“So you did hear some of it, huh?” she asked. “Good, but not good enough. I’ve been given an unpleasant duty here at Central. I’ve been asked to help with local investigations.”
I blinked twice, then I hooted and pointed my finger at my tapper. “That’s a hog’s job! You’re on somebody’s shit-list, aren’t you?”
“Shut up. As I’ve got a new duty, you’re going to help me. There’s an investigative task topping the charts right here in the northeast.”
“What? I was planning on heading back to Georgia and—”
“Then you should have spent less time screwing that cat-woman of yours and enjoyed your vacation while you had the chance.”
I was catching on at last. Galina was “jobbing” me. That was a frequently-used and nearly foolproof way to keep a man like myself out of trouble.
She’d done this sort of thing before, having planted my sorry ass in the Mustering Hall some years ago to recruit unfortunates for the legion’s grinders.
I groaned a bit, and I knew right off that was a mistake. Galina’s face lit up, showing me she was happy to sense my pain. There were few things in this universe I hated more than make-work—and she knew it.
“What did you have in mind, sir? Another stint at the Mustering Hall?”
“Nothing so grandiose. I’m going to make you a field investigator.”
“A what?”’
“An investigator. An inspector. A man who figures out why vital supplies aren’t getting to where they’re supposed to go in this town.”
“Ah jeez. Are you serious? That’s no job for a fighting man. Call one of your hog-buddies. They’d probably bust themselves to get away from a desk for ten minutes.”
Galina frowned for a moment. “I would do that, honestly—in fact it’s been done several times already. But every team of investigators we’ve assigned has vanished.”
“How’s that?”
She shrugged. “No one knows. Here’s what you do have to know: we’ve been running a lot of supplies through Central lately. Most of that has to do with the migration of millions of Shadowlanders from Edge World. But somewhere, somehow, a fairly large amount of these materials have been vanishing with regularity.”
“Vanishing how? To where?”
“I don’t know. I don’t care, either. I just want it to stop. Head down to the docks and figure it out.”
“When do I start?”
“Get to the docks and find someone named Dross. That’s the only name I know.”
“Uh… I didn’t ask who I should look for. I asked when I should start.”
Galina snorted. “You started yesterday, officially. Get moving.”
“Outstanding…” I said.
She closed the connection, and I scooped up the last of my fourth egg. Then I got to my feet and stretched. Yawning and grunting a bit, I moved to my closet. I’d been staying at a mid-range hotel in Central lately, and I had a full kit stashed here for emergencies.
After a few minutes of pawing at my clothes, I strapped on a gun belt. Next, my legion Varus cap went on my head at a precise angle. I was just taking a glance in the bathroom mirror and brushing my teeth when my tapper lit up again.
It was Galina, doing a repeat performance. She didn’t even give me the chance to swipe away her call. As my C. O. during regular hours, she had the right to contact me without my permission. There had been a court case arguing over this point recently—but the good guys had lost.
“James? Why are you still loafing around in that hotel room?”
“I’m just leaving, sir.”
Her quick eyes scanned my oversized person in the mirror I was standing in front of. She hissed when she spotted the gun at my hip.
“Did I say you could take a weapon into the city with you?”
“You didn’t say I couldn’t.”
“Well, I’m saying it now. No outward displays of force. Investigate without threatening people—and take that cap off as well. Don’t wear any insignia. You’re going as a private citizen, not an official legionnaire.”
I rolled my eyes. If she wanted the velvet-glove treatment, she’d called the wrong man. “All right, sir. Good-bye now.”
I tapped her off the screen and waited a few seconds to see if she’d angrily call me back. She didn’t—at least not right off, so I paused to consider my options.
That gun on my hip felt right somehow. I didn’t want to part with it. I still had my combat knife, of course, but that didn’t compare to a service beamer. Hell, if I had my druthers I’d sling a full-blown morph-rifle over my shoulder.
Thinking about it for another moment, I moved to my wardrobe again and dug out a long winter coat. Sure, it was March and the coat was overkill, but who was going to bug me about it?
It took a bit of work, but I managed to tape my pistol into a slit I cut into the inner lining. Then, on second thought, I found a nasty little needler and put it into my outer pocket as well. After all, Galina had said something about people vanishing.
Did that mean people had been permed? I didn’t know, but I was certain I didn’t want to find out while I was walking the docks unarmed and helpless.
-2-
Call it pride, but I didn’t bother to call anyone. Sure, there were several of the best fighting men in Legion Varus within an hour’s run of Central. For me, they’d probably drop whatever boring stuff they were up to and come along for the ride. The whole thing had the air of mystery about it.
Just one call, maybe three, and I knew I’d have had a team to back me up—but I still didn’t do it. As things turned out, I would later reflect upon that fateful decision. Was
