“Damned Thugs took the last working thing on my ship that wasn’t soldered down: my spice grinder.
Illania’s offering had actually made them all happy. The thugs had left, dropping the impound option but picking up her spice grinder. It was a qoffee grinder she’d modified to grind anything, from fresh basil to raw brainpaste (the drug or the body part) to incriminating documents. The four guards saw different applications, and left to squabble over it among themselves.
Illania took a slug of coffee, diced it by hand, and adding distilled water to the gelatinous goo and mucous made a cup of mud thick coarse with sediment. It had enough cohesion that, despite being gravity-free, it pretty much stayed in her mug. Heating it in the nanowave, she counted her remaining coffee slugs. Four. They, at least, were easier to keep alive: they fed on the grounds, and divided every twenty hours. Their excrement was delicious, and she scooped up some of the kah’puchyn to add to her steaming confection.
Her cup was more of a miniature cauldron, the tar boiling inside and bubbling out. Now it needed a lid, especially since coffeeleech stains got on everything and were gehenna to get out.
She took a sip through the straw and looked out the main portscreen.
The curved metal of Etam’s surface filled the view. The Orangemen had left an hour ago, and nothing had happened since. After fifteen minutes of silence, Illania began a scan of broadcast frequencies, trying to find any Customs channels. She wanted to know what Cheƒ was saying, or being told. Alas, another cut corner curtailed the concept.
The Ko’re Asaph had by now drifted quite close to Etam. In fact, Landahl worked out that they would drift into it in four hours.
Illania was too smart to move unless told to, so she patiently drank her coffee and watched Corcey prime himself for departure. He was double-checking his possessions and aliases. Then he took a deep breath, and got into character.
...thump... ...thump... ...thump...
“Sqweekie’s on line,” Landahl said, with obvious loathing. Illania looked over at him, then at the qomscreen beside him.
“Yes, dear?” Illania asked in Galaqommon.
“Ko’re Asaph,” she announced authoritatively, “these are your flight instructions...”
“Where’s Cheƒ?”
“Oh,” she squeaked, derailed from her directional diatribe. “He’s, uh, away.” She looked triumphant. “I’m in command now. I’m the Queen. I am the Goddess.” Sqweekie’s eyes were glazed; she was clearly on something. Probably either Haig or Power.
Chef was away? Sure, he’s either dressing down Reese, or on-line with Edam security.
Oddly, those were both Illania’s and Sqweekie’s thoughts, though they had different definitions of dressing down. Sqweekie had recently been promoted from another thug gang, The Family, to The Orangemen. She didn’t know—or like or trust—her new crew.
She hated it under Cheƒ, but all that was about to change.
But first she had to hot po’tatoe toss this YYZ arrest to the next phase. Voice flexing with her new-found authority, she relayed very precise directions to the Ko’re Asaph, as given to her from Customs Control on Etam.
“Confirmed,” Illania said slowly, not understanding or trusting them.
“Proceed!” Sqweekie ordered, and ended the transmission.
From Sqweekie’s view, the arrest, as started by the Orangemen, was over. The Orangewomyn were now supposed to proceed to the next ship and arrest it. But the beat-up YYZ was the only thing in their section of the sky, so Sqweekie had some time.
Good, because I have plans.
And with Lenny as her comic-relief sidekick, the two went off to corner the Spice market and become wildcards in a scenario that changed Etam’s legal history for the sillier.
...but I digress...
Landahl had entered Sqweekie’s instructions into the flight template, extra-precisely so as not to offend Sqweekie, and not to crash. There was good reason for the precision: they were going inside.
Since the Ko’re Asaph was ostensibly there just for repairs, she should have been sent to one of the freefloating doqs orbiting the planet. They were exclusively controlled by the Thugs, but they were not Etam proper. The ship had to go inside for the punishment to continue.
