Cale didn't answer. He appeared lost in thought for several long minutes of silence at the table. Finally, he turned to Dee. "I'm sorry, Dee. We'll have to postpone your grand tour. I have to go help. I feel a real connection to John's aunt and uncle. In fact, he said they raised him. If there's even a chance they're still alive, I have to go help them."
Dee looked shocked. “What! What is this? You’re trying to shut me out?”
Zant looked from one to the other. “What’s going on with you two? I thought you were a pair…” His voice tapered off as Cale shook his head with a reluctant expression. “Okay,” he resumed more briskly, “let’s have it.”
Cale shrugged, his expression morose. “We told you about it. Dee is my passenger. I was to deliver her to a mutually agreeable destination when the pirate attack came up, and we had to detour here. I owe her a ride, and I fully intend to provide it. But I’ve got to go to Ilocan now, and I suspect you might know some things and some people, and maybe some sources I can use. We need to talk, and talk frankly.”
There were unshed tears in Dee’s eyes now. “What is this?” she cried again. “I don’t understand…”
Zant rose abruptly. “I think I’d better let you two work this thing out. I’ll be in the bar.” He hurried off.
Dee's face darkened, and her tone turned quietly furious. "So, you think you're going to just leave me stranded like poor Zant, here. I'm supposed to sit here and twiddle my thumbs while you get yourself killed?"
Cale flinched. "Now, Dee, that's not fair. I can't take you into a war zone. I don't know what I'll be facing. For all I know I'll be arrested and interned as soon as I get there.
"And even if I do make it safely," he continued, "I'll be a soldier in a guerilla war; running and hiding, sleeping and eating when and where I can. Damn it!" he shout/whispered, "I can't take you into that meatgrinder!"
"Why not?" Dee's voice was cold. "You'd better believe there are women fighting there now."
Cale pounded a fist on the table. "They're not you, damn it! They're frontierswomen. They're used to living rough, butchering their own meals, and killing for food. They're used to hardship and privation."
Dee's anger had only increased, and her voice rose. "Cale Rankin! You know damned well I've had a lot more weapons training than you, and even hand-to-hand combat. Sheol, I'm better qualified than you are to fight a war!" Dee’s tears had overflowed, as had her anger. “What do you think you’re doing? Are you trying to get rid of me?"
Cale took her hand in his. “No! The last thing I want is to lose you. In fact, I’m hoping you’ll wait here on Angeles for me. But I can’t ask you to be involved with this. Some of my ideas, well, they may not be exactly…”
“Legal?” she finished for him in a furious tone. “Are you telling me you’re going off to commit a crime? Or crimes?”
He shook his head wildly. “No! No. Well, not really. But it's a damned war! Some of the things we might have to do and some of the people we might have to deal with, well, they wouldn’t be very nice.”
“ Nice!” she almost shouted. “ Nice! Why you pompous, ego-inflated… what do you think I am, anyway? Some oversensitive debutant?”
Cale started to answer, and then paused. Actually, ‘oversensitive debutant’ was not far from the mark. “Look, Dee,” he started in a determinedly reasonable tone. “I know you’re the daughter of a priest. I don’t know much about your morality; but I do know how you reacted to the idea of leaving those pirates behind. From what I’ve seen, your moral standards are pretty high. There's nothing moral about a guerilla war. If some of my ideas work out, even before we go to Ilocan we’re going to have to deal with some rough places and some real lowlifes, and we’re going to have to look and act just as rough and just as low. It could be dangerous for you, and we won’t be able to take care of you or deal with your sensibilities. Please, wait here on Angeles, where you’re safe.” He said this last in almost a pleading tone, as he noted the dangerous glitter in her eyes.
“Bastard!” She hissed. “All this time. All these weeks we’ve been together. All this time I thought you respected me, that you, that you cared for me. And all the time you’ve been thinking I’m some sweet little goody-goody weakling! Who the hell do you think chewed holes in that pirate’s bridge and killed all those people while you were punching neat little holes in their engines?”
She jumped to her feet and grabbed his shirtfront in her fist. “I don't know anyone on Ilocan, but they've been attacked, Captain. Invaded! And my morality that bothers you so much means I’m not going to let some two-bit mystery man keep me from helping them!”
