Star Risk - 02 Scoundrel Worlds (9 page)

"Perhaps one of us should look up this editor and see if there's anything really there."

"Perhaps one should put work aside for the moment," Grok said, "and concentrate on digestion, and perhaps a nice walk along the river."

"Do you expect me to shut off my brain?" Jasmine said.

"Of course not," the large alien said. "Merely divert it to thoughts of the night and�"

Three men came through the door of L'Montagnard. Two had pistols, one a blast rifle.

Jasmine King was learning about life on the sharp end. She went instantly to Condition Red.

Her pistol, carried in a sleeve holster, was out, and she snapped a bolt into the rifleman's stomach.

He shrieked, stumbled sideways as one of the pistoleers was aiming at Grok.

The shot went wild, punching a sizable hole in a rather grotesque print of two men wearing leather shorts and blowing on ridiculously long horns.

Before he could correct his aim, Jasmine shot him in the head. He dropped like a rock.

Grok's enormous blaster fired, and put a fist-sized hole in the last man's chest. He collapsed on his knees, died there.

The restaurant owner screamed. Grok was on his feet. "Call the police," he ordered. "Now!"

Her scream cut off, she nodded dumbly, went to the back.

Jasmine King stood, looked down at the rifleman as he gasped his last. She paled a little, found control.

Grok was hastily shaking down one corpse, and King managed to go through the pockets of another.

"Look," she said.

She was holding a rather unusual mask, one with a black eyepiece, and a cloth hanging below it to hide the rest of the wearer's face.

"The Masked Ones," she said.

"Just so," Grok said. "I suppose it's nice that we are doing something to attract the attention of villains. I just wish," he said somewhat wistfully, as sirens screamed toward the restaurant, "I knew what."

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SIXTEEN � ^ � The next day was detail time around the mansion.

The first order of importance was debriefing. All of the Star Risk operators carried recorders when they could, and when they couldn't, used their memories, which had been carefully trained to remember everything.

Just to make sure, when they were between assignments on Trimalchio IV, they took mnemonic courses.

Riss was keeping an eye on Jasmine, who was still a little shaken by the previous night's shooting.

King was on a scrambled com to one of the many suppliers Star Risk used, which was one of the ways they were able to keep their mission costs far below other, more lavishly staffed operations.

"Hold on a beat, Asamya." She muted the mike. "Friedrich, is there anything we need from outside?"

"I can't think of anything," von Baldur said. "Except maybe an expat cook from here, who's been gone long enough to be safe, so we're not dining out and being targets so much."

King shuddered at the memory, opened her mike. "No, Asamya, we don't� wait a second. M'chel's waving at me."

"I can think of something," Riss said. "We don't really have a back door on this one. How's about a nice patrol boat� maybe one of those little Pyrrhus-class tubs� two crews?"

King asked, listened. "There are more than a few available," she told Riss.

"Good," M'chel said. "Standard options, standard contracts. Full time. Tell them they're intended to just stand by and play Parcheesi unless the shit hits the fan, and then they'd best be ready to play hero. One ship can be on the ground, the other in orbit, unless things get tense, and then we'll want both of them in the sky.

"Jasmine, write the contract up like that. We get killed, they won't get anything more than expenses. They can start anytime."

"Untrustful sort, you are, Miss Riss," Goodnight said, leaning against a doorway of the large mansion library they'd decided to use as an office. "How could you think a lovely assignment on a charming world like this could be anything other than warm and cuddly?

"Especially after those murderous thugs tried to do some lightweight killing, without even giving us the chance to explain.

"Although I think we ought to develop some sources, and go teach some idiots with masks they should not be messing with our Jasmine."

"What about me?" Grok said, putting on a hurt voice.

"You're big enough to take care of yourself," Goodnight said. "Miss King is our responsibility."

"Why the paternalism?" Jasmine asked suspiciously. "Is this another way you're trying to hustle me into bed?"

"Gad," Goodnight said. "Now you're getting positively kinky. Can't you suspect me of a little benevolence ever?"

