Torch of Freedom

  And, as much as Judson personally hated the duty, there was no question that Harper was right. Genghis' telempathic sense, his ability to literally taste the "mind glow" of anyone he met, made him absolutely and uniquely suited to the task.

  "All right," he said out loud, "be that way. But I'm warning you now, Genghis and I will expect tomorrow afternoon off."

  He kept his tone light, but he also met Harper's gaze steadily. However well suited to the task Genghis might be, wading through that many mind glows, so many of which carried their own traumas and scars, was always exhausting for the treecat. He'd need a little time away from other mind glows, a little time in the Torch equivalent of the Sphinx bush, and Harper knew it.

  "Go ahead," he said. "Twist my arm! Extort extra vacation time out of me!" He grinned, but his own eyes were as steady as Judson's, and he nodded ever so slightly. "See if I care!"

  "Good," Judson replied.

  * * *

  Several hours later, neither Judson nor Genghis felt particularly cheerful.

  It wasn't as if the arriving shuttles were steeped solely in gloom, despair, and bloodthirsty hatred. In fact, there was an incredible joyousness to most of the arrivals, a sense of having finally set foot on the soil of a planet which was actually theirs.

  Of being home at last.

  But there were scars, and all too often still-bleeding psychic wounds, on even the most joyous, and they beat on Genghis' focused sensitivity like hammers. The fact that the 'cat was deliberately looking for dangerous fault lines, pockets of particularly brooding darkness, forced him to open himself to all the rest of the pain, as well. Judson hated to ask it of his companion, but he knew Genghis too well not to ask. Treecats were direct souls, with only limited patience for some of humanity's sillier social notions. And, to be honest, Genghis had a lot less trouble accepting and supporting the Ballroom's mentality than Judson himself did. Yet Genghis also understood how important Torch was not simply to his own person, but to all of the other two-legs around him, and that much of its hope for the future rested on the need to identify people whose choice of actions might jeopardize what the Torches were striving so mightily to build. Not only that, Torch was his home, too, now, and treecats understood responsibility to clan and nesting place.

  Which didn't make either of them feel especially cheerful.

  Genghis' fingers flickered suddenly.

  "What?"

  Judson twitched. So far, despite the inevitable emotional fatigue, today's transport load of new immigrants had contained few "problem children," and he'd settled into a sort of cruise control as he watched them filtering through the arrival interview process.

  Genghis' fingers repeated.

  "Got him," Judson said a moment later, although there was nothing particularly outwardly impressive about the newcomer. He was obviously from one of the general utility genetic lines. "What about him?"

  Genghis replied, his fingers moving with unusual slowness.

  "Worried," Judson repeated. He reached up and ran his fingers caressingly down Genghis' spine. "A lot of two-legs worry about a lot of things, O Bane of Chipmunks," he said. "What's so special about this one?"

  Genghis was obviously trying to find a way to describe something he didn't fully understand himself, Judson realized.

  Judson frowned, wondering what to make of that. Then the newcomer looked up, and Judson's own mental antennae quivered.

  The man in the brown shipsuit was trying hard not to let it show, but he wasn't looking up at the crowded arrival concourse in general. No, he was looking directly at Judson Van Hale and Genghis . . . and trying to make it look as if he weren't.

  "Do you think he got more worried when he saw you, Genghis?" he asked quietly. Genghis cocked his head, obviously thinking hard, and then his right truehand flipped up in the sign for "Y" and nodded in affirmation.

  Now, that's interesting, Judson thought, staying exactly where he was and trying to avoid any betraying sign of his own interest in Mr. Brown Shipsuit. Of course, it's probably nothing. Anybody's got the right to be nervous on their first day on a new planet—especially the kind of people who're arriving here on Torch every day! And if he's heard the reports about the 'cats—or, even worse, the rumors—he may think Genghis can peek inside his head and tell me everything he's thinking or feeling. God knows we've run into enough people who ought to know better who think that, and I can't really blame anyone who does for not liking the thought very much. But still . . .

