The Scoundrel Worlds: Book Two of the Star Risk Series

by Chris Bunch

  There were three other criminals being deported with him, who appeared resigned to their fate. They would provide an excellent smoke screen for von Baldur, and he tried to appear as defeated as they were.

  Once they reached the orbital station, and someone started going crazy looking for the nonexistent world of Hastings, von Baldur could busy himself getting free, out of custody, and headed out of the Torguth System.

  It was not the first, nor the fifth, time he’d used a space station to transship himself somewhere other than where he was supposed to be going.

  TWENTY-SIX

  M’chel Riss waited impatiently at the spaceport. Von Baldur hadn’t sounded as usually cocky when he’d commed Star Risk. She wondered if things had gone wrong in the Torguth Worlds.

  She also wondered why von Baldur was coming in on a tour ship from some unknown world that was way the hell away from Torguth. But she’d made her way to Montrois’s primary port, and was leaning against a column, watching the cruise ship unload.

  Riss marveled at the way people dressed when they were on vacation, as if sense and propriety weren’t required, and a tourist could dress — or undress — as he or she wanted.

  M’chel shuddered, turning away from a woman who must have weighed close to 200 kilos, wearing a diaphanous scarf across her hobbling breasts that sagged to mid-chest, with bodyless hair bleached and then stained in three colors as she waddled past, screeching for her two evident sons, almost as heavy, to follow her.

  Just behind her was another poor specimen. A hunch-shouldered man, whose job must be selling the least commercial of items, shambled forward. He oozed defeat, from his crumpled, loud, hand-woven hat to his brightly colored sandals. In addition, the poor bastard had a purplish birthmark splattered across one side of his face that he’d never had removed.

  Riss had a moment to thank a god or two that at least she hadn’t been born like those two, let alone the poor damned children, when the salesman stopped beside her.

  “Let us get out of this place at once,” von Baldur said.

  “Good god,” Riss managed.

  “No,” von Baldur said. “No, he is not. But we can discuss theology while we are on our way back to headquarters. Or,” he corrected himself, “after we stop at a decent clothing store, and then a restaurant so I can wash the taste of that abysmal slop they called gourmet dining among the stars out of my mouth.

  “It has not been a wonderful month for me. Not wonderful at all.”

  TWENTY-SEVEN

  Reynard listened closely as Star Risk gave him what information they’d developed, without mentioning von Baldur’s trip to Tristan.

  “The most important thing we have learned,” von Baldur finished, “is that there is an agent within Ha — a mole — who is still operational. And L’Pellerin and the DIB, in spite of his boasts, haven’t been able to uncover him or her or maybe they.”

  “I’ve always been skeptical of that man,” Reynard said. “He postures too much about knowing everything about everyone. When I return to the government, I shall certainly be considering his replacement.”

  “We have other things to worry about first,” Riss said. “Such as getting Sufyerd out of the lethal chamber.”

  “A question,” Goodnight said. “Sufyerd’s been tried and convicted. What does it take to appeal a court-martial, or, if he’s been turned down on appeal, to reopen the case around these parts?”

  “Obviously, it takes being able to produce the real culprit or overwhelming evidence of the convicted person’s innocence,” Reynard said. “Or else proof of malfeasance by the court.”

  “It seems to me,” Grok said, “that we maybe ought to be taking this in small steps. For instance, can we get enough evidence … of any sort … to confuse the issue, and get Sufyerd transferred off that satellite on the thinnest of pretexts?”

  “What good would that do?” Reynard asked. “He’ll still be under sentence of death.”

  “Right,” Goodnight said. “But the farther he is from the gas chamber, the longer it’ll take for the bastards to kill him.”

  “Oh,” Reynard said. “But of course. Forgive my thickness.”

  “If we could get our hands on those letters between Hyla Adrianopole and Ladier,” Jasmine King said, “that might give us some evidence.”

  “Half of Montrois wants to read those letters, the other half seems to want to burn them,” Reynard said. “Do you have anything that might help us find them?”

