The Radical Factor (Stone Blade Book 3) Read online

  "Could they be smuggling," asked Kidwell.

  "Certainly not out of Esavian space," said Ferrel, "The Jengiil are a lot pickier about what they let in than what they ship out."

  "Modulo bribes," said Micah.

  "Even allowing for them," said Ionoski, "I agree with Charles on this. Even with bribes the Jengiil don't want to let in anything too thermal."

  Micah nodded. "What about their ship. Have we located that?"

  "It's the Pure Path. Registered and approved for trade anywhere within Jengiil space, just like us. High marks, no complaints, everything in order," said Ferrel.

  "Meaning they take care of their bribes as well and they also keep their cargo clean or well-hidden."

  "So what's the plan?" Micah had several in mind but he'd hold them until asked.

  "No direct action," said Ionoski, showing signs of telepathy again, "Yet. Charlie owned the port net so we can use it to observe their ship. They still haven't said anything here worth noting but that may change. We'll maintain surveillance there. That leaves observing their trips to the warehouse and the warehouse itself."

  Micah nodded. "That leaves us. How long can we stay here without rousing suspicion?"

  "Longer," said Ionoski, "I've had hades' own time finding cargo, you understand. I also will not leave, loudly and at length, without a hold full of profit, you understand. For now we observe and collect data."

  ***

  Observe and collect data! The next three days gave Micah his fill of that! The Esavians never changed their daily activities. They rose before the sun, walked to the warehouse and remained two to three hours. Next the leader and two or more of his fellows went to argue with various officials at the port. Then, later in the evening, they repeated their trip to Malki's warehouse.

  Nor did the conversations within the billets yield any useful nuggets of information. They discussed family matters and most of them missed their children greatly. They discussed cargo but only in the most general terms. They discussed religious issues not at all. Occasionally the leader had a conversation with one or more of the others but, again, nothing of use.

  Finally, reluctantly, Ionoski authorized direct action!

  ***

  Micah watched the street with his stunner drawn. Ferrel carefully worked on the lock on the back entrance to the warehouse, the one farthest from the residence. Barstein and Siffai waited outside the nearest of the rare all-night cafes but Micah vowed they'd wait in vain! He and Ferrel both had some League equipment but precious little of it and all easily destroyed. Fortunately Ferrel's terminal and scanner fell into that category. The stunners and their concealment gear were all local.

  The lock clicked loudly and Micah jumped. He felt Ferrel's grin on his back.

  "Clear," whispered Ferrel.

  They waited until the Esavians left for the evening and all the lights in the residence went out. Then they waited another half hour. Micah sorely missed his League night vision gear but at least Ionoski procured the locally legal equivalent. Not-so-equivalent by Micah's measure but at least they had it.

  Inside the warehouse Ferrel re-locked the door minus its alarm and lock. At need they could be through it in seconds. Micah scanned the interior visually as best his narrow viewfield would allow. He saw stacks and piles of boxes and crates, bales, barrels and shelves filled with multiple medium to large containers.

  "No actives," said Ferrel, "We can walk with impunity."

  "And caution," said Micah, again wishing for League vision gear and its wide and peripheral fields of vision.

  He and Ferrel split up and spacemapped the building. The wall it shared with the residence had a doorway presumably leading into it. The back corner on that wall had a boxed-in room they would save for later. Near the front entrance Ferrel found a desk, terminal and shelves of books and records. While Ferrel worked on the terminal Micah wandered into the building itself. He picked several crates at random, recorded the shipping information and opened them to verify it. Before long Ferrel messaged him with five specific locations and containers.

  Three of the containers held sharp-smelling spices, exactly as their labels indicated. The last two held large cylindrical packages; somethings wrapped in heavy padding. The manifests gave no information other than 'private merchandise: authorized' but something about them tickled the back of Micah's brain. Whatever the crates contained was fragile: in addition to the sheets of padding around the individual items the crates had padded interiors and plenty of shock-absorbing spheres around them.