  His own right hand twitched very slightly on the virtual keyboard only he could see, activating the security camera that snapped a picture as the brown shipsuit sank into the chair in front of one of the Immigration processors. However nervous the newcomer might be, he was obviously at least managing to maintain his aplomb as he answered the interviewer's questions and provided his background information. He wasn't even glancing in Judson and Genghis' direction any longer, either, and he actually managed a smile when he opened his mouth and stuck out his tongue for the Immigration clerk to scan its barcode.

  Some of the ex-slaves resented that. More than one had flatly refused when asked to do the same thing, and Judson found it easy enough to understand that reaction. But given the incredible number of places Torch's new immigrants came from, and bearing in mind that the mere fact of ex-slavery didn't necessarily mean all of them were paragons of virtue, the assembly of an identification database was a practical necessity. Besides, the Beowulf medical establishment had identified several genetic combinations which had potentially serious negative consequences. Manpower had never worried about that sort of thing, as long as they got whatever feature they'd been after, and that lack of concern was a major factor in the fact that even if they were ever fortunate enough to receive prolong, genetic slaves' average lifespans remained significantly shorter than "normals' " did. Beowulf had devoted a lot of effort to finding ways to ameliorate the consequences of those genetic sequences if they could be identified, and the barcode was the quickest, most efficient way for the doctors to scan for them. There wasn't much that could be done for some of them, even by Beowulf, but prompt remedial action could enormously mitigate the consequences of others, and one of the things every citizen of Torch was guaranteed was the very best medical care available.

  Given that no slaveowner had ever bothered to waste prolong on something as unimportant as his animate property, much less worry about things like preventative medicine, that guarantee was one of the kingdom's most ringing proclamations of the individual value it placed upon its people.

  "Is he still nervous?" Judson murmured, and Genghis' hand nodded again.

  "Interesting," Judson said softly. "You may just make him that way because he's one of those people who doesn't want anyone poking around inside his head."

  This time, Genghis nodded his head and not just his hand. Treecats were constitutionally incapable of really understanding why anyone might feel that way, since they couldn't imagine not being able to "poke around" inside each other's minds. But they didn't have to be able to understand why two-legs might feel that way to grasp that some of them did feel that way, and if that were the case here, it would scarcely be the first time Genghis had seen it.

  "Still," Judson continued, "I think we might want to keep an eye on this one for at least a couple of days. Remind me to mention that to Harper."

  Chapter Fifteen

  "You called?" Benjamin Detweiler said as he poked his head through the door Heinrich Stabolis had just opened for him.

  Albrecht Detweiler looked up from the paperwork on his display and raised one eyebrow at the oldest of his sons. Of course, Benjamin wasn't just his son, but very few people were aware of how close the relationship actually was.

 
"Have I mentioned lately," Albrecht said, "that I find your extreme filial respect very touching?"

  "No, somehow I think that slipped your mind, Father."

  "I wonder why that could possibly be?" Albrecht mused out loud, then pointed at one of the comfortable chairs in front of his desk. "Why don't you just park yourself right there, young man," he said in the stern tone he'd used more than once during Benjamin's adolescent career.

  "Yes, Father," Benjamin replied in a tone which was far more demure and chastened sounding than Albrecht recalled ever having heard out of him during that same adolescent career.

  The younger Detweiler "parked" himself and folded his hands in his lap while he regarded his father with enormous attentiveness, and Albrecht shook his head. Then he looked at Stabolis.

  "I'm sure I'm going to regret this in the fullness of time, Heinrich, but would you be kind enough to get Ben a bottle of beer? And go ahead and open one for me at the same time, please. I don't know about him, but I feel depressingly confident that I'm going to need a little fortification."

  "Of course, Sir," his enhanced bodyguard replied gravely. "If you really think he's old enough to be drinking alcohol, that is."

  Stabolis had known Benjamin literally from birth, and the two of them exchanged smiles. Albrecht, on the other hand, shook his head and sighed theatrically.

  "If he's not old enough yet, he never will be, Heinrich," he said. "Go ahead."

  "Yes, Sir."

  Stabolis departed on his errand, and Albrecht tipped back his chair in front of the window with its magnificent view of powdery sand and dark blue ocean. He gave his son another smile, but then his expression sobered.

