' I'd
retired, gentlemen, and not a moment too soon. I was tired from all
that running and work was doing my head in. I was ready for a rest.
'There
was all that travel, which I didn’t mind. I like a good cognit, but
the quiet time between planets always made my companion cross and
impatient to be somewhere, anywhere. So I’d just find a quiet place
and try to ignore his muttering.
'Then
there were all those new worlds. It’s always interesting, but I
often wished we weren’t there to work but just to gander. Ah, but
there’s always something wrong. There’s planets where you got a
backache from the gravity, or the air smelled of your Uncle Gurney’s
dirty feet, or the local micros were off your injects definitions so
you’d have swollen eyes and a runny nose for your entire visit. Of
course, this last only happens on pleasant worlds with compatible
ladies. Go to the quarantined swamp moon of bug planet Infestia
and you’d feel great.
'I’m
sorry, but you already look puzzled. Let me put this in context for
you…'
~~~
They’d
taken the Doctor first, assuming he was our leader. The princessnapped
while we waited and I smiled when she shifted in her sleep and
rested her head on my shoulder. I suppose I drifted off myself,
because I was alone when they came for me.
I
was marched down a short corridor to what I assumed was an
interrogation room. The Doctor and the princess were seated off to
the side and three of our captors stood in a semi-circle around an
empty chair. One of my guards said, 'Here is the final prisoner,'and
departed.
The
leader turned a bland face to me and said, 'Please sit comfortably'.
I
glanced at the Doctor and he winked and tapped his watch. I drew a
deep breath of the stuffy air and sat.
'Hullo,'
I said, 'I understand you have a few questions?'
A
human would have blinked.
'Why,
yes, of course. While we regret infringing on your personal freedom
we must insist on your complete cooperation.'
'Certainly.
The truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, eh?'
'It
is most urgent.'
'Well,
I’d better get started, then.'
'Yes.
Place your hand on the verifier, please, and state your true name for
the record.'
'I am Peter Gulliver Unstoffe of Darwin Colony.'
'Verified.
How long have you been an associate of the Graff Vynda-K?'
May
the saints preserve us from the obstinacy of robots and logicians.
'I
have never been an associate of the Graff. We’ve already been over
this a dozen times. Look, the only way to make you understand is if
you let me tell you how we all came to be here. Then maybe you’ll
believe us and we can stop wasting time. Shouldn’t we be finding
this thing you’re looking for so we can avert disaster? Just stop
asking questions and let me talk.'
'You
will be brief and to the point?'
'Of
course.'
'Then
you may proceed.'
So
I relaxed, collected my thoughts and told them all about my impending
retirement.
That’s
when the leader, whose name-tag read, ‘Hello! I am Bob Sunny Day!
How may I serve you?’, interrupted.
'A
thousand pardons, Mr Unstoffe, but given the potentially calamitous
outcome of recent events, may we ask that your narrative be rather
less digressive?'
'What?
Oh, sorry. Garron used to say I rambled too much.'
'We
mean no offence, we assure you. It’s simply that we are unable to
determine the importance of your prior travels, interesting though
they may be. To regrettably be blunt, is this relevant?'
'Yes,
it is relevant. I mean, you fellows don’t seem inclined to take us
at our word, so I have to tell you the whole story with all the
details. If any of us are going to survive this mess you need your
property and the Doctor needs his. If we can’t convince you we’re
your friends and not your enemies, well, you know what’s going to
happen. The Doctor says we have time, so I’m going to tell this
story the way I want. Now let me get on with it.'
'Very
well. Taking into account the potentially vital nature of your
narrative, you may get on with it in the manner you prefer.'
Okay,
then. Anyway, the best and worst thing about travelling was the
natives. Always a roll of the dice. All those new people with their
strange customs, some of them thinking their way is the only way and
everyone else is a deluded alien to be patronised or executed. Or
they’d be primitives who’d never heard of aliens and you’d have
to pretend to be one of them. Sometimes they’d be nice, you know?
That made it hard to work. But usually they were mean, and that made
it satisfying…
'What
is the nature of your business, Mr Unstoffe?' Bob Sunny Day
interrupted.
