"And what are we talking about now?"
"The same thing." Masid leaned forward earnestly. "You need to understand one thing: Sipha Palen is a good cop. She's honest, dedicated, and a magnificent pain in the ass to work for as a result, but she's sincere about the job."
"I never doubted it."
Masid nodded once. "But it gets her in trouble. That's the reason she's up here and not running a department on the ground. "
"Honest to a fault."
"She doesn't always know when to shut up." He grinned. "In certain circles, it can be a real deficit."
"She planted you in the lab."
"No, I was already there. I'm a turned agent. I used to work for Settler security. Sipha found out and made a deal with me: work for her, at least part-time, or she'd expose me."
"Forgive me, but you look like a Spacer."
Masid made a mock bow. "Native of Proclas."
"Then how-?"
"It's a long story. The short version is, I was trained as an information specialist, but, frankly, it's boring work. Proclans are agrarian by temperament, but you can't maintain much of a civilization growing vegetables. I started freelancing. The government called it treason and I had to leave. I ran an independent merchant ship for a while, then went to work for the Theian intelligence service on Pax Commari-"
"That's a Settler colony."
"Yes, it is. Theia sponsored it. Anyway, I decided that what I was doing was crass and unethical, so I turned myself in to the local intelligence people. They had absolutely no use for me, but-lucky me-,..they knew someone who did. I ended up working for the Settler Coalition. "
"I didn't know they had an intelligence arm. "
"Not very many people do. Their biggest concern is smuggling. Post to post to post, I ended up here. " He raised his arms. "That's the short version. Some day when we have time and a good deal to drink, I'll give you the full version, which is a lot more interesting. "
"So you work for Palen part of the time."
"At this point, I'd have to say I work for Palen all of the time. She made me a good deal. Over the last few years, I've found myself with a growing case of loyalty to her. "
"That impressive?"
"I respect her," Masid said.
The way he said it, Derec got the immediate sense of a vast and profound commitment; that respect was something Masid Vorian esteemed above all else.
"All right," Derec said slowly. "I presume that the arrangement is, you work with the Aurorans for a time and when you have something to report you get yourself arrested."
"Basically. Most of the time information is easily sent through a secured comm channel. But sometimes something comes up that requires a personal meet."
"What prompted this one?"
"Baleys. Lots of very dead baleys." "There's a regular route, always has been," Masid explained. "The bays change, but usually they're Settler. Baleys have been leaving Kopernik for years via the same avenues-fifty, a hundred years. We estimated that on an average year maybe five, six thousand people leave Earth through clandestine channels. Occasionally, the number goes as high as ten or twelve thousand. ITE cracks down periodically, the numbers drop to less than a thousand, then pick back up.
"A couple of years ago we started seeing a massive surge: twelve, thirteen, fifteen thousand a year. I think this had to do with the politics, Eliton's whole Concessionism kick, and then the collapse of talks last year. I think a lot of baleys are afraid all the avenues are about to be shut down.
"In the middle of this frantic running, though, we started hearing rumors from some of the Settler crews that a number of shipments went missing. I started doing a little digging among my old Settler contacts. I found out that transfers were being made mid-journey by certain ships-destinations changed, baleys offloaded and sent somewhere else. Too many claims to ignore. "
"Pirates?" Derec asked.
"That's an easy accusation to make. Tell me, what is pirate? Black market, certainly. But fine, let's assume for the sake of this discussion we're talking about pirates. Then what are they doing? A lot of so-called pirate ships are already dealing in baley running. A lot of them have quasilegal status and come into port regularly. No warrants, no evidence to hold them, we let them go. The ships offloading the baleys aren't doing so under duress, so it's a business deal. But for who? The money being paid by baleys and some of the recipient colonies is a lot, but I don't see how the margin makes it worthwhile stealing the baleys after they're already en route. So where are they being taken?"
"You found out?"
Masid shook his head. "Not exactly. A lot of talk has them going to Nova Levis. Of course, that's quarantined, so it's not likely we're going to find any ship's owners willing to admit they're making runs there. The pirate ships taking the baleys on never come to Kopernik. But let's assume that one or two colonies have hired mercenary shippers and are paying premiums to steal baleys. Why? What do baleys have that could be marketable under illicit conditions?"
"Labor. Possibly blackmail of family."
"No blackmail, not a single demand. Labor, sure. But you can buy cheap labor from companies like Imbitek and Morris and some of the others. There are some colonies buying robots from Spacers. So, if it's not labor, what is it?"
Derec shook his head.
"Bodies."
"Organs?"
"What else? On spec I recommended that a shipload of baleys be traced and intercepted en route. A joint Auroran-Terran venture was set up. It took four tries to find a transfer, but we found one and the ship was taken. The baleys were already dead, in stasis. Medical quality stasis. Eighty-three of them. We had a few arriving shipments intercepted here and at least three of them contained already dead baleys."
"Why didn't you shut it all down if you knew about the shipments?"
"Two reasons: we don't know about all the shipments, and we still don't know who's killing them and selling the corpses. Ongoing investigation; we need to keep it quiet till we can shut down the source. I know, it's terrible. People are dying. But that's the way it is."
"How many?" Derec asked.
"So far, three hundred plus. We've been trying to infiltrate baley groups, see where they're going. Our agents have been turning up dead, too. Some of them in very unpleasant ways. The worst was Chiava."
"Chiava?"
"The Brethe dealer you heard about. Right here, in her holding cell. "
"Chief Palen worked her the same way she works you?"
Masid nodded. "She worked dockside vice mostly, not this. She found something related to my investigation. "
"Did she have time to tell Palen?"
"No. She was brought in while Sipha was away. By the time Sipha returned…"
"What I don't understand," Derec said, "is where the market for this is. Organs can be grown-you don't have to do gross transplants. "
"Spacer medical tech is expensive. "
"That's facile. It's also safer. The only reason…" Derec caught his breath. "The baleys in question. You identified them?"
"As many as we could. Some had bought very expensive privacy locks on their pasts."
"How many of them were orphans?"
"Orphans?"
"Yes, orphans."
Masid blinked and shrugged. "I don't know."
"Find out."
"You have an idea what's going on?"
"Just an idea. A very tenuous idea. "
Masid nodded. "You look like you hope you're wrong. "
"That, too." Derec studied Masid for a time. "So what are you still doing in here?"
"Oh, that. Well." Masid smiled sheepishly. "I'm bait."
Twenty-One
I've called for an embassy limousine," Ariel said. "It should be here shortly."
Ree Wenithal gave her a gloomy look, as if now regretting to go along with them. He had drunk four cups of coffee and swallowed a stimulant pill, and his mood had grown ever more somber.