Revolution's Shore (44 page)

“Am I surprised,” murmured Korey cynically, without making it a question. “Hustle up. Let's get it over with.”

It was the matter of a few minutes to pack three carrys, and then the two constables ushered them outside. With the other six officers added on, they made a procession that enlivened the interest of all the residents of the rundown hostel. When the party paused in the lobby for Berto to clear Korey's bill with the manager, a small crowd of disreputable-looking folk gathered to stare and comment.

“Izzat the bountyman?”

“Yeh. Pretty brave of them connies to bring him in.”

“Who do ya s'pose he were hunting?”

“Dunno.”

“Clean's the place up, though, don't it? Getting rid of him, and those Pongos. I don't like bounty men.”

“What, you afraid one's looking for you, Ferni?”

A general swell of raucous laughter greeted this sally, made bolder by Korey's lack of response.

“Nah. Ferni ain't dangerous enough to be passed over to the bounty list by the connies.”

“Am so.”

“Shut up,” snapped Berto as he stepped back from the desk. “Or we'll do a proper raid here one of these days. I can smell dream crystal on every one of you. Now piss off.”

The crowd dissipated abruptly. “Thanks,” murmured Korey laconically. Looking disgusted, Berto motioned, and the constables led their charges down the entry stairs.

“I dislike this,” said Stanford, subvocalizing to Fred as they marched down and then were settled in the back compartment of the secure wagon that would ferry them to the precinct office. Korey sat at the opposite end of the compartment, eyes shut, face pale under several days' growth of beard.

“Yeah,” agreed Fred, tapping his stubby foot claws against the floor. “It sucks.”

“No, Frederick. I mean that I am deeply disturbed by Korrigan's meekness. It is simply too much at odds with his character. I fear that this current binge of drug taking masks some severe form of depression that has overtaken him recently. I advised him before that bounty work was not suited to his talents.”

They both turned to gaze at their companion, concern clear on their apelike features. Fred wrinkled up his nose, taking in the unpleasant antiseptic stench of the compartment, their own pleasant and familiar scent, and the stronger smell—to him, at least—of Korey's unwashed clothing and skin.

“Yeah.” Fred shrugged his powerful shoulders, his equivalent of a nod.

Korey opened his eyes, looking directly at them, and with the barest grin, he winked.

It took a ship's week to reach Concord, the web of interlinked stations in orbit around a nondescript star whose only claim to importance was its position in the approximate center of League space.

Stanford and Fred hogged the bubble viewport in the transport bringing them into docking with Intelligence's hub. Behind them Korey slept, snoring softly. If he looked better than the day he was arrested it was probably because the drugs and whiskey he had tried to smuggle along in his carry had been confiscated at the precinct office.

Fred simply gaped at the view: a complex net of stations and connecting tubes and solar arrays and ships in various stages of repair, manufacture, or loading that, in the reflected light of its sun, presented an astonishingly intricate and beautiful pattern against the deep night of space.

Stanford had his computer slate out and was busy calculating stresses, area to volume, and mass while on a second window he sketched out as complete a diagram of the web as possible, labeling it as he went.

The light chime warned them just as the door to their cell slipped aside. Fred whirled into an aggressive stance: hind legs bent, he leaned heavily on his thick, long arms, ready to propel himself forward. Because he was just about as thick as he was tall, the effect was intimidating.

Korey opened his eyes, although he did not move from his pallet, and glanced at the two guards who had just taken three steps back from the threshold.

“Fred,” he said quietly. “Lighten up.”

Fred rocked back onto his haunches, grinning again; Stanford had already taken the opportunity to surreptitiously tuck his slate back into the sling on his chest in which he usually carried his weapons.

“Get up, Windsor,” snapped the foremost guard. “We're taking you off the ship in a flyer. The two Pongos stay on board.”

Korey laughed, short, and settled his hands behind his head, looking comfortable. “Someone afraid we'll go on a rampage if we set foot in the happy zones?”