He heard noise outside, went to a window.

"Jasmine, your door-rattlers are here. Must've come down on this a.m.'s liner. You want to brief �em or for me to do it?"

"If you wouldn't mind," Jasmine said. "I really want to get the transcriptions collated."

"Not to mention someone has got to get ready to have dinner with this Fra Diavolo," von Baldur said.

"Being of a philosophical bent," Grok said, "I would leap at the chance, were I not going to spend the evening considering various electronic security measures."

"With a name like that," Jasmine said, "Diavolo's got to be a lech."

"Good," M'chel said with a sharkish smile. "I'll take the job. Been a while since I've fed a reprobate his own gonads."

She went upstairs to her quarters. Goodnight looked after her, shook his head. "What a waste of a lovely, lovely� ah well."

He picked up a pistol belt from where it hung on the back of a chair, slung it over a shoulder.

"Why that?" Grok asked. "Are you planning to shoot anyone who doesn't suit your eye?"

"Negative," Goodnight said. "I just want to have a bit of intimidation handy."

He buzzed the outside gate open and went outside, as two medium-sized transport lifters came onto the grounds, landed, and some twenty men and women unloaded with an assortment of luggage.

Goodnight noted with approval that none of them were wearing anything vaguely military, although their carriage and haircuts didn't conceal their backgrounds very well.

He sat down on a porch railing and waited until he was noticed, and the chatter died away.

"Good morning," he said. "I'm Chas Goodnight, one of your bosses. Some of you know me� I saw from your resumes we'd worked in prox sometime in the past. If you do, tell the others.

"All of you have experience with a gun and a suspicious nature, one way or another, one place or another.

"The most important thing you've got to remember is that the only friends you've got are standing around here, and inside. We've never sold any of our people out, or refused to back them up. We expect the same of you.

"I don't make pretty speeches or screw around on a job, and I won't tolerate anybody who thinks this is a game or a chance to do some he-man or -woman posing.

"There are four more of us. You'll meet them inside. You do what they say, no questions, no argument. We don't run an especially taut ship as far as haircuts or uniforms, as long as you're clean and shipshape.

"But don't screw up. A first, minor mistake'll cost you a heavy fine. A second, or a serious one, will get your contract canceled and you'll be using the back half of your ticket before you know it.

"A real bad mistake could get you dead. By me, if not the other side. We don't go to the law, but take care of our own headaches.

"You've all signed contracts. We'll honor them. You don't have to. But if you quit, you better get your ass offworld in a blazing hurry, because I'll be looking for you if you don't. None of this �going to work for the oppos' after you've cased the turf here.

"Your primary job is to provide security for this horrible-looking place we all live in. You'll have the left wing to live in, which has enough room for all of you. Keep it clean. The housekeepers aren't paid to take care of slobs.

"There'll be local work crews in sometime today or tomorrow putting in razor wire, sensors, gas crystals� the usual stuff. You'll be watching them to make sure they don't get cute and maybe �forget' to wire something up. Once they're gone, one of us will make some changes in the way they set up things, just in case.

"Like I said, your job is to provide security around the mansion, and occasionally as basic backup if one of us goes out. You'll be assigned shifts and partners. They'll be changed on a regular basis.

"We don't trust anybody.

"We may need some additional heavy work in the event of an emergency. We pay bonuses for anyone volunteering for anything outside the contract specifications.

"You'll be briefed on who our opponents are. There's more than one set of them, and we're not sure we've even got all of them identified.

"One set is Cerberus Systems, which is why the recruiters asked if you'd ever worked for them, or had any problem working against them.

"All of you said no. Don't make yourselves out to be liars.

"You can draw half of your outstanding pay at any time from Jasmine King, who manages our finances. The rest will go into the offworld escrow accounts you specified, on an E-weekly basis.

"There's a bonus if we accomplish the mission; a nasty taste in the mouth and whatever you've managed to get paid if we screw up or if the contract is canceled.

