Читать книгу Swan Song - Brian Stableford - Страница 5

CHAPTER TWO

We walked into a small coffee-house at the farther end of the huddle of transient-traps which crowded around the field. I just followed Sam, and he went straight there without glancing into any of the lighted windows or advertising displays which edged out on to the pavement along our path as if they were waiting to pounce.

I let him order both food and drink. This was his stamping ground and he was canny enough to have sorted out something that was better than the average.

I hadn’t noticed the man waiting at the port while our papers were checked, and I hadn’t consciously realized that we’d been followed from the clearing-house.

When we sat down, I asked Sam why the kid had called him Turpin.

“They all do,” he said. “It’s an old joke. Old and tired. But you know how these things live and never die.”

“What was the punch line?” I inquired.

“I always had a yen to be a highwayman. Dick Turpin. When I was a kid I wanted to grow up to be a space pirate. I guess the joke stayed with me since I was so high. I talk about it still, sometimes. It’s my joke at my expense, I guess. They all pick it up. Hold up a liner and rob it...it’s a nice idea.”

“Not very practical,” I commented.

“So who cares? It’s a nice idea. Someday, I may give it a try. Just for the laugh.”

“Hasn’t it ever been done?”

“Who knows?”

“You’ve never done it?”

“No,” he said, straight-faced. “I never did. You know how it is. A kid never grows up to be what he’s cut out to be. He always gets hammered into some other slot. Mine’s the slot in a drive-unit, any kind and all kinds. But it wouldn’t be the same anyway—the dreaming and the doing. Kids can hold up liners, not grown men. I guess it’d be a disappointment.”

It was a crazy conversation, but I didn’t mind it. I was about to pursue the point further when I became conscious of the fact that someone was standing behind me. Sam was looking up at him, and the light crept under those ashen eyebrows to shine off his eyes.

I turned around.

“Mr. Grainger,” he said.

I looked at him, and I could feel my stomach sinking. I didn’t know him from Adam, but I knew his style. I recognized immediately what he represented. Something from behind me, treading on my heels. He knew me. And he wasn’t an autograph hunter.

“Never heard of him,” I said.

“Me neither,” lied Sam, unthinkingly.

“I was at the port,” be said, smoothly and gently. “I saw your papers checked.”

“So? The galaxy is brim full of men named Grainger. The one you want is one of the other ten thousand. Try the slums on Penafior.”

“I’d like to talk to you, if I may,” he said. Some people just can’t take a hint.

He was tall, and though he stood quite relaxed he was neat enough and straight enough to suggest that he had some kind of discipline in his background. I knew he wasn’t a cop and I knew he wasn’t a New Alexandrian. He was dark haired but pale skinned, and he had just a hint of makeup in the mold of his face. He talked with a silky catch to his voice which suggested that English wasn’t his first or his only language. His coat was expensive and behind his collar I could see the sharp white of a good shirt. I looked down at his shoes, knowing that they’d be shiny. If I’d been Sherlock Holmes I would have known his pet poodle’s nickname, but as things stood I only knew that he was trouble.

“No,” I said.

“Just a few words,” he said calmly. He wasn’t bothering to sound friendly. Just confident.

“I don’t want to know,” I said. “I’m not interested. I just don’t care. Go away.”

“We care,” he said. He pulled a chair out from one of the other tables and he sat down wrong way around, so that his hands could rest on the back of it, just beside me. He didn’t so much as glance at Sam. I knew I was going to have to listen. I didn’t see a lot of alternatives.

The waitress brought out the food. Sam looked at her and gave her a nice smile. She knew him by sight and she smiled right back at both of us. I couldn’t raise an eyebrow. She probably didn’t form too high an opinion of me. I picked up my fork and began to eat. Sam grinned at me, and followed suit.

“I want to offer you a job, Mr. Grainger,” said the stranger. “My name is Soulier, and I represent the Caradoc Company. There’s nothing underhanded about this—nothing at all. I’m not trying to trick you in any way. You know that we’ve had an interest in you for some time and we both know what sort of an interest that is. You’re a free agent now and we’re approaching you as a free agent. We aren’t going to pretend that we owe you anything for what happened in the past, but on the other hand, we don’t expect you to bury all your grievances for nothing. We need men with your knowledge and experience, Mr. Grainger, and we’re willing to pay a good deal over the odds for your services.”

