Edge World

by Michael Guinn

  “You must have the constitution of a mule, Amanda. If you continue to improve at the same rate I believe we can discharge you this evening. That Agent Smithe seems to be quite concerned about you but I don’t know if it is professional or something else.”

  Amanda turned her head but not before the Doctor had seen a blush beginning on Amanda’s cheeks.

  “There is no reason that you can’t start wearing civilian clothing now. I will send a couple of aides in to help you get dressed. I still want you in your bed or sitting in a chair.”

  Amanda didn’t know if it was having a Federation Agent visit her or not, but after Liam had left, she had been moved into a much larger private room with a table and chairs, and even a couch for visits. She could look out the wide windows to see the Columbia River below.

  After the doctor had left, a nurse and an aide came in and helped her get dressed. Amanda knew that the clothes she was wearing when she came to the hospital could not be worn again, but was surprised that a complete uniform set had been delivered last night while she slept. The older nurse asked if Amanda wanted some make-up before her young man came to visit.

  Amanda again blushed, but said, “he is not all that young and certainly he isn’t my young man.”

  “Young lady, when you get to be my age most everyone is young.”

  All three of them laughed at that and finally she let the young aide help her with some make-up on the excuse that she was still pale from her incident and normally didn’t need make-up. After they had gone, Amanda spent her time at the table making notes of everything that had happened to her, starting right when she had ordered Inspector Sue Onn to land on the prairie. She was still at it, fully absorbed, when Liam quietly walked into the room.

  As Liam approached, a squeak of his shoes brought her upright and looking around.

  “Oh, Liam, I was so absorbed by my work that I didn’t see you come in. I am trying to make notes of my little adventure,” Amanda said a little breathlessly. Her wide smile seemed to Liam like the sun had just come out.

  “I see you are feeling better. You certainly look better. In fact you look beautiful.”

  This seems like my day for blushing, Amanda thought to herself. What is the matter with me, I’m no ditzy teenager; I am the mother of two teenage girls.

  “I look beautiful to you just because the last time you saw me I was cover with dirt and blood. I am feeling a lot better. The doctor says I can go home tonight if I am good. Why don’t you have a seat before I get a crick in my neck looking up at you?”

  “I am sorry, Amanda,” Liam said as he sat down in a chair across from her. I can’t stay long. The conspiracy mess is not getting any clearer. Every time we think we have one piece nailed down another pops up.”

  “Sort of like those old-fashioned games the kids play where you hit a pig with a hammer and another pig pops up. I never could figure out why kids liked to play that so much. When they release me tonight I will come in to headquarters and see if I can help out.”

  “I was wondering why you were wearing your uniform. But no, I don’t want you risking your health. Just be a good girl and do what the doctors say. I will come to you place and keep you up on happenings when I can.”

  “You do that Liam or I will come down if I have to crawl down on my knees. And no, I am not wearing this uniform with that in mind. My uniform was nearly destroyed by the time I got rescued. I didn’t know what I was going to wear but someone from headquarters evidently thought of it.”

  Liam sat looking at Amanda, apparently in deep thought.

  “It isn’t that bad, Liam. We will get it all sorted out.”

  “Jacob Ericson has…no, wait, … I don’t want you worrying about

  work. I think we can keep the lid on till you get back. Have my girls got back yet?”

  “No, as far as I know they are still at Chief Onn’s village. Do you want me to send a patrol aircar out to the village and haul them back here?”

  “I hate to spoil their adventure, but maybe that is a good idea with all the turmoil that is going on.”

  Liam went quiet again and Amanda wondered what was bothering him. “You are having some deep thoughts this morning Liam!”

  “Just thinking about what needs to be done. And on that note, I need to be going.” But he didn’t, rather he kept sitting in his chair without saying anything.

  “Is it something I can help you with, Liam?”

  “You sure can,” Liam replied, “but he still didn’t say anything,”

  “You are going to have to say what you want, Liam, I don’t have telepathy.” Amanda didn’t know what was going on with Liam, and it bother her a bit.

  Finally Liam stood as if ready to leave, but instead of heading towards the door he walked around the table to her side, tipped her head up and bent to kiss her.

  “Eep!” came out of Amanda’s mouth when they broke free after a few seconds. Amanda stood and they had a more satisfactory kiss. Amanda was glad that Liam had closed the door but a nurse could come by at any time. So what, she thought, and kissed Liam again.

  “Ah…I have been waiting for that…wanting you to do that for some time,” Amanda said somewhat breathlessly. What took you so long?” His answer was delayed by a kiss.

  “I wasn’t sure…I mean, I didn’t know how I felt…or at least for sure, until now, I guess.”

  “You aren’t making much sense Liam, but I don’t care. Just kiss me again”

  In the midst of this kiss Liam’s alarm on his comm unit went off rather loudly. For a minute Liam had trouble focusing on it.

  “I am sorry but I have to answer this Amanda.”

  “You could turn it off and say you didn’t receive it.”

  “That would be nice but the alarm won’t close off until I answer it. Oh, after fifteen minutes or so it will turn off on the assumption I am not wearing the unit, but it gets increasingly louder up to that point. I really don’t want to subject all the patients to this.”

