Because they'd been with me on Cravat, Mimo and Ivor Jenkins already knew the complex details of Operation Q's background. Prudence dictated that I keep Szabo, O'Toole, and Betancourt in the dark about the more sinister aspects of the Haluk involvement in the Galapharma plot against Rampart, at least until I knew them better. The trio had been aware from the beginning that our mission was both clandestine and illegal—which didn't bother them—but they were amateur mercenaries, not pros, and I didn't want to confuse them with galactopolitical considerations. The corporate politics of the affair were murky enough.
During our briefings, I informed everybody that we could certainly expect lethal opposition from Gala agents and possibly from the Haluk as well. I declined to explain why Schneider and the other fugitives were hiding in a Haluk installation on a Qastt world. The three newcomers professed not to give a damn.
Actually, the team orientation sessions went very well except for one notable fly in the ointment. Zorik O'Toole took me aside after our first meeting and sternly asked me if I was "that" Asahel Frost. I admitted I was, and wanted to know if it was a problem for him. He said probably not. I said that if he'd prefer to withdraw, I could always arrange his passage home from N-K. He pointed out that he needed money and I needed him, so he'd stick with the team, subject to reviewing the situation if unspecified "difficulties" arose.
We left it at that. But I wondered—with good reason, as it turned out—whether keeping him on was a serious mistake.
Optimist that I was, I had hoped we could touch down briefly on N-K, grab the Squeak pirates and their ship, and zoom off to invade Dagasatt. To expedite matters, Mimo had contacted a Nogawan shyster of his acquaintance before we left Seriphos and hired him to process the legal paperwork connected with the prisoner release. The lawyer had promised to have the Qastt pirates ready to hand over when we landed.
Eleven hours had gone by since then, proving the ancient rule of "hurry up and wait." Chispa Dos still sat in the transient spacecraft holding area of the N-K spaceport, the pirates were still in jail, and the wheels of the overloaded Nogawan justice system were grinding with glacial slowness.
Joe Betancourt, the former Rampart ExSec fighter pilot, was aboard the impounded Qastt starship, waiting for the takeoff order. He was a quiet moody little guy with an air of invincible confidence, who knew all about weird xeno crates. He'd even served on a prize crew that had brought a Squeak bandit in. Joe had told me that his ambition was to operate a sky-shuttle service on a pretty freesoil world called Chaguaramas, back in the Orion Arm. His fee for the mission would put a down payment on his dream.
Mimo, Ivor, Zorik O'Toole, and Ildiko Szabo were playing poker in the forward salon, unwinding from a series of tedious documentary holovids on Qastt culture. I was in Chispa's wardroom, silting at a table studying the systems schematics of a medium-sized Qastt aircraft called a tuqo, commonly used as a Squeak emergency vehicle. My revised plan called for us to steal and use one on Dagasatt, and although Mimo had assured me he would be able to fly it with ease, I wanted to check the thing out myself.
Outside Chispa's large view window, a mist-laden drizzle hid most of Nogawa-Krupp Starport. It was early evening. I'd visited the planet only once before, during the earlier fruitless search for Schneider, and at the time I couldn't get away fast enough. An unattractive, foggy-bottom sort of place out near the tip of the Perseus Spur, N-K had cloudy skies that never stopped weeping and soupy air with too much carbon dioxide for human comfort. The most prominent feature of the local biota was a species of tree that had foliage like purple noodles. I also recalled that leeches with teeth were apt to pop out of puddles and nibble your boots as you walked about the bustling capital city.
One single natural resource made this dreary planet supremely desirable to Rampart Interstellar Corporation: the richest platinum-group ore body in Zone 23.
A brisk knock sounded on the wardroom door. Mimo stuck his head in. "The lawyer's here. To explain the delay. We've got trouble."
"Never would have guessed it." Sighing, I put away the schematic printouts. "Send him in."
A florid-faced chap of mature years, wearing a handsome Barbour rainjacket over custom-made business attire, bounded in and pumped my hand with enthusiasm. "Delighted to meet you, Captain Icicle! Cadwallader Cassini, Esquire, at your service. Always happy to do business with a friend of Guillermo Bermudez. What a fantastic ship! I don't believe I've ever seen such a luxurious interior. How many ross can you squeeze out of her?"
