“I see.” The other man tilted his head to one side, eyes narrowing. “Clambake didn’t mention that you were the one who’d chosen the recognition phrase. I thought he had.” He nodded slowly. “I don’t know if it would really have done any good, but it was probably a wrinkle that was worth incorporating. Oh, you can call me Firebrand.”
“‘Firebrand’?” Indiana repeated, and grinned. “I like it. It’s got a more…proactive feel to it than ‘Clambake.’”
“I’m glad you approve,” Firebrand said dryly. “And I suppose that’s Magpie still in the car?”
“Yes,” Indiana confirmed. “You want to sit in the car to talk? The heater’s not much, but it’s at least a little warmer than standing out in the open this way.”
“Actually, I’d rather step inside the warehouse,” Firebrand demurred. “No offense, but I prefer a more solid roof and walls between me and any scag surveillance platforms that might happen by.”
“I don’t have any problem with that,” Indiana said and turned to beckon to Mackenzie. She looked at him for a moment, then opened her door, climbed out into the steadily strengthening rain, and joined the two men.
“Step into my office,” Firebrand invited, and led the way into the abandoned warehouse.
It was cold, drafty, and dreary. Abandoned stacks of plastic pallets leaned drunkenly, and a derelict forklift—not one of the grav-lifters the transstellars used in their warehouses, but a genuine, old-fashioned, pre-OFS forklift—loomed in the shadows. Raindrops drummed on the roof, and Indiana and Mackenzie heard the waterfall sound of runoff pounding down through holes to splash on the warehouse floor. It was a thoroughly miserable venue for a meeting, Indiana reflected, watching the plume of his breath. And it was also a perfect metaphor for what had happened to Seraphim since the Office of Frontier Security had come to the star system’s “rescue.”
“So you’re Clambake’s replacement,” he said, and Firebrand nodded.
“Like I say, we’ve had to make a few adjustments. On the other hand, one of the reasons we’ve done it is that we’ve been able to accelerate our plans a little bit.”
“You have?” Mackenzie asked, eyes narrowing, and he nodded. “How much?”
“To be honest, we’re still in the process of establishing that,” Firebrand admitted. “The biggest problem is that shipping’s scarce enough out this way, except for Krestor’s and Mendoza’s, that we have to be careful about our arrangements.” He chuckled suddenly. “There are some advantages to dealing with that crowd, though—not to mention the simple satisfaction of using their own ships against them! Their freight agents are about as corrupt as they are themselves, after all, and smuggling’s always a growth industry in the Protectorates. No one in the League has anything like a reliable estimate of the size of the ‘gray economy’ out here, but everyone knows damned well that it’s huge, so we might as well take advantage of it. Unless things change in the next month or two, what we’ll actually be doing is shipping your goodies in covered by Krestor shipping manifests. They’ll just sort of wander away from the rest of the queue once they hit dirt-side.”
“Isn’t that risky?” Mackenzie asked.
“Not really.” Firebrand shrugged. “I know we got the first couple of shipments in using the ‘tramp freighter’ approach, but that’s actually a lot riskier than doing it this way. There just aren’t enough legitimate tramps visiting your system to cover any kind of volume shipments, Magpie. If you people are going to pull this off we need to move some serious mass and cubage, and, realistically, Seraphim doesn’t have enough independent business to attract a genuine tramp. The transstellars have choked your people out too thoroughly for that. So if we want to bring in the weapons and other equipment you’re going to need, we’ve got to get a bit more inventive. And the good news is that if we do it this way, the freight agents who arrange the shipments are going to have every reason to keep them totally off the books without asking too many questions. Frankly, they aren’t going to give a rat’s ass what’s being shipped, even if they realize it’s actually weapons, as long as they get paid off and it doesn’t come back on them.”
Mackenzie looked less than delighted, but Indiana nodded.
“He’s got a point, M—Magpie. He’s right about how hard it would be to find any kind of legitimate excuse for an independent freighter to drop in out here, anyway.” He grimaced. “That’s part of the problem, isn’t it? The fact that there’s nothing to attract anyone to do business with us?”
“Yes,” she admitted after a moment. Her expression firmed. “Yes, it is.”
“There’re going to be some other changes, as well,” Firebrand went on. “For one thing, the situation with the Sollies is heating up from our side, as well. To be honest, the distraction quotient you and the other people we’ve been talking to represent may be needed more badly—and sooner—than we’d been thinking.”
“I see,” Indiana said slowly while his thoughts raced.
Part of him was delighted by the prospect of accelerating the schedule. Another part of him was unhappily aware of how speeding things up might lead to mistakes, the kind of slip-ups that got people jailed…or killed. And although he’d never had any illusions about the philanthropic selflessness of his allies, Firebrand’s announcement had reminded him that he and the Seraphim Independence Movement were just that as far as Manticore was concerned: a distraction for their main enemy.
Well, it’s not like it was any kind of a surprise, he reminded himself. And it always comes down to self interest in the end, doesn’t it? I don’t doubt the Manties wish us well. Everything I’ve ever heard about them suggests they wouldn’t much care for what OFS has done to us here in Seraphim. But the real reason they made contact with us in the first place is that they’re up against the Solarian League. Against someone that big you need every distraction you can get, and it’d be unrealistic as hell to pretend that isn’t what Firebrand’s here to arrange.
I guess we’re just going to have to hope they don’t decide they’re in such deep shit that—however regretfully—they end up figuring they’ve got no choice but to use us as an expendable distraction.
“I know what you’re worrying about,” Firebrand said shrewdly. “Don’t blame you, either. But look at it this way, Talisman. Sooner or later the fact that we’ve been helping you—and quite a few other star systems, I might add—is going to leak, no matter how hard we try to keep it a secret. For that matter,” he shrugged, “there’s not going to be a whole lot of reason to try to keep it secret, once it’s a done deal. And when that happens, we’re not going to be able to afford a reputation as someone who uses, abuses, and betrays allies. That’s exactly what Frontier Security’s been doing for centuries, and the whole point of our support for you and the others is at least partly to prove we’re not Frontier Security. What I’m saying is that we’re not in such a deep crack that it’s going to make sense to us to throw you and the others to the hexapumas, because if we get a reputation for doing that kind of thing, no one’s going to trust us enough to work with us after the dust settles.”
Indiana nodded slowly, although it occurred to him that if Firebrand really was planning on “throwing them to the hexapumas” (whatever a “hexapuma” was), that would be exactly the argument he’d use to convince them he intended to do nothing of the sort. On the other hand, it did make sense…and if he and Mackenzie weren’t willing to take at least a few chances, he hadn’t had any business organizing the SIM in the first place.