The First One's Free (4 page)

“Agent Rostov,” said the first one, a
light-skinned Euro like Best. “Compact Security. This is a Major
Liu of Naval Intelligence.”

“How did you get in here?” asked Best. “And
who is that behind you?” He pointed to a short, mousy woman
standing behind Rostov and Liu making little effort to be seen.
“Interstellar Revenue? Where’s my refund?”

“We’ll be asking the questions,” said Liu, a
stocky Asian whose accent betrayed an Earth upbringing. “Where are
our warheads, Minister?”

“I’m sorry?” said Best. “What warheads?”

Rostov leaned on his fists over Best’s desk.
“The last seven warheads you had removed from the planet now known
as Marilyn so that full colonization could proceed.”

“Oh,” said Best. “Forgot all about them.
JunoCorp, the company that’s customizing grain for our new
colonies, contracted a firm to transport them to…” Best had assumed
the warheads had gone to Tian, humanity’s largest world and the
real hub of the Compact. “I assumed Naval Command took custody of
them.”

“We did not,” said Liu, an edge creeping into
his voice. He circled the desk so that, despite his short stature,
he towered over the sitting Best. “In fact, the Zeus Arsenal has no
record of any warheads scheduled to be transported from Marilyn,
much less any receipt of them.”

“They tend to notice things like that,” said
Rostov. “It’s their job.”

“What we do know is that there was some sort
of mishap with the last torpedo to be extracted from the planet
then called 978-0765309402d.” Liu leaned in, crowding Best. “And
now that world has been renamed ‘Marilyn’, in honor of the goddess
of a Jefivan cult.”

“You knew the Marilynists are on Compact
Security’s watch list,” said Rostov. “And now you’re giving them an
entire colony.”

Best laughed. “Can you think of a better way
to get rid of a nuisance faction?”

“I can’t think of a better way to give a
terrorist group a base away from the supervision of their world’s
constituent authority,” said Liu. “And with those warheads missing,
I have to question whether they even left Marilyn.”

Best stood, forcing Liu to back away.
“Gentlemen, JunoCorp arranged to disarm Marilyn. And Gallifrey,
which makes a much better colony in my opinion.” Turning to Liu, he
realized he could now look down on the man in black for a change.
“The Navy never responded to our requests for the disarmament of
the three worlds we accepted. Not until our delegates to the
Compact demanded it during a Security Council meeting. Mr.
Luxhomme, JunoCorp’s agent, arranged for a private company to
transport the weapons. Please tell me you received all the other
warheads we shipped you.”

“We did,” said Rostov.

“Then I suggest you ask the shipping company
about the remaining seven,” said Best.

Rostov turned to the woman who had entered
with him and Liu. “We did, Minister. This is Magna Piori of
Dasarius Interstellar.”

The mousy woman finally stepped forward and
offered her hand. She looked like an accountant, which made her
livelier than Rostov and Liu in Best’s mind. “I’m the asset loss
investigator for Dasarius’s colonial operations. Mr. Best, your
last warheads were scheduled to leave… You really called the planet
‘Marilyn’?”

Best smiled. “The colonists did. We wanted to
call it ‘Sahara,’ but we don’t live there, do we?”

“Sounds like someone’s aunt,” said Piori.
“Anyway, we sent the ship
Etrusca Explorer
to transport the
warheads to a location to be determined later. Tian we assume, from
what you told us.”

“Great,” said Best. “So question the captain
and find out what he did with his cargo.”

“They can’t, Best,” said Rostov.

Not “Minister.” Just “Best.” Best felt his
guts begin to turn.

“We can’t find the
Etrusca Explorer
,”
said Piori. “It’s missing.”

Best went numb as Liu cuffed him and Rostov
explained his rights under the Compact.

*****

Marq returned Essenar only to find himself
arrested as soon as he stepped off the Laputan transport. Kai went
to the landing field personally to apprehend him. The guards had to
use native rope to bind him as Marq’s hands could easily squeeze
through the metal bindings Kai’s people normally used. It gave Kai
some pleasure to notice the rope immediately gave his guest a rash
where it touched his skin.

