Retreat And Adapt (A Galaxy Unknown) (32 page)

"You have my full confidence, Barbara. Okay, let's get to work. The
Winston
is large enough to house a dozen scout-destroyers in its hold, so we'll have the engineers start the hull conversion work while you and your team work on the lead ship tactical station modifications and the reprogramming of the Propulsion Systems and Weapons Computer Systems aboard the trailing vessel."

* * *

Arthur Stephen Strauss, Deputy-Comptroller of MedZip Electronics, pressed his hand lightly against the palm plate and waited. A second later, the computer unlocked and opened the door to his penthouse suite. As he stepped inside, the lights remained at their dimmest setting instead of illuminating as programmed.

"Lights up," Strauss said loudly as the door closed behind him. When the lights continued to remain dim, Strauss said loudly, "Computer, why are the lights so dim?"

"The lights are illuminated according to their established setting, sir," he heard through small speakers discreetly disguised in the room.

"No, they're not. I want them at normal room illumination levels. Change them now."

"Please state your password, sir."

"Password? Computer. What's wrong with you? Perform a self test."

"Please state your password, sir."

"Computer, you're malfunctioning. Perform a self test."

"Please state your password, sir."

Strauss walked to a wall switch and manually raised the light level. As he did, he realized he wasn't alone in the room. Turning quickly, he focused on the intruder. It appeared to be a man, but he couldn't be sure because the person was wearing a heavy, fully buttoned, black winter coat. The black slacks visible below the coat's bottom edge, plus black leather loafers and a dark grey homburg with a wide brim were responsible for the gender assumption. A light grey scarf concealed all but the intruder's eye. "Who are you?" Strauss asked angrily.

The man, sitting in Strauss's favorite chair in the corner of the room, chuckled. "Just an old friend."

"Really?" Strauss said, with scorn in his voice. "And how did you get in here,
old friend
?"

"It was a simple matter. I just asked your computer politely to let me enter. It was very accommodating."

"Bullshit. My computer is keyed to my voice. It wouldn't have let you or anyone else into this apartment." Strauss had been drifting slowly towards the fireplace and rested his arm on the mantle as he said, "Computer, identify the stranger in this room."

"There is no stranger in the room."

"See, the computer knows me," the unidentified man said.

In one swift move, Strauss lifted the cover of a decorative box on the mantle and pulled out a small pistol. Aiming it at the visitor's face, he said, "Show me your face,
old friend,
or else."

The visitor chuckled. "Or else what?"

"I shall shoot it off."

The man chuckled again. "Go ahead."

"You
want
me to shoot?"

"No, I want you to try. You see, I removed the power cartridge from your little popgun earlier."

Strauss looked down at the gun in his hand and then at the unidentified visitor before squeezing the trigger. Nothing happened. In disgust, Strauss threw the pistol into the fireplace.

The visitor chuckled again. "You think I wouldn't have searched this place while I was waiting for you to arrive?"

Strauss's eyes flicked momentarily to his bedroom door.

"It's not there," the stranger said.

"What's not there?"

"The pistol in the nightstand drawer— or the one behind the hidden panel in the closet— whichever you were thinking about."

Strauss exhaled noisily through his nose. It wasn't quite a snort, but his exasperation was obvious.

The stranger raised his hand slightly, until then hidden by a fold in his coat. The hand was holding Strauss's nightstand pistol.

"That won't work for you," Strauss said. "It's keyed to my body."

"Really," the visitor said. Aiming the pistol at a small statuette on a shelf of a bookcase, he pulled the trigger. A beam shot out and melted a hole through the figurine. "It
seems
to be working."

The sneering look on Strauss's face had disappeared in a heartbeat and then turned to one of fear. He knew now that the intruder was armed. "That's impossible," he said, his voice not much more than a hoarse whisper.

"And yet it happened," the outsider said.

"How did you do that?"

"You saw. I simply aimed and pulled the trigger."

