S andrew swann hostile.., p.3
S. Andrew Swann - Hostile Takeover 02, page 3
Jonah did what he could to conceal his disappointment. “So what now?”
“As I told you, I have no authority to commit all Seven Worlds to your proposal. Tau Ceti is sending someone who can, another representative to the Congress.”
“Who?”
She shook her head. “That was also too sensitive to trust to the Confederacy’s comm. They will be here in forty days standard.”
“Forty days?” That was cutting things awfully close. The Terran Congress would have already started its session. Jonah damned the Seven Worlds’ slow ships. He also damned the xenophobia that kept their power brokers away from the Congress. He managed to maintain good grace about it. “Then I must wait,” he said.
“Then you must.”
Jonah stood and held his hand out. His right hand, which was a crude biomechanical device, its chromed finish scarred and pitted from years of wear. He held it out in the same sort of psychological test that Hernandez had intended by meeting him here.
Hernandez shook it.
PART FOUR
Laissez Faire
“Monopolies are sacrifices of the many to the few.”
—James Madison
(1751-1836)
<
CHAPTER FOUR
Embargo
“The bureaucracy only changes in response to some grand disaster.”
— The Cynic’s Book of Wisdom
“Fascism is Capitalism in decay.”
—Vladimir Ilyich Lenin
(1870-1924)
Forty-four Bakunin days after they’d met, Tetsami finally severed the ties between her and Dominic Magnus.
That’s what it felt like, anyway, when she stepped down from Ivor’s contragrav, hugged him good-bye, and walked out onto the road leading to the city of Proudhon. All she had was her duffel, the clothes on her back, and a hand-comm recording twenty megagrams worth of assets that were safely off-world.
By forty-five days, that’s where she wanted to be, safely off-world.
Her steps away from Ivor’s contragrav van, and toward the outer sprawl of Proudhon, were her first steps into a new life. She should have felt good about it. She should have been smiling, at least.
She stood on the eastern fringes of Proudhon. She was supposed to be better off question-wise walking in on the ground, rather than letting Ivor fly her into Proudhon’s airspace. The Proudhon Spaceport Development Corporation jealously guarded its dominion. There were enough antiaircraft emplacements to make sure that no one ever deviated from assigned flight plans. Neither she nor Ivor wanted to borrow trouble.
Ivor buttoned up the van and lifted off. She watched, as the maneuvering fans blew fine black sand across the road. She stood on a sun-cracked ribbon of concrete, and watched the contragrav recede into a purpling Bakunin sky.
Kropotkin had already set on the other side of the Diderot Mountains. About five hundred kilometers that way, west beyond the mountains, beyond the city of Proudhon, Dom was going to see another half-hour of sunset.
“Sheesh. Cut that out, girl.”
She forced a smile on her face. It hurt her cheeks.
She turned around, absorbing what should be the last view of her native planet.
To the east the ribbon of concrete continued, a road to some project that never came off. It arrowed straight into the desert, to be swallowed by standing waves of black sand. In that direction lay fifteen hundred kilometers of arid desert before the continent ended and the ocean began. To her south was more desert. Beyond that horizon would come tundra, then the southern half of the glaciation that covered most of Bakunin’s surface. Over the horizon to the north, the desert would slowly turn into mountains.
A gust of burning wind peppered her face with flecks of sand, making her squint.
Despite the fact she knew the geography beyond what she saw, this bit of road looked like the end of the world. Three-quarters of the horizon was nothing but rippling black sand.
She turned to face Proudhon, the city here, at the end of the world.
The city she faced, in all practical senses, was the spaceport. There wasn’t a place where the eye could separate launching facilities, fuel storage, or landing strips from the other functions of the city. Even from a half-klick away, she could see the merging of the city’s function with its essence. High-rise offices doubled as control towers. Old landing pads now served for more mundane parking. Grounded transports had been turned into bars. Old apartment buildings sprouted large new radar domes.
