by Chris Bunch
“Too far,” Goodnight said. “We’ll take your deal.”
The clerk opened a safe, and counted out bundles of credits.
“We thank you,” Goodnight said.
“Thank you,” the clerk replied. “Hope your strike stays rich, and that you’ll keep coming back here.”
“Assuming everything and everybody works out,” Goodnight said, “there’s no reason not to.”
As they sealed their suits and cycled out through the business’s lock, Riss glanced back, saw the clerk on a com, talking excitedly, and glancing repeatedly after them.
• • •
Goodnight whistled.
Riss checked the mirror, shook her head sadly. “That’s really the kind of women you go for?”
“Well … yeah. What’s the matter with your outfit? I think it’s sexy.”
“In a cheap, tawdry sort of way, maybe.”
“So what? We aren’t in the Ritz, you know. What do you think of what I’m wearing?” Goodnight demanded. “I look like a pimp. A cheap pimp.”
M’chel looked at him. He did. He wore tight, too tight, pants in a light green hue, a matching shirt, a dark green half-jacket, and a burgundy neck scarf.
“Yikh,” she said.
What she was wearing suddenly didn’t look all that bad, compared to his garb. It was a gown, with a deep vee-neck, in hues of black. It was cut too low, slit too high, and clung far too closely to be suitable for anyone but a call girl or a guest at a beaux arts ball.
Matching thigh boots went under it.
“I can’t understand why you don’t like my clothes,” the store’s manager, a man a meter and a half tall, and two meters wide, worried. “Most people who come in here wanting duds for celebrating are perfectly satisfied.”
“See?” Goodnight said. “You at least look expensive.”
“Well …”
“Besides, there aren’t a lot of choices.”
M’chel looked around the “store,” once a freight barge. It seemed to sell everything. Along one wall were space suits, along another hung various arcane pieces of mining equipment. Farther back in the cavernous hold were foodstuffs, dry and in bulk, gourmet flash-frozen meals.
Beyond them were appliances and furniture.
Near the front was a big gun cabinet, and to the side clothing.
Hanging from the overhead was a “taxi,” probably fueled and ready to run.
“I say again my last,” Goodnight said. “This is not the rue Montaigne.”
“I noticed.”
“So let’s pay the man and go get ourselves noticed.”
“I might as well go naked.”
“We really would be noticed then, wouldn’t we?” Goodnight said, putting on a monstrous leer.
“Ring it up, my friend.”
“Yes, sir,” the storeman said.
“And answer us one question.”
“Gladly, sir.”
“Where’s the most dangerous place to eat?”
• • •
Alloy tubing, about five meters in diameter, snaked here and there, so miners didn’t have to suit up every time they went somewhere.
The tunnels were thronged with miners, their prey, and those further up the food chain who, in turn, fed off the momentarily flush miners.
Goodnight’s eyes were darting about, as if expecting someone to push through the crowd wearing a sign saying I WORK FOR MURGATROYD.
M’chel, still feeling claustrophobic, tried to lose the feeling she was moving through the cloaca of a large, metalloid creature, and match Goodnight’s cheer.
They found the restaurant/tavern the store owner had recommended. It had a sign out: SOUPY’S, and was the largest structure on 47 Alpha.
Unlike most of the other businesses and buildings, Soupy’s wasn’t a converted anything. It was a warren of passages, booths, and rooms, jutting off from a central bar where half a dozen bartenders, archaically wearing black trousers, long-sleeved white shirts with black bow ties, bustled about the three-deep bar.
There was a quieter lounge to one side, and Riss saw a dozen women in there, nursing drinks and sharkishly surveying prospective business.
Riss truly hoped none of them saw her as competition.
Goodnight went to a central desk, where an arrogant-faced maitre d’ looked at him, then suddenly smiled.
“Ah. M’sieu …”
“Atherton,” Goodnight said. “Atherton and Smedley.”
Riss covered surprise.
