Treacherous Moon E-Book

Stephen Goldin

• Herausgeber: BookRix
• Kategorie: Fantasy und Science-Fiction
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2022

Beschreibung

Hundreds of thousands of people have visited the pleasure moon Vesa and simply vanished without a trace. Is this part of some vast galactic conspiracy?

To find out, the Imperial Special Investigation Service dispatches its two top agents to look into the matter--and the shocking truth they reveal leads to discoveries that eventually threaten the stability of humanity's entire interstellar Empire.

Leseprobe

Stephen Goldin

Treacherous Moon

Agents of ISIS, Bool, 2

Dedicated to Fritz Leiber Roger Elwood Raymond F. JonesBookRix GmbH & Co. KG81371 Munich

Title Page

Agents Of ISIS: Book 2

TREACHEROUS MOON

Stephen Goldin

Published by Parsina Press

Copyright © 2010 by Stephen Goldin. All Rights Reserved.

Cover photo courtesy of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration.

Dedicated to

Fritz Leiber

Roger Elwood

Raymond F. Jones

Table of Contents

Chapter 1: Predators and Prey

Chapter 2: The Problem With Vesa

Chapter 3: Locker Room Brawl

Chapter 4: The Resurrection of Ilona Farik

Chapter 5: Accidents

Chapter 6: Vesa Vice

Chapter 7: A Meeting at the Warehouse

Chapter 8: Vanished!

Chapter 9: The Not-So-Great Escape

Chapter 10: Games

Chapter 11: School for Stranglers

Chapter 12: Secret Assaults

Chapter 13: The Battle of the Recycling Plant

Chapter 14: The Chandakha Solution

A Reader’s Guide to the Empire

Ranks

Runglish Words and Phrases

The Use of Yiddish in This Series

About Stephen Goldin

Other Books by Stephen Goldin

Connect with Stephen Goldin

Chapter 1: Predators and Prey

The Golden Crater Casino was unquestionably among the largest and plushest gaming palaces in the galaxy. Its reputation for the exotic and the exciting was fully earned, as but the briefest of walks down its crowded corridors and across its even more crowded rooms would reveal. People were jammed elbow-to-elbow in some places in their fanatical attempts to lose money to the House. Women in abbreviated costumes roamed the floor, ostensibly employed as photographers, waitresses and the like—though it was common knowledge that a fifty-ruble bill would procure other services from them as well.

The great and the near-great mingled at the tables, amid throngs of those who were merely wealthy but had aspirations toward greatness. Here a tridee star brushed against a grafinya; there a corporation president bumped into a famous news commentator. Rank and social distinction were of little importance in the casino; the only question of interest was how well could a person gamble and was luck on his side today?

Yet even as notorious and plush as it was, the Golden Crater was considered merely routine on Vesa, the moon that billed itself as the “Playground to the Galaxy”—and which cynics called a variety of other names.

Nils Bjenden, a banker from the planet Lindstrom, stood to one side of a doorway looking with distaste across the crowded room. This chamber was so jammed with people that he had difficulty seeing the other side. The ceiling arched high above his head, and on it was projected a kaleidoscopic light show that continually changed colors with the changing noise level in the room. But he hadn’t come here to look at the ceiling, he’d come to gamble—and the mob on the floor was packed so densely that he couldn’t see so much as a single gaming table.

“I told you we should have gotten here earlier,” he said to his wife Karen, who stood beside him and looked as bewildered as he felt. Nils found he had to yell to be heard above the room’s din, even though his wife was only centimeters away. “But you wanted to stop and eat first. We should have left when I wanted to.”

“I didn’t know it would be this crowded,” she apologized.

A stranger who’d been standing behind them came to the woman’s rescue. “Don’t blame her, gospodin. The Golden Crater’s like this around the clock. Vesa is ‘the moon that never sleeps,’ you know; these casinos prove that.”

Nils grunted noncommittally and would have walked away, but Karen struck up a conversation with the man who’d saved her from a tongue-lashing. “You seem to know a lot about it. Do you live here on Vesa?”

