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The other two looked to Piggott Thigpen. She held out the gem from her neck. "Do you know what this is, Sam?"

  "Yeah, one of those artificial gemstones created by AVI, Limited. One slightly larger than yours sold at auction recently for six figures."

  Piggott Thigpen smiled. "You certainly keep up on things, Sam."

  Patch gulped his ale. "I was thinkin' of stealing one, if you must know." The others laughed at the remark, but Patch had meant it seriously.

  Swaying from its chain, the roughly raindrop-shaped stone shimmered brightly. It was about seventy-five millimeters long by forty wide and weighed 100.13 grams. As light reflected off the stone's highly polished surface, the gem appeared to coalesce and turn almost transparent. Staring at it closely, one could almost imagine he was looking through a tiny window into a world composed of slowly shifting and changing clouds of many brilliant colors. But in the hand, the stone took on a life of its own, generating a sensation of warmth and security that, combined with its radiant, coalescing colors, could virtually hypnotize a receptive owner. That was why some people found the stones absolutely fascinating and would pay a fortune to own one.

  All Sam Patch saw—and Val Carney too—was a highly polished stone worth a lot of money.

  "What do you know about AVI, Limited?" Morgan asked.

  Patch shrugged. "Avionics, Limited. They make airframes for atmospheric fliers. They figured out how to make these things ten, fifteen years ago and since then they've been selling them in small quantities on the rare gems market." He shrugged again, as if to say, What's so special?

  Morgan and Thigpen exchanged smirks.

  "Mr. Patch," Morgan began in his most mellifluous senatorial tones, "AVI, Limited is owned by the Confederation's Ministry of Science. The gems it supposedly manufactures in its ‘labs’ are actually produced through a natural process on a world called Avionia. The ministry began importing the gems for sale to help cover the expense of, um, monitoring events on Avionia."

  Patch raised an eyebrow but remained silent, sipping at his glass of ale.

  "It gets better, Sam," Piggott Thigpen continued. "Avionia is inhabited by an alien sentience—"

  Patch abruptly stood. "Piggy, you've fed me a lot of lines over the years," he said angrily. "I've never believed any of them and I'm not starting now." He headed toward the exit.

  "Sam, Sam!" Thigpen squealed. "Don't go. This is true!' Really."

  Patch glanced over his shoulder but didn't stop. "Then why haven't I heard about them?"

  "Because their existence is a state secret, goddamn you!"

  Patch turned back to the representative of Carhart's World. "How the hell does anybody expect to keep an alien sentience a secret? What's to keep them from dropping in on any world in Human Space?"

  Madam Piggott Thigpen gave the control panel of her sofa an agitated slap and it raised her to an erect sitting position. Her jowls jiggled as she shook her head. "They won't. They can't. The Avionians aren't space-faring—they don't have the technology. They're pretty much like our Middle Ages."

  "Fifteenth century, actually," Senator Morgan said.

  "With everything that implies," Carney hastily added.

  Patch slowly looked from one to the other of the politicians. Maybe, he thought, and returned to his seat. "Tell me about them."

  "They're descended from something analogous to the birds of Earth." She nodded so forcefully that ripples washed up and down her body as she spoke. "Like many birds and reptiles, the Avionians require assistance in digesting their food, so they swallow a certain type of stone. Eventually, the stones are passed—"

  "Then these ‘gems’ are—are—" Carney laughed.

  "One man's shit is another man's bauble," Patch commented dryly, still not sure whether to believe them.

  "Well, I wouldn't put it quite that way," Piggott Thigpen said, "they are more correctly gastroliths. But yes, the stones pass through the digestive tracts of the Avionians. By the time they are, er, passed, some internal chemical process in the locals has given them their unique qualities. Or maybe the digestive process enhances qualities already existing in the stones. Nobody quite understands it yet."

  "How intelligent are these birdmen?" Patch asked.

  "Very" Morgan answered. "As I said, the most technologically advanced society on the planet is about a thousand years behind us. When the world was first discovered about thirty years ago, it was decided the Avionians should be left alone, to develop naturally, without human assistance. The Ministry of Science felt that introducing twenty-fifth century technology to a fifteenth century world would destroy them. The ministry has been monitoring the place ever since."

