Beginnings by unknow

Author:unknow
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Novela, Ciencia ficción
Publisher: ePubLibre
Published: 2013-01-01T05:00:00+00:00

An icicle ran down Benton-Ramirez y Chou’s spine. If there was one thing he knew, it was that whoever had Allison would never return her alive, whatever he did. They might keep her alive as long as he did whatever it was they wanted him to do, but when the time came—when they had everything they wanted, or when there was nothing left for him to give them or do for them—they would kill her. The penalty for kidnapping on Beowulf was the same as the penalty for first-degree murder, and that didn’t even consider his connections to the BSC and the SBI. They would kill her to dispose of any witnesses, and they would kill her because they knew how badly it would hurt him and his family.

Of course, he’d probably already be dead by then, as well, he thought harshly, because they couldn’t afford to leave him as a witness, either. That wouldn’t affect the thinking of whoever was hiding behind that voice, though.

“What is it you want?” he asked.

“I think of this in the nature of a first date,” the voice replied. “We’ll start with something small, just to see whether or not you understand how to follow instructions. I want a roster of the Biological Survey Corps personnel operating out of your embassies and consulates in the systems of Posnan, Breslau, Sachsen, Saginaw, Hillman, Terrance, Tumult, and Carlton.”

Benton-Ramirez y Chou felt his teeth grind together. That list represented every sector capital in the Silesian Confederacy, which was steadily becoming a hotbed of genetic slavery transfers and sales points despite everything the Royal Manticoran Navy and the Imperial Andermani Navy could do about it. It was a region to which the BSC had been paying special attention for the last few T-years, because the situation was going to get nothing but worse. At least some Manties were beginning to realize what the People’s Republic of Haven’s military buildup was really all about, and it was inevitable that tensions between the Star Kingdom and the PRH were going to worsen. They were already pretty damned bad, given how enthusiastically Manticore had greeted Havenite emigres (and especially professionals fleeing the provisions of Haven’s Technical Conservation Act). They’d grown steadily worse in the sixty-four T-years since the TCA was enacted, but when the SKM in general realized the “alarmists” were right—that the Peoples Navy’s buildup wasn’t just a “public works” job program, whatever the Legislaturalists had to say about it—the Manties would have no choice but to begin recalling more and more of their naval units in the face of that threat, and when that happened …

“What makes you think I have the reach to get you that kind of information?”

“Oh, come now, Captain! We all know what an ingenious sort you are. You have all sorts of contacts, and I’m sure a skilled BSC officer such as yourself is well-versed in all the ways to break into theoretically secure databases.”

“That kind of information’s not going to be in any one database I can reach.

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