Tuning William - Fuzzy Bones

"Oh, now," Fane said, "I don't think it's that bad. You really serious about this?"

"Damn tootin' I am!" Rainsford barked. "What's bad about it is that we're flying blind. Gus, as Attorney General it's up to you to set the itinerary and run this meeting about consolidating police records. As we go ahead with that, I want the information from each police agency as to what kind of intelligence operatives they have working under cover, what they're doing, where they're doing it, and what they find out."

Brannhard made a face. "They're going to be pretty touchy about that, Ben."

"I know they are," Rainsford said. "Let them know in a gentle kind of way that we're prepared to subpoena the records if we have to.

"Max, I want you to draw up a table of organization for an Intelligence Section within your office, where we will consolidate police espionage information separately from the operations records. After all, the Company, the Federation, the military, and Ghu knows who all, constantly use spies to keep them informed. Why, I'm willing to bet Ingermann does the same thing. The only way we're ever going to bust him and his consortium of hoodlums is to out-G-2 them.

"Start feeling around and see if you can't get that young Khadra fella to head it up. I knew him when he was a patrolman on Beta. Got a good head on his shoulders."

"'I'II do it," Fane said, "but I still think you 're painting a pretty gloomy picture."

"Maybe I am," Rainsford admitted, "but if Zarathustra does turn into a sinkhole populated by riffraff and cutthroats, it sure won't be because I didn

't try to head it off before it got out of hand. For one thing, this government couldn't stand the blow to public confidence if things go to Nifflheim and we get another dose of Martial Law from the Navy."

"He's right, Max," Brannhard said. "The same thing happened on Fenris. The Chartered Fenris Company went off half cocked with colonization, then found they couldn't turn a profit. When the Company went bust, it stretched the Colonial Government too thin. There weren't enough stabilizing influences on the economy to keep it from getting lopsided. A lot of rip-offs and power grabs here and there. In no time at all the only people left on the planet were about ten percent of the original population-they were the only ones tough enough and smart enough to stay alive."

Chapter 12

Christiana Stone lay face down at an angle across the bed, sobbing, and thrumming her fists noiselessly on the sylkon coverlet. In one fist was a crumpled piece of message printout.

"Damn him! Damn him! Damn him! Why did he have to go and die? Before I could keep him out of jail."

Coming to Zarathustra had been the only way out that she could see at the time. That was all right. But she knew now that she had failed to do her homework when she refused to go to work for Ivan Bowlby and insisted on striking out on her own. Bowlby controlled all the prostitution in Mallorysport and he became very cranky if anyone tried to buck into his monopoly. He had systematically terrorized her with rough trade and dried up the rest of her business, forcing her to drain away what little assets were left after buying passage from Terra, and grandiosely sworn, "So long as I'm alive, that broad will never turn another trick on Zarathustra."

Now, when she was broke, beaten, and demoralized completely, the news came that her father had died. The father she idolized-the father she couldn't bear to tell that she knew about his embezzlements-the father who had been drinking himself into an early grave with guilt-gone.

The communication screen exploded with a burst of colors, then steadied into the image of Captain Ahmed Khadra.

George Lunt made a minor adjustment of the screen at his end. "You're going to have to get yourself out here, Captain. I need you."

"But, George," Khadra protested, "my detached leave won't be up for two more weeks."

"Mmmmm," George said, "I know. I don't want to discuss it on screen, but how soon can you get yourself back over here and go to work for me?"

Khadra looked pained. "Well, Sandra and I are about to set the date. What's the rush?"

"I should think you would," George Lunt grumped. "A year you 've been engaged to that girl and I 've barely gotten a tap of work out of you the whole time."

"I come from a very formal family," Ahmed said stiffly. "We wanted to wait till Holloway Station is a little more civilized before I drag her out to live in the bush. Besides, Grego keeps wheedling at her to stay on 'just a little while longer.' "

"No more frittering, Ahmed," George said, "and no more giving in to slick talk from Victor Grego. I'm going to need you. Now! I'll get a bungalow up for you and Sandra right away-though Ghu knows how I'll justify it in the budget. You get your affairs in Mallorysport wrapped up. I want you, bride, and baggage out here bright and early no later than a week from Tuesday."

"That's not much time," Khadra protested.

"Sure it is," George said. "You can take your honeymoon on the installment plan."

The Right Reverend Father Thomas Aquinas Gordon leaned forward in his chair and pushed the box of tissues across the desk. He thought to himself of the countless times he had done this drill before, although this was the first in his cool, quiet office in Junktown. The walls were a reassuring pastel tone and still smelled of newly applied vyathane spray coating.

"I didn't know where else to turn," Christiana said. She snatched two tissues from the box and blew her nose.

"You turned to the right place," The Rev said. ' "There are things in life that you can control, child, and there are things you can't. The things you can't have to be carried as best you can-till you can get the upper hand on them."

She dabbed at her eyes. "I feel better, already, just getting it all out and telling someone."

The Rev nodded.

She had poured out the whole story to him, in a jumble of words and tears. The accidental discovery that her father was embezzling money from his company and using it to keep another woman and pay the gambling debts of the woman's worthless brother, and Christiana's inability to bring herself to tell him for fear it would completely break his spirit. She was certain that her fiance could be depended on for help. That had been young Rodney Schuyler of the shipping family-very old family, very wealthy family. He had proved his loyalty by breaking the engagement and dumping her. The only thing she could think of then had been to come out to Zarathustra, earn money as fast as she could- preferably in a way calculated to horrify Rodney-and try to get her father off Terra before the authorities caught up with him. If one could get off-planet, one's chances of being extradited back to Terra for anything as piddling as grand theft were quite small.

Now it was all gone-all come to nothing. Ivan Bowlby had her blacklisted.

Daddy was dead. What did it all mean?

"I just can't see the use of going on," she said.

The Rev leaned back in his chair. "I don't imagine you can; and that's understandable right now. I'm not going to give you any fancy advice about waiting for Almighty Intervention, but I will tell you this: in every disaster that happens to people no matter how overwhelming it seems at the time there is the seed of something you will find you want much more, something that is far more wonderful than what you seem to have lost. But, you gotta look for it."

"But what am I going to do?" she sobbed.

"Well," The Rev said, "this might be one hell of a good time to get a regular job" and go straight. At least if you don't like it, you can earn enough money to get off Zarathustra, and from what you tell me I don't see that you 've much chance of turning a sol any other way. Look-I bet you know how to run a processor-a data terminal-a transcriber deck-that sort of thing. Don't you?"