She suddenly realized that everyone in the restaurant was now watching her scene. With massive dignity, she released Cale’s shirt and returned to her seat, patting her lips with her napkin in an exaggeratedly ladylike manner.
Cale was gaping. Finally, he regained control of himself. “Uh, perhaps we should continue this in a more private place?” he suggested meekly.
Dee started to rise, paused, and then settled back into her chair. “No, I don’t think so. I think we’ve danced around this for weeks, now, and it’s time we deal with it.”
“Uh, deal with what?” Cale was afraid he knew.
“With the secret of you, Captain, that’s what. Every time the subject of you, your past, comes up, you change it, or duck it.”
Panic surged in Cale’s chest. “There’s no real secret, Dee,” he began. “I was born on Warden’s World; I’ve knocked around some pretty rough places with some pretty rough people.” He tried a disarming smile. “I guess I’m the kind of man your mother wouldn’t want you to date.”
Dee shook her head, unsmiling. “No. there’s more than that. How do you know so much about pirates? How come you know about fighting a starship? For that matter, how do you come to own your own starship? They’re fabulously expensive. How come you don’t have a trade route all mapped out?”
Cale took a deep breath. How could he lie to Dee? Could he lie to Dee? No, he answered himself. Dee deserved the truth, even though it would mean the end of their budding relationship. “All right,” he began. “I know about pirates because I was one for awhile. But first, I was a slave. I escaped with a bunch of other slaves. We were starving, and hijacked, pirated an ore carrier. We became pirates. Then we found out it was just another kind of slavery — a horrible kind. I witnessed, I did, horrible things, until I could escape. As for how I got Cheetah, I stole her. I ran fast and far, and changed her identity and mine. That aunt I mentioned was mine; but she won't recognize me now. Cheetah 's legal now, though, and legally mine. I’m still running. But I hate what they did to me, what they made me, with a depth of hatred I hope you never experience.” He slammed a hand on the table. “I’ll never be that kind of animal again, even if it means being enslaved again.”
He sighed. “And I don’t have a trade route mapped because I’m not a trader. I no longer know what I am.”
He looked at her stunned expression, and all his hope for the future died. Once again, his pirate past had killed a promising love. “Now, get out of here,” he said gruffly. “Zant and I have some plans to make, and they may not be pretty!”
She started to rise again, and then stopped, and settled once more into her seat. “No,” she said simply.
Cale’s eyebrows rose. “No?”
“No,” she repeated. She was regaining control of herself, and her expression firmed. “I can’t even guess what it must be like to be a slave, if even piracy looks like salvation. But I can imagine a slave grasping at any chance to escape that horror.”
Her firm expression became even harder. “But I must know one thing. Did you, personally, ever commit murder?”
Strangely, the question caused some of his tension to abate. At least he would not have to lie. “No,” he replied honestly. “I have killed three men. All were armed, and all were trying to kill me.”
She nodded soberly. “Thank you for your honesty. I have observed you very carefully these past weeks. You have never behaved with anything but honesty and integrity. Faith cared nothing about what happened to me once we lifted off. If you had cared to, you could have raped or killed me, or even sold me into slavery. Instead, you treated me with courtesy and respect. I’ve seen your hatred and fear of the pirates, and the courage and imagination with which you dealt with them. You could have restrained me or even killed me to avoid having to come to Angeles. Instead, you pandered to my naive opinions, and took the chance of having your identity or that of your ship revealed.”
She shook her head. “No matter what you have been or done in the past, in my experience you have been an honest and honorable man. You have nothing to fear from me.”
She straightened and raised her eyes to meet his. “That is, you have nothing to fear unless you try to keep me from helping you help Ilocan, and make me demonstrate that I can outfight you any time!”
"Maybe," he said in a droll tone. "But I wasn't really concerned about your fighting ability. I'm more concerned with whether you could butcher a hog or survive being out of reach of a spa. You’ve led a very sheltered life as the daughter of the Primate, or whatever it was.”
Dee’s frown evaporated as she struggled to suppress a giggle. “Not ‘Primate’, ‘Prelate’. A primate is a monkey.”
The smile Cale was trying to suppress grew into a grin. “And the difference is…?”
This time the giggle burst forth, and turned into a full-throated laugh. “Now that you mention it…,” she replied, before being carried off by laughter again.
And so it was understood that Dee would go with Cale. He still had misgivings, but he realized that she had the right to make her own decision.
