Changer of Worlds

Anton nodded. But there was no humor at all in the face. Finally, Cathy understood his purpose in coming to see her. Her hand flew to her throat again, and this time she did gasp.

“Oh, my God!”

Anton’s eyes were like coal, beginning to burn. “Yeah, that’s it. I didn’t come here to discuss the ins and outs of the political complexities which might or might not be involved with my daughter’s kidnapping. Frankly, Cathy, I don’t give a good God-damn. The ambassador and the admiral can order me to treat this like a political maneuver, but they’re—”

He clenched his jaws. “Never mind what they are. What I am is a man of Gryphon’s highlands. I was that long before”—he plucked the sleeve of his uniform—“I became an officer in Her Majesty’s Navy.”

The eyes were burning hot, now. “I can’t use my normal channels, because the ambassador and the admiral would shut me down in a heartbeat. So I’ve got to find an alternative.” He glanced at the little man still squatting on the floor. “Master Tye agreed to help—insisted, in fact—but I need more than that.”

Once again, he lifted the little package which contained the forensic data. “The Scrags who kidnapped my daughter live—or operate—somewhere in Chicago’s Old Quarter. You know what that maze is like. Only someone who knows it like the back of his hand could have a chance of finding Helen in there.”

Cathy made an attempt to head him off. “I know several people who live in the Loop. Lots of them, in fact. I’m sure one of them—”

Anton shot to his feet. “From the highlands, woman!”His Gryphon accent was now so thick you could cut it with a knife. And the black rage of the Star Kingdom’s most notorious feudists had shattered the outer shell of control.

“You are—have been for years—one of the central leaders of the Anti-Slavery League. And by far the most radical. That’s why you’ve been here for years, in what amounts to exile.” Anton’s words, for all the Gryphon slurring, came out like plates from a stamping mill. “So don’t tell me you don’t know him.”

“Never been proved!” she exclaimed. But the protest was more in the nature of a squeak.

Anton grinned. Like a wolf, admiring the grace of a fox. “True, true. Consorting with a known member of the Audubon Ballroom—any member, much less him—is a felonious offense. In the Star Kingdom as well as anywhere in Solarian territory. You’ve been charged with it on four occasions. Each time, the charges were dropped for lack of evidence.”

A very angry wolf, and a rather frightened fox. “Cut the crap, Cathy! You know him and I know you do and so does the whole damn universe. This isn’t a court of law. I need his help, and I intend to get it. But I don’t know how to contact him. You do.”

“Oh God, Anton,” she whispered.

He shook his head. “What did they think, Cathy? That I would obey them?” The next words came through clenched teeth. “From the highlands.When they gave me that command, they broke faith with me. Damn them and damn all aristocracy! I’ll do as I must, and answer only to the Queen. If she—she, not they!—chooses to call that treason, so be it. I’ll have my daughter back, and I’ll piss on the ashes of those who took her from me.”

He reached into another pocket and drew out another package. Identical, to all appearances.

“You can tell him I’ll give him this, in exchange for his help. I’ve spent the past two days hacking into the embassy’s intelligence files to get it.”

Anton’s grin was now purely feral. There was no more humor in it than a shark’s gape. “When I broke into the personal records of Young and Hendricks I hit the gold mine. I didn’t expect either one of them to be stupid enough to have direct financial dealings with Manpower, and they don’t. Technically, under Manticoran anti-slavery laws, that would lay them open to the death penalty.”

Cathy’s left hand was still clutching her throat. With her other hand, she made a waving gesture. “That’s not the form it takes, in the Star Kingdom. Slavery’s an inefficient form of labor, even with Manpower’s genetic razzle-dazzle. No rich Manticoran really has much incentive to dabble in slave labor unless they’re grotesquely avaricious. And willing to take the risks of investing in the Silesian Confederacy or the Sollie protectorates. Our own society’s got too high a tech base for slavery to be very attractive.”

“You might be surprised, Cathy—you will be surprised—at how many Manticorans are that stupid. Don’t forget that the profit margin in Silesian mines and plantations can be as high as the risk.” Anton shrugged. “But you’re basically right. Most of the Star Kingdom’s citizens who deal with Manpower do so from personal vice, not from greed.”

Cathy’s face was stiff, angry. “ ‘Personal vice!’ That’s a delicate way of putting what happens on those so-called pleasure resorts.” She stared at the package in Anton’s hands. Her next words were almost whispered. “Are you telling me—”

Anton’s shark grin seemed fixed in place. “Oh, yeah. I was pretty sure I’d find it. That whole Young clan is notorious for their personal habits, and I’d seen enough of the admiral to know he was no exception.” He held up the package. “Both he and the ambassador have availed themselves of Manpower’s so-called ‘personal services.’ Both of them have invested in those ‘pleasure resorts,’ too, using Solarian conduits. Along with lots of others, for whom they acted as brokers.”

“They kept records?” she gasped. “Are they that stupid?”

Anton nodded. “That arrogant, anyway.” He looked down at the package in his hand. “So there it is, Cathy. I thought of using this information to blackmail them into rescinding my orders, but that would take too long. I’ve got to find my daughter quickly, before this whole crazy scheme—whatever it is— starts coming unglued. Which it will, as sure as the sunrise. And when it does, the first thing that’ll happen is that Helen will be murdered.”

Her hand was still clutching her throat. “My God, Anton! Don’t you understand what he’ll do if—”

“What do I care, Cathy?” No shark’s grin ever held such sheer fury. “You’ll find no Gryphon highlanders on this list, I can tell you that. Nobles aplenty, o’ course”—the word nobles practically dripped vitriol—“but not a one of my folk.”

Finally, the fury began to ebb. “I’m sorry, Cathy. But this is the way it must be. My daughter”—he waved the package—“weighed against these?”

Cathy

Cathy lowered her hand and sighed. Then, shrugged. It was not as if she disagreed with his moral assessment, after all. Though she still found it difficult to match the man’s ruthlessness with what she sensed of the man himself. But then, Cathy had no children of her own. So, for a moment, she tried to imagine the rage that must be filling Anton. Raising a daughter from the age of four as a widower, and coming from that unyielding highland clansmen background—

She glimpsed, for an instant, that seething void—like the event horizon of a black hole—and her mind skittered away.

“I’m sorry,” Anton repeated, very softly. “I must do what I must.” He managed a harsh chuckle. “In this area, you know, tradition rules. There’s a term for what I need. Goes back centuries—millennia. It’s called wet work.”

Cathy grimaced. “How crude!” Again, a sigh. “But appropriate, I suppose. I’m sure Jeremy would agree.”

She sighed again. “All right, I’ll serve as your conduit to him. But I warn you in advance, Anton, he’s got a peculiar sense of humor.”

Anton held up the package anew. “Then I imagine this will tickle his fancy.”

Cathy stared at the object in Anton’s hand. Innocuous-looking thing, really. But she knew full well what would happen once Jeremy got his hands on it. Jeremy had come into the universe in one of Manpower Inc.’s breeding chambers on Mesa. K-86b/273-1/5, they had called him. The “K” referred to the basic genetic type—in