Sten (29 page)

Four other crates, besides the one that had just vanished the offworld loading ship, were booby-trapped. With a difference.

Only somebody with Alex's experience would realize they would never go off. One explosion was to draw the attention of the Free Traders—destroying only a robot lighter—and the other bombs to discourage Free Traders' shipping Company cargoes.

COMPANY DIRECTIVE—SECURITY PERSONNEL ONLY

Effective immediately all ID cards issued to personnel whose duties are in the following areas: Visitors' Center, Cargo Transshipping, or Warehouse Divisions are rescinded. New passes will be issued on an individual basis. Thereafter, any member of patrol or security staffs failing to detain persons using old-style (XP-sequence) IDs will be subject to firm disciplinary proceedings.

The secretary checked Gaitsen's desk carefully. Light pen positioned correctly, Exec-only inputs on STANDBY, the chair set carefully so many centimeters from the desk.

Efficiency is all, Stanskill
, Gaitsen had said repeatedly.

Clottin' surprise
, the secretary thought,
he never said that in
bed. Too busy worryin' about his heart, maybe
.

She went to the door, palmed it, and looked around for the last time. Everything familiar and in its place, just the way the Exec wanted. She passed through the doorway, and, as instructed, left her carryall on her desk in the antechamber. She checked the clock. Gaitsen should just about be out of the tube.

She knelt by the duct, and the Delinq waiting impatiently held the screen open. The woman crawled inside and disappeared.

As she awkwardly bent around a ninety-degree turn in the ducting, the secretary was sorry she wouldn't be able to watch as Gaitsen plumped down in his favorite seat.

"Alvor?"

"Yuh?" The bearded cell leader peered over Sten's shoulder.

"Did you have your team take this Braun out?"

"Never heard a' the clot."

Sten nodded, and scrolled on up the security report. Whoever killed Braun—low-level Exec in Product Planning Division—must've been settling a private grudge. He considered a minute. No. Free Vulcan would not claim that killing with the others. Might get the Company even more upset.

COMPANY DIRECTIVE—SECURITY PERSONNEL ONLY

Prior to beginning routine patrols, consult route with shift team director and chart R79L. Areas marked in blue are to be patrolled
only
by four-man teams equipped with riot gear.

DISCUSSION OF THIS POLICY MODIFICATION IS

FORBIDDEN TO NONCLEARED STAFF.

"This is the voice of Free Vulcan," the speakers resonated.

"We would like to know how you Executives and security people feel.

"As if there is a noose tightening around your necks?

"Things have been happening, haven't they? What happened to that Sociopatrol that was sent out to Warehouse Y008? It never reported back, did it?

"And Exec Gaitsen. That must have been very unpleasant. Not a very fast way to die, either. Perhaps you Executives who use your secretaries as joygirls might reflect on Gaitsen for a few moments.

"Yes. There is a noose. And it is getting steadily tighter, is it not?"

"Do you have a tracer?" Thoresen glowered.

"Nossir. And, Baron, I don't think we'll be able to get one."

Thoresen blanked the screen, and keyed up another department.

"Semantics. Yes, Baron?"

"Do you have an analysis of that voice?"

"We do. Very tentative, sir. Non-Mig, non-Tech. Even though the voice of Free Vulcan—"

"You have been directed not to use that term, Tech!"

"Sorry, sir. Our theory is that the voice is synthesized. Sorry."

Thoresen flicked off, noted the time, and headed for the
salle
d'armes
. He pulled a saber from its hanging and spun on the instructor.

"Come in," he growled. "As if you mean it!"

Sten eyed the hydroponics farm dubiously. It looked just as it had before Alex bustled off. The agribots still lovingly tended the produce intended for Exec consumption. "You sure it's gonna go?" he asked skeptically.

Alex patted him patronizingly. "Ah ken ye dinnae know what ye're glassin', lad. But dinnae tell your gran'sire how to suck eggs."

Sten followed him to the shipping port and ducked inside.

Alex let the door almost close, then blocked it with a small metal bar. "Now ye see it—"

He touched off a small emergency flare, lobbed it into the middle of the farm, and yanked the bar out. As the door snapped closed, Sten saw the compartment fill—deck to ceiling—with a mass of flames.

