Star Risk - 01 Star Risk, Ltd (4 page)

"They informed me that they were no longer willing to pay me, and that I was the property of Cerberus Systems," King said.

"Property!" Riss said. "Now they're slavers, as well?"

"No," King said. "They claim that I'm a robot."

Riss kept from jumping.

"Nobody that I know of can build a robot that's as much people as you look!"

"That's what I told them," King said. "But they refused to believe me. One of their vice presidents said he thought I was of alien construct, meant to infiltrate human society.

"I'm afraid I started crying," King said. "I should have cursed him, or hit him, or something."

Blinking rapidly, she looked out a window, breathing deeply. She found control.

"What about your medical records?" Riss asked. "Couldn't they just check them?"

"That� and other things�" King said, a bit primly, "are things I take care of myself, and don't give out to anyone, least of all my employers. I'm a firm believer in privacy."

"I'd think� Cerberus being what I've heard it is," Riss said, "they could've set up a hidden X ray or something."

"For some reason I can't fathom," King said, "X rays don't seem to work on me. I guess it's a peculiarity of the world I come from, or something."

"There goes our health plan," M'chel murmured. "Assuming we can ever afford one."

"I think this whole subject is absurd," Baldur said. "But� I do not mean to be rude, are you a robot?"

King looked at him, a touch haughtily.

"Now, if I was, and willing to lie about it to Cerberus, wouldn't I be willing to lie to you as well?"

"Conceded," Baldur said. "M'chel, if you'd step into my office for a moment?"

Riss followed him.

"Well?"

"I don't give a damn if she's a 'bot from Planet Octopus, with a pocket nuke in her purse and evil intent," Riss said. "She surely knows her stuff."

"And we could well use a good� I think the term used to be 'gumshoe' couldn't we?"

"We could. So let's not keep the poor woman waiting," Riss said, and they went back out.

"Welcome to Star Risk, limited," Riss said.

Jasmine King grinned, and then it appeared as if she was about to cry again.

That settled matters for Riss.

Robots couldn't cry.

Could they?

Riss was making a list up of old Marine colleagues, intending, forlornly, to drop them a line and ask if they knew of any freelance militarying, when both doors opened, and a being entered.

He needed both doors, for he was very large.

M'chel guessed his height at two and a half meters, width at a meter, weight at maybe four hundred kilos-plus. He was covered with long, silky fur, had long, delicate fingers, six to a hand, plus thumb. He was proportioned like a man, not an ape, and had a humanoid number of arms and legs.

His face was like that of a thoughtful Earth lemur, but in proportion to his size.

He wore sandals, a pouched belt, and, most incongruously, a black-and-white tam.

She blinked, and managed, "Good morning, sir."

"Good morning," the being said, in an attractive, accentless bass. "I am Amanandrala Grookono-monslf. I seek Jasmine King."

"I'll see if she's here," Riss said, having no idea what business this heavy equipment hauler wanted.

Jasmine burst into the room, squealed "Grok!" and flung herself into his arms.

"You are as pretty and ageless as ever," the being said gravely.

"And you are a gentlebeing as always," Jasmine returned, coming out of his arms. "M'chel, this is Grok. You do not have to use his full name, not ever."

"Especially since the Basic version of my name is not that close to being correct," the monster said.

"Delighted," M'chel said, very grateful that the Marines had sent her on more than a few missions to alien cultures, so she was used to nonhumanoids.

"I got your message," Grok said to Jasmine, "and am only too delighted to offer my assistance."

"You're not a client," M'chel said.

"I detect disappointment," Grok said. "No. I am no more than an ex-service person, currently looking for a bit of excitement."

"Grok was in the Alliance Army for about eight years," Jasmine explained. "He is a specialist in communications, Siglnt, surveillance, and other specialties. He left the service because� you tell them."

"I suppose I should be ashamed of my tastes," Grok rumbled. "But every now and then I like a good dustup, as I think you call it.

"My own worlds generally prefer the calm of philosophy, although I maintain philosophy without action is like, forgive me, masturbation without a climax."

