Star Risk - 02 Scoundrel Worlds (10 page)

"I'll make the proper approaches, guaranteeing nothing," Diavolo said. "What else?"

"Two of my partners had an� encounter� with the Masked Ones last night," Riss said. "It came out badly for them."

"I have heard of the gunplay at L'Montagnard," Diavolo said.

"I would like the address or addresses where I might encounter a few of those people."

"Might I ask� no. Even an old man such as I can learn, eventually, when someone has been gifted with a closed mouth. I can provide some names quite easily.

"But first I'll have to give you a warning. You should know that most of the Masked Ones have close ties with L'Pellerin's Dampier Information Bureau, as well as with some of our less savory right-wing groups."

"I've heard that some of them are, in fact, members of the DIB," Riss said.

"Ah," Diavolo said. "And you're not afraid?"

Riss shook her head. "We don't worry about cops. Especially those who don't have the guts to come into the open."

Diavolo looked at her with respect. "From a callow youth, I would expect such brashness. But from a mature woman� you clearly are a force to be reckoned with."

"I would hope so," M'chel said. "But I think there are some people on this planet who haven't learned that."

"I'll give you the names just after dinner," Diavolo said. "My intelligence may not be the equal of yours, but it isn't that bad. Unlike that of L'Pellerin, who fancies he has every Torguth spy under close watch, and, should the situation between our systems worsen, will be able to promptly arrest them."

He laughed humorlessly. "He is in for a surprise if that occurs. I� we� know of at least a dozen more. Not to mention whoever stole the Belfort defense plans and then betrayed Sufyerd.

"Now, shall we go into the dining room? I'm anticipating the one daily drink my doctor allows me."

He smiled wolfishly. "Yes. Yes, Miss Riss, I'm very glad to have met you, and hopefully will be able to help your cause. For it is time, time past, for this lazy, complacent society of ours to be picked up by the scruff of its neck and shaken until its teeth rattle!"

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EIGHTEEN � ^ � Grok left the mansion making quiet burbling noises�his race's version of humming. He wore, in spite of the evening's mildness, a large cloak over his long, silky fur, and on his head, a rakish, bright red beret.

Under the cloak he carried a folding-stock carbine and a pouch of grenades, plus the usual dagger and blaster on his combat harness.

He, too, wasn't pleased with what had happened the night before. Three bodies wasn't nearly enough to compensate. Grok had thought he'd go for a stroll, hoping some of the Masked Ones would be following and, even better, try for a rematch.

He was across the street, heading for one of the riverfront walks, when a man stood up from a bench. Grok's hand moved inside his cloak.

The man held up both hands palm out, signaling peaceful intents, and limped toward Grok. He was very thin, tall with broad shoulders. One side of his face was a bit shiny, immobile, the result of extensive reconstructive surgery.

Not believing anyone except his partners had peaceful intentions, Grok had a blaster half-drawn, safety off.

"Amanandrala Grokkonomonslf, I greet you," the man said in Grok's own language, even if rather vilely accented, his voice not much above a whisper.

"I return your greeting," Grok said.

"I am Walter Nowotny, Cerberus Systems," the man said, switching to Basic. "I thought we might talk."

"We could," Grok said. "But if you think you are leading me into an ambush, it will prove very expensive. For you."

"I could offer my word, but I know Star Risk doesn't think much of that from me."

"We think nothing of it, in fact," Grok said. "You can walk about a pace in front of me until we reach the river, then I shall pick a spot where we can talk more comfortably."

"At your command," Nowotny said, nodding his head.

They walked in silence until they reached the river. Grok stopped by a commercial lifter station, indicated its bench.

Nowotny sat down. "I came to offer you a warning," he said without preamble.

Grok grunted. "You mean a threat."

"Not at all," Nowotny said. "You present no danger to Cerberus, so why should we threaten you?" He sighed. "I'm afraid the way you, and of course Miss King, were treated by us when you were our employees hardly makes you friendly, nor trusting of us. I'm afraid there's nothing that can be done to change your opinions, nevertheless, in this case, my motives are fairly benevolent.