Etam was a huge meteor captured by gravity and pressed into service as a moon. Buildings covered the entire surface, home to the Customs crime syndicate and leased to four other New Ra’Math crimebosses who had their financial fingers in the pie. It had been hollowed out to hold and hide their growing stockpile of booty, especially starships. The Etamites had even stashed an arrested Pandrovian star destroyer inside once, so the tunnels were more than wide enough for the YYZ. The inside of the irregular sphere was an encompassing harbour of doqs and storage. There were a lot of ships inside, too, though most of them had various Thug colours.
The Ko’re Asaph floated in, and what wasn’t bolted to the floor gently drifted down to it. They were in Etam’s gravity well, but one step still took you two away.
They slowly sailed past the traffic until they were isolated. The mooring beacon was already on; Landahl plotted it on screen, Illania flew it on sight. It was a textbook-by-the-tail landing, the doq doing most of the work. It snaked its way into position, and struck the side with precision. A cyberlamprey would have been a good analogy, as its mouth custom-fit around the Ko’re Asaph’s airloq.
Cauldron of coffee in hand, Illania accompanied Corcey at the airloq. There was enough gravity that her gelatinous coffee mostly stayed in its container without the lid. Good: the slimy shit was dissolving the straw.
“So, Ko’re Asaph, you gave me five large to fix my ship,” she reminded him, operating the controls. “It flies, but it’s not really fixed, and deep down I know I’ll be spending the remains of my money on bribes.” Leading him inside, she said, “Hate to tell you, but I’m not all that happy.”
“Neither am I, really, but that’s not your fault. And I hear your pain.” He reached inside his skeinjacket to one of the secret pockets inside. After a moment, he pulled out a small black chamois bag. A design had been branded into the side, and there was gold stitch script around it.
The leather pouch was secured by a knotted leather cord. He undid it, and let it hang in the air as he opened the bag. The cord was barely light enough to ignore the sparse gravity, and Illania saw it twist and writhe as it stretched its muscles.
Must’ve been in a knot for a long time, she thought. Wonder what it tastes like?
The bag was quarter-full of dark flower buds. A few were brown and dried out, but most were a healthy green with dark red tips. He rooted around beneath them, and presently pulled out a prize.
“Here,” he said and flipped her what he had retrieved.
She saw the small red projectile and swatted it into her fist, much like a feline snagging a fly. She looked in her palm and found a ruby, precut and flawless.
“Ko’re Asaph needs help,” Corcey told her, still rooting around in the bag. “I don’t know how much it’s worth, but its face-value and it’s not on The Beast. You can at least buy a new light rig for your zilladdi.”
“Pol’aush,” she said, a sincere type of gratitude.
Corcey had several such treasures buried in the bottom of his bag, but what he was now more interested in the flower buds concealing them. He took a healthy one the size of his ragged, uncut thumbnail, and placed it in that painfully eroded spot between cheek and gum.
Sucking the juice, he quietly mumbled.
“All set?” Illania asked at length.
Corcey smiled at her, amusement that she didn’t understand.
“Ready,” he said.
“You sure?” she asked.
He thought it over.
...thump... ...thump... ...thump...
“Yes.”
Illania bounded back to the inner controls. Corcey was making final preparations.
“Cho,” he said.
“Cho,” she replied reflexively. She had intended to use gah’rup, a formal, permanent farewell. But then again, maybe the short-term cho meant she’d see him again, one last time when the thugs jettisoned his corpse and it floated past a porthole.
She opened the door.
The umbilical hallway was a huge tube of evil black coils sinking into blackness as it curved out of sight. It was empty. Floating slightly above the floor, Corcey stepped through. There was almost no gravity inside the lamprey’s gullet either, so he floated through the tube to the end: Etam’s airloq.
It was already open.
Stepping through, full gravity returned, and Corcey’s gear reminded him of their cumbersomeness. Walking on weighty pins and needles, he made his way in.
The door slammed hard on his heel, and the inner one shut right behind it. Almost immediately, red glare from an infrared strobe in the ceiling, which flickered through the spectrum with a loud rattle.
Corcey patiently waited through the epileptic-unfriendly decontamination cycle. It actually did him some good: although he hadn’t known it, the Hamaddi equivalent of Hansen’s Disease had spoored in his boots.
