Starship: Mercenary (Starship, Book 3) (22 page)

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Authors: Mike Resnick

BOOK: Starship: Mercenary (Starship, Book 3)
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“Soon,” said Cole.
Val finished her drink and got to her feet. “I’m going to make the rounds and see what’s going on,” she said. “Catch you later.”
“Look at her,” said Forrice as she walked to the front door of the casino. “Straight as an arrow. How can she put so many stimulants into her system and remain so clearheaded?”
“She’s a remarkable lady,” agreed Cole. “Be glad she’s on
our
side.”
“I’ve held off putting the word out,” said the Duke. “But if you’re ready to take on another assignment . . .”
“Don’t go twisting any arms just yet,” said Cole, “but if you hear of one that’s interesting and lucrative enough, let David know about it.”
“Will do,” said the Duke.
“And now,” said Cole, standing up, “I think I’m going to go get some dinner.”
“Just tell me what you want and I’ll have my private chef cook it for you,” offered the Duke.
“Thanks, but I’m out of the ship so infrequently that I’d like to see a little more of your world, even if it
is
just a few miles long.”
“All right,” said the Duke. “I can appreciate that. Will I see you later?”
“Yeah, I’ll probably stop in again before I hit the sack.” He turned to Forrice. “You’re welcome to come along. We’ll find a joint that serves all species.”
“I think I’ll try my luck again,” replied the Molarian. “I’m still developing a system. Pick me up at the Glowworm in two hours.”
Cole sighed deeply. “Men and Molarians—they never learn.”
“I just have to get a little better understanding of the subtleties and complexities,” said Forrice. “I’m getting close, I know I am.”
“Why don’t you just pay another visit to your whorehouse?” suggested Cole. “You’ll enjoy your money a hell of a lot more over there.”
Forrice made a face. “I pay, they accommodate me, and it’s no challenge at all.”
“What are you more interested in—satisfaction or a challenge?”
“Stop complicating things,” said Forrice. “You’re going to give me a terrible headache.” He walked off toward the door. “Just pick me up in two hours.”
Cole watched the Molarion leave, swirling out in his surprisingly graceful three-legged stride. “You wouldn’t believe he’s the brightest and most loyal member of my crew, would you?” he said at last. “Ah, well, I’ll be back in a couple of hours.”
He left the casino, wandered the narrow streets, still feeling a bit claustrophobic since the next level was only twelve feet above him and there were no windows or viewscreens. He passed a trio of Lodinites, a pair of human women, a huge Torqual, a few species he’d never seen before, even a Teroni who paid him no attention on this neutral world in the middle of a galactic No-Man’s Land.
Finally he came to a restaurant that caught his eye, one that advertised the beef of mutated cattle from Pollux IV. He was about to enter when a bistro farther down the block captured his attention. There was music coming from it, real jazz played by a human band, and when he walked over and looked in he saw that a pair of human women were performing a slow, sensuous dance on a small, makeshift stage. Then he noticed that menu consisted entirely of well-disguised soya products.
He stood, undecided, between the two for a long moment. Finally his appetite for food beat out his appetite for entertainment, and he entered the first restaurant, where he dined on a thick and wildly expensive slab of real beef. Since he was eating alone he was done in twenty minutes, and decided to kill some time before going to the Glowworm.
The streets were more like wide sidewalks, since they didn’t have to accommodate any traffic. A narrow slidewalk ran in each direction for those who disdained walking. All cargo transports ran along the middle level on a monorail; the human habitations were on the top levels and the alien on the bottom, though that was an arbitrary definition based on the artificial gravity. Every street corner had either a ramp or an airlift to the next levels up and down. Cole had seen a lot of the human levels, so he decided to spend an hour walking around one of the alien levels.
When he got off the airlift he didn’t notice any difference at first, but soon he began to see doorways that were wider, or taller, or shorter; windows that were so heavily tinted or polarized as to be opaque to the human eye, though some alien species were clearly looking through them; restaurants with odors he’d never encountered before; aliens speaking to each other in their native tongues, rather than Terran or the translated Terran of the omnipresent T-packs. He looked in store windows that displayed items that made absolutely no sense to him, side by side with items that were clearly of human origin or based on human design.
He couldn’t really say that it was enjoyable—it had been quite a while since he’d actually
enjoyed
anything other than an occasional non-soya meal and his time in bed with Sharon—but it
was
interesting. Most of his experiences on alien worlds were limited to attacking the enemy or defending himself; very rarely did he have time to explore the world he was liberating or assimilating.
Finally he decided it was time to head over to the Glowworm. It was in the human section, so he took an airlift back up, stepped out, and walked to the casino where Forrice was engaged in the
stort
game. The place possessed a certain trendy seediness, and Cole made his way among the human and non-human gamblers until he was finally able to spot his tripodal First Officer.
“How’s it going?” he asked.
“Don’t distract me,” said Forrice. “I’ll be just a minute.”
“Your call,” announced a Hesporite who seemed to be a dealer or croupier.
“All right,” said Forrice. “Warrior to level two, lane three, and”—he slapped an octagonal card down on the table—“I play the purple empress.”
The croupier studied what Forrice had done, and waited for two others to move pieces in ways that were incomprehensible to Cole and play cards that he could not identify. Finally the croupier rolled a twelve-sided pair of dice that had icons rather than spots on their faces, studied them, and pronounced Forrice to be the winner of this round. The Molarian emitted a hoot of triumph.
“You see?” he said as he collected his winnings. “I told you that I just needed a little more time to work out the subtleties.”
