Star Risk - 01 Star Risk, Ltd (21 page)

Jasmine King was sitting at a computer terminal, touching sensors, with a sour expression on her face.

"Doin' payroll, huh?" Doe asked.

King, who had been running probability studies on just where M'chel Riss and Dinsmore had been shot down, forced a smile.

"That's it," she said. "What brings you to Glace?"

"You know," Doe said. "Bright lights, big city, trying to get some bennies for my miners out of t'ese stumbling idiots t'ey call a government.

"And lookin' for M'chel. She 'round?"

"She's offworld," King said. "Tied up. Can I do something for you?"

Doe looked around the ship, as if expecting a large pink ear to be sticking out of a bulkhead.

"I got an idea."

"Well, sit down, let me pour you a drink, and dump it on me," King said, going to the sideboard and bringing back two glasses and a snifter.

Doe sat down, put the sample case down carefully next to her, and poured her glass about half full. She looked astonished.

"Damme, but fat's good Vegan brandy!"

"We pour nothing but the finest when we're on the client's tab," King said.

"Good attitude to take."

Doe took a printout and two small irregular mineral samples out of the case.

"T'is comes from the estate of t'e late Dmitri Herndon," she said. "Before your time."

King frowned, then brightened. "The miner who was murdered� sixth or seventh to be killed� almost certainly by the raiders."

"Damn," Doe said. "You do know everyf ing, like Riss said."

She pushed one of the bits of mineral across.

"T'is is a bit of a diamond, cleaned up a li'l from its natural state. Herndon found traces, accordin' to his log book, which t'e high-graders missed, an' fought he was on to a diamond pipe. T'afs�"

"The natural formation of diamond in nature," King said, "generally found at great depths. With an exploded planet, you could expect to find such an occurrence everywhere."

"Are you showin' off?" Doe asked.

King grinned. "A little."

"I'll bet you're a real kick in the ass on a date," Doe grumbled.

"Anyway, I been goin' over fings, tryin' to figger what f ese friggin' pyrates want. S'posin' Herndon, and maybe some of ers, found traces of t'is diamond pipe. An' f baddies found out about it. Would fat be enough to spark f ese hog-futterers into somef ing resemblin' motion, not to mention murder?"

King considered, finally shook her head sadly.

"Nice try, L.C., but I don't think so. You figure these people have at least a hundred, more likely twice that on the payroll. That's a big overhead, and even having a lot of diamonds won't meet that kind of demand, even if they've got something as big as the Kimberly Memory, which is the biggest diamond found, out on Dietrich VII.

"Plus diamond prices are like gold. The people who deal in them keep the prices high by locking up their supplies, and letting them out onto the market little by little.

"I can't see anybody, especially criminals, going on an if-come like that."

"Shit," L.C. said. "I was hopin' for a nice simple solution."

"Aren't we all?" King said. "As far as I can figure, it'd take having access to all of the minerals in the whole belt to make a decent profit for the high-graders. If there was another mining company lurking around besides Transkootenay� maybe they'd be working for that company. But I don't see anybody in the wings."

"The hell wit' it," L.C. decided. "If I can't be a genius, I can at least be happy here in t'e big city. I think I'll get drunk. You want to come along?"

King looked at the clock on the bulkhead.

"Sure. Hang around ten more minutes, and I'll wake Grok up for his shift."

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THIRTY-SIX � ^ � The troll trotted up to M'chel, cluttered quietly, and pointed south.

That was the direction the patrol had taken, another scout had reported in sign language.

She'd deliberately exposed herself, hoping to pull the patrol into the open, which had evidently worked just fine.

She'd given herself four nervous minutes, then left at a dead run, waiting for the screech of incoming artillery or rockets, or, worse yet, the dull thud of mortars.

Nothing had happened, and she'd resumed breathing.

Her six acolytes thought the tall person's game was most fun, especially since equally strange games had given them a chance to kill some of their enemies.

Maybe this game would be the same.

