Mercenary (13 page)

We also had indoctrination on our destination. It was my duty to absorb the often tedious detail of the holo tapes and digest it so that I could make it palatable, or at least intelligible to my men. Chiron was named after a famous centaur, the wisest of the herd. Indeed, the planetoid was shaped vaguely like that mythical creature, with a torso 60 miles in diameter and 140 miles long to the tip of the extended tail. This is what the “about 150-mile diameter” translated to. Its present population was about 600,000 people, four-fifths of them Uranian and one-fifth of them Saturnian. It had been under Saturnian domination for three centuries despite its Uranian majority; then when it swung close to Uranus it had been taken over by the empire of Titania, the Uranian moon, and held for another century. There had been a number of petitions for “enosis” or political amalgamation with the Uranian system. When this was denied, there were riots. Ninety-five percent of the Uranian-derived population wanted that unification with the mother planet. At last Chiron had been granted independence, but still the problems erupted, with the Saturnian minority insisting on partition, since they believed they were suffering discrimination. A terrorist campaign had started, and at one point there had almost been war between the parent cultures on Uranus and Saturn. Now the interplanetary peace force was supposed to cool things off.

I rephrased all this for my men, delivering summaries in English and Spanish. “Those people probably feel about the way we do,” I concluded, “after a month in space tasting chicken. All we want to do is get back to base and unify with our regular women: enosis.” That brought on an approving laugh, for the men were sick of the all-male condition of this mission, and of the long lines for the inadequate Company Tail.

They knew that the officers were little better off in this respect; there was only one O-girl. She was less busy than the E-girls but also offered less variety. Things were rough all over.

The nominal entertainment facilities received heavy use, too. There were no feelies here, because Commander Chicken (surely Satan reserved a red-hot pitchfork for his posterior!) believed them to be effete, or worse: fun. But there were boxing gloves, pugil sticks, and an in-ship obstacle-course racetrack. I shed my jacket when I could and played table tennis, chess, and pool with my men. I was not expert in any of these, but I made it a point to be an excellent loser. While I played, I talked with them, getting to know them better, and I encouraged positive interaction among them. This did not mean I tolerated indiscipline; I knew better than that. When I donned my silver bars, I meant business, and this was quickly apparent. No one, I knew, respected an easy officer. I had discovered this the hard way as an enlisted man, from Sergeant Smith. Tough but fair—when it counted.

And so we arrived, ready for trouble. Chiron looked like a narrow punching bag, with its extended tail.

It was a planet, for it orbited the sun, no bigger than a moonlet, as perhaps it had once been or would in future be. It was well domed, the domes spinning in the manner of Hidalgo's or Leda's, generating the necessary internal gee. This was the only way for these tiny bodies; they lacked the mass to have enough natural gravity for gravity-shielding to concentrate effectively. Actually there is nothing wrong with spin-gee, for ship or for planetoid. It's just less even.

We docked near the ships from other regions. I recognized the emblems of several Uranian nations; they must have been summoned before us, since they had a longer voyage here. At present, as I understood it, Chiron was about the same distance from Saturn and Uranus, which was one reason for the current strife; neither side had a clear legal or geographical advantage.

We did not go on peacekeeping duty immediately; first we were treated to the standard background briefing, which repeated much of what we had already learned. Greek and Turkish were the official languages here; fortunately the long involvement of Titania had made English a language most Chironiotes comprehended. We would be able to get along.

For me and most of my men, the cultures of this planetoid were equally opaque; neither was remotely Hispanic. I instructed my men to avoid trouble whenever possible and to stay away from the local women until some were inspected and cleared for free-lance Tail subcontracting. I reminded them that though venereal disease did not exist in the Jupiter region, other planets had different standards, and infection was possible. “Herpes,” I said firmly, “is line-of-duty-NO.”

We were assigned a segment in one of the Greek-Chironiote domes. My three sections were to take three eight-hour shifts, covering our beat around the clock. I would be keeping an eye on all three shifts, of course.

