In Fire Forged: Worlds of Honor V-ARC (30 page)

He blinked at her directness, then chuckled, yet she sensed a new and deeper tension. It wasn’t anything overt, nothing she could have pointed at, but she didn’t need Nimitz to recognize the tautness of someone approaching a threshold or Rubicon. Then he drew in a lungful of air, let half of it out, and shrugged.

“My name is John Brown Matheson, Commander. My mother adopted the last name—Matheson—for the first officer of the Havenite heavy cruiser that captured the slaver she was on. I chose ‘John Brown’ when I joined the Audubon Ballroom.”

Despite herself, Honor’s eyes widened. The Ballroom was officially listed as a terrorist organization even by the Star Kingdom, which wasn’t too surprising in light of the atrocities it was prone to inflict upon the employees and customers of Manpower, Incorporated. Simple executions were seldom enough for the vengeful ex-slaves and children of slaves who filled the Ballroom’s ranks. Quite a few of them were fond of a ditty from an old pre-space operetta about “making the punishment fit the crime,” and they had centuries of crimes to punish…and imaginations which were both inventive and grisly. Which was why even the Star Kingdom, which had hated and opposed the interstellar genetic slave trade for centuries, and which thoroughly sympathized with the victims of that trade, wasn’t prepared to endorse the sort of carnage the Ballroom all too often wreaked.

Which, in turn, explained exactly why no serving officer of the Royal Manticoran Navy had any business at all sitting on a park bench talking with an acknowledged member of what was arguably the bloodiest—and certainly one of the most successful—organization of “terrorists” in the explored galaxy.

She ought to stand up immediately, nod pleasantly to him, and be on her way. She knew that perfectly well.

“And just why would a member of the Ballroom want to talk to
me
?” she asked instead.

The waiter—Matheson—didn’t actually move a muscle, yet somehow he seemed to sag in relief, anyway. None of which showed in his voice as he continued in the same matter-of-fact tone.

“When I said this situation in Saginaw was ‘less than ideal,’ I was guilty of just a bit of understatement. As a matter of fact, the situation here in Saginaw is a hell of a lot worse than that, Commander Harrington. And at least a quarter of the rot is coming out of the Casimir System.”

“Casimir?”
 

Honor couldn’t keep a flicker of surprise out of her own voice. She knew relatively little about Casimir, but from what she remembered off the top of her head, Casimir was a K0 star with seven planets and a fairly extensive but not especially spectacular or valuable asteroid belt. Unlike most star systems, it did have two habitable planets, although Anná, the innermost of the two, was no great prize. Beatá—twenty percent larger and two light-minutes farther out than Anná—was supposed to be a much nicer proposition, although both of them combined had little more than five hundred million inhabitants.

“Casimir,” Matheson said flatly, then snorted harshly. “I don’t blame you for being surprised. The reason there’s so much grief coming out of Casimir right now is that the people responsible for it deliberately picked what you might call an out-of-the-way spot to set up shop.”

“And who might those ‘people’ be?” Honor asked, watching his expression closely.

“Manpower.” Madison’s flat, uninflected tone made the single word the filthiest obscenity in his vocabulary.

“Manpower’s established a major slave depot in Casimir,” he continued in a marginally less passion-flattened voice. “It’s rapidly becoming the primary transshipment point for the slave trade here in the Confederacy, as well as for several other independent star systems out this way.”

Honor knew from Nimitz’s reaction that Matheson wasn’t lying to her, but that didn’t mean what he thought was the truth actually was, and for the life of her she didn’t see any logical reason for Manpower to put one of its clandestine slave-trading depots in Silesia. That thought must have showed in her eyes, because Matheson shook his head.

