Counterweight (3 page)

Bel was grinning. He loved a good joke and Cal was glad his
own Scottish heritage had exposed him to dozens of ‘cheap’ jokes. It was a
simple enough matter to convert the story and add another layer of realism to
his cover.

“Well, the poor guy is screaming his head off and a
patrolman and an off-duty paramedic are both within earshot so they come
running. They make a quick search but the fingers are already gone – the
scuttler’s dragged them down under the sand for a quick snack.

“
Not to worry
, the paramedic says.
We’ve had to
find Ufangian fingers before.
He fishes around in his pocket and comes out
with an Iron Emperor, the smallest coin they had back then, and drops it on the
sand. Sure enough, up out of the sand come the Ufangian’s fingers to wrap
themselves around the coin!”

“Hah!” Bel’s breath was ripe with the kelp rolls he’d had
for his breakfast. “That one from Tauhento?”

“Not sure,” Cal replied, pretending to give it some thought.
“I told it to a Tauhentan once and he’d never heard of it.” No sense in giving
Bel anything that could be confirmed as wrong. “Anyway, I’ll have someone look
into the wood. Might be worth our time.”

“Speaking of time,” Belfric cut in with a glance up at the
energy seam above them, “we’d better get back to work or the auditors will be
all over us at shift end.”

“No arguments there,” Cal spared a glance up as well. No
harm in letting your people know you had fears too. A man with no fear is a man
likely to get a lot of folks killed. “See you at the place on seventy-eight
after work.” It was the ninth day of the week, so the dinner was also a
catch-up session with Cal’s other cell leaders.

“Not that place that serves Bulian Khat?” Bel shuddered.
“You know I hate that translucent crap!”

“Ah, the sacrifices we make,” Cal intoned melodramatically
as he shut off the magnetic plate on his collar and pushed away.

He wasn’t entirely happy about digging into D’Nei’s
background. They’d managed to sever their connection cleanly. Any inquiries
would run the risk of discovery. He wondered whether he should have the
incriminating recordings picked up as leverage with D’Nei’s former paramour but
he dismissed it almost immediately. She may not even have been the source of
the box and the whole idea had disaster written all over it.

Bel had said there were other spicewood articles showing up
in the city. Their search didn’t have to jump off from D’Nei’s box. They simply
had to find another item to be curious about. That was safe enough.

And it was well worth the minimal risk. Spicewood was
incredibly valuable. A decent source was definitely worth passing on to the
Alliance.

He grinned to himself as he reached the runabout unit that
came with his prospecting designation. He knew just the right guy to find out
who was bringing in the wood.

Planet 3428

R
ick
sighed as he looked down at the capacitors on the quartermaster’s counter. It
was nothing new, but sometimes old insults stung the worst. His ancestor,
Commander Alexander Heywood, had elected not to join the mutiny but he couldn’t
be left behind to die with the fleet because he was the chief engineer. He’d
been forced to come along and now his descendants were the victims of those
who’d re-written history.

All mention of mutiny had been scrubbed from the pod data.
Only the memories that justified leaving the fleet were kept. The vaccinations
that were supposed to save the Humans of the fleet were actually causing the
plague itself. The official line from fleet command, insisting that those who
survived would be in the majority and that they would then go on to live for
centuries was nothing more than a pack of lies.

Or so the data in the pods would have you believe. Rick was
an electrical engineer, like all Heywoods since Alexander, and he knew how the
data was structured. The memories implanted by the pods weren’t stored as
sounds and visual memories; they were just simple data points. Almost like a
text narrative, with the recipient overlaying their own interpretation, filling
in the details.

Someone with the right knowledge could easily alter those
memories, but they couldn’t stop the Heywoods and other families like them from
passing on their own version of events orally. Rick had always been taught that
the vaccinations were killing a small percentage of the recipients. That the
survivors did, in fact, live for centuries and that the crew of the
Guadalcanal
had mutinied.