  Ferrel showed no interest in leaving the terminal after Micah finished the last crate so he wandered toward the boxed-in room. He carefully paced out its dimensions. At first he classified it as an office, reasonable given its size, but the desk at the front along with the terminal, papers and records contradicted his assumption. Neither of the visible walls had windows and the door had two solid locks and plenty of security around them. He scanned the door meticulously but without touching it.

  Ferrel swore and the lights within the building exploded into full illumination, blinding Micah's night vision gear and putting spots in front of his eyes.

  "Infidels," shouted a harsh voice, "INFIDELS!! Warriors of Dhu! To battle! TO BATTLE!"

  The sound came from the door to the residence. Micah loped away from it automatically, collided painfully with a shelf and corrected his direction. More voices began shouting behind him as he blinked his eyes frantically to clear them.

  Brief sounds of impact and profanity to his right and ahead. Ferrel. Micah made his way toward him.

  "What did you do," hissed Ferrel when Micah found him.

  "Nothing! I just looked. I didn't touch or try to circumvent anything! Truth!"

  "Well stop looking and start moving, my brother. I can barely see and they're not far away!"

  Micah pulled Ferrel in behind him and started toward their compromised door. He could see vague shapes of things now and he had no problem hearing too many footsteps trying to locate them!

  Three man-shapes flitted around the door. Micah drew his stunner and fired. Two of the shapes dropped but the third escaped. Rut! Micah and Ferrel just made the doorway when something hard hit Micah's arm. He dropped the stunner but blocked the club before its wielder could strike again.

  Now Micah found himself in near-blind combat with two others. He kicked one away from the door and moved to give Ferrel room to work. That cost him as the second shadow struck again. Abandoning subtlety Micah struck hard at what little he could see. His unarmed foe dropped and Micah stepped into the club-wielder's strike. The man's arm hit Micah's shoulder but his club missed. Micah wasted no time attacking the man, only to find himself blocked. Harsh cries and footsteps announced the arrival of more foes.

  Something clicked loudly and Micah felt cooler air on his neck. He struck club-wielder, caught the parry and levered the man's arm into a painful break.

  "Clear," said Ferrel softly.

  Micah stepped backward into the doorway. Two others tried to rush him; he threw one hard against the door frame, the man collapsed, and turned his attention to the other. A kick hit Micah's gut and knocked the wind out of him. Before he could recover he took another hit, this time falling back. He heard an attacker rush but Ferrel slammed the door loudly into him. Micah heard a soft thud but the door didn't latch. Ferrel swore and Micah faced the two new opponents who popped out of it.

  Ferrel slammed the door again and this time it latched. That reduced Micah's still-uncertain vision and he took another pair of solid kicks before he dropped one of the attackers. He'd just turned to the other when Ferrel's stunner coughed.

  "Let's go," wheezed Micah, "Blip Dave and Katie!"

  "Already done, my brother."

  Though Micah grunted a protest Ferrel pulled his arm over and shoved himself underneath it. He and Micah hobbled to the fallback point outside the restaurant. Siffai and Barstein waited and pulled them into the shadow.

  "Daksha stupid... What happened?"<
br />
  "Alarms. Fight. You know the rest," said Ferrel.

  Barstein threw cloaks over Micah and Ferrel and they walked as casually as possible into the restaurant. Sirens wailed in the distance and none of them had any illusions about returning to the port unnoticed. Micah and Ferrel staggered into the fresher, stripped away their intrusion gear and changed faces as quickly as they could. Siffai and Barstein, all jovial and a bit loud now, had chog and nibblers waiting. When Micah sat he applied breath spray and passed the tube to Ferrel.

  Two police officers walked into the room. Micah's gut clenched as they headed straight to his table.

  "What do you know of the disturbance at the Malkie Warehouse?"

  "Disturbance," asked Siffai vacantly, "There'sh no disturbance here, shir."

  The man scowled and turned to Micah suspiciously. Before he could say anything Micah stood shakily, braced himself on the man's shoulder and belched noxious, alcoholic fumes into his face.

