Read Online Vietnam and Other Alien Worlds by Joe Haldeman - Free Book Online

straight. “I hear you’re taking a flyer out to Pa’an!al. Shall we divide the cost?”
    There was a bottle of wine in a bucket of ice at his feet. I got a glass out of the bathroom and helped myself. “I suppose you charged this to my room.” I turned off the cube.
    He shrugged. “You poked me for dinner last night, mon frère. Passing out like that.”
    I raised the glass to my lips, flinched, and set it down untouched. “Speaking of resources, what was in that brandy? And who are these resourceful friends?”
    â€œThe wine’s all right. You seemed agitated; I gave you a calmative.”
    â€œA horse calmative! Is it the Syndicate?”
    He waved that away. “The Syndicate’s a myth. You—”
    â€œDon’t take me for an idiot. I’ve been doing this for almost as long as you have.” Every ten years or so there was a fresh debunking. But the money and bodies kept piling up.
    â€œYou have indeed.” He concentrated on picking at a hangnail. “How much is Starlodge willing to pay?”
    I tried not to react. “How much is the Syndicate?”
    â€œIf the Syndicate existed,” he said carefully, “and if it were they who had retained me, don’t you think I would try to use that fact to frighten you away?”
    â€œMaybe not directly…last night, you said ‘desperate men.’”
    â€œI was drunk.” No, not Peter Rabbit, not on a couple of bottles of wine. I just looked at him. “All right,” he said, “I was told to use any measures short of violence—”
    â€œPoisoning isn’t violence?”
    â€œTranquilizing, not poisoning. You couldn’t have died.” He poured himself some wine. “Top yours off?”
    â€œI’ve become a solitary drinker.”
    He poured the contents of my glass into his. “I might be able to save you some trouble, if you’ll only tell me what terms—”
    â€œA case of Jack Daniels and all they can eat at Slim Joan’s.”
    â€œThat might do it,” he said unsmilingly, “but I can offer fifteen hundred shares of Hartford.”
    That was $150 million, half again what I’d been authorized. “Just paper to them.”
    â€œOr a million cases of booze, if that’s the way they want it.” He checked his watch. “Isn’t our flyer waiting?”
    I supposed it would be best to have him along, to keep an eye on him. “The one who closes the deal pays for the trip?”
    â€œAll right.”
    On the hour-long flyer ride I considered various permutations of what I could offer. My memory had been jammed with the wholesale prices of various kinds of machinery, booze, candy, and so forth, along with their mass and volume, so I could add in the shipping costs from Earth to Armpit to Morocho III. Lafitte surely had similar knowledge; I could only hope that his figure of 1500 shares was a bluff.
    (I had good incentive to bargain well. Starlodge would give me a bonus of up to 10 percent of the difference between a thousand shares and whatever the settlement came to. If I brought it in at 900, I’d be a millionaire.)
    We were turning inland; the walls of the city made a pink rectangle against the towering jungle. I tapped the pilot on the shoulder. “Can you land inside the city?”
    â€œNot unless you want to jump from the top of a building. I can set you on the wall, though.” I nodded.
    â€œCan’t take the climb, Dick? Getting old?”
    â€œNo need to waste steps.” The flyer was a little wider than the wall, and it teetered as we stepped out. I tried to look just at my feet.
    â€œBeautiful from up here,” Lafitte said. “Look at that sunset.” Half the large sun’s disk was visible on the jungle horizon, a deeper red than Earth’s sun ever shone. The bloody light stained the surf behind us purple. It was already dark in the city below; the