The Merchant's War (3 page)

At eight o’clock the next morning I was sitting in the conference room of the prison, across from the Veenie Immigration and Passport Control bureaucrat. “Nice to see you again, Tarb,” he said, unsmiling.

“Always a pleasure to meet with you, Harriman,” I answered. Neither of us meant it. We’d sat opposite each other every few months, every time a prison ship came in from Earth, for four years, and we knew there was nothing nice or pleasurable to be expected.

The Polar Penal Colony wasn’t really “polar” exactly, because it was up in the Akna Montes, about where the Arctic Circle would have been if Venus had had one. Naturally it wasn’t arctic. It wasn’t even appreciably less hot than the rest of the planet, but I guess the first Agency survey ships thought it would be. Otherwise why would they claim some of the least desirable real estate on Venus? It was Earth property, precariously established before the Veenie colonists were strong enough to do anything about it, and retained out of habit, like the foreign compounds in Shanghai before the Boxer Rebellion. At the moment we were on Veenie territory, in one of the few aboveground buildings at the perimeter of the PPC itself. The Veenies had rigid roofs over valleys. The prisoners—
greks,
we called them—had caves. The whole Polar Prison Colony was right outside our window, but you couldn’t see it. Here, too, since the kiln-dried Venusian rock was easy to dig, the prison had been dug.

“I ought to tell you, Tarb,” he said smiling, but the tone was ominous, “that I’ve had some criticisms aimed at me since our last meeting. They say I’ve been too flexible. I don’t think I can be as accommodating this time.”

I responded to the ploy instantly: “Funny you should say that, Harriman, because I’ve had the same thing. The Ambassador was furious over my letting you take those two credit delinquents.” Actually the Ambassador hadn’t said a word, but then neither had Harriman’s bosses. He nodded, acknowledging the end of the first round with no decision either way and began to roll the dossiers.

Harriman was a hardball bargainer, and sneaky. So was I. We both knew the other fellow was out to gain victories, straight mano-a-mano, the only difference being that the best victories were when the other fellow never found out what he had lost. Earth had emptied its jails and dumped the worst of the scum here. Murderers, rapists, credit-card frauds, arsonists were the least of them. Or the worst, depending on your point of view. We didn’t want the occasional mugger, for instance— didn’t want the expense of feeding him, didn’t want the task of keeping him in line. Neither did the Veenies. What the Veenies wanted out of each prisoner contingent was the vilest of the traitors. Conservationists. Contract Breach felons. Antiadvertising zealots, the kinds that deface billboards and short-circuit holograms. They wanted to make them full Venusian citizens. We didn’t want to give them up. They were the kind we used to brain-burn, sometimes still do, and if they were lucky enough to get away with five or ten PPC years from some soft-hearted judge we felt they should serve them out in full. Those people
earned
their sentences! Letting them go free into the Venusian population was no punishment at all. In practice, it came down to a horse trade. Both of us gave a little, took a little; the art of the bargaining was to reluctantly “give” what you were really anxious to have the other guy take.

I plinked the display key and cursored the top six names. “Moskowicz, McCastry, Bliven, the Farnell family—I suppose you want those, but you can’t have them until they’ve served at least six months hard.”

“Three months,” he bargained. They were all down as CCs—criminal Conservationists— just the kind of misfits the Veenies welcomed into their population.

I said positively,
“Six
months, and I ought to hold out for a year. On Earth they’re the worst kind of criminals, and they need to be taught a lesson.”

He shrugged, disliking me. “What about this next prisoner, Hamid?”

“Worst of the lot,” I declared. “You can’t have him. He’s convicted of credit-card larceny, and he’s a Consie to boot.”

He tensed at the epithet but inspected the printout. “Hamid wasn’t convicted of, ah, Conservationism,” he pointed out.

“Well, no. We couldn’t get a confession.” I smiled confidentially, one law-enforcement officer to another. “We didn’t have any firsthand witnesses, either, because, as I understand it, his whole cell was picked up and liquidated some time ago, and he was never able to make contact again. Oh, and there’s some evidence ‘Hamid’ isn’t his real name— the technicians think his Social Security tattoo’s been altered.”

“You didn’t prosecute him for that,” said Harriman thoughtfully.

