F Paul Wilson - LaNague 02 (15 page)

           
“But the
patrolman reported nothing: no visitors to the
Jackson
home. Eddy’s allowance wouldn’t cover the expense of a detective, so he
resigned himself to the unhappy conclusion that Marcy’s affair must have been a
one-time thing – after a single intimate meeting, Marcy’s lover had probably
come to know her well enough to know that he didn’t want to know her any more.”

           
Easly
paused to blow some smoke rings, then he turned to Jo. “That’s when he decided
to kill her.”

           
She yawned.
“’Sabout time.”

           
“His plan
was very tight, very simple, and very workable. He borrowed a gambling buddy’s
flitter, made a copy of the by-pass key. Knorran flitters use a thumbprint for
ignition, but everyone keeps a by-pass key in case someone else has to drive
it. He arranged to have this buddy meet him in the city for a night at the
tables. At one point during the evening, he intended to excuse himself from the
room, run for the casino roof, and roar off in his friend’s flitter. With his
running lights out, he’d land in the dark backyard of his home, go inside, kill
Marcy, grab some valuables, then race back to the casino. He’d have an alibi:
he was at the casino all night; the roof attendant would truthfully say that
the
Jackson
flitter never left its
dock; and the crime was obviously a, robbery-homicide.

           
“Not a
perfect plan, but as I said: tight, simple, workable.”

           
“But it
obviously didn’t work,” Jo said. “Otherwise you wouldn’t be telling me all
about it.”

           
“Right. But
it almost worked. He came in the house and grabbed a vibe-knife from the
kitchen and called for Marcy. She was on the upper level and asked him why he
was home so early. As he rode the float-chute up, he said he got bored with the
games and decided to come home. She was wearing only a filmy robe and her back
was to him as he walked into the bedroom. Without hesitation, he spun her
around and plunged the vibe-knife into the middle of her chest. Its oscillating
edges sliced through cloth, skin, bone, cartilage and heart muscle without the
slightest difficulty; and Marcy Jackson, nee Blake, died with a strangled,
gurgling sound.

           
“It was
probably just then that Eddy noted an odor in the room; and his olfactory sense
was probably just about to label it for him when he heard a voice behind him.

           
“‘You
killed her!’ it said in a shocked whisper.

           
“Eddy spun
around to see the rookie cop – the one he had tipped to keep an eye on the
place – emerging from behind a drape. He was half-dressed; there was a
half-smoked cigar in his left hand, and a blaster pistol in his right. The last
thing Eddy saw before he died was a searing white light at the tip of the
blaster barrel.”

           
“Cute,” Jo
said in an unenthusiastic tone. “But hardly original. Especially that part
about hiding behind the drape.”

           
“Where
would you have hidden in his place?”

           
Jo
shrugged. “Whatever happened to this rookie?”

           
“He got in
a lot of trouble. At first he tried to tell his superiors that he’d heard Marcy
scream and went in to investigate, but soon the history of his detours into the
Jackson
home whenever Eddy was out
and things on the beat got slow came to light, and he finally told the whole
story.”

           
Jo suddenly
became interested in the rookie. She sat up and faced Easly. “What’d they do to
this cigar-smoking character?”

           
“Oh, not
much. A trial would have been an embarrassment to the force; and, they
rationalized, even though he shouldn’t have been in the
Jackson
home at all, he was on duty at the time he blasted the murderer. The conundrum
was finally resolved when it was decided that the best thing the rookie could
do was resign from the force and set up future residence on a planet other than
Knorr. Which is just what he did.”

           
“Tell me
something,” Jo said. “Why is it you named only two of the characters in the
triangle? Why does the rookie remain nameless?”

           
“His name
isn’t important, just the fact that he was a young, inexperienced rookie who
foolishly allowed himself to get involved in a compromising situation.”

           
“How come
you know so much about him?”

           
Easly
puffed on his cigar: “Professional interest.”

           
“And where
is this rookie now?”

           
“Speaking
of professional interest,” Easly said with a quick cough, simultaneously
shifting his body position and the subject of conversation, “how’re you getting
along with Old Pete?”