"Ye ken," Alex said, as the shock slammed against the lock,

"i's what's known as a dust explosion. Ye mere put the intake in the fertilizer supply, burn awa' the liquidifier, an' dust sprays aboot the room. Touch i' off"—the little man chuckled happily.

EXECUTIVE PERSONNEL EYES ONLY

We have noticed an inordinate number of applications for transfer, early retirement, or resignation. We are most disappointed. During this admittedly unsettling time, the Company needs its most skilled personnel to be most attentive to their duties. For this reason, all such applications shall be disapproved until further notice.

Thoresen.

Webb slit the dying Sociopatrolman's throat from ear to ear, stood, and brushed his hands off. He walked over to the only survivor of the ten-man patrol, held against the wall by two grim Migs. "Let 'im go, boys."

The surprised Migs released the patrolman.

"We're makin' ya a bargain," Webb said. "You ain't gonna get splattered like the rest of your scum. We're gonna let you go."

Webb's two men looked surprised.

"You just wander back to your barracks sewer, and let your friends know what happened."

The patrolman, near rigid with terror, nodded.

"An' next time they put you out on patrol, you don't have to crud around like you're a clottin' hero. Make a little noise. Don't be too anxious lookin' down a passage where somethin' might be goin' on you don't want to know about. Let 'im run, boys."

The patrolman glanced at the Mig bush section then he backed away. He sidled to the bend in the corridor, whirled and was gone.

"Y'think he's gonna do like you want, Webb?" one of his men asked.

"Don't matter. Either way, he won't be worth drakh anymore.

An' don't you think security's gonna wonder why he got away without gettin' banged around?"

"I still don't understand."

"That's why you ain't a cell leader. Yet. C'mon. Let's clear."

The five-man patrol ducked as Frick and Frack hissed down from the overhead girders of the warehouse. One man had time to raise his riot gun and blast a hole through some crates before the white phosphorus minicaps ignited.

The two creatures swooped back over, curiously eyeing the hell below them as the phosphorus seared through flesh and bone, then banked into the waiting duct above.

"You! What's that? The brown drakh?"

"Soybeef stew," Sten replied. "May I offer you some?"

"Nawp. Don't need any extra diseases. I'll help myself." The med-Tech ladled stew from the tureen onto his tray, then slid on down the line.

Sten, face carefully blank, looked down the line of servers to Bet. They both wore white coveralls and were indistinguishable from the other workers in the Creche staff mess. Part of Sten's mind began the countdown, while another caught bits of conversation from the technicians at the tables.

"Clotting little monster! Daddy this, an' daddy that an' daddy I got to be a spacetug today and—"

"If we didn't need 'em, Company oughta space the little clots—"

"Tell 'em stories, pat 'em on the head, wipe their bungs when they mess. The Company don't pay us near enough."

"How you doin' with Billy?"

"Me an' that clot are reaching an understanding. I put him in a sewer supervisor, and just left him there for two shifts. Clottin'

booger's gonna learn."

"Actually, doctor, there's no reason the Company has to maintain these creatures in the style it does. I'm theorizing that the program could be implemented with the use of atrophy amputation."

"Hmm. Interesting concept We might develop it…" Time.

Sten snapped the stock of the willygun to lock and brought it up, finger closing on the trigger. The two Sociopatrolmen lounging at the entrance dropped, fist-size holes in their chests.

"Down! Get down!" Bet shouted…the servers stared, then flattened as Sten lobbed two grenades from his pouch into the middle of the hall.

Bet showered a handful of firepills across the room, then the two fell alongside the servers.

Seconds passed and there was stunned silence from the other side of the serving line, then screams. And an all-enveloping blast.

Sten lifted his head and eyed Bet. She was laughing. He scrambled to his feet and pulled her up. Shook her. She came back to reality as he pushed her toward the garbage vent that was their escape hole. He did, in fact, understand her a little better.

"This is the voice of Free Vulcan. We know what it is to be a Mig. To live under the bootheels of the Company. To know there is no law and no justice, except for those who have the stranglehold of power.

"Now, justice will come to Vulcan. Justice for those who have lived for generations in terror.

"Migs. You know what a terrible joke your Counselors are, and how your grievance committees are echoes of the Company's brutality.