"How many?" Riss tried, then sighed, knelt, picked up some twigs. She pointed south, and the troll nodded, or at least made the sideways lurch of the head Riss had arbitrarily defined as a "yes." She put down one stick, got a nod, another, then another, got eight, getting increasingly enthusiastic nods each time.

She chanced another stick, got more enthusiasm, then another, and got no reaction at all.

Nine members of the patrol.

Maybe.

She'd learned not to go beyond eight per count. The trolls did have mathematics. To the base eight. Which meant counting their fingers on each hand.

Beyond that was "many."

That was the same number the first scout had reported leaving the cavern.

She'd made tentative gestures trying to represent a backpack radio, got more nods of yes.

Which meant a qualified maybe.

But she was learning to do the best she could with what she had.

It had taken a full week�arbitrary seven days by M'chel's decision�for her to learn she'd never be able to speak the primitives' language. She remembered what a language school instructor had told her once, that civilization could be defined by the simplicity of language. Primitive people, contrary to what most thought, didn't speak primitive tongues of "oogs" and "aarghs." He offered the example of one language that had seven different variations on dead game, from "tasty" to "edible" to "trap bait." All people used a language to give them what they needed. A journey, for instance, might be "one day."

"two days," and such up to the amount of traveling a tribe was accustomed to. Such as "three days." Beyond that would be the equivalent of "your children may see it," or "beyond lie the gods."

The trolls had guns, which must have been taken from the first settlers and back-converted to black powder and roundish rocks, forgetting about the rusting charges in the butt magazines, the electronic circuitry, and the trigger. All that was needed was a tube, a small hole in the side of that tube, and a roughened part of the barrel they could scrape a flint across to fire the powder inside.

She couldn't figure how they'd discovered making gunpowder, wondered if there'd been a renegade centuries earlier, then realized she'd never know.

The problem was they seemed to think the noise of the gun going off was as likely to kill as the ball, so they'd point a gun in the desired direction, close their eyes, and yank the trigger.

It took another week to teach them to use the Alliance blasters as intended, instead of giving them to the tribe "gunsmith" for drilling and tapping.

Riss had thought it would take a century to teach the trolls any sort of tactics.

She was completely wrong here�they'd instantly understood her "games," and after counterambushing and "killing" their teacher twice, were ready to go to war.

Riss had started simply, drygulching a straggler here, an unwary sentry there. The trolls were most adept at killing, but it took some time, and some cuffed heads, before she could convince them not to dance around their trophy and give the other humans a chance to return and take revenge.

Her first patrol had been to backtrack a patrol, and find the location of the cleverly hidden base. She'd waited, watching, for three days, until the cavern had creaked open, and spat out a pair of patrol ships.

Now she knew where Murgatroyd's base was. She corrected herself. One of Murgatroyd's bases. Hopefully the bugger with the cruiser. Or maybe the only base, if she was lucky.

All she had to do was get word to Star Risk to blow it apart.

Not to mention picking her up.

"Next week," she murmured, "we're going to learn how to build a starship out of a rock.

"C'mon, troops. Let's move, with our fingers crossed."

Chas Goodnight woke just before dawn, and found he was the only one in the patrol awake.

Siegfried, who had relieved him, and who'd been relieved in turn by the snoring momentary noncom next to their com man, was sound asleep.

Goodnight cursed, and kicked Siegfried hard in the thigh.

The man rolled up, blaster in hand, blinked, looked around, and understood. He mouthed an obscenity.

"Get them up," Goodnight whispered, pointing to the bodies sprawled around the edges of the clearing.

Siegfried nodded, started off, but was a little late.

A grenade arced in from just beyond the tiny perimeter Goodnight had carefully set up when they'd RONed the night before. His troops, evidently all tired out, had eaten, and then curled up, still certain, in spite of casualties of the previous two weeks, nothing could happen to them.

They were supposed to have kept one-third alertness.

The grenade went off, and tore the sleeping about-to-be-ex-noncom's arm off.

The com operator stammered awake, sat up, and a stone spear spitted him.

Men, women, were standing in the clearing, fumbling with their weapons.

"On me!" Goodnight shouted, as a spear clanged past him.

