’Neath Quicksilver’s Moon by Jaye Michael
Chapter Fourteen ― Smuggler’s Moon

 

¿Hasta cuándo, oh simples, amarán la simpleza, Y los burladores se deleitarán en hacer burla, Y los necios aborrecerán el conocimiento?

— Proverbios 1:22

How long, O simpletons, will you love being simple-minded, and you tricksters delight in trickery, and you fools hate the truth?

— Proverbs 1:22

 

 

 … who ever heard of a place haunted by a noble deed, or of beautiful and lovely ghosts revisiting the glimpses of the moon? It is unfortunate. But the wicked passions of men’s hearts alone seem strong enough to leave pictures that persist; the good are ever too lukewarm. …. And if thought and emotion can persist in this way so long after the brain that sent them forth has crumpled into dust, how vitally important it must be to control their very birth in the heart, and guard them with the keenest possible restraint. ― John Silence

Secret Worship
Algernon H. Blackwood

 

 

Dan Nesquith, PhD, was looking at high-def recordings of the crime scene, although his camera crew was in the actual room, in case he wanted to take a closer look at those portions of the room not covered by the recordings. The first things he noticed, of course, were the classic signs of Triffid poisoning plainly visible on the first corpse, which they’d described as World Senator Joseph Chillings. The man was bright green and his face was covered in oozing boils, slightly larger than those he’d observed on Quicksilver, but he supposed that the natives had probably developed some tolerance over the years.

He turned to Tom O’Hare and Thor Andersen, who were watching the same threedee feed. “This is a classic case of protein hypersensitivity, as seen during our dreadful outbreak on Quicksilver, based only on the visible appearance of the body I see before me and the histology and autopsy reports you forwarded for my study earlier. I’m surprised, though, that the cluster of victims is so concentrated here in this one enclave. As far as I know, the genetic coding for this sort of vulnerability is distributed more or less at random in the general population, so perhaps you’re correct in assessing this as a conscious assault, rather than mere accident. Was the Senator somehow more closely tied to superconductor production, or to Quicksilver’s imports themselves, so that overexposure might figure in the ætiology of his reaction? I noticed in the recording that there were open files and threedee chips visible at the scene, many of which seemed to be labeled with Quicksilver-related names. Do you know what was contained in those files and recordings? Are they still available?”

Mr. Andersen answered. “At the time of his death, the Senator was evidently reviewing recordings of a police action in the main settlement there. I haven’t reviewed the vids myself, but I understand that several civilians were killed during the action.”

“How long ago were these recordings made?”

“Somewhere around seven months ago, I think. His staff removed them from the scene, claiming that they were classified, and I saw no reason to argue with them. I didn’t then, and neither do now believe that they had any relationship to the actual attack. Even assuming that the assault team had some relationship with Quicksilver, it would have been impossible for them to foresee the presence of these records, because his staff said that his request for them so long after the fact was extraordinary. Even if there’s some commonality there, it must have been mere coïncidence that those particular records were present during the attack.”

Dan nodded his agreement. “You’re right, of course. I don’t see any need to fiddle with these particular tapes, since it seems fairly clear that the Senator had close associations with Quicksilver, so may have, let’s say, regularly inspected incoming cargo airships, or toured the nanofiber production mills. Any of these might have been sufficient, if he were ‘sensitive’ to these proteins already. What seems more likely though, at least to me, is that he was specifically targeted by these criminals because of some imagined ‘oppression’ of the colonists, and perhaps the deliberate injection of a Quicksilver-specific substance was an imagined ‘fitting revenge’ against the authorities.” He glanced over at them again and asked, “Were the others also associated with Quicksilver?”

Tom O’Hare shrugged, indicating a lack of knowledge, but Andersen nodded, saying, “All of them. So if someone was targeting persons involved in management and decision-making about Quicksilver, they found most of the small group with direct responsibility.”