“I feed your people,” said Marq, “for free, I
might add, and this is the thanks I get?”

“No.” Kai punched him in the face, his own
hand clad a ceremonial gauntlet from his military uniform. He noted
Marq bled crimson like Kai’s people, a slightly different shade but
red blood just the same. “
That
is the thanks you get.”

The guards crammed Marq into the back of
Kai’s personal transport, surrounded on all sides by one-man rides
that floated inches above the ground. Kai slipped in beside Marq
and said, “Through the town square.”

The driver turned, the eye shield on his
helmet doing little to hide his dismay. “Sire?”

Kai waved forward. “Go on. Have the escorts
run their sirens and fire warning shots ahead of themselves so the
crowds disperse.”

The driver turned and set the transport
moving.

“Your original shipment did feed this
settlement,” said Kai. “The first harvest we got from the skins fed
most of the other settlements. Then we tried to pollinate the
plants themselves.” He reached beneath his great coat and produced
something wrapped in cloth. When Kai unrolled it, something dark
and mushy went splat in Marq’s lap. “This is our latest crop. We
have riots, Mr. Marq.”

“Just Marq,” said the alien. “I never gave
you my
match-ro-nimik
.”

That last word did not match the mother
tongue. “Your what?”

“It’s a type of family name. Your people have
family names, do you not? At least the High Borns and your
indentured servants.”

“I know what a surname is. And don’t change
the subject. Within one season, my people became dependent on your
magic root. When the fungus that infests the soil here turned our
last crop into mush, the riots started again.”

The transport and its escorts pushed into the
main settlement, the riders firing heat beams into the air. Had Kai
and Marq been outside, they would have heard the air sizzle and
crack from the energy. As it was, they still heard the people
screaming in terror through the sealed windows.

The square, the same Kai and Marq had watched
people pull together and rebuild, now burned. The statue of the
Sovereign lay in pieces on the ground below its pedestal. Several
shops smoldered, and people swiped at each other with whatever
blunt instruments they could lay their hands on. The fine drizzle
that passed for dry weather these last two turns did little to
staunch the fires or discourage the rioters from killing each
other.

“I’ve lost this planet because of you,” said
Kai. “Tell me why I shouldn’t have you executed.”

Marq smiled that strange little smile of his,
and it occurred to Kai that he had seen that smile before. As a
child, Kai had known the son of another High Born, one who always
seemed to have one scheme or another, who could manipulate the
other children and quite a few adults into doing his bidding. He
never really lied to anyone, but he omitted quite a bit. When he
did, he had a smile that resembled Marq’s.

“I believe that would greatly disappoint
General Lanar.”

The name made Kai’s blood run cold. “Excuse
me?”

“He never told you? He’s meeting me here to
look over your crops. He may have a solution to your food supply
problem, one involving…”

“Grain?” said Kai. “Tell me it’s grain.”

*****

The riots began the moment Best’s suspension
became news. They began slowly, Marilynists all over Jefivah
gathering outside their temples to sing hymns to the Blessed Diva,
praying for Best’s release. In the capital Tyson, however, the
prayer vigils turned to marches within half an hour. The marches
then converged on the primitive jail that, after centuries, still
served as Tyson’s central holding facility. They began throwing
rocks at police and any civilian employees stepping out of the
building. There were shouts, barricades, eventually stun gas.

Things came to a head when police shot two
protestors. The First Minister might have called out the Planetary
Guard for Tyson, only Marilynists made up the bulk of troops in the
Federal Province, which meant that the two-thirds of the soldiers
activated to pacify the rioters would be rioters themselves.

That was when the Grand Dimaj stepped in.

Among Marilynists, male priests represented
the one true love of the Blessed Mother’s life and derived their
title, Dimaj, from his name. The female priests represented the
Blessed Mother herself and derived their title, Normaj, from her
temporal birth name. So when a thin, gaunt man in a white robe
carrying a pocket amplifier called for his faithful to calm down
and stop attacking the police, they listened.

So did the police. After all, troops from
other regions had been called out, and those troops, be they
Abrahamists, atheists or the more common “don’t-give-a-shitters,”
tended to be overwhelmingly secular in most matters. For both
sides, listening to the strange man in the long white robe would
end better than black-armored Planetary Guards stomping Tyson into
submission.

