The High Ground (30 page)

She grabbed one of the large leather wingback chairs from in front of the desk and dragged it around next to his. He touched his pad and a large holo appeared in the air over the desk. There were various filters overlaying each other. The top image was of a snowy world orbiting a red-tinged sun.

“Yggdrasil,” her father said.

Her brows twitched together in a frown as Mercedes tried to place the unusual name. She snapped her fingers. “Hidden World. The most recent one we’ve found.”

“Very good. Discovered and reintegrated seven years ago. I put Quentin D’Amante in charge of the place. You remember him?”

“Duque from Kronos. I danced with one of his sons at my
quinceañera
celebration. I don’t recall much about the father. I was a bit giddy that night.”

He answered her smile. “You were my fairy princess.”

“I think your memory is a bit hazy. I was so awkward and pimply at fifteen, and all that puppy fat.” She shuddered. “Julieta was far more fairylike at hers.”

“I think you are all beautiful.”

“Are you going to feel that way after you get through six more?” Mercedes teased.

“At least I can combine the twins.”

“Poor twins. They never get to be individually special.”

He gave her a thoughtful look. “Very true, my dear. I hadn’t thought about it in quite that way.”

“But you were saying about D’Amante…”

“He’s ambitious. We had a rather pointed conversation about his son and you while the two of you were dancing. Point being that I tend to keep an eye on men like that, and SEGU has discovered some interesting associations.” He swept a hand across the holo and a new page appeared.

The letterhead was an elaborate rendering of
Seguridad Imperial
. Mercedes glanced over at her father’s profile, starting to show a bit of five o’clock shadow on his dark cheeks. “Not exactly discreet for a spy agency,” she said.

He turned to look at her full on and there was a quizzical expression in his dark eyes. “You continue to surprise me, Mer.”

She studied the report. “He’s aligning himself with Cousin Musa.”

“Subtly. There’s not enough here to confront him, but enough for me to be alarmed.”

“So what are you going to do?”

“That’s what I brought you here to see.”

Another sweep of the hand and a series of financial records slipped into place. It was a bewildering array of information from tax receipts, to city and planetary budgets, and bond measures. Seeing her look of bewilderment her father walked her through the pages of figures explaining that there had been a disruption to the economy when the League moved in and new owners took over the major businesses on the planet.

“The primary export from Yggdrasil is gadolinium. It’s a rare earth element that helps shield our ship crews from neutrons. D’Amante has been skimming.” Her father reacted to her look of shock. “Perfectly natural for a planetary governor. Those are always plum assignments—particularly on Hidden Worlds. But I want to send a message.”

“How?”

Fernán swept aside the financials, and brought to the fore another document that showed massive amounts of gadolinium in warehouses on Nueva Terra, Belán and Ouranos. He raised one eyebrow inquiringly. Mercedes chewed on her lower lip; she utilized the holo to bring up the current price of the element. It was shockingly high. She then said hesitantly, “Someone’s been stockpiling gadolinium. Making it scarce. Which drove up the price?” She couched it as a hesitant half-question, unsure of her answer.

Her father nodded approvingly. “Exactly.”

“Who’s buying all the gadolinium?”

“Me.”

“Didn’t that cost a lot of money?”

“I control the Imperial Reserve. Money is not an issue. We just put more into circulation.”

Mercedes shook her head, coping with the idea of magic money that could just be miraculously created. Her father seemed to sense the direction of her thoughts.

“It isn’t something you do too often or too casually. Because of this quantitative easing it has increased inflation across the League.”

“I’m sorry to be stupid, but what exactly does that mean?” Mercedes asked.

“Goods cost more, and money costs more.” He chuckled at her confused expression. “Meaning that interest rates go up so it’s more expensive to borrow money.”

“Oh, okay. But I’m sorry, I sort of derailed you. Go on.”

“My actions created a shortage of the commodity and the price has skyrocketed. D’Amante fell for it and has been skimming even larger amounts of gadolinium, and people are starting to notice. Realizing that he could be charged with corruption he switched from skimming and started buying up gadolinium with his own money. He assumed he would make a killing when he did sell, repaying himself and socking away enough money to fight any charges that might be brought. That’s what I was waiting for.”