It was a very thorough cycle, and Corcey was glad yet again that his carypaq had a lead lining.
Lights returned to normal, except for the yellow halo of the inner airloq portal. After a moment, its jaws parted with a hungry hiss.
Corcey went into a long hall, at least one hundred meters, at the end of which was another door. Open, of course.
Beyond were the Thugs.
The two guards were squat, puff-ugly hobgoblins: bald with lots of baby-fat overgrown with warts. Both wore black visors whose frames seemed to be giant safety pins piercing their noses for support. ID laminates on their black leather strapdowns identified them as Ourgon and Gorgo.
“How’s it goin’, Rambo
[5]?” they simultaneously whined as he slowly strolled in, and both chuckled slightly. It was an eerie delay nervously off time with each other.The room was claustrophobically small, and dimly lit despite two harsh xenon lights fixed to the ceiling qameras. An old fashioned paddle fan hung motionless. Off to the side were two large, cluttered desks where the Customs Thugs were sitting. In the center of the room, directly beneath the archaic fan, was a large metal table.
On the wall was a giant portrait of a bearded man sitting on a throne. He was draped in regal red robes, and was wearing a crown. Presumably one of the Customs Crime Lords—only they dressed like Emperors. Corcey didn’t recognize him: the Lords changed as quickly as the allegiances to them.
“He’s breaking the law,” Ourgon sang to Gorgo with a delightful whine. Gorgo nodded in eager agreement. They were about to continue with the arrest, but Corcey broke the melody.
“That’s a bold statement to make, son.” Corcey clearly didn’t take kindly to it.
When he said bold, the lights doubled in dimness, and on son the temperature roasted in the flames of wrath. The room was reduced to a monochrome heat haze. Gorgo actually broke out into an oily sweat.
Unfortunately, neither Ourgon or Gorgo were impressed. This idiot clearly did not understand the rules of the contest. Never start off indignantly: it all but guarantees arrest.
“That’s illegal,” Ourgon smugly sang, accenting each syllable in a degenerate throaty mewl. He was pointing triumphantly at the rifle slung across his shoulder. “You’re under arrest.”
“Damn,” Corcey drawled disappointedly, “don’t even get to make a fess-up.”
Looks of disappointment came over the two’s faces, casting them into ogrish scowls. This idiot just mentioned one of the rules, showing he had a better understanding of his predicament than they thought.
At Cheƒ’s request, Ourgon had already run a check on Thaddeus Lebbaeus. There was no record of him, suggesting he’d never been to Etam and done the arrest dance. But he knew the terms, suggesting either he had been or at least had done his homework. Ourgon, at least, considered him in a new light, albeit one hampered by the dark shade in the room. Worse, his safety-pin visor was acting up again, having difficulty filtering.
So was Gorgo’s, actually: both saw his clothing fine, though the urban camo monochrome of his skeinjacket made it nearly invisible. But his actual body had a digitized phase out of focus, and the only clear thing about his face were the sunshades. Ourgon dismissed this as a visor glitch, Gorgo to something he’d eaten.
“O-K,” Ourgon honked sourly. He’d have to play by the rules. The Customs Thug asked the customary question, “Do you have anything to declare?”
“Well that depends,” Corcey replied. “Do you want me to declare if I have something, or do you want me to declare if I will do something?”
“Yes!” the two sang in time.
“No can do,” said Corcey, to their delight. “If I make a declaration of intent, that would be ’bout the same as making an oath. I can’t and don’t make oaths.”
“What are you talking about?” whined Ourgon.
“I see your point, but I think you’d have to go back to the original language,” said Gorgo, and Ourgon and Corcey looked at him.
“True, and tuché,” Corcey told him, then to Ourgon: “I won’t make a declaration of intent, but I will make a fess-up.”
Ourgon piped in a dirge drone, “Fine, make your fess-ups. You’re still under arrest.”
Corcey went over to the table and put his bags on them. He handed his passport to Gorgo and grace to Ourgon.
