambridge, and I think that’s where Bartholemew took those weapons.”
There was a long moment of silence around the conference table. Finally, Norman Mingus said, “An excellent piece of work, Ms. Nash. Thank you very much.” Petra tried but failed to suppress a grin as she returned to her chair. Gloria reached over and gave her hand a squeeze.
Mingus looked around the table. “Well?” he asked. “Any comments?”
General Alvarez scowled and said, “Pretty damn thin, if you ask me.”
“You do make a lot of assumptions, Ms. Nash,” said Elizabeth Irons.
“How do you know they didn’t stash them in the basement of that monastery on St. Regis?” asked Gavin Chang. “Or at the bottom of a mine o
n Parker’s Planet?”
“For that matter,” said Alvarez, “I don’t see how you can justify eliminating Halcyon or Ifni.”
“Well,” Petra said, with obvious uncertainty in her voice, “it was necessary to make some assumptions, but I tried to put myself in Bartholemew’s head and look at things the way he would have. I just think that GAC 4367 is the most likely possibility.”
“We’re not claiming certainty,” Gloria quickly put in. “Maybe those weapons are hidden in that monastery. But the most reasonable assumptions all lead us to that scumworld Petra found. From Bartholemew’s point of view, it would have been perfect. An uninhabited world with an oxygen atmosphere, and storage facilities already available at the old Terrestrial Union base.”
“A base that was built over eight hundred years ago,” Alvarez objected. “For all we know, it collapsed centuries ago.”
“Maybe,” Gloria conceded, “but those old terraforming projects were supposed to take a couple of thousand years. They probably would have built that base to last.”
“I question the entire basis for this line of investigation,” said Chang. “Wherever those weapons went originally, is it reasonable to assume that this Bartholemew character absconded with them simply for the purpose of leaving them on some deserted hunk of rock for half a century? Seems to me, he would have sold them off at some point. Even if Ms. Nash’s assumptions are correct, those weapons were probably removed from that scumworld decades ago.”
Gloria noticed Mingus and DuBray staring at each other from opposite ends of the table. Mingus nodded fractionally, then looked at Chang. “Your point is well taken, Gavin,” he said, “but we can only work with the information now available to us. For our immediate purposes, I believe we should discount any speculation about what might have become of those weapons in later years. I think Ms. Nash has given us, at a minimum, a reasonable place to start. The question becomes, what do we do about it?”
“Isn’t that obvious?” Gloria asked. “I think we should send a LASS and a company of Marines to GAC 4367 immediately.”
If it was obvious to Gloria, it was anything but to General Alvarez. “Ms. VanDeen,” he said, “do you think Land-Air-Sea-Space vehicles grow on trees? Do you think Marines grow like weeds? Our resources here are already stretched to the breaking point. The Navy is now searching every last vessel that enters the New Cambridge system, and it has to be done before they reach port because the Orbital Station itself could be a target. We simply don’t have any ships available for fishing expeditions.”
Gloria turned to Chang. “Well, what about Dexta? Internal Security has its own ships.”
“All of which are engaged in the interdiction operation,” Chang responded. “Nor do we have personnel available to be diverted from their present responsibilities.”
Gloria could see where this was headed, and she didn’t like it. She turned to Petra. “Are there port facilities or landing strips on that planet?”
“According to the old Terrestrial Union charts we found, there’s no landing strip, but the base was built on the shore of a big bay. They must have had a dock.”
“Good. Then we can take a Cruiser.” She looked at Mingus. “Mr. Secretary,” she said, “unless you have any objections, on my authority as head of OSI, I intend to take a Cruiser and half a dozen of our Bugs and go check out that planet. Forty-three light-years is only about thirteen or fourteen hours in a Cruiser. We can leave this afternoon and probably be back by tomorrow evening.”
“And just what would you expect to accomplish with so small a force?” Alvarez asked. “Suppose you are right, and you find not only the weapons, but an active base crawling with PAIN terrorists? What then, Ms. VanDeen?”
“Then we’ll know, General Alvarez. This isn’t a military expedition, it’s simply a scouting party. And if we don’t come back by tomorrow evening, you’ll know that we ran into trouble. If we do come back, we’ll be able to tell you if the weapons are still there.”
“It still strikes me as a waste of resources,” said Alvarez. “But they aren’t my resources.” He looked at Mingus.
“Gloria,” Mingus said, “do I understand you correctly? You are planning to make this journey personally?”
“It’s my job,” she replied. “I mean, isn’t this the kind of thing that you created OSI to do in the first place?”
“Broadly speaking, I suppose so,” said Mingus. “Nevertheless, I never intended for you to go charging off like Custer looking for Indians. If you want to send your Internal Security people on this mission, I have no objection. But I think you should stay here.”
