Counterweight (6 page)

And they had this particular agent to thank for their exile.

Planet 3428

R
ick
dropped to one knee, his eyes just clear of the low-level mist flowing down the
ravine. Discovery lay ahead. Somewhere in front of him, no more than fourteen
seconds ahead, something had been placed to betray his presence. A branch
across the path, a trip wire – whatever it was, Nell had put it there to know
he was approaching.

He looked ahead to the abandoned cargo shuttle lying against
the steep wall of the ravine, overgrown by centuries of lush tropical
vegetation. Maquahuitl vines fought each other near the stern. For reasons
nobody understood, the sharp-edged plants were drawn to the energy of a pitch
drive. Even an old shuttle like this one, its engine dead for centuries, drew
the deadly vines and they slowly ground against one another, slicing at each
other in their quest for dominance.

The forward entry point was well clear of the vines and Rick
had been surprised at the comfortable living quarters inside. He’d cleared out
the skeletal remains of the monks who’d crashed there, and started using the
shuttle as a hunting camp. It had quickly become a second home – a place where
he could be free from the disdain of his fellow crew-members.

Small comforts had been finding their way to this shuttle
for the last eleven months. The place was actually more comfortable than Rick’s
accommodations on the
Canal
.

He now wished he’d never shown it to Nell. In the early
flush of infatuation, he’d brought her here and she had quickly become as avid
a ‘hunter’ as Rick. Many had remarked on how much time she now spent in the
jungle. Though he’d enjoyed their time here, he suddenly realized that his
sanctuary had been compromised.

He gazed up at the decrepit vessel, frowning as his friend’s
warning nagged at him. Barry’s disapproval was directed at his own sister, and
that gave Rick pause. If Barry had simply warned Rick to stay away, it would
have made him do the opposite. In articulating the true reasons for his
position, he’d slipped past Rick’s guard.

He looked back on all the time he’d spent in that shuttle.
Suddenly all his fond memories soured. He saw Nell’s behavior in a new light,
without the blinders of infatuation. It wasn’t just a forbidden romance.

She was toying with the ‘help’.

He only had himself to blame. Did he really expect anything
to come of it? He picked up a stone, adjusting his angle until he knew he’d hit
whatever was out there and let it fly.

A thin smile ghosted his features as he backed into the
dense brush, turning to continue with his hunt. The ‘help’ wouldn’t be coming
today.

Tsekoh, Capital of Chaco Benthic

T
he
warehouse was nicer than Cal had expected. The entire front was a windowed
office space, opening onto three different levels. The window mullions hadn’t
developed the smutty patina common to Tsekoh, marking the façade as a new
addition, probably during the last year.

“The son’s name?” he asked over his shoulder as he crossed
toward the main doors, jamming a Tauhentan buck-herder’s hat on his head.

“G’Mal.” The Ufangian gazed at the ridiculously out-of-place
hat for a split second before trotting after Cal.

They pulled the doors open, striding confidently into the
comfortably dry and warm atrium. A catwalk led across the three-story open
space and Cal headed across without breaking stride, acting as if he knew where
he was going. He completely ignored passing office employees and they repaid
the favor, glancing at his hat, but not thinking to wonder where the confident
stranger was headed.

Momentum was crucial in a situation like this. If you
stopped and took in your surroundings, you didn’t belong. If you acted as
though you knew what you were doing, chances were good you’d avoid
entanglements with territorial staff. Just pick a point and start walking.

They reached the end of the catwalk and Cal swerved left to
pass a reception desk, aiming for the heavy spicewood doors at the back of a
small seating area. The heady scent was nice for a few moments, but he couldn’t
imagine spending entire days behind those doors.

“Excuse me,” the young Tauhentan man at the desk got up,
speaking in an authoritative tone. “Can I help you?”

Cal supressed a grin. In a confrontation, most people had a
chronic aversion to saying what they really meant. This receptionist was a
prime example. What he really wanted to say was
Stop; you can’t just walk in
there.
It would have worked a hell of a lot better in this case. Instead,
his choice of words gave the impression that he was just offering help.