“Well, then. I think you’ve probably reached the limits of my knowledge, at least within the scope of what appears to be a very strange murder investigation. My wife, of course, and Chief Big Horse, might very well have something more salient to add when they get back from their inspection of whatever it is they went off to look for, but I can definitely identify the symptoms of the Quicksilver protein sensitivity, and hypothesize a possible mechanism of administration, but the autopsy report from a physician would probably provide a more definitive answer for legal purposes. I can’t believe any direct involvement with the colonists, though. It all seems too improbable. In the first place, private communications between our planets are scarcely possible, since every ansible communication is a ‘broadcast’ which can theoretically be received by any receiver, anywhere in the universe, if a listener takes the trouble to look for it in the general noise. It hardly seems an appropriate tool to coördinate a conspiracy, especially against authorities known to have an active ansible network. Smuggling secret notes on the freighters seems unlikely as well, although I doubt that it would be all that difficult, but the fact that sixty years or so would elapse between query and response seems impractical, to me. By the time the enquiry went out, ‘Will you join my criminal terrorist conspiracy?’ and the unlikely reply came back, ‘Yes, please. Tell me what to do,’ the conspirators would be nearing retirement age, and the actual tasks would have to be handed over to one’s heirs.” He laughed. “I can just imagine: ‘To my favorite nephew I leave my gold watch, and the task of killing important government officials who are probably all dead by now.’ ” He rolled his eyes in sarcastic dismissal of the notion. “If it were me, I’d pocket the watch and let the saboteur and assassin stuff slide.” He looked around the room again. “Well, I’m pretty much done, unless you have other things for me to do. I suppose we could tour the other rooms but I suspect that it would be a waste of time. From the reports I saw, and then the tour of this one crime scene, I reckon they’re all going to be much of a muchness. Up to you, though. Any place I can get a drink around here?”

Anderson started to say something, then both of the two other two men looked at each other with a complete lack of context or comprehension. “What?” Andersen asked.

Dan smiled and said, “It’s a joke, son. I’ve been told that my sense of humor is a bit weird, but my wife still likes me, so I’m a happy guy.” He grinned.

O’Hare objected. “But what about your theory about how they were poisoned? You said you could hypothesize, and then went off on fairytales about the difficulties of an off-planet conspiracy.”

Dan blinked owlishly. “Oh! That? Sorry, I did, didn’t I? It seemed so obvious that …. An ærosol liquid or fine dust, of course. The autopsy reports I saw didn’t reveal any hint of an injection site, and testing stomach contents is routine, and there was nothing there. Ergo, no one paid much attention to the lungs. I’m surprised about that, since lung œdema is a typical finding, but perhaps the attending pathologist was a little nervous about handling the body. And of course, I have the advantage of knowing something he evidently didn’t know, that this was probably the way it happened back on Quicksilver. It’s difficult to say, though, because the plant evolved a non-poisonous alternative state at about that time that quickly spread to most of the planet. As far as I know, my research facility is the last place on Quicksilver where you can still find specimens of the older strains.”

“What do you mean, ‘probably’?”

“Well, up until …say … half a year ago, or slightly more, the farmers routinely burned the Triffids in vast numbers to clear fields for Earth-style crops, and to keep them clear of what they regarded as weeds, and poisonous weeds to boot. Some days you could hardly breathe for what amounted to agricultural smog. So I suspected the ærosol vapors and products of coumbustion — well after the fact, of course. Hindsight is always perfect — gradually built up a sensitivity in susceptible persons, which eventually resulted in the outbreak of what looked like a contagious disease. Unfortunately, by the time I’d figured this out the triffs had given up — in an evolutionary sense — on poison and decided to ‘go along to get along’ in order to cope with human beings. I didn’t want to chance burning up all my heritage specimens to test my hypothesis, because there might still be very valuable organic compounds, like the superconducting flagellæ of the Triffid pseudo-spirochæte, buried somewhere in those antique genes.”

“Good, God, man! Do you mean to say those plants are intelligent?” Andersen was wide-eyed.