This seemed routine, but I was wary; something about it didn't feel right. For one thing, QYV had evidently pulled another string to put me into this mission, replacing the lieutenant originally supposed to go. Maybe QYV was just trying to unsettle me, but maybe he had more in mind. I had foiled him when I recovered my sister; he might scheme more carefully this time. I worried peripherally about Juana and about Spirit, though I knew they could take care of themselves. It was the key I carried that QYV was after, not any of my associates.

Our first day on duty went without trouble. The Chironiotes were tolerant of our presence, and even friendly; they knew we were here on invitation, not as invaders, and they did not seem to want further bloodshed. In fact, they offered my men little gifts, which was a problem because we were not supposed to accept gratuities, but we realized that to decline might be to give offense. We solved that by giving back little gifts of our own, so that it became an exchange. We had little packets of Spanish candy, Toron, sealed in aluminum so there could be no question of contamination, and they liked these. It was the principle that was important: We were not taking without giving, and we were not being aloof.

Trouble came so suddenly and personally that it almost caught me off guard. I was walking through a shopping district, on the way from one station to another, admiring the olives, melons, grapes, and citrus fruits the local farm-domes produced, when I turned and saw a striking woman smiling up at me. “Will you come with me, officer?” she asked in accented English, giving a little shake to her low-slung décolletage.

“Thank you, no,” I said politely. “I am a member of the United Planets peace force. We are not permitted to mingle.” That was, of course, a euphemism. We were encouraged to mingle socially, but not sexually, and she was evidently of the latter type. Her garb and manner were like commercial advertisements.

“But, officer, I insist,” she said, taking my left arm firmly.

This was a more forward approach than I had anticipated. I pulled away from her. “I regret—no.”

She leaned into me. “Note the men on either side; they are armed,” she murmured. “Do not embarrass us with a scene. We only wish to talk.”

I glanced to right and left. Two men boxed me in, and each turned back a lapel to reveal the glint of steel. Firearms and other powered weapons were forbidden here, because of the social unrest and vulnerability of the domes to damage, but knives existed.

I had been trained to deal with knife attacks. I was sure I could handle these two men and get away. But I paused, for I did not want to make the scene the woman urged me to avoid; it would reflect adversely on my unit. An officer brawling? Some example! Also, I was curious what they wanted; this did not seem to be ordinary mischief. So I touched my alert button, signaling my platoon sergeant.

The woman saw my motion and snatched away my communicator and dropped it to the floor and stepped on it. That would prevent my sergeant from tuning in on me. Then the armed men took my arms and hustled me into a nearby building. I did not resist.

The woman preceded me up an ancient-fashioned flight of stairs and through a solid fiber doorway. I felt the gee easing with the elevation; that's a consequence of spin-gee. The door was simulated wood; there was no genuine wood here, as Chiron was too far out from the sun to farm trees effectively, though a few eucalyptus trees were grown for symbolic purpose. But woodlike fibers were manufactured and used freely, and so this was very like a wooden room.

I stepped into it, then reached back almost casually as if about to scratch myself and caught hold of the knife the man to my right had shown me. I whirled, assuming a knife fighter's stance, facing the second man. He had had to fall back, to follow his companion through the doorway, and was at a momentary disadvantage. “Stand aside,” I told him.

Foolishly, he went for his own knife. I knew better than to bluff; I slashed at his moving arm, laying it open. Then, as the blood welled out, I caught the door with one foot and slammed it in his face.

This had taken but a moment. Now I faced the disarmed man, my knife poised. “Balk, and I attack,” I said. He now knew how fast and sure I was with a blade. “What did you want with me?”

“You forgot to protect your rear, officer,” the woman said.

I whirled again and found myself facing a rapier. I had indeed been foolish! My knife was no match for such a weapon, if competently wielded, and I saw quickly that this one was. The woman was more than a decoy; she was the main agent of my abduction. She stood before a green divan, poised.

