’Neath Quicksilver’s Moon by Jaye Michael
Chapter Twenty ― Moonlight Sonata

 

¿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

 

 

All warfare is based on deception.

Sun Tzu
The Art of War

 

 

The new Air Marshal of the Quicksilver Defense Forces, Cyril Farquhar, slept fitfully his first night on Quicksilver. The spaces around him were too large, the world outside the open window of his room too open, filled with tiny sounds, the rustle of leaves, the low sough of the breeze across the endless fields, all these things were unfamiliar, alien, despite their sentimental ‘homeliness.’ He was a child of the city. Except in threedees, he’d never seen a field, a farm, not even a tree that wasn’t surrounded by pavement and a cage to protect it from young men with too little to do and knives in their pockets.

His dreams were strange as well, disjointed, shifting wildly back and forth between different scenes, perspectives, inchoate actions, even appearances. He woke up several times, his heart pounding, and had to turn on the light, because in his dream, he’d looked at his hands, but they weren’t his hands at all, and only when he was awake and staring at them could he convince himself that his hands were the same as ever, that he was still himself.

Barbara Big Horses’ communicator sounded a low — and relatively unobtrusive — electronic tone. She thumbed it on.

“Governor Barbara? Cyril Farquhar here. Ashton has some rather interesting news from the airship. He’s picked up an incoming picket on a hyperbolic orbit from somewhere out in this system’s accretion disc. I think we have to assume that they’re on the same mission I managed to skip away from, but I don’t think they’ve seen us, because our atomic signature will be blanketed by the out-streaming stellar wind and of course our new ansible will be unknown to them, so they can’t ‘ping’ it to find out who else is here, if the ‘Air Marshal’ has even left them with a working ansible. I’ve had Ashton duck over to the inner moon for now — to preserve the advantage of surprise — but we’ll have to come up with some sort of new plan soonish.”

“Ah, well,” she said. “ Wasn’t it Generalfeldmarschall Helmuth von Moltke who said, ‘No plan of operations extends with certainty beyond the first encounter with the enemy’s main strength’? I’d had some presentiment of danger regarding a ‘back-up plan’ on the part of the faux Air-Marshal, so I can’t say that it surprises me, exactly. What sort of timeframe are we talking about?”

He was silent for a moment, evidently working out the details. “At maximum thrust, early evening local time, about twelve hours from now.”

“Assuming we engage, how would you like him?” she asked.

Bemused by her self-assurance, he said, “On the ground, with his assault ramp down and his Marines well out. He won’t be able to abandon them then without severe repercussions, especially if his men are under fire ….” He thought for a long moment. “Which gives me an idea. How fast can your prop department whack together a mock-up picket boat? They can use a balloon or fabric model on an armature for most of it, because it won’t have to fool anyone close up, just enough to look plausible lying crashed on the ground.”

“Not long at all. We used a prop smuggler airship in an episode of Quicksilver Nights just a while back, so it shouldn’t take too much to rework it to make it look more like your own airship, especially if we smash it up a little. I’ll have it deployed right now. The shooting location was a little beyond the town, so it will probably look like it was attacked while trying to land and overshot the port.”

“Sounds good to me. How attached are you to the town?”

“They’re just buildings, they can be repaired or replaced. In warfare every strategy is a system of expedients. Every fortress represents an awkward weakness that has to be accommodated, and encourages your enemy to create ever more clever alternatives, so it’s best not to create them.”

“Then I have a new plan. I think you should have the civilian population evacuate out into the countryside — with anything they’d be loathe to leave behind — just in case, and set someone digging some slit trenches on the path from the spaceport into the town.”

“Skirmish lines?”

“Purely for harassment and delay. My plan involves the disabling or destruction of their airship, and I believe they’ll capitulate quickly in the face of overwhelming force with no possible retreat. With their own airship disabled, and the Ulysses above them, they’ll either surrender or die, and they’ll know it.”

Barbara said, “So the ‘crashed’ airship convinces them that you tried and failed to accomplish his objective, which encourages him to commit more troops to ensure a quick and decisive victory.”

