Star Risk - 03 The Doublecross Program (3 page)

"When it was time to pay up, full accounting, those someones could not, or did not want to, make restitution. So they came up with the story that the repository now had additional security, and that the robbery was the best way to handle things.

"Of course, what they intended was to have their naval units hit us in midpayback, and then, in the course of the blood and slaughter, they would report that one ship managed to escape, which is where the missing loot was off to."

"That's not that bad a plan," said Goodnight.

"No," King said. "If you assume the people you're going to pull it on aren't very bright."

"Still," Goodnight said. "It's pretty damned unique."

"Aren't they all," Riss said, yawning and thinking about a tall, cool drink on her island. "Aren't they all. But once again, truth, justice, and the suspicious way of life triumph."

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FOUR � ^ � M'chel Riss was fully engaged, without her usual ally, Jasmine King, for tech support in her War against Whatever Color Her Toenails Used to Be.

She was alone on the tiny islet she'd bought, near the fringes of the cluster that sprayed out from Trimalchio IV's main continent, and enjoying the solitude immensely.

Between eyeing the two different shades warring it out on her big toes and trying to make a decision as to which was favored, she was considering whether to lift into "civilization" for dinner or whap something together out of the freezer and continue reading Beyond String Theory and Other Amusements.

She rather thought she'd go into town�tonight didn't feel like a time for mathematics�when her com buzzed.

Riss fielded it.

"Go."

It was Jasmine, at the Star Risk offices.

"There's somebody here who wants to talk to you."

"Does he look like I owe him money?"

"If you do," King said, "it'd be worth every penny. Yum."

"I hope," M'chel said, "you're wearing a whisper mike."

Jasmine activated a pickup.

For a very long instant, the stars swung in their orbits, and she remembered a brief Temporary Duty, back when she was still in the marines.

The man was a little older and had a little more silver at his temples, and maybe a few more smile lines, since she'd last seen him.

Lieutenant Colonel Dov Lanchester, Alliance Marine Corps.

Once, very briefly, they'd been lovers, when they'd attended a Planetary Insertion course. Nothing came of it except some wonderful memories, and they went separate ways to new assignments.

The next time, he'd been fast-tracked to captain and she was still a first lieutenant. Worse, he was her temporary CO, which meant nothing was supposed to happen�and didn't. Stupidly, Riss often thought, when the lonelies struck.

Now she rather wished that Lanchester had been her CO on her last assignment, instead of that cockless pickleface who'd tried to weasel her into bed and was the biggest reason for her resignation from the Alliance Marines.

But as the military phrase correctly pointed out, you can wish in one hand, and shit in the other and see which one fills up first�

"Uh�" she managed.

"Major Riss," Lanchester said. Like everything else about him, Riss thought his deep voice damned near perfect.

"M'chel," she said. "How are you, Colonel?"

"Dov," he said. "I'm still in, you're out, which the Alliance should regret every damned minute."

"Maybe they should," M'chel said. "I don't."

"I tracked you down, since I'm between assignments, to see if I might buy you dinner," Lanchester said.

M'chel nodded.

"Shall I pick you up?"

Riss started to say no, bethought herself, and nodded.

"At seven?"

Again she nodded.

"Now, if you'll give me coordinates to your tropic paradise�"

Trimalchio IV was going through a fascination with antigravity. Chas had the theory the drives were popular since so many citizens of Trimalchio also seemed to exist without visible means of support.

The restaurant tables were roboticized booths floating out and back on preset courses, over the ocean, with waiter call sensors.

The waves were small, all three moons were out, the breeze was warm, and the wine was correctly chilled.

It was most romantic.

Dov was looking up at the sky.

"Three moons," he mused. "Just like on� what was it�Myrmidion II? Do you remember�"

"I do," Riss said. "My damned tent leaked."

"You should have complained," Lanchester said. "Other arrangements� could have been made."

M'chel carefully arched an eyebrow, didn't reply, but changed the subject.

"So what assignment�assuming you can talk about it�brings you my way?" she asked.