Cale struggled to regain his composure. True, he had minimized his pirate experience, but he took comfort from the fact that he hadn’t actually lied to Dee. She knew! She actually knew he had been a pirate, and she had forgiven him! Perhaps he had hopes of a future after all!
“All right, Dee,” he said. “We’ll talk to Zant together. But I still think you should wait for me here.”
She shook her head. “Not a chance!” A sudden smile blossomed. “You mentioned some people and places Zant might know that may not be 'nice'. There’s no way I’m going to miss seeing an honest-to-God Den of Iniquity!” Cale could hear the capitals in the last phrase.
He grinned and shrugged. “You asked for it. I’ll get Zant.”
When they were all together again, Cale explained their decision, and then turned to Zant. "How about you, Zant? You want to go get your fool head blown off in somebody else's war?" He sobered. "Seriously, if you're not interested, I'll understand. And I'll still give you a lift to any planet between here and there. Except Santiago, of course."
Zant snorted. "Except for losing my partners' money, I haven't done a damfool thing for quite a while. I'm about due. But both of you need to understand," he continued, "I've been in a war. There's nothing glamorous about what a disruptor can do to your closest friend. You'd both better think real hard before you volunteer to let unfriendly strangers shoot at you."
Cale slammed his fist on the table again while shaking his head. "No, Damn it!" he said. "I've been fighting for nothing. It's time to fight for something. Something important." He turned to Zant. "I think I'd like to talk to this 'underground newsie' you mentioned. Do you happen to know how we could track him down?"
The newsie proved helpful, once Zant began acting like a street tough. He gave them the coordinates of the system where the "Government in Exile" of Ilocan was hiding, but he flatly refused to disclose how he contacted them, which pleased Cale.
He told the man to contact the "Government in Exile" and warn them that a ship would be approaching them, but not to shoot until they had a chance to establish comms. Then he reminded the man that Santies could read, too, and that he should be very careful for a while.
They lifted from Angeles, just within their forty-eight hour deadline. Cale gave Tess the coordinates, and they boosted max for the jump point. It was two jumps to the nameless system housing the "Government in Exile," but they were relatively short. Still, it gave the three of them time to become very good friends by the time they reached their goal.
According to the Stellar index the system was uninhabited; but either the index was out of date, or it didn't consider atmosphere mines to be habitations. The mine in question was sited on a small airless moon circling a gas giant. From there, specially designed scoopships skipped along the outer atmosphere of the huge planet, scooping up and compressing the atmospheric gases. They then returned to the moon, where the gases were unloaded, separated, and purified.
Mining was still going on, but now the mine housed the refugee government of Ilocan as well.
Cheetah emerged from the jump point and boosted max for the mine. It was only a few hours before Tess told Cale, "We're being scanned by targeting radars, Captain. We're still too far out for them to get a lock, but they are definitely trying."
Cale nodded. "We're also still too far out to establish two-way comms," he replied. "But I think I should get things started before some fool takes a shot at us. Let's record them a starter message. "Private vessel Cheetah to the Government in Exile of the Planet of Ilocan," he began. "We are volunteers come to help. Please do not fire. If Jessica Smith is there, please tell her John, from Peltir IV, sent us. If she is not there, please understand we are not hostile. I say again, please do not fire. We will establish comm link as soon as lag time is down to five seconds. No response is necessary, but do not fire!"
"Send that on a loop until we get within five light-seconds, Tess," he continued, "and let's hope Aunt Jessica is home."
She was. As soon as two-way communication was established a thin woman with streaks of gray in her hair stared grimly at Cale from the comm screen. "I haven't heard from Johnny in years. Why should I believe you?"
Cale shrugged. "I'm sorry, ma'am. John got into some political trouble, and ended up being sent to the mines. That's why you haven't heard from him."
She flinched visibly. "Let me guess. The damn fool got to poking his nose into the wrong people's business. He never had a lick of sense."
"If it's any consolation, ma'am, we did manage to escape," Cale replied with a smile.
She shook her head. "Well, I hope he's at least got enough sense to stay away from here. He isn't with you, is he?"
Cale suppressed a frown. He hated to lie to Aunt Jessie. In a certain sense, though, 'John Smith' wasn't here; only Cale Rankin. "No, ma'am. There's just the three of us: me, Zant Jenfu and Delilah Raum. I'm Cale Rankin. We're here to find out how we can help."
