The Sagittarius Whorl Read online

  "Couldn't you hold off until—"

  "No. Right now, I'm in a perfect position to exert pressure on Galapharma's top officers, while they're afraid of losing their precious jobs and stakeholdings. If I wait for the consolidation, it could be too late. Gala will wipe the computers clean rather than take a chance that Rampart would discover the data. They could be doing it right now."

  "Maybe it's done."

  "No—they'd wait until the trial verdict was in."

  "You really got a wild blue hair up your ass, don't you, boy?"

  "I'm convinced the Haluk are mortally dangerous, yes."

  "God almighty!" My father shook his head. "All right. Put your goddamn request to Lorne Buchanan. Nobody else. He's got the most to lose in the consolidation, and he has the power to get what you want if anyone does."

  "I promise to use the utmost discretion. I'll get Ef Sontag to promise the same. We won't go public unless we have proof of malicious intent by the Haluk."

  Simon pushed his plate of food away, shaking his head, and got to his feet. "You just can't leave things be, can you? Always lookin' to stir up trouble."

  "Where the Haluk are concerned, damn right I am. But I'll do it as quietly as possible now—for Rampart's sake. I'm not trying to dissolve the Haluk trade treaty, and I certainly don't intend to force them back into their overcrowded star-cluster. But I do aim to make sure they behave if they move into our neighborhood."

  "Arrogant, self-righteous young prick!" Simon growled. "Who elected you Speaker of the Commonwealth Assembly?"

  "Nobody," I said. "Frankly, I'd rather be a beach bum on Kedge-Lockaby. But if I decide to give Rampart's chairmanship a pass, I may just turn into the meanest goddamn Reversionist beach bum you and the Assembly and the Hundred Concerns and the Haluk ever met."

  "I've lost my appetite," my father said unhappily, heading for the door. "I'm going to bed."

  "You can always fire me," I called after him. "By law, I'd revert instantly to Throwaway status. I'd be out of the galactic poker game for keeps and out of your corporate hair."

  "Nope," Simon Frost said. "Gonna let my bet on you ride. God help us all."

  The door closed behind him.

  I decided it was high time for some more of Jack Daniel's best. Maybe even a double.

  Later, when it was a reasonable hour on Kedge-Lockaby's Eyebrow Cay, I called Mimo Bermudez on the ranch's sub-space com. He'd seen the Journal posting and congratulated me on Rampart's legal triumph while being tactful about Simon's notion to promote me beyond my station.

  Then we got around to the reason for my call: the Barky Hunt. Mimo had promised to make discreet inquiries about the ancient gunrunner among doddering members of the Spur underworld. My friend's courtly Mexican manners had thus far precluded his asking me for an explanation.

  "I found several people who knew Tregarth in the old days," Mimo said, "even a few who had participated in the original wager that supposedly sent him off on his incredible journey. All but one of those that I spoke to branded Tregarth a bare-faced liar with an overly fertile imagination. The exception was a certain vejarron named Clifton Castle who once worked as a fence on Tyrins. After Tregarth escaped from the lockup there, he contacted Castle and sold him an extremely rare jewel to finance his flight back to the Orion Arm. It was a exotic fossil cabochon set in platinum—beyond a doubt Haluk in origin. Tregarth claimed it had been a gift from the official of a planet he visited in the Haluk Cluster."

  "He might also have got it from one of their Spur colonies."

  "That's always a possibility. Clifton Castle had another interesting piece of information. Tregarth made a condition that the fossil not be resold for one month, saying he hoped to buy it back—at a premium, of course—since it was his only souvenir of the great adventure."

  "Pawning the thing. Did Barky redeem it?"

  "Yes, three weeks later. Castle sent it by registered StelEx to the planet Famagusta in Sector 5. This happened in the year 2201."

  "I don't suppose this Castle knows whether Barky is still alive."

  "He had no idea. I could send out more feelers, but as you know, my principal sources are in the Perseus Spur, not the inner Orion Arm. You might have better luck consulting our mutual friend, Chief Superintendent Jake Silver. Tregarth might be in the CCID database."

  "Maybe I'll talk to Jake. I'm heading for Toronto tomorrow."

