A Covenant of Justice (23 page)

As she stepped out onto the floor of the warehouse, Captain Campbell finally began to realize the true size of the Dragon Lord. He stood five meters high, and his tail massed more than some of his aides. He shone with ebony armor and several of his claws stretched longer than her arms. She watched as he ripped open another case, shoved his great snout eagerly into it and began crunching ecstatically through the eggs—wrapping, padding and all, he obviously didn't care.

Star-Captain Campbell then did one of the bravest things she'd ever done in her life. She held out the clipboard to the Lord of all Moktar Dragons and asked politely, “Please initial this, your excellency.” She had to ask three times before the monster noticed her. At last, however, he blinked and swung his great head around to look at her in surprise. She repeated her request and held the clipboard out to him. Around them, she noticed, the other Dragons—all sizes—had stopped to watch this transaction.

The Dragon Lord reached down slowly and took the clipboard from her. He brought it up to his eyes and gazed at it for a long moment without reaction. At last, puzzled, he asked, “This requisition seems to authorize payment for these eggs. Who authorized it?”

“I believe you did, or perhaps someone in your offices, my lord.” Star-Captain Campbell bowed.

The Dragon Lord shook his head. “No, I would have remembered such an authorization. For one thing—” He frowned. “You have quote a price three times higher than the Regency will pay. Ten caseys per egg? The Dragons never pay that much. We pay ten caseys per crate. Yes, I believe your adjutant or whatever you call it must have made a mistake in the price here. Let's correct that and I'll happily sign for this cargo.”

“Umm . . . no, I don't think so, my lord. That price might apply on any of the worlds where pfingle-swarms mate naturally; but here, where pfingle-eggs exist only as an imported commodity, certain ancillary costs will drive the price up enormously. I apologize for the inconvenience of course, but I couldn't possibly accept less than . . . oh, say, nine caseys per egg.”

The Dragon Lord crunched the tiny clipboard in his gigantic claw, allowing the pieces of plastic and metal to rain down on Captain Campbell. “No, I don't think so,” he said bluntly.

“Um,” said Captain Campbell. For the first time, she began to wonder if she would survive this conversation. She thought about apologizing—for half a nanosecond—then decided against it. She would not show weakness to this thief, no matter how much larger he loomed. She stared up at him defiantly, expecting at any moment to receive an individualized tour of the digestive system of a Moktar Dragon.

But the taste of pfingle eggs had taken the edge off the Dragon Lord's quickness to anger. He felt too pleased with himself right now to kill anyone. He wanted to gloat. And besides, he preferred a larger audience for his horrific deeds—he needed witnesses other than his own underlings to properly spread the word.

“Let me explain something to you,” the Dragon Lord said in a voice that sounded like an avalanche turning cold. “As a Regency officer, I have the right of first refusal on all necessary supplies in times of planetary emergency. Such as now. I also have the right to set a fair price. I have offered you a fair price. You have rejected it. If necessary, I can appropriate what I need without recompense. I will do that now.”

Captain Campbell pointed at the window of the overhead office. “I have an arbiter watching this entire proceeding, my lord. I will file a claim of unlawful seizure if I have to. I would not like to embarrass the Dragon Guard by bringing such a charge, but I will if I have to.”

The Dragon Lord glanced upward, identified Harry Mertz at the window—Harry waved and offered a weak smile—then the Dragon Lord glanced back down to the captain of
The Lady MacBeth
. He grinned widely. “You know how to play this game well,” he acknowledged. “But unfortunately, not well enough.”

“My lord?”

“My inspection of your cargo has turned up an interesting anomaly. I don't think these eggs carry a correct rating. These eggs do not taste like 30 day eggs. They taste like ten day eggs. I believe someone has falsified the labels on these crates in a deliberate act of ecological sabotage. However, we have discovered the danger before any damage occurred, and I will graciously arrange the immediate destruction of this cargo and spare you the additional expenses you would otherwise incur. We can call it even, correct?”

“I thank you for your consideration, my lord. I appreciate the demonstration of how you earned your reputation for justice and graciousness; but please let me do the honors. I will take custody of these eggs immediately and—with your permission—remove them from the surface of Burihatin-14.”

The Dragon Lord shook his head. “The law requires mandatory destruction. Usually by incineration. If I let you take custody, I would have no way of knowing for certain that you would satisfy the conditions of the law. I couldn't let you put yourself in jeopardy that way.”

