Chapter 7 — QYV

Time passed. In due course we sought and got another inclement assignment: the elimination of the pirates of the Juclip. My sister Spirit, my S-l Adjutant, had been keeping her eye out for this opportunity, and Mondy had advised her when it was coming; when it arrived, we pounced.

The pirates had been getting bolder. It seemed the flow of illicit refugees from the Hispanic planet-moons had ebbed, and the ships that normally preyed on them had had to turn to other areas in order to sustain themselves. I state this dispassionately, but, of course, that is illusion; Hispanic refugees are very much my people. But I had been powerless, hitherto, to strike back at the pirates; I had to remain in military channels or lose my position. Now, however, the pirates had taken to raiding pleasure craft, including some wealthy yachts; a prominent debutante had been kidnapped, raped, and ransomed. That finally got the attention of the Jupiter governments. The authorities had chosen to ignore the increasing raids on agricultural bubbles, and, of course, refused to acknowledge the brutal decimation of refugees. "Hell, they're doing us a favor!" one high government official was reported to have remarked about that aspect of pirate activity. I smoldered; there were bigots in high places, and I hated them in much the way I hated the pirates, for they were almost equally responsible for the murder of refugees such as my father. But the rich girl had been beautiful and purest Saxon and well connected, her family vested with enormous wealth; she made excellent news copy, and her family was a major contributor to the party in power in North Jupiter. So the word went out: Do something about the local pirates. Teach them a lesson. And we were ready. We had spent three years preparing our battalion.

I had four hundred Hispanics in my unit. When I announced our intentions to go out after the pirates, they raised a cheer that shook the ship. Most of them had had at least peripheral experience with the pirates; many of them had scores to settle as savage as mine. It was for this I had forged my fighting force, and for this these Hispanics had flocked to my banner. But the non-Hispanics were, for different reasons, as eager for action. They wanted the glory and promotion attendant on success, and many of them sincerely believed that piracy was evil.

Lieutenant Commander Phist, our S-4 Logistics officer, now had the authority to requisition the best equipment, thanks to this pressing mission, and he knew exactly what that was. Logistics can be the lifeblood of a mission, and now it showed.

As a commander I was entitled to a cruiser, but there was considerable leeway in the definition of that designation. The Copperhead was a reconditioned ship, originally commissioned in the year 2600—by a nice coincidence, the year I was born—and renovated in 2625. There was a general prejudice against reconditioned ships, as though they were damaged goods, but that was foolish. The fact was that an old ship was a proven ship, and renovation in no way damaged its reliability or performance. Phist assured me of this, and I soon saw that he was speaking from extremely solid information. The Copperhead had been assigned to me, a Hispanic officer, because as an old ship she was considered to be inferior, but she was in fact an excellent fighting vessel. We had then had to go through the inconvenience of the renovation, which had forced our unit to occupy other ships on a temporary basis, no fun; that was part of the covert harassment the Navy dealt to our ilk.

Under Phist's supervision, she became a better ship. She was rated at 3.2 gee acceleration for twenty-four hours, which was plenty of power for a ship of her class, but Phist requisitioned seemingly minor modifications that increased her actual performance to 3.7 gee. That's more significant than it might seem; it meant she could outrun most other cruisers, and in a battle situation that was important. She mounted nine eight-inch guns and twelve five-inch laser cannon, as was standard, but it turned out there was a difference in guns, too. Phist got them replaced by more accurate, higher-muzzle-velocity guns; these required better-trained crews, but we were quite ready to provide them. Now we could outshoot most cruisers, too. I was quick enough to appreciate the advantage; I had not before realized that it was possible to change the specs on things like acceleration and big guns. I was learning. Phist might well have saved the ship and all our lives from some future destruction, and he had done it through only quiet paperwork.

We also acquired three escort ships, each only half our length and one-sixth our mass of 17,000 tons, and two destroyers, smaller yet but faster. Spirit finagled that, finding authorization in an obscure naval directive about battle theaters. We were going out to do battle with pirates, and the Juclip was our theater, so we qualified. Phist made certain they were good vessels—he knew more about military specifications than I had dreamed there was to be known—and he conspired with Emerald to get sophisticated torpedoes for the destroyers. Mondy's information was that most of the pirates had devices to foil the guidance systems of standard Navy torpedoes; these were proof against that. And, of course, we had half a dozen tugs.

I should mention the song the group gave Lieutenant Commander Phist, as it certainly fitted him: "Old King Cole." In the song, King Cole calls for all manner of personnel, who have all manner of equipment, but generally settle for beer. It was funny, but "King Cole" Phist was also able to requisition the finest quality beer for the "fighting infantry."

As fleets went, what we had was minor, but it was enough to do the job. If I failed, I would be through, perhaps dead, for those pirates were no gentle creatures. But if I succeeded, I would rate another promotion—and I needed that, for this time it would be to Captain, O6, and mean command of a larger force, with attendant upgrading of many of my personnel. I wanted that power to pursue my personal mission properly: extirpation of all piracy in the Solar System.

We moved out. We had been drilling for this for some time, with our pugil stick and space-raider training; we were ready. We knew there was danger and that there would be bloodshed; this would be our blooding as a true fighting unit.