My back was now to the disarmed man. He took this seeming opportunity to grab for me. That was his mistake. I had not neglected my rear a second time. I reached over my own right shoulder to catch his right lapel with my left hand, and hauled him around me in a judo wraparound throw. I never let go of the knife in my right hand. Few people untrained in martial art comprehend the devastating nature of a properly executed wraparound throw. He landed hard before me, half-stunned and under my control.

Now I had a human shield. “What did you want with me?” I repeated, touching the point of my knife to his neck just behind the right ear.

“The key,” the woman said, evidently not unduly alarmed by the threat to her henchman. I was using my talent now, studying her; I knew she was irritated but not afraid. I should have focused on her before; I had been careless in that respect, too. We learn the costs of our carelessness the hard way!

Suddenly it fell into place. “Kife,” I said.

She nodded. “Turn over the key and go unharmed. The key is all we want.”

“How do you know I have it with me?”

“Your belongings have been rayed,” she said. “It is not there. It has to be on you.”

I stalled. “Why do you want it?”

“It is Kife's property. Yield it and be free.”

I sensed that she was bluffing, in part. I counterbluffed. “Tell me what is so important about that key, and I will spare his life.” I nudged my blade against the henchman's neck so that he flinched.

“I could run you through,” she said, her rapier point aiming at my face.

“Then you had better do it quickly.” I dug in with the knife, drawing blood.

“Wait!” she cried.

I paused, knowing I had figured her correctly. She could kill me while I killed her henchman, but that was not an exchange she wanted to make. It was not that she cared for the henchman; she did not want to kill me.

“The key opens a particular lock,” she said. “No other key fits.”

She was lying. “I'll make a copy for you,” I said. “The original key has a sentimental value for me.” It did indeed; it was my only physical relic of the woman I had loved.

“We must have the original,” she said. “It is not the physical key; that's only for appearance. There is a unique magnetic pattern that is the actual key.”

Now she was telling the truth. “So it's a magnetic key,” I said. “What does it unlock?”

“This is Chiron, the Key,” she said. “The symbol for Chiron is a key.”

“Very nice alignment,” I agreed. “Kife seeks to fetch a key at the key. But you haven't answered my question.”

She hesitated. “I don't have full information.”

“But you have more than you have told me,” I countered.

She smiled, deciding on another course. “Let the man go, and you and I will talk without weapons.”

That was an improvement. I stepped back from the henchman, knowing he was no good as a hostage, anyway.

“Leave,” the woman told him. The man scrambled to his feet and went out the door, closing it behind him.

The woman put her rapier on the floor and stepped away from it. I set my knife down similarly. I knew she did not intend violence. I didn't trust her; I trusted my reading of her motive.

She walked to the divan. “Sit, and we shall talk.”

I had something she wanted, but she also had something I wanted. Obviously she wished to obtain the key without killing or hurting me, so that there would be no wider attention called to this matter, while I wanted to know the full nature of the key and of QYV. I was willing to play the game of seduction, to learn what she knew. Up to a point. I joined her. “What does the key unlock?” I repeated.

She adjusted her décolletage to show more cleavage. I almost smiled at so obvious a ploy. But when she leaned forward, I had to concede that she had a lot to show. “Do you understand cryptography?”

I was aware that this was relevant. I looked where I was supposed to look but did not let the view distract me in the manner intended. I always appreciate the female form, but at the moment I was far more interested in the key. “Very little.”

“For centuries man has labored to develop an unbreakable code for private messages,” she said. “The closest we have come is computer-assisted. The elements of the message are converted to numbers, and the numbers are scrambled according to a special pattern. We call it encryption. Only a person with that special scrambling pattern can decode the message.”

It began to make sense. “And this key's magnetic pattern is the key for a particular message.”

“A vitally important message,” she agreed. “I don't know what that message is, but Kife must have it.”

“But that message is years old now!” I protested.

“It remains vital.” And I knew that she was telling the truth, as she knew it. She held out her hand. “Now the key.”