Counterweight (2 page)

Planet 3428

R
ick
paused, balancing on his left foot with practiced grace. He eased his right
foot back, looking down at the twig that would have snapped under his foot,
drawing the attention of the farthest smuggler. He cocked his head as
realization dawned. Whether the nearer smuggler had a hearing problem or was
simply pre-occupied, it was an advantage to keep in mind.

He was close enough, at any rate, and he sank down to a
crouch, sweat jarring into motion, gathering speed as the rivulets absorbed
smaller beads on their way down his face. He wanted to be sure of what he was
seeing before taking any action so he settled in to watch the two men working
in the tropical heat of the dense jungle.

Men
might have been a stretch, but they were humanoid
and close enough in their looks to pass unremarked among the Humans back at the
Canal
. They’d claimed to be Tauhentan traders when they had first come
down to the surface with a badly shot-up port lifter and atmosphere venting
from several locations on their ship, the
Foxlight
.

Nobody had thought to question their profession. What did it
matter how they earned a living? Everybody was far more concerned about the
combat damage on the
Foxlight.
The residents of the
Canal
were
the last of mankind and they’d survived this long by staying hidden. For nearly
eight generations now, they’d managed to avoid detection. And now there were
strangers in their midst and potential hostiles in the black above?

After their ancestors had refused the unlawful command of
Admiral John Towers and fled from the dying, plague-infested fleet, they’d
settled here and remained hidden for a century and a half. The war was done.
The Dactari, if they had managed to escape the plague, would have been able to
chalk it up as a victory and get back to business as usual.

Perhaps Humans would rise again but, for now, they were an
endangered species.

And the presence of a smuggler ship in their midst had
raised the specter of discovery. Sam Fletcher had led the discussions with the
visitors, as was his hereditary right, and he’d reported that the aliens didn’t
seem to possess the limited pre-cognitive abilities common to Humans born on
3428. He’d been able to dance verbal circles around their guests and concluded
that killing them would only bring search parties, led by their comrades.

Of course, the smugglers had no idea they were up against
such an advantage. They also had no idea about the rapid-fire questions that
were almost, but never quite, asked. Almost every Human on 3428 had the ability
to see anywhere from three to fifteen seconds into their own futures and most
of them were able to handle a live stream of several future perception trails
as a part of their daily life.

More than eighty-five percent of the average 3428 resident’s
brain was in use at any given moment, processing the results of their possible
actions and sorting out the wisest options. Nobody disagreed when Sam decided
that the best course of action would be to trade spicewood with the smugglers
in return for materials and parts.

Fletcher had noticed the smuggler captain’s reaction to the
small spicewood box in the conference room and probed him about it. Through
several dozen questions, considered but not asked, he learned of the value that
was still placed on spicewood and knew he had the ability to apply leverage.

They’d only landed on 3428 after being shot up by raiders,
but there was an easy way to ensure their silence. There was enough spicewood
on 3428 to make a thousand men rich and Fletcher knew the smuggler captain and
his crew, all family, would go to great lengths to protect the secret behind
their new-found windfall.

But that didn’t mean they wouldn’t get greedy.

The deal had been struck almost a year ago and both sides
had done well. The smugglers’ shuttle, sitting just inside the hangar bay of
the
Canal
, was a shiny new model, a far cry from the piece of garbage
they’d landed in the first encounter. The food and textiles brought by the
traders had gone a long way toward making life a little more comfortable for
the Humans and Rick had managed to get his hands on enough parts to start
bringing the
Canal
back up to snuff.

As a direct descendant of the ship’s original chief
engineer, Sandy Heywood, Rick and his older brother had inherited the job, and
the parts brought in trade had gone a long way toward reversing the ravages of
time.

But now, it looked like the smugglers were thinking about
cutting out the middle-man. As Rick crouched in the tropical humidity, the two
smugglers in the clearing ahead were stacking up sections of spicewood trunks.

The agreement was clear. The Humans would harvest the wood,
and the only loading point would be in the hangar deck of the
Canal.
The
smugglers were obviously padding the deal with a little free wood.