“Stay here doing what?” Gloria demanded. “Looking pretty at parties?”
“Let her go,” Cornell DuBray said from the other end of the table. Gloria looked at him in shocked surprise. He gave her a thin smile and said, “One thing I have learned recently is that it is never wise to underestimate Ms. VanDeen.”
Mingus’s eyebrows rose for a second, then he sighed and said, “Very well, then. Good luck, Gloria.”
JILL AND ELI OPATNU TRUDGED DOWN THE LONG flight of marble steps leading from the Imperial Court. “You weren’t much help,” Jill said to him.
Opatnu spread his arms in wounded innocence. “What would you have had me do?”
“You might have backed me up when I said that it was critical to get the Wendover records immediately.”
“What’s so critical about it? Jill, this investigation is likely to take months, if not years. The judge isn’t going to let us stampede him.”
“But the longer it takes us to get those records, the more chance they’ll have to alter them.”
“They could do that in fifteen minutes,” Opatnu pointed out.
“Well, we’d already have them if you hadn’t lured me to lunch, then back to your hotel, that first day. If I had been alone, I’d have gone straight to court and I’d have gotten them before Wendover could have filed for a restraining order.”
Opatnu stopped at the base of the steps and looked at her. “Are you telling me that you regret the hours we spent together in my hotel room?”
Jill gave him a crooked smile. “Well, no, I’m not saying that.”
“So if you’re not complaining about that, what are you complaining about? Last night?”
Jill looked down at her toes for a moment. “I just wasn’t expecting to see you there. It caught me off guard.”
Opatnu put his arm around her, drew her close, and gave her a kiss on the cheek. “I would never do anything to hurt you,” he said. “Gloria and I weren’t expecting to see you there, either.”
She pushed away from him. “What you and Gloria do is none of my business. I’m sorry, Eli, I know I’m being foolish.”
“What do you say we spend the rest of the afternoon being foolish together?”
“Well,” Jill said after a pause, “I can’t do anything more about Wendover. And I’m finished helping Petra. I suppose I really ought to spend the afternoon back at the Convention Center, schmoozing.”
Opatnu seized her hand, brought it up to his mouth, and kissed it. “Schmooze me,” he whispered.
And so she did.
PETRA ALLOWED HERSELF TO BE TAKEN TO lunch by Elizabeth Irons and some of her Internal Security people. It was a short lunch, since everyone but Petra had something to do, but Irons had been effusive in her praise. It was nice to be appreciated, and not just for her work; one of the young men on Irons’s staff had spent a lot of time looking down her unbuttoned shirt and asked if she was free for dinner. Petra was flattered, but was just too worn-out by her labors to accept. After lunch, she returned to the Imperial Cantabragian and collapsed on her bed.
An hour later, she was awakened by the arrival of two detectives from the Central Police. Blearily, she led them into the main room of the suite and offered them coffee. They accepted, so she called room service.
She tried to stay focused as the detectives explained that they were here for a routine follow-up in their i
nvestigation of the murder of Jamie Quincannon. They mainly seemed interested in whether she had anything new she might share with them. They asked the same questions several times in slightly different ways, and Petra managed to answer them without saying much of anything. The coffee arrived and she perked up a bit.
“Dexta’s investigation of the information we received from Mr. Quincannon is essentially complete,” she told the detectives. “I really don’t think we have anything relevant to add to what we’ve already told you. We already mentioned the possible zamitat connection. Didn’t that lead anywhere?”
“No, ma’am,” said one of the detectives, a man named Connors. “We haven’t turned up anything that would point in that direction. Oh, we know Quincannon was a partner of Whitney Bartholemew, and if the old man were still alive, maybe the zamitat would make sense. But his kid isn’t connected, as far as anybody knows. And it didn’t look like a zamitat hit. They’d have shot him, neat and clean.”
“So you don’t have any leads in the case?”
“Didn’t say that,” said Connors. “Quincannon was mixed up in some shady real estate deals, and we’re looking into that angle.”
Petra nodded. “He tried to rent me a room,” she said.
“He’s got some property here and there around the city. We’ve checked up on some of his partners in the real estate deals, but haven’t really developed anything. It’s possible that it was just some low-level street crime kind of thing. That’s a tough neighborhood, you know, and we didn’t find any cash on Quincannon’s body.”
“He was a nice old man,” Petra said. “I liked him.”
The cops finally got up to leave, but Connors stopped. “Ms. Nash? I know this isn’t any of my business, but half the people in the department are out looking for terrorists. I just wondered if you could tell me anything about how your investigation is going. My wife is real worried and wants to send the kids to stay with her sister in Brattle.”
“We think we’re making some progress,” Petra said, glad to be able to say that honestly.