An Officer’s Duty (50 page)

“…just told that the winning ticket owner has agreed to come up to this station, so that we do not need to go through the inconvenience and potential health risks of donning gravity weave suits,” the correspondent selected for this mission informed his audience. The redheaded man frowned in confusion, staring ahead of him. “
Huh.
It seems we have another checkpoint set up just ahead.”

“Stars,” one of his companions muttered, “where did they find the uniform to fit
that
overgrown ape?”

Ia almost missed a step on the treadmill when she realized the “overgrown ape” in question was her older brother. Smirking, she watched as the camerawoman, reporter, and trio
of representatives from the Alliance Lottery Commission reached the row of barriers blocking off their docking port from the rest of the station. The other news network representatives moved up behind them.

“Identification, please,” she watched Thorne order gruffly, holding out an ident scanner wand. Beside him, clad in the same plain beige coveralls as his brother, stood a dozen other, shorter natives. Including Fyfer, who had a palm scanner ready for a biometric reading. All of them wore caps with brims and sunglasses. Only her familiarity with this moment in time allowed Ia to identify each of them.

“We’ve had five shiploads of con-meioas arriving in the last twenty hours,” Fyfer told them gruffly. “All claiming to be ALC members. I’m afraid you’ll have to stand back there, off to your right, meioa.”

The head spokesmeioa for the Alliance Lottery Commission, a slender female Gatsugi, blinked her mouse-black eyes. She lifted her two right hands in a gesture of bemusement, skin mottling in shades of tan and green in visible show of her confusion. “I do not/not understand/comprehend. I am/exist as myself/Meioa Sliin Mpau Djuu/Meioa Green Waters Falling On Meadows. I cannot/cannot act/lie very well/sufficiently in person/face-to-face.”

“Please step to the right, meioa, until I have processed your companions,” Fyfer ordered, pointing to the side. “Please/Please move/step to your/the right,” he added when she hesitated, using her own species’ emphasis patterns. Gesturing compliance, she moved. He scanned the hand—some would say paw—of the Solarican next in line, measuring the male’s biometrics. “Thank you. Please step to the right, meioa, until I have processed your companions.”

The correspondent, whose name flashed across the bottom of the screen as Mark Optermitter, looked up at the nearest hovercamera. “It seems we have yet another delay on arrival. First the standard docking customs to get off our ship, and now this. I don’t…wait…Georg, get a close-up of the meioa with the palm scanner. He looks familiar.”

Just as one of the three cameras zoomed in, Fyfer also stepped to the right in the wake of the V’Dan Lottery
Commission member, forcing the hovering vidunit to sway and follow him. He smiled at the trio, closed-mouthed and polite.

“I apologize for the inconvenience, but there really have been far too many con-meioas attempting to deceive the true winner,” Fyfer stated. “Not to mention at least six false ticket winners trying to get onto the station from planet-side. Please get out your own biometric and ident scanners now.”

“
You’re
him!” Mark the reporter exclaimed. He pointed at Fyfer. “Or at least, you
look
like Meioa Quentin-Jones…”

“Which is why these gentlemeioas need to get out their scanners
now
, so we can get this over with. Because
your
antics are going to draw far too much attention,” the beige-clad young man added sternly, looking straight at the reporters.

Not just Mark and his camera operator, but the three other reporters and their crew who were now pressing forward. Except that half a dozen more beige-clad bodies stepped between them and Fyfer, who turned back to the Commission members and began submitting to their identity verification requests.

One of them, the youth Leuron, spoke up. “Please hold your questions until after the verification process is complete. Anyone who starts shouting, yelling, or otherwise making a spectacle of themselves will be removed.”

Mark challenged him. “You’re just a kid. Whose authority says you can remove us?”

Leuron ignored the question. “Anyone who violates common sense, common decency, and discretion will be denied the right to interview Meioa Quentin-Jones.”

One of the other reporters, a Solarican, tried to push past the youths in beige coveralls. An
oof
and a
thud
found her tossed to the floor face-first. The young man who had tossed her down picked her up again. He did so by using just one arm, hooking his fingers under the belt of her suit. Her tail lashed as she regained her feet, but she wisely did not challenge him a second time.