No missiles launched, no lasers flared. Cheetah grounded gently among several of the huge scoopships. They suited up and crossed to the mining dome, where Jessica met them with two men carrying Old Empire style blasters. The introductions went well, and soon they and six Ilocanos were sitting comfortably in a large room that evidently served as lunchroom, lounge, and meeting room.
"So," Jessica said once they all had drinks, "Exactly how do you think you're going to help?"
Cale shrugged. "That's why we came here first. Before we can even plan, we need up-to-date knowledge of the problem."
"It's a goddam standoff," replied the man who had been introduced as Ster Mong, 'Minister of Defense'. "They can't leave Homesafe without losing troops and equipment, and we can't get off-planet or resupply."
"We're pretty self-sufficient," Jessica added. "Ilocanos can live off the land. But weapons, ammunition, and supplies have to be brought in, and the Santies are running a damned effective blockade. Some of our people are down to homemade weapons, bows, and spears. It's become a war of attrition. As Ster says, it's pretty much a standoff. Our main hope lies in the fact that Santiago isn't really a very wealthy planet, and they waste what they have on giveaways to the 'poor', who then have no reason to work their way out of poverty." She waved a hand. "Sorry. I was a schoolteacher, and I still tend to lecture. Anyway, our hope is that the Santie government will decide they're throwing money down a hole, and will back off."
Ster Mong snorted. "Might work, too, in ten or twelve years! The Santies have elections coming up in a couple of years. Any official that suggested backing off now would be committing political suicide. So, we sit on our butts here and send out 'press releases'!"
Cale was getting an understanding of the situation. This 'government' wasn't really doing anything effective. Questioning revealed that their last contact with the planet itself had occurred more than a month previously. Even if they managed to sneak past the Santie picket and get near the planet itself, they had no means of contacting the Resistance that couldn't be eavesdropped by the Santies.
"So," Zant said when they were alone. "These people are amateurs. Worse, they're bureaucrats. Without an organization to manage, they're helpless. I think we should work on our own. I damned sure don't trust any of 'em with our plans." He glanced at Cale. "Except maybe your friend's aunt.
Cale shook his head morosely. "Not even her. She's a good lady, but whatever we do, we need to do it ourselves, and without any 'help' from these people."
Still, they stayed around for a few days, to meet the people in the 'government' and those outside it who were willing to volunteer to help. A surprising number of them were qualified space pilots; or maybe not so surprising, given the number of skilled atmosphere miners. It was the first good news Cale had received here, and it gave him an idea.
"Believe it or not," Cale began as the three gathered in Cheetah 's lounge after they had lifted off, "I’m the legal owner of a surface and orbital ship scrap yard on Torlon.”
“Torlon?” Zant replied with a frown, “I heard they’d lost spaceflight.”
Cale nodded. “They have. The owner of the last operable ship deeded me his scrap yard before he left. Lots of military hulks in that yard.”
Dee frowned. “Okay, but what can you do with a bunch of scrap?”
“Maybe more than you think,” Cale replied with a smile. “Zant, I gather you’ve been kicking around this sector for quite a while.”
Zand nodded with a smile. “About thirty years.”
Cale responded with a nod of his own. “If you had, say, two thousand carats of flawless white diamonds, do you think you could hire a dozen or so men with orbital shipyard experience for a short-term job?”
Zant straightened, his casual smile gone. “Two thousand carats?” At Cale’s nod, he stroked his chin. “Haveta convert ‘em to gold or Alliance credits. We could do that at Freehold, if we was careful. Discount on diamonds shouldn’t be too bad.” He straightened, and his smile returned. “Sheol yeah. Go to Vishnu. They been hit pretty hard lately. They've been in a planet-wide depression for near two years, now. Lots of yards cuttin’ back, and the government is desperate for hard currencies. For two thousand carats we could damn near buy the shipyard, and pick up a load of weapons to boot.”
Cale shook his head. “We’d also have to charter a ship to get the crew to Torlon. Cheetah ’s too small to haul that many people.”
Zant looked at Cale with a hooded expression. “Yeah. But she's a beautiful li’l thing. Perfect for a little midnight tradin’.”
Cale’s smile was noncommittal. “Oh, don’t worry about it,” Zant continued. “I’ve done more’n a bit of midnight tradin’ myself.”