  My pal's dark eyes peered from thoughtful slits. "You've never told me why you're so anxious to find this geriatric contrabandista"

  "Mimo, it's better you don't know."

  He shook his frowsy head in chagrin. "Helly, Helly, Helly. It's rather obvious, isn't it? You still believe that the Haluk intend to wage war on humanity."

  "I think they might—if their population pressure is exceptionally severe. This guy Tregarth might be dead or he might be a total shuck-and-jive artist, the biggest liar since Baron Munchausen. On the other hand, he might just know more about our mysterious blue buddies than any other human being. I want to talk to him."

  "And then what?"

  I smiled at the SS com screen. "I've got a sabbatical coming, while the Galapharma settlement is sorted out and I decide whether to accept the Rampart chairmanship. I told my father I'd spend the time loafing on K-L—but it might be more fun to take my modified Y770 starship on a grand tour."

  "Caracoles!" The semiretired Smuggler King of the Perseus Spur immediately guessed what I had in mind and was appalled. "Please tell me you're joking!"

  "Of course I am," I lied.

  "I'm relieved to hear it. You realize that a private individual who traveled to the Haluk Cluster would violate both the nonaggression pact and the trade treaty with that race, laying himself open to sanctions from both the Xenoaffairs and Interstellar Commerce Secretariats. Every asset the individual possessed might be seized—and he himself would not only be disenfranchised, but probably also incarcerated without possibility of parole."

  "Unless the illegal expedition was accomplished without the individual being caught. And the individual came back with significant intelligence data."

  "Why you?" my old friend exclaimed in exasperation.

  "Who else?" I retorted. "I've got the inclination and time to spare. I've also got the ship."

  My personal blitzboat was named Makebate—an old word meaning "troublemaker." She was a Rampart executive perquisite, the only expensive toy I'd allowed myself during the two tedious years of brain-bending legal work associated with the Galapharma trial. I'd managed to take only rare brief jaunts in her to visit my friends on Kedge-Lockaby in the Spur. A chance remark of Mimo's at a luau on Eyebrow Cay three months ago had planted the seed for the Barky Hunt... and what might follow if it was successful and the old crook really did have important information about the Haluk Cluster worlds.

  Returning to Toronto for the climactic part of the trial, I had arranged for Rampart Fleet Maintenance technicians to modify Makebate while I was grounded. Her fuel bunkers had been greatly enlarged and her weaponry significantly beefed up. She now carried state-of-the-art sublight drive dissimulators for stealthy near-planet maneuvering and orbital concealment. I was having special bodycount gadgetry installed that would make clandestine fly-by census scans of hostile planets feasible, and I also intended to look for warships. The Commonwealth seemed content to believe that massive Haluk purchases of astrogational equipment were intended for use in colonial transports; I thought that notion was pure bovine excrement.

  Mimo sighed. "Always the cowboy! I had hopes that your stint as Rampart's Chief Legal Officer would have mellowed you."

  "Tourism can be amusing and educational," I said. "Wanna come along? I could use some human company. Talking to the ship's computer gets boring after a few days. And there's always the possibility of a good fight."

  "And a quick death. Or worse, if you're captured."

  I just grinned at him. "I'm going to count blue noses and look for blue battleboats whether or not the Barky Hunt works out. Co
me on! It'll be a hoot."

  "Unfortunately I have a previous engagement in the tank."

  It took me a moment to realize what he was saying. "The—The tank?"

  "I'd accompany you to the Haluk Cluster if I could, Helly, if only to keep you out of trouble. After all, I'm a much better shot with a photon cannon! I'm also curious how the Haluk manage to mine transactinides, given their technology lag. But this old body of mine is in need of serious repair. I must go into dystasis in Rampart Central's big hospital on Seriphos, since the doctors at the Big Beach don't have the resources to deal with my case."

  I tried not to show my dismay. Mimo was a man in late middle age, but as far as I knew, he was healthy. "So. It's something serious?"

  "It is," he said gently. "A flare-up of an old problem. However, the prognosis is good. All that's necessary is a grotesque amount of money to pay for the sixteen-week procedure. No importa dos cojones." His standard disclaimer: It doesn't matter two balls' worth.