I said nothing. He waited for a few seconds and then he went on.

“We are prepared to forget the past, Mr. Grainger, so far as you have contributed to...matters disadvantageous to the company. We are prepared to learn from the past. We always like to learn from our mistakes. You know that you have cost us money, and you no doubt feel that there is some justice in that, in view of what happened a year ago when one of our ships picked you up in the Halcyon Drift. You know that we are big enough to shrug off these matters as a drop in the commercial ocean. There need be no resentment between us unless you insist that it should be so...and I believe that you are realistic enough not to allow petty prejudices to interfere with your future well-being. We do not hold you responsible in any way for what happened to the ramrods which we lost in the Halcyon core, and we feel that you should be prepared to understand and forgive the unfortunate affair of the Ella Marita and the salvage claim. Time has moved on since then. Things happen quickly in the universe today. We want to start again, and we want you with us instead of against us.

“We will give you a ship...virtually any type of ship you care to specify...yours to command as long as you care to. We are prepared to negotiate freely as to conditions of employment and the nature of the work you will undertake. On your joining the company we will pay you a lump sum to offset any resentment which you may harbor as regards our past clashes. This, too, is negotiable.”

“No,” I said.

“I’ll take it,” volunteered Sam. Soulier didn’t favor him with so much as a glance.

“We need you, Mr. Grainger,” said Soulier, who apparently never tired of flogging dead horses, “and we’re being absolutely honest about that. Write your own ticket. Name your price. You don’t have to sign on. We’ll employ you on any basis whatsoever. Just say the word.”

I continued eating, and he continued waiting. He thought I was thinking it over. I wasn’t.

You’re in a spot, said the wind.

That I knew.

You could have guessed that something of this sort might happen.

How could I? I retorted. I’m only a little guy. I’m only a pilot. How could I know the vultures would gather over me the moment I stepped out from under Charlot’s perch? Why shouldn’t they just let me fade away? What makes me so bloody popular?

You’re too modest, said the wind ominously. Far too modest.

“I don’t suppose,” I said to Soulier, “that it would do any good to tell you that I don’t know anything. Nothing worth your while. I don’t know about Charlot’s secrets, Charlot’s plans, Charlot’s methods. I’m not privy to his innermost thoughts and I never have been. I’m only the most minor of his pawns. I’m not a fool and I know what you’re asking for, but I couldn’t give it to you if I wanted to. You’re wasting your time. Now you got an explanation, which I didn’t owe you, so will you please go away.”

He had frozen up just a bit. I wasn’t trying to be nasty. I wasn’t being tough. I knew the score and I was outpointed every way. But he thought I was playing hero, and he was all ready to play by the roughest rules.

“Come on, Mr. Grainger,” he said gently. “You’ve been closer to Titus Charlot than anyone else these last few months. You’re a clever man, and you aren’t one of his disciples by any means. You’ve been around on New Alexandria, you’ve flown the Hooded Swan, and you’ve been at the very heart of several incidents which are pregnant with interest so far as our company is concerned. You’re a very valuable man, Mr. Grainger. You know that your dreams of avarice aren’t big enough to cut much of a hole in company assets. You interest us greatly, Mr. Grainger, and we can afford to indulge that interest. Think of me, if you like, as Caradoc’s opposite number to your last employer. A picker-up of loose ends, a dabbler in small projects, but a man with power nevertheless. A man with determination. You don’t have to take a job with us at all, if you don’t want to. But we want a few days—perhaps only a few hours—of your valuable time, and we’re willing to pay you a great deal for it. We just want your memoirs, that’s all.”

“I’ve got a very bad memory,” I told him.

“In this day and age,” he pointed out, “nobody has to rely on the infallibility of his memory.”

“You aren’t augMENTing me,” I said flatly.

“You make augMENTation sound like some kind of torture,” he said. “You know that isn’t so. It doesn’t hurt, and it leaves you just as it finds you, with your memory sharpened up a bit. It’s not like a mindpick, you know...not at all.