“Before you decide I don’t know what I’m talking about,” he said, “think about this. The wealthy and corrupt families here in the Confederacy are even wealthier—and a lot more corrupt—than their counterparts most places. Let’s face it, the entire Confederacy doesn’t have a pot to piss in compared to the Star Kingdom or the Solarian League, but people with the right connections can still squeeze an obscene amount of money out of their less fortunate neighbors. People with the right connections to become, oh, a system governor—or even a
sector
governor—let’s say. And whenever there’s that much money and that much economic corruption floating around, personal corruption and degeneracy are never far behind. That’s why the Ballroom has so many people scattered around the Confederacy. The kind of sick SOBs who dabble in ‘pleasure slaves’ or who simply prefer the sorts of ‘resorts’ someone with connections to Manpower can offer them, are thicker on the ground out here than in a lot of places.”

He held Honor’s eyes for a moment, and she nodded slowly.

“On the other hand, I never said the Casimir depot is just for the slave trade. Manpower’s got connections with any black market or illegal trade you’d care to name, and the Jessyk Combine is using Casimir as a transfer point for all kinds of cargoes no one wants to bring openly through customs, even here in the Confederacy.” He grimaced, lips working as if he wanted to spit on the ground. “There’re billions of Solarian credits worth of illegal goods and services—slaves, drugs, black-market weapons, stolen technology, you name it—being handled through Casimir, Commander. We didn’t find out about it immediately, of course, but it’s been going on for over two T-years now, and ‘business’ is growing steadily.”

She believed him, Honor realized. She would have believed him even without Nimitz’s endorsement of his truthfulness. And she also found herself wondering if it was remotely possible Commodore Teschendorff had deliberately steered her to Chez Fiammetta…and to this particular waiter.

On the face of it, that was even more ridiculous than anything Matheson had told her. Teschendorff was a
commodore,
with an entire squadron of heavy cruisers under his command. What possible reason could an officer that senior have for deliberately putting the captain of a mere destroyer—and one which belonged to a foreign star nation, at that—into contact with a terrorist organization just so it could pass her this kind of information?

Yet even as she asked herself that question, she realized it might not be ridiculous at all. If Matheson was right about what was going on in Casimir, and if it had been going on as long as he said it had, then even the Confederacy Navy would have heard the odd hint about it by now. Which meant that if the Confeds weren’t doing anything about it, it was because they’d been
told
not to. Some of them—a lot of them—were probably being paid off directly by Manpower, Jessyk, and the other outlaws and criminals using Casimir’s services, but there had to be more to it than that. And given what Matheson had just said about corrupt sector governors, Honor had a sinking sensation about who was most likely to be protecting Casimir.

Which could just explain exactly why Commodore Teschendorff might have embarked on something as Byzantine as deliberately throwing Honor together with Matheson—assuming, of course, that the commodore knew or suspected enough about Matheson’s Ballroom connections to steer her that way. If she’d been a senior officer who thought something like Casimir was going on in a sector adjacent to her own assigned duty station—somewhere where she herself had no authority—and she had reason to know it was being protected at the highest level, she might just want to draw it to the Star Kingdom’s attention, as well.

Especially given the Manticoran position on the Cherwell Convention and the genetic slave trade in general.

Great,
she thought sardonically.
He and Matheson between them are telling the skipper of a single destroyer that’s almost fifty T-years old about it. If Matheson’s right about everything that’s going on there, it’d take at least a couple of cruisers—not to mention a battalion or so of Marines—to do anything about it! And that doesn’t even consider the fact that I’m under orders to
cooperate
with Charnowska. I can just imagine how the Admiralty’s going to react if I go charging off and poke my nose into an illegal operation on this scale being carried out with the full knowledge and approval of the pro-Manticore sector governor we’re supposed to be
supporting!

“I really appreciate your willingness to tell me all this,” she said after a moment in a rather snappish tone. “But has anyone bothered to tell the
Silesians
about it? I mean, it
is
their star system.”

Matheson didn’t even bother to reply. He simply gave her a look that was so pitying she felt herself blush. But she also shook her head stubbornly.

“All right, forget I asked that. But I can hardly justify taking some sort of unilateral action—which is what you’re really asking me to do, as we both realize perfectly well, even though at this particular moment I don’t see a whole lot that I
could
do—without at least mentioning ‘my’ suspicions to the local authorities.”

Matheson looked a lot more than just skeptical, and she shook her head again.