Everything was lit up, be it from the garish neon of the bars, or the color-coded landing lights that seemed to grace every point where architecture formed a right angle.
In the midst of Proudhon, forming the off-center heart of the city, were the buildings headquartering the Proudhon Spaceport Development Corporation itself. They were giant white monoliths, a floodlit counterpoint to the chaotic sprawl of the remaining city. The ordered cluster of buildings, rising toward a dominant central tower, was the stamp of the Spaceport Corporation. It was a reminder that— despite the name of the original settlement here—Proudhon was a company town, and everything here was under the eye of the corporation.
But, towering over it all, stood the weathered humps of the Diderot Mountain Range.
The darkening snowcapped mountains loomed over everything, edged by gaudy pink highlights from the sunset beyond.
Tetsami’s stomach churned with a rising dread. For a brief instant she considered going back, returning to Diderot, Ivor, and everything she’d just left.
She pushed the thought aside.
Not only did she not want to admit second thoughts, but the only transportation she had were her own two feet. The only destination within walking distance was Proudhon.
She still stared at the city, a half-klick away, and wondered what made her feel that the scene was so wrong. She had never even been in Proudhon before. Her only views of the city were from her hacker runs on the data net, and one brief distant glimpse from the foothills on the other side of the city.
She shrugged her reservations aside and started toward the city. The sky darkened as she walked, and the city became even brighter. Slowly, as the city’s lights swallowed the stars, she understood what was wrong. The last time she had seen Proudhon, the sky had been alive with spacecraft coming and going. The noise had been a constant subliminal hum, with spacecraft shooting by every few seconds.
However, since Ivor had put her down here, she hadn’t seen a single craft take off or land.
“What do you mean nothing’s leaving?” Tetsami asked the guard.
“Just that, Miss Jorgenson. All outbound craft have been grounded by Spaceport Command. I’m sorry.”
The man was a functionary of Proudhon Spaceport Security. She was in his little office at the edge of the city, registering as an outbound visitor. They didn’t care about her real name or anything—Tetsami had used the alias “Kari Jorgenson” out of congenital paranoia—but if Security found her without an ID chit anywhere in the city …
Well, that was best not contemplated.
The ID chit was a badge of her right to be here, and proof that she’d paid a deposit to the Spaceport Corporation— nonrefundable. It was a bit of a protection racket, but as things went on Bakunin, it was fairly mild. Tetsami suspected the chit acted as a locator badge so security could find you when the deposit ran out.
She had the shiny black ID chit in her hand, and the turquoise-and-black clad bureaucrat had just waited for her money to transfer before he’d informed her that nothing was leaving the spaceport.
Even though the city was her only option, she was royally pissed at this nimrod for committing her to the money transfer before telling her.
“Damn it!” she yelled at him. “I need to get off-planet.”
“A lot of people need to get off-planet, Miss.”
Bloody-Christ-Almighty! “Why the delay?”
The guard gave her a long sigh that told her that he’d already gone through this a hundred times, but he’d do it just this once more. “A small number of Confederacy ships tached insystem. They are apparently affiliated with the Terran Executive Command.
Proudhon Spaceport Command is holding all traffic until the situation can be resolved.”
“Is that all? Why stop everything?”
“If you have a question, address it to the proper department.” The guard leaned to the side and said, “Next!”
A large black woman in a photoreactive dress that was a size too small elbowed her out of the way and started talking to the guard as if Tetsami didn’t exist.
Tetsami left the office, anger a smoldering coal in her gut.
Proudhon was a mess.
It felt like someone had opened all the cages, just for her arrival. Night had fallen and the hustlers, the dealers, the winos, the boy-toys and the junkies, everyone and everything was out to get theirs. Most of them seemed convinced that they could get it from her.
As she walked, trying to find a hotel—any hotel—she was offered at least ten different ways of getting high, four or five ways of getting laid, and at least one way of getting even.
The black marketeers didn’t bother her that much. All of Bakunin was a black market.