“Of course,” the man said. “You just arrived on 47 Alpha today, and we wish to welcome you, and hope your stay is a happy one.”
“I’m sure it will be,” Goodnight said. “We’ve got credits out the ka-yahoo that we really need to lose.”
“Ah. Then you’ll be interested in our gaming area, in the next section.”
“Maybe. After dinner.”
They were escorted to a table, and a waiter materialized.
“Soupy’s will be proud to buy you two a drink,” the matire d’ said. “In the hopes of a long, enjoyable association.”
“Bourbon Sazarac,” Goodnight said.
“I would like,” Riss said, “a Flaming Tomorrow.”
The waiter didn’t even flicker.
“I shall be right back with your order.”
“A question,” Goodnight started.
“No,” M’chel said. “Me first. Why Atherton as your cover name? Don’t you think anybody remembers the cave?”
“I don’t care if they do,” Chas said carelessly. “I’m a bit tired of slinking about in the shadows, and wouldn’t mind having some nice, clear-cut enemies to take a shot at.”
“I don’t know,” M’chel said. “Seems to me like setting yourself up before you know the game rules.”
“Maybe,” Goodnight said. “But there’s no point in second guessing, is there?”
“Second question, then,” Riss asked. “Why in the name of whatever, am I going to have to drag around the name of Smedley? Stupid sounding at best.”
Goodnight laughed.
“Basic harassment, that was. I’ve been too good a boy to you for too long.”
The drinks arrived, Riss’s in a tall goblet that tucked in at the lip.
The waiter touched a match, a real wooden match to the mixture, and fire shot toward the ceiling.
“Great Leaping Zot,” Goodnight exclaimed.
“What’s in that?”
“Various liqueurs,” the waiter said. “It has an … interesting taste.”
Riss slid her hand across the top, and the flames went out. She lifted the goblet, drank, set it back on the table, and smiled.
“M’dam clearly is familiar with her drink,” the waiter said, impressed. He took menus from the back of his belt, handed them over.
“I shall return in a few moments.”
“What’s so special about …” Goodnight picked up Riss’s drink, took a taste, opened his mouth, panted wordlessly two or three times.
“It sends signals, doesn’t it?” Riss asked.
“It … does … such as my lungs … and gut would really like it … if I could breathe … sometime this century,” Goodnight said laboriously.
• • •
Riss wanted something large and rare, with moving being an acceptable addition. She sent back the first steak with a sneer for being rubber carpet, dove into the second, making small satisfied sounds as she did.
Goodnight, who preferred slices of a spiced fowl loaf, watched her eat. “Like a bester,” he said. Riss nodded.
“When I get on solid … well, semisolid land, I want some kind of reward for my cleancuttedness.”
“I don’t believe that’s a word.”
“It is now,” she said.
They ate on, contentedly, making idle chat.
Goodnight told her that, while he was waiting for her to get ready to go out, he had gone through a few of the hotel’s rooms.
“Just in case,” Riss asked, “you happened to
spot someone with a great big pearl necklace? Or just for old time’s sake?”
“Probably the latter,” Goodnight said, and went on to describe some of the rooms. It seemed someone, possibly the previous owners, had romance in their soul.
“They went berserk with casting ‘plas and what they could scrounge,” he said. “There’s everything from what, I think, is supposed to be an Earth medieval princess’s chambers to a cave to a room with leather walls and straps that I decided not to think about.”
He shook his head.
“And here I was the lad who grew up thinking all men are created moral. I tell you, M’chel, dreams die hard.”
Riss realized Chas, when he wasn’t trying to be the universal lothario, could be quite charming. They finished with a real chocolate mousse, and Riss was considering a cheese plate when the waiter put down a white plate with a handwritten card on it:
I would appreciate a moment of your time when you finish dining, if you would not mind the imposition.
Soupy Schmid
Goodnight grinned at the waiter.
“We wouldn’t mind at all. Would you direct us?”