Dan seemed astonished by this naïve assumption. “Of course not, any more than peaches were ‘clever’ enough to evolve themselves into being a delicious fruit, so that human beings would plant them and take care of them. Even before discovery, evolution had been proceeding at a furious pace on Quicksilver for a very long time, and was highly efficient. On Earth, we may be able — if we’re lucky — to see glimpses of incipient evolution in a few decades, such as the antibiotic-resistant infections that sprang up eventually, in biological response to the improper — even frivolous — administration of so-called ‘prophylactic’ doses of valuable antibiotic drugs, thereby very efficiently breeding a drug-resistant biota before everyone realized what was happening and took steps to combat it. But on Quicksilver, you can literally see evolution happening right before your eyes. Minor variations of the Triffids would battle it out daily, and you could literally watch — and time with a stopwatch — competing groups of plants engaged in competition for the available resources struggling back and forth over a scrap of dirt until one group was annihilated, with the whole campaign taking place in the space of an hour or two. When we came along, we changed the balance of power to such an extent that formerly successful plants were at a disadvantage, because the very traits that had formerly been useful in their campaigns against others of their own kind — biological poisons that were terribly efficient herbicides — now marked them for special human efforts to destroy them. Pure random variation eventually evolved types of the plant that were less poisonous than the rest, and for Triffids a foot in the door is like an invitation to come on in and stay for supper. It all happened so fast that I wasn’t able to take specimens of every step along the way, but in the space of what seemed like a few days they’d gone from noxious pests to beneficial crops. Think of kudzu vines, but bearing tasty fruit, then vines with fruit and excellent long-staple fibers in the leaves just begging to be woven into cloth, and then add root rhizomes that rival carrots, potatoes, and every sort of vegetable in nutritional value, and with excellent storage qualities, and tastes to die for. We’ve developed a whole new cuisine on Quicksilver, and given up on Earth-based crops — except for export — almost entirely, and where there was an essential monoculture before, now we have variations that roughly correspond to many types of Earth vegetables and grains, including several varietal sub-species that fill the ‘environmental niche’ occupied by domestic animals on Earth, high in proteins and fats, and with a meaty, savory quality that rivals what I’m told by one recent colonist was Kobe beef on Earth. I’m sure someone in our local management has told someone here to stop shipping meat and fish products, because they no longer have any local value, except for our local equivalent of ‘foodies,’ who consume them out of nostalgia. Most of the stuff we receive along those lines is turned straight into fertilizer, and just dumped on the fields so the triffs can turn it into something better.”

“Are you sure you’re not quoting from a colony recruitment brochure?” O’Hare quipped.

“Sir? I’m a scientist!” he said indignantly. Then he smiled and added, “There’s an old story about a preacher at a ‘revival’ meeting who was trying to convince his audience to ‘come up and be saved,’ and he told them, ‘If you knew how good Heaven really was, you’d kill yourself to get there!’ ” After a long beat, he dropped the punch line, “Quicksilver’s something like that, only I’m not sure about the suicide thing. I think that may have been a bit of overselling.”

Barbara Big Horse was just a little too slow to prevent the attack entirely, but transformed instantly into wolf form and brought down the “angel” with her powerful jaws clamped firmly around her throat. Checking quickly on Jack, she saw that he was in fairly good shape, both on the subtle energetic dimension they were manifested in just now and the mundane level their physical presences seemed to inhabit by proxy — in their own case — and in reality, in Jack’s. To the eye, the two women were still sitting in meditation by telepresence, through the threedee screens, and Jack looked as though he’d fallen asleep, with the three camera operators sprawled out on the grassy slope around them, not paying any particular attention, because nothing had been happening for quite some while, and just now turning in glacial slow motion to where they’d heard Jack screaming. Evidently they’d missed the fact that he’d toppled over, because one had been staring out across the meadow towards the Teton range — almost frozen in real time, but just beginning to turn around — while the other two had evidently been talking among themselves, since nothing had been happening, so were just looking up. Where they were, Luz was already on her feet, and walking toward them.

“Are you all right, Barbara?”

