FINANCIAL
FREEDOM
A Tech Infantry Novella
by
Edward Stasheff & Marcus Johnston
Copyright © 2011
Chapter 8: Rising Stock
On New Madrid, Heth's convoy was almost ready to depart. Overall, it had been a very profitable venture—not only did he have the cash in hand, he'd also discovered a potential new source of income. Unfortunately, one issue of business remained unresolved—the refund of collateral secured against default: M. Wells' magick ring.
The rather… unprofessional M. Wells had provided the ring as collateral for the half of Heth's fee paid in advance. Now that Gergenstien had settled the account in full, however, the ring needed to be returned. Frankly, Heth was glad to be rid of it; the volatile and unpredictable nature of magick always made him uncomfortable.
Finding M. Wells, however, turned out to be surprisingly difficult. When he failed to get in touch on New Madrid, Heth quickly discovered the contact information on the human's business card was bogus. A directory search for Herbert George Wells turned up nothing except a long-dead writer; the name was almost certainly an alias… especially given that the writer penned a book titled The Invisible Man. Whoever M. Wells was, he had gone to great lengths to disappear and remain hidden. Still, a deal was a deal, and Heth wasn't about to risk breaking another contract, verbal or otherwise. So he attempted to contact their only known mutual associate: Captain Herbert Gergenstein.
Unfortunately, the elusive Earth Fleet officer proved almost as difficult to locate as Wells. The Tech Infantry Research & Development Office that Gergenstein referred Heth's power armor problem to didn't know any more than Heth did. He tried Federation Chairman Smythe's office next; they claimed to not know who Heth was talking about—although the gasp in their voice when they heard Gergenstein's name told him otherwise.
So Heth went back to the source he started with—Sergeant Tinsler. Thankfully, his commline was still in service, but he was not happy about being called back. "You want me to bug the boss with this?!"
"Normally I'd go through proper channels, of course," Heth assured the jumpy young non-com, "but... ah, apparently there are no channels for this, proper or otherwise. I'm afraid I've exhausted all my other options."
"Look, pal, I just work for him now. I don't know where he is..."
"Please, sergeant, I'm sure you must have some way to get a hold of him. In emergencies, for example? I'm on a schedule, so if you could expedite this, I'll make it worth your while." Heth smiled, pawing one of his shinier (and least valuable) rings.
The sergeant's higher and lesser angels did battle across his face's facial tics. It wasn't a protracted engagement; his greater angels had surrendered long ago. "I... I should have something in an hour. Meet me at the marketplace in Concourse B then. Discom."
True to his greed, Heth found the shaky sergeant an hour later, impatient to leave such a public place. Tinsler took him out of the concourse to a service elevator, taking him deep into the less fashionable parts of the sprawling orbital. Once they reached what seemed to be an industrial section, the sergeant led the way down abandoned corridors. When Heth heard the screams, his tail bristled in fear—but suspected they'd reached the right place.
Tinsler gestured to a nameless door, looking even more gutless than usual. "He's through there," he said, backing away. "Good Luck." Then the sergeant turned and scurried down the call to hide in a shadowy alcove. Heth watched him go. Clearly courage was not the human's strong suit, given that he was a soldier cutting deals for a desk job behind the lines during an active war. Swallowing hard, Heth took a quick sniff of nepeta to calm his nerves, composed himself, and scratched at the door.
The screams slowly stopped and a moment later Captain Gergenstein stuck his head out. He looked around, then down, and did a double-take when he saw the K'Nes. "Ah. M. Miao." He hesitated a moment. "How the hell did you find me?"
"With great difficulty, I assure you."
"I see…" Gergenstein glanced down the dark hallway. "We'll talk about this later, Tinsler." The Captain's head swiveled back towards Heth; not particularly annoyed, just impatient. "I'm afraid you caught me at a bad time—I'm in the middle of something right now. What do you want?"
Heth put on his game face and smiled politely. "I'm terribly sorry to bother you, but I'm afraid I have some unfinished business with one of your agents: M. Wells."