Mondy had done his homework, cooperating with Repro; he had the current information on the location of every private vessel known to the Jupiter Navy. That was only a fraction of the total, of course, but a large fraction. Many of the others would be part-time pirates, or pirates of opportunity: legitimate vessels preying on what they could get away with, whatever happened to be in their paths. My older sister Faith had been taken by such a ship, a merchanter whose men were simply on the prowl for sex. Merchant ships don't handle sex the way the Navy does, forthrightly, and so they have problems with it. The refugee-bubbles were considered fair game for sex by any males in the vicinity.

Faith—I had not thought about her much. Spirit was really my closest sibling, the one I cared about. Faith, my senior by three years, had always been somewhat aloof, too mature and too pretty, and her humiliation too savage. It was as if she had died, in my mind; psychologically I could no more bring her back than I could my parents. I believed she was alive but did not act on it. I can't justify this attitude, for surely I loved my big sister; I merely say that is the way it was. I hoped she was well, somewhere out of space; perhaps she had managed to marry a merchant captain and settle on Jupiter before her beauty faded.

Our strategy was simple: We plotted a route to intercept the nearest pirate vessel on our chart, and proceeded at gee. We could accelerate at more than triple that, of course, but sustained multiple-gee is uncomfortable and wasteful of CT fuel; we saved that for direct pursuit when the time came.

Perhaps I should qualify that. Theoretically it is just as efficient to reach a given velocity at two-gee acceleration as at one gee, if the drive is geared for it. There is, after all, no significant friction in space. At the velocities normally used for travel between moons or planets, loss of efficiency owing to relativistic factors is too small to be noted. So we could accelerate for half a day at two gee, instead of for one day at one gee, and use the same fuel. But what would be the point? We would not arrive soon enough to justify the awful burden of sustained double weight, since acceleration is only part of the trip, with inertial drifting being the major part. Only if it was urgent to travel faster would we use more than one gee. If we sustained high-gee to cut our total travel time, that would use more fuel, which we might need later.

Actually, distances within the Juclip are such that a few hours of gee suffice for any travel needed, and our plotted route to the nearest pirate ships cut that down in some cases to mere minutes. We had no problem there. Accordingly I am skipping most reference to periods of acceleration and free-fall. We spun ship while coasting, so we had gee at hull diameter most of the time, keeping our men in shape. We also continued exercises and drills; it was our intent to capture ships whenever feasible, not depending on the pirates' choice of surrender or flight. We did not want to depend on the pirates for anything.

We also worked hard to enhance the spirit of unity. Every day, sometimes every shift, we sang our songs, and when we were singing there were no ranks, either enlisted or officer; we were all worthwhile people in our own rights. Elsewhere in the Navy this singing was ridiculed, but now there were more petitions to transfer in than we could accommodate, and very few transferred out. I can't say the songs were responsible, but I am sure they helped. We had the feeling of togetherness, of family.

It had taken some time for the group to complete the selection of songs, but in most cases they were apt, and a person could indeed be judged by his song. Emerald, the strategist, had "The Rising of the Moon," a ballad of organization and battle; Mondy, locked in his prison of the soul, had "Peat Bog Soldiers," deriving from inmates of a concentration camp in an ancient war; Sergeant Smith had "Stout Hearted Men," since he was deeply involved in the often-difficult training exercises. My secretary, Sergeant Moreno, whom I always think of as Juana, had "Early One Morning," a song of a maiden mourning the lover who has deserted her; I have never been quite certain I comprehend the relevance. Perhaps I simply do not wish to. And my sister Spirit—hers was "I Know Where I'm Going," whose key line seems to be "I know who I love, but the dear knows who I'll marry." That implies that she did not marry the one she would have liked to, but I know that she never had an interest in any man other than Commander Phist, her husband. Yet the group agreed that this song fitted her, and she agreed. It continues to perplex me.

We zeroed in on our first target: the Caprine Isle. The pirate ships generally retained their prepirate designations, since theoretically they were law-abiding traders; this led to anomalous nomenclature. This one was notorious for gunrunning to guerrilla groups on the Hispanic moons. The pirates had no special sympathy for revolution; they merely went for money, and it seemed weapons brought excellent money. Caprine Isle was also a prime suspect in the abduction case that had triggered this mission. We expected her to be tough, to try to fight or flee, and we expected to make an example of her. In fact, we were primed for it; I intended to give the destruct order personally. Many people are naturally squeamish about killing, and that is a thing I understand and respect, but when it came to pirates I was ready to do it. The image of my father, cut down treacherously by a pirate sword, was before me; the red of his brutally spilled blood threatened to blot out all else, as I viewed the pirate vessel on the screen. Vengeance was to be mine, and I reveled in it.

We matched velocities and course with the Caprine Isle, and set our destroyers before and after her, torpedoes ready. She could not escape; in fact, she made no attempt to flee. Perhaps she assumed this was a routine challenge, a harmless posturing to demonstrate that the Jupiter Navy still controlled this place of space. We would quickly disabuse her of that!

We radioed her, and I sent a beam to HQ at Leda, putting the complete proceedings on irretrievable record. The Navy wanted to show that it was taking firm action; I would oblige. Repro, as Public Relations officer, had suggested this aspect. Mondy endorsed it for a different reason: He wanted there to be no possible recrimination against us when we did what we expected to do, should public reaction be adverse. We were not playing with rubber knives this time.

