Kevin Anderson - The Mammoth Book of Nebula Awards SF

“A horse calmative! Is it the Syndicate?”

He waved that away. “The Syndicate’s a myth. You—”

“Don’t take me for an idiot. I’ve been doing this for almost as long as you have.” Every ten years or so there was a fresh debunking. But the money and bodies kept piling up.

“You have indeed.” He concentrated on picking at a hangnail. “How much is Starlodge willing to pay?”

I tried not to react. “How much is the Syndicate?”

“If the Syndicate existed,” he said carefully, “and if it were they who had retained me, don’t you think I would try to use that fact to frighten you away?”

“Maybe not directly… last night, you said ‘desperate men.’ ”

“I was drunk.” No, not Peter Rabbit, not on a couple of bottles of wine. I just looked at him. “All right,” he said, “I was told to use any measures short of violence—”

“Poisoning isn’t violence?”

“Tranquilizing, not poisoning. You couldn’t have died.” He poured himself some wine. “Top yours off?”

“I’ve become a solitary drinker.”

He poured the contents of my glass into his. “I might be able to save you some trouble, if you’ll only tell me what terms—”

“A case of Jack Daniel’s and all they can eat at Slim Joan’s.”

“That might do it,” he said unsmilingly, “but I can offer fifteen hundred shares of Hartford.”

That was $150 million, half again what I’d been authorized. “Just paper to them.”

“Or a million cases of booze, if that’s the way they want it.” He checked his watch. “Isn’t our flyer waiting?”

I supposed it would be best to have him along, to keep an eye on him. “The one who closes the deal pays for the trip?”

“All right.”

On the hour-long flyer ride I considered various permutations of what I could offer. My memory had been jammed with the wholesale prices of various kinds of machinery, booze, candy, and so forth, along with their mass and volume, so I could add in the shipping costs from Earth to Armpit to Morocho III. Lafitte surely had similar knowledge; I could only hope his figure of 1500 shares was a bluff.

(I had good incentive to bargain well. Starlodge would give me a bonus of up to 10 percent of the difference between a thousand shares and whatever the settlement came to. If I brought it in at 900, I’d be a millionaire.)

We were turning inland; the walls of the city made a pink rectangle against the towering jungle. I tapped the pi lot on the shoulder. “Can you land inside the city?”

“Not unless you want to jump from the top of a building. I can set you on the wall, though.” I nodded.

“Can’t take the climb, Dick? Getting old?”

“No need to waste steps.” The flyer was a little wider than the wall, and it teetered as we stepped out. I tried to look just at my feet.

“Beautiful up here,” Lafitte said. “Look at that sunset.” Half the large sun’s disk was visible on the jungle horizon, a deeper red than Earth’s sun ever shone. The bloody light stained the surf behind us purple. It was already dark in the city below; the smell of rancid fish oil burning drifted up to us.

Lafitte managed to get the inside lane of the staircase. I tried to keep my eyes on him and the wall as we negotiated the high steps.

“Believe me,” he said (a phrase guaranteed to inspire trust), “it would make both our jobs easier if I could tell you who I’m representing. But I really am sworn to secrecy.”

An oblique threat deserves an oblique answer. “You know I can put you in deep trouble with the Standards Committee. Poisoning a Guild brother.”

“Your word against mine. And the bellbot’s, the headwaiter’s, the wine steward’s… you did have quite a bit to drink.”

“A couple of bottles of wine won’t knock me out.”

“Your capacity is well known. I don’t think you want a hearing investigating it, though, not at your age. Two years until retirement?”

“Twenty months.”

“I was rounding off,” he said. “Yes, I did check. I wondered whether you might be in the same position as I am. My retirement’s less than two months away; this is my last big-money job. So you must understand my enthusiasm.”

I didn’t answer. He wasn’t called Rabbit for lack of “enthusiasm.”

As we neared the bottom, he said, “Suppose you weren’t to oppose me too vigorously. Suppose I could bring in the contract at a great deal less than—”

“Don’t be insulting.”

In the dim light from the torches sputtering below, I couldn’t read his expression. “Ten percent of my commission wouldn’t be insulting.”

I stopped short. He climbed another step. “I can’t believe even you —”

“Verdad . Just joking.” He laughed unconvincingly. “Everyone knows how starchy you are, Dick. I know better than most.” I’d fined him several times during the years I was head of the Standards Committee.

We walked automatically through the maze of streets, our guides evidently having taken identical routes. Both of us had eidetic memories, of course, that being a minimum prerequisite for the job of an interpreter. I was thinking furiously. If I couldn’t outbargain the Rabbit I’d have to somehow finesse him. Was there anything I knew about the !tang value system that he didn’t? Assuming that this council would decide that land was something that could be bought and sold.

I did have a couple of interesting proposals in my portfolio, that I’d written up during the two-week trip from Earth. I wondered whether Lafitte had seen them. The lock didn’t appear to have been tampered with, and it was the old-fashioned magnetic key type. You can pick it but it won’t close afterward.

We turned a corner and there was the council building at the end of the street, impressive in the flickering light, its upper reaches lost in darkness. Lafitte put his hand on my arm, stopping. “I’ve got a proposition.”

“Not interested.”

“Hear me out, now; this is straight. I’m empowered to take you on as a limited partner.”

“How generous. I don’t think Starlodge would like it.”

“What I mean is Starlodge. You hold their power of attorney, don’t you?”

“Unlimited, on this planet. But don’t waste your breath; we get an exclusive or nothing at all.” Actually, the possibility had never been discussed. They couldn’t have known I was going into a competitive bidding situation. If they had, they certainly wouldn’t have sent me here slow freight. For an extra fifty shares I could have gone first class and been here a week before Peter Rabbit; could have sewn up the thing and been headed home before he got to the Armpit.

Starlodge had a knack of picking places that were about to become popular — along with impressive media power, to make sure they did — and on dozens of worlds they did have literally exclusive rights to tourism. Hartford might own a spaceport hotel, but it wasn’t really competition, and they were usually glad to hand it over to Starlodge anyhow. Hartford, with its ironclad lock on the tachyon drive, had no need to diversify.

There was no doubt in my mind that this was the pattern Starlodge had in mind for Morocho III. It was a perfect setup, the beach being a geologic anomaly: there wasn’t another spot for a hotel within two thousand kilometers of the spaceport. Just bleak mountaintops sprouting occasionally out of jungles full of large and hungry animals. But maybe I could lead the Rabbit on. I leaned up against a pot that supported a guttering torch. “At any rate, I certainly couldn’t consider entering into an agreement without knowing who you represent.”

He looked at me stone-faced for a second. “Outfit called A.W. Stoner Industries.”