Gergenstein was silent a moment. "Who?"
"Herbert George Wells? He delivered your, ah, merchandise to me at St. Michael's Star?"
"Sorry." The Captain shook his head. "Don't know anyone by that name."
Heth blinked, hesitating. It was a lie, of course; Gergenstein hadn't even tried to hide that fact. Plausible deniability, perhaps? Heth wondered. Letting me know I'm only to deal with him from now on, not his agents? Whatever the reason, it made no difference; Heth got the message loud and clear: Pursue this no farther.
Of course, the Captain would almost certainly change his mind once he discovered Heth still possessed Wells's powerful and expensive magickal ring. Heth hesitated a second, unsure how to proceed, then decided to leave the decision in Gergenstein's hands: he could reclaim the ring when and if he wanted to.
"I see… well, thank you for your time, and my apologies for disturbing you," Heth said, holding out a clearplaz business card to the Captain, "but if you—or your agents—should need to reach me in the future, here's my contact information. Plug it into any holophone, and I'll answer right away; it'll be marked top priority. For you, M. Gergenstein, I will always be available for additional covert contracts."
"Yeah. Sure. Thanks." The Captain began to close the door, but then he paused, staring down at the business card. He looked back at Heth thoughtfully and narrowed his eyes. "You're headed straight back to the K'Nes Llan, right?"
"Oh, yes indeed, right away." Heth nodded. "I'm on a very tight schedule."
Gergenstein held up a single finger. "Wait a moment," he said, then ducked back inside, closing the door behind him.
Heth waited for several seconds, alone, puzzled, and a little apprehensive. Through the door drifted the sounds of feminine whimpering and a muffled "Shut up!" Heth sniffed the air, detecting the faint smell of an expensive floral perfume mixed with the musky scent of sweat, the metallic tang of blood, and the stink of human fear. Now Heth understood why curiosity killed the cat; he struggled to keep his tail from bristling.
A second later Gergenstein stepped back out into the hallway, datapad in hand. "Since you offered, I'd like you to personally deliver this to the K'Nes Llan Executive Board, preferably to the... what's the term, the leader of the K'Nes Llan?"
"Pirr Varrless? Some would call him the LEO," Heth offered, "but he goes by First Patriarch. The title is up for debate at the next shareholders meeting."
Herbert rolled his eyes. "Whatever. Just make sure he gets this, or someone on the Executive Board. Someone who can act on it." He held out the datapad to Heth. As he took it, Heth's eyes flickered down to the text and saw it was unencrypted; Gergenstein noticed the move, too. "It's not secret, but it is digitally signed. You can't alter it without invalidating the agreement."
"Of course, of course," Heth mumbled, eyes widening as he scanned the text. He looked back up at the Captain, stunned and amazed. "Are… are you sure you want me to deliver this? Instead of going through formal diplomatic channels?"
Gergenstein shrugged, impatient. "It's not like we have an embassy on Purrfang or anything—until now, Chairman Smythe's seen the K'Nes Llan as little more than a rebel province." He gestured to the datapad. "Hopefully this will change all that. The Federation's got its hands too full with the Holy Terran Empire to get bogged down in a Cold War with the K'Nes."
"Yes, let's hope so," Heth agreed as he tucked the datapad into the breast pocket of his blazer, thinking. "Well, I don't have a direct connection to the Executive Board… but the LEO of our corporate clan is Chair of the Board of Directors; that's rather like the lower house of your—"
"That's fine," the Captain cut him off as he pulled something out of his pocket. "For your trouble." Gergenstein stepped back inside and closed the door as he tossed something towards Heth.
In the lower artificial gravity of the space station, the K'Nes caught it with ease. Opening his paw, Heth saw it was another ring. He appraised it with an expert eye as he turned and headed back down the hall. Nice setting, he evaluated, fourteen-karat gold, three diamonds, high clarity, several carats each... quite an expensive tip!