Our operator made contact with hers, establishing the identities of both ships. Then I spoke directly to the Caprine's captain, who was indeed a goatlike man, bearded and shaggy, named Billy. Billy the Kid. Pirates tended to use professional pseudonyms, for obvious reason, and seemed to prefer the names of animals. There was a certain crude art to this, showing some humor, but probably the roots were deeper. Migrant laborers had identifying songs; probably the pirates needed similar marks of distinction in an undistinguished profession.

"Billy, we are cleaning up the Juclip," I announced. "You have one hour to consult your crew and surrender your ship and personnel to us for impoundment and trial according to Jupiter law."

"Yeah, spic?" he demanded in the screen. "What if I don't?"

"Then we shall give you final warning and blast you out of space." I hit the sound broadcast cutoff so that the cheer that rose from my eavesdropping men was not transmitted. They got an almost sexual thrill from speaking this way directly to a real, live pirate. It was the feel of vengeance. We wanted to blast that ship! But we didn't want to appear bloodthirsty.

Billy considered. He knew we had the firepower to do it. No doubt he now regretted addressing me by epithet. "What if I do?"

"My men will board you, disarm the ship, confine your personnel, and pilot the Caprine Isle to the Navy base at Leda where you will be interned and put on trial for piracy."

"But that's death!"

"For those found guilty in court," I agreed. "You will, of course, be adequately represented by counsel. For those who demonstrate extenuating circumstance there will be variable terms at hard labor."

He laughed. "You're crazy, spic! You ain't taking us in!"

I believe I speak dispassionately: He had sealed his fate with those words. It is not that I am intolerant of the colloquialisms; Emerald and I had in the time of our marriage exchanged words like spic and nig as ironic endearments. It was that this pirate evinced open contempt for us and had announced his intention not to cooperate with the law. Now the status of the Jupiter Navy was in question. Discrimination might be covertly tolerated in the Service; no non-Saxon ever made admiral. But this was public insult to a ranking Naval officer, and defiance of a legitimate Naval thrust. Jupiter was watching, literally, via my re-broadcast. Billy had talked himself and his ship into deep trouble.

"I am obliged to advise you," I said formally, "that if you have not professed surrender under the terms defined, by the expiration of this hour's grace period, and do not do so upon my re-challenge, I shall order my torpedoes launched. I strongly recommend that you reconsider. Surrender, and you will be treated fairly, now and at your trial."

"Stuff it up your drive-jet, immigrant!" he snapped. He went on to describe my supposed racial and cultural status in unkind detail, concluding with some rather imaginative sexual preferences involving mutilated animals. I listened impassively, and we rebroadcast it all. At last he shut off transmission, and we relaxed. His foul mouth had damned him in Jupiter's eyes. Even the Bleeding Heart faction would not rise to this one's defense.

Emerald glanced up at me from her seat before her own vision screen. Her eyes virtually glowed with the joy of battle. "I think we have our example, sir." She had planned for this: to make a public example of the first pirate, so that the remaining pirates would heed. She was probably correct; it was a language pirates should understand. But it was more than that. For her it was the beginning of her vindication as a strategist. She had the training, aptitude, and motivation to be the best, and now she was at last implementing her ambition. For me it was the beginning of the execution of a vow. For others—

We waited out the hour, pacing the pirate, the two destroyers keeping the Caprine Isle targeted. We were in no danger; Mondy had researched the armament of all the local pirate ships and assured us they had no cannon capable of penetrating our guard. We were a military vessel; they were civilian. This is somewhat like the distinction between a fourteen-year-old girl and a hardened gladiator in full battle dress. Only through avoidance or trickery could she hope to prevail, and it was an anemic hope. In a David and Goliath situation; the smart money is generally on Goliath.

Of course it would be trickery. Mondy had even advised me what type it would be. Emerald had planned our strategy accordingly.

We heard singing elsewhere in the ship. This was theoretically bad form in a battle alert, but song was part of us.

The hour expired. I signaled the Caprine Isle again, on the common channel, and resumed our live broadcast to Leda. "The moment of decision is at hand," I said, enunciating clearly. "We shall have your surrender within one minute, or we shall launch our torpedoes."

Billy came on. He looked nervous. "We surrender," he said. "Hold your fire!"

I glanced at Mondy, then at Emerald. Both nodded, concurring with my own diagnosis. The pirate was lying.

"Very well," I said. "We are sending a tug to pick up your officers. When they are in custody, we shall provide replacement officers to guide your ship to our base. Instruct your crew accordingly, and be ready to board the tug in five minutes."

"Yeah, sure," Billy said ungraciously.

The tug accelerated toward the Caprine Isle. Tugs were small, squat ships with enormous propulsion, capable of moving far larger vessels. They were useful for minor chores like this. This particular tug was special, however; it went unmanned, controlled by a pilot aboard the Copperhead. It also contained some rather special equipment. My staff had planned for this moment carefully.

The tug docked at the Caprine Isle. I gave them five minutes, then spoke again on the radio. "Have your officers boarded?" I inquired.

A pirate technician answered. "Yes, sir. They're all there, and the tug's sealed. You can call it in."