“It looks like one hell of a complex game,” noted Cole.
“They all do—until you start playing them.”
“So how do you stand compared to the house?”
“I’m about two hundred pounds ahead.”
“That much that fast?” said Cole, impressed.
“Why not?” replied the Molarian. “I lost it just as fast.”
“Okay, you’ve got a point. Let’s go over to Duke’s and you can buy me a disgusting stimulant and then watch me destroy my health by drinking it.”
“Fine,” said Forrice. “Now that I’ve doped it out, I can come back here and break the bank any time.”
“Don’t make it look too easy and don’t brag about it,” cautioned Cole, “or they’ll find a way to ban you from the tables.”
“You think so?”
Cole nodded. “Societies have been penalizing excellence ever since there
were
societies.”
They left the Glowworm and walked over to Duke’s Place. It was crowded, as usual, and Cole sensed a certain tension in the room as he and Forrice made their way to the Duke’s table.
There was a Teroni sitting at it—tall, lean, with the piercing golden eyes that were so distinctive to the species. Like most Teronis he wore wide boots over his splayed feet, the rust-colored jumpsuit that formed the standard Teroni military uniform, and the usual weaponry bonded to hips and midsection. Teronis had thick, glistening hair that always reminded Cole of worms, and this one was no different. Cole looked for an insignia of rank, but they had all been removed.
“Come join us, Wilson,” said the Platinum Duke. “There’s someone I’d like you to meet.”
Cole walked over and stood before the Teroni.
“Captain Cole and Commander Forrice,” said the Teroni in lightly accented Terran. “We meet again.”
“Again?” said Cole, frowning. “I don’t recall ever seeing you before.”
“We have not met in the flesh, Captain Cole, but we have communicated.”
“We have?” asked Cole.
“The Cassius Cluster?” suggested Forrice.
The Teroni nodded. “I am Jacovic, Commander of the Fifth Fleet. I believe we spoke to each other mere moments after you deposed your captain.”
Cole stared at him silently for a moment, and Jacovic and the Duke both grew visibly tense—and now Cole understood the tension in the room. Two captains who had previously met as enemies were in the same room for the first time since that meeting.
Finally Cole smiled and extended his hand.
“Allow me the privilege of shaking your hand, Commander,” he said. “It’s a human custom, but I hope you’ll honor it.”
Jacovic, visibly relieved, took Cole’s hand.
“Honor isn’t confined to any one race,” Cole said, “and you displayed it in abundance.”
“What are you referring to?” asked the Duke.
“The
Teddy R
was sent to patrol the Cassius Cluster, an exceptionally isolated area. Our sole duty was to protect a pair of fuel depots and not allow the enemy access to them. It was just a way to get us out of the brass’s hair. No one ever expected the Teronis to actually show up there.” He paused, recalling the situation. “Then suddenly the Fifth Teroni Fleet entered the Cluster. We were one ship, and Commander Jacovic had perhaps two hundred.”
“Two hundred and forty-six,” Jacovic put in.
“Our captain, a Polonoi named Podok, knew that she couldn’t hold the Fleet off, so she interpreted her order to mean that we were to prevent them from appropriating the fuel at all costs.” The muscles in Cole’s face tightened inadvertently. “So she turned our cannons on one of the two planets, killing about three million inhabitants, just to make sure that Commander Jacovic couldn’t make use of the fuel. She was about to do the same to the second planet and kill five million Men in the process when I relieved her of command.”
“I knew you had mutinied,” remarked the Duke. “I never knew why.”
“Anyway, I contacted Commander Jacovic and told him he could have the fuel if he would promise not to harm the inhabitants. He agreed, he kept his word, and he gave us safe passage out of the Cluster.”
“Actually, you told me that I could accept your terms or
you
would destroy the planet as your captain had destroyed the first,” said Jacovic. “From what I have learned of you since that day, I do not believe you would have done so. But I would like to hear it from your own mouth. Were you bluffing?”
Cole smiled. “Possibly.”
Jacovic returned his smile. “I am very glad to finally meet you, Captain Cole.”
“What are you doing here?” asked Cole. “And why are you traveling incognito?”
“I am not traveling incognito,” said Jacovic. “I am no longer a member of the Teroni Navy, or even the Teroni Federation.”
“What happened?” asked Forrice.
“I opened my eyes.”
“I beg your pardon?” said Cole.
“You probably have not yet heard of the Battle of Gabriel,” said Jacovic.
“No, not much news of the war makes it to the Inner Frontier, and what gets here is usually pretty old.”
“It took place some forty days ago, and it lasted for twenty-two days.”
“Where
is
Gabriel?” asked Forrice. “I’m not familiar with it.”
“There is no reason why you should be,” answered Jacovic. “Why
anyone
should be. The Gabriel system—that is your name for it; we have another—consists of seven uninhabitable gas giants circling a class-M star that is neither in the Republic nor in our Federation.”
“So who won?” asked Forrice.
“Let me guess,” said Cole, studying Jacovic’s face. “No one did.”
“That is correct,” said Jacovic. “By the time it was over, we had lost fifty-three ships and the Republic had lost forty-nine. One hundred and two ships, and perhaps twelve thousand Teronis and Men, and for what? For a system that did not possess a single habitable planet, or anything either side could possibly use. It was then that I realized the idiocy of this war, the utter madness that led each side to sacrifice thousands of lives for a totally useless system simply so the other side could not lay claim to it—and on that day I tore the insignia from my uniform and made my way to the Inner Frontier.”
Cole turned to Forrice. “I told you a year and a half ago that he had more sense then any of the politicians and admirals on our side.”
“Commander Jacovic has just arrived here at Singapore Station in the past hour,” the Duke informed them. “I gather he brought no one with him.”
“Each Teroni is free to make his own decision,” said Jacovic. “I have made mine. And do not call me Commander; I am just Jacovic now.”

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