Sullivan Saga 2: Sullivan's Wrath (11 page)

“Thank you,” said Sullivan. “You have no idea how important this is.”

Allen leaned forward. “So the last we knew, you were off to find Orion Zednik’s body to bring it back to Abilene.”

Brain laughed. “Now that’s a story. My men and I went out to that house in the woods you told us about. You’d mentioned that there was a man tied up in a van inside and Zednik was dead in the kitchen.”

Sullivan nodded.

“We got there, and the garage door was wide open, no van. We went inside and, sure enough, no Zednik. Well, it seems Zednik had credits squirreled away in banks on other planets. It wasn’t that much compared to what he had on Abilene, but combined with the ransom he would have gotten for Kate, it would have been enough to begin rebuilding.

“Zednik was just waiting for the authorization to transfer the money, but you killed him before it came through. When we eventually tracked down Zednik’s man, we found out he had scooped out Zednik’s eyeball and let Zednik’s tablet scan the eye to confirm the transfer. The transfer was for half a million. All that was left on the card when we got it was a few thousand. It appeared he’d wasted much of it on drugs and whores by the time we got to him. But we couldn’t kill him. We had to take him alive because he knew where Zednik’s body was, and I needed that body to prove to everyone here on Abilene that he was really dead.”

Brain laughed. “The things that man made us do to him to find out where the body was… it wasn’t pretty. We couldn’t understand why he wouldn’t just tell us. We probably would have let him go if he had. We supposed at the time it was out of some sort of loyalty to his former boss.

“Well, we had to take off a few fingers and an ear before he finally broke. We went to get the body, and as we dug it up, we figured out why he hadn’t wanted to tell us. He’d buried several prepaid cards with the body, each loaded with ten thousand credits. He hadn’t blown as much of it as we’d thought. He’d buried it, like a pirate with his treasure.”

Brain smiled. “It was smart, really. The way he was throwing money around, someone would have tried to rob him eventually.”

“What happened to him?” asked Sullivan.

Brain waved his hand dismissively. “Oh, we killed him after making sure he’d told us the real location. Zednik’s body wasn’t pretty, but it was still recognizable, and I showed it around to enough people so the word would spread that he was really dead, and I was in charge.”

“Well,” said Allen, “he got what was coming to him.”

“Damn right,” said Brain. “Besides, I think people prefer having me in charge now. I’m a lot more understanding.” He took a sip of his drink. “You have to make examples of people, of course, send a message every once in a while. But if a man crosses me, his family is off-limits. I don’t kill children.”

Sullivan nodded. He knew that for a man like Brain, that was more than could be expected. But it saddened him that he was part of a society in which killing for profit could be justified, in which some lives were forfeit but others were not. How was the life of one person less valuable than the life of another? As Sullivan pondered this thought, he realized that he himself had weighed the value of men’s lives and determined whose deaths were justifiable, whose were not.

Brain was telling another story. Allen seemed to be listening, nodding. Sullivan tuned in just in time to hear Brain say, “Just like a watermelon!” and laugh.

Sullivan shifted uncomfortably in his seat. “How long do you expect your man to be with the money?” he asked when Brain had stopped talking.

“Not too much longer. You in a hurry?”

Sullivan nodded. “Time is of the essence in this matter, I’m afraid.”

Brain took his tablet back out and tapped on it. “I told them to hurry it up.”

“Thank you,” said Sullivan. “I can’t tell you how much we appreciate this.”

“Not at all, not at all,” said Brain. He leaned forward again. “Frank,” he said, addressing Allen, “is there any chance I could get my hands on one of those hyper-hyperspace ships?”

Allen glanced at Sullivan. “They were all destroyed getting men to Edaline for the war, I’m afraid.”

Sullivan nodded. “There were some problems with the technology anyway,” he said. “It was never one hundred percent reliable.”

Brain frowned. “Too bad. Something like that could make a man a lot of money. If they ever work out those problems, you’ll give me a call, eh?”

Allen smiled. “Of course.”

They spent the next hour making small talk with Brain. Sullivan could see that he had changed. Being in charge had made him a lot cockier. Every other sentence was a boast of some kind or another. When the prepaid card finally arrived and Brain handed it over to them, Sullivan was glad to be free of the man’s presence.

