Honor of the Clan

Chapter Twenty-Two

Nathan O’Reilly needed a decorator. Until he experienced the other man’s office, Stewart had had no appreciation of the difference the Tong’s feng shui made in his work environment. He couldn’t do it himself, had no idea how it was done, and didn’t want to know. All he knew was that the pink walls and various stuff did make it a better place to work. He wasn’t going to mention it. He was, by god, not going to have a serious meeting with the head of a large rival, and now partner, organization and discuss interior decorating tips. Both rival and partner, simultaneously, was the way of things in large human organizations of all kinds, and that seemed to hold true across the range of sophonts, generally.

The reason was obvious. Different large groups had different interests. Some of those matched up in a similar direction, or could be made to, better than others. Whether you called it economics, politics, the balance of favors — none of that mattered. In the end, it all came down to the vital self-interests of groups: inter-species, intra-species, all the way down — in humanity’s case — to individuals.

The Galactic races saw that last as a weakness. Stewart looked at it as an example of an adage he’d heard a couple of times around the O’Neals: “Alien minds are alien.” This touched on one of the hidden benefits to the Tong of this association. Galactics were doing little to wrap their minds around xenopsychology as it applied from them to humans. The Tong was already gradually increasing its business transactions directly with various Galactics. The Tong didn’t understand the xenopsychology of the Galactics well, either. Stewart had thought they did, had thought he did, but this little venture was quickly teaching him otherwise. If he could bring back the body of the O’Neal Bane Sidhe’s xenopsych knowledge on the Galactics, and Clan O’Neal’s more informal and perhaps more valuable experiential observations along the same lines, it would give the Tong a huge improvement in its bargaining strategies — an edge. He intended to get it for free, if possible, and as cheaply as he could, if otherwise.

He sat alone in Nathan’s office because he was early for the meeting. He was also taking it upon himself to watch for Himmit. This was one meet where they were not included. Okay, so there already had been one when he came in. He happened to be looking in the right direction when it blinked. He didn’t know enough about Himmit body language to tell whether it had been offended when he’d told it to get lost. He didn’t know if Himmit could feel offended. This reminded him acutely of his lacks in understanding the various Galactics, which was glaring ignorance given that the Himmit were one of the Tong’s bigger Galactic trading partners. Given the realities of shipping, and black market commerce generally, they had to be.

O’Reilly arrived early for the meeting, which only made sense since it was his office Stewart had decided to camp in.

“Himmit, if you would be so kind as to exit, we do need a small meeting alone,” the priest said.

Stewart narrowly restrained the urge to jump as the alien peeled off the wall, resumed its normal froggy shape, and left via the door. He hadn’t seen it come back in, or located it once it was here, and he’d been looking. Oh, well, that was the Himmit. He wondered how O’Reilly managed to see it.

After the Himmit was gone — again — and the door closed, O’Reilly whispered to him conspiratorially, “He has a favorite wall, and a few preferred spots even when he switches walls. It helps. Oh, damn.” He looked at another wall. “Himmit Gannis, you too,” he said.

The second Himmit peeled off the wall and exited the office. Stewart thought it was probably only his imagination that it slunk a bit.

“There goes that secret,” the priest sighed. “So they didn’t go away with no ‘take’ from the meeting. Drat.

“I’m glad you’re here early, Mr. Stewart. I have some rather… delicate… personal information that concerns your wife, and you, of course. Oh, don’t be alarmed. That sounds serious, but isn’t.”

“And?”

“Aelool may be bringing baked goods with him. It’s usually brownies, but he’s expanded into chocolate chip cookies and beer. I know, horrible combination. In any case, given your position and your capacity as a negotiator, I have to warn you. I can’t let you be an unwitting test subject for Aelool’s little experiment.”

“Test subject?” Stewart didn’t like where this was going. At all.

“Drat. I suppose it’s my just deserts to get stuck with this. Aelool’s been putting nannites in junk food to reprocess it, in the body, to be nutritionally complete. He’s using some of the energy of the excess carbohydrates to ‘fix’ the food. It’s a xenopsychology experiment to test his theory that humans prefer plant-based high carbohydrates, fats and sugars to meat. He views it as an evolutionary defect that we can’t derive healthy nutrition from a diet of junk food and believes he can get humans to voluntarily give up meat, or at least reduce their intake, if they can substitute junk food and stay healthy. Wanting to target both sexes, he’s focused on chocolate and beer.”