"I must advise you of one other thing," I said. "Aboard that tug is a general-purpose detonator. Its range is limited to the interior of the tug, but it is controlled from this ship. The detonator field is harmless to living personnel, but it will set off any explosive aboard. Have you loaded any explosives aboard the tug?"

"No, sir, of course not," the technician said. "Just our officers."

"Then you will not object if we activate the detonator."

The technician swallowed but tried to bluff through. "It's okay, sir."

"You are sure?"

"Yes, sir."

I turned to our remote-control technician. "Detonate."

He touched the button.

The pirate ship exploded. It flew apart, its air puffing out through the suddenly gaping hole in its side. Pieces of it radiated out into space to disappear in the distance. Some passed close to the Copperhead shrapnel, but our magnetic shield deflected them.

We all watched silently. Mondy had predicted they would plant a powerful bomb on the tug, in an attempt to get it adjacent to our cruiser and blow a hole in our hull. He even knew what type of bomb. We had been ready, and had turned the pirates' treachery against them. We had dealt honestly with them, and had even advised them of the detonator; had they honored their agreement to surrender, they would not have been hurt. It was all on holo-tape, transmitted live to Leda for all to see. I was sure the major news programs of Jupiter would carry suitable excerpts. We had made our demonstration.

But even so, my mouth tasted of something like ashes. There had been, according to our information, seventy-two people aboard that ship. Now all of them were dead. The responsibility was mine.

"Captain off the bridge." I heard the announcement and realized that I had indeed left the bridge. I did not feel well, but it was not a malaise of the body. I retreated to my cabin and fell into my hammock and closed my eyes, but the bursting ship remained in my mind's eye. Seventy-two living people—and I had killed them. I had thought I was prepared for this, but the reality showed me that I had deceived myself. What I had done as a refugee I had done in desperation and paid a hideous price; this time I had done it deliberately, with no threat to myself. Now I was truly a mass murderer!

I became aware of a presence. A hand was on my shoulder. I knew immediately the touch of my sister Spirit. I reached up and caught her four-fingered hand in mine, finding special solace in it. I brought it to my face and kissed it and found it wet—wet from my tears.

She came down to the hammock and embraced me, hugging my head to her bosom in the manner of a mother, and I cried into her comfort. I had not realized how vulnerable I was, or how strong she was, or how much I needed her, until this moment. She understood what I felt, for she shared my heredity, my culture, and my experience. She, too, had seen our parents die; she, too, had lost our friends to pirates. She had lost her little finger to a pirate and taken her vengeance. Spirit was my true strength; without her I had been adrift, and only the promise of her return had motivated me, and only her presence at my side truly sustained me. I loved her as no brother ever loved a sister, and she loved me. That was the love I had to have. To me, women were merely women, some more important than others; I could take them or leave them, as I had done with Juana and with Emerald. To Spirit, men were merely men, and she did with them what she found necessary. Love was not truly a part of that. Our truest love was for each other.

After a time we talked, the words sparse, the meaning deep. "I never killed before like that," I said.

"It was their bomb, their deceit," she pointed out.

"But I knew of it!"

"You suspected. And you warned them."

True. Now the justification of my act became more convincing. The pirates had set up their own demise. Like a person who strikes at another and scores on himself instead. I had known—or suspected—but I had honored the rules of the situation. I had given fair warning.

"They intended that bomb for us," she said.

They had indeed! Had we not anticipated their treachery, it would have been our blood sprayed into space.

I still felt the blood on my hands. But now I could handle it.

"Are you better now?" Spirit asked gently.

"Vital signs stable," I agreed.

"Now you hold me."

It was indeed my turn. I sat up straight and held her head to my chest and enclosed her in my arms while she cried. She felt the same pain I did. But she was stronger than I. She always had been, even as a child of twelve.

In due course we went to see the other officers of the staff, for the shock had hit all of us. It is no gentle thing, to be blooded, even though the signs may be subtle. We did not see Mondy and Emerald for two days.

We left one of our escort ships to conduct salvage operations from the largest fragment and proceeded to our next rendezvous. We had a job to do, and it had only begun.

The second pirate ship bolted the moment we hailed her. We fired one torpedo and rendered her into another derelict. Again we suffered reaction, for again we had killed, and this time we had done it directly. But our pain was not as bad as before; already we were getting hardened. So were our crews; they had played no direct part in the destruction, but they supported it, and they felt its impact. Lieutenant Commander Repro, as Morale Officer—some of us wore more than one hat, as is standard practice in the Navy—had his hands full. Oddly, his addiction seemed to fade in this period; he was better able to handle this reality than were the rest of us.

I don't want to make our following campaign seem less than it was, but repetition fatigues me, and most of it is in the official record, anyway. We were in space on the Juclip cleanup mission for almost a year, for though at first the ships were easy to catch, the pirates soon learned to take evasive measures long before we came near, and it took time to run them down. Some vacated the Juclip entirely. I will proceed to the high points.

The third ship we hailed surrendered honestly. We took her over and sent her to Leda in good order, and the event made the news; there was no question about fair treatment being rendered. Of course, the pirate officers were executed after being convicted. The fourth yielded similarly. The fifth tried to bolt; we disabled her with a suppressor torpedo and boarded her with our pugil team and took her over but did not advertise how we had done it, lest others take warning. In this manner we eliminated forty-seven pirate ships, and it was becoming so routine it was almost dull.

