He tried to hold his features to a properly cool expression as he followed the young operative Bros had assigned to him. It was hard. Cool, he reminded himself. An experienced agent displays no emotion. Certainly no genuine emotion. He'd practiced fake ones often enough.
Sperin was a legend in the lore of Central Security, and Seg had hunted each and every story about him to the source, confirming every unbelievable tale. Such panache, such wit, such daring! he thought. Somehow, Seg had imagined that Mr. Bros Sperin must be dead. Heroes simply didn't live in the same world as industrial scientists.
Not Mister Bros Sperin, Seg reminded himself, but Bros, by!Gretz! He shook my hand and told me to call him Bros.
Now Seg had only to hope that his supervisor would confirm the alleged field appointment he was supposedly reporting for. Once, the recording-which Bros was probably viewing even now-had merely authorized Sperin to call upon Dr. Seg!T'sel for any advice he needed pertaining to the stolen diseases and their antidotes. But Seg had made a few artistic adjustments to the original, lending a whole new aspect to the tape.
The Directors are a conservative lot, he thought. Lost in credentialism. Convinced that merely because his formal training was in analysis, he couldn't be an effective field operative as well.
Seg was aware from his research into Bros's exploits that he was careful about details. There was no doubt that in this case one of those details would be to check the contents of the recording Seg had given him with Clenst.
Seg had arranged for any calls regarding himself to be referred to his immediate supervisor. A human-about whom Seg had assembled an intimidating dossier that seemed to confirm his guilt in the theft of the missing diseases.
Actually, Seg had no idea whether his boss was guilty or not, but the appearance was so damning that the man had gone along with his plan.
Hoping, no doubt, that I'd get myself killed, Seg thought happily. Little did he know.
Seg was going to be an agent, and he was going to shine.
"Oh, great unborn planets," Bros whispered. The documents looked solid. They were solid. What on earth were they thinking of, to saddle him with this amateur?
"Run this through for confirmation," he said wearily, and his comp immediately began working.
He sighed. Well, the work he'd already been engaged in was just as pertinent to the new investigation as to the old. His instincts told him that the Kolnari were involved. The symmetry of the whole thing was too perfect; fitting so well with the shape of their defeat and the Kolnari need for revenge. And if the Kolnar were involved then so was Nomik Ciety.
He sat at his computer and began reviewing the latest batch of outstanding warrants he'd been sent.
Words scrolled up the screen, mostly unheeded except for an occasional term or name that Bros registered. His mind was mostly on Joat Simeon. And Joseph ben Said, who had apparently disappeared.
Right into Joat's ship, and for all I know, into her bed, he thought sourly. He hadn't liked the idea of the older man proposing marriage to her. But the memory of her response brought a smile to his lips.
His eye caught a familiar name on a warrant scrolling by and he stopped it, pulled it back down for inspection.
The complaint was ten years old, but might as well have been centuries old for all the effect it'd had. It had been filed by Channa Hap and Simeon, the Brain and Brawn of the SSS-900-C on behalf of their adopted daughter, Joat Simeon-Hap.
Bros sat up and leaned forward. The warrant had been signed out against a Nom Selkirk, Joat's uncle. It seemed the man had lost his seven-year-old niece in a poker game with the captain of a tramp freighter. The child had subsequently been viciously abused and then abandoned on the SSS-900-C. Both Channa and Simeon had demanded some sort of action. They'd gone so far as to post a reward for information.
Nom Selkirk was one of Nomik Ciety's aliases, one of his oldest, perhaps even his real name. If he has any real name other than vermin, or something of that kind.
The hair crawled on Bros's neck. And I sent her after him, he thought with horror. An image of Joat's smile rose in his mind; and the memory of holos taken during the Kolnari occupation of SSS-900-C. Most of which Joat had spent in the ventilation system, planning and executing-literally-her ambushes. During which she'd used a monofilament dispenser to give a whole new layer of meaning to the ancient saying "Cut them off at the knees."
If Ciety was her uncle, his life wasn't worth spit from the moment Joat landed on the same surface. Not that Ciety would be any loss, but the consequences to the mission…
"Outsmarted yourself again," Sperin muttered to himself. "Tell me I'm not as stupid as a vid-series spy. Please!"
The customs corvette was a slender needle next to the Wyal's torpedo, built to transit atmosphere and fast in space as well. An unpleasant beeping sound echoed over the bridge as the merchantman's sensors picked up the lock-on of the gunboat's particle beam weapons and single torp tube. The corvette came around sharply to match vectors, reached zero-relative velocity, and extended a docking tube.
Joat's eyebrows rose when the airlock door swung open to show the corvette's commander; of course, the crew was only six people, but she'd expected a junior officer.
Commander Chang-Yarimizu stared, nonplused, at Captain Simeon, who stood with her arms outstretched to block his entrance to her hold.
"This device is perfectly safe," he insisted. "Stories of its destructiveness are mere superstitious nonsense."
"Nevertheless," she insisted, "I've got a hold full of extremely delicate electronics. I can't afford to take the risk. I'm within my rights Commander, and you know it. I'm not denying you the right of inspection, I'm merely refusing to let you use that instrument."
"But if we do the inspection by hand, Captain, it could take all day, or longer!"
"I'd rather arrive late with a clean cargo than on time with a hold full of trash. This is a freighter, not a garbage scow dumping radioactives! If it takes time, it takes time. I've got nothing to hide, so we'll go through the whole shipment, one item at a time. But I'll tell you this, Commander," Joat waved a stiff forefinger under his nose, "I'm going to protest this! Nothing in my record or reputation could give you reason for this. Nothing!"
"You're going to Rohan, ma'am…"
"Captain!"
"Captain. After a conference with a woman who has a reputation a lot less pristine than yours. You're known to have a crushing debt to New Destinies. All in all, it's really not unreasonable to assume that you might have been tempted off the straight and narrow."
"Well, Commander," Joat said, crossing her arms over her chest, "put down that gadget and we'll go discover the truth about that. Shall we?"
Several hours later, Joat and the two luckless sailors assigned to inspect her cargo had finished examining the electronics, now twice reopened and sealed, and were beginning on the laser crystals.
"Lasers?" the Commander said.
"Mining laser crystals. As you'll note, they aren't milspec."
If I have trouble selling those electronics, can I make a claim against customs for making me open up the containers? Joat wondered.