Major Orvenalix sat in his thimble-shaped chair and stared across at Kitten and Porsupah. At the moment the Major was employing his mid-pair of limbs as a second set of hands. In imitation of a human habit, the thranx was tapping all four sets of claws on the table in front of him. The twelve digits made a considerable racket.
The Major was about average height for a mature male threes, standing about midway between Kitten's and Porsupah's. His thorax was unusually broad and powerful. The black and silver harness reflected his occupation rather than personal tastes, which were less conservative. Also the result of his occupation was a premature purpling of the chiton, although his antennae were straight and strong. And the great compound eyes sparkled as brightly as those of any youth.
The tapping stopped. The resultant silence was louder. Orvenalix spoke quietly.
"Well! The magnificent, munificent Lieutenant Kai-sung has deigned to grace Operations with her presence!" The Major bowed ironically. That is, he inclined his head and b-thorax. Encased in bodies of unyielding armor, no thranx could manage a really smooth bow.
"Bum it, Orvy!"
"You will address me as becomes my rank, Lieutenant!" he roared, smacking the table hard with one truhand.
"Yes sir," she replied in mock-military tones. "Major ... Orvy."
YOU WILL ...!" Orvenalix sighed and relaxed in his seat. "Never mind. I can see you haven't changed one micron."
"You're the second person today who's said that. Seriously, sir, what exactly is the situation? I haven't seen you in over a year, but when you were lecturing at the Academy you were nowhere near this tense. You can't tell me a year's hitch on a backwater planet has gotten to you that much!"
"You leave out many ramifications of which you remain uninformed, Kitten. However, before we go into my problems, consider this. You were ordered here for an assignment which required that you remain mildly active and controversial. Mildly. A moderately wealthy young lady, independent, spoiled, and apt to stick her nose into anything hinting of new thrills. Here to enjoy the delightful sun, fun, boating, fishing, and cheap souvenirs of exotic Repler."
"You sound like a travel brochure, Major."
"In my public capacity such banalities are occasionally called for. My nest-mother would be ashamed, but fortunately Eurmet is many parsecs away .. .
"Instead of making a nice, smooth arrival, you forthwith take off, in full sight of a busy shuttleport crowd, with the most notorious, spoiled young human this backwater capital has to offer. He may not be in the same class with his counterparts on Armela, Trix, or Perth, but around here he is noticed. You next turn tip at the family estate-lodge in the most exclusive section of the capital and turn over the keys of this young man's expensive hovercaft to the chap's valet- his talkative valet. You order a public transule and take leave of this bemused servitor, off-handedly mentioning that his master may be found languishing by his lonesome on an island at such and such coordinates. Whereupon you return to the city and breeze into your hotel, blissfully certain, I suppose, that you have performed all this while leaving the general population in total ignorance."
Kitten appeared genuinely contrite. "I apologize, sir. How would I know the valet would spread it alt over town? I didn't even realize who he was until the conversation had passed the point of no return. I'd planned to slip the keys under the door with a note explaining that .
Site broke off. Orvenalix shook his head in disgust. "It all would have been so much simpler- not to mention better for your cover- if you'd merely gone along with the gentleman, performed the simple act of non-reproductive copulation with him, and allowed him to escort you back to the hotel."
"It is stated categorically," said Kitten, "that the Egg which gorges itself too early will deny its offspring."
"You are being impertinent, but if he was that bad ... You always were up on your Saduriquil, soft-angles."
"Why Orvy! You still remember my pet name! Now that you've gotten all that off your thorax, why not relax and tell us why we've been pulled off our post-graduate work and plunked down here in the midst of savage Pisces and piscean savages?"
"The good Governor would net care-for-that-tone," Orvenalix grinned.
"Say, how did you know I was doing post-grad work?" yelped Porsupah.
"I picked your pocket back at the hotel. Before I went in to change. Your school relief notice was in there, along with relevant material. Hardly consistent with your cover, Pots! Tch!"
"Not only morals!" said the seething Tolian. "No scruples, either!"
"That's an insult! I put the wallet back, didn't I?"
There was a long silence. Finally, unable, to stand the suspense, Porsupah put a paw into the pouch under his belt to make sure ....
Otvenalix put a truhand over his mouth to cover the slight fluttering of mandibles that signified laughter among the thranx.
"All right," The intelligence officer said. "let us ob serve. Repler is backward in many ways, sure. It has a limited population, true. Hut its shuttle and spacecom facilities are modern and well-manned -very true. Major industries are tourism and exotic woods, but the main income is derived from Repler City's use as a busy transfer point for interstellar shipping. It's the only habitable planet between Fluva and Praxiteles as you drive down the Arm. And it's still fairly dose to the center-ward systems."
A good place to trade around," agreed Porsupah.
'While also avoiding major tariffs on planets of destination. True. Nothing like the business Terra, Hivehom, or Drallar do, of course. But the merchants here make a good living, and business is growing steadily if not spectacularly."
"I've read the manual," Kitten said drily.
"Fine! Good!" Orvenalix reached into a drawer and removed a small vial of glass ... no, quartz ... with a pressure lock twice as big as the container, and a small bit of black board. Kitten and Porsupah slid their chairs closer.