'Eh?
What was our business? Oh,um, real estate. My master Garron was a
real estate agent and I was his apprentice. We found and sold
buildings, space stations, cities and sometimes even planets to our
clients. It was good money, usually, but sometimes it was unreliable.
A client would change his mind, or the locals would object to their
sacred landmark being owned by an off-worlder or the native
bureaucrats would suddenly materialize and start waving permits and
licenses and local tax decrees...
'I
can see you don’t understand. I wouldn’t expect you to, you being
robots and all. No offence. I can see you’re fine robots, but I
doubt you’re programmed for greed. Greed is what it was all about.
‘Greed spins the galaxies,’ Garron used to say.
'It
works like this: The client wants his property but doesn’t want to
pay a single opek more than his personal appraisal tells him its
worth. We want his money and at minimum operating cost to ourselves.
And the galactic and local governments see money exchanging hands and
say, “Hey! We’ll have some of that!” like the unconscionable
extortionists they are and by the time we’ve fired rockets our
millions of credits are barely enough to cover our modest expenses.'
'Is
there not a component missing from your business plan? What of the
owner of the property? The party designated, the seller?'
'What’s
that? The seller? Oh, yes, of course, the seller.
You mean the owner of the property? How could I forget them? They got
their cut, too. Everybody got a cut.
'That’s
why we travelled so much, you see. It’s the government and their
stranglehold on the free market. Institutional greed, wringing profit
from the independent businessman. Greedy buyers and of
course sellers. We had to keep working just to stay afloat, year
after year, voyage after voyage, world after world.
'And
then we made it. Our big score. The likes of which honest realtors
like ourselves can only dream. Due to the generosity of a grateful
client we found ourselves the legal, new owners of the Indomitable
Prince,
a squarish, ugly cruiser packed with lawfully won plunder, as defined
by the Levithian Martial Codex.
'By the way, you
comprehend your mistake, don’t you? Do you understand, now? The
ship was the property of the Graff, true, but then the ship legally
passed on to Garron. When you asked Garron if the ship was his he was
speaking true but he wasn’t confirming he was the Graff. Do you
understand? Garron is not the Graff.
'Bob Sunny Day silently
conferred with the others. I couldn’t hear them, of course; it was
all head-to-head, but someone had had the bright idea of giving them
body language. So it was like watching a holo with the sound off. Bob
What A Deal and Bob Sunny Day were agitated, endearingly animated
like veteran Rift Users. Bob Name Your Poison stood still and just
looked back and forth as the others talked, like an attendee at a
ping-pong match.
Then Bob What A Deal
turned to me and stated, 'Please forgive our apparent distrust but
this remains to be determined. The person you refer to as Garron
identified himself as owner of the Graff’s vessel. Our boarding
party was rendered unable to correlate our archival footage of the
Graff with your Garron. Therefore the matter is not closed. As we
have said, all you must do is present this Garron or his remains and
we will be satisfied.'
'The verifier seems
happy with it,' I said.
He frowned in a blandly
apologetic manner. 'I’m afraid the verifier’s circuits are still
preoccupied with the Doctor’s testimony. He was most excessively
forthcoming, though I note he is pleasingly silent now. The verifier
will render its verdict in time.
“Now, please
continue.”
Where was I? Oh, the
plunder!
My head still spins at
the thought of it. Cyrrhenic silk banners, intricately woven by the
trained spiders of the Boric delta. The Singing Spear of Sven
Venison. The personal battle robes of the Gyronese Emperor of
Contention. Choice volumes from the psychic library of the artificial
rings of Thoomba. And the art! There was a Gleick, a Vincent van
Breda, two Johnsons and a Giggins. All this, mind you, in the very
first compartment we peeked into.
Garron
clapped my shoulder and I cringed. I’d been shot there that
morning, just before the cave-in. I guess I should add that Garron
took a couple of souvenirs himself. I knew he’d milk them for all
they were worth. Anyway–
He
tutted apologetically and carefully clapped my other shoulder and
said, 'My boy, this is it. My days of struggle are behind me. With
the credits I’ll get for this lot I’ll be able to return to Earth
and buy Hackney
Wick! What am I saying? I’ll buy the Earth! I wonder if it’s for
sale?'