Sergeant Tinsler stepped out of the shadows as Heth passed by. "Hope that was worth it… what did the Captain give—" His voice cut off suddenly. Heth looked up to see the young soldier staring at Heth's "tip," a look of shock on his pale face. Heth frowned and looked at the ring again. He suddenly realized he'd seen rings like this before, on human females. It was a… a "wedding ring." Against his will, the fur on Heth's tail rose.
Having finally found evidence that his power armor contract with the Holy Terran Empire had indeed been sabotaged, Heth scheduled a holo call to the LEO of Miao Mercantile. Given the contents of the datapad Captain Gergenstein had given him, Heth also needed to speak to someone who could get him in touch with the head of the K'Nes Llan, First Patriarch Varrless. Miao K'Nhurr K'Yawr was Heth's only contact who could.
Heth waited for the LEO to call him, then answered when the call arrived fashionably late. Heth shifted his posture slightly into a tiny defensive cower, tail lowered. It was only polite when addressing the dominant male of his clan. "Gainful day, sire."
"Gainful for me, yes," Yawr said as he took a pinch of powdered nepeta from a snuffbox. "Whether it will be gainful for you, well… that has yet to be seen." The big gray cat brought the powder to his nose and inhaled sharply in one quick, practiced gesture… and purred softly.
That's a good sign, Heth thought. He'll be in a good mood.
"I told you not to contact me again without proof you didn't break that Imperial contract," Yawr growled.
"Indeed you did, sire."
"Well, cub? I'm waiting."
And so Heth explained what the Federation technician had found, that the power armor sold to the Empire was infected with foreign nanos that cut the rest of the bots off from the suitcomp, rendering it powerless and dead.
"Sounds more like defective merchandise to me," Yawr scoffed. "I could think of several other explanations for that than sabotage."
"So have I, sire, but I haven't told you the most important part. Those foreign nanobots?" Heth flashed his LEO a fanged grin. "They were Horadrim."
"Horadrim nanobots?" Yawr purred, his expression skepticism mixed with naked greed. "Are you sure?"
"These bots are insanely tiny, highly advanced, and partly organic. I can't think of what else they possibly could be except Horadrim."
"Do you have any idea how much those are worth, cub?"
"Indeed I so, sire. Low supply, high demand… excellent profit. And as I'm sure you know, the Horadrim are very protective of their technology," Heth said, trying to drag the conversation back on track, "so I really can't believe that the suits got accidentally infected with Horadrim nanos."
"You raise a good point, Heth," the old cat said. "How did those suits get infected with Horadrim biotech, then?"
"Well, I do have a theory, sire," Heth said. "You see, the power armor was working fine when Zechariah McNeilly, the Empire's sales representative, came to examine the merchandise prior to signing the contract. But by the time the suits reached Imperial space, they were drained and unresponsive. They must have been infected during that window of time."
"A competitor's spy within our corporate clan?" Yawr suggested… but he sounded doubtful.
"Possible, but unlikely," Heth said. "I doubt any K'Nes could get their hands on Horadrim nanobots—and if they could, they'd flip them for a massive profit instead of planting them in power armor, Imperial contracts notwithstanding. No, I think it must have been a Horadrim who infected the suits… and that Horadrim had to have been an Imperial agent. There aren't many Horadrim left, after all, and what few there are almost all work for Emperor Vin Dane. And the only Imperial agent who had any contact with the suits during that time frame… was the sales representative, McNeilly. He handled every suit while inspecting the merchandise. He must have been the saboteur—that's the only thing that makes sense."
"Nonsense!" Yawr spat. "McNeilly was obviously human!"
"We thought he was human, yes," Heth agreed. "But Horadrim can use their Soul Web to look perfectly human if they choose to. That's how Emperor Vin Dane passes himself off as human to his followers, after all."
