Drifter (16 page)

Not even Wendy knew that the soft-spoken scientist had served a six-year hitch in the Imperial marines, fought on three different worlds, and been decorated twice. Nor did she know that the second decoration was the Imperial Battle Star, the empire's highest medal of valor, or what Schmidt had done to get it. A deed so horrible that it still haunted his dreams.

Wendy smiled hesitantly. "Lars Schmidt… Pik Lando. Pik… this is Lars. He heads up our geological team."

Lando winced as he got to his feet. "Welcome aboard, Lars. Thanks for coming."

Schmidt wanted to dislike the other man, wanted to find fault with him, wanted to reject him. But it was impossible to do. Long before Schmidt had heard of the Church, or embraced a life of nonviolence, the marine corps had trained him to respect honesty, strength, and courage. And like it or not, Lando looked like a man with all of those traits. No wonder Wendy liked him. Schmidt forced a smile.

"Glad to do it. I'm sorry about the beating. It looks like a rather professional job."

Lando raised an eyebrow, one of the few facial expressions that didn't hurt. A nonviolent geologist who knew a professional beating when he saw one. Interesting.

"Yeah, they knew what they were doing all right. Which brings us to the present. I've agreed to take my ship to Techno, pick up your custom-designed ecosystem, and bring it back."

Schmidt nodded his understanding. "The first part being relatively easy, the second being a good deal more difficult."

Lando smiled. "Exactly. And that's where you come in."

The ensuing conversation lasted for more than an hour. During that time, information about the planet's surface was dumped into the ship's computer, and various plans were considered and rejected before a compromise was reached.

It would require lots of luck, no small amount of courage, and considerable skill.

Schmidt had mixed feelings as he drove away in Blopar Wendeen's utility vehicle and paused to watch the liftoff. He wished Wendy were on the ground with him. The entire plan was iffy, but Schmidt's part, the part on the ground, was the worst of all. What would he do if it came to a fight? Give up, or…?

There was a roar of sound as Lando activated the main drive and pushed his ship up through the atmosphere. Within a matter of minutes the
The Tink
was little more than a speck at the far end of a long white contrail. The contrail intersected Angel's halo and made an enormous white cross. The speck disappeared.

Schmidt sat for a moment, stared at the cross, and wished that things were different. It seemed that the very thing he had run away from had tracked him down.

He started the UV's engine and headed back towards town. He would return the vehicle to Blopar Wendeen later. The thought of making conversation with Wendy's father was too much to face right now. Why hadn't he told her how he felt? That he was worried about her? That he cared about her?

Because she'd think he was being possessive, that's why, or jealous, or God knows what. Schmidt remembered the marriage proposals. Awkward blurted things that seemed to fall from his lips like stones. He winced, and drove a little faster.

Schmidt's house was half underground like all the rest, a small affair, but more than adequate for a bachelor who spent most of his time in the field.

Schmidt parked the UV out front, entered through the front door, and headed for the bedroom. The house was sparsely furnished. There was only one of everything and no provision for guests. Every available surface was littered with core samples, pieces of rock, and stacks of hard copy. Boots, packs, and other oddments of outdoor gear filled the corners.

Schmidt entered the bedroom, went straight to the closet, and brushed a pile of dirty laundry off the top of a gray duraplast trunk. He paused for a moment, grabbed a handle, and dragged the chest out into the room. Schmidt pressed his thumb against the print lock, heard a distinct click, and felt the lid move under his hand.

There was a long moment during which Lars Schmidt did nothing at all. It had been five years since he'd sealed the trunk. What would happen if it were opened? Would it be like Pandora's box? A source of pent-up evil?

Moving slowly, Schmidt lifted the lid. There were four separate bundles inside. He lifted them out one by one and placed them on the unmade bed. Carefully, almost reverently, he unwrapped each bundle.

Then, when all the objects had been laid side by side, he sat down to look at them. The bed hissed under his weight. There was a blast rifle, an assault gun, a hand blaster, and a slug thrower. All artifacts of an earlier life. A life in which he had understood and treasured such things.

Were they the very embodiment of evil? Why had he kept them? And what would he do now?

Schmidt heard no answer beyond the sound of his own breathing.

11

Lester Haas was bored and had been for some time. He was a small man, strong for his size, and as plain as an unmarked envelope. That's why it was so easy for him to sit in the middle of the arrival lounge without attracting attention. Something he'd done every day for the past three weeks.

It was fun at first, a nice change from life as a bounty hunter, living off a Mega-Metals expense account while waiting for people to happen by. But it was extremely boring. You spot someone, file a report, and sit around some more. Haas would have enough money to buy his passage out in another week or two. Maybe he'd try his hand at roid mining or join someone's army. Anything would be better than this.

Haas crossed his legs, refolded the news fax to the sports section, and scanned the immediate area. The synthi-leather-covered seats started right in front of Techno's entry point and radiated outward like ripples in a pond. About a third were occupied.

Very few of the people around Haas were waiting for incoming passengers. Most were too poor to live in anything more spacious than an hourly sleep slot, and used the lounge as a communal sitting room. They read, watched portable holo players, or munched on the wide variety of food available from the roving robo-vendors.

And others, even those with a bit more money, came to enjoy the high ceiling, the lush islands of green plants that dotted the lounge, and the slowly moving star field that could be seen through the transparent duraplast high overhead.

Bit by bit the lounge had come to serve as a social center,

much like the town squares common to recently settled rim worlds, or the gigantic shopping malls of Terra.

