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Chapter Seventeen
Thank goodness I set up a secure contact point the last time I was here, Damien Harahap thought. I just wish these goddamned romantics didn't have this damned horse fetish!
He shifted uncomfortably in the saddle. The Montanans' ancestors had scarcely been unique in importing horses and other draft animals as part of their original colonizing expedition. If nothing else, animal transport provided an always useful and sometimes vital fallback. Machines could break, technology could fail or be lost. But horses, donkeys, and oxen-or camels, depending on local climatic conditions-could survive, and reproduce, almost anywhere mankind himself could manage to cling to life.
But the Montanans had taken the whole business rather farther than most. It was part of their romanticized lifestyle. And, Harahap grudgingly conceded, there were times and places where the stupid, four-footed, sharp-spined, stubborn creatures had their uses.
And the fact that they produce no detectable energy signature-aside from infrared-is a case in point , he admitted. Not that the Montana government had the sort of reco
If I hadn't prearranged the message drop last time I was here, I'd never've been able to find him, and it's going to get worse. They're going to have to go further underground, so I guess I can't blame them for being just a bit... overly security conscious at the moment. However uncomfortable it is.
At least he and the blasted animal were almost to the agreed meeting site. He hauled out his GPS unit to double-check, and grimaced in approval. He'd thought that was the clump of trees Westman's messenger had described to him, but it was good to have confirmation.
His horse ambled up the trail, stubbornly moving at a speed it found good, and Harahap tried to look as if he thought it was a reasonable pace, as well. Eventually, he reached the designated spot and clambered down from the saddle with a profound gratitude flawed only by the knowledge that eventually he'd have to climb back on top of the u
He tied the horse's reins around a native falseoak, gave it a sour look, and stood massaging his backside while he gazed out from the top of the cliff.
He could see why Westman's messenger had told him this was one of the planet's more popular scenic attractions. Of course, most sensible tourists settled for making the trip from the capital in a few minutes of comfortable air car travel. Only the genuine lunatics insisted on doing it in the "authentic Montana way," and Harahap was darkly certain that the livery stable operators who rented them horses for the trip probably hurt themselves laughing while they watched the off-planet idiots go riding off.
From his present height, Harahap could see for what had to be at least a hundred kilometers across the gorge of the New Missouri River, and despite his aching buttocks and thighs and the grim reality of the errand which brought him here, he felt more than a touch of outright awe. The New Missouri was the second-longest river on Montana, and over the eons, it had carved a path through the New Sapphire Mountains that dwarfed anything Harahap had ever seen. Westman's representative had informed him proudly that the New Missouri Gorge was almost twice the size of something called the Grand Canyon back on Old Earth, and it was certainly more than enough to make Damien Harahap feel small and ephemeral.
He pulled out a holo camera and began obediently taking pictures like any proper nature lover. The camera was part of his tourist's cover, but he'd already decided this was one set of pictures he was actually going to keep when he heard the rattle of stones from the higher slopes behind him. He lowered the camera and looked around casually as Stephen Westman rode down the slope on a tall, roan gelding.
"I must say," Harahap said as the Montanan drew up beside him and dismounted with the fluid grace of a lifetime's practice, "this is a much more spectacular backdrop than our previous meeting enjoyed."
"It is that," Westman agreed, blue eyes looking past his visitor to take in the spectacular view once more. It was a sight he never tired of, although sometimes it took the awe of an off-worlder's first glimpse of it to remind him just how wonderful it was.
"I'm not sure all this isolation was really necessary, though," Harahap continued. "And while I'd never want to sound critical, I might point out that standing here on the edge of this cliff makes us rather vulnerable to any directional microphones in the area."
"It does— or would, if there were any," Westman replied, and smiled thinly. "To be honest, Mr. 'Firebrand,' one reason I chose it was so I could be positive you'd come alone. And while I'd never want to sound ominous, I might point out that standing here on the edge of this cliff makes you a rather easy target for the fellows with pulse rifles sitting out there amongst the shrubbery to watch my back."
"I see." Harahap considered the Montanan's smiling face calmly, then nodded. "So it was less about security from the authorities' sensor systems than about getting me nicely out in the open."
"Yep," Westman acknowledged. "Not that I really think you're working for Suttles or the Manties. I know Chief Marshal Ba
"As an agent provocateur ?" Harahap chuckled. "I approve of your caution. But if I were working for Vaandrager or Van Dort, the pulse ca
"And crashing in the Gorge," Westman said with a smile. Harahap cocked an eyebrow at him, and the Montanan shrugged. "I invested quite a bit of money in the necessary tools before I went underground, Firebrand. Including some rather nice Solly shoulder-fired surface-to-air missiles. They may be a mite out of date, and I don't have many of them, but they work just fine, and I expect they should deal with anything short of a modern assault shuttle. I sort of figured this would be a good place to trot some of them out."
"Then it's fortunate for both of us that I don't work for the RTU." Harahap returned the other man's smile while he considered whether or not Westman was telling him the truth. On balance, and especially in light of how smoothly he'd carried out his strike on the Trade Union's spaceport enclave, Harahap was inclined to believe him.
"But if you're not working for the Rembrandters or the Manties," Westman observed, "that still leaves the question of exactly who you are working for."
"I told you the last time we spoke. Of course, we didn't have a name then, but we're the same people. And we've decided that calling ourselves the Central Liberation Committee has a nice ring to it."
Westman's lips quirked, mirroring the flash of amusement in his eyes, but Harahap wasn't fooled. This was an extremely intelligent man, whatever his prejudices, and he understood that anyone who chose to involve himself in this sort of game had to have motives of his own. Motives which might or might not have any particular correspondence to the motives he said he had.
"We've finally started getting ourselves effectively organized," the Gendarmerie captain continued, "and our scam to extract operating funds from the RTU worked out even better than we'd anticipated." As he'd hoped, Westman's smile grew a little broader at the reference to the supposed embezzlement from the Trade Union's coffers. The idea seemed to amuse him even more than it had Nordbrandt. "We've also managed to locate a moderately corruptible Solly source in the Meyers System for weapons and other hardware."
"You have," Westman said with no particular emphasis.
"We have. I'm not going to try to fool you, Mr. Westman. Like your SAMs, these aren't the very latest weapons available. In fact, they're probably from a planetary militia's armory somewhere. But they've been thoroughly reconditioned, and they're as good as or better than anything your government has. The communications and surveillance equipment is newer and better than that-the latest Solly civilian equipment. Probably still not quite as good as the Manty military will have, but light-years better than anything you could obtain locally."
"And you're prepared to make all of this available to me out of the goodness of your hearts, of course."
"Actually, to a large extent, that's exactly right," Harahap said, meeting the other man's searching gaze with the utter sincerity that was one of his most important professional assets. "Oh, we're not totally altruistic. Noble and generous, of course, but not totally altruistic."
Westman snorted in amusement, and Harahap smiled. Then he let his expression sober once more.
"Seriously, Mr. Westman. Probably eighty or ninety percent of the Central Committee's motivations are a combination of altruism and self-interest. The other ten percent come under the heading of pure self-interest, but, then, we could say the same about you, couldn't we?"
He held Westman's gaze until the other man nodded, then went on with a small shrug.
"We don't want to see this a