“I will drop the eggs into the sun—”

“A fine promise indeed,” the Dragon Lord acknowledged. “But what if you decide to believe these incorrect labels and attempted to deliver your cargo somewhere. No, I couldn't let you endanger yourself and your crew. You would have more than ten days of travel to the nearest market. Even if you did get there before the eggs exploded, they would still present a major danger to the buyers. No, I could not allow the possibility of that occurrence. I would have failed badly in my duty to protect the various peoples of the Regency.” The Dragon Lord lowered his head in a great bow. “Therefore, I must declare this cargo a total loss and seize it in the name of the Regency.”

“You leave me no choice, my lord, but to express my admiration for your wisdom, your thoughtfulness, and your incredible . . . incredible . . . appetite. For justice, I mean.”

“Thank you, Star-Captain. I hope our next encounter will please both of us as much as this one has.”

“Yes,” Captain Campbell agreed. “I will bring great hopes to our next encounter. You may definitely count on that.”

She kept her smile firmly in place as she returned the Dragon's final bow. She backed away, bowing and scraping, bowing and scraping. As she stepped back into the drop chute, she stopped bowing and started swearing slowly and quietly, all the way up.

“Those filthy, egg-sucking, Vampire-toady, scaly-skinned, scum-sucking, lawyer-loving, degenerate spawn of a sand-bellied, dirt-crawling, black-slime, mud-devilled. . . . “

Star-Captain Neena Linn-Campbell knew how to swear in twelve different languages, including binary code. Star-Captain Neena Linn-Campbell could have continued swearing for six days straight without repeating herself. Star-Captain Neena Linn-Campbell could have blistered paint at two hundred meters with just an angry glance. Star-Captain Neena Linn-Campbell's language could have shattered glass and crippled strong men. Star Captain Neena Linn-Campbell's language represented a life-threatening danger to animals and small children.

Star-Captain Neena Linn-Campbell readied herself for such a full expression of her feelings. She stopped just long enough to take a breath. . . .

—at which point Ota clapped her great furry paw over Star-Captain Neena Linn-Campbell's mouth and, with the help of the rest of the crew, dragged her quickly out of the warehouse before she set off the emergency sprinkler system.

Outside, the bright actinic sunlight cast harsh shadows through the dusky glow of Burihatin. The day seemed both lazy and hard at the same time. It matched their mood. They all felt a need to act immediately, but they all felt the profound emptiness and despair of their situation. Each of them—Gito, Robin, Shariba-Jen, Harry, Ota, Star-Captain Campbell—reacted in a different way.

Curiously, Captain Campbell's behavior seemed the most muted. Once they had gotten safely away, Ota removed her hand from Captain Campbell's mouth. Neena Linn-Campbell didn't react at all to the offense that Ota had committed. She just stood silently, showing no emotion at all. The others looked at her curiously.

At last Captain Campbell looked up. She looked to Ota with a strange expression. “The Dragon has put us out of business. Hasn't he?”

Ota nodded. They had hocked the entire corporation for this cargo.

“It should have worked,” said Robin. “We planned it perfectly. Everything. The market price, the delivery costs, the transportation time, we should have cleared three million easily—” And then she added, “If only that damn bitch, Zillabar, hadn't forced her charter on us, none of this would have happened. We could have done it. I know it—”

Captain Campbell ignored Robin's litany of if-onlys. “What about our insurance?” she asked Ota.

“Canceled. We forfeited Guild insurance when you turned in the Insignia.”

“Mm. I thought so.” She kicked at a nonexistent rock, and started heading back toward the StarPort. The others followed dejectedly in her wake.

“How long have we got?” Gito whispered to Robin.

“Well, the Captain Campbell I used to know,” Robin whispered back, “would already have a new cargo secured by now, and we'd lift as soon as we could seal the hatch. Any legal servitor with a warrant would find only an empty launch cradle. We'd work our way back up, somehow. But—” She shrugged helplessly. “—as long as the lockdown at the port remains in place, we can't leave. These warrants may actually get served. Hmm. . . .”