           
“Why do you
ask?”

           
“You don’t
trust him – I can tell.”

           
“You’re
right. And as days go by, I trust him less and less. Remember that autopsy
report on my father I told you about – the one with the blank area?”

           
Easly
nodded. “Sure.”

           
“Well, I
contacted the Jebinose Bureau of Records and their copy is incomplete, too.”

           
“Maybe it’s
just a clerical error. Things like that do happen, you know. There wasn’t
anything of consequence missing, right?”

           
“No. Just
the analysis of the urogenital system. But I checked the company records and
found vouchers for Old Pete’s trip to Jebinose after the murder. He was there
about the time the report was filed. And when he tells me he can’t explain that
blank area, I don’t believe him. I have this feeling he’s hiding something.”

           
Easly
chewed on the end of his cigar for a moment, then: “Tell you what, since you
got nowhere with Haas, why don’t I send someone to Jebinose to investigate
deBloise’s background. And while he’s there he can check into this autopsy
report.”

           
Jo bolted
upright in the bed. “Jebinose? What has deBloise got to do with Jebinose?”

           
“It’s his
homeworld.”

           
“Jebinose?”
She pressed her palms against her temples. “I knew he represented that sector,
but I never realized that was his homeworld!”

           
“I thought
everybody knew that.”

           
“I’ve never
had much interest in where politicos come from, who they are, or what games
they play.” She lowered her hands and turned narrowed eyes upon Easly. “Until
now. Larry, I want you to go to Jebinose yourself. Dig into deBloise’s past for
whatever you can find. And while you’re there, dig up whatever you can on the
death of one Joseph Finch, Jr.”

           
Josephine
Finch had just become personally involved in Old Pete’s conspiracy theory.

           
JO SAT
BEHIND HER DESK and thought about rats. Or tried to. She had just completed a
short meeting with Sam Orzechowski, the man with the trained space rats, and
had informed him that she’d only found partial backing for him. He’d seemed
disappointed but was willing to keep on waiting. He had no choice, really: IBA
was the first company to take him seriously since he had come up with his rat
control method years ago. But Jo felt she should have been able to do more for
him by now… if only this warp gate affair would get out of her mind and let her
get back to work.

           
She
expected Old Pete momentarily. He’d said he wanted to see her – something about
planning the next step. He was so persistent on deBloise. She had tried to drop
the subject and let it go as a foolish gamble on the politician’s part, but Old
Pete wouldn’t let her. And even if he had, the problem would have stayed with
her.

           
It was that
damn recording from the Restructurists’ conference room. It raised too many
questions that wouldn’t let the problem go away. Besides… deBloise was from
Jebinose.

           
Old Pete
strolled in. “What’s new?” he asked, sliding into a chair. He always said that,
even if he’d seen you only a few hours before. It was his way of saying hello.

           
“Nothing,”
she said. That incomplete autopsy report still bothered her.

           
“I was
afraid you’d say that. Looks like we don’t know much more now than we did at
the start.”

           
“Not true,”
Jo replied. “We now know who Haas is and we know that he’s developed something
that will eventually revolutionize interstellar travel. We also know that Elson
deBloise and the Restructurist inner circle have placed a huge sum behind Haas
and the warp gate.”

           
Old Pete’s
smile was grim. “And we can be certain that the motives behind their actions
are purely political. In my years of study of deBloise’s life, I’ve yet to find
any action on his part that was not designed to further his career and increase
his political power. His mind is homed in on one goal and he allows nothing to
sway him from pursuit of it. Nothing!”

           
“That
leaves us with the obvious conclusion that there’s a political plot connected
with the Haas warp gate.”

           
“Which is
right back where we started,” he grunted.

           
“But the
way they’re going about it, they must know that the gate will be driven off the
market before Haas can perfect the improvements that will make it economically
viable.”

           
“And if
Haas means what he says – and I believe he’s absolutely sincere about
withdrawing the gate permanently from the market if it fails commercially –
we’ll have lost the greatest boon to interstellar travel since the original warp
field was developed back on old Earth.”