The Dimaj managed to calm the crowd and asked
the authorities to see Minister Best in his cell. After all, the
man was a prophet of the Blessed Mother, whether he knew it or
not.

Best watched warily as the
Dimaj approached the archaic jail cell where he was being
held
– a three-sided alcove measuring no more than three by
four meters, with a metal toilet and two thin bunks, all walled off
by plexiglass. The Dimaj frowned when he ran a hand over the
plexiglass. Modern cells used force fields and afforded inmates
some degree of privacy.

“No wonder our world is a backwater,” he said
without preamble as he was escorted to the clear walls of Best’s
cell. “They treat child molesters better on other worlds.”

“Child molesters,” said Best, not bothering
to rise from the bottom bunk where he lay, “are considered mentally
deficient and assigned nano-therapy to cure their urges.” He sat up
and glared at the Dimaj. “And isn’t it a bit hypocritical that a
man whose duties include relieving young Marilynists of their
virginity is talking about child molesters in prison?”

“The young faithful are of legal age when
they make love to the Blessed Mother through me and my brother and
sister acolytes. It is a rite of passage in our faith.”

Best lay back down and closed his eyes.
“Yeah, well, the sooner you lead your faithful to their new colony,
the sooner Jefivah can modernize.”

“If you mean that dust ball 402d,” said the
Dimaj, referring to the planet now called Marilyn by its shortened
catalog name, “bear in mind that your government picked out two
more temperate worlds as colonies. Giving us the least desirable
planet of the three is hardly incentive to leave.”

“At least we didn’t name them after an
ancient actress some cult employs as a sexbot.”

“No, you named one after the home of a time
travelling crackpot and another after a literary prank.”

“Gallifrey and Baritaria,” said Best. “The
last one was my idea.”

“Why?”

“Because, You Horniness… I mean, Your
Holiness. Over the course of my career, I’ve come to believe that
Jefivah was originally settled as a prank. Even Earth is more
forward-thinking and modern than this mudhole, and Jefivah has more
resources.”

The Dimaj smiled. “If the general populace
would only accept the love of the Blessed Mother, we would be
unified, and this world would take its place among the other
founding worlds of the Compact.”

“Well, until then, I’m going to simply plead
guilty and ask for exile to someplace like Metis or Belsham. Maybe
I can get a teaching position.”

“No one wants to learn law and government
from an exiled hick.” The Dimaj stepped closer to the partition.
“Besides, Minister Best, your arraignment and trial have been
postponed.”

Best sat up. “I beg your pardon?”

“You are being given a reprieve of sorts,”
said the Dimaj. “As you are a prophet of our faith, the First
Minister has agreed to release you into my custody.”

Best jumped to his feet and came up to the
partition. “I’m not a Marilynist. I’m secular. And how does taking
your faith help me?”

“It doesn’t. And I don’t expect you to accept
the Blessed Mother. But because it was your initiative that allowed
the new colony Marilyn to come into existence, my people see you as
a prophet.”

“What exactly does that mean, anyway?”

“Well, since we are a relatively new faith,
anything you want. I suggest you take advantage of it while you
can.” The Dimaj favored Best with a thin smile. “But among other
things, it means you are the best man, no pun intended, to search
for the one person who threatens to shut down our new world and
strand us among you on this Mother-forsaken rock.”

“And who would that be?”

“I believe you know him as ‘Luxhomme’?”

7

“The Council gave you this world,” said
Laral, “to build an army for the Realm. Did we make a mistake?”

They sat in the palace’s main dining hall.
Naturally, General Laral Jorl had brought a sumptuous feast with
him, along with a team of indentured chefs. All of whom, no doubt,
would have their own kitchens and teams of indentured staff below
them when their terms came to an end. Though protocol demanded that
Warriors show deference to the local governors (even on a backwater
like Essenar), Laral took the head of the table. The smarmy general
even came dressed in ceremonial armor like any other member of the
Warrior Caste. They would wear that archaic metal armor in an
electrical storm, so long as it put their rank and caste on
display.