Rick couldn’t see more than fourteen seconds into his own
future, but he didn’t need his pre-cog ability to know that things would go
badly for his people if they were cut out of the deal.

Rising to one knee, he drew his recurve bow, massive arm and
back muscles making light of a motion he’d been practicing his entire adult
life. He took careful aim at the farthest smuggler. He waited for a few seconds
to avoid an apparent lack of distraction with the nearest man and then loosed. The
arrow, made of dense spicewood, took the man in the armpit as he reached up to
wipe the sweat from his face. His body pitched sideways from the force, just as
Rick knew it would.

He was already attending to the death of the second man, who
was just starting to notice something was amiss. Rick aimed at a spot above the
second man’s head and released the second arrow as the target rose to go to his
comrade’s aid. The arrow punched through his back, snapped a rib and destroyed
his heart.

Rick rose to his feet and, seeing no complications, jogged
into the clearing to retrieve his arrows. Even in death, they couldn’t have
spicewood they hadn’t paid for, and the arrows would raise questions. Far
better to let nature take its course.

He wiped the shafts on a smuggler’s shirt before rinsing
them off with some of his drinking water. He reached into his pouch and pulled
out a salve laced with chimera urine, applying it to the two shafts. With a
quick scan of the ground to ensure he hadn’t dropped anything, he turned and
loped off into the undergrowth to retrieve the springbuck he’d shot earlier.

He was halfway there when he heard the first snarls of a
chimera. In this region, exposed humanoid blood would draw them within minutes.
If you scratched yourself and didn’t have any salve to cover the smell, you’d
be better off cutting your own throat. Weighing just over eight hundred kilos,
the chimera was a four-legged predator covered in thick, protruding chitinous
scales that acted as heat sinks. Though reptilian in appearance, they gave
birth to live young and fed them from mammary glands.

They loved the smell of humanoid blood above all other prey
for some reason, and Rick knew he’d have an easier than usual time returning
home with the slightly-bloody but heavily salved beast over his shoulder, now
that they were distracted. He would have nothing to worry about from the
smugglers either. Nothing would be left of the two men but teeth, and their
captain could hardly ask the Humans about two men he’d sent to steal wood.

Tsekoh, Capital of Chaco Benthic

C
allum
shuffled away from the rocky outcropping. Despite millennia of undersea mining
operations, the suits were still the same clunky designs, and he had to move
away from the rocks in an awkward hopping motion. The faster he moved, the more
the energy shielding hazed around his head and it always scared the hell out of
him.

If the shield ever failed, he probably wouldn’t even have
time to notice it as the pressure would increase a thousand fold, killing him
with instant mercy. The thought was a comfort that gave him cold sweats in the
night.

He came to a stop next to a co-worker just as a light thump
punched at his suit and his shield hazed again. They both looked back at the
tumbling rocks until a chime sounded in their helmets. Cal looked at the
communication display projected on the shield to his right before waving the
other man over.

They grabbed each other’s arms and leaned forward, touching
their shields, forcing them together until an opening appeared between their
faces with a gentle hiss of air from the slight pressure difference between the
two. They continued pushing until the electromagnetic plates at the front of
their neck collars made contact, locking them together.

The old hands called it
face time
and they usually
did it to impress the rookie suit drivers. It was a good way to talk when the
regular comms were down and Cal’s rock fall, triggered by a small prospecting
charge, had just buried the last functional repeater in the entire grid.

“Should be able to talk until shift change,” Belfric
muttered, looking up at the bright line where the two head shields intersected,
mild concern obvious on his face. “Hells, we probably won’t have a new repeater
out this way for months, knowing the company.”

