3:23 p.m. CST, June 19th, 2673; Clearwater Prime, Alpha Disk

Ian Hoover, investigator, checked with his regular sources in the less-desirable sectors of the station. He had no business being in the diplomatic area. Instead of tailing Martin Ashby, he wandered through the single-level hallways of the lower-income residential sectors.

The residents were usually single and worked in the skilled blue-collar jobs. The men and women who lived here worked on the disk construction, at the cargo docks, in the refineries, or other labour-intensive jobs that needed at least some skill.

The lower-income sectors were not the cleanest places on the station, or the most open. In fact, the wide corridors were often packed with people, and they were always busy. The high-density housing sectors were the first places to be rebuilt and were in commission before the artificial gravity was. All the then-current residents of the station who could not get other housing arrangements, either in space yachts, or on the planet, were moved into the sectors first.

Over time the middle classes, those who operated the commercial ventures or ran the engineering firms and other similar occupations, moved out as space became available. The upper classes never occupied these sectors; they moved directly to the high-class areas in the disk when they were ready. That left only the skilled labourers, destitute, unemployed, and other lower-class people in the oldest sectors. Colonists were often found here, but their residency was transitory in nature and hardly ever lasted for more than a few months.

The construction continued, and more refineries were brought on line. With more refineries working more construction material was available. With more material available, more construction projects could be started, which led for the need for more skilled construction workers. The high-density residential sectors were filled to capacity, forcing those who could not pay the rent into the corridors, and yet still more people came in.

They were the only sectors on the station that were zoned for more than one purpose, and they had the feeling of a decaying city centre. Small shops and restaurants were mixed in at random among the flats and apartments. Service corridors ran along the back of the small commercial areas to provide a place where the shops could receive stock and dump refuse. That was the theory of the design, but with the larger commercial areas opening up and better residential sectors available, the corridors were rarely serviced by cargo vehicles. More often the service corridors were filled with the homeless, drunk, or apathetic. The sector was mostly forgotten and ignored by the station’s civic administration.

Without civic oversight the sectors were a hotbed for illegal activity. While not everything could be brought in the sectors, deals could be made, and the residents of the sector knew all the secret paths of the disk. A lot of them had built it, after all.

Ian was walking down one of the service corridors behind one of the clubs he frequented. This one was a favourite of the longshoremen who worked the docks of Clearwater Prime and the cargo facilities that were scattered in orbit around the planet and throughout the system. The crews of the cargo ships also came to the bar on the recommendation of those same longshoremen.

The club was dimly lit as most clubs of the type were. Even if the compartments had a full set of working lights, the owners always liked to lower the illumination. Ian often suspected it was so they could not see what they were serving their customers, and the customers could not complain about what they could not see. Ian entered the club by the back door and found his usual spot at the bar unoccupied. He ordered his normal drink and looked for his normal contacts.

His search for information was not very fruitful, but he did not expect to have much luck on the first day. The longshoreman’s bar was probably the best place to get low-level information on shipments in and out of the system. The bar was also a good place to get the word out that he was looking for information.

Ian left the bar and went to another bar. This one was close to the first and served the same clientele. He did not find much useful information here, apart from the standard promises of contacting him if anyone heard anything. He was on his way to the third bar when his communicator chirped.

“Hoover.”

“You don’t know me.” It was going to be one of those conversations, Ian realized.

“But you have information for me, don’t you?”

“Yes I do. I heard that you’ve been looking for the pirates.”

“I suppose you heard a lot of things. What’s your point?”

“I have some information about them. And about the Olivier delegation that would be valuable for your investigation.”

“So what is it?”

“I’m not going to tell you over the communicator. You never know who is listening in.”

“Fine. Where and when do you want to meet?”

“Do you know the Sun Side Bar?”

“I’m familiar with the area. That’s next to sector four-Q.”

“Yes. I’ll be there in three hours.”

The communications channel went dead. Well, if there was ever a setup, that would be it. Those two must be on to something.