“Just fine. I wish she hadn’t struck at Jack, though. I’m not feeling quite as charitable as I ought to be right now.” She growled at their “angel.”

“Jack will be fine, darling, and better than fine, you’ll see. She’s done you a favor, you know, by forging the one bond that can never be broken between you. He’s yours now, sweetheart, as you are his, and you’ll be together soon.” She leaned down and kissed her wolfish head.

There was a glint of humor in her dark eyes as she responded, “Promise?”

She smiled. “Have I ever lied?” There was an air of merry prankster in her expression, a madcap daredevil impetuosity.

“Well … not lately … that I know of, at least.” How a wolf managed to look ironically sceptical was a secret only Barbara knew.

“Then let’s get started …”

Luz knelt down beside the trapped angel — who was strangely passive, as if she too were a wolf, and had submitted, belly-up, to her captor — then gathered her into her arms as Barbara let loose of her, crooning to her in what was almost a tuneless lullaby, “¡Margarita, mi vida, recuérdame! Te amo, cariña hechicera. Eres linda, muy linda, cielita linda. Tu eres mi chunca!”

The “angel” seemed confused. She said, “¿Juanito?” but her voice was weak and uncertain.

“¡Claro que sí, tonta mia! Duerme, mi ángel de la guarda, mi alma. Sueña, sueña. Recupera, bella, mi reina, madre de mis hijos.” She kissed her eyelids, then her mouth, and then placed both hands on the “angel’s” forehead and concentrated, gathering energy from the shadow of Quicksilver around her there on Earth.

 

 

Later, how much later didn’t matter, because time ran strangely where they were, Luz picked up her angel and flew away with her, straight towards the mountains, her own new wings beating strongly, until she found an open meadow with a small stream running through it, near which she lay her burden down. “Sleep now, dear wife and lover, and arise again restored,” she said, and kissed her forehead very, very gently, with infinite tenderness, as a mother might her sleeping child, as she merged with the earth again, and slowly vanished. Then she sprang up again and wished herself back to where Jack was still unconscious while Barbara kept watch, once more in her natural form.

“Missed me?” Luz said.

“Not much,” Barbara said acerbically. “It’s about time you got back.”

“And a watched pot never boils. I was no time at all, and you know it. The camera crew is still in the process of turning to face us.”

“Well, I was worried anyway.”

“And well you should be. Now we have to account for everything, so look sharp.”

Luz studied the meadow carefully, noting plausible places of concealment, and the physical relationships of the real people present. It didn’t matter if their own screens and cameras were harmed, but she didn’t want to hurt anyone in the coming few seconds of real time. “Okay, I’ve got it. Don’t forget to act surprised.”

With no more warning, she released three distinct ‘explosions’ of pure energy, followed immediately by, “What was that? Jack? are you alright?”

Barbara cried out in faux alarm, “It’s an attack! Jack! Take cover if you can!” Neither of them could see by proxy through the cameras now, since all three camera operators had been thrown to the ground, but that was a minor inconvenience, since the ansible link still existed and she immediately called for help. “O’Hare! Andersen! We need help stat, and ambulance transport for four, I think. Make sure they have epinephrine available, because I think they used the same techniques that killed the victims whose murders we’re here investigating.”

Luz added, “Dan, you probably have the most experience, so could you have your operator ride along? Any or all of the four people present may need prophylaxis.”

Dan answered first, “Of course, sweetheart. I’d ask if you were all right except that the question would be silly.”

“It was a little startling is all, but I can’t actually see anything, so I assume that at least my own operator is a casualty, and I can’t hear any voices, so I assume they’re all unconscious. I can still turn up the gain high enough to hear four separate heartbeats, though, so everyone is still alive, but please hurry!”

“We’re on our way, sweetheart. They have a fix on your location through the communicators of Jack and the camera guys so we know exactly where you are.”

Andersen broke in. “We have medical staff on site, so we’re sending a physician along with the ambulance crews. They’ll be in good hands, and this may turn out to be a break in the case, because we have eyewitnesses who may have seen something this time.”