  Liam had his arm around Amanda while he answered his comm. He noticed right away that it was marked ‘high security’ which meant he had to read the comm; it couldn’t be a voice comm to insure no one could overhear it.

  As Liam read the comm, Amanda could see from his expressions that it was something very serious.

  “Can you tell me what’s wrong?” Amanda asked.

  Liam sat down on the couch and pulled Amanda with him as if he would never let go.

  “Apparently the Traders Association is not going to wait until the next regular Council Meeting and has requested an emergency Council Meeting based on the destruction of one of their caravans, and it has been approved. The Council meets day after tomorrow.”

  “I hadn’t heard about a whole caravan being wiped out by raiders. When did this happen?”

  “Apparently two days ago. A group of nomads were in the vicinity right after the attack. That was how we learn of the attack so quick.”

  “Ok, so how does the caravan incident have to do with the Council? Are they trying to get more protection than what we have said we would give them? Sort of going around our backs.”

  “Oh Amanda, it is much worse than that. They are blaming the Pawassa for all of the attacks and want them moved to the far west. Supposedly placing them too far west to attack anyone.”

  “They can’t do that, can they? I know the Pawassa as a whole aren’t involved in these attacks. I just know it. And how are they going to move them, use the OSI?”

  “I think the bombing of your aircar, capture and taking to a village in an isolated part of the jungle all tie in together.”

  “But how does moving the Pawassa effect somebody from getting those LL plants? I thought that was the whole purpose of the conspiracy.”

  “I now think we have two inter-locking groups. One group wants the river trading rights which the Pawassa now have, and another group that just wants access to the LL plants. They intersect by both wanting the Pawassa moved.”

  �
��You need to get back to OSI headquarters Liam. I will stay here and practice getting well as long as you promise to come get me out of here this evening.”

  Rising to his feet and giving Amanda a brief kiss, Liam said, “I will be back even if there are wild horses trying to drag me away.”

  Amanda stood looking at the door that closed behind Liam. Oh, you love struck fool, Amanda said to herself. Look what you have gotten into now.

  Chapter 17

  When Liam returned to headquarters he was pleased to see that just because he was a Federal Agent, the troops were still hard at work and not waiting to be told what to do. There were fresh pots of coffee and santee in the conference room and Lt. Adams who was in charge of personnel making suitable boarding arrangement for the flood of officers from all parts of the continent. Liam stopped for a minute at Lt. Adams’ desk.

  “How many officers do we have right now, Lieutenant,” Liam asked?

  “Counting all of the officers, including sergeants and inspectors, plus Lieutenant Jamison from Southport we have five hundred and eighty-nine at last count. At lot of them have traveled a piece plus maybe having been in the middle of a case themselves, so I don’t know how many effectives we have right this minute.”

  “That’s good lieutenant. In light of the latest development I am not sure exactly how and when we are going to use them,” Replied Liam. “Collect everyone not in the conference room and we will see about putting a plan together.

  When the girls were first captured, Ethan followed along with George, not saying anything and giving the appearance that he was comfortable with the girls capture. When they entered the village, George looked at Ethan curiously, but didn’t say anything. George had been paid well to lure the girls to where they could be easily captured, but he was not totally sure that what he was doing was right. Both boys bedded down for the night in an empty hut but woke with a start the next morning when the village was aroused over Tamara and Kristina’s’ escape. George picked up a couple of water bags, handing one to Ethan without comment, and half a dozen strips of dried jerky. The boys then walked out of the village, largely unnoticed in the confusion, and started walking back to Chief Onn’s village.

  Upon arrival at the village that night, tired, dirty and hungry, they stopped to get some food and then went to sleep in the bunkhouse. The next morning George was gone when Ethan woke. Grabbing a quick meal from the eatery Ethan headed for the Chief’s house, but once there was told that Chief Onn had been gone for several weeks inspecting the river trade but was expected late that day. Not knowing who else to try to tell, he went down to the river port and watched the boats while he waited for the Chief.

  *****

  Vera had always insisted that the Group, as she called everyone in the know of their grand plan, stay physically separated and not ever all meet together. But now she was wondering if they didn’t need to do just that. They had all of the LL plants harvested, at least for this year, and packaged ready to ship. Unfortunately, there was an embargo on shipping anything off planet and she wasn’t sure how to proceed. The research team, now headed by Professor Blake, had finished all of their testing and were ready to go home. Except they probably had warrants for their arrest plastered all over the planet. While there was a good chance that the Planetary Council would agree to move the Pawassa Tribe west, Vera had not had great luck recruiting people that she could assign and trust to the vacated river trade route and she didn’t know what to do. Jacob Erickson, one of the Group, thought he was going to take that trade route, which wasn’t going to happen if Vera had anything to say about it. That river trade route was more important to her than the territory the Pawassa Tribe would be vacating.

  Maybe she could hire away some of Erickson’s experienced men with offers of increased pay and authority. That was a slippery slope she wasn’t sure she wanted to take. While this internal discussion was going on, one of her best women rode up to her in a lather. They didn’t routinely ride the horses into the jungle but rather kept them in well concealed areas of the plains. For someone to ride all of the way to her village meant importance.

