Alien Bounty (3 page)

A host of thoughts swirled through McCade's mind as he tucked the note into its envelope. So there
was
more to his rescue than an Imperial favor.

Alexander had a problem, a problem he hoped McCade could solve, a problem that threatened the Empire.

McCade felt mixed emotions. Resentment toward another intrusion into his life, fear of what the task might entail, and yes, like it or not, a rising sense of excitement.

Swanson-Pierce tried to hide his curiosity as McCade lit the envelope and turned a cigar over the resulting flame.

When the cigar was drawing to his satisfaction, McCade dropped the remains of the envelope into an ashtray and allowed the flame to burn itself out. Molly made a dash for the ashtray and McCade picked her up. "Alex says you have a problem."

The naval officer nodded and flicked an invisible piece of lint off his sleeve. "I suppose you could call it 'a problem' though that might understate things a bit. You'll recall our policy regarding the pirates?"

Sara spoke for him. Her voice was grim. "You bet we do. We think of it every time they attack, every time they steal our supplies, and every time they kill more of our friends."

As head of Alice's planetary council Sara had strong feelings about the pirates. Although the rebel forces had been defeated in the Battle of Hell, some had escaped and taken to piracy along the rim. Alice and the rest of the rim worlds were the constant victims of their raids.

However, the pirates had one redeeming virtue, and that was their antipathy toward the Il Ronn, something the Imperial Government used to its advantage.

Mankind had encountered many alien races among the stars but only the Il Ronn had an empire to rival their own. The Il Ronn were an ancient race, much older than mankind, and were already traveling between the stars when humans had lived in caves. Had they shared mankind's impetuous nature, they might have rolled over Terra and kept right on going.

But theirs was a slow and methodical culture based on consensus and dedicated to predictable outcomes. So while their empire grew, it did so in a slow and conservative manner.

Humans by contrast moved ahead in great spurts, leaping from caves into space in a geological twinkling of an eye, before spreading outward to settle hundreds of star systems. Unfortunately, however, huge gains were often lost through internal dissension and laziness.

The net result was two empires of roughly equal size, each eager to better itself, and to do so at the other's expense.

So both sides staged occasional raids but stopped short of all-out war. A war which neither side was sure it could win.

And that's where the pirates came in. Living as they did out along the rim, the pirates helped keep the Il Ronnians in check. That meant a smaller navy, lower taxes, and happy citizens. It also meant eternal victimization for the rim worlds.

Year after year the colonists struggled to make a living, and then, just when it seemed they'd made some headway, the pirates would come to take it all away.

It made them angry and that's why Sara's eyes burned with hatred, her hands gripped the armrest of her chair, and Molly looked up with concern. The pirate raids were something every rim worlder agreed on.

Swanson-Pierce held up a hand in protest. "I agree, believe me. If I had my way, we'd clean out the pirates and live with the higher taxes. But things aren't that simple. If Alexander raises taxes his sister Claudia will use them to build political support for herself, and that could lead to civil war."

"So we're damned if we do, and damned if we don't," Rico added philosophically, lighting a cigar of his own.

The naval officer shrugged. "I'm afraid so. But our present problem is even worse. The pirates staged a major raid into Il Ronnian territory not long ago. Apparently they caught the Il Ronnians napping because they managed to loot a small city and escaped with minimal losses."

Swanson-Pierce paused for a moment, looking at each of them in turn, adding weight to his next words. "And among their loot was an Il Ronnian religious relic. A relic so precious that our pointy-tailed friends are preparing a holy war to get it back."

The cabin was silent for a moment until Molly saw her mother's expression and started to cry.

McCade awoke in a cold sweat. He was surprised to be alive. The dream had been so real, so intense, that reality paled by comparison.
Pegasus
hummed around him, her systems running smoothly, somewhere toward the end of her long hyperspace jump.

McCade swung his feet over the side of his bunk and held his head in both hands. It hurt. This was the fourth bracelet-induced dream. God help him if there was a fifth.