  “The Pacifist is still running teasers, as I believe they’re called, that the letters will run,” Grok said, “in spite of the murder of Fall, the editor. I would guess they would begin running when the trial starts.”

  “Which is in two weeks,” King said.

  “I’ll work on that end,” von Baldur said, deliberately vague.

  “In the meantime,” Riss said, “we want to find and talk to those other three members of Sufyerd’s cell in Ha, and Sufyerd’s boss. Caranis has told us to piddle up a rope, so we’ll get no cooperation from him. Can you get us any leads on the four?”

  “Probably,” Reynard said. “Almost certainly.”

  He sighed, rose. “We seem to be making small, if definite, progress, in spite of the money I’ve spent,” he said a bit mournfully. “But I see no other course but to hammer on.”

  “One other thing,” Goodnight asked. “Maybe you could get a location on Cerberus Systems’s headquarters and suboffices, if any, for us?”

  “What will you do — ” Reynard stopped abruptly. “No. I do not want to know what you want with them. It makes deniability much easier. Yes, I can get that data for you.”

  When he left, Riss nodded to von Baldur. “Good going, Friedrich.”

  “Thank you,” von Baldur said. “I figured you might catch it.”

  “Catch what?” Goodnight asked.

  “That,” M’chel explained, “the agent that Freddie killed … or anyway, maimed a lot … back on Tristan would’ve been operating under instructions from Torguth’s Intelligence or Counter Intelligence.”

  “Of course,” Goodnight said.

  “Which meant he reported von Baldur’s contact with him, without knowing who Freddie represents, and his control decided to pick up Freddie. And this control also would’ve notified the real mole that someone is looking for him, and Sufyerd didn’t work as much of a judas goat.

  “Since it’s evidently common knowledge as to what we’re doing here, A leads quite naturally to B.”

  “Which means,” Goodnight said, getting it, “we’re targets for any Torguth headbangers around here. Not to mention the local talent.”

  “Just so,” Riss said. “But with any luck somebody’ll take a shot at us, they’ll miss, and we’ll have another lead.”

  “Which is why I asked about Cerberus,” Goodnight said. “I think we should go out and rattle their cage.”

  “Any particular reason,” Riss asked, “other than we don’t like the assholes and for pure meanness?”

  “That’ll at least make them, and everyone else around, realize that we are not good to have as enemies,” Goodnight said. “Do we need anything better?”

  King was grinning broadly, and Grok was nodding. There was no need for a vote.

  “Plus I’ll be looking for Sufyerd’s old bunkies.” Goodnight sighed. “Going door to door, ringing a bell, waving a three-D, asking ‘Have you seen this man-slash-woman?’

  “This job sure is different than just running around with guns and blasting people hither and thither,” Goodnight said.

  “Cheer up,” M’chel said, patting his cheek. “With any luck, it’ll get as bloody as you like things to be.”

  TWENTY-EIGHT

  The sniper opened up at dusk, just when the guards were being changed. One of them went down with a ricocheted bolt in the upper thigh, bloody and painful. The sniper’s second and third shots went wild.

  Another guard kicked the general alarm switch, and everyone within reach of a gun came out, ready for ba
ttle.

  The cargo lifter the shooter had been hiding in was already in the air, and only Riss and Goodnight got rounds off in time enough to make interesting but harmless holes in the lifter’s rear loading gates.

  Then it was gone.

  They brought the wounded guard inside. He was conscious and, being a new hire and wanting to make sure everybody knew he was a badass, made cheerful jokes about his wound bonus kicking in, and that he couldn’t wait to come back.

  Riss and King, both medic-trained, stopped the bleeding, hit the man with pain ampoules, and got him off to a hospital, his shift commander riding shotgun.

  “Well?” von Baldur asked.

  “Not that good,” Riss said quietly. “He’ll get more than that wound bonus … he’ll be awhile healing, and they’ll have to transplant a fair amount of tissue into the hole, so we’ll pay him off and ship him back to wherever was home.