Barbara said, “I sure hope so! I heard three separate explosions, and saw one flash, but my high-def video went dark after the first blast, so I assume that either my camera is broken, or the lens is buried in the dirt. Could you send along another threedee crew and camera? I’d like to take a closer look at the scene, and I’ve become rather fond of Jack, so would hate to have anything happen to him that I couldn’t fix.”

Dan answered, “Not to worry, dear, The Senators and their staff have excellent rescue facilities available, and you’re only twenty miles away or so by air. I’d guess you’ll hear the helos any minute now.”

There was a pause, and then Barbara said, “You’re right. I can hear them now.”

Andersen said, “The replacement camera crew and camera will follow in a few minutes, Chief Big Horse, since our first priority has to be the safety and health of the victims. I’ll be along with the new camera crew, so I can take a look-see as well.”

“Thank you, Mr. Andersen. I believe I’ve identified the route used to gain entry to the compound, by the way, which either I or Captain Webster can show you, once Jack recovers.”

“You have no doubt of that?”

“None at all. Like Luz Nesquith, I can hear Captain Webster’s heart beating by amplifying the sounds around me, and can identify him in particular because of his location in relation to my camera pickup. My operator, at least, seems relatively unharmed, since both heartbeats seem both strong and steady, although Jack Webster’s heart seems to be devloping an arrhythmia, so I suspect incipient anaphylaxis, but we had ample experience with this during the incidents seven months ago. It may look alarming, but it’s readily handled with modern medical techniques and, as far as we know, one experience confers continuing immunity from similar reactions. Please tell the ambulance crew to treat him immediately for an anaphylactic reaction to an environmental allergen, including prompt administration of epinephrine, followed by endotracheal intubation and antihistamine therapy, such as diphenhydramine and/or corticosteroids. I’m not quite so sure of the others, since they’re further away and I can’t hear them as clearly as Luz evidently can, but can identify two faint heartbeats, so would have to concur with her assessment.”

“I’ll tell them,” he said.

Then, the first helo landed and everything became very busy, Dan’s operator was one of the first off the aircraft, and Dan took one look at the greenish tinge to Jack’s skin and shouted, “Epinephrine, stat!”

The ambulance attendants took one look at Jack’s skin and didn’t want to touch him, having never seen such a thing before, but Dan shouted again, “It’s not contagious, just an allergic reaction, but if you don’t intervene immediately to begin treatment for anaphylaxis you’re going to have real problems, now move!”

One of them opened a compartmented red EMT duffle and retrieved an epi-pen, then jabbed it into Jack’s thigh, not bothering to remove his trousers first, while another started taking his vitals, slapping a sensor patch on his chest while the first started oxygen therapy with endotracheal intubation, because Jack was wheezing very badly. By that time, the second had propped up Jack’s legs using a blanket roll from the stretcher, and a physician ran up from one of the other helos, who had landed about a two hundred feet from the scene. He quickly scanned the monitor, checking the readouts from the patch on Webster’s chest.

“Administer a diphenhydramine strip, please, then three cc’s prednisone iv. When that’s done, let’s transport.” With that, he left to look at the other victims, one of whom — Luzes camera operator — was already struggling to regain his feet, trying to protect his camera gear at the same time, shrugging off the assistance of the helo paramedics, who were trying to persuade him to sit down so they could affix a monitor patch and observe his general appearance and behavior while he wanted to capture the scene, his news instincts and adrenaline easily overriding any tendency to malinger.

Dan said, “I’d like to ride along with Captain Webster, please,” so his operator — after quickly panning the entire scene, climbed aboard the helo, which took off and headed back to the enclave about ten seconds later.“”

Shortly afterward, Thor Andersen arrived in yet another helo, closely followed off the aircraft by Tom O’Hare.

