Guardsmen of Tomorrow (33 page)

by Jane Lindskold

In the course of watching old movie serials, Jane Lindskold discovered the hidden powers of insurance investigators. In this story, Captain “Allie” Ah Lee1 discovers that working for an insurance company can mean taking real risks. Lindskold is the author of over thirty-five short stories and several novels- including
Changer
and
Legends Walking
. She lives in Albuquerque, New Mexico with her husband, archaeologist Jim Moore, and is currently at work on another novel.

Q1 pike was the one who told me that pirates were using Othe Endpoint system to launder stolen goods.

Allen “Spike” West worked for AASU Insurance, a sturdy, reliable company that had offices on any world or space station with a population of five thousand or more. As the Endpoint system had recently topped the fifteen thousand mark, AASU practically qualified as an old timer.

AASU insured both my ship-the
Mercury
-and my life, so I guess I thought pretty highly of them.

Spike had visited the
Mercury
so that we could discuss possible changes in the ship’s policy. I’d thought his coming to me rather strange since we usually met in his office and the
Mercury’s
cabin was pretty small-indeed, we were practically sitting knee to knee. However, my own concerns

‘Allie also appears in “Winner Takes Trouble” published in
Alien Pets
, edited by Denise Little, DAW, 1998.

about my current financial woes kept me from pursuing these thoughts further.

I make my living as a freelance courier, carrying messages and small goods from system to system. The only reason I made a living at all was that I was willing to go out to fringe colonies with just a couple dozen inhabitants. I also knew more about the shady side of commerce than any proper courier would admit, but more about that later.

Knowing that Spike’s gaze was safely locked in the middle space in front of his eyes while the computer jacked into a port beneath his right ear presented my account for his inspection, I studied him, trying to guess what his answer would be.

Spike wasn’t a bad-looking fellow if you liked tall, lanky, dark-haired men with large noses, brilliant blue eyes, and goony expressions. When he wasn’t staring vacantly into empty space, Spike had an appealing grin and enough intensity to power a stardrive. Most of the time I even liked him. Today, he had too much power over my financial future for me to feel at all relaxed in his presence.

In contrast to Spike’s long leanness, I’m diminutive by modern standards-a result of growing up on a forgotten colony world where rations were limited for most of my childhood. My hair is glossy black and my eyes, beneath the epicanthic folds of my eyelids, are dark as well. Some have told me I look like a doll.

Happily, I’m more than a toy. When my birth colony’s sponsors back in China settled their then most recent war, they’d sent out a belated supply ship. Help had come before permanent damage had been done to any of the colonists-except that most of the children remained rather small. I enjoyed being regularly misjudged-as if size and ability have anything to do with each other!

When Spike frowned slightly and blinked twice, prepara-tory to banishing my files from his virtual screen, I straightened and studied the
Mercury’s
message reader, making a few notes for future business. Spike might have even been fooled. I have a great poker face.

“You could reduce the coverage, Allie,” Spike began, “but I wouldn’t recommend it. Moreover, your lienholder on the
Mercury
might not okay such minimal coverage.”

“AASU,” I reminded him, “is also the lienholder.”

“Well, then,” Spike said, a slight grin tugging the left corner of his mouth, “I can say that your lienholder would not permit such minimal coverage. We take enough risks with you.”

“Bosh!” I protested, knowing that he knew as well as I did that I ran a tight ship.

Spike laughed loudly.

“I’d think,” I said stiffly, “that AASU could make an exception for a faithful customer like myself. I’ve always paid my premiums on time and my claims
have
been modest.”

“True,” Spike said, “but we are assigned certain guidelines for underwriting policies.

I’ve already stretched the limits for you. Now, if you worked for AASU…”

He let the sentence trail off, and if I wasn’t a skilled haggler and poker player, I might have missed his hint.

I glanced at him sharply. “What’s on your mind? AASU has its own courier fleet.

You don’t need to hire me.”

“Not as a courier,” Spike said, “but we could use your help catching some pirates.”

“Me?” I felt my expression turn suspicious and schooled it into a comfortable neutrality. “Why me? I’m just a freelance courier.”