“If you’re right about what’s going on—and I don’t know anything that would prove you’re not—you’re handing me a live hand grenade and inviting me to look for the pin. You know it, and I know it. And I’m sure you also know I’ve got my own orders from the Admiralty. To be perfectly honest, I’m of the opinion that those orders and the supplementary instructions I was given to go with them will pretty much preclude my doing anything at all about this beyond informing my own superiors about it as quickly as possible.”
 

Disappointment flickered in Matheson’s amber eyes, but she continued doggedly.
 

“I didn’t say that was what I
wanted
to do; what I said is that it’s what my orders will
limit
me to doing. And before I can do even that much and figure that anyone’s going to listen to me, I have to be able to tell them I at least discussed the situation with Sector Governor Charnowska. Believe me, no flag officer is going to authorize an operation against an installation in sovereign Silesian territory on the say-so of a mere commander—and one who’s been hobnobbing with Ballroom terrorists, at that!—without having all of the formal i’s dotted and t’s crossed. It’s just not going to happen.

“On the other hand, if Charnowska
doesn’t
know about it, then it’s my duty to tell her. And if she
does
know about it—if she’s actually involved in it herself—she may decide it’s time to cut her losses and shut things down before the Admiralty does do something about it unilaterally.”

Matheson’s expression made it abundantly clear that if she truly believed Charnowska would do anything of the sort she had no business wandering around without a keeper to wipe the drool off her chin. She half expected him to say so, but instead, he only shrugged.

“I don’t think it will do a bit of good,” he told her frankly, instead. “On the other hand, if you think that’s what your duty requires you to do, I’m sure it’s what you’re going to do. I hope you’ll keep the source of your information confidential, though?”

He raised both eyebrows, and she gave him an irritated, choppy nod. Of course she wouldn’t tell Charnowska where she’d gotten it!

“Sorry,” he apologized as he correctly interpreted her nod. Then he shrugged again.

“As I say, I’m sure you’ll do what you think you have to do. At the same time, I’m about equally sure it won’t do any good at all.” He reached into his pocket and extracted a slip of paper with a handwritten com combination on it. “If I’m right about that, and if you decide you’d like to talk some more about this with me, call this number—from a ground station, please.” He twitched his head in the direction of the miniature sailboats scudding across the lake. “Ask for Betsy and mention the sailboats on the lake here. Maybe you’ll even decide to buy one from her.”

He met her eyes as he held out the piece of paper, then stood as she took it.

“Good luck, Commander,” he said, and walked away down the path, whistling.

*
   
*
   
*

“Good morning, Commander Harrington.”
 

Sector Governor Charnowska’s smile was just as gracious as it had been the first time Honor met her, but somehow it seemed less welcoming to her this time. Perhaps it was because
this
time she’d gone ahead and brought Nimitz to the meeting. Charnowska might simply be one of those people who didn’t like pets, although, if Honor had had to venture a guess, she would have bet on the governor’s irritation stemmed less from any ingrained distaste for pets than from the fact that her visitor hadn’t even asked if she could bring the pet in question along.

Or maybe it doesn’t have a single thing to do with Nimitz one way or the other.
Maybe
it’s because she’s been keeping an eye on me and doesn’t approve of the people I’ve been talking to. And wouldn’t
that
suggest all sorts of “interesting” things?

“Good morning, Governor Charnowska,” she said warmly, shaking the proffered hand. Then she waved her left hand in Nimitz’s general direction. “I don’t believe you’ve met Nimitz, Ma’am?”

“No, I haven’t,” the governor agreed, and behind her own careful expression, Honor gave a mental nod. Charnowska’s tone answered at least one question. The governor clearly thought Honor was “introducing” her to a mere pet. Charnowska was willing to be pleasant and reasonably courteous about it, but it was clear that—unlike Teschendorff—she had no idea Sphinxian treecats were their home world’s native sentient race.

Or of their rumored telempathic abilities.

“I promise he’ll behave himself,” Honor said out loud, playing to Charnowska’s preconceptions. “He doesn’t get off the ship very often, and he needs fresh air even more than most of us two-footed people do.”