"You don't offend," M'chel said, grinning. "If I were educated, I might agree with you."

"I met Grok when he was hired as a contract agent for Cerberus," Jasmine said. "The experience was not a good one for him."

"You speak in understatement. Cerberus not only is a very slow-paying employer, but if matters become serious, as they did in my particular case, they're quite willing to disavow their employees.

"I might do that myself, being a professional. But I would not lie to my agents in the beginning and tell them I am behind them one hundred percent."

"Cerberus is always behind their agents," Jasmine said. "Far, far behind, or else ready to give them a push."

"Now, Jasmine. Learn to put bitterness behind you," Grok said. "Revenge is a dish best eaten cold."

"Sorry."

"At the moment," Riss said, "we unfortunately don't have any open assignments."

"So I was advised. But Jasmine also told me that you might be open to investors."

"Oh?" M'chel was very casual, considering how little money a soldier would be likely to save. "The company head, Mr. von Baldur, is out at the moment, and you'd have to discuss the matter with him.

"But I'm a partner as well. Might I inquire as to the amount you might be interested in investing?"

"Perhaps� half a million credits."

Again, M'chel swore at her inability to keep a deadpan face.

"That's a considerable amount," she managed.

"I am aware of that," Grok said. "And I also expect I should offer an explanation.

"In addition to my other skills, I consider myself good at what you humans call a game of chance.

"Quite good, indeed," he said thoughtfully.

"Half a million," Riss said, in a bit of a daze.

"Just so," Grok said.

"I think Mr. Baldur would be very, very interested in you joining us," M'chel said.

Grok made a noise that Riss took as approval and happiness. Or something like those feelings.

"Now are our immediate financial woes out of the way?" Jasmine said, grinning.

"I should think so."

"Now," King said briskly, "all we need is a job."

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FIVE � ^ � The man eased open the door stenciled: TRANSKOOTENAY MINING. AUTHORIZED PERSONNEL ONLY. He propped the door open, and eased an antigravity ore carrier, about the size of a wheelbarrow, through.

The ore processing plant was almost wholly automated. The few people Transkootenay needed to run it worked only a "day" shift, since not enough ore was coming in to the asteroid outstation to warrant an around-the-clock crew.

There was no ore on the belt, but the machinery hummed in quiet readiness.

The man floated the carrier to the loading bay, and dumped the carrier's cargo, a single boulder, in.

He muttered at all the extra work he'd gone to, camouflaging the charges inside the boulder, acquiring a genuine mining ship to reach the plant looking innocent, disguising himself in a miner's suit, even providing himself with false ID.

None of which was necessary. Transkootenay's security was nonexistent.

He decided they were, in the old phrase, too dumb to live.

That made him grin.

The way things were going out here, they wouldn't for very much longer.

Tough for them.

The man took a small box from his belt, went into the small operating room.

He positioned the box over a large, red switch, and turned the timer on.

Being a careful sort, he took out a plas sheet, and, even though he'd memorized his instructions, went through the checklist as he brought the processing plant up to ready state.

Then he started the timer, went out of the room, and the plant.

There was a watchman at the entrance to the field, snoring in his booth. But there were no fences around the prefab building, nor around the two barracks, one hundred meters distant.

The man threaded his way to his stolen ship, boarded, and lifted away on antigravs. One hundred meters clear of the rocky field, he went to secondary drive, watching the planetoid dwindle in his screen.

Forty-five minutes later, the timer clicked to zero, and the processor hummed into life.

The watchman woke with a jerk, feeling the vibration in his hut.

He sealed his suit, and cycled the hut's lock, awkwardly loading his blaster, as the processing plant fed the "boulder" into the crusher, which sized the rock, and hammers came down to break the boulder into chunks.

The first crash was buried under the slam of the explosives in the boulder, as they, fused with a pressure-sensitive device, went off.

The explosion could be seen fifty kilometers in space, as the processing plant fused, melted, tore itself apart.