So there were all sorts of people in the lounge, long-time residents and newcomers alike, walking, talking, or just taking a nap.

Haas compared their faces and body types to the hundreds that had been chemically and electronically memprinted onto his cerebral cortex, found a zero correlation, and turned his attention to the sports page.

Like any large corporation, Mega-Metals had a lot of friends and a lot of enemies. Both bore watching. In the dog-eat-dog world of competition, today's friend could be tomorrow's enemy. Information could spell the difference between profit and loss.

That's why Mega-Metals paid Haas, and thousands of others, to gather information. And Techno was the perfect place to do it. The scientific habitat functioned as a sort of economic and political crossroads, a place where all sorts of sentients met, and intrigue was a way of life.

That made the place worth watching, not just by Mega-Metals, but by all the larger corporations, and the government as well.

Haas smiled to himself. He wondered what would happen if he stood on his chair and asked all the spies to raise their right hands. The ex-bounty hunter imagined a hundred hands stabbing the air all at once. Would anyone be left? Was anyone an innocent? Or were all of them watching each other?

Haas felt a chill run down his spine. Was that possible? Did Mega-Metals have someone watching him? And if so, what had they reported about his occasional drunks?

Haas looked around, suddenly paranoid, wondering if he was under surveillance. But the lounge was huge and there was no way to tell.

Then Haas saw a face, followed by another face, and heard mental alarm bells start to ring. A match! Finally! Something to break the monotony.

He was up and moving. The couple were just ahead talking to each other and consulting one of the schematics given out to arriving passengers. The map would show their destination, the services available en route, and the shortest way to get there.

Haas wished they'd throw the schematic away so he could retrieve and use it. That had happened once. He'd been after a man. No, a woman. In any case an informant had sold him a map neatly annotated by the fugitive herself and left in some bar.

But this pair showed no signs of doing anything quite that stupid. No, he'd have to follow them, and that meant leaving the vicinity of the checkpoint. What if someone else came along? Haas smiled wryly. Another spy could handle that.

The man and the woman stopped next to a slowly creeping robo-vendor, bought something to drink, and looked around. But Haas was so plain, so ordinary, that their eyes swept right past him.

The corpo noticed the tiny cut on Lando's forehead, the puffy look around his eyes, and the greenish-blue cast to his skin. A beating? And if so, did it have anything to do with the company?

Haas called for Lando's memprint and it appeared inside his head. This particular memprint was quite different from the usual beat-up holo pix and semiaccurate description.

The first thing Haas saw was a shot of a very attractive woman taking her clothes off. The same woman who stood in front of him. She dropped her top and looked into the camera with empty eyes. The corpo heard the name "Wendy Wendeen" inside his head and knew it was she.

Then a man moved into the shot. Not her present companion, but someone else, seen from behind. Haas wondered why. No camera to shoot the other angle? A VIP of some sort? He'd never know.

The man moved in, placed his hands on the woman's breasts, and said something that had been omitted from Haas's memprint.

Then all hell broke loose as the man called Pik Lando appeared at the edge of the frame, mouthed silent words, and fired a slug gun.

That was the end of the artificially implanted memory, except for orders to follow either one or both of the subjects, and report to Mega-Metals HQ open-budget priority-one.

Haas blinked. Open-budget priority-one! What the hell had this pair done? Used the executive washroom without permission? Greased the entire board of directors?

Wendeen and Lando finished their drinks, threw their cups into the nearest trash chute, and consulted their schematic.

Haas licked his lips in anticipation. He smelled a big fat bonus somewhere down the line. The couple moved and he followed. They went to their right, paused, and turned left.

Lando took Wendy's arm. "Don't look now, but we're being followed."

Wendy resisted the impulse to turn her head.

"How can you tell?"

Lando's eyes were up ahead. "Because when we change direction, he does too. Not only that, but he's closing in."

"A corpo?"

"Maybe," Lando answered uncertainly. "But why here? We could be anywhere. No, chances are that he's a snatch, looking to steal whatever he can, or a con man hoping to slip us the pitch. Let's get rid of him. Stay by my side."

There was a whole bank of see-through lift tubes up ahead. The doors hissed open and closed as hundreds of people came and went. It was a mixed crowd, tech types mostly, but well-sprinkled with military uniforms and business suits.

Lando approached the tubes, realized that they'd arrived seconds too early, and paused as if unsure of which tube to take.

He looked at the schematic, smiled stupidly, and moved towards the nearest tube. Wendy stayed right by his side. Lando timed their movement so they were the last ones aboard an already crowded lift. The door slid closed behind them.

A tech type swore and gave Lando a dirty look. The smuggler smiled vacantly and the platform moved upwards.

The floor was transparent like everything else. Lando looked down between his feet and saw their tail hurry towards the nearest up-tube. Stubborn little bastard.

Wendy nudged Lando's arm. "Aren't we supposed to be going down instead of up?"

The smuggler nodded as the platform coasted to a stop. "Yup, we'll get off here."

The door hissed open and the crowd pushed them out. Lando looked around, saw some passengers spill out of a down-tube, and headed that way. They were aboard a few seconds later.

There was another tube only inches away, and as their platform started to fall, the other flashed upwards. Lando caught a brief glimpse of their tail then he was gone. Good. The smuggler allowed himself to relax.

The platform stopped twice before a computer-generated voice said "Level Two," and they got off.

Microcircuitry embedded in the schematic's plastic weave responded to tiny transmitters concealed in the habitat's bulkheads. The Techno branch of Lando's bank glowed green, and an unending series of full-color ads slid across the bottom of the page.