"Over sixty." Actually, the hyperspace cruise capability of the prototype was closer to seventy-two light-years per hour, but I didn't want to advertise it. "Please take a seat, counselor. Why don't you tell me what seems to be the difficulty with the Qastt prisoners."
His cheery demeanor cooled a couple of degrees. "Well, to put it in a nutshell, they don't want to be released into your custody."
"What the hell?" Of all the potential screw-ups, I'd never anticipated one like this. "Do you mean they have a choice?"
"Apparently there's an obscure stargoing-Insap rights clause under Statute 44 that applies even to convicted felons."
"Well, what's the beef?"
"I'm afraid I still don't understand their objections fully. The Qastt language—all those squeals and whistles and peeps—isn't processed very well by the mechanical translator, you know. Yesterday, after Captain Bermudez sent your authorization, I took care of the transfer of the twelve million dollar draft to cover the fine, forfeiture, and incarceration expenses, vessel impoundment fee, board and lodging, service charges, and Zone tax. Then I visited the prisoners in the PJC—the Planetary Justice Center—to tell them the good news about their impending freedom. Naturally, I thought they'd be delighted. Instead, they seemed terrified at the prospect of going away with you."
"You told them that we were unofficial agents of the Qastt Great Congress?"
"As I was instructed. The leader—his name is Ba-Karkar—declared that the Congress would never authorize humans to pay their ransom. He seemed to believe ..." Cassini hesitated. "He seemed to believe that he and his people would be in mortal jeopardy if they were remanded into your custody."
"Shit," I said. The damned Squeakers probably thought we were Galapharma goons in cahoots with the Haluk. These pirates had let themselves be captured with an incriminating Haluk passenger aboard their ship. Maybe the penalty for that was death.
Cadwallader Cassini remained blandly silent. The disastrous cover story was my mistake, but a prudent solicitor doesn't rub the client's nose in it.
"There's only one way to resolve this matter," I told him. "I'll have to talk to the Qastt myself."
"I'm sorry, Captain Icicle. Only legal advocates or Rampart Security personnel are allowed to interview alien detainees in the PJC."
I smiled and rose from the table, signaling to Cadwallader Cassini that the conference was over. "Trust me, counselor. That won't be a problem. You just carry on with what you were doing."
"Actually, all of the legal work is complete except for activating the voucher of remand."
"I'll want to do that personally. Do you have the document with you?"
He handed over a data-dime in its little envelope. "Right here. It's irregular, but I suppose—"
"Excellent!" I picked up the intercom unit. "Mimo, will you come to the wardroom, please? Counselor Cassini is ready to receive his fee. And please tell Ivor, Zorik, and Ildiko to stand by for a foray into town. We'll need some ground transport."
The lawyer said, "If you intend to go to the PJC immediately, I should warn you that it's Saturday night on Nogawa-Krupp. The place is apt to be rather busy. All those fun-loving miners, you know."
"Thanks for warning me. It's been a pleasure, counselor."
I passed him on to Mimo. The other three members of my merry band were waiting in a jellybean van on the wet tarmac by the time I'd collected my coat and hat and a few other necessary things.
Ildiko Szabo was driving. I took the seat
beside her. "Where to, Helly?" she inquired.
"To the local slammer. They call it the PJC."
She told the van our destination and we roared off into the night.
Half an hour later four arrogant offworlders came swaggering into the crowded Nogawa-Krupp Planetary Justice Center. They shoved their way through a mob of soggy Rampart ExSec officers, suspects both cowed and belligerent, shysters in fancy stormwear trying to calm agitated clients, and depressed-looking relatives and friends of the recently apprehended. Indignant shouts broke out from those who were shouldered aside, but the pushy quartet moved forward as relentlessly as a human landslide. Its apparent leader was a tall rogue who wore a floor-length oilskin drover's coat over a tan ranchman's outfit, a dripping Stetson with a snakeskin band, scanner-defying mirrored glasses, and peace-bonded sidearms.