The Emperor’s forefinger hovered over the command key on his tap-pad. “So with one touch I’m going to flood the market with my gadolinium, driving the price into the toilet. Most of my supply will sell at the higher price, but by the time D’Amante can react he will be selling at a loss which will affect his fortune, but also the economy of Yggdrasil. At which point I’ll send in the
Departamento de Justicia
to investigate, D’Amante’s skimming will be revealed and he’ll be ruined.”

“You said you were sending a message, but if you ruin D’Amante it’s more than a message isn’t it?”

“Ah.” Her father tapped the side of his nose with his forefinger. “The message isn’t for D’Amante. It’s for any other member of the FFH who might think to ally with Musa. D’Amante is the object lesson.”

“He or his advisors will see the sudden glut on the market. What’s to stop him from selling almost as quickly as you?” Mercedes asked.

“That’s where SEGU will once again be useful.” He cast his eyes upward in a parody of piety. “I’m afraid there will be an interruption in the Foldstream services to Yggdrasil for about ten minutes.”

A stranger was grinning at her. Her father continued, “I had considered hedging the currency as Yggdrasil is making the transition from their local currency, the Krone, to the Real, but adding to the misery of the local people was too risky. We’ve already taken their children, and given their major businesses to League citizens—we can’t destroy the economy as well.”

She had known he was powerful. It wasn’t until this moment she realized just how powerful. The ruler of the Solar League could affect the lives of countless millions in order to punish one man. And someday she would hold this power. She shivered.

Her father leaned back in his chair, and indicated the sell command. “Please, my dear.”

“You want me…?” He nodded.

Mercedes struggled to swallow. She reached out and sent the sell order. On the League Exchange, numbers began flashing. Within three minutes the crown had made a fortune and the price of gadolinium was plummeting. She struggled to untangle her roiling emotions. Excitement, a sense of power, joy at her father’s evident pride, and a bit of guilt, for she’d just helped destroy the patrimony of a boy with whom she had shared a pleasant dance back when she had been a carefree girl and not the heir to a throne.

Her father stood and stretched. She heard a vertebra or two in his back pop. He smiled down at her and held out his hand.

“And that, my dear, is how you wage war without firing a shot.”

“I thought you were in trouble with your ship,” Tracy asked as Donnel skittered ahead of him. The alien’s three feet created an odd syncopation on the sidewalk. Here at the edge of the spaceport the air was redolent with competing smells—alien and exotic spices, ships’ sewer tanks being pumped into honey wagons, the harsh throat-catching scent of rocket fuel.

“I’m in trouble with my captain, and my captain doesn’t leave the ship. Cara was modified for low gravity and can’t tolerate being on the surface, and aside from that, business is business. Cara’ot are happy to deal with me if I’m bringing a customer.”

Alarm seized Tracy. “I thought you said I’d get a discount.”

“And you will, sir,” Donnel soothed.

A new worry swam into his head. “Donnel, do you think I need to buy presents for my classmates—well, some of my classmates. I mean the ones I like.”

“That’s a relatively short list, sir.”

Tracy bridled. “Meaning what? That I don’t have any friends? Gee, thanks.”

“Well, who are we talking about?”

“Hugo. Ernesto. Sumiko.” Tracy hesitated then added, “Mercedes.”

“And what are you going to give to the heir to the Solar League that she doesn’t already have and can’t buy if she does want it?”

“I don’t know, okay?” He sounded defensive and angry. “Maybe your awesome Cara’ot traders will have something stellar.”

“If it’s stellar you won’t be able to afford it.”

“Christ, you’re just full of shitty little croakers today. What is your fucking problem?”

Donnel sighed. “I guess I’m homesick. I hadn’t really thought about it until you mentioned needing Christmas gifts and I suggested I take you to a Cara’ot shop and then I found out the
Equity
was docked and I could do you one better and take you to the warehouse, but then I thought about my friends and family, and I realized it’s going to be another two and a half years before we get assigned to a ship—assuming you want me, of course—and suddenly I wanted to swim in eternity again.” The long meandering sentence left Donnel breathless, or perhaps it was the emotion he’d betrayed.