"The pistol was custom made especially for me. It couldn't be altered. The pistol grips are keyed to my body chemistry. "

"They just don't make things like they used to, I guess." Aiming the pistol at Strauss, the intruder said, "I can do it again if you'd like another demonstration."

"Who are you, dammit?" Strauss shouted.

"All in good time, Arthur."

"Computer, call my bodyguards," Strauss suddenly shouted in an effort to get the words out before the stranger could stop him.

The unknown visitor chuckled as the computer said, "Please state your password, sir."

"It's no use," the intruder said, "You can't summon your gorillas tonight. But they'll be in the building lobby waiting for you in the morning. When you don't show on time, they'll start trying to reach you and eventually come up here looking for you. When they're unable to contact you, they'll attempt to break in. It will take quite a bit to get in here, though. You've seen to that."

"How are you doing this?" Strauss screamed at the visitor. The room was so well soundproofed that his voice would never carry beyond the walls or the floor.

"Feeling a bit disconnected from your usual life-and-death power over almost everyone else on the planet?"

"What do you want? Is it money you're after?" With desperation clearly evident in his voice he said, "I have money."

The stranger chuckled and asked, "How much are you offering?"

"What am I buying?"

"Your life, perhaps."

"Perhaps?"

"I haven't heard an amount yet. What's your life worth to you, Arthur?"

"What's it worth to you?"

"How about— a trillion credits?"

"A trillion? You're mad."

The stranger chuckled. "The look on your face is priceless. It's been worth all the effort it took to set this up."

"Look, I can swing a million."

"A million? From the chairman of the Raider Lower Council?"

"Raider Lower Council? What's that? I'm just the Deputy-Comptroller of MedZip Electronics."

The visitor chuckled again. "Who do you think you're dealing with?"

"I don't know who I'm dealing with, but I have nothing to do with the Raiders."

"Have it your way, Arthur." As he aimed the pistol at Strauss's chest, the intruder said, "Any last words for posterity?"

"Wait a minute. Hold on. I can make it more."

"How much more?"

"Ten million. It's the best I can do."

"You probably steal that much every month from the Raider coffers."

"I tell you I have nothing to do with the Raiders. The ten million is my entire stock portfolio. It's all I've got. It's yours. Just let me live. Please."

"And how long would I live if I did? A day? Two days?"

"I don't even know who you are."

"True," the stranger said, reaching for the scarf that concealed his face. "But you should know who your executioner is."

"No wait." Strauss said. "I don't want to know. This way you won't have to kill me. I can get you the ten million and I'll never know who you are, so I can't seek revenge."

"Arthur, Arthur, Arthur. You must think me a fool. If I left without killing you, you'd have a dozen people waiting for me at a later rendezvous where you would ostensibly hand over the money."

"No, I swear. It will be just between you and me."

Well, I couldn't make a deal like that without you knowing who you were dealing with."

The intruder reached up and pulled down the scarf, revealing his features. Strauss's jaw nearly hit the floor.

"I don’t understand," Strauss said. "You look like me."

"Wrong. I am you."

"What?"

"This has been almost as much fun as when I faced Christa Carver."

"Carver?"

"Yes, don't you remember? You threatened to kill me for doing that."

"Ravenau? But you're dead."

"Not quite. The body you found was an earlier experiment that used the same DNA Manipulation formula I later used. Of course, the process had been perfected by the time I used it on myself. I saved the body on a whim, and it came in handy when I had to disappear before you had me killed."

"I— I— wasn't going to have you killed. I decided that you could be useful."

"Nice try, but we both know better."

"No— No— I mean it. If I wanted you dead, I would have done it right after you turned over the formulas. I wasn't going to kill you."

"Oh, right. You were going to wipe my mind and ship me off to one of the
resorts
."

"No, I wasn't. I believed you were still important to us. You had brought us formulas worth hundreds of trillions of credits. I was going to find a new project for you."

"Nice try, but I don't believe you," Foster said.

"What did you hope to accomplish by making yourself look like me? Once I'm dead, all my IDs will be canceled and you'll never even get inside the building again."