Horadrim were—among many other things—shapeshifters. In a process no one fully understood, the remaining Horadrim had long ago integrated their bodies with massive colonies of their advanced semi-organic nanobots, something they called a "Soul Web," which allowed them to drastically change their form. Strong as werecreatures, fast as K'Nes, and tough as Bugs, where exactly the technology ended and the alien began was anyone's guess. For that matter, no one was entirely sure what Horadrim looked like in their natural form. Perhaps even the Horadrim themselves had forgotten. All that remained were dark whispered rumors of grotesque black insectoid or reptilian things.
"It's difficult to tell a human from a Horadrim imposter," Heth continued, "and we didn't run any biometric scans on McNeilly because… well, quite frankly, it's rude. It never occurred to us that a Horadrim might be masquerading as a human sales representative. The odds were heavily against it—there are so few Horadrim left, after all."
"I'm not sure your theory makes sense, though," Yawr said. "You're right when you say the Horadrim are protective of their technology—so I doubt they'd leave their nanobots behind for anyone to find and exploit."
"But that's just it," Heth said. "McNeilly infected the suits right before he purchased them, and we smuggled them past the Federation into the Empire. The armor—and its nanos—would have ended up in his possession anyway. The Empire knew they'd be keeping the suits, broken or not. I had to negotiate rather hard just to keep the one suit I did—and I think they only allowed that in the end to avoid suspicion. In fact, I wondered at the time why they insisted on keeping the defective merchandise instead of an exchange or invoking the warranty…"
"All right, so the nanobots wouldn't have been out of Horadrim hands for very long," the big cat agreed, "and the chances of anyone finding them during that time are slim, I'll give you that. But there's still one thing that doesn't make sense—why ruin merchandise they paid for? What was the purpose in throwing away money like that? And don't tell me it was a grand conspiracy orchestrated by the Emperor himself just to ruin your reputation, Heth. You're not that important, cub!"
"But that's just it, sire, the suits weren't ruined!" Heth protested. "I learned from the Fed technician that the damage could be easily repaired in a matter of days—at almost no cost! In the meantime, the Empire negotiated keeping the suits anyway and a full refund—with interest! They got the suits effectively for free. Given that they got interest on the refund, we actually paid them."
The LEO was silent. His gray fur bristled, his whiskers twitched, and his eyes narrowed to slits. "So… they cheated us," he hissed quietly.
"Yes, sire," Heth nodded. "It's the only explanation that makes any logical sense to me. It was a scam."
"Well… the Miao will be sure never to work with Zechariah McNeilly again, that's for sure," Yawr growled.
"An excellent idea, sire," Heth agreed. "McNeilly's not just a swindler and a fraud… he's also dangerous."
"Dangerous?" Yawr looked up at Heth sharply. "Why do you say that?"
"Well, any Horadrim can be dangerous if they choose to be, of course," Heth began. "Sky Father above, their Soul Web makes them living suits of power armor! So I thought it would be prudent to do a little research on Zechariah McNeilly, and… well, I suspect M. McNeilly may choose to be dangerous more often than others of his kind."
The old cat leaned closer to the camera, ears forward, listening intently. "What did you find out, cub?"
"Not a lot, I'm sorry to say. He appears to have been a personal agent of Emperor Vin Dane for quite a while—well before he was Emperor, as far as I can tell—and, if the rumors are true, not terribly fond of humans. When the Holy Terran Empire was formed, McNeilly was initially rather high up in the Imperial bureaucracy… at least at first…"
Yawr narrowed his eyes. "What happened?"
"There was an… incident," Heth continued. "Media reports are rather vague about what actually happened, but apparently several of McNeilly's human colleagues were killed rather suddenly—and rather brutally, I'm afraid. The Empire eventually claimed they were assassinated by terrorists, of course… but McNeilly was transferred to the K'Nes Llan immediately."
"Where there are no humans to kill." Yawr stroked his mane and nodded thoughtfully. "Yes, I see…"
There was no need to state the obvious. Both cats recognized a punitive demotion when their saw it. The apes considered being sent to the K'Nes systems only slightly better than being transferred to a harsh frontier world on the edge of known space.