“And also fools him into believing that there are no armed airships to oppose him, which will, I hope, make him careless, not to mention the ‘natural’ anger he will feel because of the supposed deaths of his fellow airmen.”

Barbara asked. “Doesn’t it bother you, Air Marshal?”

“No, Ma’am. Not really.” He shook his head. “By agreeing to attack a planetary settlement without independent verification, and presumably with the same shoddy excuses for orders that I was given, he’s committing an act of unprovoked aggression upon a civilian population in violation of the laws and customs of war. Don’t forget that I was contemplating mutiny before my crewman had the bright idea to ‘slough off’ a half-assed ‘invasion’ that was sure to fail, thereby saving both my self-respect and my command. I intend to make every effort to end the conflict quickly, so as to encourage the prompt surrender of his Marines, at least, and as many of his crew as might survive. My primary feeling in this is that the honor of the service is at stake, and sincerely hope that the villains who set this in motion will be brought to justice. To accomplish this, I have to defeat this new force in detail, since I don’t want to risk my own command unnecessarily. My only regret is that most of my own contingent of Marines is up on Castor and can’t help to defend the town or populace without giving away its position.”

“Don’t worry about that, Air Marshal. We can handle the ground action on our own,” Barbara said with surprising confidence, at least it surprised Cyril, since she’d told him that all their weapons had been destroyed when they’d first met.

“But you have no weapons! How …”

“That’s the easiest part of all, Air Marshal. When those Marines run down their assault ramp, they’ll be carrying weapons, won’t they?”

“Well, yes, of course, but …”

She interrupted him. “Well then, we’ll simply have to take them away, and then we’ll have all the weapons we’ll need.”

Group Captain Alexi Gogol, commanding UEA-Valentina Grizodubova, wasn’t happy about his assignment. In the first place, attacking a civilian settlement wasn’t what he’d signed up for, and in the second, he was suspicious of this Air Marshal Quisling, who’d somehow destroyed their ansible after ordering the attack. It hadn’t escaped him that the loss of the ansible meant the end of his mission, since he’d have no way of receiving new orders nor any method of transmitting intelligence back to Command, so he’d have no choice but to abandon his post and head back to Gruntovy. The discipline of military courtesy and obedience had set him on his inward orbit, but with grave misgivings.

As they plunged toward Quicksilver’s star, however, he saw something through the forward viewing screen which at least partially substantiated Quisling’s claim that the colony was in revolt, the wavering and highly-magnified image of what seemed to be another UEA-class picket boat lying wrecked some distance from the town. As they hurtled closer, however, clouds drifted over the town and space port, so he set his best image analyst to inspect the recordings of what he’d seen before the view was obscured. He didn’t see any sort of gun emplacement, but such things could be concealed.

He made his decision. Since he had at least some physical corroboration, he would attack the government compound Quisling had said was in rebel hands, but avoid any but collateral damage to civilian areas. It seemed almost inconceivable that the weaponry available to a local police force could bring down a airship of war, but perhaps something had been smuggled in to help with a revolt, a shoulder-fired missile, for example. He’d be forewarned in any case, and have electronic and other countermeasures ready-to-hand, so he wouldn’t worry about it. The other officer had no doubt been over-confident.

He gave the order for turnover, and the Valentina Grizodubova began its complex series of stardrive engagements to match the complex STF-tensor product corresponding to safe planetfall on the moving surface of Quicksilver deep in the gravity wells of Delta Pavonis and its own circling moons.

“What’s his ETA?” Dan asked.

Luz was sitting in meditation, but answered quickly enough. “He should be here about five minutes before airtime. Cyril has already been notified to have the Ulysses on standby. They’ll lift as soon as we give the word. At this distance, they’ll be here within twenty seconds.”

“Good, we’ll start setting up, then, and be ready to start on the mark.”

Almost as precisely as if it had been written into the shooting script, there was a tremendous explosion, and what looked like a standard World Federation UAE-Class Destroyer flew overhead, followed closely by another explosion as people started screaming on cue.

Dan looked up — completely out of character — and said, “What the Hell?”