No pirate had a chance against us; we could blast any of them out of space, from well beyond their return-fire range. In space, of course, a missile could proceed indefinitely until captured by some planetary body, so there was technically no such thing as a limited range, but accuracy was certainly limited, and beyond certain parameters, any missile could be balked or avoided. A laser cannon generally could not penetrate the hull of a spaceship, but it could heat and detonate an explosive missile if the range was great enough to provide time to track it with precision and lock on. Our lasers were far more potent and accurate than those of any converted civilian ship, for our power source and computer specialization was greater. Our eight-inch shells were fired at twice the velocity a pirate could muster. Our big shells were also far more heavily armored than theirs, so they were in effect largely invulnerable to premature laser detonation. Our torpedoes were slower but also more massive and better armored, and they were fired from much closer in, so the effect was similar. A pirate could fire at one of our destroyers, of course, but the fact was, a single destroyer was more than a match for the average pirate vessel. Virtually laserproof and swift enough to dodge any shell large enough to damage it, a destroyer was—a thing that destroyed.

We were, as the ancient saying went, shooting fish in a barrel. Phist had seen to that, by providing us with the best equipment the Navy had to offer. With that hardware, we were supreme. I blessed the day my sister had gone out to bring him in, for I also liked the man personally. Phist was, as I mentioned before, conservative, honest, and competent; the very model of a modern Naval officer, who should have been an admiral by now if only the Navy had valued his sterling qualities.

The news of our campaign was now making the headlines of the Jupiter news services. The civilians, secure in their great atmospheric city-bubbles, loved the vicarious adventure of cops and robbers, and kept running score of our "kills" as if this were one big game. I became the hero of the hour: the token Hispanic officer making good in the free society of Jupiter. Little note was taken of the fact that I had never been granted Jupiter citizenship, so remained a Callisto national-in-exile, a mercenary fighter. In the Navy this made no difference, but the moment I left the Navy I would revert to resident alien status. I had to make good in the Navy, and so did most of my Hispanic troops; we had nowhere else to go.

So it went, as I said, for forty-seven ships; but the forty-eighth was special. It was the Purple Mountain, taken over by mutiny fifteen years back, preying on refugee-bubbles and unwary pleasure craft in the normal manner. She had no armament to speak of, and it was surprising that she had survived this long without being taken over by another pirate. "There's something odd about this one," Mondy muttered. "We'd better take it intact—and carefully."

No problem about taking it; the Purple Mountain surrendered instantly when challenged. There were no tricks or booby traps; the news had long since spread that we were alert to such things, and this tended to discourage them—as we had intended. The complication came in this case when we processed the crew. They were the usual motley bunch of cutthroats, the scum of space—except for one, the cabin boy.

He had the mark of QYV on him. He was a courier. That, of course, was why he had been spared; no pirate dared interfere with a QYV courier. It seemed this ship had sacked a refugee-bubble, discovered this lad, and undertaken to deliver him to his destination, but he had not known where to go. So they had held him, pending communication with QYV, and in the interim no other pirate had bothered this ship. QYV's protection had thus been extended to the Purple Mountain.

I interviewed the lad in a private cell with only my bodyguard Heller present. I started carefully, getting the feel of his nature. "What is your name?"

"Donald Beams, sir. Are you going to shoot me?"

He was trying to be facetious but was uncertain. He was about fifteen years old, which had been my age when I was a refugee. Now it seemed so young! "Have you murdered anyone?"

"No, sir!"

"Then you will not be shot. What does the term Kife mean to you?"

"That I can't be touched, sir."

"You are no longer among pirates. This is the Jupiter Navy. We can touch you."

"Yes, sir," he said, unconvinced that his charm of immunity should thus be voided.

"Let me explain something to you," I said. "When I was your age, I loved a girl. She was a courier, like you. I killed her and took her item."

"Sir!" It was not the boy, but Sergeant Heller.

I glanced at him inquiringly.

"Sorry, sir," he said, embarrassed. "I didn't know."

"If you loved her—" the boy said, perplexed.

"Why did I kill her?" I finished his question. "It was not because she wasn't true to me; we were getting married. It was because pirates were raiding, and I had to kill everyone in the bubble to get them before they got us. She was in the bubble. Then I took the item because it was all of her I could keep. That was thirteen years ago, and I still have it."

"But Kife—"

"Tried to take it back from me three or four times," I said. "He failed."

"I don't believe it!"

I nodded at Heller, giving the cue to speak.

Heller shook his head. "Believe it, kid. This guy ain't afraid of Kife. I was one of the three or four, and now I serve Commander Hubris."

"You got the mark of Kife on you?"

Heller shook his head. "No. I wasn't a courier, I was a killer."

Now the boy's certainty was shaken. "Whatcha going to do with me?"

"I am going to use you as a hostage against Kife. If he wants you, he will have to meet my terms."

"But Kife don't deal with nobody on nobody else's terms!"

"If he refuses, I will take your item and add it to the one I have. I think Kife will prefer to deal."

"Yes, sir." Now Donald was distinctly uneasy.