They let Brain think they were leaving the planet and took off in their ship. They jumped into hyperspace and spent a day circling the system before returning to Abilene, just in case Brain had decided to track them.

“You can never be too careful with a man like that,” Allen had said.

Sullivan did not disagree.

THE PLANET OF Abilene had been settled—and named—by a group who had left their native Texas two hundred and fifty years earlier. The majority of the settlers belonged to a religious group led by a man named William Johnson. Most people on Earth recognized them as a cult, and it is true that Johnson had an unhealthy level of influence over the members of the church.

Sullivan, who had never really studied the history of Abilene until now, read the Stellar Assembly Database files concerning the planet’s history with interest. As he and Allen were waiting for their contact to arrange a meeting so they could buy the weapons, he began to understand how Abilene had become the lawless enclave of murderers and smugglers that it now was.

After the initial settlement by Johnson’s followers, other groups began to arrive. There was plenty of fresh water due to extensive underground reservoirs, but the surface of the planet was unbearably hot and Earth crops could not grow. But settlers kept arriving, bringing with them the materials to build large greenhouses in which to grow food. Johnson knew that if food became plentiful, his followers would rely on him less and less for their means of survival. In a desperate move to consolidate his power, he led raids against the small settlements where greenhouses had been built, killing those who opposed him and destroying their facilities. Every new group that arrived learned quickly that they either submitted to Johnson’s rule or would face the consequences. The cult slowly evaporated after Johnson’s death, but the system he had put in place remained, with ruthless individuals vying for power.

Sullivan shook his head as he read the history. During this period of time, great social advancements were being made on Earth. It was time when nearly the entire planet’s population enjoyed security and prosperity. It was only extremist groups such as Johnson’s who did not approve of the changes that were happening around them. They left Earth in search of planets where their chosen ways of life could be pursued. The result had been several planets whose inhabitants, hundreds of years later, lived in the kind of poverty that hadn’t been seen on Earth, in any significant way, since the twenty-second century.

Sullivan realized how a planet’s or region’s environment shapes human society in a very non-trivial way. A hot, miserable planet with scant resources like Abilene was more likely to breed a hard, ruthless people than a planet like Silvanus with its mild climate, continent-wide forests and extensive mineral wealth. It didn’t have to be that way, of course. Just societies had developed on harsh planets or moons, but when combined with a ruthless individual such as William Johnson, the inhabitants of such planets rarely escaped from a dog-eat-dog mentality. And those with a similar mentality were, of course, drawn to the places where they could go about their business unencumbered by laws and social expectations.

Charles Albo, the man Allen and Sullivan were waiting to meet with, was just such a person. Sullivan had studied the man’s history in the Stellar Assembly Bureau of Investigation files that Allen had surreptitiously copied before turning in his Bureau-assigned equipment back on Silvanus.

Albo was originally from Tritica but had left for Abilene when he was twenty-two. He’d risen through the ranks in Orion Zednik’s organization and was eventually placed in charge of Johnson City, the planet’s only other city of any size aside from the capital of Abilene City. When Orion Zednik was killed and Eugene Brain took over in the capital, Albo had managed to consolidate power and Brain, busy elsewhere, was unable to stop him.

Brain, it was generally believed, had struck a deal with Albo, letting the other man run his affairs in Johnson City as long as they did not interfere with Brain or his operations in Abilene City or in the rest of the planet’s small, scattered settlements.

Sullivan turned away from the screen in front of him as he heard Allen step into the cockpit.

“Any news?”

“Yes,” said Allen. “Albo wants to meet with us and make sure we have the credits we promised to pay him. After that, we’re to wait at the Johnson City spaceport for him to bring the weapons.”

“All right, all yours,” Sullivan said, gesturing toward the controls of the ship.

Allen sat in the seat next to Sullivan and programmed the ship. They had been slowly orbiting the next planet out from Abilene, waiting for a response to their message to Albo. The ship broke orbit, and a moment later a blue flash filled the cockpit window as they entered hyperspace. A few seconds after that, they emerged from hyperspace near Abilene, and the ship descended into the planet’s atmosphere.

