He clicked fingernails against the table for attention, and the room fell silent.
Again he looked around at the fifty-odd men in the room. If Hakone were brighter, or more analytical, he might have wondered why none of the former military people had rank above one-star, why the industrialists were all people who had inherited their businesses from their forebears, and why the entrepreneurs were those who hustled borderline deals. But the nature of conspiracy is not to question.
‘Gentlemen,’ he began, his quiet voice a contradiction to his bear-like presence. ‘Before we begin, let me advise you that this room has been proofed against any known electronic eavesdropping, as well as any physical pickups. We are able to speak freely.’
A man stood. Hakone identified him as Saw Toyer, who’d increased his riches supplying uniforms for the Guard.
‘Time has passed, Sr. Hakone,’ he accused. ‘We – and I think I speak for us all – have given more than generously. We expected … something to happen following Empire Day. As you promised. Instead, and I am not asking to be privy to the secrets, nothing has occurred. At least nothing which we can see.
‘Were I not committed, I might ask if my credits are being poured into a black hole.’
‘That is the purpose of the meeting,’ Hakone answered. ‘To inform you of what has happened.’
Hakone could have gone into detail: that the attempt to shock and then kidnap the Emperor had gone awry. That the assassin had successfully fled Prime World. That his control and their operative doctor, Har Stynburn – ‘Dr. Knox’ – had disappeared. But that as far as Hakone knew, the dangling tails of that conspiracy had either been cleaned up – such as the murder of Tac Chief Kreuger – or had cleaned themselves up. But he knew that the secret to success is never to worry the money-men with minor problems.
‘Phase One, as you’ve said, went awry. But, you’ll notice, without any suspicion on the part of the Emperor, other than his assigning one of his personal soldiers to investigate. As guaranteed, we left no traces.
‘There is one problem, however. And that is that our normal source of intelligence has gone dry. We no longer have input to the Emperor’s next moves.’
Hakone swizzled his cheroot in the cognac and relit the cigar, waiting for the buzz of dismay to die. Gutless. Gutless, he thought. These men have never learned that there is always one more kilometer that you must go. So, his optimistic side answered, you learned long ago that you run with what you brought.
Hakone tapped for silence again. The buzz was louder as fear grew in the room. Hakone wetted a finger in the cognac and began moving it around the rim of the glass. The high whine silenced the throng.
‘Thank you,’ Hakone said. ‘What is past is past. Now for the good news. Our coordinator is most pleased with what is going on.’
‘Why?’ The snarl was unidentifiable.
‘Because in spite of our actions, and in spite of Imperial motion, there have been no breaks.’
‘So what do we do next – find holes and pull ’em in after ourselves?’ That came from Ban Lucery, one of the few industrialists Hakone respected.
‘That is a firm negative. Our coordinator – and I heartily agree with his decision – has said that we move to Phase Two of what we’ve dubbed Operation Zaarah Wahrid. Relax, gentlemen. The days of this intolerable Imperial control are numbered. There is no way Phase Two can fail.’
Chapter Thirty-One
The little men purveyed the logs from the pond, hooked them into the chain hoist, and the drunk sat against a pile of peeled logs and cheered. Naik Rai and Subadar-Major Chittahang Limbu watched approvingly.
Sten shut his model box down and the figures disappeared instantly, although he was sure that his ‘drunk’ had time to take another swig from the bottle before he vanished.
‘This is not good,’ Haik Rai said. ‘How will you remember which socks to wear?’
‘You are sure this is correct?’ Limbu echoed in Gurkhali.
‘Goddamn it,’ Sten swore. ‘I am not sure of anything, Subadar-Major. All I know is that I am detached on Imperial Service. All I know is that you are to take charge of the Gurkhas.
‘And all I know is that if you shame me, on Dashera it shall not be bullocks but ballocks that are cut off. By me, Subadar-Major.’
Limbu started to laugh, then saluted. ‘Captain, I have no idea what is happening. But I do have this feeling that none of us shall meet short of Moksa.’
Sten lifted a lip. ‘Thank you for your confidence, Chittahang. But I wave my private parts at that feeling. That is all. You are dismissed.’