The stranger laughed. He was a tall, thin man with brooding eyes and a dark complexion. His clothing was almost as conservative as Nils’s: a lightweight brown jacket and flared pants, a stiff white shirt and a gold sash tied about his waist. “No, gospozha, I don’t think I’d care to. It’s all too hectic, too busy; I’d go crazy in two weeks. I do travel a lot, though, and I come here fairly often—every couple of months, at least.”

“This is our first time,” Karen gushed. “I’ve been wanting to come for years and years. It’s not as if we couldn’t afford it. But Nils, my husband, is a banker, and he’s always busy with one deal after another. You’d think the entire planet would fall apart without him there to look after it. I finally had to put my foot down and tell him that we were going to Vesa now or else.”

“Hmpf,” snorted her husband as he craned his neck to look over the throng of gamblers on the floor. “Some vacation it’s been, too. I haven’t had a moment to relax since we got here. There’s always people, people, people. What did you say your name was, again?”

“Lessin,” the stranger replied. “And if you think it’s crowded here you should see what it’s like down on Chandakha.” It took a moment for Karen to realize what he was talking about. The moon Vesa was so famous that many people forgot there was a planet it circled. “Oh yes, I remember reading something about it on our trip out here. They’ve got an overpopulation problem, haven’t they?”

“That’s putting it mildly.” Lessin closed his eyes and shuddered, as though recalling some personal nightmare. “Things are so bad down there that the people are little more than animals sometimes.”

His tone made Karen shiver. “Then I’m just as glad I’m up here, among civilized people.”

“I’m not,” Nils grumbled. “I should never have left Lindstrom, not with that big deal about to go through. I don’t like the thought of having to fight my way through that mob just to get near a table and do a little gambling.”

“I quite agree,” Lessin said amiably. “I much prefer the private clubs, myself. If I hadn’t promised to meet a friend here, I’d be at one of them right now.”

“I didn’t know there were any private clubs,” Karen said.

“Well, they certainly don’t advertise. That’s how they manage to stay private. They like to avoid crowd scenes like this.”

“What are these private clubs like?” Nils asked.

“They’re much smaller, more intimate places. Couple dozen people at most, and the atmosphere is more relaxed. The stakes can vary from moderate to high, depending on where you go, of course.”

“Would there be any chance of our going to one of those places?” Nils asked. “There sure as hell isn’t going to be any action for us around here.”

The stranger hesitated. “Well, they are for members only ....”

“You’re a member, aren’t you?”

“Nils! You have no right to impose on this man,” Karen complained.

“Oh, I don’t mind. I was about to continue that the clubs are for members and their guests. I was going to be taking my friend to one, but,” he looked at his wristcom, “he’s more than half an hour late right now. If I know him he’s probably picked up one of the floorgirls and forgot all about me. I hate going places by myself. In fact, I had just about decided to invite you two nice people to come along with me.”

“Yes, that’s more the spirit,” Nils said, rubbing his hands with gusto. It was obvious he preferred the thought of a quiet, dignified evening of gentlemanly gambling to the raucous atmosphere of the Golden Crater.

“It sounds lovely,” Karen added.

“Fine, then it’s all settled. Just give me a moment to get my cape from the checkroom and I’ll be right back with you.” Lessin smiled at them and moved off quickly toward one side of the chamber.

“We were lucky to meet him,” Karen whispered to her husband. Her low voice was just barely audible above the noise of the casino. “He certainly seems to know what he’s about.”

“Very good sort,” Nils agreed.

Their newfound friend was back three minutes later, a full-length brown fur cape draped elegantly over his tall, handsome frame. “Shall we be off?” he suggested.

As they left the casino and the door shut behind them, the drop in noise level was an immense relief. They faced one of the broad traffic corridors that carried the bulk of Vesa’s public transportation. Being an airless satellite, all life on Vesa existed underground in the vast hollowed out chambers and tunnels that honeycombed the moon. This tunnel was one of the major “streets” and dozens of electric vehicles went past them each minute,

“Thank goodness,” Karen said in the comparative quiet of the corridor. “I thought I’d burst an eardrum in there.”