           
Jo leaned
forward and rested her chin on folded hands. “You know, I have this horrible
suspicion that they want the gate to be a commercial failure, that they know
Haas will withdraw it from the market then, and it will be lost to us until the
patents run out or somebody else figures out a different way to get the same
result.”

           
“I can’t
see the sense in that at all.”

           
“Why else
would they be encouraging Haas to rush the gate to market?”

           
“Don’t
know. Maybe there is something to that remark about military contracts. Maybe
deBloise has cooked up something with one or two of the higher-ups in the Fed
Defense Force.”

           
“A military
coup?”

           
“No.” Old
Pete sighed. “That’s patently ridiculous, I know. But the military could be
involved just the same.”

           
Jo shook
her head slowly, confidently. “The military’s not involved.”

           
“I suppose
you’re right,” he admitted. “The gate could be of tremendous value in a war,
but there is no war. I mean, who’re we going to fight? The Tarks?”

           
“You never
know.” Her tone was serious.

           
“Don’t be
silly, Jo,” he laughed. “We may not be on the best terms with the Tarks – as a
matter of fact, we’ve never been on good terms with those scoundrels – but
there’s no such thing as a war in sight, despite the wails of the more panicky
members of the Fed Assembly. And don’t go thinking of the Tarks as a potential
market for the gate, either. They’ll buy one as a model, then pirate the design
and build their own. The Tarks are a blind alley, I’m afraid.”

           
“Perhaps
you’re right. Anyway, on the deBloise end, I sent Larry to Jebinose to do some
direct investigation on him. And while he’s there, I told him to look into my
father’s death.”

           
She watched
Old Pete’s face closely for a reaction. She saw surprise and… was it fear?

           
“Why
Jebinose?” he said, the words coming in a rush. “I thought you’d send him to
Fed Central. That’s where all deBloise’s machinations take place.”

           
“Maybe he’s
more careless at home.”

           
Old Pete
suddenly seemed anxious to leave the room. “Let me know the very instant he
turns up anything.”

           
“Oh, you
can count on that,” Jo replied in a low voice as the door closed behind him.
She’d never seen Old Pete so upset. What secret lay dormant on Jebinose that he
feared disturbing?

           
Never mind
that now. Larry would find out. Right now another part of her brain was
screaming for attention. Something Old Pete had said before had closed a
circuit… something about a war with the Tarks when they were talking about Haas
and his –

           
She leaped
to her feet and began to pace the floor. She knew deBloise’s plan. All the
pieces that hadn’t seemed to fit had suddenly fallen together. And the Tarks
were the key. Old Pete’s reference to them had brought a vast conspiratorial
vista into sharp focus and Jo was struck by the genius and delicacy and
deviousness of what she saw. She was terrified, too.

           
The entire
interstellar free market was threatened.

           
She pressed
a stud on her desktop. “Find Bill Grange – tell him to drop whatever he’s doing
and get up to my office immediately!”

           
The market.
To some people it was the place where stocks and bonds were traded; to others
it was the local food store. But these formed only a minuscule part of the
market. For the market was life itself, and the free market was free life, the
active expression of volitional existence. It was billions of billions of daily
transactions: the purchase of a loaf of bread, the selling of an asteroid
mining firm along with all its equipment and planetoid leases; every
interaction and transaction – be it social, moral, or monetary-between every
sentient being in Occupied Space added to its endless flux and flow.

           
The free
market was neither good nor evil, selfish nor generous, moral nor immoral. It
was the place where rational minds met for a free exchange of goods, services,
ideas. It played no favorites and bore no grudges. It had its own ecology,
regulated by the inexorable laws of supply and demand, which were in turn
determined by the day-to-day activities of every intelligent creature who
interacted with another intelligent creature. If demand for a species of
product or service dried up, that species became extinct. When new demands
arose, new species sprung into being to satisfy them.

           
The
market’s urge toward a balanced ecology was indomitable. It could be warped,
skewed, stretched, contracted, puffed up, and deflated by those who wanted to
control it, and thereby control its participants; but not for too long. It
always sought and found its own level. And if manipulators – invariably
governmental – prevented it from finding its true level for too long, a great
mass of people suffered when it finally burst through the dams erected against
it.