"That's only if they
know
you're dead."

"So that's why you took my identity. You think you can just step into my spot? It won't work Ravenau."

"No? Why not?"

"You've been gone too long. You're out of the loop. You can't just step into my shoes without everyone with whom you'll have contact knowing something is wrong. You'll be discovered the first day. You should take the money I've offered you."

Foster pulled the trigger on the pistol and swept it across the area where Strauss's heart would be, if he had one. The pulse only lasted a second. Strauss clutched his chest and looked at Foster as if he couldn't believe Foster had fired. Or perhaps he simply couldn't believe he was going to die in a few seconds because his heart had stopped functioning. He fell to his knees first, and then fell flat on his face. The laser had cauterized the wound as it destroyed the heart, so there was no blood.

"Don't worry about me, Arthur. I'm a quick study. I'll pick up what I need to know and fake the rest."

Now that the deed was done, it was time to relax a little before cleaning up. Foster, who would now be known as Arthur Stephen Strauss, stepped over the corpse, walked to the wine closet, and selected a favorite vintage from among an impressive selection of chilled bottles. As he took a seat in the living room, he said, "Computer, cancel routine FOSTER637981." When the computer responded that the routine was canceled, he had the computer dim the lights in the room and open the draperies. As he enjoyed the spectacle of the city lights through the floor-to-ceiling glass windows, he sipped at his wine.

After draining the last drop of wine from the glass, the new Arthur Strauss walked to where the old Arthur Strauss was still lying and picked up the body to carry it to the bathroom. He was glad he had the strength of this new body because as Ravenau he never could have lifted Strauss.

Strauss dumped the body into the bathtub and was about to begin filling the tub with water but then remembered he hadn't gone through Strauss's pockets. He carefully removed the clothes from the body, then let the tub fill as he carried the personal items he'd found into the bedroom.

Five minutes later he returned to the bathroom and turned off the water. He took a step back from the tub and tossed in a small water-soluble packet. Turning, he exited the room and closed the door. In the morning, there would be little left of the corpse.

~ November 30
^th
, 2287 ~

"Welcome to the new home of Space Command's Supreme Headquarters," Admiral Holt said to Jenetta as she stepped out of the shuttle and walked down the ramp. Her jumakas were at her sides as always when outside the palace or the R2HQ Admiralty Board Hall, or when in the fighter reserved for her personal use.

"Thank you, Brian." Looking around, she added, "There's not much to see."

"Not above ground— yet. Like the island where the Quesann Space Command base is built, this island has a core of incredibly dense rock. We've sunk shafts to a hundred meters and constructed a complete underground complex capable of protecting five thousand military and civilian personnel for three months in the event of an attack on the above-ground complex."

"That's barely enough for SHQ. What about the GA Senate?"

"We've sunk shafts for their own underground secure complex, but we're still in the process of excavating the areas below ground. Once the excavation is complete, the entire complex will be protected with pre-stressed plasticrete wall panels. I estimate two months before we'll be ready to begin construction of the above-ground complex there. Shall we tour the SHQ below-ground complex?"

"Let's go."

A couple of hours later as the two admirals rode the lift to the surface, Jenetta said, "You're doing an excellent job, Brian. I'm so grateful that you chose to join us here. With you in charge of this project, I haven't had to worry that it wasn't being managed properly."

"I'm doing my best. And I've been loving every minute of it. If I can lift part of the burden from your shoulders, I'm happy to do it."

"I
do
appreciate it. This region has known almost nothing except war since the day I first entered it. We've barely had time to breathe between new enemies seeking to kick us out. Sometimes it seems like they're lined up somewhere just waiting for their chance to take us down."

"I think you've pared that waiting list down to near zero."

"I wish that were true. I learned a few days ago that the Uthlaro are building a new fleet to take us on again."

"No! Where? Did one of our patrols find them?"

"We owe it to some good intelligence work on the part of SCI. The new shipyard is a hundred parsecs outside our Region Three border."