The Gabble

‘Wait,’ Ansel called, but they ignored him.

He calmly walked after them, round a two-storey building with a wide arched doorway through which he could see a scattering of tables and a bar with bottles racked behind. On the other side of this place, he came face to face with the two women, now accompanied by two men. None of these people looked happy to see him.

‘What do you want, Company man?’ asked the elder of the two men.

Ansel studied the bearded face and saw there the obstinacy he had expected.

‘I want Kelly Segre Janssen,’ he said.

‘And why do you want him?’ asked the younger man.

Ansel studied the two men. They both looked to be in their thirties, and as this place was without antiagathic technology that probably was their age. They were infants to him. He appeared to be the same as them, but was twice their age.

‘I would prefer to speak to someone in charge,’ he said.

‘I am the elder here,’ said the bearded one.

Ansel doubted that, but thought he would let it ride for the moment.

‘Okay, it’s a simple enough matter. The Company owes Kelly a substantial sum for information he provided for the Almanac. I’m here to make sure he gets it.’

The two men looked at each other.

‘He’s here to be my father’s good friend,’ said one of the women.

Ansel looked at her. ‘You’re Annette Segre Janssen?’

‘I am.’

‘You’re right — I want to be your father’s good friend.’

She said, ‘You’re here to kill my father because he smuggled cornul fruit aboard the Strine Station and used it to poison the Director and some Company officials.’

Obviously ‘good friend’ meant something different here, Ansel thought, and he stood no chance with subterfuge. He reached for his thin-gun then paused when he heard deliberate movement behind him. Whoever it was, was good. He had heard nothing until then. For a moment he hesitated, then in one motion he drew his gun, squatted and turned. A bright light flung him into darkness.

Ansel woke with his head throbbing and a foul taste in his mouth.

Stunner.

He reached to his belt and found his holster empty. His pack was gone as well. Carefully opening gritty eyes, he stared up at a plasmel ceiling. Underneath him he felt the cold pattern of metal decking.

‘You won’t find your gun, nor will you find any of those other lethal little devices you had concealed about your person, assassin,’ someone said.

Ansel rolled and sat upright. He was in the cargo hold of a small shuttle. Sat on a plasmel crate was a grey- haired man of indeterminate age. He held a stubby pulse-gun pointed casually at Ansel’s face. Ansel felt a sinking sensation in his gut when he recognized the grey uniform the man wore. He was Security — a monitor from Earth Central.

Shit.

‘We’ve been expecting you for some time now. We knew the Company wouldn’t let Kelly’s actions go unpunished. Their sending you here was ill-considered though. They did it before Kelly’s deposition was registered at ECS and before they realized their need to cover up. I would guess that about now, other agents are on their way here to deal with you.’

What the hell is he talking about?

The monitor went on, ‘You’re our evidence. They can claim the symbionts here mutated over the last century, but they can’t claim that of yours.’

While Ansel tried to make sense of that, the back door to the hold slid open and a woman walked in. She had black skin and blue eyes and wore an orange and grey suit. Ansel was struck at once by her assurance and the level calm of her gaze. Like himself she seemed to be about thirty years old. By her air he guessed her to be many times that. In one hand she carried a notescreen and in the other a short-range surgical laser. People of her age took precautions.

‘Have you got it?’ the monitor asked the woman.

‘I have it,’ said the woman. ‘It’s exactly the same so there has definitely been no mutation. It’s a deliberate alteration to the ‘factor’s genome.’

‘The time-scale the same?’

‘Yes: thirty-seven years after implantation. Here, of course, that means thirty-seven years after conception. They’ve got a right to be angry,’ she said.

‘What the hell are you talking about?’ asked Ansel.

The woman and the monitor looked at each other.

‘He doesn’t know?’ asked the woman.

‘You think he’d have agreed to implantation if he had?’ asked the monitor.

They both looked at Ansel.