“You’ve been feeding this stuff to my wife, haven’t you?” he asked. “And she doesn’t know.”

“Well, yes,” Nathan said. “Aelool was afraid if people realized the food was adjusted to be nutritious, they wouldn’t like it as much. It was always perfectly safe, and the ethics overseen by our psych department.”

“Uh-huh. You know she’s gonna kill you, don’t you?” Stewart asked. “Hey, wait a minute! You said it was in the beer. Would this perhaps include the black-market beer circulating around base?”

“I can’t be held responsible for the contents of black-market products,” Nathan said virtuously. Then, upon realizing the other man wasn’t buying it for a minute added, “I can’t be sure, but probably. Why? You had some?”

“That I did. What are the side effects?” Stewart asked grimly.

“None that we know of. The nannites don’t cross out of the digestive tract and they get excreted along with the rest of the contents. We’ve… had occasion to test that. One of the test subjects died in an auto accident and next of kin consented to an autopsy. They don’t stick around. They go right on through.”

“So this would be why I had so little appetite for dinner?” Stewart looked at the priest like a father looks at a ten-year-old who’s just tried to get by with one too many things.

“You’re right. I agree you’re right. But once we were into the study…” Nathan shrugged. “Besides, all our people have a consent filed agreeing to nonstandard medical treatment if it should be necessary for the state of their health.”

“Uh-huh. That stretches ‘necessary’ way beyond the breaking point,” Stewart said. “You guys are trying to land me with telling her, aren’t you? You got yourselves into this.”

“Yes, we did. But there is an advantage to the subjects, you know. The food we can afford to offer in the cafeteria tastes like crap, as you’ve certainly noticed. The brownies were free, and even though people chalked up their eating less from the cafeteria to being distaste for the food, at least some of that was that they had their nutritional needs met and didn’t need to eat,” O’Reilly reasoned.

“I’m sure you’ll have fun telling Cally that,” Stewart agreed. “Especially since she’s so oversensitive about her weight. Needlessly.”

“She’s a beautiful woman. Unfortunately, Captain Makepeace’s curvier figure isn’t Cally’s own, and it’s not all self-consciousness. She’s subconsciously trying to return to her own body. You’ll notice that she has no problem realizing she’s beautiful, she just doesn’t like the weight — for the very good reason that it’s not her own body. Anyway, if anything, the brownies have helped her efforts by letting her enjoy chocolate that tasted exactly like the real thing because it is, while satisfying her hunger and keeping her from downing needless calories,” O’Reilly said.

“If you push it as an advanced, cutting-edge diet food, you might live,” Stewart acknowledged.

“You couldn’t possibly see your way clear…”

“Not on your life,” Stewart said. Then he thought better of it. “I want the O’Neal Bane Sidhe’s xenopsych analyses and general body of xenopsych knowledge of the various Galactics. It costs you no resources. A trade of favors.”

Nathan smiled. “You’re learning to play this game.”

“I was born playing this game.” Stewart’s answering grin held the light of glee from a man who knows he’s just swung himself one hell of a deal. Again.

Nathan O’Reilly waited as his colleague had a few words with Mr. Stewart. The Indowy Aelool was a very original thinker among his kind, not only having a genius for xenopsychology, but also having carefully acquired a certain understanding of business. He was one of the few Indowy with the grasp of the subject to appreciate the degree to which the evacuation loan arrangement Michelle had negotiated, God bless her, favored the Tong. He was unsurprised that Aelool had wanted to begin getting the groundwork for any future interactions between Clan Aelool and the Tong laid out on a more even footing.

He made meaningless chit-chat with Cally as they waited, his mind not really on it, which was all right, because hers wasn’t either. She had her husband under the same roof and no likelihood of having to go out tonight. He still, after all these years, wondered what that kind of relationship would have been like.

She wouldn’t know it, but her face had a kind of glow, her eyes more sparkle, when Stewart was in the room. Especially, as now, when she was watching him.