“Didn’t need to. Didn’t need to press the Conservationist count, either—we had him fair and square on credit-card. Now,” I said, rushing him on, “what about these three? They’re all Medicare malingerers, not a very serious offense—I could commute them right away if you want to take them in—”

If there’s one thing Veenies hate, it’s being put in a position where their “ideals” tell them one thing and their common sense something else. He flushed and stammered. Theoretically the Medicare frauds were perfect candidates for Venusian citizenship. They were also
old,
and therefore liabilities in what is still, after all, a pretty rugged frontier society. It took his mind right off Hamid, as I had wanted it to do.

Four hours later we were at the bottom of the list. I’d given him fourteen greks, six right away, the others over a matter of months. He’d refused two, and I’d held onto another twenty or so. We still hadn’t settled Hamid. He glanced at his notes. “I am instructed,” he said, “to inform you that my government is not satisfied with your compliance with the Protocol of ‘53. Under it we have the right to inspect this prison at yearly intervals.”

“Reciprocally,” I corrected him. I knew the Protocol by heart; each power had agreed, ful-somely and generously, to let the other inspect all penal, corrective or rehabilitative institutions to assure compliance with humanitarian standards. Fat chance! Their Xeng Wangbo “retraining center” was in the middle of the Equatorial Anti-Oasis, and no dip had ever been allowed near it. Of course, what we did inside the PPC was none of their business, either. Veenie law insisted that every grek get his own bunk with a minimum of twenty-four cubic feet of space. That was no punishment at all! There were plenty of sales-revering consumers back home that never saw that much space. There was no use arguing about it, though. The Veenie building inspectors had insisted we build in that much space, but as soon as the prison was finished the warden just closed off a couple of bays and doubled everybody up.

“It’s a matter of basic human standards,” he snapped. I didn’t bother to answer, only laughed at him silently—I didn’t have to mention Xeng Wangbo. “All right,” he grumped, “then what about commercials? Several parolees have testified that you’re in violation there!”

I sighed. Same old argument, every time. I said, “According to section 6-C of the Protocol a commercial is defined as ‘a persuasive offering of goods or services.’ There’s no offer, is there? I mean, the things can’t be
offered
when they’re not available, and the greks can’t ever have such things. It’s part of their punishment.” The rest of their punishment, to be sure, was that they were continually bombarded with advertising for the things they couldn’t have. But that, too, was none of his business.

The quick gleam in Harriman’s eye warned me I had fallen into a trap. “Of course,” I backtracked swiftly, “there are exceptions to the general rule, so trivial in nature that one need not even mention them—”

“Exceptions,” he said gleefully. “Yes, Tarb, there are exceptions, all right. We have affidavits from no fewer than eight parolees stating that prisoners have been driven by the commercials to write their families and friends back on Earth for some of the advertised goods! In particular, we have evidence that Coffiest, Mokie-Koke and Starrzelius brand Nick-O-Teen Chewies have been included in prisoners’ Red Cross packages for that reason …”

We were off. I abandoned all hope of catching the return flight that night, because I knew we would be haggling now well past midnight.

So we were, with much consultation of “clarificatory notes” and “position statements” and “emendations without prejudice.” I knew he wasn’t serious. He was just trying to establish a bargaining position for what he really wanted. But he argued tenaciously, until I offered to cancel all Red Cross packages completely for the greks if that would make him happy. Well, obviously he didn’t want that, so he offered a deal. He dropped the question of commercials in return for early commutation for some of his pet greks.

So I gave him slap-on-the-wrist, token ten-day sentences for Moskowicz, McCastry, Bliven, the Farnell family … and Hamid. As I had planned to all along.

Harriman was all smiles and hospitality once I’d given him what he wanted—or thought he wanted. He insisted I spend the night in his pied-à-terre in the Polar town. I slept badly, having refused his offer of a nightcap or several—I didn’t intend to take chances on spilling information I didn’t want him to have. Also, all night long I kept waking up with that panicky agoraphobic feeling you get when you’re in a place that’s
too large.
Crazy Veenies! They have to fight for every cubic foot of living space, and yet Harriman had
three whole rooms!
And in an apartment he didn’t use more than ten nights a year! So I got up early the next morning and by six
A.M.
I was standing in line at the airport check-in counter. Ahead of me was a teenage Veenie with one of those “patriotic” tee shirts that say
Hucks Go Home
on the front and
No *DV*RT*S*NG
on the back—as though “advertising” were a dirty word! I wouldn’t give him the satisfaction of looking at him, so I turned away. Behind me was a short, slim black woman who looked vaguely familiar. “Hello, Mr. Tarb,” she said, amiably enough, and it turned out she was familiar enough—a local fire inspector or something back at the port. She’d toured the Embassy a few times, checking for violations.