“I know you have secrets, Mr. Grainger—haven’t we all? But how much can those secrets really be worth? We’ll pay it, whatever it is. And your personal secrets mean little enough to us—it’s not your private life we’re interested in. You have no loyalty to Charlot—he used you. He may not have been responsible for your initial troubles but he certainly took the fullest advantage of them. You owe nothing to anyone save yourself. You have a perfect right to sell us all you know, moral and legal. I appreciate your resentment of the augMENTation procedures, but really...when you come down to it, is there anything you have to hide? We’ll deal honestly, Mr. Grainger—it’s not worth our while to be dishonest. Whatever safeguards you care to specify...all we want is information. We bear you no malice. None at all.”

“I don’t want to have my memory sharpened,” I said. “I’m very good at forgetting because I like forgetting. There are some things I don’t care to remember at any price.”

There was another pause. I finished my meal. Sam was already finished. I guess I’d been distracted somewhat.

“You don’t look to me like a man who doesn’t want to be rich,” said Soulier. “It’s just not your line. You don’t want to end your days dragging a heap like the Sandman around the radiant rim. You want a ship of your own. Maybe a world of your own. It can be arranged. You can’t afford to turn us down, Mr. Grainger. It wouldn’t be fair to yourself.” That was a threat if I ever heard one, though it lacked any kind of inflection.

The food was fine but I was feeling sick. My stomach was all churned up. I wanted this man off my back and I wanted him off fast, but I knew there was no way. If the company had made up its commercial collective mind—and it seemed that it had—there was simply no way to say no.

“Soulier,” I said, “I wouldn’t sell you my soul for the entire assets of your goddamned company and I don’t care if it does end up owning the universe. Don’t get me wrong...it isn’t loyalty or pride or even downright bloody-mindedness. It’s simple fear. I don’t trust you as far as I can throw a feather into a gale-force headwind, and I’d be every kind of fool if I did. You can’t have my mind, Soulier. Not for all your promises and not for any of your threats. No way. I’ve got legal rights, here and everywhere I mean to go, and I’ve got Titus Charlot on the end of a call for help. You can’t take my mind, Soulier, and I think that you can get that message into your skull if you work hard enough. No counterthreats I’m just telling you the plain truth. It’s not me that’ll stop you, it’s the bounds of possibility.”

Soulier rocked back in his chair, picking its back legs up off the floor. I hoped he’d fall over.

“I haven’t made any threats,” he said evenly—and it was the most threatening sound I’d ever heard. “I’m only interested in honest dealing. The company is only interested in honest dealing. We’re trying to establish contact with you, so that we can both get what we want.

“You know that you’re finished with Charlot and vice versa. You’re on your own. You know that. I think you should accept our offer. I think you will. It’s an honest offer, Mr. Grainger, and it will stay that way. We only want to make you a rich man. I want you to understand that.”

“Yeah,” I said. “I understand.” One of us was lying and it wasn’t me.

“I’ll be in town for some days,” said Soulier. “At the organization’s hotel. Anyone will tell you which it is. Ask for Mr. Zacher. You can contact me through him, any time.”

“I’ll be gone in two days,” I told him.

“Will you, Mr. Grainger?” he said flatly.

I hate people who call me “mister.”

“Good-bye, Mr. Grainger,” he said, as he stood up and replaced the chair neatly. “I’ll be waiting to hear from you.”

Then he left.

I felt Sam Parks’s eyes boring into the top of my head as I stared down at my empty plate and turned my fork over and over, clicking the tines against the plastic rim.

“You know,” he said, “ever since I was so high, I’ve had this thing about the romantic life of high crime. I guess I never had any real ambition.”

“Honestly,” I said, to no one in particularly, “I didn’t think I was worth it. I don’t think I’m worth it. Bloody hell, I’m not worth it. They steal my mind, they may get a lot of things they didn’t bargain for; but it really wouldn’t be worth it. It’s all just trash. Why can’t the bloody universe, just for a while, get off my back?”

“Take the money,” advised Sam.

“I can’t,” I said.

“They might just let you keep it,” he said. “I’d take it.”

“It’s not the money,” I told him. “If there was a chance of getting away with it, I might, but….”

“No chance?”

“They don’t like me. Can you, in your heart of hearts, see the Caradoc Company lending a piece of string to someone they don’t like, let alone giving him money? It’s not the way the world works. They can afford to pay off their petty grudges.”

“Yes,” he said. “I guess they can.”