“I didn’t know you were so unhappy,” Tracy said.

“Most of the time I’m not. It’s just the fucking holidays. It reminds a person of what they don’t have.”

“It’s not your holiday,” Tracy pointed out.

“Don’t all conquered people ape the practices and traditions of their conquerors?”

Tracy again had that flare of discomfort over the Cara’ot’s blunt statement, but then the alien laughed and added, “And it does make for some truly surreal experiences. One year we stopped to trade on Xinoxex and got invited to a shop owner’s home for dinner. The revered progenitor was in his time of torpor, standing in a pool of water and meditating or whatever the hell a Tiponi does in torpor. Anyway, the shoots had decked out the old stalk’s fronds with tinsel, lights and ornaments and were tooting out Christmas carols.”

It was an irresistible image and Tracy laughed too. He also returned to his dilemma. “So what kind of things does your ship clan have for sale?”

“Mostly luxury goods—unique foodstuffs, jewels, recreational drugs, art, exotic pets. It makes no sense to schlep ore or lumber, apart from sek wood, between systems—”

“Why sek wood?”

“Damn trees won’t grow any place but Cuandru. Even
we
couldn’t make it happen. Anyway, most settled systems have an asteroid belt and can mine whatever they need. We cater to people’s fantasies and passions.” Donnel hesitated then added, “We also carry medical teams and medicines.”

“Legal ones?” Tracy asked.

“Mostly,” Donnel said cautiously. He shook his big round head. “We really don’t understand you humans. We have the finest physicians in all the known worlds, but you won’t use us, and you’ve even made it illegal for us to care for the other species.”

“Because you don’t heal, you corrupt and mutilate,” Tracy said, parroting what he’d been taught in school. “You force changes on creatures at a cellular level.”

“Not true. We never force changes on any creature, and we mostly do it to ourselves. It’s a waste of energy and resources to change a planet to suit a people. It’s much easier to change the people to suit the planet.”

“And that’s exactly what scares the crap out of us. It’s not natural.”

“It’s our brains that figured out genetics. How is that not natural?”

“God—” Tracy began and broke off. The churches had been trying for centuries to resolve the theology once aliens had been discovered. God made man in his image. So who made the Hajin and the Isanjo, the Sidones and the Flutes?

“The two most valuable commodities in the universe are the creative genius—art, music, philosophy—of sentient beings… and DNA. That’s what we trade in. We’d love to have some of what makes you humans so… so…”

“So what?”

“Aggressive? Opinionated? Determined? It’s hard to pinpoint. We’d love to know what makes you tick. On the most basic level. In your helix.”

“And we can’t trust that you won’t change us. Subtly and over time, and then we wouldn’t be us any longer.”

“You know from your physics class that this universe might be nothing more than a holographic projection.”

“Meaning?”

“How do we know anything is real? Much less us.”

Tracy stared, puzzled at the alien. “You don’t sound like the guy who presses my trousers and sets out my shaving gear. You sound really… different.”

Donnel gave a shake of his entire bulbous body like a dog emerging from water and laughed. “Sorry, going back among my people has made me rhapsodic or pedantic. Take your pick.”

Scary, thought Tracy, but he didn’t say it aloud.

Donnel turned down a narrow street lined with boxy buildings with large roll-up garage doors, and small doors of various sizes and shapes to either side. They went halfway down the block, and Donnel knocked on a small triangular door. It was opened by a creature that looked like a cross between a centipede and a ferret.

“What the hell world was he modified to fit?” Tracy blurted. The creature gave a silvery laugh. “Okay, not a he,” Tracy added. He felt awkward and rude and completely out of his element.

“Among our people you would say, ‘What world was Cara modified to fit?’” the creature said in the same bell-like tones.

Tracy gave Donnel a questioning look. “We change gender as well as form on a pretty regular basis and sometimes we’re even hermaphrodites,” the batBEM said. “So we have a gender neutral pronoun—Cara.”

“Cara explained it perfectly,” the creature said, looking up at Tracy. Its body was only a few inches above the floor of the warehouse so it had raised the front half of its articulated torso. That’s when Tracy realized that what he’d taken for multiple legs were actually arms with tiny hands. He shuddered.