“Bosh,” Spike said, deliberately echoing my inflection of a moment before. “Captain Ah-Lee, you have a good many skills and lots of knowledge you don’t advertise, but before I puff up your ego, let me tell you about AASU’s problem.”

“Go ahead,” I replied, settling back in my chair. “For all my much-vaunted knowledge, I haven’t heard that pirates are using Endpoint.”

“The local government,” Spike admitted, “has tried to keep it quiet. Pirates aren’t good for business. Up to a point, AASU is willing to support this view, but not when the local government’s unwillingness to act means that the pirates have easy use of the system.”

“I can see that,” I agreed. “You’re sure it’s pirates, not smugglers? I don’t have anything against smugglers.”

“Pirates,” Spike assured me. “A rather large consortium of pirates, if I don’t miss my guess. Let me fill you in.”

According to Spike, about a hundred standards ago, End-point took a large leap in population. Part of the increase was due to the arrival of refugees from the war between the Absolutes and the Loyalists in the Bath system, part to a successful advertising campaign.

Nearly five thousand new colonists registered for permanent taxpayer status. Fifteen thousand isn’t many people by the standards of a world like Home Earth, where I hear even a small city can number in the millions, but by the time you add in visitors like myself, resident aliens, and nonpermanent residents, you have a large enough population that no one can know everyone else.

Right on the heels of this new influx came the pirates. Endpoint didn’t provide enough traffic to be tempting for actual piracy-though I didn’t doubt that this would follow in time. However, there was plenty of cover for illicit shipping

“Pirates are like epidemics and property taxes,” I commented cynically when Spike paused, “they come with growth. Why are you so worried?”

Spike frowned. “Because AASU insures many of the ships and businesses the pirates prey on. Whether it’s a cargo that doesn’t get to its destination or a local business that gets undercut by black market competition, piracy hurts our clients.

Most of the time we can’t touch the pirates- AASU doesn’t maintain a private military fleet…”

“But fences and money laundering are less violent crimes,” I said, just to show him I was with him, “and you want me…”

“To help me trace this end of the pirate’s operation,” Spike replied promptly.

“AASU would hire you and everything.”

He grinned slyly. “We even can offer you a special insurance rate reserved for employees in good standing.”

“That’s right.” I couldn’t help laughing, though the problem was serious. “Twist my arm. Seriously, Spike, why me? AASU must have lots of people more qualified to take on this job.”

“More people,” Spike agreed. “More qualified? That’s questionable. As much as I hate to admit it, the pirates could have spies inside AASU. I didn’t go into the details before, but there has been a small but significant upturn in the number of valuable cargos being taken. One way the pirates could learn about these cargos is by having a mole inside AASU. That’s why I wanted to meet you here rather than having you come to my office.”

I frowned thoughtfully. Someone working with the pirates from inside an insurance company did make sense.

“How about working with the local militia?” I asked.

Spike looked disgusted. “Remember, Endpoint’s system government is not yet acknowledging that there
is
local pirate activity.”

“That seems impossible!” I protested.

“Not really,” Spike shrugged. “Nonviolent crime is always easier to overlook.”

“I see.” I kept my tone noncommittal Spike’s voice took on a pleading note. “Allie, you know this system-everyone who counts, both in legitimate business and otherwise.”

“Hardly,” I demurred dryly, but Spike did have a point. I’d been coming to Endpoint since the original hundred settled. I knew the system pretty well.

Spike persisted. “You know the jump points the smugglers use, the likely places to cache fuel or supplies. You even know the surrounding systems. Besides, you and I get along.”

“What,” I asked frostily, “does that have to do with anything?”

“Why,” Spike beamed, glancing around the crowded confines of the singleship’s cabin, “I’ll be coming with you. Certainly you don’t think I’m going to let you have the fun of catching the pirates all by yourself!”

I gave in, of course. The salary AASU was offering was generous, especially when I factored in company insurance rates. Even after taking out a much more comprehensive policy, I was now making enough money to cover my expenses and to put a substantial amount aside for the future.