Taking him up on his offer was the best way to keep the
momentum alive. “Three algae floaters and see that we’re not disturbed –
G’Mal’s on a tight schedule today.”

The flustered receptionist frowned in confusion as the two
interlopers pushed the heavy doors open and disappeared inside.

The office stank of spicewood. The desk in the center of the
room was made of the stuff and it was probably the reason the ventilation
system was running full tilt. The twenty-something Tauhentan behind it looked
at the closing doors for a second then back to his unexpected visitors. His
eyes slid up to Cal’s ostentatious hat, then darted away diplomatically.

If anyone asked him later to describe his visitor, the hat
would be the first thing to come to mind. His other features would likely be
vague at best, since the hat always drew the eyes whenever he looked at the
face.

“Ro’j,” Cal boomed. “Ro’j Yoyeco’s the name.” He jammed a
thumb over his shoulder at his Ufangian companion. “This here’s McFreely –
Elmer Fudd McFreely.”

The young man nodded absently, trying to work out what was
happening to his quiet morning. He looked back up at Cal. “Wasn’t there a Ro’j Yoyeco
that betrayed Tauhento to the Alliance long time ago?”

Most Tauhentans revered Yoyeco as part of the liberation
effort but expats like G’Mal had to make a point of seeing it the other way. If
you lived in the Republic and your home world was under Alliance dominion, you
didn’t have much choice about things like that.

“No relation,” Cal breezed. “Speaking of relations, when’s
the old man getting back? I’m anxious to finalize the details.”

“The, um…” His eyes darted from side to side. “What?”

One of the doors opened and the receptionist backed in with
a tray in his hands. He slowly walked to the desk and set out the three drinks
that Cal had ordered. He looked across to G’Mal, who looked pointedly down at
the drinks before directing an incredulous look at him. The poor fellow
shrugged helplessly, nodded at the two invaders and then scuttled out, closing
the door quietly.

“The investment, sonny!” Cal exclaimed in perfect Oaxian.
Though Dheema had been the official language on Oaxes and their colony, Tauhento,
for over a thousand years, the smugglers of both worlds still used the old
language to help obscure their activities.

“Investment?” he inquired in Oaxian.

“I’ll just take another look at the stockpile.” Cal headed
for the side door, hoping it wasn’t just a closet or washroom.

The young man jumped out of his seat in alarm. “Wait, you
can’t just walk in there! You might be dealing with my father but I have no
clue who you are.” He caught Cal by the arm just as he reached the door.

He was so focused on Cal that he failed to notice ‘McFreely’
slipping behind his desk. The ‘sticky’ was a short-range data chip with a
cloning program. If you could get close enough to your target’s data node, you
could make a copy of everything he had.

If you could get close enough.

The Ufangian was leaning right up against it. The closer you
got, the faster the data transferred.

“Hey!” G’Mal turned Cal from the door. “McFreely, what are
you doing?”

“Nice picture,” Cal’s accomplice muttered, pretending to
stare at the details of the image on the wall behind the desk. “Not the first
Foxlight,
is it?”

“Yes, it
is
the first,” he waved the Ufangian back
out to the middle of the office. “Look, gentlemen, if you have a deal, it’s
with my father. I don’t know anything about it so we’re not going to accomplish
anything here today. Why don’t you come back in a few days when the old man
returns?” He held out his hand, offering the old Imperial version of a
handshake.

Cal was impressed with the young Tauhentan. He didn’t hide
behind polite phrasing; he came right to the point, once he managed to regain
his footing. ‘Ro’j’ looked at ‘McFreely’ who gave a barely perceptible nod.
“Fair enough, lad.” He waved his hand over G’Mal’s. “We’ll be seeing you.”

Outside, Cal took the sticky and they split up. Cal headed
for one of the connectors that linked the two sides of the city, tossing his
hat over the railing as he activated his implant. There were literally
thousands of convenient locations where he could view the files on the sticky
but all of them were watched by a bank of quantum-core computers that sat
brooding over all intra-city messages and data access.

