A Planet for Rent (16 page)

There are some things you can’t allow. And if they try to take advantage of your inexperience and bribe you to turn a blind eye, I want you to tell me about it right away. I’ll take care of those dealer bastards...

I’ve read a bit of history, and I know that in the past they also went after drug dealers. But for all drugs.

How ridiculous. Our system is a lot more rational: you can get whatever you want in the Medical Amusement Centers. Good prices, quality guaranteed, and under the care of trained toxicology experts. It’s one of the basic attractions for tourists who can afford it.

That’s why guys who deal dirt-cheap, presumably adulterated drugs underground are a discredit to the planet and a threat we can’t tolerate. No mercy for them. The guidelines when we catch one of them are hard and clear: take no prisoners. They don’t even want that scum in Body Spares. They’re almost always addicted to the same junk they sell, and no extraterrestrial in his right mind would want to “mount” a body with such a wasted metabolism.

On the other hand, there are priorities. It goes without saying that if some xenoid perishes under suspicious circumstances, we have to drop all other business and focus on the investigation into the cause of death. And if no guilty party turns up... one has to be invented, by hook or by crook. Too much depends on our efficiency in such cases.

Always bear in mind how they wiped Philadelphia off the map: Somebody, probably fighting over a skirt, slit the throat of some Cetian nobody, and the local district guys didn’t manage to find out who it was. And the reprisal by the fellows from Tau Ceti: two million humans, evaporated. I doubt you’d like to see the demonstration repeated in another city—with you in it.

There’s only one thing more urgent than discovering who killed a xenoid. And that’s giving anyone who kills one of our own what they deserve. Making sure they never even make it to trial... alive. That’s solidarity and esprit de corps. It’s plenty comforting to know you’ll get your revenge if the worst happens.

But don’t look like that, Markus; it isn’t all risk and revenge in this job of ours. There’s also lots of ways a clever agent can pick up a few extra credits, when he’s off duty, pretty safely.

For example, the protection business.

The Yakuza and the Triads monopolize it; they even control most of the freelancers. But if you want to earn every credit that goes into your account through honest labor, and you want to spend your free time doing it, the organized crime guys won’t interfere.

Though there are some very good freelancers, lots of retailers think that contracting a Planetary Security agent is the best. It means contracting quality. There’s a good reason why we earn our reputation in physical training and gun-handling skills. And just as important, we’re permitted to keep and use our guns, even off duty. The Agent’s Personal Protection Clause, remember?

That’s how it is, Markus: this protection deal has the advantage of not even being illegal. So long as you don’t wear your uniform, of course, ha ha! If anything happens, you just state that you were “passing by” and you “fired in self-defense.” The Homicide officer who takes the case will know how to exonerate you of any charges. Esprit de corps, get it?

Some expert advice: if you’re seriously interested in the protection business, the best thing you can do is spend a few credits on a small initial investment in the Logistics officer at headquarters. He’ll give you a Kevlar jacket to protect you, also an unregistered gun. And the price won’t be as steep as it might seem, if you stop to think about it. Keep in mind, it’ll mean that any shots you fire off duty won’t leave a trace on the central computer. To which all our minimachine guns are connected, as they must have told you in the Academy.

The shopkeepers will reward your efforts with a nice, fat bonus. A guard who can fire his gun without worries is always more effective than one who can only turn to it under extreme circumstances, don’t you think?

After the man without the uniform, something about the uniform without the man. And here we’re departing from the Law. In case you’re ambitious and you really like to gamble.

Every once in a while one of these self-employed businessmen, like our friend Ahimasa, will approach you and offer a considerable sum for the loan of your Kevlar-armored suit. A very considerable sum. Don’t hesitate for even a second; give it to him. Without the slightest remorse, and without thinking it makes you an evil traitor to the corps.

There’s nothing wrong with agreeing; they rarely use our uniforms for anything but settling inside scores. And if it turns into too big a mess and we have to intervene... a Kevlar suit won’t guarantee anybody’s life when they’re up against us. Every reputable hitman knows that the hollow-point bullets we use will blast straight through our own armor. Fortunately, no other weapon on Earth has the necessary firepower.