Rick had once asked his father why the original crew had
bothered to change the data when they must have known how hard it would be to
kill the truth. His father had sat quiet for a few moments, looking at his son.
“Because they could,” he finally told Rick, “and when the alternative is shame,
a palatable lie is easier to believe than an ugly truth. All you need is an
excuse, and the altered records are all the excuse folks need to believe.”

As Rick looked at Ted, the pimple-faced teen who’d dropped
the capacitors on the counter instead of just handing them over, he wasn’t the
least surprised to find himself fantasizing about beating the smug smile off
the little bastard’s smug face. It was simple little insults like this that pushed
Rick’s buttons.

The little jerk would have handed the parts to some of
Rick’s staff – they were descended from those who ‘kept the faith’ with their
fellow crewmen, but he ostentatiously refused to risk contact with the second
engineer.

It was getting harder to hide his reactions and he hated
giving them the satisfaction. Still, he could feel his right hand balling into
a fist when it should have just reached out for the parts. It started to draw
back, as though tired of its owner’s hesitation and wanting to do some damage.

A hand clapped down on his right shoulder. “Morning, Rick.”

He could feel the tension drain from his body. Barry
Fletcher had been a good friend for as long as Rick could remember and he was
one of the few non-pariah crewmen who treated him with respect, regardless of
who was watching. Saying he was non-pariah was an understatement. He was a
direct descendant of Will Fletcher, the man who’d led the mutiny, and most
folks expected him to take over the captain’s job one day. On 3428, that was as
well-born as you could get.

“Are these part of my order?” Barry grabbed the handful of
capacitors and pretended to examine them.

“No.” Ted waved a hand at Rick. “They’re for engineering.”

“Ahh.” Barry held out the parts, dropping them into Rick’s
hand, before turning back to the young quartermaster’s mate. “My sister asked
about you.”

“Really?” Ted’s eyebrows raised a quarter inch. It was no
secret that he was obsessed with Nell.

“Hmmm? What?” Barry frowned at the young man. “Oh, good Lord,
no! I was talking to Rick.” He grinned at his friend. “She thinks she’s being
discreet, but she’s as subtle as a good kick in the head. Take my advice,
Ricky, and steer clear of her; she’s bad news.”

He turned back to Ted, ignoring the red blush on the young
man’s face. “Ted, where’re the parts for the fire control relays? You knew I
was coming by this morning.”

Ted’s embarrassment channeled itself into anger. “Why are
you wasting parts on non-essential systems? Your post is just a hereditary
title.”

“I’m a fire control officer, Teddy.” Barry’s voice lost its
humorous notes and a dark edge crept in. “Every generation has maintained the
systems against the day that we might need them. Now that we have regular
contact with smugglers, it may only be a matter of time before we have to fire
those weapons. I don’t plan on being the one who broke the faith and doomed us
all.”

Ted deflated. “I’ll see what I can find,” he muttered
petulantly.

“Those parts we got in trade for wood actually function well
with our systems,” Barry continued, ignoring Ted’s attitude. “I’m gonna need a
lot more.”

“The relays?” Ted asked in dismay. “They take a lot more
space in our lock-up.”

“Yeah, well you won’t be hoarding them.” Barry waved a
dismissive hand. “I’ll need forty-two hundred relays on the next trade.” He
held up a warning hand to stop the young man’s incredulous response. “And we
need a life support unit for every twenty relays. Put it on the list and I’ll
tell Uncle Al why we need them.”

Without even waiting for an answer, he pulled Rick around
and led him back out into the main corridor. “Let’s get some air.”

They climbed seven decks in silence. The dorsal escape hatch
in this section of the ship was left open on a permanent basis, closed only
during routine maintenance checks. Three hatches from among the thirty-two that
dotted the dorsal surface had failed over the years and each had been
laboriously closed by hand and welded shut.

The two emerged under the thatched canopy that kept the rain
from finding its way inside. By unspoken mutual consent, they walked to the
forward edge and sat, their feet dangling over the three-hundred-foot drop. A
work party approached the massive, open hangar door from the front, looking
like a small troop of ants.

“You were about to do something rash back there, weren’t
you?” Barry said quietly.