As he neared the armored dispatch and reception booth, the gunslinger bellowed, "Stand aside! I got me a court order here. Gonna spring my poor li'l amigos outta this jerkwater joint right now!"
The crowd muttered ominously. One furious lawyer, who'd had his Chasseur-booted foot stomped on, exclaimed, "Who the bloody hell do you think you are, elbowing into the line like this?"
"I think I'm ahead of you? chuckled the cowboy, with studied insolence.
Angry growls from the throng. A learned obscenity from the lawyer. Snickers from the cowboy's oddly assorted companions. One was a woman. Two were men.
Inside the booth, the InSec dispatch sergeant slowly looked up from her computer. She was a strawberry-blonde about forty years old and her eyes were hard and knowledgeable. The name tag on her left breast said kennelly, J. Shielded from the importunate crush by everything-proof windows, she spoke through an annunciator in a bored voice. "Take a number, citizen. Wait your turn."
"Number? I don't need no stinkin' number!" The tall cowboy whipped a Rampart Red Card from his breast pocket and pressed it against the glass. "I got this."
The affronted lawyer with the mashed foot turned away without another word. Bitter babbling arose from the disappointed crowd. "Hot shit honcho... big noise from Central... korpo kuhnockers throwing their fuckin' weight around."
The dispatch sergeant rolled her eyes. VIPs were always a pain in the ass. This one and his associates looked to be even more anally agonizing than most. The Red Card checked out. It was issued to one Helmut Icicle and enjoined every person employed by Rampart Starcorp to cooperate fully with the bearer under pain of instant dismissal and disenfranchisement.
"What is your business with us tonight, Counselor Icicle?"
The long drink of water with the obnoxious grin didn't bother to correct her misperception of his professional status. "Me and my posse are here to bail out some detainees."
"Do you have a remand microdisk with the names and case numbers of your clients?"
An envelope was flourished. "There you go, Sergeant Ken-nelly. What's the J stand for?"
She ignored the question. "Please insert the dime into the data input receiver below. And would you please take off your eyeglasses for iris ID verification?"
"Nope. Don't need to, with a Red Card. You forget that, Sergeant Kennelly, J?"
"Thank you," she said obscurely.
The cowpoke's companions also wore scannerproof glasses. One of the men was of very modest physical stature and stood stiffly erect, feet apart and hands clasped behind his back in a military "at ease" posture. He had an almost lipless mouth and a gray military moustache. His expression was fiercely intent. The spacer's coverall and billed cap that he wore had no insignia, but they were almost identical in their cut and dark blue color to those worn by CHW Zone Patrol. He carried a black leather case.
The woman beside him was the only other armed member of the quartet, equipped not only with bonded sidearms, but also with an Allenby SM-440 magnum-flechette stun carbine in a dorsal scabbard. The vaguely Oriental cast of her broad face was contradicted by tightly cropped straw-colored hair, dotted with raindrops. She was of medium height and wore a baggy ensemble of desert-camo Repeltex. One metal toecap of her ballistic-cloth boots still had a forlorn leech clinging to it.
The fourth intruder, a titanic young man in his early twenties whose demeanor was sweetly shy, stood two hundred centimeters tall and might have weighed in at 160 kilos. None of his awesome mass was fat. Overdeveloped pectorals and deltoids threatened to burst the seams of his wet workout jersey, which bore the logo property of ivor's athletic club—vetivarum—xxxxL. He wore a Sony EMS-3 myo-stimulator collar capable of augmenting his muscle power by a factor of three.
"Remand data transfer from Magistrate's Court is complete," the sergeant said, studying her computer display. "But I note that the Qastt prisoners have declined to place themselves in your custody."
"Why don't I just have a word with my little buddies and clear up the misunderstanding," the cowboy suggested with a grin. "You want to roust 'em into an interview room for me, Sergeant Kennelly, J, ma' am? "
She addressed her computer mike. Following a brief pause, a map projection appeared on the armored window. "Very well, counselor. Your associates will have to wait here, but you may proceed to Visitation 3, the room indicated in blue on the directory. Your clients will be waiting."
The magical Red Card appeared again. The cowboy was no longer smiling. "My associates will not wait here. They'll go with me."