  “I don’t think he’ll lose the leg, but it’ll be close. He’ll most likely walk with a limp from here on out.

  “Goddamnit” she said fiercely, “I wish it was like the romances, and people who get shot would have nothing but nice, picturesque little drools of gore, and keep right on keeping on with gritted teeth and patriotic slogans.”

  “That’s one for them,” Goodnight said. “I think we should be considering a bit of revenge.”

  “I think the first order of business,” Grok said, “will be to figure out which them is the them.”

  TWENTY-NINE

  “I have a confession to make, Jasmine,” Grok growled, somewhat tenderly covering her hands with an enormous paw.

  King looked a bit alarmed, knowing little about the alien’s romantic habits. She sipped from her glass of wine, and managed a smile.

  The proprietor of L’Montagnard raised both her eyebrows at what she thought was a mildly passionate moment, but shrugged with true Montrois sophistication and went back into the kitchen.

  “I am feeling a new emotion,” Grok continued. “I think it might have a human parallel, called homesickness.”

  Jasmine relaxed and patted Grok’s paw.

  “This system … these worlds,” the alien went on, “with every hand turned against everyone else, reminds me of my own cluster, and the way each of us competes with everyone else — at least until bribed or convinced a project will benefit them as well. Truly these are scoundrel worlds.”

  “As von Baldur said,” King agreed. “Perfect for our sort.”

  “They are,” Grok said. “And contemplating that, I think one of our priorities should be either ending enmity, in any way we choose, which is unlikely, or forcing our enemies to combine, which will make them more visible and easier to destroy.

  “I wonder, for instance, who that sniper yesterday was working for, or if she or he was just someone who dislikes foreigners.”

  “Let’s consider our list of baddies, then,” King said. “We have … personal choices first … Cerberus Systems. Then the Masked Ones. Then the Universalists … at least those who’re determined to murder Sufyerd. Then there’s the mole in Strategic Intelligence. Plus Caranis. And I doubt if L’Pellerin and his Dampier Information Bureau think well of us. Anyone else?”

  “Probably the police would be just as happy if we vanished,” Grok said. “And Torguth, naturally, but they haven’t become an active factor. Yet.

  “This kind of situation — gears within wheels, or however the expression goes — makes me very glad I chose to invest in Star Risk.”

  “Personally,” King said, “I’ll be happier when at least a few of our assorted foes have been taken out.”

  “Precisely what we should be planning,” Grok said. “A worthy topic to discuss over, say, a raclette. We might have some good ideas we can bring up to the others.”

  THIRTY

  For once, the team was assembled for a common dinner when M’chel Riss stomped in.

  “You look disturbed. Not to mention pissed and discombobulated,” Goodnight said, adding, in a breath, “Haveadrink.”

  “I will,” Riss said. “Maybe several.”

  She went to the sideboard, eyed the selections, poured a decent snifter of an old brandy, shot it back, whuffed, then chased it with some ice water and chased the ice water with another brandy.

  “So what happened?” von Baldur said. “Wasn’t this Faadi cooperative? Or didn’t you find him?”

  They’d gotten addresses of Sufyerd’s cell from Reynard, and were beginning to track them down.

  “I found him,” Riss said grimly. “And he wasn’t cooperative. Mainly because he was dead.” She drank, watched the reactions.

  “Clearly,” Jasmine said, “not of old age. Or you wouldn’t be so tight-faced.”

  “You read right,” Riss said. “It seems that about a week after Sufyerd’s court-martial — which Faadi also didn’t testify at, like the others — he was run down while crossing the street on a midnight stroll. And the vehicle that nailed him was never found.”

  “Interesting,” von Baldur murmured.

  “I looked up the autopsy,” Riss said. “He was pretty thoroughly mangled. Almost like somebody pitched him out of a lifter, instead of running him down.”

  “I do not like that a lot,” von Baldur said.

  “Nor I,” Grok said. “We’d best accelerate in searching for the others, to mention the obvious.”

