Counterweight (16 page)

Spark

Tsekoh,
Capital of Chaco Benthic

G
raadt
eased up to a sitting position, the last of the shock still wearing off. The
crowd flowed around him as if he wasn’t even sitting there. He wasn’t visible
to pedestrians until they were right on top of him and they mostly had the
sense to weave around him as if he weren’t there. It wasn’t healthy to stand
and stare at an embarrassed Stoner.

And Graadt was definitely embarrassed. He’d allowed himself
to tunnel-vision on the target. He wanted to catch the Human so badly that he’d
abandoned all consideration of situational awareness and he’d paid for that
mistake.

A residual shudder ran through his body and he shook his
head in anger. He wouldn’t let his comrades find him on the floor. He forced
his body to stand, grinning as the space around him opened up. He was visible
from a greater distance now and nobody wanted to catch his eye.

He heard a commotion to his right and he allowed a faint
glimmer of hope that he might be able to reacquire his target after all. The
big Stoner moved in that direction as though the plaza were empty. Folks tended
to stay out of the way when it enhanced their safety. It left him in the middle
of a small bubble of personal space.

Moving through the crowd like a drop of soap in dirty water,
Graadt reached the edge of a much larger bubble and merged with it. Inside were
three magisters and their latest victim – a separation plant worker, from the
look of his uniform.

His helmet was lying on the floor, credit chips spilled
around his feet.

Graadt had seen it several times in the last few days alone.
Taking donations for an educated child had spread like wildfire in Benthic. On
most worlds, something like this would spread much more slowly but the
atmosphere down here was so oppressively hopeless that the people had become
living tinder. Any tiny spark of hope ignited them like a gas leak.

The magisters stopped what they were doing, looking at him
apprehensively. They darted glances around the crowd, no doubt searching for
Graadt’s two associates. They would have heard by now of his interfering with
another group of magisters and they wouldn’t want to risk another
confrontation.

Graadt had no intention of intervening. Most likely, the man
was breaking no laws but he was by himself. If he had brought his child along,
it would have been different. He began scanning the faces around the perimeter
of the bubble, knowing it was unlikely his target would have stayed in the area
but still not willing to lose him from sheer carelessness.

The magisters looked at each other, unsure of how to proceed
while the unpredictable Stoner was still standing there. The senior officer
turned to look back at Graadt and his gaze widened in shock.

A large fitter’s wrench sailed toward him in a graceful arc,
slamming into the side of his face and dropping him, shrieking, to the floor of
the plaza. His two cronies froze, too shocked to even come to his aid. Their
comrades had faced taunts and jeers in a previous incident but, this time, one
of their own had been attacked.

Graadt knew what was coming next. The two standing magisters
looked as though they hoped to avoid it by becoming statues but they stood no
chance. He looked over his shoulder, trying to figure out who’d thrown the
wrench, but it was a hopeless task. He was unsurprised to see his own bubble of
personal space shrink as the crowd surged forward.

The wrench had transformed the crowd from a collection of
angry individuals into a mob. They’d already been halfway there in the first
place. Shared anger, coupled with the electromagnetic fields of hundreds of brains
and cardiac muscles had already begun to tie the crowd together.

The tinder was piled, the spark struck.

He turned back to the horrified magisters as the mob flowed
past him. One of them was hoisted above the seething mass, arms and legs
twisting as hands grabbed at him.

Graadt instinctively winced as the Dactari magister’s tail
was twisted, almost shrieking along with the hapless victim. Though Stoners had
lost their tails generations ago, there was still an atavistic revulsion that
would take centuries to eradicate.

A twisted tail was the least of the magister’s problems. A
grisly snapping heralded the first of what would be many dislocated joints.
Bobbing heads surrounded the magister who’d taken a wrench to the face. His
screams were rapidly cut off as the angry mob kicked him to death.

“Boss, behind you…” Nid’s voice sounded in his earpiece. He
turned to see their carrier hovering over the crowd. Kaans threw him a harness
from the side door.