“You must be aware,” replied the guard stiffly, “that your record of the past fifty years does not give the common run of humanity any reason to trust you.”

Korey rolled smoothly up to his feet. “Listen, I didn't come here for a morality lecture. I'm ready to go.” As he spoke he made a few quick gestures with one hand, sign language to his two companions. Fred rubbed vigorously at one shoulder, cursed abruptly, and with surprising delicacy removed a tiny insect from his long, dark hair and popped it in his mouth, smacking his lips.

“Move it,” said the guard, unable to hide his disgust.

Korey grinned and followed him.

The ride to the station was uneventful.

Several elevators took him, escorted by a shifting company of eight to ten guards, to some undetermined level of the Intelligence complex. He was shown into a small, square room and left alone.

He paced it quickly, measuring, and then sprawled himself untidily in its single uncomfortable chair and waited. As he had expected, the lights dimmed around him, leaving him isolated in a spotlight of brightness, and the closest wall took on a translucent sheen to reveal three persons sitting at a console behind it.

“Korrigan Tel Windsor?” A man's voice, even and very deep.

He did not bother to answer.

“Are you aware that you have been arrested under League provision—”

“Let's dispense with the formalities,” broke in a second voice, a woman. “I scarcely think we need bother to waste time on such as him.”

“If we do not ‘waste' time on such as him, my dear,” replied the first man calmly, “then we cannot claim to be a free and equal society.” He paused.

Her lack of reply was eloquence enough.

“You know I'm Windsor,” said Korey, getting impatient with this. “I know what the charges are and if you can even make them stick the most they'll pull me is a fine. I want to know what monkey has suspended my bounty license and how the hell you expect to uphold that suspension in a court of law. That is,” he added with a sardonic smile, “if people like me and what's left of ‘my kind' are allowed access to the courts of law anymore.”

“You see what I mean,” muttered the woman. The second man, beside her, murmured something Korey could not make out, although its tone sounded like assent.

“I see no reason to continue fencing in this manner,” said the first man, maintaining his calm. “The fact is that you possess that license on sufferance, not from any intrinsic right to hold it. You know as well as I that it can be revoked at any time.”

Korey straightened in the chair, focusing his gaze on the man's shadowy form. “Maybe I didn't think it would come to this. I've been good. As good as I can be, I guess
you'd
say,” he added, directing the comment to the woman, who sat in the center. “So maybe this isn't about me personally. Maybe the old man has been dead just long enough now that you figure his memory can't protect us anymore.”

“Surely,” interposed the second man—an impatient and slightly nervous voice, “surely you can't expect us to condone the life you and the other saboteurs that Soerensen—bless his memory—established, the life you led, the actions you took. Even Soerensen had to disavow some of the things you did.”

“That's a lie,” growled Korey. “He knew the stakes we were running. I don't claim we were angels, or even
civilized
like you folks—”

“And none of you,” interrupted the woman sharply, “
None
of you
ever
did anything excessive?”

Korey was silent.

“My dear,” said the first man reprovingly.

“We saved your asses from the Kapellans, and now all you intellectual types have gotten squeamish about the methods we had to use to do it. Why am I not surprised?”

No one answered him.

“So what do you want me for?” he asked finally, resigned.

“A simple trade,” said the first man, still temperate. “You bring us in a few people, and we restore your license—
without
the revocation clause.”

“What?” Korey retorted, disbelieving. “You want me to bring in the queen of the highroad, or something? It can't be done.”

The first man chuckled. “We do not interfere with the privateers. No. Here is a display—some likenesses.”

To the right of the three shadowed forms a console lit up, and eight faces appeared on a screen.

Korey stood up. “No!” He strode straight forward to the wall and slammed it with a closed fist. “I won't hunt my own down, you bastards.”

“On the record,” said the woman smugly, “it states that when you were first granted your license you agreed that if any saboteurs had broken codified law they would be an acceptable bounty. And you did bring in one ex-saboteur named Trueblood. Seventeen years ago.”