“It’s not too long a ride to the club,” Lessin said. “Let me see if I can flag down a jit.” He stood on the curb and waved at a likely looking vehicle.

A large shuttle lumbered in their direction. This was one of the buses, or “jits,” that were the universal method of transportation on Vesa. Jits were privately owned and operated, acting as combinations of cabs and buses; they could pick up passengers at will and take them anywhere on Vesa, without fixed schedules. Tiny computers built into the driver’s controls calculated the fare from the point of pickup to the destination.

This jit was obviously an old one, judging from all the paint peeling off its six meter length. The glass in four of its windows had large cracks. As it pulled to a stop beside them, the group on the curb could see the vehicle’s occupants—half a dozen seedy-looking men wearing dirty clothes. Most of them were in need of a shave. They leered out the windows at the well-dressed trio.

Lessin waved the jit away. “That’s a problem you’d better be warned about if this is your first trip here,” he explained. “Very few people have private cars; nearly everybody uses the jits because they allow for more flexibility in the traffic patterns. But there’s a certain outlaw element that takes advantage of that. They’d think nothing of picking up newcomers like you, beating you up and robbing you. Hardly a week goes by without some story on the web about some tourist getting mugged on a pirate jit.”

“Oh dear,” said Karen.

“I have heard about them,” Nils said slowly. “That’s why I carry a small stinger in my pocket at all times.”

“A wise precaution,” Lessin nodded. “However, sometimes a little prudence in one’s choice of transportation can eliminate the need for that. Ah, there’s a more likely candidate.” He waved at another jit that was coming down the street.

This one proved to be much more acceptable to all of them. Not only was it new and clean, but the six passengers already aboard were far more respectable types who paid no notice to the new arrivals. Lessin insisted on paying the fares for all three of them as he gave the driver an address. “It’ll only be a few minutes’ drive,” he told the Bjendens. “Just relax.”

The couple from Lindstrom did so. There was little scenery to watch in these tunnels, but the shuttle’s novelty intrigued them. Since it didn’t go faster than thirty kilometers an hour—and since the climate was perfectly controlled within these corridors—the jit was an open-air conveyance with no roof. The slight breeze was deliciously cool as they drove along.

Two minutes later, the jit entered a solitary tunnel slightly darker than the main passageways. Lessin looked up, and suddenly an expression of horror crossed his face. “Oh no!” he exclaimed.

“What’s the problem?” Nils demanded.

“The ceiling’s going to cave in! There’s a crack in the roof right up there. See?” Both Nils and Karen craned their necks to see where the stranger was pointing.

At that precise moment, the other six men on the jit exploded into action. Two of them grabbed the Bjendens’ feet, holding them tightly together so they couldn’t run. Two more grabbed their arms, pinning them to the sides to prevent struggling. The remaining two whipped yellow scarves off from around their necks and, in one lightning-fast gesture, twisted them around the throats of the married couple. The upward-tilted necks were well exposed—an easy target.

The tourists were taken so much by surprise that they had no opportunity to struggle, even if the men holding their bodies had allowed such a thing. Their eyes bulged out of their sockets as the scarves tightened around their throats, squeezing shut the windpipes and cutting off their air supply. The only sound was the faintest guggling as Nils and Karen fought vainly to breathe.

The last sight either of them ever saw was Lessin’s imperturbable face staring at them with neither pity nor regret in his eyes.

When both were safely dead, Lessin—as leader of the stranglers—had the duty of combing their bodies for loot. He did this quite efficiently and, within a minute, both bodies had yielded all that they had of value—wallets, jewelry, wristcoms and keys to a hotel room where more of their goods would be stored. The shuttle driver’s timing was impeccable—just as the leader finished his search, the jit pulled up to a large white building. Driving into a private accessway, the driver tooted his horn sharply twice and a side door opened.

Four men dressed in white coveralls emerged from the building and boarded the jit. They looked down at the two dead bodies and, without comment, lifted them up and carried them back outside. Lessin gave them a curt nod as they disappeared inside the building with their burdens, and the door slid shut once more.