Graadt hooked a leg into the harness, wrapped an arm around
the cable and gave the signal.  As he lifted out of the surging mass of
unleashed anger, he could hear a chant begin to take form.

“Stoners!” they were shouting.

It was hard to tell but he thought they were screaming
approval, rather than hatred of his race. He stepped into the hatch and took
his leg out of the harness.

Kaans grinned at him. “What the hells did you do down
there?”

Graadt looked out the door as Nid maneuvered back out to the
atrium. “Not a gods damned thing,” he said ruefully. “But that’s not how the
local administration will see it.”

“Where are we headed?” Nid asked.

Graadt stared absently at the jumble of rail structures
flashing past the open hatch. The revolution had almost certainly begun.
Tearing three magisters limb from limb was the kind of thing that couldn’t be
swept under the deck plates.

There would definitely be a harsh response from the company
in an attempt to crush the uprising but it would be too much – too late. The
economic slaves of Chaco Benthic had their first taste of blood and the madness
was in their eyes.

This was what the Human excelled at. He was like a
hench-worm burrowing into fruit, finding a patch of rot and revelling in it.
Once the fire had been lit, he’d leave, as he had on at least six other worlds.

“He’ll want to get out,” Graadt announced, “before things
get too unstable and they have to lock down the elevator.”

Accelerated
Plan

Tsekoh,
Capital of Chaco Benthic

C
al
took another bite of the apple-shaped sausage. It was far more pungent than
anything he’d had on Earth and it was far more expensive. Belfric had spared no
expense to make this a special day for his daughter, refusing to postpone it
over the recent unrest. Perishable food had been brought in on a special order
and he’d staunchly refused to let Cal cover the cost with organization funds.

They were celebrating the recent birth of Bel’s first
grandchild and Cal had finally accepted the Ufangian’s invitation. It was
probably a bad idea but his second-in-command was relentlessly inclusive.

Ufangians, in general, were like that. They were fiercely
loyal to family but, if you knew one for any length of time, you’d be rolled
into the family group. If a circle of friends had an Ufangian in it, he or she
was probably the one who’d put it together.

Bel had been Cal’s (or C’al’s) first recruit to the
movement. In his first days on Chaco Benthic, he’d played the role of a
confused traveller desperate to find work. It had been Bel who got him out of
the ore dressing plant and into the survey group.

Cal had learned decades earlier the fastest way to build up
an insurgency movement from scratch – recruit an Ufangian. They came with a
vast network of contacts and, if they were of a mind to rebel, they usually
knew at least a dozen like-minded individuals.

He’d never really given much thought to how he had misled
his oldest friend in the world – this world – but now, seeing him with his
extended family, Cal felt a twinge of guilt.

Bel was one of the best people he’d ever met and he still
thought C’Al was a Tauhentan.

The Human from 3428, on the other hand, knew exactly what he
was. How exactly he’d figured it out so quickly was still a mystery and Cal
didn’t care for mysteries. The young man had looked at him for a few seconds
and then confidently identified him as a Human.

How many others might be able to tell?

He realized the Human was talking to him and he shook his
head to clear out his doubts. “Sorry, what?”

He was spared the need to talk to the disturbing young man
when Bel and his wife approached. “C’Al,” Bel boomed, “maybe now that you know
what you’ve been missing all this time, you’ll be more inclined to come to our
get-togethers.”

Cal grinned, gesturing with the spherical sausage. “I’d move
in if I thought you had any more room! Are these from your home world?”

A nod. “A taste of home.”

“One day…”

“One day soon…” Bel looked over at his wife.

Kimric was a perfect example of why Cal preferred to recruit
Ufangians as the core of any cell. She knew everything her husband knew and she
kept him on an even keel. Her fierce desire to see a better future for her
family made her one of the most trustworthy members of their group.