Orvenalix keyed the lock and sprinkled, very carefully, a few grains of white crystal onto the board.
"Since you've both, presumably, `read the manual,' perhaps you can tell me what this is?" Both junior officers leaned forward.
The Tolian sniffed once, gently. "Odorless. Clear, rhombehedric crystals with a glassy luster." The Tolian crushed one of the largest pieces to powder in a sharp, trimmed claw. He sniffed again, careful not to inhale the dust. "Concoidal fracture, no odor released on pulverizing ... yes, I think I know what it is, Major." He turned and looked at Kitten. "The lines of fracture turn blue, they turn blue."
Her eyes widened, and she couldn't help but whisper when she spoke to Orvenalix. "Bloodhype. Very high grade, too, if the fracture line turns that dark."
The antennae dipped slightly. "Almost pure. Also known as faster, brain-up, phinto, silly-salt, and many other names the mere mention of which are sufficient to inspire thoughts of regurgitation among intelligent, feeling beings."
"I thought I read that the Hyperion forests on Annubis were sterilized and wiped out ten years ago," Kitten said.
"As indeed they were," the intelligence officer continued. "Naturally, that was the first place the Service checked. We found nothing to indicate that any of the plants had survived the holocaust. At that time it was believed that the Hyperion plant could grow only on Arbutus. Transplanting was attempted for scientific purposes, but the seedlings and mature plants died rapidly as soon as they were removed from the planet. Fertilized seeds likewise transshipped did not sprout. In wiping out the supply it turned out that the species had been effectively exterminated for all purposes!"
"I wouldn't imagine anyone raising a fuss over that," said Porsupah.
"Other than a few masochistic botanists, no one did."
"It seems, though, that someone, somewhere, has gotten hold of some seeds and found a way to make them sprout, and worse, reproduce."
"What sort of ... of creature, would want to restart the traffic in bloodhype?" said Kitten, shuddering.
"Soft-angles, I remember you to be a brilliant studen
t. Someday I hope you will make an even better agent, but in many ways you are still an immature grub. The galaxy contains a high volume of pure loathsomeness. Of which I have seen far more than is good for one's sleep. There are plenty of beings nominally labeled 'intelligent' who would sell their own eggs, and worse, for a few credits. The thing here that makes me marvel is not the perpetrators, but their science.
"I don't have to tell you what bloodhype addiction does. These new users display the same symptoms and reactions as those of over a decade ago. Which means that this new strain is at (cast as powerful as the original. It affects any living creature with a complex neural system and circulating liquid in its body. 'This includes every known intelligence, with the exception of a few silicon based primitives on restricted planets. Direct injection is the most common method of application, but inhaling the drug in sufficient quantities is also effective.
"Concentrating on the neurons, the drug produces an extremely pleasurable sensation. The thing about bloodhype is that most drugs work only on the mind, by distorting and affecting the images it creates and the information it receives. Bloodhype, on the other hand, is more in the nature of direct neural stimulation. In other words, instead of producing distortions in the information- interpreter (the brain), the original information is distorted right at the beginning, at the original nerve pickups in hands, feet, liver- everywhere the blood can carry it. The effect has been described many ways. One addict said it was like being the highest-pitched wire on a stringed instrument. It's many, many times more powerful than anything that works just on the mind acting as it does directly on the nerve cells rather than the brain. A moderate dose produces a 'fire-fit', an intense burning sensation that seems to add to the overall pleasure.
"Withdrawal symptoms commence anywhere from 60hh or 72 t-standard hours after the last injection. Coordination begins to go, accompanied by a speed-up in involuntary muscular reactions. Breathing can speed up or slow, as can the heart and other self-regulating muscles. The senses are badly confused and feed false reports to the brain, which is itself undergoing severe emotional changes, from depression to exaltation and so forth. The body goes downhill like an unhatched egg with in sufficient yolk. It's possible to be in excellent physical shape and be dying-until the final moment, when every thing seems to jump on you at once.
"You go slowly insane, aware of what's taking place all the time. 'Dying by inches,' I believe a terran author called something far less extreme. The only way an addict can survive, once hooked, is if the medics can get to him fast. A lot of very complicated and expensive equipment supports the being's nervous system until the drug has burned itself out. Very painful and not always successful. If the brain itself has been too badly damaged, nothing can be done. In such cases, mercy killings are not unknown.
"If 120hh or 144 t-standard hours have passed, there is a ninety-eight and something percent chance of an excruciatingly painful death occurring. In such cases even the best of medical treatment is useless. There is, of course, nothing like a simple antidote."
"And the shipments are coming through Repler?" said Kitten.
"It is thought to be so. We intercepted one, just one, by accident. No persons were taken. The best evidence we have is that every planet where new addicts have appeared was visited shortly before by a vessel that stopped to change or exchange cargo on Repler. There ate a few suspects here, whom we're being very careful not to warn-off. And this is not the only planet that's being carefully checked cut. But at this stage it seems like Repler is the best of several thin possibilities-Everything about the operation suggests professional planning with plenty of brains behind it. There's a lot of experience behind this setup."