“This will have to be impounded,” Ourgon said, and at Corcey’s expectant look placed an identification sticker on it. Grudgingly, he gave Corcey the receipt.
The big words in the passport were hurting Gorgo’s eyes, so he put it down and began to examine Corcey’s bags.
“I’m keeping this one,” Corcey announced quietly but confidently. He was holding his pistol, peace, by the triggerguard. “I’m allowed one for personal protection, both on Etam and New Ra’Math.”
Ourgon, who had just picked up the discarded passport, looked up a moment.
“If you’re not arrested, and more to the point, imprisoned,” Ourgon told him, indicating he wanted the weapon.
“I won’t be,” Corcey said confidently. “To save time, I’d like to get the privilege papers now. Someone told me the Etam license is one hundred and that Ra’Math is two fifty. If I pay qash now, will that speed up the paperwork?”
Indeed it did, and Corcey kept his weapon. Ourgon kept the difference of what the papers really cost.
A moment later, Gorgo made a bizarre honking noise and pulled his hand back from the bag he was inspecting. Corcey smiled to himself as Ourgon looked over to Gorgo, who was massaging his hand.
“Phuqin’ bit me,” he mumbled, vocal chords choked by blubber and bile.
“This?” Corcey
asked, reverting Ourgon’s attention to his demolitions qit, which was
open. Ourgon looked into the padded
interior of the qit. Inside were ten
charges of CFM-50 and ten charges of CFM-500. Numerous detonator plugs were secured with a synthrubber band. Three full-strength charges of CFM-50 could
take out a corvette. Three
full-strength charges of
Ourgon wasn’t impressed. A little over an hour ago some idiot Hamaddi tried to bring in a whole carton of Iludium Q-36 in. One wick would reduce any planet blocking your view to a fine vapour.
Corcey’s authorization license was taped to the inside of the lid, so, unlike his predecessor, Ourgon couldn’t arrest him for it. The license was as legit as Corcey’s passport; he’d paid the exorbanent fees to register himself under eight different aliases with Warteq, the sole manufacturers of CFM products. The license permitted him the rare privilege to purchase, own, and use the rare explosives. Both Etam and New Ra’Math strictly forbid things that go boom (from TNT to atomics,) but Warteq was fiscally powerful enough that an incident would arise if one of its guild licensees was arrested for possession of their products. As Lenny would say, Warteq vs. TrinityIII. The compromise was another impound sticker.
Ourgon set the kit of kaboom off with his rifle, and then looked over at Corcey. Silently, he was holding something forth. It was the black bag from his jacket.
Ourgon looked at it, noticing that Corcey wore a ring whose design matched the brand. The Thunian script was illegible to him, but of course he would not have understood the cryptic scriptural reference anyway. Curious to see what Corcey was ’fessing up, he looked inside.
After a moment, Ourgon recognized the floral contents from one of the contraband training holo-films he’d watched:
Ba’alistti.
At least, that was the native Aridian word for them;
the Thunes called them Anokhi;
everyone else called them PsychoBuds.
They were very rare, because they only grew in a handful of places on Aridia. Outsiders lucky to get them plunged into complete sensory enhancement, and at high levels hallucinations directly generated by the subconscious.
Addicts took the drug because it enhanced living.
Thunes took it
because it enhanced dying—either their own death or that of their
Sophia once had been skewered with a bayonet while on the Ba’alistti, and she had also made love to Corcey while under its effect.
She told him she couldn’t distinguish any difference between the two stabbing sensations.
Looking at the bag of Ba’alistti, Ourgon was impressed. New Ra’Math had a collective drug problem (which went far in explaining Ourgon and Gorgo) and that same idiot Hamaddi from an hour ago also had two bars of maxihash. But Ba’alistti was extreme ju-ju, especially in quantity. Finding a market for that wacked craq would not be a problem, and Corcey would make a killing in many senses.
Ourgon was elated. They had a reason to validate his arrest.
possession
While Ourgon prepared to enforce the arrest for carrying, Gorgo had picked up the passport with stubby, plump fingers that still hurt, and was having another go with all those big words.