The watchman, surprisingly, had been alert enough to go flat when the plant blew up, and survived, although he had nothing at all to report to Transkootenay system officials when they arrived from Sheol half a ship-day later.

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SIX � ^ � Former Alliance Army Captain Chas Goodnight slid easily from his hiding place, stretched, looked around the museum.

He could piss better security than it had, he thought.

Goodnight was tall, almost two hundred centimeters, slender. He had sandy hair, a square jaw, an honest face, and an easy smile. One of his lawyers had, fairly correctly, said that Goodnight was a textbook example of a sociopath.

He wore expensive civilian clothing that just happened to be dark hued, shoes that just happened to have soft soles.

Nobody'd seen him, just at closing, duck into the convenient exhibit of a mock spaceship lock, past the half a dozen bewildered-looking men, women, and children, wearing tattered shipsuits. The exhibit was labeled man's first arrival on tormal.

Since the colonists weren't crouched behind crew-served weapons, or waving hand-helds, he figured it was a phony.

Anyone this na�� or innocent� didn't deserve to have that lovely case marked our first family's GEMS.

Especially since the jewels appeared to be most real.

Nobody did that.

Not anymore.

You sent your crown jewels to Earth or another techno world, had copies made, and stuck the originals in a vault somewhere.

Or, if you thought like Goodnight, you quietly sold them to Tiffany's and pocketed the profits.

It was quiet, dark, and deserted.

And time to go to work.

Goodnight pressed a slight bulge at the angle of his right jaw, and transitioned.

His reflex time went up by three hundred percent, his eyesight expanded into the infrared, his hearing became more sensitive than any feline's, and the radar antenna implanted behind the skin of his forehead came alive.

He scanned the big exhibit hall.

Nothing and no one.

Good. He turned his sensors off.

He had about another nineteen minutes left on his battery charge.

Goodnight shouldered a small daypack, moved forward, walking toe-and-heel, as he'd been taught, and practiced on a hundred covert missions for the Alliance before he "woke up"�his phrase�about who was the patsy and who was making the profit on his oh-so-elaborate and painful surgery, the so-called "besterization."

After that realization, he'd had a wonderful two years as a cat burglar, until he got caught. He'd been stealing an Alliance ambassador's jewel chest, while she and her husband oversaw a grand masked ball downstairs in the mansion, and two thugs with badges came out of nowhere.

At the courtmartial, his defense counsel, who he thought was lovely, even if she wouldn't bed him, but was also slightly thicker than dirt, asked him, "How could you?"

"She had the best jewels on the post," he answered reasonably.

"But� an ambassador's wife!"

"She� or maybe her husband� could afford it," he pointed out. "Besides, she was probably insured."

The woman looked sadly at the man. Just under two meters, sandy hair, brown eyes, an easy smile. She thought him as good looking as any livee star.

But hopeless. Beyond morality.

She accused him of that, and he got indignant, saying he'd never killed anybody while stealing, at least not yet, and the only people he had killed were at Alliance orders.

That didn't seem to improve her attitude, or the quality of her defense.

She argued that Goodnight had a perfect combat record. Combat, and in other classified areas the courtmartial board refused to hear in an open courtroom.

It didn't matter.

Goodnight was given the choice, after the guilty verdict: Ten years on a penal planet, which meant no survival, especially since he doubted they'd let him take any spare bester charges.

Or�

Or cooperate.

Goodnight sang like an Earth nightingale, giving away his fences, where he'd stashed the money he'd made, and what his future scores were to be.

He didn't reveal his accomplices, because he never had any, always having known, since the cr�e, when it was him and his brother against the universe, a man travels quicker when he picks his own company.

Besides, he was never sure what the word "friendship" meant to other people. It meant one thing to him, the same to his little brother, Reg, but who knew what definitions others used? He'd had a pretty good idea what that meant to the others in his Special Operations Detachment, which is why he'd never considered stealing anything from them.

But outsiders?

He chose not to find out the hard way if they could be trusted.