  “I think,” Jasmine said, “we also should be pondering who might have interest in causing such a, quote, ‘accident,’ end quote.”

  “And what’s that going to get us?” Goodnight asked. “I can give you the answer right now. Almost anybody.”

  THIRTY-ONE

  It wasn’t a very good gambling hell, Chas Goodnight decided.

  The old-fashioned roulette wheel next to him had hidden electromagnets, powerful enough to send the white ball skidding across the wheel without rolling. They were worked by the croupier, who kept one hand in his pocket. Either that, or he had an amazing case of crab lice.

  One of the card games — he wasn’t familiar with the game they were playing — clearly had an eye in the sky, somehow sending signals to the housemen on when to bet, and when to fold out.

  The six-dice table had the best croupier in the joint, able to switch a straight die for a shaved one while flirting with a mark on the table, generally without Goodnight being able to spot him.

  Spotting the various cheats was about all that was keeping Chas awake. He would’ve turned a card or two himself, but he only bet in honest casinos … or at least ones where the rigging wasn’t this obvious — or where he thought he could outcheat the cheaters.

  Division Leader Caranis, three tables over, hadn’t spotted anything at all. He was plunging madly at Rhadian twist, a game with impossible odds, made worse because any combination of other players could change the scoring procedure with “wild cards” — actually electronic switching.

  Plus the houseman had foot controls controlling the spinners under the carpet.

  Twice Goodnight had seen Caranis bust out, go to the cage, and come back with more credits.

  “That man sure likes life to be exciting,” he said, pretending admiration to the bartender.

  She smiled mechanically. “Mister Caranis is one of our favorite guests,” she allowed.

  Chas knew what that meant in any gambling joint — he was a consistent loser, without a clue as to how any game should be played.

  “He was born rich?” Chas hazarded.

  “Guess so,” the bartender said. “He’s government, somebody said, and I never heard of any paper shuffler getting paid well enough to flash the lights the way he’s doing.”

  “Ah,” Goodnight said, finished his drink, tossed a coin on the bar, and started out, having seen enough.

  Watching Caranis had been very interesting, especially since Goodnight had done a little basic research, and acquired a copy of Caranis’s canned bio, in which he boasted of having come from a poor farming family on one of Dampier’s agricultural worlds, a worl
d famous for being eternally poverty-struck.

  Division Leader Caranis would definitely need some more investigation.

  THIRTY-TWO

  “There’s nothing to be afraid of, Miss Guames,” Jasmine King soothed through the crack in the door.

  The middle-aged woman looked at her timidly.

  “No,” she said. “I always spent my life, my whole career in Ha, being careful of what I said, what I did. And now I’m retired, but I don’t see anything wrong with keeping silent.”

  “Except if everyone keeps silent, Maen Sufyerd will die.”

  “I’m sorry for him,” Ayalem Guames said. “But the court-martial decided he was guilty, and who am I to stand against them?”

  “Someone who believes in the truth,” King said.

  Guames glowered at her, fluffed her apron.

  “You one of those Jilanis?”

  “No,” Jasmine said. “My firm’s been retained to help prove Legate Sufyerd innocent. We’re not religious.”

  “Hard telling,” the woman said. “Huh. All those years I worked in Ha, and I thought I could tell what people are, what they think. Look how wrong I was. About Sufyerd, and … and other things.”

  “What other things?” Jasmine asked.

  “Things like … no. I swore I’d not talk about anything, and I haven’t told any of the people who’ve come around anything.”

  “Why not?”

  “You know about Balkis Faadi?”

  “I know that he was killed in an accident.”

  “Some accident,” Guames sniffed.

  “Do you know anything about it?”

  “No,” Guames said. “But I don’t need to know anything to figure out that accidents can happen to some of the best people. Especially if they’re not really accidents.”

  “These people who’ve come around that you talked about,” Jasmine said. “Do you have any idea who they might be?”

  “I don’t. Didn’t ask, didn’t even speculate. I’ve got a daughter who’s going to have a baby in three months, and I’d like to be around to see what my grandchild looks like.”