Flagship by Mike Resnick Read Free Book Online Page A

during white shift," replied Cole. "Take us to Cicero VII."
    "I have no landing coordinates to give to Wxakgini."
    "Lafferty knows that."
    "I don't follow you, sir."
    "He didn't invite us out here as a practical joke. When you get close enough, I'm sure you'll be told where to land. If you aren't, that'll be time enough to discuss our options."
    "Yes, sir," said Christine. "Thank you, sir."
    He resisted the urge to tell her to call him "Wilson" or "Cole" or "Hey You," only because he knew it wouldn't do the least bit of good, and ordered a piece of pie to go with his coffee.
    David Copperfield spotted him and entered the mess hall.
    "Hi, David," said Cole as the little alien approached his table.
    "Good morning, Steerforth. I heard the all-clear."
    "You know anything about the Cicero system?"
    "I know a smuggler named Krieder or Krieter used it as a storage dump for a year after the Navy killed off the local population. There are ten planets in the system, six small ones close in and three gas giants far out. I believe the only oxygen planet is the seventh one. Not very hospitable to us humans."
    Cole decided not to comment on David's last sentence. "Any word about the Navy setting up a small station anywhere in the system?"
    David shook his head. "Nothing of value, once they locked Kreider away and confiscated his goods."
    "Why would they pacify an out-of-the-way planet like Cicero VII?" continued Cole.
    David shrugged. "Why do they do anything? They're the Navy."
    "I used to be part of that Navy," said Cole. "There had to be a reason. Maybe not a good one, but a reason."
    "You can't prove it by me," said the dapper alien.
    "Fuel costs money. Ammunition costs money. Taking a ship away from the war with the Teroni Federation costs money and men. You don't do that on a whim, not in peacetime, and certainly not in the middle of a war."
    "It's the middle of a war to you and me, Steerforth," said David. "But half the people fighting it can't remember a time when there wasn't a war."
    "Even so . . ."
    "We'll land and you'll see for yourself," said the alien.
    "Sharon, are you peeking in again?" said Cole, raising his voice.
    "But of course," she replied as her image flickered to life.
    "I don't believe the Navy wiped out Dozhin's race for no reason."
    "I'd prefer not to believe it, but we'll never know."
    "Maybe we will," said Cole. "Get our best computer ace— Christine's on duty, so is Briggs, so it'll be Domak or Jack-in-the-Box—and work with him or her. They'll be able to dig out almost any fact, hack into any computer in nearby systems, but they won't know what they're looking for. I want you to oversee and direct them, and see if you can find out just what the hell the Navy wanted with Cicero VII."
    "All right," she said. "But if they did wipe out the race to get their hands on something, it's gone by now."
    "Let's find out anyway," he said.
    "Okay, I'm on it," said Sharon as her image vanished.
    "Why go to the effort, Steerforth?" asked David. "As Colonel Blacksmith says, whatever it was is almost certainly gone by now."
    "Didn't they teach you anything in that boarding school, David?"
    "Hah!" cried the alien happily. "You admit we were classmates!"
    "It was a rhetorical question," said Cole. "Let's find out if whatever they wanted was a renewable resource, like drugs or organic medicines. And even if it's not renewable, wouldn't you like to learn what the Republic wanted so badly that they wiped out an entire planetary population to get their hands on it? Not only that, but they didn't want your pal Kreider to find it."
    "How do you arrive at that conclusion, Steerforth?"
    "There's a war on. The Navy doesn't waste its time arresting smugglers. They leave that to planetary or system police—unless the smuggler is either trading in something they desperately want, or is likely to stumble upon the Navy's cache."
    "It's their cache," said David suddenly.
    "You're sure?"
    "Krieder dealt in fine jewelry and expensive art,"