In any event, this stakeout was a bust, a failure. Bassal had come home, at long last-and proved to be female, short, dark-skinned, with a full head of shoulder-length black hair. Now they were back out on the street, and the harsh daylight made Jantu squint, made her feel a bit disoriented. “Come on,” she said, “let’s get back to the aircar.”
“What a brilliant idea,” Shah growled. “I never would have thought of that.”
“Give it a rest, Shah,” Jantu said. “We’re both tired. ” Jantu did not trust Ranger Bertra Shah. For that matter, she didn’t think much of Rangers as a group. On the other hand, Jantu had the distinct impression that Shah felt the same way about her, and about Sheriff’s deputies.
Maybe they were both Spacer organizations, maybe they were both law enforcement services, but for all of that, the Governor’s Rangers and the Sheriff’s deputies had never really gotten along with each other.
The deputies saw the Rangers as little more than gardeners with guns, treehuggers more interested in soil conservation than law enforcement. They rarely had to deal with any crime more heinous than littering, or any criminal act more violent than someone picking flowers without a permit. How could they know anything about the rough-and-tumble world of the city, where the real crimes happened?
The Rangers, on the other hand, seemed to think of the deputies as a bunch of trigger-happy blowhards with exaggerated opinions of their own ability. The Rangers were very fond of pointing out that the deputies only had police powers inside Hades, and were scarcely less fond of observing that they were a purely urban force, with no training in field survival, or any sort of woodcraft. True enough, Jantu granted, she would be quite hopeless outside an urban setting. But who the hell wanted to leave the city in the first place?
Shah had made it clear more than once since she and Jantu had been teamed that she couldn’t see how anyone with no knowledge of tracking could call herself a law enforcement professional.
Not that all the tracking skills in the world would do any good on this assignment. Assassins didn’t leave many footprints behind on city streets.
Nor was it much fun to be doing stakeouts as undercover work. But if there was anything that Shah and Jantu agreed upon, it was the wisdom of not trusting the SSS. Besides which, it was more than a bit galling to walk the streets of a Spacer town-or what had once been a Spacer town-and be an undercover Spacer cop under Settler jurisdiction. Cops hiding from cops. It made the back of Jantu’s neck itch. She had the feeling someone was watching from behind. Shah was forever glancing over her own shoulder.
On the bright side, their mutual paranoia had, somehow, made for a good working relationship. Both of them were constantly on watch for any interference from the SSS, and that, at least, gave them something they agreed on.
“All right, Gerald,” Jantu asked their robot, “what’s next?”
“The next search site on the list is a warehouse about two kilometers from here,” Gerald 1342 replied.
“And why do we want to search it?” Shah asked. “Did Bissal’s cousin work there once?”
“I do not know if any of his relatives were ever employed there,” Gerald 1342 replied, “but it is on the watch list of suspected rustbacker operations centers. ”
Jantu shrugged. “That almost sounds like a legitimate lead. Let’s go.”
The moment had come. There had never been any turning back, but now, suddenly, even the way forward seemed impossible. But forward he must go.
“I, Alvar Kresh, of clear and sound mind, hereby freely and willingly accept and undertake the office of Governor of the Planet of Hades, and do pledge most solemnly to discharge my office to the best of my ability.”
He spoke the words in the Grand Hall of the Winter Residence, and many of the same faces that had been here just three days before to attend the old Governor’s reception were here to witness the new one’s installation.
The clumsy, legalistic words of the affirmation of office seemed to stumble off his tongue, corning awkwardly and unwillingly out into the world. He did not want this. Not at all. But what he wanted did not matter at all. There was no provision in the Infernal constitution for the Designate refusing the office. According to Telmhock, the office would therefore have to remain vacant until an election could be held.