His implant, however, was completely independent of the city
systems and it was shielded from scans. Using it for short-range links, such as
the sticky, was more-or-less safe, but a long-range message could be picked up
by the random scanners.

He powered up the Hothmoen discriminator, developed by the
Yo’Thage brothers on Weirfall a century and a half ago. The discriminator
allowed perception at the quantum level. Linking it to a Midgaard implant
allowed faster-than-light communication by tunneling a path through countless
micro-wormholes.

Cal focused his attention on the device in his tunic pocket,
picking up the
ready
signal almost immediately. He came to a stop at a
semicircular rest area that jutted out into the main atrium of the city.

Leaning on the damp railing, he began to work his way
through the files. The manifests for the
Foxlight II
were particularly
illuminating. Each voyage resulted in a cargo transfer straight through the
orbital counterweight platform and onto another freighter. There was always a
sub-note indicating a large quantity of water coming down on the elevator each
time the ship visited orbit.

It made sense. If G’Maj had found a new source of spicewood,
he’d want to bring enough down here to generate local pocket currency and he’d
want to keep folks from finding out. What better way than to declare it as
water.

Technically, water was in permanent shortage but it was an
artificial shortage – the city was sitting under several kilometers of it,
after all. Still, if it was declared as water, it meant official involvement.

Cal reckoned that direct involvement went no farther up the
chain than a customs official or two. A lot of ‘water’ got imported into the
city every day but the company turned a blind eye, as long as the bribes
flowed. G’Maj was paying an inspector, who then gave his own supervisor a
share. That supervisor, in turn, paid a percent of his take to his manager and
so, up the chain it went.

The unofficial system was so old, it wasn’t even considered
illegal. It also had the benefit of allowing certain archaic laws to be
circumvented without engaging the infamously costly re-legislation process. The
old saying went that money flowed into Xo’Khov and fed the Consul’s pet black
hole.

“Give an Ufangian a credit and he’ll make two more by day’s
end,” Cal muttered the old adage as he mentally scrolled the data. “Give a
credit to a Dactari and he’ll melt it down to sell for scrap, and then ask you
for another credit so he can ship it to a recycler.”

Since the first Consul had replaced the Triumvirs fifteen
decades ago, accountability had gone to the scuttlers. The Triumvirs had at
least kept each other in check to some degree. The Consuls ruled without
interference and so the great gears of Republic administration had grown
increasingly dirty.

Small wonder there was so much undeclared cargo shifting
around between the worlds.

Cal frowned. He closed the current file and went back to the
expense account. G’Maj always bought the same amount of reactant every time he
returned to Chaco Benthic. It was always the same amount, right down the the
last tenth of a grain.

It was a simple matter for Cal to have his cranial processor
crunch the numbers. He had everything he needed to calculate the radius
represented by the reactant purchases. The specs on the
Foxlight II
were
right there in the files and their engine performance was clearly stated in the
sales brochure G’Maj had received from off world.

Cal projected a three-dimensional chart on his retinas and
overlaid a sphere with the calculated radius. Only three worlds came anywhere
close to the surface of the sphere. One was a carbon giant and he removed it
from the projection. The next two seemed like good candidates. Both were
G-class worlds.

The G class, or
Goldilocks
class of worlds were the ones
that orbited their stars at just the right distance for liquid water to exist.
Of the two G-class worlds, one sat just inside the sphere, and the other just
beyond it.

Cal figured the smuggler wouldn’t take any risks on running
out of fuel so the closer world was the most likely candidate. Both were
outside of Republic control but he figured he could wait for G’Maj to return
before attempting to contact the Alliance.

He toyed with the idea of sneaking aboard the
Foxlight II
when it returned but the crew would almost certainly purge the nav computer
before the customs officials came aboard.

He figured the best course of action would be a chance
meeting with G’Maj at one of the smuggler’s regular watering holes. Just two
Tauhentan expats reminiscing about a world that neither had set foot on. Once
Cal got him talking, he should be able to pick up enough data to confirm his
analysis.