If she weren’t looking for a room, she might have even scraped up an interest in a hardly-used gamma laser, or the bootleg software library.
When it came to the drugs, she was neutral. She didn’t use anything other than liquor herself, not from high moral standards, but because anything remotely hallucinogenic meddled in the sensitive mental wiring that made her this dirtball’s best freelance netrunner—even past her prime.
All that was tolerable.
What broke her was the kid. He—or she, the kid was too wasted for Tetsami to tell—came out of nowhere and grabbed her arm. Tetsami felt a yank and turned to see a face with hollow eyes, and teeth too long because of receding gums. It wasn’t until she heard the voice that she realized it was a kid, no more than fifteen.
“Wanna some good time?” a kid’s soprano coming out of this crewcut skull face.
Tetsami had lived most of her life on the cesspit streets of Godwin, but this kid struck her like a depleted uranium bullet. She was drawn up short by shock, and the kid misinterpreted it as interest.
Hands even more skeletal than that face groped her. “Do whacha want, babe,” the kid said, licking chapped lips. “Whacha want. Just need a charge. Got a charge, babe, and we can have lotsa fun.”
The kid was rattling off the words as if it was some viral program that was looping through his—her?—brain. Tetsami stared helplessly at the kid’s eyes. Dead, those hollowed eyes, lit only by a fierce inner hunger and, deeper, an ugly parody of hope.
Loathing churned in Tetsami’s gut, freezing her to the spot while her skin wanted to dissolve under this creature’s touch.
“Come on, babe,” the kid said. “Just one little charge—” The kid’s hand slid mechanically over her breast.
Then she caught a glimpse of the side of the kid’s neck.
That’s when she ran.
The sight of the concave dimple on the kid’s neck, just like her own, had sent a shudder of pure terror though every nerve in her body.
To hell with self-respect. To hell with streetwise safety. To hell with self-assurance.
Tetsami ran.
That kid had a fucking biolink! The kid’s a software junkie. A fucking—
Even as she ran, she forced away the word.
“Wirehead.” That’s what the East Godwin maggots called her, after she’d gotten the implant. Everyone so damn certain that she’d end up another brain-dead husk …
Even Ivor.
She ran until she finally hit a hotel. Then she caught herself, leaning against the wall, panting. Kid long gone, too wasted to keep up with her.
Biolinks took best in adolescents, giving the best connection, speed, resolution. The converse wasn’t true. Teenagers were the worst people to trust with direct access to their own cerebral cortex.
Throughout all of the Confederacy, it was illegal to plant a biolink in a minor. But the planet Bakunin wasn’t part of the Confederacy, and nothing was illegal here.
Tetsami leaned against the wall and fingered the dimple in her own neck.
Must’ve seen mine, she thought. The kid saw mine and thought I was a kindred spirit. There but for the grace of God and an engineered biology go I.
Wirehead.
“Christ.”
For once, the unadorned blasphemy seemed sufficient.
After her breathing no longer burned her throat and the stitch in her side had faded to a dull ache, she looked up at where she’d found herself.
The hotel was called the New Yukon. It looked like a dive, but she wasn’t in the mood to be very choosy.
She pushed herself away from the wall and walked in.
<
CHAPTER FIVE
Preferred Risk
“Better to regret something you have done, than something you haven’t.”
— The Cynic’s Book of Wisdom
“If love is judged by its visible effects it looks more like hatred than friendship.”
—Francois duc de la Rochefoucauld
(1613-1680)
Dominic Magnus stood on the top of the Waldgrave Hotel on the West Side of Godwin and breathed in the morning air. It made no real sense, but he felt good.
How long has it been since I just stood somewhere and enjoyed the view?
Too long, felt like never.
Below the rise of West Godwin, the land dipped to cup the shimmering commercial chaos of the central city. Even the blasted industrial wasteland of East Godwin didn’t appear too awful in the rosy morning light.