Sullivan looked down at the vast expanse of desert below them. It was incredible that anyone would choose to settle on such a planet. But had it really been any different on Earth? Thousands of years ago, humans had settled in environments just as hostile.

The spaceport of Johnson City came into view. Beyond, Sullivan could see the square cinderblock construction that dominated on the planet. If the gray blocks were painted at all, it was in various shades of tan, giving the impression that the city itself was nothing more than an irregularity-shaped outcropping of rock rising from the desert sands.

The ship smoothly glided toward the spaceport. The tower directed Allen to a landing zone that had been reserved for him hours earlier. As the ship landed, two men could see that a well-armed welcoming party had already gathered.

Sullivan and Allen stepped out of the side hatch and stood by the side of the ship as the group approached. Two men in the lead raised their guns. Sullivan and Allen put up their hands.

As the two men searched them for weapons, a man emerged from the back of the group. Sullivan recognized the face from the Bureau file he had read. This was Charles Albo.

Albo smiled as his guards nodded to him, silently telling him that Sullivan and Allen were unarmed. Albo stepped forward and put out his hand. The two men shook it.

“Well,” said Albo, “I see no need to waste time with pleasantries. If you’ll let me have a look at your card, we can then begin to negotiate for the weapons.”

Allen nodded. “Can we go inside?”

Albo grinned. “I’ve had a room prepared in the terminal. Come with me.”

Sullivan and Allen followed as Albo led them inside to a sparsely appointed conference room. A pitcher of ice water was brought in then, aside from a pair of guards at the door, they were left alone with Albo.

“You said you wanted energy weapons,” said Albo, pouring them each a glass of water.

“Yes,” said Allen. “Rifles and handguns.”

“How many?”

Allen reached into his pocket and withdrew the credit card that Brain had given them. “Whatever this’ll buy.”

Albo took the card and brought out his tablet. He ran the card across the scanner. “Two hundred thousand,” he said, nodding. He handed the card back. “Well, a Mark Four rifle will run you twenty. A Mark Five is thirty, and a Mark Six is fifty. Handguns… I can sell you a standard Strava for five.”

Allen glanced at Sullivan. Sullivan shook his head. Albo watched the exchange and laughed. “So this is your expert?” he asked Allen.

Allen nodded at Sullivan. Sullivan cleared his throat. “Mr. Albo, we can leave out the Mark Fives and Sixes. We’re interested in quantity. For the two hundred, we would like twelve Mark Fours and six Stravas.”

Albo nodded. “I’ll give you eight Mark Fours and three Stravas.”

“Ten and six.”

“Ten and five.”

Sullivan looked back at Allen and nodded. “Ten Mark Fours and five Stravas, then?” Allen said.

Albo stood and shook his hand. “Yes.”

“How soon can you have them ready?”

“Give me a few hours. If you like, there’s a nice club downtown where you can wait for me.”

“If it’s all the same, we’d rather wait in our ship, Mr. Albo,” said Allen.

Albo smiled. “Of course. It will be perhaps three or four hours.”

“That’ll be fine.”

As Sullivan and Allen left the conference room, Sullivan studied the faces of the men who were guarding the door. Once they were out of earshot he turned to Allen. “I don’t trust Albo. We should have just gotten the weapons from Brain.”

Allen nodded. “I don’t trust him either, but Liz told me we had to do it this way.”

“I still can’t believe how readily you jump when she calls.”

Allen licked his lips. “Listen, Rick, you agreed to help us do this. Don’t ask any questions.”

“This just doesn’t smell right to me. And who are these weapons for, anyway?”

Allen stopped walking. “Rick, please. Just do what you’re told.”

Sullivan sighed and nodded. He kept walking, but now he was more worried than before. He thought he had seen a trace of fear on Allen’s face.

KATE ALEXANDER DIDN’T need General Miller this time. She’d secured the services of Edaline’s best law firm, and the very next day she’d been granted an audience with Prime Minister Hall.

Hall smiled as Kate, flanked by two lawyers, entered his office. “This really wasn’t necessary, Miss Alexander,” Hall said as Kate and the lawyers took seats in front of his desk.