Luz screamed, “Run! Dan! Run!” and they both ran off camera, away from the action and Luz signalled the FX crew to start processing the outgoing signal. The timing was delicate, because they were streaming, as it turned out, only a few seconds behind the real-time action, so the technical staff would need all their skills and quickness to create a seamless spectacle ….

Dan ran headlong toward the airship, which had landed, as expected, at the spaceport, opting for the safety of a durasteel-reïnforced concrete ‘pad’ over the uncertainty of choosing ground rocky enough to support the weight of the airship ….

 … while Luz followed closely on the heels of the Marines, reaching out for the power seething through the plants around her to supply ‘psychical’ snipers to draw the men’s fire while the effects crew overlaid the action with realistic ‘victims’ to conceal the fact that the men were firing at invisible foes ….

 … Until the show clock, silently counting down towards ‘curtain’ went to zero, the outro was replaced by a technical difficulties slide, and the direct feed from the cameras was to the network ansible was cut, at which point loud sirens located throughout the town sounded to let everyone know that the ‘take’ was over and Luz dropped the whole body of Marines — wherever they were marching — with a sudden psychic blow.

The airship was a more delicate problem, because the officer-in-charge and the remaining crew were well-insulated from Quicksilver’s electromagnetic field, so Dan very quickly ran in with a pair of sapping charges grabbed on the run from a waiting FX crewman stationed there long before the airship landed, slapped one on each of the two rear landing supports, then ran off while the effects crew set them off as soon as Dan had cleared the vicinity and the camera crews caught multiple angles of the event as the supports collapsed and the airship first toppled slightly, then fell over on its back with a resounding crunching crash. It was quite spectacular, and would certainly perform yeoman service in the Quicksilver Nights series.

At that point, Cyril called in the Ulysses and opened a ship-to-ship radio channel to the Valentina Grizodubova, then waited until someone answered. It took a while; he didn’t imagine they were having much fun right then. “Hello, UEA-Valentina Grizodubova,” he said. “This is Air Marshal Cyril Farquhar of Quicksilver Planetary Defense. I order you to surrender immediately or be destroyed. Your Marines have been decisively defeated, and even now the airship UEA-Ulysses is stationed overhead quite prepared to blow you to kingdom come if you don’t comply within five seconds, or if we detect any offensive movement or build-up toward stardrive activity.”

It took only two seconds before someone said, “This is Group Captain Alexi Gogol, commanding UEA-Valentina Grizodubova. I surrender my airship, Sir, and request immediate medical assistance for my crew, some of whom were severely injured when my airship capsized, and then myself. I seem to have broken my arm.”

“Of course, Group Captain. I accept your surrender in the name of the World Federation. Please prepare to be boarded.”

“My airship, my officers, my crew, and I am at your disposal, Sir.” He hesitated, then added, “Excuse me, Sir, but World Federation, Sir?”

“Of course,” he said, “Group Captain. What did you expect? If you haven’t quite figured it out yet, you’ve been duped into a treasonous attack upon a civilian population by some very clever conspirators, and you’re all under strict arrest pending the outcome of your courts-martial. It’s only through the diligent efforts of our security team that you’re not facing charges of capital murder in a time of peace.”

“Thank you, Sir. I should have paid better heed to my own misgivings.”

“I partly sympathize, Sir, since the conspirators tried the same trick with me, but we managed to escape the trap with neither loss of life nor damage to property. Hindsight is always perfect, of course, but you should have sent down a lander to investigate the situation in more detail. The deception would have been instantly clear had you bothered to gather your own intelligence.”

“As you say, Sir.” He sounded bitter, as might be expected. Few commands survived the loss of an airship.

“Cheer up, Group Captain. Provided you give your parole, you won’t be imprisoned pending trial, and even now our agents on Earth are gathering evidence to trace the conspiracy higher up the chain of command. As you know, the higher it goes, the more likely you are to be let off with a tick mark in your jacket.”

“Yes, Sir,” he replied. He didn’t sound exactly happy at all, but then it’s hard to be cheerful with a broken arm.