  Thigpen leaned forward on her sofa. "Avionia's existence was a very closely held secret until some idiot in the Ministry of Science got the brilliant idea that they could defray the cost of the monitoring operation by selling small quantities of the gastroliths in Human Space. AVI Limited was created as a front to handle the tax and licensing requirements. The scheme has worked quite well."

  "But as government representatives, you got on to it," Patch said.

  "Yes." Morgan took a long sip of his wine. "Avionia is just beyond the fringes of Human Space, so there have been no visitors except for government observers. The ministry keeps a space station in orbit around the place, to monitor the Avionians, warn away potential interlopers, and to snatch a few stones occasionally. So far nobody's connected the gems with the existence of a quarantined world. And nobody has seriously questioned why the planet is under quarantine when they're told it has diseases deadly to humankind."

  "And you want me to put together a crew, go to this place, defy the ban, and bring back a load of the gems." It was a statement, not a question.

  "Yes," Thigpen and Morgan answered together.

  "The split?" Patch asked, leaning forward in his chair. He was beginning to believe them. Unless the whole thing was a setup. But it couldn't be a setup; he had too much on Thigpen and she knew it.

  "We finance the operation," Thigpen replied. "Henri and I split fifty percent of the profits. Val here gets ten percent. You get what's left."

  "Agreed," Patch said without hesitating. He began to count off his requirements on his fingers. "I'll need two starships, a Bomarc executive-class vessel for my own use, and the smallest commercial ship available, one capable of landing on a planetary surface. I'll need that one for crew and equipment. I'll transport the gems in the Bomarc." He finished his ale and demanded a refill from the servo. As it poured the powerful amber fluid for him, he continued, "I'll need navigation charts and complete background information on this place, which I presume are highly classified. I need to know about the aliens that live on this world: how they communicate; if they are dangerous; will they interfere with my operations; what they might want to deal with me. I need to know the tracking capabilities of the space station if I'm going to reach planetside without being detected. That means I'll need pretty sophisticated electronic countermeasures and stealth suites. That'll cost a lot. I can put together a crew, no problem there, but you pay for them. I'll need money for my own expenses too. You got that kind of cash?"

  Piggott Thigpen only smiled. "All the information you need is on this crystal." She handed a tiny chip to Carney, who tossed it to Patch. "There is also the name of the man who can help you with the aliens on there. His name is Herbloc."

  "Tell me about him."

  "He used to be with the Ministry of Science," Morgan explained. "He was ‘'retired’."

  "Why?

  "Greed. He collected several gems for himself and got caught. Since the entire Avionian operation is a secret, he was pensioned off and sworn to secrecy; criminal prosecution would've blown the ministry's cover. But he's avaricious. He has valuable knowledge about Avionia and contacts with one of the native groups. He'll be useful to you."

  "Hmmm. Anything else I should know about this guy?"

  "Dr. Spencer Herbloc is a drunkard," Thigpen said. "That was the official reason for
his early retirement. One more thing, Sam. In order for this plan to succeed, we cannot flood the market with stones. You must leave their disposal entirely in our hands. We have contacts who can fence them slowly and surreptitiously at the best prices. If we flood the market for quick profits, the Confederation will get on to us, but worse, we'll be left with a collection of pretty baubles not worth what it'll cost us to get them. Do you understand?"

  Patch nodded. He pocketed the crystal and stood up. "I'll study what's on here and get back to you within twenty-four hours. If I accept your offer, I will deal only with Madam." He nodded at Piggott Thigpen. With that he walked out of the room.

  "Whew!" Morgan exclaimed and laughed as soon as Patch was gone. "Where did you meet him?" he asked Thigpen.

  She smiled mysteriously. "We had some business long ago, Henri. He is a very useful man."

  "And very dangerous, Madam," Carney warned. At Thigpen's request he had run a background check on Patch through a contact at the Ministry of Justice.

  "Tweed will cooperate, Valley?" Morgan asked the little man.

  "Entirely. He is too deep in my debt not to."

  Morgan turned to Thigpen. "Can we trust Patch?"

