The Kassa Gambit

He woke up with a start. It was midmorning.

If a security team had come looking for Wilson, they must have been remarkably discreet. Flashing lights and door-breakers should have woken him up. So either the doctor was on the level and really covering for him, or the League had sent an assassin to silence him on the sly. In that case, the assassin would still be out there, waiting for him.

The ghost of the possibility that they might have sent Prudence made his heart thud. Her perfect cover act hinted at hidden skills. She would be incalculably more dangerous than a common thug.

His mission was bigger than arresting assassins. He checked out and left the building by a back entrance, avoiding visual contact with the other hotel.

The first thing he had to do was find out if the League was against him, or if it was just Rassinger’s faction. Paradoxically, the best place to get accurate information about the League was his network of anti-League agents. People in the League were either too stupid or too fearful to do any fact-checking.

He tossed the gun in a trash can before queuing up at the spaceport exit. There was no way he could sneak it past the sensors. It had served its purpose, bought him a night of security. Now the tool had become a liability, and he discarded it without sentiment.

It was a hideous tool, anyway.

Choosing a credit stick from a different off-world bank than the one he had paid for the room with, he rented a ground car. Too far away from the spaceport, he might draw attention using non-Altair credits. He didn’t have a whole lot of those in the anonymous variety.

As prime minister, Dejae had introduced a government plan to reimburse people for stolen credit sticks. Of course, this meant they would have to register their sticks first, thus allowing the government to track every purchase, exchange, and transaction.

Civil libertarians howled and authoritarians cheered, as they always did, every time this subject came up throughout history and the okimune. And, as always, the issue was decided by the same factor: human laziness. Registering every single transaction was a pain in the ass. Anonymous sticks owed their birth to the lawyers, but they owed their continued existence to the fact that they were just easier to use. There were always some floating around, and there always would be.

As a young cop, Kyle had sided with the government in trying to outlaw anonymous sticks. As a League opponent, he had trembled in fear of the power such a move would give them. As a fugitive, he was immensely grateful the efforts had failed. The innate sloth that allowed the League to advance was, in this case, its most effective resistance.

A man not on the run for his life might have reflected on the irony. Kyle filed the thought away for another day, when hopefully he would be such a man.

Standing around outside the skyscraper, he waited for lunchtime. It wasn’t really a skyscraper. It was anchored to the ground. The original Altair charter, in a fit of nostalgic superstition, had forbidden the use of grav- plating in constructing residences. The rule had stuck, and Altair society had spread out over the ground instead of clumping up in the sky. The biosphere of the planet consisted of thoroughly harmless moss and algae that produced a pleasantly breathable atmosphere. There was nowhere you couldn’t build a house, if you wanted to.

But people like living in groups, so towns and cities formed naturally. You could still go out to the marshes and build yourself a cabin on a plain of flat rock covered in dull green moss, next to a silent sea with nothing but dull green algae in it, but who would want to do that? Kyle had adapted to a life of isolation, but not so much that he found such a prospect palatable.

Kyle preferred the orderly arrangement of civilization. Even while he was plotting to prevent the too orderly arrangement of civilization. Moderation was the key. That’s why he was wearing a fake beard, absurdly hip clothes from three years ago, and waiting on a fellow plotter.

Ricarada Baston. Slim, dapper, officious-looking. Probably drank fruity drinks when he went out to the bars, which would be only on holidays. His clothes weren’t hip, but they weren’t out of date, either. He strode purposefully across the plaza, carrying on a one-sided conversation over a headset.

Kyle tailed him to a nearby fish-and-chips shop. The cheapest of the cheap; vat-grown meat and vegetable material deep-fried in synthetic oil. Rica made plenty of money as a government prosecutor. He could eat lunch anywhere, even at those fancy restaurants that grew actual fish in tanks and real plants in hydroponic chambers. Kyle had never figured out if Rica ate junk food because he was cheap, making a political statement about solidarity with the poor, or merely oblivious to the difference.

Getting in line behind him, Kyle ordered the wasabi tuna. He didn’t know what a tuna was supposed to be, but it was bland enough to make the burning spice tolerable. Right now he needed something to make him feel concrete sensations, something to anchor his emotions in this new reality.

“Is the fettuccini good?” he asked Rica, a random stranger striking up a meaningless conversation. Except that fettuccini wasn’t on the menu.

“Not here,” Rica replied, and moved on, ignoring him.

Kyle sat by himself in the corner, where he could watch every entrance. Rica only finished half his meal, then abruptly walked out.

The anti-League conspiracy didn’t have a lot of protocols. Kyle wasn’t sure what the signal meant, but the tuna was bad enough that he didn’t care. They hadn’t changed the frying oil in days. Resisting the urge to write somebody a health-code ticket, he tossed the food into the garbage and left.

Rica was waiting for him outside, at a bus stop. Kyle sat down next to him on the bench. The noise of the street would make long-range eavesdropping difficult, assuming anybody was watching. Rica must assume no one was, or he wouldn’t dare to be here.

“Somebody set my bed on fire,” Kyle said. He leaned forward and rested his head in his hands, looking down at the clean, white concrete.

Rica was having a subdued conversation on his headset. “Did they make you?” He said it so naturally it took Kyle a minute to realize Rica was talking to him.

“I don’t think so.” If they had suspected him, they wouldn’t have sent him out to Kassa in the first place. “I think somebody upstairs just doesn’t give a rat’s ass about whether I live or die.”

“Why do housecleaning, unless you’re expecting company?” Rica was being really cryptic with his codes, and Kyle was annoyed by it. He was still tired. Not just from having his sleep disturbed last night, but from all of it. The trip home in close confines with Rassinger, the cloak-and-dagger games with Prudence, the whole disaster on Kassa. The last five years.

Then it occurred to him that Rica’s obtuseness was a code in itself. The danger level must be high.

“Yes,” Kyle said, “we’re expecting company. But not the in-laws.”

“I don’t put a lot of stock in rumors.” Meaning that Rica must have already heard some.

Kyle didn’t know how to communicate the full impact of his message in code, so he said it outright. “They’re not rumors. I saw.” A curious choice of pronouns. Why was he still trying to protect Prudence and her crew?

Rica scanned the streets for a moment. A pointless gesture. If they were under surveillance, Rica wouldn’t be able to detect it. All he would accomplish by looking for watchers would be to alert them that he was about to say something important. You’d expect a prosecutor to know these things.

“Tell me.”

“I got to Kassa after it happened. But they left some nasty surprises for me. Then I found a real surprise. A ship, fighter-craft sized, lying in the snow. I don’t think I was supposed to find that. It’s not human, Rica.”

Rica pursed his lips in disapproval. “Fleet headquarters is sealed up tight. No news in or out. Leaves are canceled. The prime minister will be making a speech tonight.”

Kyle understood his disappointment. Everything was happening exactly as it should. Rica wasn’t the kind of man who appreciated it when his opponent made no mistakes.

But they had made one. “They sent me there before, Rica. The League dispatched me to Kassa days before the attack happened. And then Rassinger showed up, right on schedule.” He and Prudence had orbited the planet many times, looking for radio signals from survivors. They hadn’t seen the distress beacon from the fighter ship until hours before Rassinger arrived. And it was a strong signal—the Phoenix had found it with no trouble.

“Why send you at all?”