Dee looked puzzled. “Midnight trading?”
“Smuggling,” Cale replied. “Zant is saying that Cheetah would be a great smuggler’s ship.” His smile widened. “He’s right, too.”
“Damn right,” Zant confirmed. “Anyways, getting’ a ship shouldn’t be a problem, either.”
“It would help if the captain kinda forgot where he went. Torlon is my bolt hole.”
Zant winked. “Gotcha”. He looked lost in thought for a moment. “Sheol, I don’t think we’d have any problem getting that all done for two thousand carats.” He glanced at Cale sharply. “Guess you’re better at it than I ever was. So, what exactly is your idea?”
"Well," Cale replied, "I was just thinking about how many people at the mine are qualified space pilots. Oh, I know," he forestalled Zant's reply, "most of them aren't certified for jump piloting, but if what I'm thinking about works, they won't need to be.
"Just suppose we got together a bunch of skilled orbital shipyard workers, and took them to Torlon. Then we cruise the junkyard looking for small intrasystem ships that we can arm. Meanwhile, we have a team building the biggest damned carrier ever seen; no hull metal, just a framework of girders and supports. We use them to attach the little ships and the jump engines from an Alpha class bulk cargo hauler. We load the carrier with as many ships as we have pilots, and drop them off in recal systems one jump from Santiago and Ilocan. Then we mine the jump points. I think we could play hell with their supply lines. Every time they send a minesweeper to clear the mines, our ships attack them. Minesweepers are small and poorly armed."
Dee shook her head. "But they're just junk," she said. "Scrap! The reason people scrap ships is because they'd be too hard or too expensive to fix."
Zant was grinning. "Maybe. There's lots of reasons ships get sold for scrap. Sheol, some of 'em are in complete operatin' condition, but the skipper misses a couple of payments and the bank auctions it."
"One of the ships in my yard is a completely operational Beta class liner," Cale replied. "Anyway, he added, "We're not concerned with 'fixing them up'. We want functional inertial drive, life support, and some weapons. We don't care how she looks, or about the condition of secondary systems. There are quite a few hulks that can be stripped for parts, and that Beta class liner means the workers can live aboard, and won’t have to shuttle back and forth from the surface.”
Zant jumped up and pounded Cale on the back. “Damn, man, sounds like we got us a plan!”
Freehold was a man-made planetoid circling an uninhabited star. There were hundreds of these things scattered throughout the Empire. They had been built over the centuries by various multisystem conglomerates, System-wide syndicates, and even hyper-wealthy entrepreneurs, mostly to avoid taxation, regulation, or even system criminal laws. Most were superluxe hotels, casinos, and spas for the very wealthy. Some were designed as cruise stops for liners making circle tours. When the Empire began to crumble, the very wealthy either disappeared or adopted far less ostentatious lives. The planetoids tried various ploys to save themselves, mostly in vain. Those that began shorting maintenance fell to catastrophic life support or power failures. Most were simply abandoned. Some were seized and turned into pirate lairs, and some into havens for the disreputable of all types. A very few like Outpost, John Smith's first port of call, managed to survive, after a fashion, becoming trading centers for trade both legal and illegal.
Freehold actually experienced most of those fates. Originally built as a superluxe casino, the management had tried scaling back operations and promoting it as a family getaway and a cruise stop, but as business continued to decline, Freehold moved down the social ladder. More and more disreputable characters arrived, driving out the few remaining customers and liners still available. At one point, it was invaded and seized as a headquarters by the chieftain of a large pirate gang. Some years later, several of the neighboring systems joined forced and attacked, killing the pirate chieftain and scattering his gang. After several years of abandonment, Freehold began to be used as a transfer point for smuggling shipments, and then the center of a smuggling empire that even had its own orbital shipyard. Finally, legal cargoes began being traded as well as smuggled ones, and Freehold became established as a sector-wide center for trade of all types, legal and otherwise. There were still plenty of smugglers and assorted lowlifes on Freehold, of course, but the legitimate traders outnumbered them — or so it appeared.