  "Of course not," she answered with a wet laugh that seemed to work its way out from deep within her mounds of flesh. "But he will recover the stones. Of course he will skim off a good many of them for himself, and, if I know Sam Patch, he'll keep at it until he's flooded the market with them. He'll try to beat us into the markets to make a vast fortune for himself and leave us with stones worth only a fraction of today's value. So I will have him removed after the first or second shipment... depending on the quality of the stones he gets for us. Trust me." She made that gurgling rumble of a laugh again. "Franklin!" she commanded the servo, "refill our drinks! We have cause to celebrate!"

  "And scrub the stink of his presidential from the air," Morgan added sourly.

  Sam Patch could have stayed at the finest hotel in town if he'd wanted, but a cautious man, he never drew attention to himself. So he got a room at the Hotel Milner on the outskirts of the capital's sprawling spaceport. A relic of the days before the Confederation moved its government to Earth, the Milner lacked the polish of the better hotels, but it was private. Spacemen looking for outward bound ships, crews waiting for consignments, and prostitutes and devious characters of all types stayed there. Patch fit right in.

  Alone in his room, he popped the crystal Thigpen had given him into a reader. He was impressed that his new "partners" seemed to have thought of everything. He gave a low whistle when he discovered how much money they'd put into a private account for him at a local bank. The contractor, Tweed, was supposed to outfit him with ships. He read the reports on the Avionians carefully all through the night, making notes as he went along. He would talk to Dr. Herbloc about the aliens, but by the time he was done reading he already knew what it was he'd give them, the "Cheereek," for their help. He chuckled and made a note to require Tweed to equip the larger of the starships with a machine shop.

  He considered a short list of men he wanted for the job. He had no intention of sharing all the gems with his sponsors. So he'd need Sly Henderson to work the market for him. Sly could handle operations planetside, reducing the personal risk to him as much as possible. Sly could pick the rest of the crew. And he'd need Art Gunsel. Given the tools, Art could make anything. And he would have them. Fortunately, Gunsel and Herbloc were both residents in Fargo. In the morning he'd contact them and set up interviews.

  But he would have to protect his back. He needed someone to keep an eye on Thigpen and her friends. He'd known the fat woman nearly thirty years, and they'd done business before, quite successfully too. But she was not to be trusted, and when she figured out how he'd cheat her, she would turn vicious. Morgan and Carney were political hacks. They'd run at the first sign of trouble. But Thigpen would never be satisfied until she'd had her revenge on him. Patch remembered another man who'd cheated her. She had supervised the traumatic removal of his testicles and personally performed other indignities on the unfortunate gent. He would have to kill her to be entirely safe. He would arrange for that to be done.

  Until then someone would have to keep an eye on the fat bitch. It would be easy enough to have someone bug her offices and monitor things there for him, but getting into her apartment would be a different matter entirely. He thought for a moment. The orthosofa! The company's chief maintenance rep, an old friend, lived right there in the capital. The complicated devices required frequent maintenance and software updates. He'd make it well worth his friend's time to personally service Thigpen's sofas.

  He leaned back happily and drew on his presidential. Who'd ever have thought a pile of bird droppings could be worth so much?

  Patch disliked Spencer Herbloc the moment he saw the disheveled scientist. Herbloc had stipulated the penthouse bar in one of Fargo's most expensive hotels for their meeting, and as soon as he found Patch's booth, he ordered a huge mimosa. The servo poured and mixed the concoction to Herbloc's precise instructions then rolled off immediately to attend another customer. As soon as the privacy shields were up again, Herbloc said, "Cheers, old boy," then gulped half the drink in one swallow. He sighed, belched loudly, and inserted his glass into the service console mounted in one wall of the private booth. Since the servo had already programmed his drink, it was immediately refilled. The console blinked once and added the refill to the tab. Without asking, Herbloc punched the keypad for "one bill." He smiled tightly at Patch, who sat nursing a glass of Biere 33 Export. "You called me, old boy; your nickel." He belched.

  "You were on Avionia Station, Doctor. You stole gems. You were fired," Patch said.

  His drink halfway to his lips, Herbloc paused, a look of alarm on his face. "I've spoken to no one about that," Herbloc stuttered.

  "Unless you talk in your sleep," Patch answered. "You don't talk in your sleep, do you, Doctor?"