It took no imagination to pick Schmid out of the crowd in the gaming room. He sat on an oversize lookout’s chair, about a meter above the heads of the crowd, surveying what Riss was sure he thought was his kingdom in an appropriately regal manner.
Schmid was a big man, bigger even than Goodnight, with a barrel chest, and thick, straight black hair he wore long. He would have been in his fifties, and his face was lined, cruel.
His neck had a wide scar, where someone had almost succeeded in cutting his head off.
He saw them approach, came down easily from the chair.
“Mr. Atherton … Miss Smedley … my table is over here.”
It was in a corner, and had a decanter and three crystal glasses on it.
Schmid took the chair with its back against the wall, indicated the others with a wave.
“I’m more comfortable not having to worry about someone coming up behind me,” he explained and, without asking any preference, poured the glasses half full.
Neither Riss nor Goodnight argued.
“Word travels fast,” Schmid said. “The story is that you’re most fortunate in your workings.”
“Thanks,” Goodnight said, tasting the drink to find, a bit to his surprise, that it was a very sweet, very potent fruit brandy, not at all to his liking. But he sipped, set the glass back down.
“Thank you for choosing to patronize Soupy’s,” Schmid said. “I assume your meal … which, of course, I choose to put on my tab … was satisfactory?”
“It was,” Riss said.
“Are you a gambler, either of you?”
“Not generally on tables,” Riss said. “Punching holes in rocks is enough of a chance for me.”
“I’m not quite as definite about that as my partner,” Goodnight said. “But I’m no more than indifferent to games of chance.”
“I wish I could share your control,” Schmid said. “Unfortunately, the whiffle of cards or the rattle of dice is like a mating call to a wild animal.
“Which is why I’m very grateful that Soupy’s, as prosperous as it is, isn’t my main source of income.”
“And that is?” Riss asked.
“I am, primarily, an insurance agent. I particularly specialize in high risk policies.”
“Such as?” Goodnight asked.
“My most successful field is in the mining area, insuring against accidents and even acts of God, if anyone today still believes in Him.”
“You mean, like earthquakes?” Riss said.
“No, of course not. I mean such things as unfortunate industrial accidents, which your field is most prone to, and particularly against these damnable raiders who’ve made life such a grief here in the belt.”
“You mean you can guarantee a claim won’t be hit by those bastards?” Goodnight put heavy disbelief in his voice.
“Be as skeptical as you will,” Schmid said. “But it is a fact, which you’re welcome to verify tomorrow at my office, that none of the claims or miners I’ve written policies on have been hit by these high-graders.
“The percentage of success is far greater than any interpretation of chance could allow.”
“How are your policies set?” Riss asked.
“I’m a very just, very fair man,” Schmid said. “I predicate the cost of my policies on the income of the insured miner.”
“So someone with a rich strike pays more than someone who’s just shoveling sand?” Goodnight asked.
“It’s only fair.”
“And in just these few minutes, I’ve truly grown to respect you, Mr. Schmid, for your truth, honesty, and fairness,” Goodnight said, standing, and, with a bit of ceremony, pulling the stopper from the decanter and upending it across Schmid’s head.
“You bastard!” Schmid growled, and his hand went under the table.
Goodnight reached into his rear waistband, and came out with a small blaster.
“If your hand comes out with anything but fingers, Schmid, you are one dead gangster.”
Schmid moved carefully back from the table, empty hands spread, palm up.
“After this contretemps,” Goodnight said, “I certainly couldn’t expect you to still pay for dinner.”
He reached with his free hand into a pocket, took out a sheaf of credits, and put them on the table.
“Good night, Mr. Schmid.”
He and Riss made their way through the gambling room, now hushed, and out of the restaurant.
“That’s what I like about you,” Riss said. “Always the first with the subtle move.”
“Yeah,” Goodnight said. “So now we know who’s running the protection racket and that Schmid is sure as hell in bed with Murgatroyd, which’ll make our Freddie happy as soon as we report the evening to him.