"It's a very standard deal, and all of you've signed it before we took you on. Don't try to be a barracks lawyer and change things. We will not love you for trying it� and you won't succeed. We have better lawyers than you do, nanner, nanner.

"You'll be free, offshift, to go off the grounds into the city or anywhere else�in pairs or more only. Some of that's to keep you safe�some people tried to take out two of us last night. For your hot skinny, all three of them are dead now.

"But the other reason I don't want you wandering around on your own is obvious."

"You really don't trust us," a bearded man called. "Do you, Chas?"

Goodnight grinned. "Glad to have you with us, Erm. It's been a while. And you're right. I don't trust any of you, like I said before.

"Now, get to work keeping us alive� and we'll do the same for you."

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SEVENTEEN � ^ � Fra Diavolo, contrary to M'chel's expectations, wasn't a lecher at all.

Diavolo�no one ever claimed they knew his real name�was gaunt, medium height, austere and ravaged like a Greco Christus. Most solemn, he showed Riss around his vast estate, just outside the city of Tuletia.

He explained that he'd been a writer for more than fifty years, but it wasn't until twenty years ago that he'd discovered the "way to my people's hearts"�passionate exposes of social evils, mixed with more than enough sex and violence to keep the reader nailed to his screen.

"Then one day," he said, "I realized I had no more interest in fiction, at least not as long as my people were burdened with injustice and the evils the rich do with never a thought."

Now, he wrote shorter pieces that were lapped up by the holos as he railed against injustice.

"Particularly poor Sufyerd, a man doomed to die for his religion who's a judas goat for the real culprits."

"Culprits?" Riss asked. "Plural?"

"Of course," Fra Diavolo said. "One man� or woman� couldn't manage to steal a copy of those plans, and convey it to the Torguth without backup. He or she must have accomplices, and I'm determined to winkle them out, and then, once they've confessed, to not only free poor Sufyerd, but assist him in restoring his reputation and winning monetary satisfaction as well.

"I only wish," he said, losing a bit of his Jovian dignity, "I had a specific plan to accomplish that.

"That is why I was delighted to hear Reynard was bringing in outside experts, although I expected a much larger team."

"We bring in support when we need it," Riss said. "There's no point in wasting the client's money with a bunch of straphangers."

Diavolo nodded understanding. "Do you have any plans?"

Riss smiled. "We certainly wouldn't be broadcasting them to anyone, even someone who's Sufyerd's ally."

Diavolo nodded. "You're right. For obviously you've realized almost everyone involved, including probably myself, has, ultimately, his own agenda in this matter."

Riss made a noncommittal noise.

"So let me try again. How may I assist you?"

"You, personally?"

"Yes� and, as I'm sure you're aware, there are a fair number of people who've decided to devote their time to helping me."

He took her to a window and pointed out. Riss saw a collection of cottages, in military line. Outside them were a hundred or more people in dark brown uniforms, drilling.

"My organization doesn't have a name. We don't need one, for I doubt if we'll ever have a parade or a medal ceremony. You're looking at some of my people out there, the ones who have been able to join me full-time. Poor people I've been able to help who want to repay me in the only way they can; middle class who see there must be changes in Dampierian society; even a scattering of those rich who have a bit of prescience."

"Right now," Riss said, "I don't think we're in need of marching soldiers."

"There are many more like them who serve anonymously, when and how they can."

"Very well," Riss decided. "Do you have any sources on Torguth? Specifically, within their intelligence apparat?"

"I have two," Fra Diavolo said. "Both of them are purely mercenary, and, I suspect, double or even triple agents. And their services are expensive."

"Either I or someone else in Star Risk would like to talk to one of them, with a single question. And we can pay very well indeed."

"Might I ask you a question?"

Riss smiled, but didn't answer, since at the moment she wasn't sure exactly what information would be wanted.

"Very well. Are you prepared to go to Torguth? Their government has become most restrictive on travel permits."

"I am," M'chel said. "Or another of my partners. And we can insert ourselves anonymously, without exposing your person."