Jack Webster was in his tactical black assault team uniform, lurking at the top of a building opposite World Senator Irene Sarantapechaina’s home on I Street NW. Before him, was a recording ansible modified according to Dougie Macleod’s instructions and connected to the mains in the utility room below. Ansibles drew vast chunks of power in operation, so he’d had an electrician go over the set-up down below to ensure that he didn’t trip a breaker somewhere and lose his signal. His communicator vibrated. “Webster,” he said.

Churco replied, “It’s the blowoff, Jack.”

Jack switched on the ansible. “Tracing,” he said, and switched off.

He didn’t have long to wait. He’d guessed right about the location, at least. An ansible powered on across the street and was quickly answered by another, whose parameters he quickly captured and sent off to Churco with a wireless patch through his communicator.

In the meantime, he watched and listened.

Senator Sarantapechaina said, “Tsukasa-san,” as soon as the link was made.

“Yes, Irene. We have succeeded. Ortíz has been shown to be incompetent through your brilliant plan, and I’ll have a motion on the floor to replace him early tomorrow morning.”

“And I’ll second your motion, Senator, and modestly accept the chair when we convene the resulting investigation.” She smiled. “His new-found enthusiasm for shifting technology outward into the galaxy has severely limited profits here on Earth, and hurt us all.”

“Hai! Senator-san. He’s interfered with our shipment of drugs to the colonies as well, and by subsidising the transport of women to the mining colonies had badly affected our ventures there as well.”

The Senator clucked her tongue. “You really ought to try harder with ‘Sarantapechaina,’ Tsukasa-san. It’s discourteous to use my title so, as you know.”

He bowed low. “My deepest apologies, Senator. My clumsy tongue finds it difficult to manage Greek. Even your illustrious family name defeats me.”

She sniffed. “I want to meet with your associates within an hour or two to discuss my new share of their drug and sex operations in the West, then.”

“I’ll arrange it, Senator. Will our usual meeting place be adequate?”

“Of course. I just have a few things to handle here and I’ll be ready.” She switched off the ansible.

Jack was prepared with a conditional search warrant, however, and instantly executed it, since he’d just been witness to presumptive evidence of a criminal conspiracy. The chime came almost instantly, which authorized his electronic surveillance of the premises, so he tapped into the broadband lines leading into the building and started a ‘limpet’ worm to seek out local vid feeds on both ends of any connection and camp on them.

First, the Senator called Air Chief Marshal Frederick Hauptmann. “Hauptmann, We’ll need you to tidy up on your end, of course, but you’ll want to pack, in any case, to prepare for your move into your new offices as Marshal of the World Federation Air Force.”

“Thank you, World Senator Sarantapechaina, my agent at the spaceport informs me that both airships are back in space now, in different orbits around Delta Pavonis.”

“Do you have any explanation for the failure of the Ulysses?”

“None, Senator. Although the airship control interface detects no problem, perhaps something else interfered with his mission. There’s been no word at all of any contact between the Ulysses and Quicksilver authorities, so something must have gone wrong somewhere.”

“No matter. Delta Pavonis is still hot enough to allow many things to vanish into its chromosphere, so please arrange for their immediate disappearance.”

“Of course, Senator,” he said and disconnected.

Too late, of course, since Jack had his hook firmly set by then. He thumbed his communicator. “Got that, Churco?”

“I do, Jack. He’s calling the DC Metro spaceport now. We’ll have one of your friend Douglas Macleod’s tracing ansibles on him within a few minutes. Plenty of time, I think, since he’ll have to set the controls to simulate a UEA-Class Bridge before he can do anything. And all we have to catch is one set of commands to do him for both.”

“Good. I know we can’t move yet, but I have a particular hatred for people who contemplate mass murder through stealth and deception. I’d appreciate the opportunity to ride along when you take them.”

Churco laughed. “There’s a long line, Jack, but you’ll have a place well up toward the front, and we have loads of evil-doers so far. I’m sure there’ll be at least one for you alone to slap the cuffs on. Hasta luego, Compadre.” He switched off.

