The Man-Kzin Wars 02

behind a circle of helmeted heads, marked by the rise and fall of shockrods. The others in the line drew back, as if afraid of infection, and the police dragged the man off by his arms; the injured one followed, holding her splinted arm and kicking the semiconscious form with every other step.

“Monkeymeat, you're monkeymeat, shithead,” she shrilled, and kicked him again. There was solid force behind the blow, and she grunted with the effort and winced as it jarred her arm.

“Tanj,” Jonah said softly. The old curse: there ain't no justice.

“No, there isn't,” Ingrid answered. “Come on, the railcar's waiting.”

“And the word from the Nipponjin in Tiamat is that two important ferals will be coming through soon,” Suuomalisen said.

Yarthkin leaned back, sipping at his coffee and considering him. Suuomalisen was fat, even by Wunderland standards, where the .61 standard gravity made it easy to carry extra tissue. His head was pink, egg-bald, a beak of a nose over a slit mouth and a double chin; the round body was expensively covered in a suit of white natural silk accented with a conservative black cravat and onyx ring. The owner of Harold's Terran Bar waited patiently while his companion tucked a linen handkerchief into his collar and began eating; scrambled eggs with scallions, grilled wurst, smoked kopjfissche, biscuits.

“You set a marvelous table, my friend,” the fat man said. They were alone in the dining nook; Harold's did not serve breakfast, except for the owner and staff. “Twice I have offered your cook a position in my Suuomalisen Suuomalisen's Sauna, and twice he has refused. You must tell me your secret.”

Acquaintance, not friend, Harold thought. And my chef prefers to work for someone who lets his people quit if they want to. Mildly: “From the Free Wunderland people? They've been doing better at getting through to the bands in the Jotun-scarp recently.”

“No, no, these are special somehow. Carrying special goods, something that will upset the ratcats very much. The tip was vague, I don't know if my source was not informed or whether the slant- eyed devils are just playing both ends against the middle again. It might be a power-struggle below the oyabun's level.” A friendly leer. “If you could identify them for me, my friend, I'd be glad to share the police reward. Not from Montferrat, from lower down… strictly confidential, of course, I wouldn't want to cut into the income you get from those who think this is the safest place in town.”

“Suuomalisen, has anyone ever told you what a toad you are?” Yarthkin said, butting out the cigarette in the cold remains of the coffee.

“Many times, many times! But a very successful toad.” The shrewd little eyes blinked at him. “Harold, my friend, it is a grief to me that you take such little advantage of this excellent base of operations. A fine profit source, and you have wonderful contacts; think of the use you could make of them! You should diversify, my friend. Into contracting, it is a natural with the suppliers you have. Then, with your gambling, you could bid for the lottery contracts… perhaps even get into Guild work!”

“I'll leave that to you, Suuomalisen. Your Sauna is a good 'base of operations'; me, I run a bar and some games in the back, and I put people together sometimes. That's all. The tree that grows too high attracts the attention of people with axes.”

The fat man shook his head. “You independent entrepreneurs must learn to move with the times, and the time of the little man is past… Ah, well, I must be going.”

Yarthkin nodded. “Thanks for the tip. I'll have Wendy send round a case of the kirsch. Good stuff, pre- War.”

“Pre-war!” The fat man's eyes lit. “Generous, generous. Where do you get such stuff?”

From ex-affluent people who can't pay their gambling debts, Yarthkin thought. “You have to let me keep a few little secrets; little secrets for little men.”

A laugh. “And again, any time you wish to join my organization… or even just to sell Harold's Terran Bar, my offer stands. I'll even promise to keep on all your people, they make the ambience of the place anyway.”

“No deal, Suuomalisen. Thanks for the consideration, though.”

Dripping, Jonah padded back out of the shower; at least here in Munchen, nobody was charging you a month's wages for hot water. Ingrid was standing at the window toweling her hair and letting the evening breeze dry the rest of her. The room was narrow, part of an old mansion split into the cubicles of a cheap transient's hotel; there were more luxurious places in easy walking distance, but they would be the haunt of the local elite. He joined her at the opening and put an arm around her shoulders. She sighed and looked down the sloping street to the rippled surface of the Donau and the traffic of sailboats and barges. A metal planter creaked on chains below the window. It smelled of damp earth and half-dead flowers.

“This is the oldest section of Munchen,” she said slowly. “There wasn't much else, when I was a student here. Five years ago, my time… and the buildings I knew are old and shabby… There must be a hundred thousand people living here now!”

He nodded, remembering the sprawling squatter-camps that surrounded the town. “We're going to have to act quickly,” he said. “Those passes the oyabun got us are only good for two weeks.”

“Right,” she said with another sigh, turning from the window. Jonah watched with appreciation as she rummaged in their bags for a series of parts, assembling them into a featureless box and snapping it onto the bedside datachannel. “There are probably blocks on the public channels…” She turned her head. “Instead of standing there making the passing girls sigh, why not get some of the other gear put together?”

“Right.” Weapons first. The UN had dug deep into the ARM's old stores, confiscated technology that was the product of centuries of perverted ingenuity. Jonah grinned: like most Belters, he had always felt the ARMs tended to err on the side of caution in the role as technological police. Opening their archives had been like pulling teeth, from what he heard, even with the kzin bearing down on Sol system in all their carnivorous splendor. I bleed for them, he thought. I won't say from where.

The killing-tools were simple, two light-pencils of the sort engineers carried for sketching on screens. Which was actually what they were, and any examination would prove it, according to the ARMs. The only difference was that if you twisted the cap, so, pressed down on the clip that held the pen in a pocket and pointed it at an organism with a spinal cord, the pen emitted a sharp yawping sound whereupon said being went into grand mal seizure. Range of up to two hundred meters, cause of death, “he died.” Jonah frowned. On second thought, maybe the ARMs were tight about this one.

“Tanj,” Ingrid said.

“Problem?”

“No, just that you have to input your ID and pay a whopping great fee to access the commercial pet… even allowing for the way this fake krona they've got has depreciated.”

“We've got money.”

“Sure, but we don't want to call too much attention to ourselves.” She continued to tap the keys. “There, I'm past the standard blocks… confirming… yah, it'd be a bad idea to ask about the security arrangements at you- know-who's place, it's probably flagged.”

“Commercial services,” Jonah said. “Want me to drive?”

“Not just yet. Right, I'll just look at the record of commercial subcontracts. Hmm. About what you'd expect.” Ingrid frowned. “Standard goods delivered to a depot and picked up by kzin military transports, no joy there. Most of the services are provided by household servants, born on the estate… no joy there, either. Ahh, outside contractors, now that's interesting.”

“What is?” Jonah said, stripping packets of what looked like hard candy out of the lining of a suitcase. Sonic grenades, but you had to spit them at the target.

“Our great and good Rin-Tin-Kzin has been buying infosystems and 'ware from human makers. And he's the only one who is; the ratcat armed forces order subcomponents to their own specs and assemble them in plants under their direct supervision. But not him.” She paused in thought. “It fits… limited number of system types, like an ascending series, with each step up a set increment of increased capacity over the one below. Nothing like our wild and woolly jungle of manufacturers. They're not used to non-standardized goods, it makes them uneasy.”

“How does that 'fit'?”

“With what the xenologists were saying. The ratcats have an old, old civilization… very stable. Like what the