Sagittarius Whorl Read online

  haj: This viral vector is of special interest to the Haluk race. They pay the human corporation Rampart Concern enormous sums for it.

  mod: [Slight lessening of hostility] Oh. That stuff.

  haj: Precisely. In the Perseus Spur a similar small vial of this precious substance would bring 250,000 on the black market—twice as much if sold directly to the blue-skinned ones.

  mod: [In disbelief] Haifa million bucks for one of those little ampules? You shittin' me, high pockets?

  haj: That is still twenty percent less than Rampart retail. But here is an interesting thing: this PD32:C2 was not manufactured by Rampart! It comes from an entirely new viral source on a certain Joru world. The simpletons there do not realize that the vector they are producing for the genetic modification of livestock is identical to the substance so desperately coveted by the Haluk. This vial I have shown you is only a sample. I have access to unlimited quantities—and my price is a mere 120,000 per vial.

  mod: [Shaking head] Yon should be peddling this stuff in the Perseus Spur, fella. Around these parts ... it could be really hard to move. Nobody's gonna give a guy like you anything like the kind of deal you quoted. Maybe not even a tenth the price.

  haj: [Seeming not to understand the implied invitation to dicker] One hears rumors. Very persistent rumors of a clandestine Haluk presence in this Sagittarian zone, in association with individuals of the putrid Y'tata race. And so, rather than travel from my home base on Didiwa to the forbiddingly remote Perseus Spur, where Haluk trade operations are spied upon by arrogant agents of Rampart Concern and the Human Commonweal, and I or my agents might be imperiled, I traversed Red Gap to this place of... peculiar reputation, where I had never before done business. Even though Phlegethon is a possession of Sheltok Concern—may diseased maslaw defecate upon their corporate earnings report!—I understand that it is possible here to engage in confidential undertakings without personal hazard. I confess that I hoped to find knowledgeable and enterprising persons in this asteroid who might have access to the far-ranging Haluk.

  mod: /Uncomfortably} I've heard the rumors about Haluk pirates going after Sheltok carriers in the Sag. Far as I know, they're just rumors. No blueberry bandits ever drop in here to fuel up or hit the casinos.

  haj: I must speak frankly now. The name of a certain human who has been known to trade with the Haluk was suggested to me by a colleague on Didiwa. I confess that I originally came to Phlegethon hoping to make contact with this trader—but no human I have spoken to thus far seems to know him. Or if they do, they will not reveal his whereabouts to a Joru. I would pay an extremely generous finder's fee to the person who steered me to him.

  mod: What's this joker's name?

  haj: He is called Barney Cornwall.

  mod: [Elaborately casual] Mmm. The name's sort of familiar. I seem to remember that he's a hard guy to get a hold of. Comes and goes, you know?

  haj: You do have his acquaintance, then?

  mod: I didn't say that.

  haj: [Taking a dilapidated magslate out of the baldric case] This device contains the complete manufacturing sequence for the Joru vector production facility. Of course, the verbal portions are in the Joru language, but that should not prove too much of an obstacle. In order to prove the authenticity of my merchandise, I am willing to allow a cooperative person to copy this manufacturing data and pass it on to the man Cornwall.

  mod: How about handing over one of those sample vials? For all I know, you could be peddling grape jelly.

  haj: [Insulted] It is the true PD32:C2, only from a new source! I vow it upon my honor as a Joru! The virus will pass any test. If you wish, we can take it to a bioassay establishment immediately. I note that there is one listed in the Bazaar's directory.

  mod: Well... maybe that won't be necessary.

  At this moment of truth I would tell the arms peddler that he could buy the sample for fifty kay and resell it to Cornwall for whatever the traffic would bear. He would laugh scornfully and accuse me of playing a confidence game. I would become furiously indignant at the insult, grab up my things, and storm out of the place.

  Four dealers called me back before I got out the door, calmed my wounded feelings, and eventually persuaded me to let them have a freebie along with a dime copy of the magslate contents, citing their excellent reputation among the local entrepreneurs and their strong hope of being able to track down Barney Cornwall. I promised to phone the next day.

  After making my pitch to the last trader, I returned to Makebate, stripped off my disguise, and had a long hot shower. Then I reconstituted some barbecued baby back ribs, a baked potato, some Blue Lake green beans, and a handful of snickerdoodle cookies, and ate them seated in my command chair while listening to quiet jazz selections by Bill Evans and Marian McPartland.

