War World X: Takeover by John F. Carr Read Free Book Online Page A

content to wait,” said DeCastro, easing himself into the boat.
    The miners looked at him, saying nothing. Makhno climbed out, hauling a heavy sack, and one of the bodyguards followed him. The two of them strolled away, in the opposite direction from the assayer’s office. The central miner, the one who probably had the shimmer stones, smiled broadly and leaned a little closer.
    “Eh, m’good man,” he said, showing crooked teeth, “Mightn’t you be the fella who runs the Golden Parrot?”
    “That I am,” DeCastro agreed. “I take it you have sampled my… beer, once or twice?”
    “Aye, an’ interestin’ stuff it is, too. Yah haven’t any good whiskey, though.”
    “That, sir, is precisely why I am going to Castell City. I’ve heard that a decent brandy, at least, can be purchased there.”
    “So they say,” the miner shrugged. “What with the Kenny-ship gone, folks’re cast back on their own resources. Aye, but then, without yon Official People breathin’ down their necks, they’re free t’experiment wi’ the booze, yah know.”
    “Ah, indeed.” DeCastro considered that he might nudge some workable information out of this one. “It is difficult to experiment so with the Company also peeping over one’s shoulder.”
    For some reason, this struck the lucky miner and his hulking companion as extraordinarily funny.
    “Oh, aye!” the miner wheezed. “Nobody loves Kenny-Co, not at all. Nor Anaconda, nor Dover neyther.” He leaned closer and added in a conspiratorial whisper: “There’s some that say Reynolds would love a piece o’ the action, and ’twould do us no harm if Kenny-Co had a decent rival. There’s another deposit o’ hafnium that the Kenny-boys haven’t discovered, yah know?”
    “Indeed, I did not know.” If DeCastro’s ears had been mobile, they would have pricked up like a hound’s. “And I surely agree that some healthy competition would improve Kennicott’s manners, both here and off-world. But how would you pass the word to Reynolds?” Telephone, telegraph, and tell me!
    The miner leaned even closer, and whispered almost in DeCastro’s ear: “There’s an off-world-reachin’ radio in Castell City. That’s one o’ the reasons we be goin’ there.”
    “If you can give them the exact location of the lode…” DeCastro hinted.
    “That we can, that we can,” the miner chuckled. “Ah, but let’s say no more ’til we be clear o’ the camp, an’ any Kenny-Co ears, me lad.”
    “Oh, to be sure,” DeCastro happily agreed, already considering how he could use this knowledge. Yes, Reynolds would dearly love to know the location of a hafnium lode outside of Kennicott’s knowledge—and mining-grant. The presence of a rival mine would certainly irritate Kennicott and a battle between those two giants might give CoDo the excuse it needed to step in and take over—not to mention allowing a certain Tomas Messenger y DeCastro an opportunity to profit by playing both sides against the middle.
    The voyage upriver would be long, but DeCastro was certain he could wheedle the location of that hafnium lode out of the three miners in that time. He also happened to know that there was usually a Reynolds-loyal ship out near Ayesha, listening for any usable news.
    He could hardly wait for the captain to return and start-up the engine.

     
    Brodski, hidden in the shadows of the bar, watched the River Dragon coming in with his personal set of binoculars. He noted the surreptitious hand signal from Makhno, and tightened his focus on the passengers. Yes, the first man to get off was DeCastro.
    “Bait taken,” Brodski muttered, watching.
    Sure enough, DeCastro promptly strolled up the dock and turned toward Sam Kilroy’s. The three men who climbed out afterward, grinning, were recognizable from their descriptions. The central figure watched DeCastro hurrying off and smirked widely.
    “Hook, line and sinker,” Brodski chuckled, shoving the binoculars back in their case. He had