"Tell me how you were supposed to make contact with Kife."

He didn't know, but with careful questioning I learned that he did have an address in a dome on Europa to which he was not supposed to go. I smiled.

We rejoined my staff. "Treat Donald as a hostage," I told Spirit. She took charge of him, knowing I had made progress.

"Ready an escort ship," I told Sergeant Smith. "Program it for Europa."

"Sir," Heller protested. "You can't go there! It's obviously a trap!"

"What other person should I subject to such a risk?"

He gulped. "Me, sir."

"You suppose you aren't marked for death by Kife now?"

He was scared and showed it, but he stood his ground. "If I am, then at least I have saved your life, sir, and repaid my debt. You've given me three good years. If you die, I'm washed up, anyway. And so is the battalion."

Mondy arrived. "He's right, Commander. We can learn a lot, if we play this correctly. This may even be a setup: Kife's way of contacting you. Send the sergeant, with news of your hostage—and an empty jar of salve."

"Salve!" I exclaimed, seeing it. "He will think I'm—!"

"Precisely, sir. Kife wants you to contact him this time. He believes you are ready to deal. He won't harm the envoy."

QYV thought he had me in his power now—and just might find the tables turned. Mondy's sinister intellect had come through again.

Sergeant Heller went, nervous but proud. The ploy worked. Heller brought back QYV's envoy: a woman of about fifty with the aspect of a clerk. She requested a private interview.

We ran her through decontamination, nominally because we wanted no planetary diseases introduced to our fleet, but actually to assure ourselves she carried no weapons. She was clean, carrying only a purse with harmless routine items. "Unless she's better at hand-to-hand combat than she looks," Mondy said, "She poses no physical threat to you."

"Just make sure she never gets close to our hostage," I said. "That's the pretext for this meeting, and we both need that pretext."

I met with the woman in a private chamber. She was neatly dressed, heavyset, with fashionable iron-gray hair and trifocal contact lenses that gave her eyes preternatural brightness. Her name was Reba Ward, and she was nominally a Jupiter government research assistant for a minor USJ congressional committee.

I wasted no time with introductions or explanations; she knew, or thought she knew, what we were here for. "You are empowered to deal?"

"I am."

"I want information. You want your courier. We'll trade."

She smiled, as I had expected. "Try another exchange."

Uh-huh. "Be more specific."

"I will trade a product for an item."

"Try another exchange."

She squinted at me, not understanding this balk. She thought I was desperate for the drug. "We can provide an unlimited quantity—"

"Of information?"

She shrugged. "Very well. First we shall discuss courier versus information. Then we shall discuss a second trade.

I shrugged, too. "You can meet my price on the courier, at least."

Now she was really perplexed. "What information do you seek?"

"The nature of Kife."

"Seek other information."

That was really sensitive information! Of course, I had known that if Mondy couldn't run it down, it had to be exceptionally closely guarded. But it was against my nature to leave any potential threat uncomprehended, and QYV had made four savage attempts to take my key. Once I knew the nature of this enemy, I could consider how to nullify it. "That is the only information for which I will deal."

"Then ask for something tangible instead."

So I made an impossible demand, rhetorically. "Promotion to Captain, and a fleet to go after the nest of pirates in the Belt." That was the so-called Asteroid Belt, where the most flagrant piracy in the System flourished. This Juclip mission had been only a warm-up, and it was almost done.

"Done."

I was startled. "You can authorize that?"

"My employer can. Will you deliver the courier to me now, or do you prefer to wait for confirmation of your promotion and assignment? It will take two weeks to flow through channels."

I had dealt with QYV before. He had honored his prior bargain on Chiron. It had been years before he tried again for the key, and I considered that sufficient. I did not appreciate his subsequent moves against me, but there had been no actual breach of faith, so it remained possible to deal. "You may take the courier with you." Reba Ward was hard to read, but I was making progress and realized now that the courier was not important and probably carried no item. This had been merely a device to enable me to contact QYV. Reba had called my bluff on the promotion, and now I had at least to discuss the other matter. In this sense I had been outplayed.

"You know what we want," she said. "We have what you want. I presume that the matter of the courier can be publicized among your officers while the other is completely private."

It was time to end this. "The courier carries nothing, and I am not addicted. I will deal only for information, and the key will not leave my possession."

She took stock, realizing that I could not be bluffing about the drug. She had been lured here for nothing. "Then I shall provide the information."

Just like that! "You are ready to promote an addict to O6 before answering a question about Kife, and now you give the information, anyway?"

"The promotion may be considered amends for past indiscretions. The key you have is more valuable than our secrecy. The information is the price of last resort."

"That key was transported by the woman I loved," I said. "I killed forty-five pirates and twenty-two children along with my fiancée, and the key is all I have left to show for it. How can you hope to return any part of my loss to me?"

"We did not properly understand the nature of your attachment before," Reba said. "Once we did, we altered our approach."

"By trying to kill or addict me?" I asked tersely.

"I can explain that—if we are engaged in negotiation for the possession of the key."

"We are not." Yet she had excited my curiosity considerably, and I was mindful of her remark about the promotion being an apology for those thrusts of the past. I really did want to know about QYV, for QYV had really been the source of my acquaintance with Helse, my love. If QYV was now ready to deal positively rather than negatively—well, I would see.