Cal knew she’d never talk to the authorities. Most species
had a strong sense of family but they paled in comparison to the Ufangians.
She’d never risk her family, even in the unlikely event that she wanted her
husband dead or locked up.

And she always seemed to know what was needed, even before
her husband did. She stepped up to the young Human visitor, linking arms with
him. “You’ve been drawing a few glances, young man,” she announced brightly.
“Come – let me introduce you to some nice young ladies.”

Cal caught the man’s questioning glance as he was being led
away and he grinned. “Just be careful not to breach the
family code
or
you might leave this party as a gender neutral…”

The young man’s eyes widened.

Kimric laughed, dark eyes flashing with mischief. “Gender
neutral is just an old saying,” she explained, waiting for his features to
relax again before continuing. “You get to keep the twig, we just cut off the
berries…”

Cal and Belfric chuckled as they waved at the alarmed young
man. “You’re a lucky man, Bel,” Cal announced. “I mean
really
lucky.”

 “So she keeps telling me,” Bel replied. He turned to
face Cal. “You heard what happened after you left the square?”

Cal chuckled. “Tell me you had a wrench that won’t trace
back to you.”

“I did. I usually use legacies so I don’t have to keep
buying replacements from the company.”

Legacies were tools salvaged from dead workers. If a shield
suit failed or a landslide crushed an employee, his coworkers always took any
useful tools before the company could put them back into inventory and sell
them a second time. They were free and, in this case, untraceable.

“I couldn’t let the moment go to waste.” The Ufangian
shrugged. “The crowd was on the blade’s edge. All they needed was a little
push.”

“So you threw a wrench at a magister’s face?” C’Al had to
admire his friend’s presence of mind. “And who started chanting
Stoner
?”

“Who d’you think,” Bel demanded. “A chance to shift the
public mood from helplessness to revolt
and
turn the administration
against their most potent allies at the same time?”

Cal took a deep breath, tilting his head in homage to his
friend’s abilities. “Gods help me if you and I ever end up enemies…”

Belfric nodded his grudging agreement. “Unless, of course,
you stay on my wife’s good side, in which case I might be in trouble.” He
looked over to where she was introducing the young visitor to a group of young
women. “What’s the plan for him?” he asked. “You plan to get him off world,
yes?”

“I do,” Cal replied. “His information can help us, if we can
get him to a friend of mine, but I may need to get him out faster than we’d
intended.”

“The dung has definitely hit the atmo recyclers,” Bel said
cheerfully. “Folks will start lining up for a ride out, whether they have the
credits or not.”

“Well, he has the money,” Cal muttered. “Hardly any time in
that casino and he’d already won enough money to put his life in danger.”

Casinos murdered lucky customers all the time. If a magister
managed to get wind of it, they’d simply point to an unlikely string of luck,
explain it as cheating and offer the magister ten percent of the recovered
credits.  Cal had a feeling this young man might have been able to avoid
their clutches but he couldn’t quite put his finger on
why
he thought
so.

“Could get a bit cracked,” Bel warned. “The water price was
cut in half this morning – biggest price drop in years.” It was a clear
indication the company expected the recent violence to lead to even worse
confrontations. “You sure your boy’s up for it?”

Cal laughed. “You think he could get any more frightened
than he is right now?”

They laughed, watching the clearly nervous young man as he
respectfully talked with several young Ufangian women. In truth, they were free
to experiment with any young man who caught their eye.

If Ufangian men ever tried to instill patriarchal control over
the amorous choices of the women, they’d certainly fail horribly.  Cal had
met a few of them and some were leading cells on other worlds. He couldn’t
imagine an Ufangian woman being told she couldn’t see a particular young
suitor, at least not without punching the offending male in the throat.

He
could
imagine his Human visitor developing a
sudden reluctance to leave this planet, however, and that was the main reason
for his fabricated warning. He saw one of the young women reach out to place a
hand on the visitor’s forearm. The Human jumped as though he’d been
electrocuted, causing some amused giggles.