Belfric was nervous about engaging in face time and Cal
grinned with approval. “Let’s hurry up anyway, Bel,” he urged. “A smart
operator is one who doesn’t like unnecessary risk.” He glanced meaningfully up
at the glowing energy seam. “Don’t want to get my pay docked for a crushed
suit…”

Bel laughed despite his fears. It was one of the great
things about C’Al, as everyone here knew him; he had a way of sharing their
fears that made his people feel braver. Sure, Belfric was worried about
glitching his shield during the risky face time meeting but C’Al was scared
too. If the Tauhentan could find it in himself to overcome the crushing menace,
so could Bel.

“So my guy did a clean-up of D’Nei’s locker as soon as his
marker expired,” Bel began. “Couple of contraband weapons, some lagweed – no
surprise there – and a collection of rather surprising and embarrassing videos
featuring your recently deceased planetman and one very well-placed company
official.”

Cal raised his eyebrows. “Male or female?”

“Female.” Belfric’s gaze narrowed. “You look surprised,
C’Al. He didn’t compromise her on orders?”

A shake of the head. “No. Son of a clone was making up his
own ops and exposing us all to risk in the process. You still have the video?”

“It’s in a planter down on the one-twenty-eight promenade.”

“Destroy it. I can’t imagine a more dangerous enemy than one
with nothing to lose.”

A slight nod, as though hearing exactly what he’d expected
to hear. “There’s one more thing,” Bel added. “A box – spicewood.”

“So she gave him an expensive gift.” Cal shrugged. “She
probably thought
she
was pulling the strings, giving him credits and
trinkets to keep him coming back.”

“I don’t give two turds what she might have thought,” Bel
said mildly. “I want to know where the wood came from; it was fresher than
anything I’ve ever laid hands on.”

“You handled D’Nei’s property?” Cal was alarmed. Everything
should have been disposed of quickly and quietly, not passed around like a
damned show and tell session.

“You’re not hearing me, C’Al.” Bel was unperturbed by his
leader’s obvious disapproval. “
Fresh
spicewood. Maybe folks see that
kind of thing in a rich city like Xo’Khov where the plantations send what
little they manage to grow, but here? Fresh spicewood being given away to
someone like D’Nei in return for
services
on a middle-of-nowhere ball of
water like Chaco Benthic?”

“So what does that mean to us, Bel?” Even after a century
and a half pretending to be a Tauhentan, he still sometimes missed what was obvious
to the locals and he wasn’t sure what Belfric was getting at.

“We’ve been seeing fresh spicewood artifacts over the last
few months.” Belfric chewed at the inside of his lip as he spoke, indicating
that he was thinking the problem through. He looked up at Cal. “There has to be
a source of the stuff nearby. Only way to explain it getting smuggled down
here.”

“Smuggling wood?” Cal frowned. “What makes you think it’s
not just being brought down openly?”

“Anyone that has a source is incredibly protective of it. If
it was declared on the tether manifest, the company goons would find out and
wring the secret out of whoever brought it.” Bel nodded to himself. “Chances
are the poor vitro wouldn’t survive the questioning, so the company would just
step in and take over the trade.” He touched a finger to the side of his nose.
“Remember Qel’Kun,” he intoned solemnly.

A blank look.

“Gods! Don’t they teach any Imperial history on Tauhento?”

“I had
other
interests when I was younger.” Cal
raised a lewd eyebrow.

A snort. “So did I, but I still had to pass my scans before
I could implant a trade.” Bel shook his head. “Qel’Kun was one of the first
traders to deal in spicewood, back in the Imperial days. Some say he was the
one who found the world where it originally comes from and one of the emperors
– one of the guys from near the end, when travel began to collapse – decided
he’d get the secret out of the poor bastard. Poor Qel died on the interview
table and took his secret with him.”

“Now I remember,” Cal feigned a dawning recollection. “Hence
the famous joke about tight-fisted Ufangians. It started with Qel’Kun
preferring to die rather than yield his secret.”

 Now it was Bel’s turn to look confused.

“Well,” Cal admitted, “you wouldn’t have learned it in a pod
session. There was this Ufangian, see, and he was walking along the beach near
Xo’Khov when he got too close to a scuttler. Before he knows it, the cursed
thing nips three fingers off his right hand.”