She thought about it a while longer. “On the other hand, with the lockdown in place, the servitor's office doesn't have to rush. They know that no one can lift, so why bother hurrying?” A thoughtful frown crossed her face. “I wonder if Captain Campbell has realized the same thing I just did. Some circumstances mandate immediate clearance from a StarPort. An outbreak of Meazlish Plague, for one—”

“That sounds a little extreme to me,” Gito said in a gravelly voice.

“We'll have to research this, I think.”

Up ahead, Captain Campbell still walked alone. The day had turned abruptly dark as the pinpoint of the sun disappeared below the red rocky hills at the edge of the close horizon.

Harry Mertz, (retired) Arbiter of Thoska-Roole, hurried to catch up with her. He didn't speak, he just walked beside her in an act of comfort and support. If she had anything she needed to say, he would at least provide the ears to listen.

After a moment, Captain Campbell said something, too soft for Harry to understand.

“Say again?” he asked.

She repeated it, this time louder. “I want revenge.”

Harry nodded. “I can understand that. You need to know, however, that revenge does not produce satisfaction.”

“In this case, it will.”

“Your anger speaks for you now. Remember the words of the Zyne Masters. Revenge does not demonstrate enlightenment.”

“So? When did I say I wanted enlightenment?”

Harry bowed his head in acknowledgment. “I stand corrected.”

“Good.”

They walked a while farther in silence.

After a little longer, Captain Campbell said, “So you think I shouldn't want revenge, right?”

Harry nodded.

“All right. I don't want revenge. I want justice. Tell me the difference?”

Harry grinned. “In this case, none. You want the pain spread around equally. That serves as justice for most people.”

Captain Campbell looked at the old man sideways. Did he really mean that? She caught the impish twinkle in his eyes and her features relaxed into a momentary smile of appreciation. “Yeah,” she agreed. “I got it.”

They trudged on.

“It still doesn't solve my problem,” she admitted. “But at least now I know what I want and why I want it.”

“Captain—?” Ota, the bioform, came trundling forward to walk along her other side. “I really do need to report something else to you.” Harry fell back, a polite half-step.

“More bad news?”

“Sort of. I think. For someone. Anyway.”

Captain Campbell looked at Ota surprised. The bioform rarely hedged its language with uncertainty. “Go ahead,” she said. “I have no more anger left in me—at least, not for a while.”

“Um. After you went down to confer with the Dragon Lord, I did a terrible thing.”

Captain Campbell raised an eyebrow. “Ota? What did you do?”

“Well . . . when I saw that the Dragon Lord would not negotiate in good faith, I reset the cargo management program of the warehouse computer. I changed all of the temperature controls from refrigeration to incubation. I doubt the Dragons will notice, with all their heavy insulated armor, but the eggs most certainly will. I expect the eggs to hatch sometime within the next thirty hours.”

Captain Campbell didn't react immediately. She pursed her lips and frowned as she considered the image of thirty-three metric tons of industrial-grade pfingle eggs hatching all at once within a self-destruct, high-security warehouse. After a moment, she shuddered. She looked at Ota, surprised. “I had no idea you had such a potential for . . . vindictiveness.”

Ota replied, “I didn't do it out of viciousness, Captain. I just asked myself what you would have ordered me to do.”

“Uh-huh, sure.” Captain Campbell grinned. Ota's great furry expression remained as placid as always. After a moment more of uncomfortable empathy, Ota faded back to walk beside Harry.

Harry Mertz remembered a much older conversation, one that had occurred in the stygian depths of a Regency prison. He glanced sideways to Ota and said quietly, “You once told me you had no intention of getting involved.”

Ota shrugged. “They filled my cup with vinegar. Three times over. How could that not involve me?”

South of StarPort, where the red rocks crumbled brokenly into the briny waters of Slug Lake, a less official community had sprung up. Here, clinging to the sides of the cliffs, carved into the bluffs, perched precariously on top of escarpments, or jammed into the spaces between two upthrusts of land, a haphazard collection of shanties, shacks, and tumbledowns had grown like a cancerous animal. The community alternately clustered and sprawled, with rough-hewn ways barely connecting each part with every other. Multiple piers extended out over the waters of the lake. Occasional towers climbed up out of the water, with tendrils extending onto the land. The smoke of industrial plants and cooking fires collected in an odorous brown haze that hung permanently over the village, giving everything a gangrenous smell of rotting flesh, sewage, brine, and sulfur.