Whatever Stewart and Aelool had had to talk about was finished quickly, and the two joined them. Then, by unspoken agreement, he and Aelool stayed back while the happy couple went on their way. Nathan reflected that it was one of God’s blessings that even in times of crisis like this one, there was still room for people to take a bit of joy. He watched fondly as they rounded the corner at the end of the hall. Heaven knew, Cally O’Neal had certainly earned herself some happiness.

“They did what?”

O’Reilly heard the feminine shriek from down the hall and winced. “Aelool?” he said. “Hide.”

“The first thing we do, of course, is offer them terms. I don’t know about you, but we avoid most actual pirate fights by getting them favorable out-migration contracts. Much cheaper than a fight,” Lehman said.

“Agreed. While I’ve never paid anyone out of the contract fee, in your circumstances I would have, and you obviously managed to keep it quiet. I, of course, will do the same. Noising it about would hurt us almost as much as it would hurt you. Besides, it’s a good ploy. However, we’re fortunate in this case. Tir Dol Ron cares less that these people are dead, and more that they’re off Earth and no longer his problem. I suspect the ship carrying them will suffer an unfortunate mishap; sad, but not our problem. We will have dealt with them fairly.” His Elsie counterpart Carter adjusted the no-doubt scratchy red wool scarf around his neck. He had to be really feeling the cold to wear something so nonmilitary.

“Assuming they do fight, we also have to assume that we aren’t going to get those other two humvees.”

“No, but in this case that horse’s ass was right. I did ask for more than you and I had discussed. He was clearly going to buy cheap, and I wanted parts vehicles or replacements in case the vehicles he bought us broke down. Fortunately, we have got in some of the steel plating I requested. I suggest we boost the armor on the front a bit,” Carter said.

“Not too much, or we’ll be courting that breakdown,” Lehman cautioned. “Plating for the men’s vests is a problem. We haven’t gotten enough, and what we have gotten is a mixed bag of decent composite and actual pre-war heavy shit.”

“Obviously, we put the best gear on the men taking point,” Carter said as the other general nodded. “I would suggest we spread the available plating out by only using the inserts in the front. That way each man has some armor protection where he’s most likely to need it. If the men in the rear see fighting at all.”

“Who do we put where?” Lehman hated having to ask the question, but since he wasn’t in command, he was basically stuck with whatever General Carter decided.

“I can’t in conscience spare my men at the expense of yours, if it comes to fighting.” Carter sighed. “What I intend to do is spread the risk by putting half of my men on point, yours next, and half of my men in the rear. If we have to fight our way in there, we can expect significant losses. We both need to come out of this with viable organizations. I believe this is an equitable division of risk. You will notice, I hope, that I am putting Enterprise at risk of the most damage.”

Lehman held his peace and simply nodded. He didn’t miss that this arrangement put the Elsie troops fore and aft of his men. There was a certain implication of unreliability of his troops under fire, if he didn’t accept Carter’s logic. On the other hand, the arrangement did make sense in terms of spreading the damages between PS and Elsie, if it came to a fight. Since he wasn’t in command and didn’t have a choice, he chose to take the other general’s reasoning at face value.

“I do think, thank god, that we have enough grenades,” Carter said. “They’re certainly the key. However, I’m going to have to make it clear to Mr. Mitchell that failure to provide C8 to blow Galplas will constitute a breach of contract. C4 simply will not do. For one thing, the door on the opposite end of the entryway will have to be blown. There’s no other choice.”

“Not to mention walls on the way down,” Lehman nodded. “Don’t you just wish we could keep our mouths shut and tell him he was in default at the last minute, when it was too late for him to do anything about it? This contract is turning into some serious suckage.”

Bobby stood, hands on hips, watching his two latest patsies dump gasoline around the rural, wood frame house. Out of a lot of possibilities, this had just sat up and begged for attention. For some reason, most people had a positive horror of fire. Personally, he thought it was pretty cool, but whatever. It was useful.