Under the holograf was the name: Lebbaeus, Thaddaeus. He scanned beneath that, and found that although Mr. Lebbaeus was currently living on Conning’s Star, he was born on Aridia. And surely enough, where it said THEOLOGY (ouch!) the code for the Thune Cult was stenciled.
He knew nothing of the religion, except for select parts of their rituals. He looked up, expectantly, and surely enough saw Corcey holding out the Bag o’ Ba’alistti.
He also saw that Ourgon was about to enforce him for it.
“He’s legal,” Gorgo whined.
Ourgon looked over and saw Gorgo pointing to the passport. “Possession is nine tenths of The Book of The Law,” he defended.
“Thune’re exempt on Ba’alistti,” he explained, pronouncing the word correctly.
Gorgo had ridden the cactus coaster before.
New Ra’Math banned all narcotix except those used medically or religiously; Lawyer Drug Lords had worked wonders reclassifying their products into those parameters. A few years ago, Gorgo was about to arrest an apostate Thune for psybud when he learned that they fell under this exception. He still had reason to arrest the apostate, and pinched from his psychostash in the evidence bin.
It changed his life.
He learned something else about Aridia four days later, when the apostate bought his release: Never piss off a Thune. Fortunately for Gorgo, the Thune fell afoul some Hamaddi who essentially kidnapped him and ransomed him to Arpach Shad. The apostate was executed—either hung or crucified, the story was blurred third-hand—and Gorgo partook once more before having to flush it in a bust.
Cursingly, Gorgo looked up at the lights. Even through the safety-pin shades, it hurt to look at the xenon. He was actually looking up at the qameras inside them. If they weren’t on film, he’d just plant some evidence to justify the arrest. Unfortunately, he was on tape. They were mandatory because of Sq'Daleth vs. New Ra’Math.
“It’ll have to be impounded,” Gorgo sang with entirely too much enthusiasm.
“Sabkah,” Corcey snarled, an Aridian term for animal feces used to fertilize crops.
Gorgo knew what that was, too; a purple mushroom of potence grew on it, another of Aridia’s unique contributions to contraband. He’d dosed on stems at a Black Hole Labyrinth concert, and liked the ’shrooms’ light show as much as the music.
“I keep all of it,” Corcey said in a calm, cool tone that closed the issue.
The three of them looked at each other. Eye contact was filtered by visors and sunshades, but Corcey could read Gorgo’s greed to gobble up his goods. From what he could read of Corcey, Gorgo saw that it wasn’t going to happen.
At least not yet.
“...all...” he repeated, and tied the bag of buds back up. Corcey didn’t want them rooting around inside for treasure.
The word echoed inside his head as a short wash of botanotoxins rode into his brain.
ALL...
“...all of it,” he said one last time, putting the bag away.
“All done?” Ourgon asked when Corcey hid his bag.
“Gear,” Corcey said around a mouthful of the sappy saliva. The bud in his mouth was gummy, and degenerating rapidly.
His hand had stopped hurting, but Gorgo was relieved the owner would open them. He’d made the mistake of trying to open them himself, and found that the leather thong knotting each closed was some kind of snake. He felt it tense at his touch, tightening its grip on the flap. While wondering if he could pry it off, the tips of his fingers began to intensely itch. He withdrew hastily and waited for the owner to open them.
Corcey came over to the table and pulled over a big, heavy tote. He took a friendly hold of the cord securing it closed. After a moment, the thick coil shook, then spazzed as it alternately tensed and relaxed.
“What is that?” the Gorgo asked.
“Archie,” Corcey said, as Archie had trouble recognizing his hand. He’d had the feelieleach since he was a boy and it was a slick sliver, and normally it knew him. But the past month had been anything but normal, and Archie had picked up from the beginning that something was not right.
This is the Bonding Hand, but it doesn’t taste right.
At last, Archie transferred over to his hand, and Corcey withdrew his arm. His free hand peeled the slug security off, and he set the leech loq off to the side. Archie had been draped around a small meqanical loq, which Corcey’s nimble fingers undid. The latch (containing the obligatory four-grain CFM-50 boobytrap) came undone, and Corcey opened the first bag.