  "Dish-turbulence? Can... Can we... help... Offi-shir?"

  The man squirmed and made a sour face but Micah's weight and carefully-placed arm held him in place.

  "No, citizen, that will not be necessary. Thank you for your offer."

  "Bub... but we want to help!"

  The man again winced at Micah's toxic breath.

  "Take your seat, citizen. We will notify you when we need your help."

  Micah started to say something else but Siffai pulled him off-balance. He sat heavily, which did nothing good for his ribs, and Ferrel began giggling drunkenly. The policeman scurried away with a barely-audible sigh of relief.

  "Stupid, stupid, stupid," hissed Siffai.

  "It worked," hissed Micah back.

  "David and I had a plan, stupid daksha! There were only two of them. What happened?"

  "Later," said Ferrel, "We need to leave soon and preferably not on foot. I think Micah broke his ribs again and our erstwhile stevedores may form the idea of investigating on their own."

  "I have called a taxi," said Barstein, "Rip him when we're safe, Katie."

  ***

  Ferrel worked his terminal furiously while Kidwell carefully glued Micah's ribs and other broken bones back into place. Siffai looked at Micah as though she wanted to break his bones again as soon as Kidwell finished fixing them.

  "Micah," said Ionoski, "I assume you deduced a proximity alarm around that room."

  "After the fact," replied Micah, "Given the near-absent nature of electronic monitoring and security on the warehouse itself I didn't expect anything more inside. In fact I thought that room was an office until Charlie and I found the desk. I thought it might be a vault or some sort of secure lockdown but the walls weren't armored and the door wasn't redundantly reinforced."

  "It was their temple," said Siffai suddenly, "A very small one but the space is sufficient, barely, for all five altars."

  "Five," asked Kidwell.

  "Five," affirmed Barstein, "Sacrifice, blood, pain, purity and martyrdom. The five pillars of Esavian society."

  "That's awful!" Kidwell made a truly horrified face.

  "It is," said Barstein, "but their interpretation of the words is different, or at least greater in scope than a non-Esavian's. Blood, for example, can also be used in the context of family or even close friends."

  Kidwell's expression didn't change. She shook her head.

  "Are you sure," asked Micah.

  "Without seeing it, yes," said Barstein, "The office area would hold only mundane items: records, inventory and possibly currency. The temple holds the key to their faith and immortality, hence the fierce defense of it."

  "Wine!" Ferrel startled Micah, Barstein and Kidwell with that. "It's wine, Micah. It's listed as processed agricultural product and cross-classified twistingly through a devious path of subcategories before it's actually described."

  "I remember," said Micah, "Ornate bottles for very special wines. We saw them everywhere on Unity. Every chapel, sanctuary and religious building. Vinsley had a nice collection of it, too."

  Ferrel scowled at Vinsley's name. Appropriately so since the man caused them a great deal of trouble and grief. "This is puzzlingly strange, too. It's the only thing I've found so far with such an obfuscated listing."

  "Sela'hai," said Siffai, "From what SIF7 knows there are many ceremonies at the five altars, especially blood and sacrifice, that require ceremonial use of wine. It is the one thing that Dhu Lan excepts from the food laws: 'The warrior's wine / Shall make him strong / Shall give him strength / Shall give him blood / His enemies will fall.' That's one passage from the Lan'Quor we know for certain since it appears on banners and cloths at every temple. It is sewn using gold thread and the finest and most expensive cloth available."

  Kidwell pondered a moment. "Do they pray five times per day?"

  "Dhu Lan requires a minimum of three," said Barstein, "but the Lan'Quor supposedly outlines five: one for each altar. As you might suspect that forms a point of contention between the different sects. Time, length, location and frequency of prayers."

  "Plus flashiness of ceremony for some," added Siffai.

  "Spices! Lots and lots o' spices. That may be our money-maker, Ted." Ferrel again looked up from ignoring the conversation.

  "That makes sense," said Siffai, "Their food is dismal. They don't wast time in laborious preparation of it."

  "Thriftiness," interjected Barstein.