The two Gurkhas saluted and were gone. Sten continued packing. Again the door signal buzzed, and Sten palmed it open.
It was Lisa. Sten noticed that she carried a debugging pouch that was on. The door closed, and he decided the first order of business was to kiss her thoroughly.
Eventually they broke. Lisa smiled up at him. ‘Everything is gaga.’
‘No drakh,’ Sten said. ‘You sound like the Eternal Emperor.’
‘You’re leaving.’
‘I say again my last. I know I am leaving. For the safe house.’
‘Nope,’ Haines said, coming back to the point. ‘I mean you’re leaving leaving. You and that tubby thug of yours.’
‘Uh-oh.’
‘We’ve found our famous Dr. Knox.’ And Haines threw a fiche onto Sten’s table.
‘Tell me about it.’
‘Dr. John Knox is actually named Hars Stynburn. Broken out of the Mercury Corps. Court-martial sealed: I quote “for the good of the Service” end quote.’
Sten felt a first wave of relief: at least the conspiracy didn’t involve the current Imperial military.
‘It seems that Dr. Stynburn, who always was fairly militant about his views, was assigned as Med Off to a pacification team. Some world – it’s in the fiche – that the Empire had trouble bringing under control.
‘The natives on this particular world didn’t want much of anything,’ Lisa said. ‘Except steel weapons. Dr. Stynburn somehow arranged that the spearheads and so forth were highly radioactive. Is that what you people really do?’
‘Knock it off, Lisa.’
‘Sorry. It’s been a long day. Anyway, so the natives kicked – the female ones, since the planet was a matriarchy. Native life span was real short, so by the time Stynburn’s team was taken off, the planet was clean for settlement.
‘Unfortunately somebody sang like a vulture, and Dr. Stynburn got a court-martial.’
By this time, Sten had fed the fiche into his desk viewer, listening to Haines with only a quarter of his attention.
‘Busted out. No prison … clot it … should’a spaced him … drifted … no record of employment …’ He shut off the viewer and looked at Lisa.
‘No record,’ she said. ‘But we found him. He’s off Prime.’
‘Where?’
‘A little hidey-hole of a planet named Kulak.’ Haines handed Sten another fiche.
‘How’d you find him so fast?’
‘Since you pointed out that our Dr. Knox appeared more ’n a bit egocentric, I wondered if he wasn’t also dumb enough to keep his career going instead of disappearing as a potwalloper.
‘Sure enough. Dr. – his new name’s William Block – is the contract medico on Kulak.’
Sten fed more fiche into his viewer, scanned the overall description, and was scared several different shades of white. ‘I should’ve stayed in Mantis,’ he said to himself. ‘All I’d be doing is making a drop into some swamp with no more than ten thousand to one odds. But not dummy me.’
‘You’ve heard of Kulak?’
Sten didn’t bother with the full explanation, since it was fairly involved. Kulak was a small planetoid with a poisonous atmosphere and a killer environment. Its location was approximately between Galaxy’s End and Nowhere. Its only interesting feature was that crystalline metals on the planet had a life of their own, growing like plants. One of those metals was incredibly
light, yet far stronger than any conventional metal known to the Empire. Its chemical properties and description were included on the fiche.
But Sten was quite familiar with that substance – he’d ‘built’ the knife hidden in his arm from it, back on Vulcan, in ‘Hellworld’ – the punishment sector for Vulcan’s slave laborers. The work area – Area 35 – had duplicated Kulak’s environment exactly, down to the point of killing over 100 per cent of the workers sentenced to it.
And now Sten was required to go back to Area 35. He was as terrified as he’d ever been in his life.
Sten told his swirling stomach to shut up and scanned on. After discovery, Kulak had been abandoned by the discovering company, but it was reopened years later by independent miners, tough men and women who were willing to crapshoot their settlement on Kulak. Since Kulak was not considered a plush assignment, their co-op had jumped at the chance to get a for-real doctor, especially one willing to pact on a two-E-year-contract. Since many of the miners were themselves on the run from Imperial justice, no one was much interested in exactly what Dr. ‘Block’ – Hars Stynburn – had done. On Kulak, Imperial treason rated up there with nonpayment of child support.