  By and large I was well satisfied with the day's masquerade. Surely one of the four traders who had taken a sample would pass it on to Barky Tregarth—or at least contact him with news of the sensational find. Then my only challenge would be figuring out a safe way to snatch him and do the preliminary interrogation. I hoped the old man wouldn't be too frail to withstand the rigors of interrogation. Maybe he'd spill his guts for a payoff, as Adam Stanislawski had suggested. Then all I'd have to verify was the general truth of his statements.

  I put on another recording—surf breaking on a barrier reef, rustling mint-palms, crooning elvis-birds—reclined in the chair and fell asleep. I dreamed of my tropical island on Kedge-Lockaby, 23,600 light-years away, and my new yellow submarine, which I'd hardly had a chance to break in.

  In the "morning" I ate a big breakfast, since I'd get almost nothing to eat while in costume. It took nearly an hour and a half to restore my Joru makeup. Then I climbed into the gig and returned to the asteroid. On the way in I phoned the four arms dealers.

  Two of them said they'd had no luck finding Barney Cornwall. They offered to return my vector samples. The other two, shiftier than the first pair, told me they were still looking. I should call again tomorrow. Or maybe the next day.

  Rats.

  I'd have to try my shtick on the other contraband merchants. There were nearly a hundred of them in the Bazaar, trading in everything from scandium fuel catalyst to Kalleyni pornography, and lots more were doing business in bars of public corridors. Even if I confined myself to humans and Y'tata, those races were far and away the most numerous among the dealers. I was in for a long and unpleasant haul.

  Y'tata offensiveness went without saying. And if yesterday's experience held true, the human traders would be spectacularly rude. Interspecies harmony wore thin in the galactic boondocks, especially between humanity's lower orders and the snotty Joru, who had a rep for pennypinching. It wasn't much fun being an alien after all...

  I left the docked gig and reentered the asteroid's big lobby, thinking depressed thoughts, for the first time facing the possibility that my clever scheme was a piece of shit. Maybe Ram Mahtani had suckered me out of Stanislawski's big bribe after all. Maybe Barky Tregarth had been dead for years. Or if he was alive, maybe Ram had warned the old geezer to run for his life. Maybe I was a self-deluding asshole off on a futile snipe-hunt, and I should have listened to Karl and stayed home on Earth making use of the evidence we already had—

  "Hey, Mr. Joru! Missed you last night at Cucaracha Loca."

  I whirled about and found Sh'muz. His garb was cleaner and his complexion had lost some of its terminal lividity. A little money, a little hope of cashing in further on a good thing, can do that.

  "I told you that I do not require your services," I har-rumphed.

  "Sure you do," he retorted breezily. "I found somebody you might really wanna meet."

  "What! Are you saying you found Barney Cornwall?"

  "An entity who knows him." He paused, then rubbed his digits together in a gesture nearly universal among sapient beings.

  "Of course I'll pay you for the information." I named a sum that would buy a ticket to any Y'tata planet within Zone 3. "You say
'entity.' Does this mean that your source is not a human?"

  "Y'tata starship captain. Independent operator." Sh'muz meant pirate. "He'll want to be paid, too. Lots more than me."

  "That part of the transaction need not concern you. When and where may I meet this person?"

  He twirled his eyes in the Y gesture equivalent to a wry human shrug. "You coulda done it last night if you'd met me in La Cuca. Come tonight. Same time, midnight. I'll do the introduction, you pay me, I skedaddle."

  "You are absolutely certain that this person can put me in contact with Barney Cornwall?"

  "Hey—is the Pope Catholic?"

  I huffed disdainfully through my mask. "That Standard English slang phrase does not translate into Joru, but I presume it is affirmative. Very well. Expect me at the drinking establishment at 2500 hours."

  Sh'muz gave a jaunty farewell bounce—fortunately without losing control—and skipped away into the throng. I stood there for a while, thinking. It seemed a good idea to retrieve the two samples of PD32:C2—after all, they were Rampart property—so I did so, giving modest tips to the honest gun merchants. Then I scoped out La Cucaracha Loca and its immediate environs, with a view to abduction.