'I’m sure you’ll
find a willing seller,'I said.
'That’s the spirit!'
he said. 'Oh! A comment. Don’t worry, lad! I’ll see that you are
well provided for. This ship, for instance, should fetch you a
princely sum in scrap.'
'Garron, scrap?'
'Well, there are those
who may have taken exception to the Graff’s activities, after all.
One can hardly slap a coat of paint on her and expect to sell her on
the open market. I expect there would be questions.' He frowned. 'So
many tiresome questions.'
'You may be right.' I
said. 'You know, Garron...'
'I know that tone.
Please refrain from thinking, boy.'
'Some of these
treasures meant a lot to their owners...'
'We are not giving
anything back!'
'Give back? You wound
me, Garron! I thought perhaps a few discreet enquiries as to the
possibilities of rewards for the safe return of certain state
treasures...'
'Oh, I see! My
apologies. I thought you were going soft on me again. Let me think on
it, boy. You may be right, but there’s something to be said for
dumping this junk in one big lot and letting someone else deal with
the details. The question is, who can we trust? There’s the
Smith-Kazar’s on Fulcrum 5...'
'No, Gentile Smith said
he’d put a rake in your skull the next time he saw you, remember?'
'Oh, that’s right.
We’d best not go there. What about the Castigones?'
'That’s a wonderful
idea, Garron. Thinking of visiting Henco’s daughter while we’re
there?'
'Oh, the alluring yet
clingy Belinda! I see your point.' He pondered a moment. 'I wonder
how our boy’s doing?'
'Garron, I once saw
Henco eat a fried Dalek. Let’s think of someone else.'
'You’ll
get no argument from me. Oh! There’s Shintaccus on Globe 22...'
'Bounty
on both our heads.'
'Curses!
The Grindovinian estate? I hear they’re going places.'
'Yes,
they all went to maximum security.'
'Phestus
Phobos! There’s always the market on Phestus Phobos...'
'Where
they’ll slit our throats at the merest hint of the extent of our
treasures.'
'The
duty-free depot on Happy Harbour?'
'Infiltrated
and liquidated by you-know-who.'
'You
don’t mean...'
'The
legendary Mongoose himself.'
The
Mongoose, by the way, was Alliance Security’s greatest undercover
agent. No one had the slightest idea who he was but everyone feared
drawing his attention. Anyway...
Garron
sank into a nearby chair, defeated.
'Oh,
Unstoffe! We simply don’t know enough honourable criminals! Where
are we to dispose of this junk without being killed for it?'
Bob
Name Your Poison spoke for the first time. 'Excuse me. Did you just
admit to consorting with criminals?'
'What’s
that, Bob? No, I didn’t say criminals. Must be a faulty
translator. You should get that looked at: might be a sign of serious
malfunction. “An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure”,
my old Da used to say.
'I
said, antiquities dealers’ of course. Oh, don’t give me
those blank looks. Antiquities is a cut-throat business. It’s
almost as bad as real estate. To continue?'
Garron
went off to mutter. I double checked the docking clamps on the ships
and set the cruise control on our ship. We left the odd orbit of
Ribos with no destination in mind. I wished old Binro was with us and
hoped the gods of Ribos weren’t religious. After all, surely they knew
the stars weren’t ice crystals.
I turned my thoughts to
practical matters. Garron would think of something eventually so I
might as well do something useful.
I
started the inventory of compartment one, growing more excited with
every find. The Graff’s taste in treasures ran to the martial –no
surprise there –but it must be said: the man had
taste. This wasn’t a random cache of loot; these items were
artifacts, treasures that had history. I could happily have rummaged
through the collection until the end of my days.
But
business is business. It would be useful to know what the items would
fetch, so I sent a few discreet inquires over the hypercable. After
the first few responses I revised my opinion of the Graff. He may
have had taste but he was a fool. The contents of this compartment
alone would have bought him an army; he never needed Ribos and its
jethrik mines at all. And this compartment was one of eight.