Jack immediately began scanning through the images available from vidcams inside the Senator’s building — and there were quite a few — until he found one which looked likely. There was a lone figure in a very small room laying down on a pallet on the floor. The only other items in the room were several plastic water bottles, all but one of which were empty. Taking a chance, he looked at both ends of the vid feed and poked around until he found a room which matched the monitor circuit, but it was empty, according to its own vid feed. He keyed the small room’s comm circuit. “Dougie?”

“It’s aboot time ye showed up, ye daft Sassenach.” He turned and saw that Doug was sporting a hell of a black eye, and various contusions besides. He was proud of his friend for putting up a fight, but at the same time angry that anyone had been cruel enough to target an old man over a little pile of dirty money.

“Sorry. I had to wait until someone said something incriminating, and you know how that goes.”

“I do. I’d appreciate a backup plan, though, as once these things start winding down, witnesses have a funny way of disappearing.”

“I have three police sharpshooters with me, armed with heavy-metal armor-piercing stardrive rounds, so we shouldn’t have much trouble handling any potential assassins until we bust in, which should be within an hour or two.”

“You have my position located on the building plans?”

Ooops! “Of course I do, Dougie. When have I ever let you down?” In the meantime, he’d called up the plans and relayed them to his sniper team, along with the location of the vid feed.

“Liar. I heard you fiddling with your communicator right then. Your voice changes when you do that.”

“Well, I meant that I was doing it. I just managed to track you down.”

“Hmmph! Ye’ve no career ahead of you as a spy, Jack. Stick to flatfooting is my advice.”

“Yeah, you’re right. Dougie. Cobblers, and sticking to, that is.”

He laughed. “Very shrewd, Jack! I might be wrong at that.”

“I had a good teacher, Dougie. Stay safe.” he replied, and rang off.

Senator Irene Sarantapechaina answered a vidcall from Senator Tamotsu Tsukasa. He was seated at a low table in an izakaya restaurant with four other men. On a threedee screen behind them, a Japanese news reader was talking with the sound turned off while an inset showed snippets of the strange footage from Quicksilver Nights, edited down to capture the ‘good parts.’ “Well, gentlemen, I think this calls for champagne all round,” she said and smiled. It was not a pretty smile.

The discussion lapsed into Japanese right after that so Jack called Churco on a second circuit and told him that he’d be ignoring most of it, other than to verify the recording he was keeping.

“Couldn’t you just let me know when we have enough to execute our warrants, Jorge?” he said plaintively. He wanted to bust a couple of heads, especially whoever it was that had roughed up Dougie, but he’d probably never get the chance.

“Jack,” he said, “you know it will be after they’ve finished the call, or their attorneys will be able to claim that their very next words were ‘April Fool!’ We’re stuck with it for the long haul. Right now they’re discussing the exact amounts our esteemed Senator Sarantapechaina will receive from the sexual exploitation of children, her cut of the sexual enslavement of women having been already settled. Evidently, children bring a better price, and she wants a larger percentage.”

“Jesus Christ! Can’t we apply to the union or something and make her turn in her Woman card? I still have these boyish fantasies of women being more innately pure than men, and then I run across women like this one.”

“Not too often, Jack. Just as most men are good, and try to live lives of kindness and compassion, even more women, I think, have the same inclination. The Senator from Greece has never had children, nor has indeed been married, which I think stunts every human from their full development, but especially women. Without the daily experience of profound love, the human soul withers and dies, Compadre. Remember that, my friend, and don’t give up your own hopes and dreams for a mere job.”

“Jorge, you’re a hopeless romantic.”

He laughed. “Señor, soy Mexicano, and every true Mexican man imagines himself a caballero, a knight of old, lacking only a sword to ride off and rescue fair maidens from giants and dragons. Don’t you want to do the same, if you listen to your heart of hearts?”

Just then, Jack saw something out of the corner of his eye, the monitor he’d set to keep an eye on the corridor outside Dougie’s prison cell now showed a man in a business suit walking towards the door. “Hang on, Jorge! We’ve got a situation.” He selected another circuit. Sniper team, look sharp! There’s a man walking toward the room Douglas Macleod’s being held in, and Macleod’s a cop, so watch out for him.