"I am assuming that we are. I must clarify that Kife is not a person; it is an organization. Individual technicians are assigned to cases as circumstances warrant. We are chronically overextended, so some accounts lapse until it is convenient or necessary to expedite them."

An organization! That explained a lot! "You are saying that one person elects to negotiate for a lost key and another will try more violent persuasion?"

"Exactly. Your own account has been outstanding for thirteen years and has had several technicians. I assumed the account after the last effort malfunctioned."

"After they canned the fool who botched my murder?"

She smiled briefly. "Just so. And when it seemed that the addiction ploy had failed or been countered. Later it seemed that it had succeeded, but it was too late for that particular technician. I was prepared to follow up, but now it appears that the original judgment of failure was justified."

"So you, personally, had no hand in that?"

She nodded agreement, and I could tell it was true. I had already had my vengeance on the one who caused me mischief. "It will benefit me to succeed where others, have failed. I believe in positive measures and fair exchanges. I am pleased to have been able to bring you to dialogue. I believe we can deal."

This woman continued to surprise me. "You are merely a technician—a low-ranking officer—taking over an old and difficult case, and you have the power to dictate my rank and assignment merely as a way to get my attention?"

"True. I believe you have noted our power before."

"I had. But I thought you had reasonable limits."

"We don't."

"Then why don't you simply cut orders for me to be court-martialed on a trumped-up charge, condemned without appeal, executed, and the key stripped from my body?"

"We could do this," she confessed. "But negative approaches have been counterproductive in your case in the past; you have been far more savvy in your defense than anticipated. We also dislike being obvious. We prefer to work with the current. That way, failure carries less consequence."

"And if you fail now, some other technician will take your place—with some other approach?"

"I will not fail."

And she believed that. I now appreciated this woman's motive for success. I knew QYV played hard ball; any organization that kept ruthless pirates in check had to be tougher than they were. She might have great power, but her own position was on the line. Success—or extinction.

"Kife is not, then, a pirate outfit," I said.

"It is an agency of Jupiter," she said. "Bear in mind that this is privileged information."

"Agreed. But my staff must be advised. My officers know more than I do, and I depend on their expertise."

"Your sister," she said. "Commanders Mondy, Repro, Phist, and Sheller."

She had done her homework! "And Sergeant Smith, who is filling in for Operations. And Juana."

"Your de facto S-3 and your confidential secretary," she added reluctantly. "I suppose if you cannot trust your former supervisors and mistresses, you have little certainty in life."

"We checked you for physical armament. We should have checked for mental," I remarked.

"Success is facilitated by information, as it seems you are aware. I don't suppose you care to advise me how you avoided addiction after using the hallucinogen?"

"Ask some other question."

She sighed. "Very well. You may brief these personnel with appropriate cautions. But further information is yours alone."

"Spirit."

She sighed again. "We gave you back your sister. I am not certain that was not an error."

"You used her as a lure to trap me. I took her back."

"And the pirate we bribed. That was typical of our misjudgment of you. Very well; her, too, for this. No others."

"No others," I agreed. "You are very trusting of my word."

"It is possible I know you better than anyone other than your sister does."

"Oh? Show me your power."

"In a moment. Will you deal on the key?" She had me halfway hooked. She was a dowdy, middle-aged female, but she was a gladiator. I knew now I had to play her very carefully, or I would find myself committed for more than I intended.

"I will consider it. I make no other commitment."

"Here is part of my power: the empty hand is that of your father, whom you consumed."

She had scored. Of all people living, only Spirit and I knew of our necessary cannibalism for survival. Except—"You have seen the manuscript!"

She nodded. "I have it hostage, Hubris. Will you deal?"

"How could you even know of it, let alone acquire it?"

"Commander, I have traced all your contacts. The scientist to whom you sent it is dead. His family is not aware of its significance."

The scientist on the terrible hellface of Io: Mason, the one who had befriended Helse and me! The news of his demise struck me like a blow of a pugil stick. "He—how—?"

"Natural causes," she reassured me. "He was old, and time has passed since you knew him. He treasured your manuscript and kept all your secrets till the end of his life. I assure you the material is safe with us."

"As safe as your key is with me," I said. I remained shaken; I knew people did die of natural causes, but I felt this loss with a special poignancy. Mason had known Helse and me together; now another intangible link to her had been broken. This agent of QYV had touched me with her masked finger of steel.

"Precisely," she said. "Do you care to exchange?"

"No. If you went to that much trouble to fetch the manuscript, it should remain with you. It has served its purpose." For in truth I valued my single tangible token of Helse more than my own narration of my experience as a refugee, and I would not allow this cynical organization to use my own words, literally, to deprive me of that token.

"Suppose we arrange for it to be delivered to your family, after your own demise?"

Hard ball indeed! What would relatives of mine think of that history? But only my sisters survived with me, and they already understood the realities of refugee existence. QYV had no leverage there. "Good enough. I will make a similar allocation of the key."

Reba shot me a glance of wry appreciation, as if I had made a telling shot. "We need the key now."

"It has waited thirteen years. It can wait another."

"Not readily. We must recover it as soon as possible."

It seemed QYV wanted the key more than I wanted anything from QYV. "I fail to see the urgency."

