Simcor found himself guided into a chair and looking up at Phrost pacing back and forth excitedly in front of him. “Yes,” he said, “remarkable news. ” There was something wild and excited about Phrost. It was as if all the man’s calculation and caution had been swept away, revealing quite a different sort of person underneath.
“Why, man, why aren’t you walking on air?” Phrost demanded, looking down at Beddle. “Kresh has all but handed you the Governorship. A hundred days from tomorrow, we’ll all be back down at the Residence watching you make the affirmation of office. Or will you do it up in Hades instead? This island is a bit tiresome after a while, after all. ”
“Sero, what are you doing here?” Beddle asked. “We should not be seen together. You know that as well as I do.”
“Ah, yes, “ Phrost said, dropping himself down into Beddle’s favorite chair, and taking up a vaguely regal sort of pose, his forearms resting on the arms of the chair. “ I am a moderate businessman with known dealings with the Settlers, and you are the right-wing extremist who shouts ‘death to the Settlers’ anytime there’s a camera running. No one must know of our-our what? Arrangement? Alliance? Whatever you want to call it. No one can know about it, or we are both in a great deal of trouble. That’s the way it goes, isn’t it?
“Except it doesn’t go that way any more. Not with Grieg out of the way. Kresh as much as called himself a caretaker. Who else is there? Shelabas Quellam? No, there is no viable alternative to yourself. The Governorship is yours.”
“But even so, you might have been seen,” Beddle said, starting to feel rather annoyed. How dare the man barge in here like this? “There could still be trouble. ”
“Oh, don’t worry about it,” Phrost said. “Every policeman on the planet is too busy crawling allover the Residence looking for clues. I made sure I wasn’t tracked or observed. Besides, I wanted to come in to see you in daylight, in your home. It helps to illustrate my point.”
Beddle stood up and frowned down at Phrost. “ And what, exactly, is your point?” he demanded.
Phrost lost his smile, and rose to his full height, until he towered over Beddle. “Just this,” he said. “With Grieg gone, I no longer need to be careful. No one can touch me now. But you-you are more vulnerable than ever. You are the Ironhead leader who has been accepting Settler money. “
“Settler money!”
“All very easy to trace,” Phrost said. “From their pockets to mine and into yours. I have all the proof anyone could ever want that you have been financing your operation with the enemy’s money. And no one will ever believe you didn’t know about it. Not in a million years. r m just a businessman. I buy and sell without much worry about politics. No one will much care where my cash comes from, or where I send it. But you. It will mean your political death-and maybe your literal death as well-if it came out that Simcor Beddle of the Ironheads was on the Settler payroll. ” Phrost thought for a moment and his face turned hard. “Yes, it might well be literal death. Now we have the precedent for it in Inferno’s political life. Someone might well be inspired by recent events. ”
“What-what are you saying?” Beddle asked. Suddenly his skin felt very cold.
“I am saying that the Governorship is yours for the taking. You own the Governor’s office. ” The smile came back to his face, but there was nothing friendly about it now. “ As for myself,” he said, “it would seem that I own you.”
THEY POPPED THE LOCK and pulled open the door to the warehouse. The moment they did, the smell told them they had found who-or at least what-they had been looking for. Deputy Jantu Ferrar knew it, and a glance at Ranger Shah’s face confirmed it. Cops still knew what a rotting body smelled like, even on the oversanitized world of Inferno.
Now they knew how Bissal had managed to stay hidden for so long. It was easy to keep out of sight when you were dead. The Ranger, the deputy, and the robot stepped into the cool, cloying darkness. Shah pulled out a handlight and shone it around the interior of the building. “Rustbackers, all right,” she said. Jantu nodded. She recognized the gear. A dozen restrictors stacked up neatly in a corner. Hyperwave communications gear. A robot work rack. Yes indeed. A major rustbacking center. And they had just walked right into it. Jantu pulled out her blaster and held it at the ready. Shah glanced in Jantu’s direction, and then pulled out her own weapon. Jantu moved forward, to the corner of a rack full of hardware. She signaled for Shah to cover her, and Jantu went around the corner.
And there he was. Sitting at a table, a simple meal set out before him, his eyes dull, staring blindly down, his mouth a bit open, with the bite he had been eating still in it, his head slumped forward a bit. Almost exactly the same position they had found the Governor in. And every bit as dead. Jantu did not realize she had raised her weapon and aimed it at the corpse until she lowered it.