  “Vera, very very bad news,” the woman said to Vera, “There is a Federal Agent on the planet.

  For a moment, Vera could understand what the woman meant by a ‘Federal Agent’. Then she remembered.

  “Shit Shit Shit,” Vera said. “Are you positive?”

  “I am afraid so. It is that professor that has been hanging around the last month or two. He is the one that came to your Dad’s village last month and asked all those silly questions about what it was like to live in a village, what did they eat, etc. We got the news directly from our companion in the City Militia so there is no doubt. What are we going to do.?

  “We have to go ahead with our plans. It is too late now to back out: there are far too many killings attributed to us. I don’t know what the authorities would do with all of us and I don’t want to find out. Go find my brother and ask him to come to me. We are going to have to change our plans now.”

  *****

  There were the remains of empty coffee and santee cups, dirty plates and wadded up note paper strewn across the conference table and the room. Liam and the Lieutenants, plus Sgt. Townsead. Had been hard at work all day but without much to show for it.

  “Did you ever get ahold of Jacob Erickson,” Liam asked Sgt. Townsead? “I would really like to know what excuse he has to request the Pawassa Tribe be moved to the West. Sure, a caravan was attacked and destroyed, but the attackers have not been identified. There are many more Tribes than the Pawassa that could have made that attack. Until we know, no one is moving anywhere.”

  “I talked with Norman Smith, apparently the number two man in the Traders Association,” Sgt. Townsead replied. He told me that Jacob has been out checking on each caravan the last few days. He is advising them to circle into a defensive position and stay put for the next week until it is safe to move again. And by the way, this Norman Smith is the one that put in the emergency request to the Council per Erickson’s orders.”

  “Do you think it worthwhile to bring Smith in,” Liam asked the Lieutenants.

  “I doubt we would get much out of him,” said Lt. Baker, “Plus I am sure Erickson will be back sometime tomorrow. He won’t miss the Council meeting since it is his emergency petition they will be discussing.”

  “You don’t think he has this Smith character primed to answer questions?”

  “Not Erickson. He won’t trust anyone else to do the job.”

  “I think we pretty well know the extent and purpose of the conspiracy, now we have to plan how to defeat it,” Liam said. “A group of dissatisfied tribesmen have set up their own village. For some payment, we don’t know what, they are attacking caravans at Erickson’s orders. Erickson is using the attacks to move the Pawassa Tribe west, probably so the Traders Association can get their hands on the lucrative river trade.”

  “What about that research team,” asked Sgt. Townsead?

  “They are looking for some plants that apparently grow in the jungle.” Liam was not about to tell anyone else about the LL drug. Two people already on the planet know and that is one to many. “Why the two murders, I don’t know. Also, why did the Traders Association help them hide in one of their warehouses? Hopefully we will find out when we break the conspiracy.”

  “We are getting a lot of grief over the boycott of off-planet materials. How long do you think we will have to keep it up,” Lt. Cope asked?

  “I am certainly not knowledgeable about Federal Agents, but can’t you just go detain and interview any suspicious characters till you get all the information you need,” asked Lt. Owens.

  “You have an exalted picture of the power of Federal Agents,” replied Liam. “I can take authority of any law enforcement personnel on the planet and I can order the arrest of anyone that I have solid proof of committing a crime, either planetary or federal. That is about it. A person’s rights must still be maintained: in that instance I
have no more power than any law enforcement officer. I can shut down a spaceport to prevent the escape of possible criminals, or material evidence, but I better be able to show reason for my actions if the Federation Council asks.”

  “But…but you said earlier you could call in forces to control the planet,” said Lt. Owen.

  “You are right. After which I would have to turn in my badge in disgrace. An agent can do it, and I even might do it to prevent a major disaster to the Federation, but if I can’t solve the problem myself, I won’t have any more problems to solve in the future.”

  There was a sober silence for several minutes while everyone absorbed what Agent Smithe had just said.

  “Now let’s see if we can solve this ourselves. I am going to go pick up Captain Santos from the hospital in a few minutes and she will insist I bring her by here. The Captain is not to be questioned by anyone but me and I will make it very short. She still needs a lot of recovery time and I am going to see that she gets it. We only have one more day before the Council meets in emergency session, so we better have a plan by then.”

  Liam rose at this point and started towards the door, but before he took more than a couple of steps, one of the staff from the reception area bustled in.

  “Sorry to interrupt, but there is someone out here from one of the villages that insists on seeing Captain Santos, or whomever is in charge.”

  “Well, who is it,” Lt. Baker asked with some impatience?

  “He says his name is Chief Moran Onn.”

  *****

  It was a tired and cranky Chief Moran Onn that stepped off the riverboat at his village riverport after a tiring two weeks being ‘Chief’ and inspecting the river trade route all the way down to Southport and back. All he wanted was to kiss his wife and then lie in his favorite hammock with a cold drink, listening to his favorite music. Unfortunately he wasn’t given the chance. A young boy from the village was waiting impatiently for him, and had obviously waiting there for some time. The boy spoke up even before Moran had a chance to say anything.