She turned out to be my seatmate on the flight, as well. I had automatically assumed she was a Veenie spy—all the natives who got into the Embassy for any reason at all, we knew, were likely to file reports on what they’d seen. But she was surprisingly open and friendly. Not your typical Veenie crackpot at all. She didn’t talk politics. What she talked about was a lot more interesting to me: Mitzi. She’d seen the two of us together in the Embassy and guessed we were lovers—true enough then!—and she said all the right things about Mitzi. Beautiful. Intelligent. Energetic.

What I had intended to do on the return flight was sleep, but the conversation was so congenial that I spent the whole time chatting. By the time we touched down I was babbling about all my hopes and dreams. How I had to return to Earth myself. How I wished Mitzi would rotate with me, but how determined she was to stay on. How I dreamed of a longtime relationship—maybe even marriage. A home in Greater New York, maybe out toward the Forest Preserve Acre at Milford … maybe a kid or two … It was funny. The more I said, the sadder and more thoughtful it seemed to make her.

But I was sad enough myself, because I couldn’t believe that any of that was going to happen.

But things began to brighten astonishingly when I got back to the Embassy. First I encountered Hay Lopez, coming out of the men’s room—coming out of Mitzi’s hideaway, I was pretty sure. But he didn’t say anything, just growled as we passed. The expression on his face, glum and irritated, was exactly what I might have hoped to see.

And when I flushed my way through the private door into the War Room, the look on Mitzi’s face was just as good. She was grimly punching data into her files, flustered and annoyed. Whatever had gone on those two nights I had been away, it was no idyll. “I got Hamid in,” I reported proudly, and leaned over to kiss her. No problem! No enthusiasm, either, but she did kiss me back, tepidly.

“I was sure you would, Tenny,” she sighed, and the frown lines began to dwindle; they hadn’t been aimed at me. “When can he report for duty?”

“Well, I didn’t actually talk to him, of course. But he’s got a ten-day parole. I’d say two weeks at the outside.”

She looked really pleased. She made a note to herself, then pushed back her chair and gazed into space. “Two weeks,” she said thoughtfully. “Wish we’d had him here for the Day of Planetary Mourning—he could have heard all kinds of things in that crowd. Still, there’s other stuff coming up—they’re going to have one of their elections next month, so there’ll be all sorts of political meetings—”

I put my finger on her mouth. “What’s coming up,” I said, “and that tomorrow night, is my farewell party. Would you be my date for the party?”

She gave me an actual smile. “On your big night? Of course I will.”

“And maybe take the day off tomorrow so we can do something together?”

Faint shadow of the frown lines coming back. “Well, I’m really awfully busy right now, Tenn—”

I took a chance. “But not with Hay Lopez, right?”

Frown lines deep and blazing. “No chance!” she hissed dangerously.
“Nobody
can treat me the way he wants to—thinks he owns me!”

I kept my face bland and sympathetic, but inside I was grinning the top of my head off. “So about tomorrow?”

“Well, why not? Maybe we’ll—I don’t know —go out to Russian Hills maybe. Something, anyway.” She leaned forward and pecked my cheek. “If I’m going to take tomorrow off I’ve got a heavy day today, Tenny—so clear out, will you?” But she said it fondly.

To my surprise, she was serious about making us visit the old Russian Venera rocket. I humored her. I suppose, in a way, it would have been missing something for me to leave Venus without taking a look at one of its most famous artifacts. We ducked out of the Embassy early and took an electrohack to the tram station before the streets were really crowded.

Around the major cities the Veenies have managed to grow some grass and weeds and even a few spindly things they call trees—of course, they’re specially engineered genetically, somehow or other, but they do show some green now and then. Russian Hills, though, hasn’t been changed at all. On purpose.