  "Sela'hai, but adding spices is easy and most sects do not consider them food." On seeing the others' lack of comprehension she added, "That means spices aren't subject to the laws and statutes concerning food and its preparation."

  "Polar," said Ionoski, "You may be right, Charles. That may just be our luxury item for fun and profit. And information! Pious questions are what and where. Close is cheap but far away may raise questions I don't want to answer."

  "You must also avoid Semid spice," said Barstein, "We use many and there are a few in common but possession of any uniquely Semid spices will get your throats cut."

  "No Semid spice," said Ionoski, "Charles, prepare for a challenging burn."

  This time Ferrel stopped working and gave Ionoski his full attention.

  "Dig into the port authority cargo and clearance cores. Find out what ships are bound for Esavian space and what cargo they are carrying. Special attention to spices."

  ***

  Micah caught Barstein's eye and nodded slightly. Barstein relaxed from his suddenly-tense posture and turned his attention back to his newsmod. Ferrel continued grumbling toward his terminal, flexed his fingers and got back to work. Micah knew from the sound that he hadn't encountered any security. Most likely he found another thing to hate about the local net.

  The zone around the starport had a paucity of dedicated datamarts so they settled for an upscale restaurant with net access. For an upscale fee. Micah ordered a newsmod for himself and an appetizer sampler. It held an amazing variety of items, all good but the last two of which nearly burned off Micah's tongue.

  "At last!" Ferrel paused a moment and grabbed an appetizer before Micah could warn him. After two chews his jaw clenched, beads of sweat popped out across his forehead and he started coughing. Then he drained his own tea and reached for Micah's. "Flames! You did that on purpose!"

  "Watch out, brother. That one is a bit warm."

  Micah signaled the waiter for more tea and ordered a milder plate. Ferrel eyed it suspiciously and made Micah try several selections before taking one for himself. The food helped cool off his mouth.

  "Oh thanks galaxies. I found what Ted wanted just before you tried to kill me. The queries will take a while to run but I didn't get caught. Naturally."

  "Naturally. I'll order us something for the wait."

  "No! I shall order. You will pay."

  Ferrel's terminal beeped. He slapped in a fresh spool and concentrated on the food. He ordered a dessert sampler and actually allowed Micah a few bites of it. By the time Ferrel was full so was the spool.

  "Make
certain you leave a generous tip," belched Ferrel, "I don't want these fine folks thinking ill of us."

  Back at the billets Ferrel had Ionoski's list within minutes.

  "Good," said Ionoski, "All available here but at high prices. Understandable since none of them grow here. Charles, before we leave I want you to grab all the information available on these spices. Biology, soil chemistry, life cycle, planets of origin, processing... Everything."

  "I can do that from here. Anything else legal while I'm there?"

  "No. Vera, take Dave and Katie to observe our friends. The leader signed some papers with the Cargo Master's assistant today so they'll be leaving soon." Ionoski stopped Micah before he could make a sound. "You will stay here and re-review your protocols. I don't want you smelling a fight until your ribs are completely fused!"

  ***

  The Jenni Silver left Zuvi Minor to the sound of Ionoski grumping and complaining about the high price of cargo there. All for show, of course, and with no effect whatsoever on the various purveyors of the paperwork requiring his signature and seal. They did have a full hold, though, and it should bring a decent profit from their first Esavian world, Allhai Mik.

  During the trip Micah re-studied every scrap of information they had on the Esavians. Meals quickly turned into learning sessions; everyone had questions for Barstein and Siffai. Try though he might Micah simply could not attune his brain to the Esavians' ways of thinking. They were brutal and barbaric and had no real connection to any culture save their own. The population of the Unity of Triumph might be strict and insular but at least they were comprehensible!

  "It would help if we had a copy of Dhu Lan," said Micah.

  "Lan'Quor," corrected Barstein, "I agree. Unfortunately it is also bloody impossible to acquire and remove from the Esavians. Don't think we haven't tried."

  "Pity," said Kidwell.

  "Or not," opined Micah, "at least that keeps their infection contained."