Peering in before reaching, Gorgo saw high-teq equipment with stale clothes wrapped around them to either cushion or conceal them. The clothing, he noticed, had everything from axle grease to Saladrin blood soaked in, and smelled truly used.
He made it a point to pull out every item. On a qompuclipboard, Ourgon took a census of the bags.
“GCT Holopaq,” Gorgo intoned, and Ourgon scribed. “Legal.”
“Is it broken?”
Corcey had already prioritized his possessions.
“Mmmaybe.” The Holopaq had its uses, but it was really bulky. Mid on the list.
Gorgo set it aside, and pulled out the next item. It was swaddled in a shirt that reeked of kerosene, and it took him a moment to unwrap it.
When he gave no description, Ourgon looked up from the clip to see. Gorgo clearly didn’t know what he held.
“Blue Tone,” Ourgon both said and wrote. “Are those tuning forqs in the bag?”
Gorgo confirmed that they were: seventeen, corresponding to the Saladrin chromatic scale.
“Is it legal?” asked Gorgo to his partner, who clearly knew of such things.
Yes,” he mewed dejectedly. Expectantly, he asked “Is it broken?”
“No,” said Corcey without thought. If he had to deal with Saladrin biomeqanix, a Blue Tone was almost mandatory.
Gorgo placed it aside, away from the maybe holopaq. Fishing in again, he reeled out the unknown.
“What is this?”
“This is boring,” Corcey said soothingly. “Want to know what you should be looking at?”
Black visors turned to him expectantly.
Corcey had prepared for the arrest by buying several things in the shops around the MidbiM concourse. The rest he ripped off from Illania’s ship. From what he had observed, he had probably achieved a fifty per cent success.
“That’s illegal!” both guards chimed in perfect harmony.
This was true.
The first thing Corcey showed them was a Hamaddi water pipe, known as a bahng. Obvious drug paraphernalia, and the assumption on New Ra’Math was if you own it, you must be using it.
“No it’s not,” Corcey replied.
“It’s a bahng,” Gorgo told him knowingly. He’d smoked out of a friend’s just before duty.
“No, it’s a Pandrovian watersax. Listen:” he put it up to his mouth and inhaled. There was a soft whistle and much bubbling. Gorgo was amused, Ourgon was not.
“Is it broken?” Gorgo asked.
Probably is, considering who built it.
“Broken?” Corcey asked, feigning surprise. “You heard the thing. It’s only got one sound hole!” He showed the man the carburetor plug on the back of the neck. “It’s supposed to have six.”
Ourgon was set to prosecute on possession of a bahng when Gorgo told Corcey, “If it’s broken, I’ll give you a tin bit for it.”
“Done,” said Corcey before Ourgon could comment. Gorgo slapped down a shiny tin bit, and set aside his new watersax. Corcey pocketed the coin, solely for the qamera’s benefit.
Since tin was widely considered the most useless metal in the universe, it was not surprising that Etam’s official currency was minted in it. Customs Thugs couldn’t outright steal any more, but they could buy things. Tin bits were used, to show contempt for the thinly disguised bribe. They were only good on Etam, where nothing cost a bit, and despite the term bit were not honoured by The Beast.
Ourgon still had a pocket-full of them after Corcey showed him the rest of the broken bribes. He saw nothing that interested him, and had Corcey proceed with the rest of his belongings.
Ignorance of the two guards frequently forced Corcey to fib. Corcey’s judicious understatements circumvented restrictions on everything in the first two bags unless it was blatantly a weapon. Piles were made of what was, might have been, and wasn’t broken.
One object was left.
Corcey took the carypaq from the table and delicately undid the loqs. Breaking the final seal, there was a huff of air that smelled of methane and sourberries.
Peeling the lid back carefully, Corcey showed the contents to the curious guard.
“My...” Ourgon said, slurring an nnnnnn at the end. “I’ve never seen one that big.”