Remarkably, the inhabitants of Freehold were very proud of their world’s checkered history, especially its smuggling past. They tended to behave as though even legal cargoes were smuggled, much to the consternation of the legal traders. Business was done in whispers, in bars and back passageways. “Knowing someone,” or at least seeming to, was essential for doing business on Freehold, and the legal traders and captains just shook their heads, shrugged, and did what they had to do to trade. The larger trading combines did have offices and factors on Freehold, but they were used to the unusual atmosphere.
“Do you have contacts or names on Freehold?” Cale asked.
Zant shook his head sadly. “Probably not. I haven’t been here in near twenty years. I expect most of the people I knew died or moved on. We’ll just have to see what we can do.”
They discussed the situation. "There's two ways to handle this," Zant said. "There are legitimate factors on Freehold, and they'll pay a fair price for your diamonds. But there will be questions asked, and you'd better have a good story for them. Of course, we can trade 'em on the smuggler's market, but we'll get skinned on the discount
Cale looked troubled. "I'd rather not deal with a lot of questions
…" he began.
"You won't have to," Dee put in. "I can handle it."
"You?" Cale said, flustered. "But how…"
"You forget," she chided gently. "You happen to have onboard this yacht a very prominent lady. Daughter of the Supreme Archbishop of Faith. This lady is traveling in this sector, and finds diamonds a convenient means of maintaining herself on her travels."
Dee dove into her persona as a rich, spoiled heiress on a fling. She was excited at the opportunity to actually visit a real ‘den of iniquity’. In fact, her first use of that phrase on Angeles had sparked her imagination, and she had spent almost the entire three weeks travel time planning how to dress and behave, and imagining all the deliciously sinful things she would encounter.
Cale and Zant’s more realistic expectations led to some serious disagreements between Cale and Dee. Cale tried repeatedly to warn Dee, but it is often almost impossible to overcome the illusions created by fiction.
Cale had received his docking instructions and was about to sign off from Freehold Control when Zant cut in “One moment, please,” he requested. The man on the screen paused. “Yes?” he replied.
“It’s been some time since I visited Freehold,” he began. “Is Shorty’s still in business?”
The man smiled. “Sure is. The whole place would probably have to shut down if Shorty’s did. If you’d like, I can connect you so you can make an appointment.”
Zant’s answering smile was broad and genuine. “An appointment? Sounds like Shorty’s has gone big time.”
“Naw, not really,” the man replied easily. “But they’re sure busy these days. Hold on.”
After a moment, a small, bald man appeared on the screen, his expressions harried and irritated. “Yes? What is it?”
Zant’s smile faded to one both formal and cold. “Good day to you, sire. My name is Zant Jenfu. I represent the Lady Delilah Raum of Faith.” His tone perfectly matched the cold formality of his smile. “We are aboard her yacht, Cheetah, and are approaching Freehold. My Lady wishes to complete some business on Freehold, and finds we have need of your services. I should like to schedule an appointment to discuss it.” Cale suppressed a laugh. Zant was giving a perfect impression of the haughty factotum of a wealthy dowager.
The man on the screen straightened, and his irritated scowl disappeared. They arranged an appointment for an hour after their scheduled docking time. As they signed off, both Cale and Dee dissolved into gales of laughter.
“You sounded just like Gotroy, my father’s secretary,” Dee said in an admiring tone once she’d regained her composure.
“Yes,” Cale asked, “and if she’s Lady Delilah, who am I?”
Zant’s normal broad grin reappeared. “Why, you’re her personal yacht skipper and bodyguard. Y’see,” he continued, “I realized that jabbo from Control might just listen in to see if he could learn anything saleable. It was a perfect chance to get some rumors started. Now, everyone will hear about the rich Lady comin’ aboard. It’ll give us a legitimate reason to have a fortune in jewels, and it might help keep us out of trouble. Face it,” He shrugged, “Raum is a big name on Faith. Are you sure you don't mind us usin’ it, Dee?”
Dee shrugged, a bitter expression crossing her face. “No, I don’t mind. Why not? It is my name. My father has dishonored it much more than I ever could.”
Zant nodded. “Okay, then here’s what we’ll do. It’s no use trying to be inconspicuous, so let’s go with the plan and be as conspicuous as hell. Dee, you’ll need one of your fancy outfits from Angeles. Cale and I can get away with wearing shipsuits, and we’ll both wear blasters in open holsters. When we board the station, Dee will walk in front, and we will follow behind, doing our best bodyguard act.” He turned to Cale. “I said ‘act’, but don’t doubt it’ll be for real. There are some real lowlifes on Freehold. I hope you can really use a blaster.”