           
LaNague had
taught the outworlds that bitter lesson. But three hundred years had passed
since then and it was quite possible that history was ready to set the stage
for a repeat performance. The Restructurists were fortunate to have a
remarkable man such as Elson deBloise at their head in their drive for control
of the Federation and, from there, control of the market.

           
But the
market had Josephine Finch. The market was inviolate as far as she was
concerned. It was an integral part of human existence, especially Jo’s
existence. Her professional life was spent in taking the pulse and
prognosticating the course of the market and she would do her best to see that
no one meddled with it.

           
Right now,
the only way she could see to put a stop to deBloise was to cripple
Star
Ways
, the biggest interstellar conglomerate in
Occupied Space. Hardly a realistic option, but it was all she had.

           
Bill Grange
was IBA’s resident expert on
Star Ways
and his knowledge would be a critical factor in Jo’s plan. Of course, it would
save her an intolerably large amount of time and effort if she could go up to
someone in charge of
Star Ways
and tell him that a monstrous political plot was afoot and that his company was
going to be used as a scapegoat. But you couldn’t do that with a conglomerate,
you couldn’t deal person-to-person with it. So Jo would have to induce
co-operation from
Star Ways
;
she’d have to jab at it, stab at it, slice away at its appendages until it was
forced to do her bidding. And she’d relish every minute of it.

           
For there
was no love lost between Josephine Finch and the interstellar conglomerates.
They disturbed her sense of fair play. It was not that they broke any of the
rules of the free market – they sold to those who wanted to buy and bought from
those who wished to sell. But there was something about them that… offended
her.

           
The
conglomerates were faceless monoliths. Nobody seemed to be in charge. There
were boards of directors and committees all composed of people; they hired and
directed the work of other people; products were turned out which were sold to
still other people. Human beings were intimately involved in every function of
the conglomerates, yet the final result was a structure devoid of all human
qualities. It became a blind, impersonal leviathan lumbering through the
market, obliterating anything that got in its way – not through technical skill
or marketing expertise, but through sheer size.

           
And it was
not size itself that Jo found offensive, although that was part of the problem.
Despite the fact that people made all the decisions for them, their huge size
prevented their humanity from showing through. Smaller companies each seemed to
have their own personality. Conglomerates strode through the market, the
testing ground for all human endeavor, like giant automatons.

           
Yes, they
were huge, and their size and diversification inured them and insulated them
from immediate changes in the market. But no insulation is perfect. The
conglomerates were not invincible. If a subsidiary company was ailing, there
was a great financial pool from which it could draw. But there were limits to
any pool. And if more than one subsidiary were in trouble…

           
Leviathan
could be wounded and caused to retreat if attacked at multiple vulnerable
sites.

           
Jo only
hoped that
Star Ways
had a
few vulnerable sites.

           
The door
opened and Bill Grange walked through. He was tall, gaunt, graying, fifty-four
years old – he liked to say that he and IBA had been born the same year. He had
been with the firm nearly a decade when Joe, Sr., died and had stayed on
through all the turmoil that followed. He had been neither for nor against
Josephine when she took over IBA; all he wanted was someone in charge who could
get the company going again. If she could do it, he was all for her. If she
loused it up, he’d walk. As it stood now, there wasn’t much he wouldn’t do for
Josephine Finch.

           
“Something
wrong, Jo? The message sounded urgent.”

           
“I need
some information on
Star Ways
,”
she said, taking her place behind the desk again, “and I need it now.”

           
Grange
visibly relaxed at this statement and took a seat. He probably knew more about
Star
Ways
than many of its board members. He knew it
from dealing with it on a daily basis in the current market, and he knew it
from a historical perspective. The conglomerate was centuries old, born in a
small company on old Earth celled Helene Technical, which happened to develop
the first commercial interstellar warp unit. The old name was quickly scrapped
for the more picturesque
Star Ways
,
and the new company severed its ties with Earth, relocating on the planet
Tarvodet – a tiny world but one that afforded mammoth tax advantages.