  "Listen, boy-o;" Herbloc replied, his face flushing, "I—"

  "No, you listen, you fat sot." Patch leaned forward menacingly across the table as he spoke. "You can talk to those things. I need you to do that for me. You'll be very well paid. We got a deal?"

  Herbloc leaned back, a self-satisfied smirk on his face. "Who told you I can communicate with the Avionians?"

  "I know you can, after a fashion," was all Patch offered.

  "‘After a fashion.’" Herbloc sneered. "‘After a fashion,’ eh? Listen to me, boy-o. I could not only ‘talk’ to them, I could ‘converse’ with the ugly buggers! I did it through studying Avionian physiology and building computer models of their squeaks and squawks that I recorded in the field. And I learned to communicate with them like a native, me boy-o! That bitch who runs the station, Hoxey, and her stuck-up ‘colleagues,’ they all thought I was a useless drunkard. Well, I showed the bastards! It was me, Spencer Herbloc, who really got inside the Avionian head. Now it's all right here." He tapped his head with a forefinger. "They fired me; they can figure it out for themselves."

  Herbloc's flushed face and rambling speech told Patch the man had been drinking long before their meeting and was well into a binge. He did not like that. Drunks were unreliable. But he had no choice. "Good." Patch grinned. "I'm putting together a team to go back there. I'll need you to go along with us."

  "Well, boy-o, I don't come cheap!" Herbloc chortled. Patch leaned quickly across the table and grabbed Herbloc's bulbous nose with his left hand. With his right he placed the blade of a razor-sharp boot knife under his chin. He pulled Herbloc out of his seat and forward over the table. "You have just been recruited, you bag of guts," Patch whispered. "There's no backing out now, no negotiating. You work for me until I don't need you anymore. You'll get what I think you're worth, ‘Doctor.’ Otherwise, consider yourself lucky to live long enough to go to Darkside. But you mess with me, forget about a one-way trip to Darkside, I'll fillet you like a fish.

  "Now you get your sorry ass home, pack a bag and meet me at Port Fargo at si
x hours tomorrow morning. Be sober or I'll remove one of your body parts with this knife." He let Herbloc go.

  The scientist slumped back into his seat, breathing heavily. Quickly, as a man slaking his thirst at a desert water hole, he finished his drink. Half the liquid spilled onto his shirtfront but he ignored it and wiped his mouth with the back of one badly shaking hand. Eyeing Patch warily, Herbloc drew himself up with as much dignity as his ruined ego and inebriated state could permit. "I, sir, am your man," he said, and scurried out of the booth.

  "I need a shoulder-fired, small-caliber, semiautomatic weapon that weighs less than a kilo and has little or no recoil. It should be equipped with a detachable magazine that carries no more than five rounds. I need a hundred of them. You go along with us to effect repairs and train the Avionians in how to use them. But I don't want them armed with weapons that would pose a serious threat to us, should things go sour. Can you do it for me, Art?"

  Art Gunsel regarded Sam Patch carefully as they sat opposite each other at a small table in Patch's room at the Milner. The two had worked together before and they respected each other. He had shown no reaction at all when Patch told him the startling news about the existence of an alien sentience. "When do you leave?" is all he asked.

  "I leave at six hours tomorrow. Give me a list of everything you need by tonight and I'll have the freighter equipped with the necessary raw materials and gunsmithing equipment. I'm going to sequester this Herbloc guy with me at Luna Station until everything's ready. I'll let you know when to join us."

  Gunsel stood up. "See you tonight" was all he said before leaving. He had not once asked about pay; Gunsel was a craftsman, not a crook. He worked for those who could present him with an interesting challenge, one that would put all his skills to the test. He did not care how his employers made their money. He knew that Patch was generous with those who did good work for him.

  At the Fargo Main Library he found an unoccupied carrel and slipped inside. "Good morning," a pleasant male voice announced from the research console as soon as the door was closed. "I am Jeremy Postlewait, your library assistant for this session." Postlewait's face appeared on the computer screen. He looked to be in his sixties with a close-cut beard and mustache shot through with gray. His expression was one of boredom. Occasionally he sniffed or coughed gently into a hand. "I must excuse myself. Allergies. My colleague next door has them too. When we both get to hacking away we say we are playing ‘dueling catarrhs.’ How may I help you?"