As the jit backed out onto the main thoroughfare again, the leader of the strangler band sat down in a seat behind the driver. The Bjendens’ hotel keys jingled idly in his hand. Tomorrow, after their rooms had been thoroughly picked over, the Bjendens would be “checked out” of their hotel and would simply vanish from the face of the universe, as many thousands had done before them. Very simple, very routine. Lessin gave an involuntary yawn. The banker and his wife brought his daily total to six. He decided to see whether he could bring that number up to eight before calling it quits. Stifling a second yawn, he told the driver to head back to the Golden Crater; the pickings there seemed exceptionally good today.

***

The man known as Garst was fuming silently as he strode down the marble-floored hallway. He made no effort to quiet the clacking sound his boots made with each impatient step he took. He was angry, and he wanted his anger to show.

Her timing is lousy, he griped silently. Just when I finally had a chance to talk with Lady A’s emissary. It would have been my big opportunity to break out of my dependence on one little moon, a chance to reach for bigger things.

But maybe that was precisely why she’d called him. Maybe she didn’t want him branching out beyond her grasp. Baronessa Gindri was a very possessive person, and the thought that her own personal lackey might have ambitions to something higher than her would be a very deep sting. But I tried so hard to keep this meeting secret.

He stopped as he came to the giant doors that marked the entrance to her boudoir. These doors stood nearly three meters high, and were elaborately carved out of solid whitewood and gilded in ornate designs. The knobs were solid gold, sculpted in the shape of miniature birds flying with wings outstretched. The doors were meant to impress the visitor, but Garst had been here too many times, and they seemed just like doors to him.

He paused outside the portals to catch his breath and curb his temper. Maybe her summoning him now was just a coincidence. She’d called for him before at odd times, this could be just another one. She was, after all, none too bright, It would do him no good to allow his guilty conscience—or what passed for a conscience in him—to ascribe a cunning to her she did not possess. Probably the biddy was just suffering from another of her incessant loneliness jags and needed his services.

Garst shuddered. That was perhaps the most distasteful aspect of his entire operation—making love to her gross, overindulged body. Someday, he was afraid, his sensibilities would overcome his logical mind and he would vomit all over her in the middle of the act.

He sighed. The truth of the matter was that he needed her to make his strangling operation work. The baronessa controlled the entire moon, at least nominally. It was she who gave orders to the politsia, the hotel employees and the casinos. True, he was the one telling her what orders to give, but without her authority and her title to back up those orders, he was lost.

Once again, the delightful thought of killing her flashed through his mind. Many were the times he’d fantasized the simple act of reaching his hands out to surround her fat, multi-chinned neck and squeeze the life out of her.

But, though the personal satisfaction that would give him would be enormous, the consequences would be disastrous. Gindri had no direct heirs to inherit her title, and at her death Vesa would revert back to the throne, allowing the tsaritsa to choose whomever she wished as the new baron. This new tsaritsa was a young, unpredictable girl. Who knew what kind of appointment she’d make?

He sighed again. His success lay in keeping Gindri alive and happy, so she wouldn’t interfere with the profitable setup he’d established. Garst was, if nothing else, a realist.

With his temper now well under restraint, Garst pulled down on the handles and opened the huge twin doors. Instantly the sickening stench of the baronessa’s perfume assailed his nostrils, and he had to fight down the impulse to gag. Instead, with his most obsequious smile plastered tightly onto his lips, he entered the room and snaked his way over to the side of the bed.

Baronessa Gindri Lohlatt of Vesa looked like nothing so much as a beached whale in a white satin nightgown. She easily massed a hundred and fifty kilograms; Garst had never asked exactly how much, more out of fear of being revolted by the actual number than out of politeness. Her fat face was always red and jowly, her many chins overlapping and virtually hiding her neck in layers of blubber. Her body was as soft and pallid as a slug’s. She’d hardly even be able to move on any world with a normal gravity, Garst thought. Only the fact that the gravity on Vesa was just one-quarter Earth standard allowed her to survive without a heart attack. “You called for me, Your Excellency?” he asked as nicely as he could.