Ian was bringing up the directory for his clients and was about to call when his communicator chirped again. As luck would have it—or maybe it was not luck—it was his clients who called.

“Hoover.”

“It’s a setup; we’ll be there to cover you.” The communicator channel went dead. Well, that answers that, he thought to himself, and wondered whatever happened to manners.

* * *

7:10 p.m. CST, June 19th, 2673; outside the Sun Side Bar

Ian Hoover arrived at the meeting point on time, but he was not raised to be stupid. He had showed up early to check out the area and all the likely ambush spots. He walked to the meeting point and was outside the Sun Side Bar only thirty seconds before the requested time; he waited but kept his eyes open. He saw neither the ambush nor his support.

The lack of obvious threat in the area made him nervous. He had always relied on his eyes, and he knew they were better than average. Despite his advantages he could not see whom he was supposed to meet or the two women who were his clients. He was beginning to wonder if he had bitten off more than he could chew.

“Hoover, over here,” a male voice said from the service corridor that ran beside and behind the bar. Ian had checked the service corridor first and saw nothing the first time.

The commercial area next to four-Q was an open area, four levels up from the pressure hull of the station. The open “sky” above stopped five hundred metres away. It was a large sector that had individual buildings set up in streets and alleys. The alleys and service corridors hid elevators and hatches that led deeper into the station, keeping them from the prying eyes of the public.

Ian took a step toward the service corridor and had to look into the darkness. His eyes took some time to get used to the dim light, but he finally spotted the man who called him. He looked to be rather tall and thin, nothing like the standard heavy worlder body type.

“Mr. Ashby isn’t happy with you asking questions about him.” This momentarily surprised Ian. He had not mentioned the commercial tycoon to anyone, especially not while talking to his contacts when anyone else could hear.

“I’m sorry to hear that, but I don’t remember mentioning him at all.”

“It’s unfortunate you have such a poor memory.”

The thug that rushed Ian from behind was the one who was surprised. Ian was expecting the ambush, and he was ready for it. He shifted quickly to the side, almost colliding with the wall of the service corridor. He kept his left fist out and braced himself against the wall. Before walking to the Sun Side Bar, Ian had prepared himself. He had picked up his brass knuckles. The thug had not expected to run into the fist and made a pleasant sound to Ian’s ears when he fell over from the unexpected hit.

First blood in a street fight meant nothing, especially when Ian expected to face three or four thugs. What greeted him were eight tall and bulky men. Ian was fortunate that the service corridor was not that wide, so only two of the thugs could come at him at once. Only the first one had come from behind him, showing a tactical deficiency in their planning. The entrance was behind him, and Ian started to back up toward it, hoping that the thugs would not want to follow him into the light.

The numbers worked against his opponents. They were not trained by more than the streets and had no experience with group fighting. Only two could get to him at once, and they kept getting in each other’s way, allowing Ian to get in a few good punches with brass-lined fist in sensitive areas. That did not mean that the thugs could not learn from their mistakes, and as Ian was dealing with the first two, a third one pushed his bent over partners into the private investigator and follow it up with a lucky hit to Ian’s jaw. He went down hard and had a moment to wonder what happened to the two women who were his clients. They had said they would cover him.

He only had an instant to contemplate his situation before the thugs were on him, and then they were on the ground around him. His head was still ringing from the punch, but he was able to get to a sitting position and look around. There were bodies all around him. The only ones who appeared to still be breathing were the man who started the confrontation and the three Ian had knocked down. The instigator was not going anywhere; he was sitting on the ground, leaning against the wall and grasping his right clavicle.

Ian’s head turned as he heard a pair of footsteps walking into the service corridor from the entrance. His eyes focused on the two women who employed him. Each was carrying a long-barreled slug thrower. The weapons were definitely not legal on the station. No planet or station that Ian knew about allowed people to carry around silenced semiautomatic slug throwers with infrared scopes. The long-barreled handguns were not easily concealed, he noted.