And, above everything stood the frosted spine of the Diderot Mountains, rounded by age, unimpressed by mankind’s recent appearance. Somewhere, midway between here and the orange-purple tree line, sat the Godwin Arms complex. His brother Klaus was there.
Just thinking of Colonel Klaus Dacham should have brought his mood to a crashing halt.
It didn’t, and the feeling was so uncharacteristic that Dom wondered if he was sick.
Can one decision make so much difference? Apparently so.
Dom took another deep breath and stretched the sleep from his joints. The wind was bracing, still carrying the chill of Bakunin’s sixteen-hour night.
“Mr. Shaji?” A voice came from behind him.
“Shaji” was one of the names he was using on this trip into Godwin. His appearance matched the pseudonym. In case his brother wasn’t convinced of his demise, he had adjusted the pigment of his polyflesh skin from its normal olive cast to a deep chocolate brown. With his normally black hair, and sunglasses over his brown eyes, he appeared of Indian descent.
He turned to face Gregg Lovesy, a mid-level veep in Argus Datasearch. Argus was a company that Dom had used frequently, and Lovesy in particular was a man he often dealt with. Lovesy knew Dom from five years of association, and knew Dom would be disguised.
He still looked surprised at Dom’s appearance.
It took a moment for Dom to realize that it might be because Lovesy saw him smiling.
Dom put on a businesslike demeanor. “I am that worthy,” he said, the previously agreed upon response.
Lovesy looked relieved. “Do you have a place to talk?”
“My aircar’s parked over there.” Dom waved toward the rooftop restaurant. Between them and the restaurant was a parking lot graced by a dozen luxury aircars. One of them was Dom’s. Dom put his arm around Lovesy to lead him, and the man flinched.
Lovesy shrugged out of Dom’s grasp and made it to the aircar first.
Dom opened the doors. Once they were comfortably inside, Dom switched on Mosasa’s countersurveillance devices. Then he asked Lovesy, “What’ve you got for me?”
“A low profile dig, kept off of the net, just as you asked.” Lovesy pulled a flimsy sheet of cyberplas from his pocket. “Read it when you have a chance to memorize it. The sheet’s a one-read-and-wipe. It’s the only copy.”
Dom nodded. “Can you summarize what’s on this?”
“Very gentle investigation. No primary sources. So this has no guarantee. Okay?”
“Just rumor. All I expected.”
Lovesy sucked in a breath and started rattling off the data that Dom was interested in. “You were right. The biggest block of stock is held by Ezra Bleek. No one admits to seeing him for the past five years. Various stories say he’s dead, medically incompetent, or being held prisoner by his children. The official Bleek Munitions story, and most of the rumors, have him in the basement of the family estate.” Lovesy looked out the window and said, “You can probably see the enclave from here, the walls at least. No, you’re not parked close enough to the edge.”
“What is the official Bleek Munitions story?” Lovesy looked back at Dom. “The official line is that Ezra is barely alive, on a massive life-support system, and can only participate through his children’s proxy.”
“How likely is that?”
“You a betting man?” Lovesy asked.
“You know the answer to that.”
Lovesy nodded. “My advice is, don’t start now. The official story’s crap. And, from what we’ve dug up, the Bleek children are thoroughgoing sons of bitches, and that includes the daughter.”
“Can I have the story without the editorializing?”
Lovesy obliged him.
The information on Ezra Bleek and his kids, despite debatable reliability, was extensive. Bleek was in his sixties, an immigrant from Thubohu. He was a businessman and what was commonly known as a tax refugee. He’d pooled most of his assets into Bleek Munitions upon his arrival and had a total of three children before his wife died—quietly, in bed, an unusual death for the spouse of a Bakunin executive.
The kids were born and raised on Bakunin, and despite the safe, isolated, and well-defended schools Ezra paid through the nose for, the motherless kids ran amok. The kids, two sons and one daughter, fully exploited the liberty that Bakunin and their dad’s money gave them.
