Suicide, Inc

CHAPTER 3

It continued to rain on Barnum, a thin misty rain that turned the afternoons a pale, quiet grey.

Jared Smith was looking, and feeling, considerably better than he had three days earlier. “Sure, I feel pretty good,” he told the thickset middle-aged scientist the Whistler Agency had assigned to look after him.

“That’s discouraging,” remarked Doc Winner. “You ought to be feeling at least marvelous by now, if not outright stupendous. The cleverly plotted combination of diet, vitamin injections, dormtherapy and face-to-face bull sessions I’ve been using on you is guaranteed to-”

“I tend to be a shade pessimistic.”

“The shots alone should’ve wiped that out,” fretted Winner as he paced the walled garden they were in.

The rain was kept out by an unseen force screen, one of Doc Winner’s inventions.

Smith was sitting in a sewdowicker lawn chair, legs stretched straight out, for his daily interview. “Suppose you fill me in a bit more on the assignment you folks have in mind for me.”

Doc Winner tugged at his greying muttonchop whiskers. “You know the planet Zegundo very well,” he said, making another slow circuit of the dry flagstones. “Know every nook and cranny, for instance, of Selva Territory.”

“I grew up there.”

“Weren’t born there, though.”

“Nope, I was born in the next territory over, Sombra.” Smith rubbed at his chin with his thumb knuckle. “There was a border war, some of us were relocated. My parents, along with quite a few others, were killed and…” He shrugged. “About forty of us eventually got sent to Horizon House to live.”

Winner stopped pacing. “You haven’t yet mentioned Doctor Noah Westerland in these little autobiographical interludes, Jared,” he pointed out. “Any reason?”

“No. Doctor Westerland ran the place. In fact, it was his home,” replied Smith. “He and his wife turned part of the mansion, an enormous joint, over to us refugee kids. Westerland was doing research for the Trinidad Interplanet Government at the time.”

“I know, yes. You liked him?”

Smith nodded.

“And now?”

“He’s dead.”

“Apparently so.” Winner came striding over to seat himself in a white chair facing Smith. “He died, we are told, seven years ago on Zegundo.”

“You sound like maybe you think he isn’t dead.”

Spreading his stubby-fingered hands wide, Doc Winner answered with, “You were quite fond of his daughter, Jennifer Westerland.”

“In my youth,” he said. “Starting about the time I was seventeen.”

“It lasted awhile.”

“We had a…romance, which continued during the time I was in the Territorial Police.” Smith looked up at the rain.

“Her father suggested the romance cease.”

“He did.” Smith fell silent, frowning.

“They called all of you the Horizon Kids. There was quite a bit of media coverage on you lovable little tykes.”

“Yep, there was.”

“You keep in touch with any of the kids?”

Smith shook his head. “Not a one.”

“There were originally forty-three children in residence during that protracted wartime emergency. Some of them, yourself included, lived at Horizon House for nearly a decade.”

“All of this, does it have something to do with the job?”

Winner tugged at a sidewhisker. “You’ve heard we’re nicknamed Suicide, Inc.,” he said. “Media twaddle, but it’s not bad publicity. Impresses some of our nitwit clients. Actually, however, ninety percent of the jobs we tackle are relatively simple, straightforward assignments with a minimum of risk.”

“And the one you have in mind for me is one of these easy, nondangerous ones?”

“Precisely,” answered the scientist. “The Whistler Agency has thrived because of the clever ways, a good many of them, I modestly admit, cooked up by me, we go about our business. Our staffs are small, our overhead relatively low. What we do is recruit crews for specific jobs. We seek out people with unique or unusual abilities, match them up with the job at hand and function quite impressively. For your particular…” He paused, glanced up, then wiped at his plump cheek.

“Drop of rain.”

“Got through your screen.”

“That’s not possible.” Doc Winner popped to his feet, scowling. “Unlike most similar systems, mine allows for not one single…Holy Hannah! Two more.”

“About my job?”

Winner was feeling at the pockets of his smock-like yellow jacket. “What?”

“Now that I’m fast returning to marvelous shape and have decided to accept the job offer,” said Smith, “I’m sort of anxious to know what the hell I’m going to be asked to do.”

“Oh, it’s a simple enough chore.” He produced an electric screwdriver from one cluttered side pocket. “In the nature of a scavenger hunt.” Shoulders slightly hunched, he approached a flowering shrub. “Control box is hidden under this fragrant bit of foliage. The flowers, and a snappy shade of purple they are indeed, bloom the whole year round. Thing also repels all major insects. My idea.”

“The flowers smell somewhat like old boots.” Smith had joined him near the high garden wall.

“Do you think so? Well, I was trying for something offbeat, not being fond of sweet cloying scents myself.”

“What am I going to be hunting for, Doc?”

Dropping to his knees, Winner began poking around at the roots of the plant. “People, my boy, you’ll be rounding up people. In fact, your old school chums. Former residents of Horizon House,” he said. “Ah, here’s the dang control box, under this glob of super-efficient synthetic fertilizer I inven-”

“Are these people missing or-”

“Missing, or lost. Five of ’em.” Winner pried the lid off the small gunmetal box that sat on the loamy soil. “Assumption is that most of ’em are still on Zegundo, but scattered to the winds.”

“Who wants them?”

“Our client.”

“Who is?”

“Well, no wonder this was on the fritz, no wonder. This unappealing blue bug has snuck inside my box and committed suicide in the midst of my ingenious and colorful circuitry. Shoo.” With thumb and forefinger Doc Winner lifted the tiny blue corpse free of the box. “A Trinidad-based company called Triplan, Ltd. is financing your mission. Even as we speak, which Whistler may’ve mentioned, we’re merrily scouring the planets in search of a crackajack crew for you.”

Walking back to his chair, Smith sat. “Would your contact at Triplan be a guy named Benton Arloff?”

Winner shut the box, nudged it into its former position, and grunted to his feet. “Arloff’s the lad who married Jennifer Westerland a couple years back, I believe,” he said. “Yes, he’s our client, Jared. Do you object to working for him and his firm?”

After a few silent seconds Smith answered, “Nope. But why’s Arloff so anxious to find these missing Horizon Kids?”

“A sentimental gesture,” said Doc Winner. “What he, along with his dear wife and her sweet greyhaired mother, has in mind is a reunion of all you tots. Years have passed, you’re all full grown, time to get together once again to wax tearful about old times.”

Smith, slouched in his chair, watched him for a while, a thin grin on his tanned face. “You really believe, Doc, that that’s their only motive?”

“Not a bit,” he admitted. “You ought to have fun finding out what they’re really up to.”

A long drop of rain came falling down through the force screen to splash on his broad, flat nose.