The fact that they had downed seven men while he was trying to gather his senses meant that the two knew their weapons and that the weapons were not ordinary semiautomatics. They looked to be seven-millimetre slug throwers; that meant that the recoil should have caused the two women to have to recover before firing the next shot.

“You could have gotten here sooner.”

“Mid-town traffic,” said the one he remembered as Helen. She was still wearing the infrared goggles she was wearing when he met her. It took his mind a moment to wonder about that; did nott her gun have an infrared scope on it?

Helen looked around the corridor and then started to unscrew the silencer from the barrel of her gun. She slid it into a pocket along the thigh of her jumpsuit. The scope came off next and was put into a similar pocket of her other thigh. Whoever her tailor was, he was skilled; when the pockets were sealed, the padding along the thigh hid them well and made it look like she just had overly muscular legs.

Margaret kept her weapon out and walked past Ian, not sparing him a second glance. She walked up to the instigator, who was still breathing. The two women completely ignored the six downed men, and Helen kept her weapon on the three that Ian had put down during the melee. The shortened gun sat in her hand with far more balance than it had with the scope and silencer on it.

Despite the darkness in the service corridor, Margaret was still wearing her sunglasses. They were very fashionable, but they were just one more clue that something was going on that Ian did not know about. She walked up to the bleeding man and gave him a quick kick with her booted foot before she squatted down and looked at him.

“We can do this the easy way or the fun way, big boy,” she said, her voice almost purring as she spoke.

“I’m not telling you anything.”

The sound of the action from the weapon in Margaret’s hand sounded loud in the corridor, but Ian realized that was just because the earlier noise from the gun was muffled. The following scream sounded quiet in comparison, but it was much louder. Ian had to blink quickly to see what had happened; the blonde had casually shot both of the man’s kneecaps.

“I told you we could do it the fun way. Now, how about we start with your name?”

The blonde was ruthless in the interrogation as she went looking for answers. She only had to shoot the man one more time, in the elbow. After that, all she had to do was put a friendly looking hand on the man’s knee whenever he was hesitant about answers.

Ian looked over at Helen. “We have rules, you know. We can’t just go around shooting people, or torturing people for information either. It raises the stakes, and we don’t want a war on our hands.”

Helen looked at him and shrugged her shoulders. “A war on the station would be minor to one in space. This sends a message loud and clear, but you may be right.”

“Who are you two? You’re not merchants. You’re not even part of the Mafia.”

Helen could not help but smile at Ian as she said, “If I told you, I’d have to shoot you. You’re right, we’re not merchants or Mafia.”

“Then who are you?” he demanded, his voice growing louder.

“One moment,” Helen said and walked forward and grabbed the top of Margaret’s gun and held it up.

“He’s given us the information we wanted. We don’t have to kill him.”

“He’s a liability.”

“But he’s still a citizen. And not a clear danger to us.”

Those words seemed to settle Margaret down, and she looked over toward Ian and the six bodies as if seeing what the two had done for the first time.

“If he’s been lying to us, we can take him out later. If he’s telling us the truth, the next time we need information, he’ll be more willing to share,” Helen said and looked down at the rapidly nodding man. She turned her back and walked toward her partner.

Helen walked over to Ian and helped him to his feet. He was still surprised at the strength in the small woman. She was definitely a heavy worlder.

“Time for us to go, Mr. Hoover. Are you still with us?”

“Are you going to kill me if I say no?”

“No, we don’t do that. You pay your taxes, don’t you?”

“Of course I do.”

“Then you have nothing to worry about. I’ll put in a call to station emergency in five minutes; I suggest you not be in the area when they show up.”

“What about the cameras?” he asked and pointed toward one of the domes on the side of the building.

“Don’t worry about them. They’ve had a strange malfunction that has caused them to record the same image for the past thirty minutes. Are you still with us, Mr. Hoover?” she asked again.

“Yes, you paid me.”

“Good,” she said and then left him. She walked to the entrance of the alley where her partner waited.

“You’re CMI, aren’t you?”