  The bar was close to Phlegethon's busy fueling bays, a handy little oasis for transient starfarers and the contraband traders who wheeled and dealed with them. Loud Latin jazz played over an uproar of voices. The place served only human beverages and snacks, and was packed with human, T'tata, and Joru drinkers. Even a few grotesque Kalleyni squatted in a corner where the gravity was turned low, slurping beakers of corrosive White Lightning and shrieking mirthfully at their own jokes.

  I ordered a martini. I hate martinis, but that's what Joru drink in human dives; martinis with extra olives because that's the best part of the drink. The aliens poke the gin-soaked fruit through the eating ports of their masks and chew rapturously. I wasn't ready to suffer that much for my art.

  The bartender said, "Something wrong with the olives?" He was a tough-looking human with a pencil-thin mustache and sallow skin.

  "They are exquisite," I assured him, "but I am feeling a trifle indisposed. Please direct me to the relief facility."

  He looked at me funny, as though this were a question I should know the answer to. "In the rear, in the alley. Pay for your drink before you go."

  The dimly lit alley-passage backed on numbers of other grogshops, cheap cabarets, and modest eateries in the immediate vicinity. It contained two refuse-recycling units, a triplex latrine with an exterior puke-basin, haphazard stacks of empty crates, and a stock-delivery elevator. The latter was in use.

  Leaning against the toilet cubicle near the basin, I fumbled with my mask and moaned, pretending to be unwell, and watched a human worker bring barrels of beer out of the lift and tote them into one of the other pubs. When he was gone I summoned the elevator myself and surveyed the interior. The control pads were labeled with the names of several beverage and food supply outfits located on lower levels. The only Up button wore a little sign that said dock 0-6.

  Well, well.

  I pressed it and made a short ascent. When the door slid open I found myself in an area where medium-sized freighters and the lighters that served larger starships were discharging cargo and taking it aboard. Roboporters loaded with container pods were zipping all over the place. A human stevedore maneuvered a train of small cars carrying crates of familiar terrestrial booze into a kind of cage next to my elevator and began off-loading them. Unfortunately, he spotted me in the open elevator car.

  "Hey, Joru! Whatcha doing in there?"

  When caught flatfooted in suspicious circumstances, act blotto. "Aargh. I—I fear I am confused by strong drink. I am seeking my vessel, the Julog- Will. It appears I have come to the wrong dock."

  "Yeah, well, you get the hell back downstairs and find the right fuckin' lift. This is a human dock. Joru ships tie up at D-3 and D-4."

  I apologized and returned to where I had started. Back in La Cucaracha Loca, I treated myself to a shot of Jack Daniel's. The bartender looked at me askance, since Joru don't drink whiskey, but I didn't give a damn. It was celebration time.

  I'd found a way to remove Barky Tregarth unobtrusively from Phlegethon. All I had to do was lure him to La Cuca, slip him a mickey, take him into the alley, lose my Joru disguise, and get us both up to Dock G-6. Makebate's gig would come for us on autopilot if I summoned it with my phone-link. The dock was so busy that I doubted if anyone in authority would notice another small orbiter craft nosing in among the lighters and picking up two human crew members.

  Yes. It was going to work... provided that Sh'muz and his pirate pal weren't scamming me.

  I went back to my starship to get things ready.

  I arrived half an hour early for the rendezvous, just because it seemed like a good thing to do, and sat unobtrusively at the end of the bar nearest the front door. The Latin music was less raucous than it had been during my earlier visit. Sh'muz and a formidable-looking entity who was clearly his informant were sitting together at one of the little tables, drinking beer. Y'tata love beer. The maroony had a longneck bottle of Bud, and the large ugly Y in the shiny skipper's uniform had just picked up his freshly arrived stein of draft and started to drink it down.

  But the brew didn't suit the alien starship captain's taste. He puckered up his pasty face in revulsion, slammed the mug down on the table, splashing poor Sh'muz, and roared, "Waitress! This overpriced belly-wash is flat!"

  "That's our top-line house microbrew," the overworked human server said over her shoulder. "You want more carbonation, blow bubbles in it. Just be sure you sue your north end—or I'll have our bouncer cork you so tight you'll never whistle 'Dixie' again."

  This provoked general merriment among the non-Y'tata patrons. A human starship crewman called out, "That's telling him, Gigi! Fuckin' Y bum-tootler."