O’Hare looked around. “Hell of a mess, isn’t it?” The grass and shrubbery in the immediate vicinity was slightly scorched, outlining where the victims had been sitting or lying down, although none of those still present seemed to be burned, which meant that the total exposure to heat of the blast had been very brief, although one of the camera operator’s gear looked to be at least a partial loss, because the vid screen had shattered. He looked around, wanting Jack to be there, to tell him what had happened; then he remembered where Jack was and he swore bitterly, “Joseph, Mary, and all the saints be damned! Jack, m’boyo, where in bloody hell are you when I need you!?”

 

 

“As it turned out, Barbara showed O’Hare and Andersen where the entry into the enclave had been made — although of course she didn’t reveal quite everything about the true nature of the attack. Both the men had agreed that it seemed likely, although they’d checked in with Jack Webster first, who was currently confined to a hospital bed, because the house physician on call couldn’t figure out what had been wrong with him, and was reluctant to let loose of him until he’d figured out the puzzle. The greenish tinge to his skin was gone, of course, and there was nothing else to find, but it made a nice vacation, and Barbara had been spending all her free time at his bedside, which was less than she might have wished, because she had a full-time job on Quicksilver, as did Luz, since her series contracts didn’t sleep. She had a few episodes for all of her series ‘in the can’ for real emergencies, but they were ‘fillers’ — not directly part of the current plotline, just plausible interruptions that could be dropped in anywhere, so Luz was reluctant to use them. She preferred to keep the momentum going, because that kept the viewers coming back, and every viewer was a potential colonist, as soon as the new stardrive research panned out.

Speaking of which, she punched in the numbers for a seldom-used direct line. “Senator Ortíz? Luz Calderón here.”

“Luz, it’s good to hear from you. You’ve been doing a tremendous job for me; I receive a weekly report on your ratings, and your five shows generate more revenue than those featuring Earth Two and Libra combined. What can I do for you?”

“I have a small favor to ask, a friend of Captain Barbara Big Horse who would like to emigrate to Quicksilver when the new stardrive is available. He’d prefer to arrive while Barbara is still young.”

The Senator laughed. “He’s in luck, then. The first translight starliners are being constructed now, and should be ready for use within nine months. The scientists are projecting a realtime travel cost of thirty-four days. If he’s feeling lucky, he might even hitch a ride on the first test starship, which is now scheduled for a shakedown cruise next month. The quarters won’t be quite as nice as on the regular run, and he’ll have to share a ‘hot bunk’ with three other men in rotation, but they plan to push the limits of the drive in a very small and over-powered starship, which should arrive at Quicksilver orbit in seven days.”

“Could I ask for a ride, then, on his behalf?”

“Of course, Luz, with either option. In fact, now that I think of it, I’d like you to think about offering some sort of contest or lottery through your shows to be the first of the new colonists to arrive on Quicksilver with only a month or so of wide-awake travel time, so they can talk to their friends here on Earth during the journey, and report on conditions when they arrive. You could offer …let’s say ten … free trips for an entire family, husband, wife, and any children, together with some sort of allotment for getting started as homesteaders in moderate style.”

“That’s a wonderful idea, Sir, and could generate a huge increase in market share — and advertising revenue — if we tie the contest to intimate familiarity with the plot and characters of each show.”

He laughed again. “I like the way you think, Luz! Let’s make it an even thirty homestead opportunities, then, so you can make one announcement at the end of every show, starting a month before the first scheduled flight. If you’re right, the scheme will pay for itself the first month, and we may continue it as a regular feature, to keep up viewer ratings indefinitely.”

She smiled. “Should I have my agent contact your production company?”

This time, his laugh was uproarious. “Of course, Luz, of course! ‘No pondrás bozal al buey cuando trillare. — Thou shalt not bind the mouths of the kine that tread the corn.’ Tell him to nail us to the wall! You’re a woman after my own heart, dear. If we weren’t both married, I’d have to come courting. My lady wife rules the roost, though, so you’ll have to struggle along with that mad scientist of yours. Perhaps you could both come calling some day. It might make a nice spin on the main show. Say! I take it that there’s some romantic involvement with your Captain Barbara?”

“Yes, Sir. There is. They fell in love, I think, while Barbara was helping with a criminal case against the ‘terrorists’ who attacked the enclave in Wyoming.”