“What about me?” Dee protested. “I’ve got a bag that’s just the right size for a blaster, and I’m better with one than Cale is!”
Zant cocked an eyebrow at Cale, who shrugged. “She’s certainly had more formal training than I have.”
“Conspicuous as hell” certainly described the trio that disembarked from Cheetah. Dee wore a famous Angeles designer’s interpretation of a shipsuit in shimmering aqua. It featured a detachable, flaring, multilayered skirt in rainbow toile, and a flowing waist-length cape in bold pink. The clutch bag she carried vaguely resembled the common utility bag often attached to the waist of a shipsuit, but of course, it matched the shimmering aqua of the suit itself. Her deck slippers were festooned with stones that sent flickers of reflected light in all directions. Dee had commissioned the designer to provide her with several outfits that would be as comfortable as a shipsuit, but “less drab.” She’d almost refused to pay for the eye-popping outfit, but the hurt expression on the designer’s face when she collapsed in hysterical laughter at the sight of the thing had made her feel guilty enough to accept it, though she cancelled the rest of the order. She’d almost thrown the thing away, but now she decided that if Zant wanted ‘conspicuous’, conspicuous he would get. Besides, the garish thing would distract watchers from noticing that her right hand was inside the bag, on the grip of the blaster it contained. Certainly few that saw them paid much attention to the two men following this apparition in plain shipsuits with hands on holstered blasters.
Shorty’s occupied an entire corridor block of the massive planetoid. Armed guard stations were located at each end of the corridor, along with obvious security cameras and less obvious automated weapons systems. The guards were barely successful in keeping straight faces at the sight of Dee’s outfit, but they passed the trio through efficiently, escorting them to the unadorned metal door that was the only break in the corridor’s metal surface. The guard’s hand scan caused the door to slide silently aside, revealing a surprisingly small, neat office. An ordinary office desk faced four plain office chairs. Behind the desk, the same small man they’d seen on the screen looked up and stared at the bright vision entering his drab office.
Apparently oblivious, Dee made a grand entrance, flowing into the office and standing a moment until the hurrying Cale hastily wiped off the least disreputable of the chairs and slid it beneath her. She raised an eyebrow archly, and simply stared at the man while Zant and Cale slipped into flanking chairs.
Zant noisily cleared his throat, and the man tore his eyes from Dee’s garish glory and shifted them to Zant, who was sitting bolt upright, head high, looking down his nose. “I am Zant Jenfu,” he announced in sonorous tones, “It is my honor to present my Lady, the honorable Delilah Raum of Faith. Are you the proprietor of this establishment?”
The man’s eyes drifted back to Dee, who merely raised an eyebrow. His eyes suddenly widened and he leapt to his feet. He cleared his throat noisily. “Ah, yes, ah, of course.” He began, then paused and collected himself “I’m, ah, Hern Jarnett. Yes, I am the proprietor, and I will be delighted serve the lady. How may I be of service?” By the time he finished speaking, he was once again in control, and he resumed his seat.
His last question had been addressed to Dee, but it was Zant who replied. “My lady is travelling in this sector. We have come to this.. place to convert a significant amount of diamonds to a more… useful currency. We have been informed that the safest way to do this is to deposit the diamonds with you.”
The bald head bobbed. “Exactly. Exactly right. Unfortunately, Freehold is cursed with a number of disreputables. Shorty’s has the reputation, if I do say so myself, as the only safe way to deal high-value shipments here.” The pride in his voice was obvious. He rubbed his hands together. “Now,” he continued, “just how large a sum are we discussing?”
Zant retrieved a black felt bag from his utility pouch. “Two thousand carats of flawless white diamonds of two to five carat weight.”
Jarnett’s eyebrows rose. “Did you say two thousand carats?”
Zant nodded. “Yes. Would you care to explain the procedure here?”
Jarnett’s manner warmed considerably. “Of course, of course. I will examine the merchandise. Once I have verified the information, I will issue you a deposit certificate with an exact description, and the scanner results for each stone. You will take the deposit certificate with you in your dealings here; it will verify the actual merchandise that is available. Once a deal is struck, since you are unknown here I expect the dealer will require you to accompany him here to verify the availability and perform the actual exchange.”