He kept watching the guy anyway, not trusting his friend’s life to strangers, and saw him reach inside his jacket and pull out a gun. He switched to the interior view and kept watch. “Be ready, guys. If he points that gun, he’s toast!”

The man walked in.

Dougie was standing in the corner, well away from the door and offering the skinniest target he could. “What brings you here, Sanderson?”

“Sorry, old man. Orders, ya know …” He raised his gun and …

 … his head disintegrated into a puff of blood and brains, a surprisingly horrible red dandelion, but only for an instant.

Doug was over to the door in a flash, surprisingly spry for an old man, pulled the body into the corner under the cameras had the worst view of, tossed the thin pallet over it, then quietly closed the door and said, “All clear. Unless someone heard the slug on the way in, they probably won’t miss him for a while, and this is in an isolated section of the house.”

“Won’t the slug have set off some sort of alarm?”

“Not unless it cut a wire,” Dougie said cheerfully. “Most glass sensors detect vibration or breakage, and those things move so fast that they don’t cause much of either. The slug will have vaporized the glass, and it will have happened so quickly that the glass won’t have had time to vibrate. The slug started to tumble though, which began to slow it down. That’s why it transferred so much energy to his brain.”

Jack said, “Oh, well then, that explains it.”

“Now, Jack,” he said. “I was right glad to see it happen — considering the alternative — and it couldn’t have happened to a nicer guy. He’s the one who gave me this shiner.” He gestured toward his eye.

“Well,“ Jack said. ”I am sorry I won’t have the opportunity to hand him a couple of good whacks, though. I have to confess that I’d been looking forward to it a little.”

Jorge interrupted their little tête-à-tête by saying, “Senator Sarantapechaina has just hung up, although the men are still talking. We’re all set on your end, Jack, execute your warrant and get your friend the hell out of there!”

Jack gave the signal. He was too far up to do much about the actual entry, and there were too many doors and windows ….

He could see Senator Sarantapechaina on his vidscreen, and she wasn’t acting panicked at all, but was gathering up her things as if she had someplace to go, and suddenly Jack remembered Senator Ortíz and his tunnels. He had a vague recollection that the block of stately homes the Senator lived in had been created from an old public park, and public parks were famously handy for major sewer access hatches. He cursed and headed down to the street as quick as he could manage, sliding down the steel bannisters of the fire stairs and crashing through the fire exit in an explosion of sound as the alarm went off. Through some miracle of enhanced perception, he saw a sewer manhole cover in the middle of the street, ran over to it and somehow managed to pull it off, then dropped down the access ladder using his hands as brakes. He was just in time to see the Senator and two of her thugs turn the corner, walking towards him as calmly as if they were taking a walk in the park, which he supposed they were, in some déjà vu mystical sense. They obviously hadn’t seen him, and Jack was in his devilishly handsome black Rambo outfit, perfect for lurking on roofs and hiding in sewers. He drew his handgun, checked out from the police armory for just this occasion, and waited.

Senator Sarantapechaina was extremely angry. Some penny-ante cop was going to pay for this outrage. As a Senator, she was immune from arrest while the World Senate was in session, which it was, and that privilege extended to search and seizure. She did, however, think it might be best if she laid low for a while and let her lawyers argue the niceties of jurisprudence. “As soon as we get into the open, call my counsel,” she said to one of the men beside her, David, she thought it was.

“Yes, Senator,” he said. “I called for a car to wait for you at the exit near the tidal basin, since that has the best access.”

“Too bad we can’t have lights in here,” she said. “I suppose it might draw attention from up on top, though.”

Suddenly, a deep voice came out of the darkness in front of them. “Too late, my precious dearies. It already has.”

One of the thugs reached for his gun, unfortunately unaware that he was silhouetted against the light behind him, and received an old-fashioned slug right in the center of his chest for his pains, which obviously wasn’t very good for him, because he slumped to the floor like a sack of concrete.

“Naughty, naughty,” said the voice. I can see you all quite plainly, and I want you all to lie down on the floor in exactly the manner your chum so thoughtfully volunteered to demonstrate. You two are under arrest. I’m afraid your little friend is dead, so he’s not under arrest, the lucky stiff.