"Our hireling at Chiron informed you of the manner in which we use an unbreakable code to convey private messages."

"She did. The key I possess has a magnetic pattern containing the key to an important message. But what message could be so important, after so long a delay?"

"The problem with the closed encryption technique is that the decoding pattern must be physically transmitted to the recipient before the message can be read."

"Yes. So you need my key. But—"

"That problem would be solved if a public encryption key could be used. Then no one could intercept the decryption key, in the manner you have done, and the transmission of secret material would be enormously facilitated. We have been able to function hitherto by courier; now we must reduce our dependency on that system."

"I can see why," I agreed. "You must lose a lot of messages among the pirates." And, of course, I was now cleaning out the pirates—and intercepting couriers.

"Yes. They cannot decrypt the messages, but they can deny them to us. We take stern action when we discover the culprits, but a better system is needed."

Stern action—an understatement! "But with a public encryption key, anyone could read your messages."

"No. Anyone could encrypt messages to us; only we could decrypt them."

"I don't understand how that would work."

"You don't need to. All you need to know is that over the centuries, no system of public keys has survived; all have been broken and become useless. But at last one isolated genius has developed the truly unbreakable public key. And the secret of that key—"

"Is contained in the key I carry!" I exclaimed. "This is precious! But you could go back to your genius for another copy."

"No. He spent fifteen years developing it, encrypted it, started it on its way to us—and died. He left no comprehensible notes. For the past decade our experts have labored to duplicate his feat, without success. It is truly unbreakable. Your key is it—the secret of the century."

"An unbreakable open code," I repeated. "With that, this problem would never have happened."

"Exactly. We have suffered too much already and exhausted our other avenues. We must have that code. The health of Jupiter requires it."

I shrugged. "Maybe so. But I have no abiding passion for the Colossus. I am a mercenary, denied citizenship. Jupiter turned my bubble away, costing the lives of my mother and companions—and my fiancée, who carried your key. There is an irony! I owe Jupiter my service but not my devotion. The key is mine."

"We offer citizenship," she said quickly.

"Too late. I no longer need it. When my family and I passed inside the orbit of Amalthea and met a Navy ship and our refugee-bubble was towed back out to space—that was when we needed acceptance. You cannot restore what indifferent Jupiter took from me."

"We can perhaps restore part of it," Reba said.

"Some way you have gone about it! Trying to kill me and throw the key out into space—"

"Where our instruments would have intercepted it promptly. But that was the action of my predecessor. If you will only allow me to offer you—"

"Bring me back my love, and the key is yours," I said bitterly. Oh, Helse! Oh, my love!

"We can provide you another woman you could love."

"I doubt it," I said. "I have had access to some good ones but have not loved them."

"I am aware of that. Nevertheless, I will show you another part of my power." She opened her purse and brought out a single picture and held it up to me.

I froze. "Helse!"

"Megan."

I remembered. "The girl who so resembled Helse! Mason's niece!"

"Megan resembles Helse in few respects," she said. "At a young age, she looked very similar to the way Helse did when you knew her. But Megan is older, and Saxon, and her intellect dwarfs Helse's."

I felt pain in my hand and discovered that my fist was clenched so tight that my fingers were being crushed. The person who spoke ill of Helse—!

I forced myself to relax, so as not to be prey to this tough woman. "Helse was—nice."

"Certainly she was. She was a lovely girl, despite her background. It in no way diminishes her to say that Megan is a more lovely woman than Helse ever could have been. Your love for Helse was a product of your situation. Even while it existed, you loved your sister Spirit more. You would love Megan more."

She was persuasive, not so much by her words as by her attitude. Reba Ward was totally convinced. She had researched me in depth and knew my nature, and evidently she knew this woman Megan's nature, too. And—I had been attracted to Megan, when I was with Helse, seeing her picture in the dome on savage Io. A single glimpse of heaven, there on the hell-planet! It was more than coincidence of appearance; it was that a good man had helped us both in our time of dire need, and helped our refugee-bubble, and I bore him a phenomenal debt of gratitude that his death prevented me from repaying, and Megan was of his blood, his niece. If I could love any woman other than Helse, it would be Megan, though I knew next to nothing about her.

"We can give you Megan," Reba said.

For a moment temptation almost overwhelmed me. Love—restored! It might be possible! But then I knew that this was not the way I could accept it. Not as the cynical handout of a ruthless secret organization. How would they give me this woman? By blackmailing her with some closetal skeleton in her family? I would not take her that way!

Reba saw my temptation and my rejection. "That offer remains open," she said. "Be assured that no dishonor can stain this woman; she cannot be forced. What we offer you is, in fact, the means to win her honorably." She brought out a piece of paper. "Contact me at this designation, Europa, when you change your mind."

Numbly, I took the paper. I was not at all sure I would not change my mind.

We released the courier boy to Reba Ward and transported them back to Europa. Then we chased down two more pirate vessels, bringing our total to fifty. Then my new orders came: promotion to Captain and command of the Task Force destined to eradicate piracy from the Belt.

The publicity suggested this was a merit assignment, because of my superlative record in the Juclip mission, but I knew it was the action of Reba. Once again, QYV had shown me its power.

But I still possessed the key.