"As you wish. Have a nice day, counselor ... or whoever the hell you are. Next!"
We moved through corridors swarming with uniformed Rampart Security personnel, civilians, even detainees in acid-green jumpsuits who wandered blithely at large with electronic monitors clamped about their upper arms.
"Wasn't that performance of yours a bit over the top, Chief?" Zorik O'Toole remarked to me.
"Just thought I'd have a little fun. Won't hurt if the local yokels think we're a gang of Rampart Central clowns."
"Hmmm." The face of my new colleague was eloquent with disapproval. "I still think we might have been less obtrusive. But it's your call."
I thought: Damn right it is, and don't you forget it.
O'Toole's dossier had checked out five-star. A sawed-off Napoleon type, he was a former SWAT unit commander in Zone Patrol, retired two years ago with a list of valor commendations as long as my arm. He'd willingly put aside writing his memoirs and joined up. His early retirement pension wasn't adequate to sustain his preferred lifestyle; and besides, no Earthside publisher seemed to be interested in a book about law enforcement among the boondock Perseus planets.
Our other patrol recruit, Ildiko Szabo, had made lieutenant before she left the service. Her retirement occupation was listed as Floriculturist, Wholesale. She'd had considerable experience dealing with Qastt captives face-to-face, and her stories about irascible Squeaker pirates she had known were both amusing and discouraging. Ildiko opined that Operation Q might be in for a tough time of it on Dagasatt.
Ivor Jenkins had shared the Cravat mission with Matt, Mimo, and me while AWOL from his low-paying job as a junior bodybuilder. Rampart rewarded him so generously after Eve's rescue that he was able to open his own gym. But being a businessman was harder work than the young man had anticipated, and he said he was overjoyed when Mimo invited him on another adventure. I had reservations about Ivor's participation that I kept to myself. He was only twenty-three, and he'd barely escaped with his life from the caves of Cravat. It didn't seem fair to put a nonprofessional like him in jeopardy again. If there had been anyone else available for our team, I would have insisted that Ivor Jenkins stay home on Seriphos with his barbells and Nautili. On the other hand, he was not only strong, but seriously smart. He knew how to cook, too, and had already put his talents to work for us in Chispa's magnificent galley.
We found Visitation 3 on the floor below, just outside the main cellblock, and filed inside. The Qastt hadn't arrived yet.
The room was about four meters square. Its walls and ceiling were finished in glossy beige enamel like the inside of a refrigerator, and the
beige tile floor had a central drain. Hard plastic chairs and a long conference table were solidly bolted down. Maybe the place was hosed down and disinfected after each visit, like public toilet cubicles.
"Sweep it," I told O'Toole.
He took an electronic bug-detector from his black case and prowled around, brandishing the device and scowling. "Clean," he said at last.
We arranged ourselves in chairs on one side of the table and waited. After a few minutes an inner door slid open. A guard ushered four entities inside, consulted a magslate, and whispered:
"Prisoners Ba-Karkar, Ogu, Tisqatt, and Tu-Prak are authorized to confer with Counselor Helmut Icicle and party of three."
"That's us," I declared, flashing a hearty smile. The Qastt, who were wearing translator pendants, huddled together and glared.
The guard studied his slate. He seemed to be suffering from laryngitis. "Urn ... says here the Qastt have been processed for release pending final activation of a voucher of remand, which they've refused to eyeball." He shook his head. "That's one for the books."
"Let me talk to them," I said. "It's only a misunderstanding. I'll clear it up in a jiffy."
"You'd better," the guard murmured on his way out. "Or these inmates go right back to their cells. Press the call-pad when you get things sorted out." He closed the door.
I had never met any Qastt before. They were only about a hundred and twenty centimeters tall, almost humanoid, dressed in garish chartreuse jailhouse jumpsuits that hung loosely on their twiggy frames. Their pink-skinned faces had sharp little noses and close-set golden eyes with peculiar cross-shaped pupils. Bloated cheeks gave them an uncanny resemblance to gophers with their mouths stuffed full of food. They had no external ears, but twin organs like bottlebrushes that served as auditory sensors sprouted from the top of their hairless heads. The antennae differed in shape and color on each individual.