“Do you know who I am, you idiot? I’m World Senator Irene Sarantapechaina and ….”

“I know, I know, and monkeys fly out of your ass. Now get down on the floor. I’ve got thirty-two shots left, and all of them have your names on them, Senator Sarantapechaina, and what’s-yer-face, the muscle. What’s your name, ‘Muscle?’ If I feel like shooting you, I’d feel a profound sense of loss if I didn’t purchase a little plaque to install down here in the sewer where you both so richly deserve to die.”

“John Connor,” he said.

“And his name, by the way? Perhaps I can save a few credits on a two-for-one.”

“David Santini.”

“Oh, good,” he exclaimed happily. “Both short. That will save a bit, as I understand that one pays by the letter, so you understand, don’t you Johnny? You don’t mind if I call you Johnny, do you? Johnny? It seems more intimate and friendly. You do understand that it will cost less to shoot you than it did dear David, don’t you, Johnny?”

“Yes.”

“Then down on the floor, now! Both of you! Now!” His voice was harsh.

They both knelt, then laid flat on the sewer bottom.

He slid one pair of his good cuffs over. “Now, Johnny, you won’t mind picking up these handcuffs and cuffing your right hand to the right hand of the Senator there, will you, Johnny?”

“No.”

“Do it now, please, and squeeze hard on hers. So many women can slip out of cuffs if they aren’t properly tightened. I have a flashlight here, Johnny, and when I turn it on, if I detect any looseness at all, or they’re not properly placed, guess who gets shot while attempting to escape?”

“Me,” he said.

“You are a clever boy, Johnny! Are you ready for your test?”

He took the time to make sure that the cuff was properly placed, then answered, “Yes.”

The light went straight into his eyes first, blinding him even more thoroughly than before, then flicked down to the cuffs. “Good job, Johnny! Now we have another job.” He slid another set of cuffs along the floor to where they lay prone, John’s right hand — perforce — across her shoulder. “Here’s another set of cuffs, Johnny. I want you to cuff one cuff around one of her ankles, and then the other around your left wrist. Got that Johnny? Shake your head, ‘no,’ if you want to die right now and spare us all the fuss.

“I got it.” He proceeded to apply the cuffs as directed, which was more than a little awkward.

“Feels a little odd being so intimate with your boss, doesn’t it, Johnny? Feeling kinky?” He kept the light on now, because he didn’t want to miss any stealthy movements toward hidden cuff keys.

He said, “No.”

“Too bad, then. Where you’re going, that’s probably the closest you’re going to get to a woman for the next thousand years. So many things can happen in a thousand years, Johnny, did you ever think of that? There could be a power failure and the first thing you know you’d be a little pile of rotting goo instead of a corpsicle.”

The Senator said, “Let’s just get this little charade over with. You can’t legally arrest me, so as soon as I get to the police station they’ll let me go and that will be that, except you’ll be fired as quick as you can turn around.”

“I’m afraid, Senator, that you’re laboring under a case of bad legal advice. You’re not going to jail, but to a military stockade, and you’re both under arrest for high treason, illegal acts of war, sedition, espionage, crimes against humanity, murder and piracy under false colors, improper hazarding of vessel, misappropriation and destruction of military property, frauds against the World Federation, and many other crimes under the Uniform Code of Military Justice. You may be situationally immune from prosecution under civil law, but you really ought to have consulted the Judge Advocates General before embarking upon a life of crime in the military.”

“But I’m not in the military! You stupid moron!”

“Tch, tch, tch. Senator, Senator, Senator. Whatever will we do with you? I’ll have to read you your rights now, because that’s a separate crime, impersonating an officer, and here you went and admitted it. It was you, wasn’t it, Senator? I recognised the way you carry yourself when I saw you moving down the sewer towards me, just shadows without the distraction of clothes and faces, Air Marshal Vidkun Quisling.” He smiled. It was not a pretty smile.

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

All rights reserved.

 

DEDICATION:

To my loving wife, Betty. She completes me.

 

 

 

 

Copyright © 2011 Levanah