In the first dream he'd been an Ilwid, an uninitiated male, living with his sept in a series of underground caverns. As such he'd learned many things, including a respect for his elders, the importance of hard work, and the value of water.

In the second dream he was an Ilwig, a warrior candidate undergoing the rites of malehood, spending twenty day cycles in the desert alone. During his wanderings he'd killed an Ikk, watered himself with its blood, and stumbled across a sacred chamber.

Everyone knew about the sacred chambers the old ones had left behind, but few were lucky enough to see one, much less bear the eternal honor of finding one. Once, the chamber had been filled with wonders, but all had crumbled to dust by the time he found it, all that is except the bracelet.

It was still intact, its single blue-green stone glowing with internal light, its smooth metal warm to the touch.

He knew the bracelet was something special from the moment he slipped it on. A tremendous peace rose to fill his spirit, strange new ideas filled his mind, and his body trembled with excitement.

Through the bracelet he learned that he was the chosen one, that he must lead a life of flawless purity, and that one day his teachings would spread to the stars above.

In the third dream he was an Ilwik, a revered teacher, sought out and honored for his wisdom.

McCade also learned that while almost all Il Ronnian males advance to Il-wig, perhaps one in a thousand goes on to become an Ilwik, or warrior-priest, and of these only a handful are called "great."

He learned that the Ilwik were the leaders of Il Ronnian society. The most senior Ilwik sit on the Council of One Thousand that governs the Il Ronnian homeworld and the empire as well.

The lesser Ilwik run local governments, perform scientific research, teach at universities, lead the armed forces, and perform a hundred other important tasks.

But that was later. McCade would eventually learn that many others had worn the bracelet after the great Ilwik's death, giving it knowledge of recent times, knowledge it had passed along to him.

In the great Ilwik's day the Il Ronnian people had only recently graduated from a hunting-gathering society organized along tribal lines to a slightly more sophisticated social structure, incorporating some rudimentary specialization, but still dependent on subsistence farming.

Among the areas of emerging specialization were farming, metal working, and the priesthood. So it was that the great Ilwik shunned worldly ways and chose to live in a cave that the holy fluid had carved from solid rock eons before.

By late afternoon each day the sun would disappear beyond the rim of the canyon, throwing dark shadows into the valley below. As the heat gradually died away, he'd come forth to meditate, and as their first work came to an end, his brethren would join him. They would arrive by ones and twos, find seats, and wait to receive what he had to give.

Sometimes he spoke, telling them what he knew, and sometimes he remained silent, losing himself in the cosmic flow, inviting them to feel that which can't be said.

And then as the sun began to set, and second work began, they would seek his blessing. Sometimes a blessing was his to give, and he would heal the sick, and sometimes his touch brought only comfort. Either way his brethren gave thanks, paid him honor, and left the gifts of life.

In the fourth dream they killed him. Jealous of his powers his fellow Ilwiks denounced him and presided over his death. They stripped the flesh from his body inch by bloody inch, chanting their empty prayers and capturing his tears in a vial of beautiful crystal. Over and over they ordered him to recant his teachings, and over and over he refused.

So when death finally came it was a release, a gift from God that he gladly accepted. It was from that death that McCade had come, his body drenched with sweat, nerves still tingling from the pain.

Were the dreams true? Was he reliving the actual experiences of an Il Ronnian messiah? It seemed hard to believe, but the dreams were too real, too vivid, to be easily dismissed.

And what about the bracelet? Was it the same one the Il Ronnian teacher had worn? Perhaps so, because the Il Ronn had sent the bracelet and instructed that it be worn.

They'd neglected to mention that once he put the bracelet on, it wouldn't come off. He tried everything short of a cutting torch, and no matter what he did, the bracelet wouldn't budge.