“I think I was about to beat the hell out of that kid.” Rick
was surprised at how good it felt to say.

A sigh. “Ted can’t help being stupid. It’s how he was
raised.”

“It’s how everyone was raised.”

Barry looked over at him. “Everyone?” He raised a dramatic
eyebrow.

“You’re all right, but even you don’t want me around your
sister.”

Barry shrugged. “I think you can do better.”

“What’ve you got against Nell?”

“I don’t like the way she treats my best friend.” Barry’s
answer sounded like something that had been rattling around in his head for a
long time. “She ever acknowledge your existence in public?”

“I’m more interested in what happens when we’re not in
public.” Rick couldn’t help but grin.

Barry punched him in the arm, hard. “Shut the hell up! I
don’t want to hear about that!” He looked genuinely aggrieved. “What if I was
hooking up with
your
sister?”

“It’d be weird…”

“See?”

“Well, she’s more than twenty years older than you,” Rick
said, “and I always figured she had better taste than that…” He rolled with the
next punch. He’d known it was coming even before mentioning his exploits with
Nell and he’d allowed the first one to strike hard because a good friend had to
accept the consequences of talking about his buddy’s sister. One was enough,
though, because Barry could hit pretty hard.

He limited his abilities around Barry because he had a good
five-or-six second lead over him and Barry knew it. They conducted their
conversations the old-fashioned way, no subconscious questions, and it had
actually led to a stronger bond between the two.

It was almost certainly what had led to the unusual
friendship between the two young men. They came from the opposite extremes of
their community’s social strata but Barry had always treated Rick with respect.

Now, however, he seemed serious about his sister.

“Rick, even if Nell was knocked up, my dad would deny it was
yours and marry her off to someone else before the day was out. There’s no way
in hell he’d let you be his son-in-law.”

Rick knew his friend was right, but that didn’t make it any
easier to take. Nell was never going to see him as more than a diversion but
his own options were slim. The essential staff who had to be forced into
joining the mutiny were a small minority and, after five generations, their
descendants were pretty much all cousins.

They managed to marry into the neutrals from time to time
but even that avenue was rare. Neutrals mostly traced their ancestry back to
exchange officers or students from the fleets combat shuttle program. Several
hundred of them had been dragged along when the
Guadalcanal
had left the
fleet and they were pretty much free to mix with whomever they pleased.

Still, most neutrals would rather not marry someone like
Rick and have to give up status. Status was what determined the kind of
quarters you would get, what food you could claim, and what opportunities your
children would have to choose from.

And he just couldn’t get Nell out of his head, especially
when she displayed such aggressive interest in him when they were out hunting.
He thought briefly about heading down to his quarters to find his bow but the
weight of the capacitors were a constant reminder that he had work to do.

Probably for the best, work usually cleared his head.

Tsekoh, Capital of Chaco Benthic

C
allum
waited at the back of the two-car passenger-mover as the other passengers
exited the maglev vehicle. He stepped out onto the platform and pretended to
receive a new message, looking down at his hand as new passengers boarded and
the short train hummed away, leaving the stink of ozone in its wake.

He pretended to scroll through the imaginary message until
his peripheral vision was clear of movement. Then he carried on with his charade
for another twenty seconds or so before starting to walk, a casual glance at
the news panels giving him a view of the entire platform.

No likely candidates. There were a few waiting for the
southbound line, backpackers mostly. Cal grinned. You found them on every
planet in the Republic – kids who spent a year or two wandering from world to
world, postponing the moment when they would have to get on with life.

The problem here on Chaco Benthic was that they always ran
out of money and, if they didn’t have rich parents to buy them a ticket back up
to the orbital counterweight, they’d spend the rest of their lives beneath the
cold grey waves.

It was relatively affordable to ride down on the tether, but
the exit ticket down here in Tsekoh was incredibly expensive. Though it was far
from the best-kept secret in the Republic, it helped provide the company with
an endless stream of unwary NRW employees and they reserved pretty much every
available up-bound kilogram for manganese exports.