He triggered bester, took four giant steps and dove for the largish rock he'd picked out the night before as his own personal retreat.

Then he turned off, and the world slowed.

Siegfried was running toward him, and Goodnight laid down a chatter of fire behind him. He could have thought he was aiming carefully at brush, not wanting to hit Riss, if she was out there.

But he would have been lying�the goddamned Grays left nothing to see, nothing to shoot at.

There were six of his troops still up, running toward him. One tripped, and a rock, probably fired from a sling, smashed her skull.

The five survivors made it to the rock, and pulled back, two firing, three moving, leapfrogging each other.

But there was no more shooting, no more spears.

Goodnight found a position, waited.

Nothing.

Then, ignoring the terror and hatred in the other five's eyes, he ordered them back to the ambush.

He hoped the Grays weren't lying in wait.

They weren't.

They had what they'd come for�all the weapons and ammo abandoned.

Plus Goodnight's com.

"Any Star Risk Station," Riss said into the mike. "I say again, Any Star Risk Station, this is Romeo India Sierra Sierra. I say again, Romeo India Sierra Sierra."

She waited, sweating. Beside her, Two Twitters crouched, proud that, of course, his personal totem could talk into boxes, and, most likely, fly like a bird if she chose.

"Romeo India Sierra Sierra, this is Star Risk Control." Riss recognized Grok's voice. "Please authenticate with on what floor home station on Trimalchio is on."

She thought desperately.

"This is Romeo," she said. "Forty-three. I say again, four-three."

"This is Control. Where are you, M'chel?"

"I've got to make this quick. This damned com, which I took from the baddies, has crystals for tuning, which is why I'm on the frigging main distress freq, in clear."

"This is Control. Trying to locate your position. Have rough."

"I had to improv an antenna to get out of this valley. Base is about in center of valley, concealed in cliff face. Guesstimate from mine up one zero, right niner."

"You are very garbled. Understand that last as up one zero, lost second coordinate. Please say again, over. Please�"

Riss shut off the com, hearing the screech of incoming rockets.

She grabbed Two Twitters, who squeaked protest, flattened.

The rockets slammed in around her, and the rocky outcropping she was hiding in sang to the rain of shrapnel.

She got up, saw the com with a large chunk of alloy through its center, grabbed Two Twitters under one arm, and ran like hell as she heard another salvo crashing down.

"Goddamnit," she swore, ignoring Two Twitters's protests, "and goddamn me for being a sentimental bitch, you heavy bastard. I shoulda covered the com, not your fat ass.

"Now there'll be nobody left to save me but me."

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THIRTY-SEVEN � ^ � So what do we have?" Baldur asked.

"First, of course, that our M'chel is still incarnate," Grok said. "Second, we know the base is in some sort of a cave. However, what we lack is Riss's location when she 'cast. All I have is a single compass heading.

"If I project that out, I get a great number of valleys. And I still haven't been able to get the location of all of those bases we want that might give me a second point to use."

"Not good," Baldur said. "But, at least as you say, Riss is still out and about. Nothing from Goodnight. I am assuming that he did not do anything outrageous such as join Murgatroyd."

"I'd think not," Grok said. "Or else someone would have tried to get a bomb or other nefarious thingie in on us."

"Troubles, troubles." Baldur sighed, drumming his fingers on the control board. "All right. Contact all Star Risk ships and bring them here to Glace. We shall ignore the asteroids until we get our own back. Grok, put a monitor on that distress frequency, and if we get anything more, we shall get ships off at once and hope we can get a better fix from the air.

Better. We shall keep a constant patrol in the air along that line of transmission. I do not think we have to caution the pilots about being most careful, with Dinsmore lost.

"Damn, but I wish I had hired a few more ground pounders for whatever rescue will be required."

"Speaking of asteroids and such," King said, from her console to the side of the main control board of the Boop, "Reg Goodnight's made three attempts to contact you today."

"And I have nothing for him." Baldur sighed again. "But I cannot evade him forever." King passed him the com number, and he touched buttons.