"I can talk about it," he said. "It's advisory� And that's not a cover. It's the Khelat-Shaoki Systems, generally called the Khelat Cluster. Twenty-seven worlds belong to the Khelat, fourteen to the Shaoki, and they've been fighting each other for half a dozen generations."

"Who's the Alliance backing?"

"Khelat."

"Why?"

"Uh� because �us killer marines support honesty, love, and the Alliance Way'?"

M'chel snorted and drank wine.

"Khelat is the main source for main."

"Which is?"

"A mildly stimulating, mildly addictive tea that's become the new fad in the civilized worlds. Main is controlled by Omni Foods, which indirectly controls six seats in the Alliance Parliament."

He shook his head.

"I wonder what would happen if the flag-wavers ever figured out that we spend half our time fighting for the Stock Exchange?"

"So why'd you take the slot?" Riss asked.

"Got some good men and women aboard� including an old friend of yours, Bev Wycliffe, as my XO. And because this'll give me a leg up on getting my star."

"You're still ambitious."

"I am," Lanchester said. "Growing less so the creakier my joints get." He shrugged. "Enough of that. Can we order? Having no idea of what these furrin devils consider gourmet, I plan on eating nothing but underdone beef or its equivalent until I've got to go back on combat rats."

They were back on Riss's island, and it was very late. Lanchester drained the last of a respectable Vegan brandy in his snifter and got to his feet.

"I suppose I should get back to my hotel, if you still want to be out and about tomorrow."

"You should," M'chel agreed, wondering why her voice was getting a little throaty. She got up and led him to the door.

They were close, very close, and Lanchester suddenly kissed her.

Flames flared inside Riss, and she kissed him back, arms going around him.

"You kiss even better than I remember," Dov said.

"Less talk," Riss managed. "And more bedroom. Down that hall."

Neither of them, during the next five days, seemed much interested in going into the city or doing anything other than being in each other's company.

Lanchester, in spite of Riss's growls, insisted on going over the briefing material, and inadvertently M'chel learned more than she wanted to know about the Khelat-Shaoki cluster.

The Khelat and Shaoki came from the same Earth-migrant culture that'd split in half a very long time ago, over what nobody was sure.

There were differences:

The Khelat had basically claimed near-desert worlds and irrigated them toward fertility.

The Shaoki preferred less arid, if now less productive, planets.

The Khelat were ruled by an extended royal family; the Shaoki by a large military council.

There was one minorly bright note. The war had gone on forever, it hadn't been that much of a disaster.

"They seem to like to skirmish and pose," Lanchester said. "And break off when things tend to get serious. The soldiers, the confidential briefing said, can be impossibly brave. The officers tend to take care of each other and themselves."

"So you'll teach the Khelat how to go for the throat?" Riss asked, amused.

"I suppose so. At least," he went on, "I won't have to worry about nukes. The Alliance Control Commission seems to have done a pretty good job of watch-dogging. Plus, they're not prone to radioactivity, since they both want each other's real estate.

"Oh yes," Lanchester said. "The Khelat are claiming there are Shaoki-supported rebels on their worlds."

"In the hills, of course," Riss said.

"Of course," Lanchester agreed. "Where else would any self-respecting bandit hang his hat?"

Once, lying entwined on the beach, Lanchester said, "It's kind of a pity."

"What is?" Riss asked.

"That I'm in the damned marines, and you're doing� well, what you're doing."

"Why?"

"It makes it hard to think about anything� anything more than tomorrow, considering the way that assignments and reassignments work."

"But if it hadn't been for the marines," M'chel pointed out logically, "we never would have met. Right?"

"You don't believe in fate and foreordained lovers and things like that?"

"Not lately."

"Oh, well." And he kissed her.

Both of them were glad the subject changed, but that night, their last night before he transshipped, Riss lay awake, wondering.

Half an E-month later, the dreams died.

M'chel, to her considerable surprise, found herself writing Dov Lanchester through a military post office almost twice a week, messages not terribly sentimental but lightly coded, to keep off the nosies.