“Yes,” she said. Her voice was a throaty rasp. She reached out one ponderous arm to him and extended a hand as round as a balloon. Garst brought the hand to his lips and kissed it.

He wanted to drop the hand after the kiss, but the Baronessa gripped his hand tightly with her own and pulled him closer to the side of her bed. The stench of her perfume grew ten times worse with each centimeter closer he came.

A silence hung in the air for a long moment, until Garst’s impatience got the better of him. “May I ask, Your Excellency, why you sent for me at this particular hour? Though the urgency of matters of state of course pales beside my desire to please you, there are still some details that are important and must be done at certain times.”

Baronessa Gindri looked up at him with great, rheumy eyes. “You haven’t been to see me in three days.” Her voice wavered, as though she were on the verge of tears. “I need to know that you still love me.”

Garst’s inward fuming resumed at an increased level. This stupid bitch called me all the way over here for that? he thought. Oh, how good it will be when I can get away from this moon and start out in business on my own. “Of course I still love you,” he said aloud, seating himself on the little bit of edge next to the woman’s enormous body. “What is there not to love about you? You’re beautiful, intelligent, charming, wealthy and powerful—everything I admire most in a woman.” And if you believe that, I deserve the Galaxy Award for acting.

But the Baronessa saw no falseness in his words or eyes, and was reassured of his continuing affection. Spreading her arms apart to welcome him to her bosom, she said, “Come to me then, my lamb, and prove your love for me.”

With thoughts darker than the blackness of space, Garst crawled into her arms. I won’t always be stuck on this miserable little rock—and when that day comes, I’ll see that you get the rewards you’ve earned. Just wait.

Chapter 2: The Problem With Vesa

The building was impressive, as well it should be. Three stories tall, with a facade of gleaming marble, it represented the security and stability of the greatest empire ever assembled by Mankind. It sat near the Kremlin in downtown Moscow, within easy walk of the Grand Galactic Palace. Day or night, there were always people coming and going. The affairs of nearly a thousand worlds could scarcely wait on whether the sun was above or below Moscow’s horizon.

But that outward grandeur wasn’t even half the story. The building also included ten subterranean levels, protected from enemy attack by many tons of solid rock. The above-ground floors just had public, unclassified offices for basic public functions. It was below the ground where the important work was done.

The Imperial Special Information Service was, if not the heart and soul, then certainly the brains of the Empire’s security. Reports came in constantly from every world, and the data were shared with the orbiting Primary Computer Complex to be evaluated and analyzed. An empire this vast contained many malcontents among its loyal citizens, and someone had to do the job of weeding them out. That “someone” was ISIS.

It was midmorning as Judah and Eva Bar Nahum met in front of ISIS headquarters. The two cousins had been suitably impressed when they first saw the building, but that was two years ago. They’d been coming here for training nearly every day since then, and the majesty had worn off. Headquarters was now just a building.

Judah’s face was practically glowing with eagerness. “Do you think he’s finally got an assignment for us?”

“He’d better,” Eva replied, barely stifling a yawn. “I’d hate to think I got out of bed this early just to say hello.” Getting out of bed was always an issue with her, even though Judah admitted she’d been on her best behavior during training. The bed she’d gotten out of was otherwise unoccupied.

“We’ve never been called down to Sub-10 before.”

“Nu?” Eva said with a shrug.

They waved as the passed the human receptionist and went to the iriscopes near the bank of gravtubes. Once their irises were scanned and their identities verified, they were admitted to a tube. They didn’t even have to state their destination; the computer knew where they’d been summoned.

They were whisked down to Level Sub-10, where they exited into a long white corridor with many doors. None of the doors was numbered or otherwise identified. It was assumed that if you were on Sub-10, you either knew where you were going or had someone to guide you.