The small man hesitated, and then continued. “In view of the values involved in this transaction, I might recommend that you procure the services of an additional local bodyguard to accompany you in your dealings and back to your ship. Escorts can even be arranged to the local jump point, if desired.” He retrieved a jeweler’s scanner from a drawer in the desk, and spread a black cloth on the desktop.
Zant shook his head. “I doubt that will be necessary. However, could you provide us with the name of a reliable local bodyguard service, just in case?”
“Yes, yes, of course,” Jarnett replied in a distracted tone. He spilled the contents of Zant’s bag onto the black cloth, gasping as the pile of glittering stones reflected the room’s light. He carefully examined Zant’s empty bag, and then propped it open on one corner of the black cloth. One by one, he slid the stones under the scanner. As each stone was scanned and weighed, he returned it to Zant’s bag. No one spoke; no one dared break the little man’s obsessive concentration. Finally, the last stone was run through the scanner. Jarnett pressed the button that produced a report of each stone, and then pressed it again for a second copy. With carefully exaggerated movements to assure his visitors that no sleight-of-hand was taking place, Jarnett closed the bag, and placed a sealing strip around its top.
Finally, he sat back with a sigh. “Six hundred twenty-eight stones, of weights from 2.16 carats to 5.08 carats, all flawless blue-white, totaling two thousand thirty-six carats,” he said in a hushed tone. “My Lady, I am honored. I have rarely seen such a collection.”
Cale was surprised. “Then you have seen others as large?”
“Only one larger,” Jarnett replied with a strained smile, “and the stones were not as fine, and the collection itself was of, shall we say, doubtful origin.” Somehow, Dee gained the impression that Jarnett’s smile was almost as rare.
Zant pulled a comp pad from his tunic. “I know that business contacts are essential to doing business here, sire Jarnette,” he said, “but I haven’t had business contact with Freehold in more than twenty years. Would you do me the honor of looking at this list and telling me how many, if any, are still doing business here?”
Jarnette nodded and took the pad. After a moment another of his wintry smiles rose. “It has indeed been some time, sire Jenfu. Three of these people are dead, and four of the others moved on some years ago. In fact, the only person on this list that I know to still be aboard is Rin Tenkin, and he is retired.” He shrugged and handed back the pad. “He may still be able to provide an introduction. You might check at the Skull. They may know how to reach him.”
He handed a crystal containing one copy of the list from the scanner to Dee, along with a simple receipt bearing a hologram of the stones scattered on the black cloth. “My lady, this crystal, and this receipt are as valuable as the stones themselves. They are the only acceptable way to retrieve them. Please be very careful. The stones will be given to whoever presents the receipt and the crystal. If you trade them for gold, say, or Alliance credits, you may be given similar documents. Upon presentation, you will be given whatever they represent.” He rose, and walked around the desk, taking Dee’s hand to lift her gently from her chair. “As I mentioned, since you and your men are not known here, whoever you deal with may require you to accompany him here to retrieve the stones. Your own presence will not be required, my lady, as long as one or both of your men, here, can represent you. I’m afraid you may find the residents of Freehold somewhat uncouth and uncivilized.”
Dee smiled and spoke for the first time. “Your courtesy is appreciated, sire Jarnett, and your civility does you credit. You have my thanks for both your advice and your services.”
Another of his half-smiles and a small bow rewarded her. When he turned to Zant, the smile was gone. “I regret, sire Jenfu, that Shorty’s is not an altruistic organization. The fee for our services is a flat one thousand Alliance credits, or the equivalent in readily convertible currencies.” That information had been shown on the station web, so they were prepared. Zant gave the little man most of Cale’s remaining Angeles crowns and Jarnett bowed Dee out, ignoring the men once he had received his payment.
Once out of Shorty’s, both Zant and Cale urged Dee to return to Cheetah, arguing that in her outlandish garb was far too conspicuous, and that the two men in their shipsuits would be better able to do business. Unsurprisingly, Dee disagreed. Her main point was that while the diamonds were safely stashed, the receipt that could get them handed over to the bearer was not, and could not be stashed. “I’m a third blaster,” she maintained, “and more importantly, in this getup I’m a blaster that the bad guys won’t be expecting. Besides, the Skull is the kind of place I came here to see, and I’m damned well going to see it, even in this circus costume!”