That’s why we’re so relentless in going after the arms traffickers who sell masers and rocket-propelled explosives. If gizmos like that started circulating widely in the black market, we’d completely lose control of the situation.

Oh, a couple of details. When you rent out your uniform, never forget two precautions: first, and it’s so obvious it’s hardly worth saying, remove the ID vibroplate and any corps badges, in case your “clients” get captured. Second, put in a request for a new uniform because your old one was stolen. And make sure the request is backdated to at least three days before you “loaned” it. If they return your suit without any problems, you cancel the request. But if your “clients” are caught or killed, it’ll be your best alibi: Another stolen uniform, not your fault, you told them about it in plenty of time, what a pity, there’s no decency anymore, somebody from your neighborhood who hates you must’ve stolen it off the hanger to sell it to those killers, what a coincidence...

And don’t protest if the service officer charges you a little more for your new Kevlar-armored uniform. He’s no fool, and since he hardly has any contact with the outside world, he has to make his extra profit somehow, don’t you think?

We all have a right to live.

Oh, about food sellers...

Even though you look like the sort who’s obsessed with organic vegetables and meat without synthetic hormones and all that old ecological stuff, let me tell you something: It’s been years since I’ve spent practically anything at all on food. My microwave has the immaculate gleam of a machine that never gets used. But I eat breakfast, lunch, and dinner every day like an emperor. Look at the belly I’m starting to get... And that’s after spending half an hour every day on the jogging simulator.

My secret? Easy...

One of the hardest subjects in the Academy was Commercial Hygiene. Was it for you, too? I don’t know about you, but I had such a tough time learning the basic regulations about transporting, storing, preparing, and selling foodstuffs. But I have to admit that it turned out to be the most useful subject I took, out of all my preparatory classes. Because, surprise! Hardly any of those regulations are applicable to real life.

It’s like everything here on Earth: if food retailers tried to follow to the letter every one of the thousand specifications that the Law demands, they’d go broke. They know it, we know it... the Law knows it. There used to be a corps of inspectors who got all the gifts for pretending to have bad eyesight. And the rest of us, twiddling our thumbs and dying of envy. Fortunately, five years ago Amendment 538 gave us total power by turning us into the only control force all over the planet. No more than what we deserved, if you ask me.

So, if you see a grocer selling vegetables that smell like dextrinone, or chickens that are a little swollen from synthetic steroids, and he invites you to breakfast—don’t hesitate, accept. Sure, it’s a bribe... but you can bet he won’t set his own table with any of the garbage he sells. Most likely that’s stuff he keeps for extraterrestrials, so you won’t be harming any humans with your “laissez faire.”

And I assure you, in exchange for being tolerant, you’ll eat true delicacies. Those are the great pleasures of life, the most basic ones: sex and food. A man has a right to pamper his palate, doesn’t he? After all, he isn’t some xenoid with a brass gullet.

Yeah, because those bugs don’t care whether they’re eating crap or caviar so long as the chef swears that it’s some exotic Earthling dish. Idiots.

Aside from sybaritic pleasures, my advice is that, if you want to be a father someday, don’t sink your teeth into any of the succulent produce you see in the windows, or let yourself be tempted by the cheap, juicy ten-day chicks that look as big and fat as forty-day chickens. They don’t do much harm to the metabolisms of the weird guys from other worlds, but those synthetic hormones can really mess up your innards—or your children’s, if your wife and you decide to have any in the natural way. Though, personally, I’d invest a few extra credits and get a good custom genetic design. Clean, safe, efficient.

As for the rest, you have to be tough on the retailers and small industrialists who contaminate the environment by dumping their rotting and carcinogenic waste and their untreated sewage straight down the drain. Fine ’em! As often as you have to! So they’ll learn once and for all that in the long run it’ll be cheaper for them to install a waste treatment plant than to keep breaking the environmental protection laws.

As you can see, even though I make fun of it, I’m halfway on your ecology and conservation bandwagon. Simple pragmatism: survival instinct, not religious fervor about bugs and flowers.

