Freelance On The Galactic Tunnel Network, E. Foner [the unexpected everything txt] 📗

“They belonged to my partner on the job and the full sacks would have been too much for her to carry around. Then she asked me to get rid of them all for her and I didn’t bother repacking.”

“You know, that’s more nuts than I thought you’d have. I saw plenty of them on the ground on Earth, but still…”

“We were days just packing them all,” John said. “Would you rather I take a sample back to the bar where I met you and—”

“No, no,” Myort cut him off. “Maybe I have some cash after all. You’ll take as much cyanide and acid as you’re comfortable with and I’ll make the rest up somehow. But I’ll need some samples from your cargo to make sure the quality is uniform.”

By the time John closed the deal with the Huktra and arranged to meet the next day for the exchange, it was already nine in the morning on Universal Human Time, and he hurried to a lift tube to make his other appointment. The security at EarthCent Intelligence waved him past, and he wound a path through the familiar maze of cubicles to Clive Oxford’s office.

“Just in time,” the director of EarthCent Intelligence greeted John. “I have a meeting with the ambassador, but you can walk with me.”

“I should have pinged ahead but I had some business to take care of. By the way, the Huktra I was dealing with knew that I’m on my way to Borten Four.”

Clive winced. “We’ve upgraded our security to Drazen standards, but that hasn’t stopped the more advanced species from slipping a bug past us from time to time. I’ll have to have my whole office zapped again. Who was it?”

“Myort. Do you know him?”

“He’s a handler with Huktra Intelligence, runs all of their field agents in this sector. It’s not a big operation because they don’t have large populations on any of the Stryx stations.”

“Myort told me that if his species has to spend extended time in space, they prefer Zero-G.”

“I guess a lot of the winged aliens are like that. Did you make any progress?”

“The money trail on Earth led back to MORE, just like the analysts predicted, but I can’t figure out why they’re spending so much on discouraging traders from joining the Conference of Sovereign Human Communities. I blew through my bribery budget in just two days to get this much information.”

“I’ll tell Blythe to make another transfer to your programmable cred,” Clive said. “Our business analysts have noticed a sharp increase in foreclosures since the Sharf packaged all of the mortgages they held on human-owned ships as securities and sold them. We’ve spent some serious time looking into the source of MORE’s financing to make sure they aren’t backed by some alien group looking for a competitive advantage. It appears that they are raising all of their capital on Earth, which came as a surprise.”

“Maybe it’s the retirees,” John speculated. “Quite a few people who do two full terms as contract workers for one or another of the advanced species end up flush with creds from completion bonuses or balloon payments and decide to buy a retirement place on Earth. MORE sells a number of financial products that guaranty a monthly income, so they probably soak up a lot of retirement savings.”

“But there could be criminal funds in there too,” Clive said. “When we gave the local governments the information they needed to act against the drug syndicate last year, everybody got a lesson in how cutting off the head doesn’t always kill the beast. Selling alien drugs purchased from pirates had pushed aside all sorts of other criminal enterprises because it was just so profitable. The enforcement sweep focused on the leaders and the most violent gang members, but plenty of the lower ranks managed to grab a lot of cash and dodge the police.”

“You think that organized crime is getting into financial services?”

“I know that they are, it’s not a new thing for them. It’s just that breaking up the drug syndicate created a lot of unemployed accountants.”

“I suppose it makes sense that they’d look for cleaner work. Do we have a response plan?”

“The problem is that EarthCent doesn’t have any financial regulatory power on Earth, that’s left to the patchwork of governments the people there live under.” Clive approached a set of doors with a blue-and-green globe emblem and they slid open at his approach. “Early,” he said, observing that nobody was waiting in the embassy’s conference room. He motioned for his companion to enter with him. “Are you going to stand for the council?”

“I still haven’t decided,” John said. “I’ve never made a secret of the fact that I’m connected with EarthCent Intelligence, but I doubt many people know that it’s my main career and that the trading is just a cover job.”

“I’d be surprised if there’s an alien intelligence service that doesn’t know,” Clive said. “It’s probably why Myort started doing business with you in the first place.”

“Which explains some of the winks he’s given me, but I meant other traders. If it came out after I got elected to the council, the conspiracy buffs would have a heyday claiming that I was sent to infiltrate the Traders Guild.”

“You could tell them before the election.”

“I thought you wanted me to be discrete.”

“That made sense when you were a field agent, but since you were promoted to a handler, there’s something to be said for going public. Every sentient on the tunnel network knows that if they have intelligence information that may be important for their species, they can go to their embassy and ask for the cultural attaché. But lots of traders have reasons for avoiding the Stryx stations, and those are some of the people we’d be most interested in hearing from. If all