"There is an end to this. From this shift forward, Free Vulcan will enforce the rights that free men know everywhere in the galaxy.

"If your foreman forces you to work a double shift, if a coworker is toadying to the Company, if your sons and daughters are being corrupted or stolen by the Company—These evils will end. Now. If they do not, Free Vulcan will end those who commit them.

"If you have a grievance, talk about it. You may not know who is Free Vulcan. Perhaps your shiftmate, another worker down the line, the joygirl or joyboy in the Dome—even a Tech. But your words will be heard and our courts will act on them.

"We bring you justice, people of Vulcan."

COMPANY POLICY—ALL COUNSELORS AND SECURITY

EXECS—EYES ONLY

The sudden lack of participation by Mig-Unskilled workers in our grievance program has been brought to my attention. It is our opinion that concern about the tiny band of malcontents that styles itself "Free Vulcan" is excessive, since, in fact, we are now able to grasp terror by its throat.

Security Executives are evaluating the main areas reflecting such lack of involvement since the absence pinpoints areas where malcontents are located. Appropriate measures, of the severest kind, are imminent. It is strongly suggested that all Counselors make the workers for whose welfare they are responsible aware that, once these malcontents are dealt with, those who have encouraged them by participating in their kangaroo "justice"

system will also be disciplined.

Thoresen.

"The thought has occurred to me," Ida drawled as she passed around glasses of alk, "that none of us are the people our parents wanted us to associate with."

"Some of us," Bet said evenly, "are the kind of people who wouldn't want to associate with our parents in the first place."

"Are we no bein' grim, lass?"

"Parents?" Frick shrilled. "Why would, colony, our colony care?" Frack squealed agreement.

"If you humans aren't creating traumas for other people," Doc said, "you can't wait to set them up for yourselves, can you?"

Sten was interested. "How do pandas get along with
their
progenitors, Doc?"

"It is not a factor. First, in the breeding process the male sheds his member after copulation and quickly—bleeds would be an analog—to death." Doc waved several tendrils. "Once the young hatches, inside the female, it exists…ah, as a parasite until born. Birth, naturally, occurs at the moment of female death."

Bet blinked. "That doesn't leave you with much of a sex life, does it?"

"I have wondered why the human mind isn't physiologically below the umbilicus," Doc said, "since most of its thought is concerned with that region. But, to answer your question, those of us with a proper concern for the future arrange to have ourselves neutered. The operation also extends our life span for nearly a hundred E-years."

Sten couldn't decide whether to laugh or be embarrassed.

"I can see it now," Jorgensen drawled. "Amblin' up the road.

Farm spread out in front of you. You duck down behind a bush, spray the windows for snipers, then zig-zag up to the door, boot it open, heave in a grenade, roll in firin', and come to your feet,

'Ma! I'm home!'"

"Ah no ken why ye gie wha' we are so much concern," Alex finished. "Th' none a' us'll get oot'a Mantis alive." He upended his drink and went for another, not looking particularly concerned.

Sweat dripped from the Counselor's face onto his torn, filthy robes. "There was simply no truth to that story. My dealings with you Migs—"

"Mebbe we use that word," a brawny Mig said, "but that don't make it sound right comin' from you."

"Excuse me. You're quite right, of course. But…truthfully, I never attempted to deprive any…migrant worker of his rightfully earned time for personal benefit. It's a lie. A story created by my enemies."

The five cell leaders managed to look disbelieving in unison.

Sten watched closely from behind the one-way panel to one side of the "court," set up in an abandoned warehouse. He found it interesting that he didn't hate the Counselor that actively anymore. On the other hand, he felt less than no desire to intervene.

"You can examine my record," the Counselor went on. "I've always been known for my fairness."

Bitter laughter drowned whatever else he was going to say.

"We'll cut you a skate on that one," Alvor said. "Still leaves you assignin' Migs to shifts to get 'em killed 'cause they wouldn't give you whatever you wanted. I know two, maybe three people you set up for brainburns."

The Mig at the end of the table, who'd been silently staring at the Counselor, suddenly got up. "I got a question, boys. I wanna put it to his scumness personal. What'd you want from my Janice, made her cut an' run to the Delinqs?"