  Of course money was no problem to Mimo. Decades of smuggling fine liquor, Cuban cigars, premium coffee, and other luxuries past Rampart excise collectors had made him one of the wealthiest private individuals in the Perseus Spur. But I felt a pang of guilt as I recalled the threadbare state of Kedge-Lockaby's modest little hospital. I should have done something about that a long time ago, now that I had the means. K-L had been good to me.

  And so had Captain Guillermo Bermudez Obregon.

  I said, "You have a nice long soak in the tank, Meem. Cure what ails you. With luck, I'll be there on Seriphos waiting for your rollout. I'll ferry you back to K-L and wait on you hand and foot while you convalesce. I owe you, amigo."

  "All you owe me is staying alive." He was no longer meeting my gaze. "For the sake of prudence, I've sent a small package to your office in Rampart Tower via StelEx. You should find it waiting when you arrive tomorrow. Please take good care of what's inside. Do what must be done if... circumstances warrant."

  I felt a cold breath of irrational dread and pushed it aside, knowing that Mimo was going to be fine. The hospital at Rampart Central on Seriphos had the finest genetic engineering therapy department in Zone 23, and I'd pull strings to make certain that Mimo had Ultra Important Patient status.

  The rest of our conversation was little more than gossip about our mutual friends on Eyebrow Cay. Eventually we told each other good-night and signed off.

  I left the com center and shuffled through the darkened ranch house toward my bedroom, brooding about mortality and about two very different old men and the influences they'd had on my life.

  It had been a busy day. Tomorrow would be even busier in Toronto. If Lorne Buchanan yielded to my pressure, I'd have to touch base with Efrem Sontag and arrange for him to take charge of the sensitive information.

  And there was Jake Silver. Maybe he and I could have dinner, perhaps catch the acclaimed new production of Macbeth at the Winter Garden Theater, if he hadn't already seen it. Both of us were Shakespeare buffs. The Bard had a keen understanding of the criminal mind, and so did Jake and I.

  As it happened, I never got to see the play. The damned criminal minds were already cooking up a different sort of melodrama.

  Starring me.

  Chapter 3

  Chief Superintendent Jacob Silver of the Commonwealth Criminal Investigation Department was a man done wrong by fate, who managed to crawl out of life's manure pile with a rose in his teeth.

  He reminded me a bit of myself.

  Banished to the outermost Perseus Spur for daring to blow the whistle on a superior who'd taken a big bribe from the Carnelian Concern, the powerful producer of electronic weapons and devices, Jake Silver had been demoted to the tiny Public Safety Force of freesoil Kedge-Lockaby. He'd been stuck in this dead-end office on a minor resort world and Throwaway haven for nearly ten years before I arrived in 2229, newly disenfranchised and determined to pickle my brain in ethanol as a prelude to suicide.

  Jake had no difficulty ferreting out the true identity of the derelict who called himself Helmut Icicle when I applied for K-L resident status. During my slow rehabilitation, he occasionally called upon my ICS expertise to outwit visiting corporate connivers—most notably a gang of Native American sharpies from Infinitum, the monster entertainment Concern, who tried to seize control of K-L's casino. A takeover would have deprived the little planet's schools of their principal source of revenue. I showed Jake how to legally spike the redskins' guns, and he and I became cautious friends.

  He risked his professional neck to help me during Rampart's fight with Galapharma. So I made a promise—rashly improbable at the time—to do my damnedest to get him posted back to Earth. I was able to come through for Jake when Simon and Eve pressured me to head up the legal case against Gala. Rampart itself didn't have the political clout to bring the Super back to his family in Toronto, but its prestigious venture-credit stakeholder, Macrodur Concern, sure as hell did.

  Macrodur is the proverbial 400-kilo gorilla, the largest and most connected of the Big Seven Concerns by reason of its monopoly on computer products. I made Jake Silver's reinstatement—with promotion—at CCID headquarters a condition of my acceptance of the interim CLO gig. Macrodur wanted me as chief architect of the case against Gala just as badly as Rampart did. The gorilla leaned. The fix went in.