Inside the lid were the registration and vaccination papers, which, unknown to Corcey, contained a dangerous error. He had thrice forgotten to update the information inside the carypaq: it was licensed to Jude Didimus, the original alias he had traveled under when all this started. A week into it he had to change his primary i.d. because the hunt for Sophia started off messy. Lebbaeus was his fourth identity incarnation since then, yet each time he carelessly had neglected to update the card in the carypaq.
Ourgon never caught this: he was distracted by the contents, and further unfocused by a day-old hangover. It was, as he had commented, the largest, healthiest specimen he had ever seen. He knew it could not handle prolonged exposure to the room’s atmosphere, so he motioned for Corcey to close the container. His haste was two-fold: the larger they were, the uglier they were, and he couldn’t stomach it from what he was still coming down from.
Of course, it may have been ugly, but it was worth a fortune.
“Looks broken to me,” Ourgon told him, already lining up prospective buyers. He knew two already who would drop four figures for it without flinching.
“It’s not,” Corcey replied coolly.
“Then we have a problem,” Ourgon whined back throatily.
“We’ll discuss this later,” Corcey said. He wanted to get this over with so he could get out of there.
“Are any of these intended for public retail?”
“No,” Corcey replied, easily skirting an enormous tariff.
Having cleared his possessions, Corcey next had to clear himself. As he repacked his bags, Ourgon asked him to extend a finger. He put the hollow end of a small cylinder around the tip of the digit, which painlessly removed several skin cells and broadcast the information to the qomputer Ourgon had just been at. The machine compared the DNA from the skin sample with the digitized sample encoded on the passport. The samples matched, indicating the person was who he claimed to be. The machine then filed that information into its gargantuan memory banks, checking to see if this DNA print had any flags or warnings already on file. It took a full minute for the findings to come up, and its yield was scant. All of it matched the earlier check Cheƒ had suggested, and none of it was prohibitive.
Because Cheƒ hadn’t suggested it, Ourgon skipped a time-consuming cross-reference scan to see if that sample was duplicated with any other names. So here’s what he missed:
-
The DNA was also on file as belonging to Mr. Adrian Ratheborne, who had been there six years ago—arriving just before (and leaving just after) the murder of Saladrin business magnate Choq'Notta.
-
Also, Dr. Ian Sabbath had the same scan; his visit to New Ra’Math coinciding with a large munitions deal that was made in the penthouse suite of a questionably reputable spice importer.
-
Edwin Drood was on file for arriving four years ago, but there is no record of him ever leaving. Cross-referenced with criminal databanks, Edwin Drood was one of three burglars presumed killed at the Peabody Private Library robbery by the generator implosion.
-
And although there is no record of how he got there, Samuel Chain left New Ra’Math four hours after the PPL implosion, a full four hours before police would begin to assess the magnitude of the crime.
Corcey was also lucky the qomputer didn’t run a health scan on the skin sample. Many planets monitored for diseases and other health abnormalities. Corcey was an apotheosis of these.
Corcey was glad they didn’t run any of these checks, though admittedly it would have been amusing to see the two thugs’ reactions to the qomputer’s claim that the sample given it belonged to a dead man.
“What’s the nature of your business here, Loveyass,” Ourgon asked, hopelessly mangling Corcey’s masquerade.
“I’m applying for a job as a security enforcer with the Multisynq Qorporation,” he replied coolly. The Multisynq Qorporation actually existed. Sort of. Two friends of his had set it up as a money laundering operation a few years ago.
“Can we confirm that?”
“If you can track down Lord Gyg'ly'xx.” That was the alleged head of Multisinq, according to the forms.
That ended that. Ourgon had already called in one big favour on this arrest: cross-referencing Thaddeus Lebbaeus on The Beast. It wasn’t worth disturbing The Beast to find out Lebbaeus had eaten a salad on MidbiM five days ago. He’d never even heard of Lord Gyg'Ly'xx, wasn't sure how much digging it would take to investigate.
Corcey had finished repacking his bags. He left one item out.
“I think that’s everything,” he said, both of the packings and the proceedings. “Before we discuss arrest status, can we discuss this?”