Leuron smirked and folded his arms across his chest. “We are the heaviest of heavyworlders, and we are Afaso trained,” he told the reporters. “Do not start anything, and we will not harm you. Start something…and we
will
finish it. We are the meioa’s security team. I suggest you cooperate.”

Ia shut off the treadmill and moved over to the resistance weights. Just as she settled onto the bench, the Solarican gestured to someone beyond the range of the cameras. With a
thunk thunk thunk thunk
, two assistants, both Human, rolled a giant mock-up of an oversized, ten-sided credit chit into view. The Nebula News cameras zoomed in on Fyfer, who finished shaking hands with the V’Dan presenter.

Removing his cap and his sunglasses, he glanced their way and smiled, all pleasantness and charm now that business had been handled. In fact, he unsealed his coveralls and stepped out of them, shaking off the oversized legs. What lay underneath made Ia groan and stop pulling on the levers, just so she could bury her face in her hands.

“Oh,
Brother
,” she muttered. A peek through her fingers showed the results were still the same. Tight black pants and a tight black and gold shirt showed off his heavyworlder muscles. Black knee-high boots and a gold-studded belt completed the outfit. Fyfer swept his hand through his hair, loosening the curls squashed by the cap. He even winked at the camera.

Ia rolled her eyes. She didn’t have to be precognitive to know her brother was going for Heartthrob of the Century. Millions of young females and males would be plastering their walls with pictures culled from this one newscast, and her younger brother had clearly prepared for it. Sighing heavily, she went back to pulling on the overhead levers, needing to get her workout done before the crew finished scanning and analyzing the local lightwave readings.

“Alright, meioas,
now
I’ll talk to you. Yes, I’m the real Fyfer Quentin-Jones…and this is the
only
interview you are going to get out of me,” her brother stated, voice carrying over the hiss of the hydraulics in the small cabin. Out of the corner of her eye, Ia could see him smiling closed-mouth at the cameras. “Allow me to get the most pressing questions out of the way.

“First of all, a message for anyone attempting to hack into my bank accounts: Good luck. Alliance Lottery Commission policy is to divide up the actual funds into thousands of sleeper accounts tucked away behind various different kinds of security, and all of it safely obscured by registry numbers only, no names. Second, should I die before the first ten years Alliance Standard are up, that’s it. No more money for anyone. And if I should
die
after
the next ten years, my heir has already been designated. Trust me when I say there is no way in hell
any
of you will be able to get your hands on the inheritor in question.

“Thirdly,” he continued as Ia picked up the pace, grunting with effort as the machinery hissed. Hydraulic resistance was one of the few methods of weight training that could both withstand the rigors of her strength and maintain her muscle mass. Fyfer again smiled for the cameras, charming but implacable. “I refuse, categorically and permanently, to listen to
any
requests for money. Loans, gifts, charities, threats, demands, or whatever, I will ignore it. I’ll also remind everyone that I live on Sanctuary. The local gravity is 3.21Gs Standard. I suppose you
could
try to use gravity weaves to get to me in person, but I would still turn you away.

“Fourthly, as for any attempt to kidnap me, or any of my family members, or anyone else I may even so much as remotely care about, and hold any of us ransom? It will
fail
. I have already made arrangements to make sure that anyone attempting such a thing—and everyone
they
care about—will regret it. What that
means
, I shall leave up to your imaginations. Remember,” Fyfer warned, “I now have the wealth equivalent to an entire interstellar nation at my fingertips…and like most nations, I
refuse
to bargain with kidnappers and terrorists. You have been warned.

“Fifth on the list…yes, you have a question, meioa-e?” Fyfer asked the reporter from the Solarican empire.

“Yes. If you’rrre not even going to lllisten to philllanthrrropic rrequests, what
arre
you going to do with allll that money?” the woman asked. “You can’t just hoarrrd it all to yourrrsellf.”

“Oh, I suppose I could,” the young man in black and gold drawled. Ia snorted and reconfigured the machine so she could work on her legs for a bit.

“But will you?” the Tlassian representative asked. “Or do you hhhave sssomething innn mind?”