"At any rate," Heth resumed, "it's not clear what exactly his position is now. As far as I can tell, he's some sort of unofficial Imperial envoy to First Patriarch Varrless."
"That might explain some of Varrless's recent actions in Capital Hall, yes," the old gray cat mused. "Officially, the K'Nes Llan is strictly neutrality is galactic politics… but it’s fairly common knowledge that Varrless seems to prefer the Empire to the Federation for some reason. Well, we'll clearly have to be more careful in our dealings with the Empire in the future," Yawr said, coming out of his reverie. "In fact, in light of your sabotaged power armor contract, I think you've given us good cause to sue the Empire for breach of contract. Treachery of this kind can't go unanswered, cub."
"I agree, sire. What shall we do?"
The old cat scowled. "I'm not sure yet. Give me some time to think it over. But rest assured, there will be consequences for this."
"Actually, I've got other information that might influence your decision in that respect, sire."
"Oh yes?" Yawr widened one eye, mildly interested.
"I negotiated a contract with a high-ranking official within the Federation. He wanted me to deliver an important document to the head of the K'Nes Llan. I'm sending a copy of it to you now—triple encrypted, standard Miao rotating frequency and cipher key."
The LEO reached over to pick up a datapad, and then tapped over the screen with his paw. Heth studied his boss's face carefully as he read the document and absorbed the news. The graying old cat's fangs bared slowly in a Cheshire grin. "The Federation is proposing a Non-Aggression Contract… well, it's about time!"
"Excellent news, isn't it, sire?" Heth asked, barely able to contain his own excitement.
"Indeed it is," Yawr purred. "Once this passes, I imagine it will cause a nice surge in the stock exchanges." The big cat looked up, grinning. "Investors love political stability!"
"I assume you'll support the contract on the Board of Directors?" Heth asked.
"Oh, of course!" Yawr said. "But I imagine First Patriarch Varrless will want to introduce the measure to the Executive Board himself."
"I'll be back in K'Nes space in a few days, sire," Heth said. "I'll have to deliver it to the Patriarch then. As our representative to the Board of Directors, I assume you can arrange the meeting for me?"
"No need," the old gray cat said with a wave of his paw. "I'll pass it on for you."
Heth hesitated, and then pushed ahead. "I'm sorry, sire… but I need to hand-deliver it personally to First Patriarch Varrless."
"Oh, do you now?" Yawr's tone has half-amused, half-reproachful. "What makes you think you're so important?"
"I don't, sire, but…" Heth shrugged. "Well, it's in the contract."
"Oh. Very well, then. In the meantime, I'll see if I can start laying the groundwork to support the motion in the Board of Directors."
"Thank you, sire. If you don't mind, could you arrange the meeting with Varrless for as soon as I arrive? I won't have much time before the first Impossibarium convoy leaves for Jurvain space." Heth hesitated a moment. "I, uh… I will be managing the convoy now, won't I, sire?"
"That was the agreement," the LEO nodded, "and a deal is a deal. You've not only proven your contract was sabotaged and tipped us off to a shady customer we should we wary of in the future… but you've also acquired some very valuable Horadrim technology, and apparently made some important contacts in the Federation government as well. I couldn't be more pleased with your performance, Heth. In fact, I'm restoring you to your previous management level. Congratulations, cub, you're once again a Director in the Extralegal Transit Division of Miao Mercantile, Incorporated."
Heth was shocked silent. The news was stronger than any nepeta he had ever sniffed. "My… my old position? Does… does that mean my old super-freighter command, the Avarice…?"
"It's yours again." Yawr nodded. "I can have it rendezvous with the Impossibarium convoy at Urrin."
"Why… thank you, sire, thank you!"
"Not at all, my cub, not at all. Keep up the good work out there." Yawr cut the connection.
Heth floated there, deliriously happy and slightly dazed. Wait until Miu hears this news! he thought. If this doesn't get me back on her list of reproductive investors for her auction, nothing will!