"The warning I came to give you is to trust no one in this system," Nowotny said. "You don't have the resources to adequately cover your backs, let alone help this fool Reynard clear Sufyerd."

"Everyone not only gives us warnings," Grok said, "but knows our business, as well."

"Come now," Nowotny said. "Reynard has been babbling his intent all over Montrois for some months, that he is determined to find someone who'll prove what he knows to be the truth. One and one and one and like that�"

Grok grunted.

"First, I don't believe you'll accomplish anything more than spending Reynard's money. Second, I don't think offering you a bribe to cancel your contract would work. I've tried that before, and it failed. Your von Baldur has an absurd system of ethics, considering the trade both our companies practice."

"He is most romantic," Grok agreed.

Nowotny almost completely covered his sudden interest except for a brief widening of the eyes. "You should be aware that the current situation here is quite perilous. Torguth has determined to right historical wrongs in the near future."

"You mean, invade the Belfort Worlds," Grok said. "Are you on their payroll for that, as well?"

"If I said we weren't, you wouldn't believe me. But we're not."

"So I've been warned," Grok said, standing. "Now, may I continue my digestive stroll?"

Nowotny looked at him closely. "In a moment. Something you said a moment ago struck my interest."

"Ah?"

"I got the impression you might think Friedrich von Baldur's insistence on holding to a contract until it's completed, failed, or the client fires him is not that, shall we say, realistic?"

"It hardly is that, considering the world we live in," Grok said. "Correction�galaxy."

"Perhaps you yourself might consider accepting a retainer from us."

"For what?"

"Nothing that would put your partners in jeopardy," Nowotny said hastily. "But it might be advantageous to both of us to know what Star Risk's intent is, in any given situation, and also what sort of information you are able to obtain on the Sufyerd matter."

Grok growled, sat back down. "Let us talk."

Grok bounded up the steps of the mansion and through the door. He decanted weaponry on a nearby table, went looking for someone to tell the news.

Goodnight was sprawled in the first lounge off the hallway, flipping through pages on a zine holder. "You look cheerful," he said. "Did you stomp a kitten or something?"

"Not nearly that good," Grok said. "I think you should be proud of me."

"I nearly always am proud of anybody as big and mean as you are."

"I have sold Star Risk down the river, as I think you say."

"To anybody I know?" Goodnight said, undisturbed.

"Cerberus Systems!" Grok said excitedly. "Their man Nowotny approached me, and sounded me out to report on all our findings."

"And you accepted?"

"I did."

"For how much?"

"Ten thousand credits per meeting. That should help defray expenses, I would think."

Goodnight was on his feet, and clapped hands with the alien.

"Good. Very, very good. I was starting to think you were a little too clean-cut for the likes of us.

"Did you get the first payment?"

"Nowotny said he would have it at our next meeting."

Goodnight sat back down, shaking his head.

"You're still not there, young Grok. A real scum bucket, like me�like you want to become�always, always, always gets the money up front."

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NINETEEN � ^ � Screamer from the Montrois World (a supporter of the Independent Party):

Torguth Fleet Imperils Belfort System

Maneuvers Threaten Worlds Peace

From Our Correspondents

Torguth's Grand Council today announced their fleet's annual maneuvers would be held no more than five light years from our Belfort System, a move which was immediately denounced by Dampier's Supreme Command as being a possible threat to our two systems' peace, which has twice been broken by Torguth armed strength.

However, Premier Ladier advised calmness, and said a special envoy will be dispatched to Torguth to present Dampier's thinking on the matter at the appropriate time.

"I have no doubt that calmness and rationality shall prevail," he said, "and I advise no member of our citizenry to become concerned or inflamed about the matter."

However, former Premier Reynard viewed the matter somewhat differently, saying "the Torguth have very short memories, and once again are planning to test our strength. This matter should be met firmly, and Torguth advised that our own forces will be placed on standby, in the highest degree of alert, and not for peaceful maneuvering."