“We’d rather discuss your status,” the Thug symphony chorused.
Gorgo looked at Ourgon. “Detention?”
Ourgon shook his head. “Solitary Confinement.”
“How about House Arrest,” Corcey replied. To Ourgon, he said, “This is broken,” and he patted the Blue Tone. To Gorgo, he said, “I’ll even give you some sheet music for your watersax.”
Gorgo grinned in comprehension, but Ourgon realized there was a problem.
“That’s on inventory as not being broken.”
“The ’Tone’s not, but the forqs are phuqed up.”
“Oh,” chimed Ourgon brightly. “I’ll give you a tin bit for them.”
“Make it two, and I’ll throw in the Tone for free.”
“Deal. Now, what were you saying about House Arrest?”
“Three day House. That’ll give me time to arrange matters with Lord Gyg'ly'xx.”
The two thugs considered this.
“Never heard of Lord Gyg'ly'xx,” Gorgo admitted, somewhat suspiciously.
“Of course not,” Corcey replied smoothly. “That’s how badass he is. But let me just say three words: Daegstrom Law School.”
His two friends had access to the mail server, and set up a shell Multisinq account there care of Gyg'ly'xx.Corcey dropped the name with the desired result. It was a formidable institute, whose archives were almost as tough to gain access to as The Beast. It helped convince Ourgon that Cheƒ was overreacting.
Besides, the two had already made arrest quota.
Gorgo tossed Ourgon a laser-print stamp, which was promptly slammed onto the passport. The guard handed it back to Mr. Lebbaeus.
“Welcome to New Ra’Math.”
Corcey silently looked at them.
Sure enough, he was under House Arrest for three days, with the open option to be picked up and prosecuted any time.
He slid his passport and receipt stubs into his inner jacket. Picking up his three bags, he left the room.
Whistling calmly, Gorgo tilted down his safety pin spex and blotted his face with a rag. He was still sweating, and the oily perspiration was getting into the sutures where his eyes used to be. He also cleaned his visor, then tilted it back into place. The motion caused thin trails of mucous to seep from the puncture holes in his nose. When several minutes had passed, he looked around for something not there, and then giddily sang “I’ll be back in a minute.”
He found Corcey in the hallway, rummaging through his branded black bag. Ourgon’s head shook in expectation, sending gross ripples jowl-like down his fleshy face.
Low tone from Corcey as he searched: “I notice that you vidio-tape all newcomers.”
“Yeah...” Gorgo replied, intent on the bag. He figured Corcey was looking for a really nice piece.
“Are we under the eye right now?”
“Nope,” Gorgo replied with a grin. Miqs couldn’t pick up the conversation, but Ourgon was surely listening.
“Do you have access to the eyes?”
Gorgo understood the question, and guessed the motive for it.
“Yep. Let me guess: you want to erase the records of your entry.”
“Naw,” he said, still not finding what he was looking for. “Ship arrived here little over a week ago; I want to see if someone was on it.”
“I can do that,” Gorgo said with nonchalance. “I have a feeling you know what my price is.” He seemed pleased at the prospect of even more drugs, and assumed Corcey was looking for the biggest bud he had. He leaned over to look.
Corcey was shifting the loose crumble with his fingers, working something to the surface. Gorgo hoped it was a big fat bud, but to his surprise saw a small white sphere emerge from the muck at the bottom of the bag.
It was a seed.
Gorgo stared at the pearl of great price before him. He’d never done seeds, but figured they must be the most potent part of the plant.
Gorgo smiled, and his teeth looked like the warts haphazardly covering his body. He held out his baby-fat hand greedily.
“Yeah, right,” Corcey replied with sarcastic mirth. “You do this now and you won’t be in any condition to do my favor ’till you detox.”
“They’re that strong?” Gorgo asked, impressed. At least on Ba’alistti buds he’d managed to crawl and gibber slightly.
“Drops ya into a whole other world,” Corcey said, the pearl casting tiny white reflections on his sunshades.
Sold.
“I’m off duty in three hours. Meet me here and bring that with you.”