Sten corrected his features and yanked the fiche. ‘Yeah I’ve heard of Kulak.’
‘I have a tacship standing by,’ Haines said. ‘Destination sealed, even for the pilot. And I ordered the necessary environmental suits.’
None of the replies that occurred immediately to Sten was suitable – and then Kilgour thundered through the entranceway, tapping a fiche angrily.
‘Wee Sten,’ he said. ‘Y’dinna ken where this daft lass is tryin’t to send us noo.’
‘Yes, I do.’
‘Sorry, Lieutenant. Ah dinna see you f’r a mo.’
‘Never mind, Sergeant. Your fearless leader doesn’t look as if he’s any happier than you are.’
‘Sten, d’we hae t’do this? Canne we noo con a wee battalion ae Guards to winkle this dog oot?’
‘And put him on the run again?’
‘Aye, lad. Aye. Ah guess y’hae a point. Nae a good point, but ae point. So where does this leave us?’
‘It would appear,’ Sten said dryly, ‘that we’re doon th’ mine.’
‘Dinna be makit fun ae th’ way Ah speakit,’ Alex said. ‘Ah’ll hae m’mither on y’.’
And Sten went back to packing.
Chapter Thirty-Two
Jill Sherman was the only law on Kulak. Sherman had been chosen by the Kulak cooperative to provide some species of order in the single-dome village that was home base for the miners. She was at least as mean as any miner on the planetoid, she was generally brighter than the miners, and she had a laissez-faire attitude toward law enforcement. She had only three rules: no weapons that could injure the dome; no crooked gambling; every miner got an honest count on his crystals.
Sherman had found it expedient to take the contract as the only law on Kulak after her previous assignment had become somewhat spectacular. She’d been a police subchief on a world plagued with continual riots – understandable, since that world was entirely composed of minorities, each of which put its foot down the throat of the less fortunate after achieving power. Eventually Sherman decided she had seen one too many riots and dropped a mininuke. The explosion had not only blown the current party out of power, but Sherman into flight just ahead of a wave of charges – murder, malfeasance in office, and attempted genocide.
She eyed Sten’s credentials, then looked at the two men, who were still recovering from landing sickness.
‘Dr. Block’s done a fine job here. Why in clot should I help you two Imperials take him out?’
‘I won’t read the warrant again,’ Sten said tiredly. ‘But there’s little things like treason, multiple murder, conspiracy, flight to avoid prosecution – you know. The usual stuff.’
‘This is Kulak, my friend. We don’t care about what someone did back in civilization.’
‘Lass,’ Alex began. ‘P’raps we could buy you a dram and discuss—’
‘That’s enough, Sergeant,’ Sten snapped, perhaps unwisely, but his stomach was still doing ground-loops with the tacship that had fought its way to a landing on Kulak. ‘You people operate under an Imperial charter. The charter could be lifted with one com message by me, and Imperial support would be on its way. Are you prepared to escalate, Officer Sherman?’ If Sten’s guts hadn’t been sitting in his throat, he probably would have found a different way to go. He had certainly made a mistake as Alex’s near subvocal moan underlined.
‘Sorry, uh, Captain was it? Dr. Block can be found in C-Sector, Offices 60.’
Sten then made his second mistake. He nodded brusquely, took Alex by the arm, and was on the way out.
Sherman, of course, waited until the double lock on her office cycled closed, and then was on the com.
Even the streets of the domed city were primitive. They were temp-controlled and oxygenated, but that did not keep the condensation within the dome from continually fogging, raining, and creating much mess underfoot.
‘Y’blew it, lad,’ Kilgour murmured as he and Sten slogged through the mire. ‘Yon lass wa’ admirable. In one wee hour, Ah could’a had her eatin’ out’a mah hand.’
Sten probably snarled at Alex because he was scared – scared of the world, scared of what it brought up in his past, and scared of the many ways to die slowly that Area 35 had shown him.
He may also have been afraid of the suits they wore. Everyone on Kulak wore suits, even in the dome, unless immediate physical necessities suggested otherwise. The suits were interesting – large, armored, so bulky that even a lithe man like Sten had to waddle in them. One reason they were so bulky is that each limb contained a shut-off element. If a suit limb was holed, the wearer could cut off that segment, instantly amputating and cauterizing the affectcd limb.