The unlucky recipients of his attention tonight were an interesting collection. A lot of guys, of all kinds, wouldn’t mind seeing their ex-wife offed. Usually wouldn’t miss her new husband, either, since he may even have been fucking her before the divorce. The kids of the ex and new hubby, well, that would be a sad thing, but people died every day. Killing his own two, however, just might bite Harry Foster’s ass. Even if Foster was a cast-iron bastard like Bobby, they were his kids. Bobby wouldn’t let somebody get away with offing his own kids like this, if he’d had any. Oh, well. It oughta get a reaction from somebody, anyway.

The wood house was old, and the area was in a drought this year. It needed paint. Not that you could see that at night, but it was pretty obviously run down when he’d checked it out in daylight. Everybody honest was feeling the economic pinch. One more reason not to be one of the suckers in life.

Patsies weren’t so much suckers as they were stupid. Another thing it was simply not good to be. Except Matt Prewitt was not as dumb as your usual patsy. Maybe not dumb at all. He’d confronted Bobby outright, in private, about their real role in this little operation. Thing was, he figured he could survive the search after. Knew a place he could get real good new ID, disappear. His additional price, which Bobby had been happy to pay, was to muddy the records, a lot, about his identity — in advance. It didn’t cost a damned thing, and who knew? The skeletally thin skinhead might even make it. If he did, it was a damned good audition for more work. Bobby won either way. The longer Prewitt stayed ahead of them, the more tracks they would leave for Bobby. Bonus for his money. Well, the Tir’s money, anyway.

They hadn’t been too happy that he was going to stay back here, safe, while they did all the dirty work. A single cold look had quashed that. He wasn’t paying them so he could do the shit himself. He was doing enough just being here in person to ensure they didn’t fuck it up, which they really ought to be grateful for, since he wouldn’t personally kill them for a salvageable mistake on the job like he would for a blown job. He figured he doubled these two guys’ odds of survival just be being here to, so to speak, pull their chestnuts out of the fire if they fucked up.

Finally the base of the building was soaked all the way around. Big thing now was make sure nobody got out. He and Prewitt had the kitchen door at the back, Gorton had the front door. The back of the house had one of those big, country screened porches, so they’d see anyone coming out in plenty of time.

He and Gorton both had rifles, not because they couldn’t have gotten closer and used pistols, but because there was a really neat way to start the fire, nice and safe, from a distance. He had gotten incendiary bullets as something his mercenaries had put him onto. No fuses, nothing to fuck up, just shoot the damn house near the bottom where all the gas was. Any old beginner could shoot a house, and he’d had these guys on simulators and out to a range to make sure they knew how to fire the damn guns well enough to do their job. Just because somebody said they could do something didn’t mean they weren’t full of shit. Bobby had survived and gotten to his current position not just out of nepotism, but because he always, always checked.

And, of course, he’d had himself checked out as well, because flaming bullets were cool and he wanted to get to fire at least one of them.

Prewitt was a bit of a gun nut. He’d come decked out in camo that didn’t look military to Bobby — not like whatever he’d seen before — with multiple magazines for his rifle, with some kind of regular gun in a holster on his hip, and a big honking knife strapped to his opposite thigh. The effect was ruined by him having torn out the sleeves of the jacket to show off his tattoos. They were impressive tats, but it was kinda stupid when they were just lying around in the cold.

Matt Prewitt didn’t like this job. He didn’t particularly dislike it. Whoever was in the house was kind of un-people, as far as he was concerned. He didn’t know them, he didn’t give a shit, he was getting paid a fuckload of money. The job was high risk, but then you usually didn’t get a fuckload of money for selling ice cream cones.

The biggest risk, of course, were that these folks had some motherfuckers Bobby wanted to pull out in the open. Probably some fairly badass motherfuckers. That was the real risk, but he was cool with it. He’d gotten a bit too hot for comfort, anyway, and had been about to disappear and change his name, found the fixers for it and everything. That was the other big bonus for this job. Bobby was connected. He was connected about as high as you could be connected. Of course he hadn’t said so, but with that kind of money, and no worries about them being caught? Bold enough to be along and not care? That meant he knew he could get it taken care of if they got pulled in. Taken care of good, and right the hell then. This back-ass end of nowhere was obviously not the guy’s usual turf. Hence, connected and connected up high.

