“I’d take that bet, actually,” he said with a touch of grim humor. “But I’m forgetting—you don’t have anything left to bet with anymore, do you?”
“You really think your people will fall on their swords for you?”
“No falling necessary,” he said calmly. “All you’ve got is conjecture. There’s absolutely no proof of any of it.”
“And the courts are open to the highest bidder?”
He shrugged. “I wouldn’t go quite that far,” he said. “But you’d be surprised what the right legal representation can do.”
“What about the court of public opinion?” I persisted. “This kind of accusation splashed across the media would make you look pretty bad. And you have plenty of enemies ready to fan the flames.”
He smiled tightly. “You, of all people, should know how fickle public opinion is,” he said. “A couple of months, and whatever fire you managed to kindle would quietly burn itself out.”
I glanced up at McMicking. He was looking back at me, his face completely neutral. “So you’re not afraid of me, the courts, or public opinion,” I said, looking back at Hardin. “Is there anything you are afraid of?”
“Nothing that’s worth a trillion dollars in hush money,” he said. “And now you really have outstayed your welcome.” He started to get up.
“How about the Spiders?” I asked.
He paused halfway up. “What do you mean?”
“Oh, that’s right—you didn’t know,” I said, as if the thought had only now occurred to me. “The man your people killed was an agent for the Spiders. The way I hear it, the Spiders are very unhappy about his death.”
Slowly, Hardin sat down again. “It wasn’t the way you think,” he insisted, his voice tight. “Yes, I was concerned about this stranger hanging around; and yes, I wanted him out of the picture. But I never wanted him dead. That was a completely unauthorized over-reaction.”
“I’m not sure that the Spiders would understand that kind of subtlety,” I said. “And I’d bet you’d lose an awful lot of money if they embargoed you from shipping anything through the Quadrail. Probably a lot more than a measly trillion dollars.”
His eyes hardened. “This is blackmail.”
“This is business,” I corrected. “Can I expect your credit authorization in a timely fashion? Or do you need the Spiders to cut off all your shipments for a month or two to prove you can’t slide anything past them?”
For a dozen heartbeats he continued to glare at me. Then the corner of his mouth curled in surrender. “The money will be messengered to you by tomorrow afternoon,” he said, his voice as dark-edged as a death notice.
“Thank you,” I said. “If it helps any, the money will be going to a very worthy cause.”
“I’m sure it will,” he ground out. “Once you leave this apartment, you’re to stay out of my way. Far out of my way.”
“Understood,” I said, getting to my feet. I looked again at McMicking, got a microscopic nod of confirmation in return. Hardin would pay up, all right, and he wouldn’t make trouble. McMicking would see to that.
And in paying up, Hardin would save the Spiders, the Quadrail, and the entire galaxy. Just one more bit of irony for my new collection. “Thank you, Mr. Hardin. I’ll see myself out.”
Six months later, I stood at the edge of the icecap that covered Yandro’s Great Polar Sea and waited for the enemy to appear.
He came in the form of a dumpy little man in a polar suit who emerged from a small meteorological station perched on the Polar Sea’s rocky shore. “Hello,” he called as he walked toward me. “Can I help you?”
“Hello, Modhri,” I said. “Remember me?”
For a moment the man just stared. Then his eyes seemed to go blank, his face sagged briefly, and he nodded. “Compton,” he said, his voice subtly changed. “You who disappeared, only to return from the dead.”
“Which is more than can be said for that particular segment of your mind, of course,” I said. “My condolences.”
“A great mystery, still unsolved,” the Modhri said. “Would you care to tell me the story?”
“There’s not much to tell,” I said. “The mind segment tried to kill me. I killed him instead.”
“And now you face me here,” the Modhri said, his eyes glittering with anticipation. “A very accommodating Human, saving me the trouble of preparing a suitable death for you in the far reaches of the galaxy.”
“I’m afraid you have it backwards,” I told him mildly. “It’s you who’s about to die.”
“Really,” he said, his eyes still glittering as he took a step toward me. “You against me, as it was aboard the Quadrail?”
“Actually, this time it’s going to be a little more one-sided.” I gestured to my right at the torchcruiser squatting on the rocks, its hatchway sitting open. “Recognize it?”
He glanced in that direction, turned his eyes back to me. “No,” he said, taking another step forward. “Should I?”
“I would think so,” I said. “I would assume you’d keep track of every vehicle in the entire Yandro system.”
He paused, a frown creasing his forehead as he took a longer look at the torchcruiser. The frown deepened as he looked back at me. “You’ve repainted and renumbered one of them,” he accused.
I shook my head. “No. It’s a brand-new vehicle, never before seen in this system.”
I pointed upward. “So are the three Chafta 201 ground-assault bombers that are currently mapping out the extent of your coral beds.”
The walker stiffened, throwing an involuntary glance at the darkening sky. “Impossible!” he hissed. “No vehicle parts or weapons systems have come into this system in over a year.”
“Not through your Quadrail station, anyway,” I agreed. “Not through the station you’ve built up such careful defenses around. But then, you didn’t know, did you?”
“Know what?”
I smiled. “That Yandro now has two Quadrail stations.”
He stared at me, his breath coming in quick puffs of white frost. “No,” he whispered.
“It’s more of a siding than a full-service station, actually,” I continued. “Very small, with no amenities whatsoever. But it has a parking area, unloading cranes, a couple of cargo hatchways, and enough Spiders to unpack and assemble four spacecraft and all the weaponry that go with them. Only half a trillion for the whole collection, plus another half trillion for the siding itself. A bargain all around.”
“You lie,” he insisted, his voice taking on a vicious edge. “I would have known if such money was missing. I have many walkers among the lesser beings at the United Nations.”
“Yes, the same behind-the-scenes people who helped push through the Yandro colonization in the first place,” I said, nodding. “That’s why we did the whole thing with private money, with no trail for your walkers to follow.”
“I see,” the Modhri said, his voice as bitter as the air temperature. “I should have killed you two years ago instead of merely having you fired.”
“You probably should have,” I agreed. “But then, you couldn’t really do that, could you? Any more than you could haul me into JhanKla’s Quadrail compartment or over to the resort casino waterfall and just rake me bodily across the coral. You didn’t know who else might be watching, and you absolutely couldn’t risk doing anything so blatant that it would draw attention to Humans and the Ter-ran Confederation. You had to play it exactly as you always did, and hope you could either infect me just like any other walker or else find a way to use me against Fayr’s commandos.”
I inclined my head at him. “Unfortunately for you, both attempts failed.”
“I underestimated you,” he murmured. “Very well. What are my options?”