Regardless of the reason, Sten was as afraid as he had been for years.
Dr. Hars Stynburn/Dr. John Knox/Dr. William Block had gotten the tip from Sherman. He hastily finished strapping himself into his suit then armed himself with the usual long, evilly curved near-sword and ‘harvesting tool.’
When a miner harvested a ‘ripe’ chunk of the metal that grew outside the dome, he used a spade-gun, a double-handed, spring-powered rifle that fired a spear about one meter long and faced with a 25-centimeter, razor-edged shovel tip. The spear’s velocity approached 500 meters per second, which made it quite a lethal tool.
Stynburn had been expecting an attack – not from Imperial law, but rather from one or another of Hakone’s pet thugs. He wasn’t angry either way, since he felt it was perfectly legitimate for a covert operation to police up all traces. That was why he’d fled Prime World in the first place.
That was also why his office/quarters had its back wall close against the dome itself, and why Stynburn had set his inner office door as an airseal.
Stynburn closed his faceplate and checked the readout. No leaks. He dumped his office atmosphere back into the dome and kept his hand ready on the button. His eyes were on the vidscreen over the entrance, the vidscreen that showed his outer office.
He did not wait when the door opened and he saw two men enter.
His hand went down on the red switch, and instantly his back wall and the dome’s outer seal exploded outward, pinwheeling Stynburn out onto the surface of Kulak.
Even through the chamber, Sten could feel the chumph as the inner office decompressed. Reflexively, both he and Alex slammed their faceplates shut. And waited.
The gauges, present in every room and every office in the dome, dipped then recovered.
‘Th’ lad’s gone out,’ Alex said through the suit com.
Sten didn’t bother to answer – he was headed back through the entrance, for the nearest dome lock.
But the mucky street outside was filled with miners. Sherman was at their head. Sten stopped and flipped his faceplate open.
‘We’ve decided,’ Sherman began, sans preamble, ‘that you ha
ve your law, and we have ours. We need a doctor. And we’ve got one. And we’re going to keep him.’
Sten couldn’t think of a lot of threats that made sense.
‘We’ll take whatever comes down afterward when it comes down. If it comes down.’
‘Which means, lass,’ Alex put in sadly, ‘y’hae nae intention ah lettin’ us gie away?’
Sherman nodded.
Sten’s suit roughly duplicated the same type the miners and Sherman wore. But being of Imperial design, there were small changes. Sten hoped desperately that one of them wasn’t known.
He took a square container from his belt and twisted the cap open as his faceplate closed. A thin, visible spray hissed out, and Sten tossed the container into the midst of the miners. He flipped his com level button to full and roared ‘Gas! This is a corrosive gas!’ as he began running. For a few seconds the miners were too busy seeking shelter from the squat container as it hissed, buzzed, and danced around the street to worry about where Alex and Sten were headed.
By the time Sherman’s outsuit analyzer had figured out that the container was nothing more than an emergency air supply – carried as a liquid for compactness – Sten and Alex were at the dome’s outer lock.
‘Och,’ Alex moaned, booting Sten into the inner chamber. ‘Ah’ll be th’ wee lad wha’ hold ’em a’ the bridge.’
Before Sten could answer, Alex cycled the lock closed, leaving no option for Sten but to go out after Stynburn.
Alex turned, as the near-mob elephanted up to him. ‘Aye noo, an’ who’ll be the first?’
The first was a miner who dwarfed Alex and his fellows. Alex blocked his blow and then swung. The block smashed the man’s suit arm, and the punch cartwheeled the monster back through the air into the middle of the crowd. Kulak was a light-gee world – and Kilgour was a heavy-worlder. The mob closed in, and the situation became desperate.
Moderately desperate, since the knives that most of the miners carried were inside their suits, and they didn’t have enough room to aim and fire their spade-guns – at least not without taking the chance of sending their bolts through the nearby dome wall.
Battlecry: Sten: Omnibus One (Sten Omnibus) Page 67