"I don't wish to minimize out abilities, sir" interrupted Kitten, "but if all this is true, wiry send for two fairly inexperienced agent-students instead of a hundred pros?"
"One, your very inexperience is your best asset. You will be equally unknown to the runners. The one thing we fear more than anything else is that they might become aware that we suspect their operations here. And with something of this magnitude running smoothly, it's a likely bet that the pros handling things would stay quiet and shut down until they could shift their base elsewhere. We don't want to start over again somewhere a hundred parsecs down the Arm. We might not be fortunate enough to intercept another shipment. Arid the traffic hasn't assumed the proportions ... yet ... where an investment of that kind would justify the risk. A large sweep would be likely to catch up a lot of the small fry. The moguls usually manage to slip away and start raising hell somewhere else. You two stand a chance of cutting through a lot of opaque membrane and latching onto them before they have a chance to get suspicious. At least, that's the theory. If you're caught, the worst that can happen is we lose two agents."
"You frame things so delicately," murmured Porsupah.
"The covers we've prepared for you don't require a lot of effort to maintain. Barring," he said, staring hard at Kitten, "unforseen complications! Lieutenant Porsupah is listed as a wealthy tree-farmer's nephew from Tolus Prime. Your covers provide you with a number of common interests. A shared interest in mildly dangerous sports, for one thing. It means you have reasons for wanting to jet all over the place- and incidentally, for carrying sidearms. Sport pistols. Licenses will be issued to the both of you on your way out. Your `sporting weapons' each pack a much greater wallop than their appearance will suggest. So for Hive's sake, be circumspect with them- Look around, take your time, and honestly try to have fun. I don't believe is miracles, but `erecting the proper superstructure facilitates acquiring interior trappings.' "
"Mathewson, twenty-third edict, section four," said Kitten.
"`Accidents and miracles will happen if you can find the proper place in space'; yes, you're right, my door," replied Orvenalix. "I never knew theology interested you."
"Only the juicy parts. For example ..."
Porsupah elected to chew the upholstery.
Malcolm Hammurabi was counting his money. The awkward fact drat he didn't have it yet failed to interrupt fire pleasure he took in the mathematics.
It had been the kind of trip that ship-masters drink over: no muss, no fuss, and plenty of profits. Even tire drive bad bees trouble-free. Who'd have thought that those attenuated seals on Largess would be crazy for imported alva- let alone Replerian alva. Granted, though, the stuff was tasty enough. Even if Rodriguez wouldn't program the stuff for the galley. Mal's share of the profits would be, well, healthy. Might even be enough to refinish that verdammt upper right quarter of the Umbra's KK drive projector screen. Not that it was an essential job ... not yet. But it would boost her favorable energy conversion ratio by a good thirty percent. That would convert to a savings of, oh, so and so much in ignition radioactives. Not to mention reducing wear and increasing efficiency in the engine systems.
He'd been told, often, that his habit of making a personal, solitary survey of ship's cargo the night after it had been shuttled down was just a little peculiar. The excuse be offered in return was that he wanted to be certain of the cargo's proper alignment for redistribution, atc., etc., right up to the moment of transfer.
In actuality, the fascination of standing alone with tons and tons of goods from tire far roaches of the galaxy, piled high in rainbow-hued plastic and metal containers, was one he had carried from childhood. Then he used to wander through similar warehouses (which towered so much greater in his childhood memories) and dream of the days he might visit planets with magic names like Terra, Hivehom, Almaggee, Long Tunnel, Horseye and Entebbe.
He'd had little idea that one day he'd be transporting similar goods himself. Too often the planets had proven dull and unattractive. But there was enough spice in the life to make things interesting. (Besides, you crazy hypocrite, you hated pro ball. Being the best goalie who ever maintained parallax with a ball was hardly fit epitaph for a man.)
Anyhow, it was important that the luxury goods be easily accessible for tomorrow, in case that ol
d pirate Chatham and the others wanted an early look.
A good percentage of the cases were emblazoned with the CK crest of arms, customs stamps, impression of destination and planet of origin. A few were consigned to small dealers on Rapier, some to members of the crew, and a number were sealed in the crimson of the Commonwealth. There was even one small aquamarine case of holy goods for the Church. Mostly biochemical and oceanographic instrument parts, plus a few specimens of Largessian life.
Another section of the gigantic warehouse was filled with a massive shipment headed of-planet. Idly, he wondered who'd pulled off that job.
Old Chatham's success had been due in large part to his policy of hiring free-lance cargo vessels or those of small companies to transport his goods, rather than acquiring his own fleet. It was a risky way to do business, circa be was entirely dependent on the will of men who were not beholden to anyone. Cargos could disappear with sobering swiftness an short or nonexistent notice. And a merchant or trader who operated in such fashion built nothing in the way of transportation equity.
At the same time, the system offered unequaled flexibility without fear of loss in manpower or chips. Some few men could make a success of the arrangement, while those with a huge investment in ships and men might go broke in spectacularly short periods of time. Chatham was one who'd spent a lifetime mastering the first system.