He’d insisted Bobby fuck the records on his real ID to make him unfindable. In advance. Bobby had agreed, no problem. Matt had checked, and it was solid. Again, proof he was connected.

So all Matt had to do was do his job and stay alive, and maybe he could become connected, too. That was as high in the scheme of things as a guy like him could ever hope to rise. The big enchilada.

Before he disappeared, he really ought to do something for Alice. She was his sister; the only girl out of a handful of brothers. She’d just had her fourth kid. A kid’s uncle was important. Fortunately, a couple of his brothers were of a nice guy turn of mind and cared about the little brats. He spent a lot of time with the oldest boy, but figured four might be just too loud for his tastes. Still, his brothers didn’t have much, because the pay for being a nice guy sucked. He’d be doing okay after this, so he’d leave a good chunk with Barry. Barry was so straight it was like he got all the nice Matt missed. He’d make sure Alice didn’t smoke it, drink it, or shoot it.

Speaking of shoot, his lack of attention was getting noticed. Bobby and Gorton had already fired, starting the blaze. A corner of the house hadn’t gone up. The bedrooms. Prewitt obligingly put his round in and insured a good, fast finish to the job. This was the part that would really suck, if anyone came this way. The fire was loud enough that they probably wouldn’t hear any screaming. Hopefully.

The first thing out their door was a cat, ghost white in the light of the full moon. Bobby fired a shot off at it, but the boss’s marksmanship sucked, and Prewitt didn’t see no point to shooting the damn cat.

“Why didn’t you shoot?” Bobby asked accusingly.

“Ah, it was just a cat. Nobody feeds it here they’ll never find the damn thing anyway. Wasn’t expecting anything that little, and those suckers are fast,” he improvised.

The bossman couldn’t argue that without making himself look bad, since he’d missed, too.

“We’re still watching the door, right?” Prewitt asked, giving the guy an unsubtle reminder that it was his goddamned job and did he want it done, or what?

“Yeah.” The cat was forgotten.

They had one taker to come running out the kitchen door. Woman. Her nightgown was one of those long things, or a robe. It was on fire, making her look like something out of a movie. Prewitt took the head shot just as he realized she was carrying something. As she hit the ground, the baby began to cry.

Beside him, Bobby took a shot, probably a mercy shot for the kid, but missed. Then the guy actually got up, pulling at Prewitt’s shoulder.

“Oh, well. Gotta go,” he said.

“Right.” Prewitt got to his feet, drawing his nine mil Glock in one smooth motion and putting two rounds into the back of Bobby’s head. “Even I wouldn’t leave a baby to burn, you sick son of a bitch,” he said as the body hit the ground.

Matt turned and sprinted for the house. What the hell, he wasn’t getting paid now, anyway.

The fire was burning fast, fast through the dry house, especially with all the accelerant. Matt Prewitt ignored the flames, taking the stairs two at a time and wrenching the outer porch door off its hinges in his adrenaline burst.

He scooped up the baby and turned back down the stairs. The next to top one, one he hadn’t hit on the way up, collapsed under his weight, pitching him forward. Instinctively, he rolled to protect the child, feeling his ankle snap as he went down. Above him, the beam across the top of the porch fell in, to slide down the collapsing hand rail and land squarely across his back, flaming, trapping him. Turning onto his stomach in a vain effort to work free, wiggling the rest of the way down until the baby and his hands were on the compressed dirt path at the bottom of the stairs before he stuck fast, Prewitt reflected that it was good news and bad news that he couldn’t feel his legs.

As the flames really started to bite, Matthew Lamar Prewitt did his final good deed, one of the few in his life. He slid his hands right under the baby and rolled, hard, sending it turning like a little log, out of reach of the flames and smoke.

Mercifully, the smoke from the burning stairs got him before the fire did. Prewitt had one final word to cough before losing consciousness. “Alice?”

On the lawn, little Victoria Menendez began to squall herself hoarse, in which condition Gary Ward, of the Rabbittown Volunteer Fire Department, found her half an hour later.

Bobby had forgotten one cardinal rule that the worst of the worst usually took care to remember. Even criminals have families.