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.Between my efforts and the careful marksmanship of my fellow squaddies, the enemy lost half their number and most of their nerve.In a last act of defiance, one of them lobbed a brightly glowing, blue-white object toward the group huddling around the crate.“Grenade!” I shouted.Troops scrambled, crawling and dragging themselves away.The crate was left smoking and black.Our assailants ran every which-way.I felt like chasing them down, but was ordered back to the skimmer.I rejoined Leeson there as he walked down the ramp to the broken crate.“Let’s see what the hell we’ve been fighting over,” Leeson said, peering through the hole in the roof of the crate.“Holy crap…” he whispered.I shouldered close to him and peered inside.“Disks of metal?” I asked.“What are those—wait a minute.”It took me a second before I recalled a museum trip from long ago.“Those are Imperial coins.Galactic credit pieces.”On Earth we still used cash in some cases for local commerce.But Galactic cash had been outlawed nearly a century back.All Imperial currency was accounted for in electronic form.Originally this had been sold to us as an economic and environmental boon.Over time, however, many had come to suspect that if all money was a figment inside a remote computer, it was all really under the control of Hegemony—and beyond them, the Galactics.“That’s money—real money,” I said.“That’s right, son,” Claver said, walking up to the crate and staring inside it with the rest of us.“Untraceable Imperial cash.Each of those coins is worth more than your annual pay, and they’re not ours.Keep your hands off.”Leeson frowned at him.“You’re right of course, Claver.We’re not thieves.”Claver gave a nasty laugh.Leeson’s frown deepened.“Our clients are dead and we’re stuck out here in the street with this shattered box,” he snapped.“Do you want us to walk away?”“No.My clients are plenty rich enough to afford a second life.When the clean-up crew shows, they’ll scan them and order revivals immediately.They’ll be billed and released.I’d be surprised if they don’t show up again within two hours.”“Isn’t there going to be a bit of tough explaining to do when the local police arrive?” I asked.Claver gave me another of his unpleasant laughs.This time, it was louder and more insulting.“What are you? Some kind of dumb cracker? We are the police, boy.At the very least, we outrank any local badge they’ll bother to send out here.Why do you think these people wanted to hire us in the first place?”Looking around and examining the bodies, I lost count at around seventy.There were only a few legionnaires among the dead.I reflected that when I’d helped arrange for Earth to become the local Enforcers in the Galactic Empire, this wasn’t exactly what I’d had in mind.-13-Once the violence had ended and we’d established a perimeter, officials began to arrive.The first responders were Tau in the medical personnel colors of blue with yellow lateral stripes.They ignored us and moved to inspect their dead fellows.Checking each citizen’s DNA with instruments, they began to chatter excitedly amongst themselves.Old Silver watched with interest.“They’re pretty happy.This bunch of stiffs must be worth thousands to them.”“I bet.After all, they dumped about a million Galactic credits out of that box.”“Yeah, but that doesn’t mean that they own the cash.They could be couriers just as we are—but I would bet they aren’t.Couriers wouldn’t rate a revive.They seem to be actual traders.They’ll have the coin to buy their lives back, and it won’t come cheap.They base the price on a percentage of net worth, you know.”I frowned thoughtfully, and dared a question.“May I ask, sir, what were we transporting for them?”“Are you stupid, son?” he demanded.“Guns, of course.They’re gun-runners.What else would be in crates of that size that would be worth hauling down to the planet surface?”Stunned, my eyes widened.“Guns? So this is an illegal operation, and we’re aiding some kind of rebel force on the planet below?”Claver shook his head.“You make it sound dirty.What do we care? Maybe the guys downstairs are freedom-fighters.Maybe these fat cats up here on Gelt Station are lording it over them, hoarding all the trade-money.I don’t know which side is heroic—I don’t even care.I’m here to collect some pay and get out.I suggest you do the same.”“But isn’t this against the law, sir?”“Law? The only laws that matter out here are those imposed by the Galactics.And you know as well as I do they don’t give a rat’s ass about the internal politics of any star system.As long as these Tech Worlders don’t go off and attack another system, the Galactics don’t care.And we shouldn’t either.Other than us, there are only a handful of humans within lightyears.Grow up, McGill.”“But sir, these are Imperial credit coins.Trading with them is illegal.”I could tell he was getting angry, but he answered me anyway.“We didn’t do that.They did.We were just the bodyguards.We were paid with legitimate, digital credit.Don’t you forget that.”I wasn’t sure that the Nairbs would see it that way, but Claver had actually presented compelling points.I knew that the Galactics couldn’t care less what happened here in the Tau Ceti system.Star Systems were free to have all the civil wars, rebellions and even vigorous genocides on their own turf they felt like.The Empire was too huge and spread out for any central governing body to get into fussing with local politics.As long as the Tau kept their trade goods flowing and didn’t build starships to bother other members of the Empire, no one would do anything about their behavior.Still, I felt as a part of the local enforcement branch of the Empire we owed it to our neighbors to do better than taking bribes and participate in gun-running [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]