As the Bar Nahums stepped out of the tube their guide was coming into sight. Hasina Wettig, the Commissar’s chief assistant—and, not incidentally, his daughter—came striding up the hall to meet them. She was a tall, slender woman with short black hair and a face that would have been lovely if she’d ever let it relax. Her brown and peach colored pants suit emphasized both her angularity and her no-nonsense attitude. “Welcome to Sub-10,” she said briskly. “Please follow me.”

Judah might have been expecting a little more warmth. He glanced over at Eva, who merely shrugged. Somehow they had gotten off on the wrong foot with Hasina, who’d resented the fact that they were merely amateurs, not members of the regular intelligence community, when her father gave them their first assignments—but even Hasina had to admit they’d saved the Empire under difficult, if not impossible, circumstances. But Hasina still hadn’t completely gotten over her resentment.

In point of fact, though they hadn’t worked any assignments before that, they were not novices. Their parents and uncles had been ISIS’s top agents years ago, and had recounted their stories many times. As a result, these cousins were well-versed in the art of spy-craft before they ever got the chance to practice it.

In addition, they were both in superb physical shape. They’d been working as the star dancers in Le Vaudeville Galactique, the premier traveling variety show in the Empire, and were known for the daring acrobatics of their performances. And on top of that advantage, they were natives of the high-gravity world of New Zion, giving them strength and reflexes well beyond what normal humans were capable of. Their talents and skills had earned them two years of training at the ISIS Academy on Level Sub-2 of this building

Hasina led them down a maze of passages that she seemed intimately acquainted with and stopped before one door. “Through here,” she said. “The Commissar’s expecting you.”

The lighting in the room beyond was slightly dimmer than in the hallway, but seemed a little more restful. The office wasn’t as big as they expected for so important a man, but that hardly mattered. Nkosi Wettig’s intellect was expansive enough to make the place huge.

The Commissar was a big man, nearly two meters tall and massing about a hundred and twenty kilograms. His brown eyes gleamed out of his mahogany-colored face. His hair was graying at the temples, and he projected an air of enormous self-confidence. He was a man prepared for whatever the universe threw his way. “Come in,” he said with a booming voice.

The Bar Nahums entered. Hasina stayed outside and closed the door, leaving them alone with her father.

“Have a seat,” Wettig said. “I’ve been hearing good things about your progress.”

“That’s more than we have,” Eva said dryly as she sat in a chair across from Wettig.

“Comrade Ivanova complains all the time,” Judah added, also sitting.

“Ivanova isn’t very free with her compliments. Mostly what I’ve heard is noncommittal—which for her is high praise. That’s why I kept you in the program for two years. Most trainees have absorbed all they can after one year. Ivanova kept thinking you had more to learn.”

Eva nodded. “I thought that might be why she pushed us so hard. She thought we had potential.” She paused. “There’s no greater curse than potential. Of course, it could also have meant we were stupid.”

“Perhaps it’s genetic,” Wettig said. “Your parents all got the same treatment.”

“She made me so mad sometimes,” Judah said. “She hates the Ilya Uzi books. Whenever I even mentioned them she made nasty comments.”

Eva looked up at the ceiling, around at the walls—anywhere but at her cousin. “Nu, that may be genetic, too,” she told the Commissar. “I can’t break Judah of that hero worship. It’s probably his worst flaw.”

“Well, Ivanova has the right to hate the Ilya Uzi books. She writes them.”

“Bozhe moi!” Judah muttered under his breath, jerking back in his chair as though slapped with a heavy board. Eva sat still for a moment, then laughed. “That explains a lot. It’s like Doyle growing to hate Sherlock Holmes.”

Judah finally found his tongue. “You mean ‘Vaughn McCallum’ is really Comrade Ivanova?”

Wettig held up his hand. “Enough. I didn’t call you in here to form a literary debating society.”

Judah was still looking dumbstruck so Eva spoke for both of them. “Nu, why are we here? Or should I guess?”

“No need. First of all, I wanted to congratulate you. You have now officially graduated from the Academy.”

Judah, though still mute from shock, beamed with pride. Eva nodded. “I thought passing the final tests might be some indication.”