Other members of the reigning Universalist Party refused to view the matter with the same gravity as Reynard, and�

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TWENTY � ^ � Riss and Goodnight went over Fra Diavolo's list of the Masked Ones' residences and hangouts, found one that seemed perfect.

It was an elaborate mansion in a once-grand part of Tuletia, now gone badly to seed.

"First, poor people don't go to the cops every time there's a loud noise," Goodnight told Jasmine. "Second, what went and run de neighborhood down in de first place is thisyere commercial lifter station two blocks away. More nice noise blocking unpleasant things like screams and gunshots."

"What� exactly� are we going to do?" Jasmine asked.

"Why, lass," Goodnight said, and his voice had never been silkier, "merely offer some object lessons as to correct moral positioning."

His� and M'chel's� smiles were not pleasant.

Riss found an announcement on one of the city's holos.

"Perfect for us, I would think," she said. "A nice lecture, not far from our friends' place, debating the need for More Equality and Less Secret Justice. Something staunch patriots like the Masked Ones will be sure to object to. Two nights from now."

"Heh. Heh," Goodnight agreed. "Perfect like a mamoo."

That night and the next, Goodnight and Riss, wearing black coveralls under their street clothes, took a lifter to the mansion's neighborhood.

They carefully watched comings and goings, and shot several dozen amplified light films.

"What we need," Goodnight said, "is to catch these idiots just putting their masks on, before they start terrorizing the widows and orphans or whoever's dumb enough to want to go to this damned talk."

"So," Riss said, "if the suckers' lecture is at nineteen hundred, I'd guess our friends will be assembling at eighteen hundred, maybe a little earlier, getting ready to go out and beat the hamhocks off these poor dissenters for being potentially traitorous and, worse for them, unarmed."

"Are you sure this is necessary?" von Baldur asked. "I know he is what he is, and that eventually we shall be on a collision orbit with L'Pellerin, but is it necessary this early in the game?"

"I think so," M'chel said. "The only thing a cop understands is greater violence."

"True," von Baldur agreed.

"Besides," Grok rumbled, "I think an object lesson in how to correctly apply violence and terror is more than needed in these parlous times."

"You," von Baldur said, "just want to go kick holy hell out of something or someone. And where in the hell did you learn the word parlous?"

"This is true," Grok said. "But, like humans, I should be able to put a most pious front to my sadism. As for my vocabulary, all of you should be envious of someone who realizes education is a continuing process."

The afternoon of the lecture, Goodnight posted a note in the guards' wing. It said that anyone not on night shift who wanted to pick up an extra hundred credits or so, doing nothing all that illegal, should sign at the bottom of the sheet. All of the guards not on duty signed.

"What we'll need you for," Goodnight instructed, "is to seal off both sides of a street. Keep the curious away, and if any police lifters show up, which I think they've been carefully instructed not to, give the alarm and haul ass. This isn't an exercise in fair fighting."

The troops were fed early, then issued black coveralls, blasters, gas and blast grenades, and truncheons.

The Star Risk operatives armed themselves more heavily. Grok picked a semiautomatic, semiportable�except to the enormous alien�grenade launcher.

Riss strapped a small flamethrower on her back.

Jasmine shuddered, checked her own blaster and small backup unit, holstered them, and was ready.

The others had blast rifles, pistols, grenades. All of them wore available-light helmets.

Lifters were waiting in the mansion's yard, and the men and women, not talking, boarded.

The lifters took off and headed west, away from the slum district. It'd been leaked that Star Risk planned a night exercise in the wilderness, to make sure all their people were as qualified as they claimed.

The lifters, beyond Tuletia, circled wide around the city, keeping well below any radar sweeps, then reentered. They landed at a bankrupt loading yard a block and a half from the Masked Ones' lair, put guards on the lifters, and moved in on the mansion just at dusk, making sure their hiding places were off the street.

As night fell, men, mostly young, made their way toward the mansion, pretending elaborate innocence.

By 1800 it was full dark, and the last stragglers were inside.

Goodnight moved the guards out into the street, cordoning the area.