Earth is our planet, isn’t it? Just because the guys from beyond Pluto own it now, it doesn’t mean that we don’t care anymore, or that we should commit suicide by drowning in our own shit. Not to mention, that would also mean losing the tourism that still barely keeps us afloat, which depends so much on our virgin forests and all that...

What else...

Oh, yeah. Practically the most important thing: They must have talked to you about staff rotation in the Academy. Three months here on patrol, three in Deterrent Force, three in Homicide, and so on and so forth. A cute little system that one of the big bosses must’ve dreamed up—with the idea, I guess, of preventing the poor agents and regular old sergeants from feeling too tempted to fall into the horrendous venial sin of corruption... No doubt the moron thought he was an absolute genius for coming up with that.

But don’t let it get you down. Every law has its loophole: we’ve come up with our own system. They never rotate an entire department all at once, so when it’s time for us to separate and you know what your new post is going to be, I’ll personally tell you who makes the rules over there... And he’ll give you the instructions, the contacts, everything you’ll need to take over from the agent you’re replacing, in every sense.

Understood? Yep, Markus, you’re a smart boy, just like I thought. Quick on your feet. And you smile. I’m glad you like these proposals. As you see, belonging to the glorious Planetary Security force isn’t as bad as lots of people think.

A few more bits of advice. Sorry if I’m starting to sound pedantic. I’m getting old, and not having kids of my own has made me feel a little paternal towards young rookies like you who don’t know anything about life yet. Besides, I really do like you.

Get used to improvising. Forget the Manual. There’s no system of rules that can cover every possibility. Every day, an agent runs into situations that don’t fit the standards.

For example, if you’re patrolling a dark street and you find a minicontainer with two kilos of telecrack in it, and there aren’t any witnesses... Or if some cloned Cetian damsel is impressed by how tight you wear your uniform trousers and wants to know what your favorite brand of sex lubricant is... The decision is up to you.

I have a personal rule: Never let a child, a woman, or an addict down. You can always go a little bit out of your way for your neighbor, don’t you think, Markus?

Of course, if you attract some Colossaur’s attention, I recommend that you start coming up with excuses faster than an aide in the diplomatic corps. They say even their vaginas are armored.

Not to mention the acetic acid that the guzoids of Regulus secrete... I wouldn’t wish that on my worst enemy.

Ha. The spicy stories I could tell you...

You don’t know how lucky you were to join Planetary Security when you did. A few years ago, an agent who refused too often might end up in suspended animation, inside one of these tanks. The xenoids practically owned us, and they didn’t like any kind of refusal.

Now we have certain rights.

And we’ve fought good and hard to get them, I swear. Ten years ago, saying “Planetary Security agent” was the same as saying “piece of garbage.” To make them take us into account, we had to show those stuckup xenoids that there was no way they could control Earth without us. At least not without wiping out three quarters of the population.

Out of curiosity, where were you born, Markus? Right here in New Miami? Thought so. A smart urban kid. I’m a clever country boy. From a little hamlet on the bank of a river off in the boondocks, between the hills and the jungle: Baracuyá del Jiquí. They still haven’t figured out that we’re in the twenty-first century yet. They’re still living in the nineteenth there.

Every time it rains a little, the Jiquí River bursts its banks; the main street, which is the one and only street in my town, turns into a lake, and you have to get around by raft instead of on foot. We didn’t have access to the holonet in my house—not even electricity. We carried our water in buckets from the river.

I didn’t see my first aerobus till I was ten. Up until that moment, my highest ambition when it came to transportation was to have my own horse. My mother and father didn’t have many entertainment alternatives or any idea what contraceptives were, so they had fifteen kids—nine sons, six daughters. Ten of us survived. Seven boys, three girls. At the age of forty-three, my mother looked seventy.

I wasn’t old enough for them to take seriously, or young enough for them to pamper. I got the worst of both worlds, being in the middle. My older brothers beat me because they were stronger, and I had to take care of the little ones because they were younger.