Logic told him the bracelet was an artifact, an ancient device left behind by the same race who had extracted crystals from the mines of Molaria and left enigmatic ruins on a dozen other planets. If so, it might be some sort of recording device, capable of storing memories and transferring them to someone else. Perhaps the messiah had picked the bracelet up, worn it, and in so doing unknowingly recorded his life for others to share.

That would explain the dreams, but it wouldn't explain their content. Why
those
particular dreams in
that
particular order? Surely an ancient machine would transfer memories serially, or even randomly, but this one did neither. There were huge chunks of time missing between the dreams, yet each dream did an excellent job of summarizing a period in the Ilwik's life, and taken together they told his entire life story. Surely that was no accident.

McCade had even wondered if the bracelet was alive, a sentient being of some kind, with its own hidden motives. While he'd never heard of such a life form, it could still exist. After all, he'd encountered a Treel once and seen it take the shape of a woman. But Naval Intelligence had run the bracelet through every test known to man and pronounced it inert.

Of course, what did
they
know? They were safe and sound on Terra, while he ran around Il Ronnian space with a bracelet that wouldn't come off, and someone else's memories doing a tap dance in his head. Assholes.

McCade stood, took two pain tabs, and stepped into the fresher. The hot shower felt good. He blew himself dry and headed for the tiny lounge. He didn't bother to dress since there was no one else on board.

As McCade plopped into a chair he felt something poke him in the right buttock. Reaching down between the cushions, he pulled out one of Molly's toys. A model of
Pegasus
that Phil had made for her.

The toy had a slim, fast look like the ship herself. A onetime navy scout converted to a yacht. He placed it on a shelf and felt a magnet lock it into place.

He wondered where Sara and Molly were, and what they were doing. Swanson-Pierce had promised to take them home, so maybe they were on Alice by now, preparing for another hard winter. He didn't love Alice the way Sara did, but she lived there and that made it home.

And that's why he'd find the Vial of Tears and return it to the Il Ronn. Not for the Empire, not for Swanson-Pierce, but for Sara. For his family. Because if he didn't, the Il Ronnians would come looking for it, and the first battles would be fought out along the rim, over and around planets like his.

And according to Swanson-Pierce, the Il Ronn stood a good chance of winning. Years of budget cutbacks had weakened the Empire's navy, and it would take time to gather what ships there were and shape them into a cohesive force.

So it was his job to find the vial and get it back. And barring that, he'd use up as much time as possible, time the Empire would use to prepare.

Getting the vial back from the pirates would be hard enough, but the Il Ronnians had imposed some conditions as well.

Only one human would be allowed to search for the vial, and first that human must pass the initiations of the Ilwig, or warrior-priest. None other could be allowed to find and touch the sacred relic. It was a frustrating waste of time, but, like it or not, one he'd have to accept.

That was the bad news. The good news was his bounty, the price the Imperial Government had agreed to pay for his services.

The truth was that he'd have done it for free, but they didn't know that, and he felt honor bound to gouge them if he could. It was his form of revenge, his way of getting back at them for the court martial and the years of hardship that followed.

That's why he'd specified five million credits, more money than he could spend, but the exact price of the new hospital Sara wanted. For years the citizens of Alice had been in need of a good medical facility and now they'd have it.

He lit a cigar and activated a viewscreen. What he saw was a computer simulation of what the stars would look like if he and
Pegasus
were travelling in normal space. Real or not they were pretty, glittering like diamonds thrown on black velvet, each one an unfathomable mystery.

Hundreds of red, yellow, and green eyes stared out at McCade from their electronic lairs. He blew smoke at them and waited for something to happen.
Pegasus
was about to make a hyperspace jump, and as usual, there was little for him to do but wait.
Pegasus
would leave hyperspace in a few moments at the precise point specified by the Il Ronnians.

While routine in toward the center of the human empire, hyperspace jumps were a little more exciting when you were deep inside Il Ronnian space and dependent on
their
coordinates. What if they'd given him the coordinates for a sun? Or a planet? He'd be dead, that's what.

But why bother? There're lots of easier ways to kill a single human.