“Tch, tch. Shocking, simply shocking …. They never will be missed. Still and all, let’s put a good face on it. Could you weave their real-life love story into the plotline of your romance series? It’s the main revenue generator, because half the women in North America never miss an episode. That way, if he decides to risk the experimental trip — which won’t be at all dangerous, or so my technical people swear — you could play up the danger and perils risked by the hero in the name of true love, while Barbara pines away on Quicksilver. I see a number of shots of Barbara staring up toward the stars as her hero bravely battles cosmic rays, an unsafe experimental craft just barely held together with baling wire and bandages … I suppose we can’t have aliens …. Pity. I like Barbara’s work as a police officer in the series, though, so I know she could carry off the part, but do you think her novio, her suitor can?”

“I’ll have to talk to him, but I think he might. He’s very confident and sure of himself — that much I know for sure — and not afraid to bare his heart in front of a smallish audience, and that was in front of an array of threedee high-def cameras, so I don’t see any real obstacles. He’s a police captain, and a little rough around the edges, but the female demographic likes that sort of thing. Oh! and he’s a good-looking guy; nice jawline and a winsome, boyish smile. He’ll be perfect if he agrees.”

“Excellent! Please make it so.” He disconnected abruptly, as was his habit.

Luz shook her head, almost astonished at how easy it was, except that was the way the Senator worked; he didn’t putz around. “Barbara, you lucky girl. Not only does your boyfriend arrive in moderate style, he has a great job waiting for him even before he arrives.” She was already plotting to feature him in the action-adventure series, Quicksilver Nights, after his short run on Quicksilver Passion, and crossovers were very popular, since it maintained the illusion of a real community, for now a bit idealized.

‘Dang!’ she thought to herself. ‘I’ll have to order up at least a few posh houses for the show. If my audience is going to be walking around on “Hollywood Tours,” we’ll have to give them something to write home about.’ More work for the skilled craftspeople in the community, of course, so all to the good. Not everyone wants to be a farmer, and they already had complete digital visualizations of her supposed “home” on the show, so running off a set of blueprints and renderings for the crafts would be easy as pie.

“I don’t know what it is, but something stinks to high heaven about the attack on our people in Wyoming. That so-called investigation was conducted by a hand-picked crew of Ortíz and Bihar partisans, as I’m sure you noticed, and the phoney ‘attack’ on the investigators was just icing on a little birthday cake, a nice treat for the kiddies; but why was the same assault team who were skilled enough to wipe out every one of our group on site — without leaving a single trace behind — somehow such a crew of bunglers that they only managed one minor casualty the very next day? Did they all take stupid pills? Or is that Jack Webster roughneck the new secret identity of Superman?”

“No, Senator. You’re right. They obviously targeted our people alone, because no one from any other faction in the World Senate as much as broke a nail.”

“Then I want Jack Webster, and all his friends, dead. I’ll teach those bastards Ortíz and Bihar not to mess with us!”

“Yes, Senator. I’ll talk to our black team.”

“Don’t just talk to them, Yamaguchi. You’ll lead the team, and I expect results. Either Webster and his boss are dead within the week or you are. Am I making myself clear?”

He bowed low. “Yes, Tsukasa-san. To hear is to obey.” He backed out of the room without once either lifting his eyes from rigid contemplation of the floor or glancing behind him.

Only when the doors were slid shut between them did he allow any emotion to cross his face. Hisashi Yamaguchi was a worried man, very worried indeed.

 

 

Note: Most of the Spanish words and phrases used in this episode have ‘tooltip’ translations available, which can be accessed in most browsers by ‘hovering’ over the text with the mouse pointer, although the general sense of them is fairly clear. Try hovering over this paragraph with your mouse pointer to see it work, if it works at all.

 

Copyright © 1993, 2010, 2011 by Jeffrey M. Mahr

All rights reserved.

 

DEDICATION:

To my loving wife, Betty. She completes me.

 

 

Copyright © 2011 Levanah