The data disk containing our contract was hand-carried to AASU headquarters by a private courier I personally selected for discretion and reliability. Thus, as far as regional AASU was concerned, Captain Ah-Lee remained nothing more than a freelance courier. Anyone on the inside of the company who might be working with the pirates shouldn’t be able to discover my new involvement.

Next, my new partner went undercover. Allen “Spike” West took a liner out-system to investigate a claim on heav-ily populated Fyolyn. He would slip back in-system a few standards later on the ship of a smuggler who owed me more than a few favors.

While Spike was away, I hunted for signs of the pirates’ operations. Since I’d carried a few cargoes of dubious legality in my time-mostly information rather than actual goods-folks would talk to me who would never talk to a more usual insurance investigator. I played poker with smugglers and black-marketeers, hung out in seedy spaceport bars. It didn’t take long to learn that the local operators were feeling pressure from outside.

“It’s them Batherite refugees, Allie,” one smuggler told me. “It’s not just displaced parents and sad-eyed kids who’ve come in on those ships. Somebody else has come in with ‘em.”

A dealer in slightly-used ship parts nodded.

“My business has dried up,” she said, “just when things should be hot as a nuclear plant. I nosed around a bit and learned that somebody else is selling-and not just parts. I’ve seen ships come in that I could swear I’d seen listed as missing by the Watch.”

“And the black ships don’t interfere?” I asked, Normally the members of the Silent Watch couldn’t wait to cause trouble for people.

“I guess they try,” the black-marketeer shrugged, “but what can they do if the registration is all in order?”

Another smuggler, one who augmented a perfectly legitimate business carrying food supplies by transporting the occasional crate of high-duty luxury goods, added:

“I’ve been hit, too. You should see what’s being sold in the market at the edge of the Bathtub. Oh, on the surface they’re just poor folks trying to make do by selling homemade delicacies or whatever they salvaged before they got off planet, but if you keep your eyes open, you’ll see that they’re selling things that no refugee could have grabbed.”

“Like?” I said, reaching for the deck of cards-it was my turn to deal.

‘“Like,” the food merchant said, ’‘cases of stabilized wines in the kind of packing that the luxury cruisers use. I swear I caught a glimpse of the Orion Lines logo on the side of one crate. It had been painted over, but you could still see the curves.“

He didn’t need to add more. The word “pirates.” though unspoken, hung in the air.

The suspicion of pirates also answered the question of why these normally feisty outlaws weren’t going after the competition. No spacers in their right mind tangled with pirates. The pirates’ reach was too long and their methods of retribution too ruthless.

I wondered what I’d let Spike get me into.

Obviously, the place for me to continue my hunt was the Batherite refugee section that the news services had dubbed-rather derisively-the Bathtub.

Early the next morning, I put the
Mercury
into a parking orbit, then hailed one of Endpoint’s squat, in-system shuttles to take me down to the main planet’s largest-and pretty much only-city.

Endpoint’s major inhabited planet was named Gilbert, after the explorer who had organized the initial colony group. The capital city, with great originality, was called Gilbert City. It had started out as a couple of pressurized domes meant to protect the colonists from whatever secret horrors the planet might hold. The domes weren’t bad. In fact, I’d grown up in similar structures.

Once the colonists confirmed that the worst hazards were weather-related, they tailored their architecture to combat these. It wasn’t long before Gilbert City sprawled out around the original domes. These had eventually been torn down and recycled, leaving no trace of that historical first settlement other than the position of the main spaceport.

When the shuttle unloaded at the spaceport, I hopped a tube to the end of the line where the Bathtub had evolved into a small town of its own.

Clearly the residents of Gilbert City had tried to make the refugees welcome. From where I stood packed flank to flank in a crowded tube car, I could see that when the refugee camp had been initially designed the registration center had been positioned as a hub from which neat rows of prefab dwellings extended like spokes on a wheel.

As the war between the Absolutists and the Loyalists grew uglier and uglier, more refugees flooded out. To remain was to be forced to take sides-and the Absolutist fanatics didn’t care if this was against your will. With the new influx, the tidy order of the camp had broken down. Now buildings were being put up any old way, the only criteria being access to water, sewage, and power.