  "Seriously, Father," Benjamin said, responding to Albrecht's change of expression, "why did you want to see me this morning?"

  "We just got confirmation that the Manties' survey expedition got to Verdant Vista six weeks ago," his father replied, and Benjamin grimaced.

  "We knew it was going to happen eventually, Father," he pointed out.

  "Agreed. Unfortunately, that doesn't make me any happier now that it's gone ahead and actually happened." Albrecht smiled sourly. "And the fact that the Manties ultimately decided to let Kare head the team makes me even less happy than I might have been otherwise."

  "One could have hoped that the fact that the Manties and the Havenites are shooting at each other again would have made them a little less likely to cooperate on something like this," Benjamin acknowledged dryly.

  "Fair's fair—" Albrecht began, then paused and looked up with a smile as Stabolis returned to the office with the promised bottles of beer. Father and son each accepted one of them, and Stabolis raised an eyebrow at Albrecht.

  "Go ahead and stay, Heinrich," the senior Detweiler replied in answer to the unspoken question. "By this time, you already know ninety-nine percent of all my deepest darkest secrets. This one isn't going to make any difference."

  "Yes, Sir."

  Stabolis settled into his usual on-duty position in the chair beside the office door, and Albrecht turned back to Benjamin.

  "As I was saying, fair's fair. They aren't really cooperating, you know. They've just agreed to refrain from breaking each other's kneecaps where Verdant Vista is concerned, and we both know why that is."

  "They do tend to hold their little grudges where Manpower is concerned, don't they?" Benjamin remarked whimsically.

  "Yes, they do," Albrecht agreed. "And that pain in the ass Hauptman isn't making things any better."

  "Father, Klaus Hauptman's been pissing you off for as long as I can remember. Why don't you just go ahead and have Collin and Isabel get rid of him? I know his security's good, but it's not that good, you know."

  "I've considered it—believe me, I've considered it more than once!" Albrecht shook his head. "One reason I haven't gone ahead and done it is that I decided a long time ago that I'd better try not to get into the habit of having people assassinated just because it might ease my blood pressure. Given the number of unmitigated pains in the ass there are, I'd keep Isabel employed full time, and it would still be a case of weeding the tomato patch. However many weeds you get rid of this week, there's going to be a fresh batch next week. Besides, I've always felt restraint builds character."

  "Maybe so, but I figure there has to be more to it than self-discipline were Hauptman is concerned." Benjamin snorted. "Mind you, I agree about the asshole quotient of the galaxy, but he's one asshole who's demonstrated often enough that he can cause us a lot of grief. And he's been so openly opposed to Manpower for so long that having him taken out in an obviously 'Manpower'-backed operation couldn't possibly point any suspicion in our direction."

  "You've got a point," Albrecht agreed more seriously. "Actually, I did very seriously consider having him assassinated when he came out so strongly in support of those Ballroom lunatics in Verdant Vista. Unfortunately, getting rid of him would only leave us with his daughter Stacey, and she's just as bad as he is already. If 'Manpower' went ahead and whacked her daddy, she'd be even worse. In fact, I suspect she'd probably move making problems for us up from number three or four on her 'Things to Do' list to number one. An emphatic number one. And given the fact that she'd control sixty-two percent of the Hauptman cartel's voting stock outright, once she inherited her father's shares, the problems she could make for us would be pretty spectacular. This survey business and those frigates they've been building for the Ballroom wouldn't be a drop in the bucket compared to what she'd do then."

  "So take them both out at once," Benjamin suggested. "I'm sure Isabel could handle it, if she put her mind to it. And she's Hauptman's only kid, and she doesn't have any children of her own yet, which only leaves some fairly distant cousins as potential heirs. I doubt that all of them share the depths of her and her father's anti-slavery prejudices. And even if they did, I imagine that spreading her stock around to so many people who'd all have legitimately different agendas of their own would end up with the family control of the cartel finding itself severely diluted."

  "No," Albrecht said sourly, "it wouldn't."

  "It wouldn't?" Benjamin's surprise showed.

  "Oh, having both of them killed would dilute the Hauptman family's control, that's for sure. Unfortunately, it would only hand that selfsame control over to another family we have reason to be less than fond of."