“Now all we have to do is wait for them to come out in the open, survive the encounter, and run the trail back to Murgatroyd and that frigging cruiser.”
“Survive the encounter. You say that with such nonchalance. Like it’s a mere frip of a frippery,” Riss said.
“Yeah,” Goodnight said again. “I worry about gangsters like I worry about whether my hair’s parted right.
“Hey, M’chel. Did I pronounce ‘contretemps’ right?”
FIFTY-ONE
“And what seems to be the problem, Mr. von Baldur? Is there some problem with the ships? Or has that unlucky transport … the one you named the Boop-Boop-A-Doop, brought ill fortune?” Winlund, the used warship salesperson asked, concern evident.
Von Baldur wondered, cynically, if her bosses hadn’t gotten around to paying her commission yet, dismissed the thought as unworthy.
“None of that,” he reassured her. “The only problem, and it is very slight, is getting the paperwork straightened out with Transkootenay Mining.”
“That’s strange,” Winlund said. “Even though they haven’t done business with us lately, we certainly did in the past, as I told you, and everything was most amicable.”
“That puzzles me, too,” von Baldur said. “Would it be too much trouble for you to look up a couple of invoices previous to ours, and see who the authorizing person was? Perhaps we are going to … or, I should say, trying to go through, the wrong bureaucrat.”
“It’s irregular, of course,” Winlund said. “But there’s no reason I can’t help you. Hold on.”
Her screen blanked. Von Baldur turned to another keyboard, and continued bringing Star Risk’s logbook up to date.
That should have been Jasmine King’s job, but she was busy in another part of the ship, chasing something or other around the bowels of Glace.
Von Baldur’s screen reopened.
“Here we have it,” Winlund said. “Yes. The authorization … several of them … came from Mfir. From a Reg Goodnight. Terrible handwriting the man has.”
Von Baldur had kept his face blank, calm.
“Very good
.”
“Do you want me to transmit a copy?”
“No,” he said. “I do not think so. And I certainly wish to thank you for your help. Oh. One further question. Might I ask what Goodnight was buying?”
Winlund looked off screen.
“It must have been part of the security requirement,” she said. “This one at least was for ten of the old N’yar ships. We offered them quite a deal, since they’re somewhat obsolescent.”
“No wonder they liked your idea of buying those Pyrrhus-class ships from me.”
“Of course,” von Baldur said. “One final question, and this one has little to do with Transkootenay. Have you heard of anyone buying a large ship, one of the Sensei-class cruisers that used to be standard Alliance issue?”
Winlund considered, shook her head.
“I haven’t, sir. And I think I would’ve, since that’s a fairly large chunk of iron, and would be noticed out here on the fringe.”
“Yes,” von Baldur said. “Yes, it would, would it not?” He thanked her again, and broke the connection.
“Oh what a tangled web we do interlink indeed,” he said thoughtfully, as Grok came into the wardroom.
He carried a printout, and was gently growling to himself.
“We have trouble,” he said. “Or, rather, M’chel and Chas have trouble.
“One of my mechanized sweeps picked this up about four E-hours ago. It appeared to come from somewhere beyond the asteroids, possibly a ship, possibly from one of the ice giants’ moons. It wasn’t long enough to get a positive direction.
“The transmission is in a code I broke some time ago, one the raiders were using just before we got here. I thought it might give us a lead to their current codes, but without luck.
“Their current codes are very current; this one is a simple scramble. Fairly simple, anyway. It uses one time pads, which is good, but commercially available one time pads, which is most sloppy.”
“So what is it, man?” von Baldur asked.
Grok stared at him.
“Man? Did you drink your lunch?”
“Sorry. No insult intended,” von Baldur said. “What does it say?”
Grok handed it across. “The x’s are, of course, symbols I’m not able to translate as yet, and the words in parentheses are my probably correct extrapolations. I don’t have the sending station decoded yet, and there was no closing.”