  The upshot was that Jake Silver returned to a cushy staff job in the capital cop shop. He and I had a celebratory dinner at Truffles, then for two years we mostly went our separate ways.

  Using the ranch's secure landline, I called him before breakfast on the morning after the big verdict, announcing myself to his assistant as "Helmut Icicle, confidential informant."

  The face that appeared on my vidphone display was leaner than it had been on K-L and more mastifflike. The jowls drooped and the shrewd, watchful eyes peered from deep pouches that were not disfiguring but seemed oddly appropriate to a watchdog lawman. Chief Superintendent Jacob Silver was now fifty-six years old, no longer the sweaty, sartorially challenged mess I'd known on K-L's Big Beach. He wore a black cashmere sweater vest over an expensive pink designer shirt, and his gray hair was carefully styled.

  Jake's greeting, however, had all its old familiar charm.

  "Mother-o'-pearl!" he groaned. "If it isn't Hell-Butt, the conquering shyster and tsar of tsuris. I smell trouble... Don't tell me! Payoff day is here. You want reciprocity for engineering my transfer, and I have to put my decrepit cock on the block for you again and risk losing my pension."

  "I need a very small favor," I soothed him. "Nothing to jeopardize your desk-riding posterior. How are Marie and the kids and the grandkids?"

  His forbidding features relaxed into a rare broad smile. "They couldn't be better, thanks to you. Nice going, shooting down Galapharma." He chortled wickedly. "On the other hand, that interview in the Wall Street Journal sure made you look like a horse's patoot. You gonna hook up with Rampart permanently now?"

  "I'm thinking about it. I may postpone the decision indefinitely. Meanwhile, I'm doing some private investigating. I need to find a guy."

  Jake rolled his eyes. "Here it comes ..."

  "Hamilcar Barca Tregarth," I said. "Nicknamed Barky. Disenfranchised for gunrunning and peddling embargoed high tech to aliens around 2201. He used to operate in the Spur but fled to the inner Orion Arm or maybe the Sag Whorl after escaping custody on Tyrins. He might still be alive."

  "That's it?" Jake seemed disappointed.

  "Locate Barky Tregarth for me, Super. I'll be grateful. Buy you a steak tonight at Carman's. Also treat you to Macbeth if you're free. Got two good seats."

  " 'By the pricking of my thumbs,'" Jake quoted the Scottish play," 'something wicked this way comes!' I hope that's not you, Hell-Butt."

  "Absolutely not. I am a paragon of corporate probity. For the moment, anyhow."

  "Okay. I accept your offer to dine. Sorry about the Shakespeare, but Marie and I saw the production last week. Bring one of your ladies and give her a treat. Micklewhite and Dor
sey are outstanding as Lord and Lady M. The set designers got the holo FX right without screwing up the traditional mise-en-scene."

  "Always a good thing."

  "You want to hold a minute, I'll check the roster of lowlifes for Tregarth. We might hit an instant jackpot. Why is his name familiar?"

  He turned away from the phone to consult his computer.

  I considered his suggestion about feminine companionship only momentarily. My sex life had been pretty arid during the trial, due to the long hours of grinding work. When I did take a rare break, it had invariably been a casual fling with one of the politically active sophisticates I'd met through the Reversionist Party. Their partisan intensity had been a welcome distraction from the legal fray.

  But now, with the trial over and my imprudent blabbering a hot topic on the capital grapevine, the last thing I needed was the company of a political woman. I'd go to the play alone.

  Jake Silver was emitting a ruminative humming sound as he searched for my quarry. Finally: "Last domicile of record for our chum is on Manala, Sector 4. It's one of those aster-oidal fueling way stations located at the rim of the Sagittarius Whorl, almost out in Red Gap. Nasty shithole, as I recall, but handy to the trans-ack producers. Eleven years ago one H. B. Tregarth was nabbed and fined a whopper for violating the Y'tata high-tech weaponry trade interdiction. He left Manala and hasn't been arrested since, or compelled to submit a verifying DNA sample for any other reason. He's not in the rolls of the officially deceased, either—which may or may not prove anything. He might have died without a genetic assay. Most Throwaways do. As far as the Commonwealth of Human Worlds is concerned, your Barky doesn't exist."