  Actually, members of the intestinally challenged race frequenting La Cucaracha Loca that night seemed mostly to be on their good behavior. No alien flatus defiled the atmosphere, which smelled of tobacco smoke, grass, hops, popcorn, bacon sandwiches, and the odd but not unpleasant aroma of Kalleyni slime. But storm clouds, so to speak, were on the horizon.

  "Insolent human shitwit!" yelled the Y'tata skipper to the starman, surging to his feet and flipping up the back of his copper-studded vest in challenge. "Step outside and I'll toot you right off the friggin' asteroid!"

  A barroom brawl wouldn't serve my purposes. I rapidly pushed my way to the scene of the confrontation and placed myself between insulter and insultee. Even though I'm a Joru midget, I was considerably larger than either the Y skipper or the human starship crewman with the big mouth.

  "If you please, dispenser of beverages!" I thundered to the barkeep, waving a large-denomination bill. "Serve both of these worthy entities some Pilsner Urquell. Include a thirty percent gratuity for yourself and the female server, and let tranquility and good fellowship be restored."

  Gigi the waitress brought open bottles of the pricey premium brew with crystal glasses upended over the mouths. She handed one to the appreciative human spacer, who said, "Wow! I always wanted to try this stuff."

  I appropriated the second Urquell and sat down at the table of the two Y'tata. "Allow me to do the honors, Captain," I said suavely, easing the golden liquid into the tilted glass and creating a moderate head of creamy foam. "I pray you will enjoy this most excellent variety of beer with my heartfelt compliments. It is brewed only in a single city on Earth."

  The skipper glared at me suspiciously as he reassumed his seat. It took the Pilsner glass from my hand, upended it, and downed the beer in a single heroic chug. "Good bubbles. I'll have another one, Joru."

  I signaled Gigi, who nodded and went off.

  "This is Captain B'lit," said Sh'muz. He'd turned a whiter shade of pale during the face-off and his voice still quavered slightly.

  "I am Gulow," I said. "I hope to do business with you tonight, Captain."

  "How much is
it worth to you?" the skipper inquired insolently.

  I lowered my voice almost to the point of inaudibility. The other bar patrons were ignoring us now that the danger of a pong assault had abated. "If you are truly an acquaintance of the human trader Barney Cornwall," I said, "and are able to introduce me to him promptly, so that I may offer him certain rare merchandise, I will vouchsafe an appropriate emolument." I named a sum that made Sh'muz gasp.

  "Double it," sneered BTit, "and you got a deal."

  "The aforesaid generous price is firm," I said stonily. "Vulgar haggling is beneath the dignity of the Joru."

  "Cheapskate," muttered BTit. His second Urquell arrived and he took his time pouring and sipping it. Finally: "How do you figure to pay?"

  "By means of preloaded blind EFT cards issued by a human financial institution. Once activated, the cards are negotiable on any human world and many alien ones, with no questions asked."

  "Hmm. This rare merchandise you want to sell to Cornwall ..." The skipper was elaborately casual. "You got it in there?" A pink claw pointed at the locked metal case hanging on my baldric.

  "Certainly not," I said. "The most valuable thing I have to sell, Captain BTit, is information. And it is most securely guarded. As is my own person." I let him see the arm holsters up my sleeves. "Do not take me for a fool. Furthermore, I will require proof of Barney Cornwall's identity before I pay you."

  "Ask him yourself, you Joru prick," the Y skipper said.

  "He's sitting over there in the corner. He owns the goddamn joint! C'mon—I'll introduce you."

  The two Y'tata and I moved through the closely packed patrons. The man in the corner had an unusual area of empty space around his table. He sat with his back to the wall, nursing a stein of microbrew, and watched our approach with an ironic smile.

  It was a setup. But what kind? I decided I'd have to carry on according to plan.

  The man who might have been Hamilcar Barca Tregarth didn't look at all like the doddering centenarian I'd envisioned. In fact, he might have been fifty years old or even younger, with shoulder-length brown hair and unlined, rather handsome features. If he really was the man I was looking for, he'd been very extensively—and expensively— rejuvenated. He wasn't tall but his build was solidly muscular, shown to advantage by a tailored jumpsuit of dark blue leather, zipped open to the waist to reveal a trendy fishnet T-shirt. Around his neck hung a heavy platinum chain with a large pendant. When we were closer, I was able to identify the stone in the pendant as an exotic fossil the size of a plum. I'd seen its like before, in the Perseus Spur...