“Trueblood deserved what he got. He went sour after the war ended, and no matter what you think, there weren't any of ‘us' who condoned rape. We killed a guy once—a nice, respectable stationmaster—who we caught trying to do some poor underage Kapellan female who was a refugee from Betaos. Actually,” he grinned, a predator's look, “
we
didn't kill him. We just got him drunk and convinced him to sleep with a sweet je'jiri girl, and let her clan do the rest.”

So close to the glass, he could see their bodies react, if not their faces. The second man shuddered, obvious. The woman stiffened, tense and disapproving.

Only the first man remained unruffled. “I am relieved to hear that there is still honor, of a kind, among thieves. Shall we return to the screen? The alternative, you realize, is that you will be arrested under inter-League law as adopted at the Second Concordance Postwar Convention and immediately sentenced to life in the prison station here at Concord, from which, I might remind you, there have been no—and I mean zero—escapes since its installation.”

“That's it, huh? What about my partners?”

“Their visas will be revoked, and they will, of course, be allowed passage to the nearest Ardakian embassy so that they can return to their home planet.”

“And I'll bet you know damned well that they're not welcome there.” Korey opened his fist, tapped his index finger twice on the shielding wall, and moved to get a better look at the screen.

Eight faces. He examined them one by one.

“Apple? He's dead. You're Intelligence. I thought you would know that.” He chuckled, low. “Though it makes me feel better to know you didn't. Jewel. Can't help you there. She signed on with Yi about six years back and I'm not going to tangle with him.”

“Ah,” said the first man. The first two pictures flicked off into blackness.

“Eboi. I don't know what happened to him. He was as decent as they come, by any standard, and he must be going on old by now. If anyone deserves some peace, he does.” He glanced back at them, scornful. “But I guess you just can't chance that he might have some latent savagery in him, can you? And you certainly won't trust my word.” This said with mockery. “And who's this? Katajarenta?” He laughed, frankly amused. “You'll never find her.” Dismissed her by moving on to the next photo. “Wing.” He grinned again. “Serve you right to bring her in. She'd cut you to pieces just with her tongue.” He shook his head briefly. “She disappeared a good twenty years ago.”

“But,” interrupted the woman, “she's always been closely linked with—”

“Gwyn?” exclaimed Korey, disbelieving. “You expect
me
to bring in
Gwyn
? You're crazy. Even if I could
find
him—”

“We have a less than two-year-old location on him,” said the woman sharply. “He was last going under the name of Heredes.”

“You're crazy,” Korey repeated. “I'm not qualified. Nobody is. He's the best.”

“If I may,” interposed the first man smoothly. “I understood there was reason to believe that Gwyn was dead.”

“Dead? Right, and I have four arms.”

“I want it substantiated,” said the woman in a voice made more cold by its implacability. “And everyone associated with him tracked down.”

Korey glanced through the glass again, wishing he could make out her face. A tone in her voice caught at him, and he felt it important that he identify her. He shrugged and looked at the last two pictures. “Hawk? What's he doing here? He's in prison.”

“Not anymore.” Fury underlay the words. The woman turned her head to look at the screen, revealing in that movement the careful, traditional coiffure of her hair: it took him a moment, but then he identified it: Indian subcontinent, neo-Hindi. “He was last seen with Gwyn.”

“Well, good for Hawk,” muttered Korey under his breath. Louder, he said, “I don't recognize this last one. Never seen her before.”

“She was also seen with Gwyn,” explained the first man. “We suspect her to be a new recruit.”

“Well, I never thought of Gwyn as a recruiter.” He hesitated examining the six photos left and then his three inquisitors. “What's her name?”

“We believe it to be Heredes also. Lily Heredes.”

“All right,” said Korey, stepping back from the wall. “I'll bring her in. In trade for my license back.”

“That wasn't the deal.” The woman dismissed the suggestion with a brusque wave of her hand.