  "I'm afraid you've lost me," Benjamin admitted.

  "That's because Collin just turned up something you don't know about yet. It would appear our good friend Klaus and his daughter Stacey don't want to see their opposition to Manpower falter just because of a little thing like their own mortality. Collin got a look at the provisions of their wills a few T-months ago. Daddy left everything to his sweet little baby girl, pretty much the way we'd figured he had . . . but if it should happen that she predeceases him or subsequently dies without issue of her own, she's left every single share of her and her father's ownership percentage—and voting stock—to a little outfit called Skydomes of Grayson."

  "You're joking!" Benjamin stared at his father in disbelief, and Albrecht snorted without any amusement at all.

  "Believe me, I wish I were."

  "But Hauptman and Harrington hate each others' guts," Benjamin protested.

  "Not so much anymore," Albrecht disagreed. "Oh, everything we've seen suggests that he and Harrington still don't really like each other all that much, but they've got an awful lot of interests in common. Worse, he knows from direct, painful personal experience she can't be bought, bluffed, or intimidated worth a damn. And, worse still, the daughter he dotes on is one of Harrington's close personal friends. Given the fact that he won't be around anymore for Harrington to irritate, and given the fact that he knows she's already using Skydomes' clout to back the ASL almost as strongly as he is, he's perfectly happy with the thought of letting her beat on Manpower with his money, too, when he's gone. Which"—he grimaced—"makes me wish even more that our little October surprise on her flagship had been a bit more successful. If w
e'd managed to kill her, I'm sure Klaus and Stacey would have at least reconsidered who they want to leave all of this to."

  "Damn," Benjamin said thoughtfully, then shook his head. "If Hauptman and Skydomes get together, Harrington would have control of—what? The third or fourth biggest single individually controlled financial bloc in the galaxy?"

  "Not quite. She'd be the single biggest financial player in the Haven Quadrant, by a huge margin, but she probably wouldn't be any higher than, oh, the top twenty, galaxy wide. On the other hand, as you just pointed out yourself, unlike any of the people who'd be wealthier than she'd be, she'd have direct personal control of everything. No need to worry about boards of directors or any of that crap."

  "Damn!" Benjamin repeated with considerably more force. "How come this is the first I'm hearing about this?"

  "Like I said, Collin only found out about it a few T-months ago. It's not like Hauptman or his daughter have exactly trumpeted it from the rooftops, you know. For that matter, as far as Collin can tell, Harrington doesn't know about it. We only found out because Collin's been devoting even more of his resources to Hauptman since his active support for Verdant Vista became so evident. It's taken him a while, but he finally managed to get someone inside Childers, Strauslund, Goldman, and Wu. Clarice Childers personally drew up both Hauptmans' wills, and it looks very much as if they decided not to tell even Harrington about it." Albrecht shrugged. "Given the sort of tectonic impact the prospect of what would be effectively a merger of the Hauptman Cartel and Skydomes would have on the entire quadrant's financial markets, I can see where they'd want to keep it quiet."

  "And Harrington would probably try to talk them out of it if she did know about it," Benjamin mused.

  "Probably." Albrecht showed his teeth for a moment. "I'd love to see all three of them dead, you understand, but let's be honest. The real reason I'd take so much pleasure from putting them out of my misery is that all three of them are so damned effective. And however much I may hate Harrington's guts—not to mention her entire family back on Beowulf—I'm not going to underestimate her. Aside from being harder to kill than an Old Earth cockroach, she's got this incredibly irritating habit of accomplishing exactly what she sets out to do. And while she may not be as rich as Hauptman is, she's already well past the point where money as money really means anything to her. From everything we've been able to find out, she takes her responsibilities as Skydomes' CEO seriously, but she's perfectly satisfied running it through trusted assistants, so it's not as if she'd be interested in adding Hauptman to Skydomes as an exercise in empire building, either. In fact, I sometimes think she's at least partly of the opinion that what she's got already represents too much concentrated power in the hands of a single private individual. Combining Hauptman with Skydomes would create an entirely new balance of economic power—not just in the Star Kingdom, either—and I don't see her wanting to stick her family with that kind of power."