“Well, Sanctuary
is
a new colonyworld. My hope is to…” Fyfer broke off as a scuffle formed at the barrier. Thorne was leaning to one side, then the other at the gateway of the temporary barrier. Being taller and broader than the neatly suited gentlemen trying to get close, he didn’t have to move far to
intimidate them into failing. Like Fyfer, he had taken the time to remove his beige coveralls, revealing black and silver clothes that fit almost as tightly as Fyfer’s did, though unlike Fyfer, his were made from local leathers.

Flustered at being so effectively blocked, the lead male pointed his finger at Thorne. “You had better move, young meioa, or I will have you
arrested
for interfering in government business!”

“Considering that Gateway Station is officially independent and separate from the government of Sanctuary, President Moller,” Thorne rumbled, his face coming into view as some of the hovercameras shifted his way, “that would be rather difficult. You are
outside
your jurisdiction.”

“We’ll see about that. All I have to do is contact the Stationmaster—” the president of Sanctuary began.

Thorne smiled. “This entire station has been
hired
by Meioa Quentin-Jones. Whatever my little brother wants, my little brother gets.”

And in doing so, you have just doomed the entire station to being obliterated when the civil war begins, in a petty act of revenge,
Ia thought. She smiled as she worked her lower muscles.
Pity for Moller and the Church, they’ll have had plenty of advanced warning to strip the station of everything potentially valuable and evacuate all but the most skeleton of crews just before that happens…

“
Ah
, President Moller,” Fyfer drawled. “How extraordinary to see you here.”

Thorne looked over his shoulder, nodded at his brother, and stood aside. The politician, who was also one of the chief Church Elders, stepped through the gap. Thorne immediately moved back into place, cutting off the president’s bodyguards. A flex of Thorne’s muscles made the leather of his shirt
creeeaak
audibly, even with the hovercameras several meters away. It was enough to make the guards hesitate. The open-air nature of the promenade and the presence of so many hovercameras kept them from pressing the matter, since it was obvious no one
could
do anything to Sanctuary’s president without it being broadcast all over the known galaxy.

Smiling, Moller approached Fyfer with outspread arms. Leuron stepped between them. He had not removed his
coveralls, but adopted the same arms-folded stance as Thorne, presenting another barrier between the politician and the young trillionaire.

Giving the younger man a dirty look, Moller managed to keep his smile. “There you are, Meioa! Our most important citizen—congratulations on your most fortuitous win! Naturally, I’m here to discuss with you all the wonderful contributions you can make toward making your home the most amazing colony in the known galaxy. Think of the hospitals, the universities, the construction of the Holy Cathedral and the glory of—”

“No.” The refusal, plain and flat, set Moller back on his heels. Fyfer smiled tightly. “
You
personally assured the voters that you would see that funds were channeled toward greater medical facilities and education. The money
is
there in the budget, Meioa President. Particularly if you stop shoveling extra money into the
non
essential fund for the Cathedral of Truth, and put it back into the
essential
needs of the colony, which you have consistently short-funded during your terms in office.”

“Careful, Fyfer…” Ia admonished her brother. Not that he could hear her, but she didn’t want him to overplay his hand.

“You would
deny
giving your fellow colonists the
essential
services you yourself insist are so important?” Moller countered, his voice edged with a hint of triumph for his counterargument.

“I don’t/cannot understand/comprehend,” the Gatsugi reporter interjected, curling the four fingers of her upper left hand in a touch of confusion. “Wouldn’t/Shouldn’t the taxes/collections on/regarding the lottery earnings/winnings pay for/fund such/these things/needs?”

“Yes! They indeed should. I almost completely forgot,” Moller stated, his smile not quite a smirk. “Why, the taxes on 2.3 trillion credits alone would pay—”

“For
nothing
,” Fyfer stated coldly, cutting him off again. He gave the president a tight smile. “Or have you indeed forgotten the fine print of the Sanctuarian Charter, as ratified by the Alliance? Allow me to
remind
you, Meioa President: The Alliance Lottery
funded
half of the settling of Sanctuary. In fact, thirty percent of all local ticket sales are reserved
for
Sanctuary’s personal use, given it is still within our first hundred years of settlement.”