Slightly as astonishing was that Dov replied frequently.

Then an E-transmission was returned, with the automated reply:

CANNOT DELIVER. ADDRESSEE DECEASED.

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FIVE � ^ � I want," M'chel Riss said evenly, "to hire Star Risk, limited."

She ignored the surprise from the other four, who'd been wondering why she wanted a formal meeting of the firm.

"Here is a list of my current assets, as well as a properly witnessed promissory note for half my share of future commissions until whatever is due is paid."

"But� but� that's like gambling with your own money!" a shocked Friedrich von Baldur said.

"And their deck," Chas Goodnight added.

"Just what do you wish our services for?" Grok wondered.

"To investigate the death of one Lieutenant Colonel Dov Lanchester, Alliance Marine Corps, while serving in the Khelat Cluster as a military advisor, and to provide, shall we say, proper retribution."

"M'chel," Jasmine King said gently, "you've been glowering around here for the past three weeks about Colonel Lanchester's death. People, soldiers, do get killed. Don't you think you're behaving a little� aberrantly?"

"No," Riss said shortly. "Because there's something very strange going on. Here's the evidence I've gotten so far:

"I sent a letter to my friend on the team�she wasn't really a friend, but a close acquaintance�and got an automated response back.

"The Alliance advisors were withdrawn from the Khelat Systems shortly after Dov's death."

"That is a little strange," Goodnight said. "Have you found out anything about their assignment? Were the advisors pissing in somebody big's ear or something?"

"That's number two. I went to another friend, who's an archivist. The final report of the advisory team is sealed."

"Oh?" Friedrich said, arching his eyebrows. "Stranger and stranger."

"Then," Riss continued, "I finally got a response back from Bev Wycliffe, who'd been XO on the team. She didn't give me any details about how Dov died, but suggested I stay way out of it."

"Which definitely suggests something's stinky," Goodnight said.

"Which is why I want to hire Star Risk," Riss said.

"No advisors," Friedrich mused. "But some kind of situation that required them. Hmmm."

"I have heard," Grok put in, "that capitalism abhors a vacuum."

"Well said," von Baldur said. "Jasmine, would you like, once again, to be the companion of an aging rou�

"Going where?" King said. "As if I didn't know."

"For a small vacation," Friedrich said. "To the Khelat Cluster."

Two weeks after King and von Baldur left, a message en clair came back:

COME ON IN. THE WATER'S FINE.

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SIX � ^ � The posh lifter that had been waiting for the Star Risk team flew along the coast from Khelat IPs main spaceport toward the capital.

Chas Goodnight was flipping through the Mich guide, muttering aloud: "Five continents� three temperate� former deserts� now irrigated from numerous artesian wells and desalinization plants� some mineral wealth� extensive plantings of main�dash�see glossary� two arctic continents� bah!" He looked up.

"Tell me something interesting, Grok."

"The irrigation system was devised by an Earth consortium of the Dutch and the Israelis," the alien said.

"Gaad, fascinating," Goodnight snorted, and pointedly looked out the lifter's port.

"They've got how many frigging princes?" Goodnight asked, as the buildings of the capital, Rafar City, rose from the desert.

"At least three hundred fifty," Grok said. "Why didn't you do your homework on the flight out?"

"I did my language condit," Goodnight said. "Other than that, I was busy."

"We noticed," Riss said.

"She was lovely, wasn't she?"

"And married to one of those princes," M'chel said. "I checked the manifest, and figured that was the only reason you bothered to learn the language."

"Ah, well," Goodnight said. "While the mice is away, or however that goes. At least I took the time for the language conditioning."

"Is it not interesting," Grok said, "that they left their central city in the desert, rather than making the lands around beautiful?"

"Perhaps it reminds them of their roots," M'chel suggested. "As I recall, they came from a desert planet to begin with."

"I shall never understand humans," Grok decided. "It is also interesting, that they sited their capital at a distance from a spaceport. That is hardly convenient."