Blackcollar: The Blackcollar

The other shook his head. "Too risky. The rebels might still be around."

"I doubt it. Blackcollars tend to hit fast and pull out. I'd like to see what they've done."

The driver gave him a sideways glance. "Well... all right." Picking up his phone, he reported the change in route.

The gate area was a mess. The smoke was coming from a burned-out patrol car that had crashed into the dirty-white wall. Crashed after it had been hit, he noted; the blast pattern from an airborne missile was evident in the twisted metal. The gate itself was crumpled off to both sides. Galway shivered as the car moved slowly through the Security, fire, and medical people swarming around the area. It was too reminiscent of the aftermath on Plinry.

The driver obviously didn't like the sight, either—or perhaps the white knuckles and hard stares of the guards who passed them through made him nervous. He sped up as soon as they were clear of the bedlam, and the area was soon lost behind them. A few blocks brought them to a second metal-mesh gate, this one stronger looking than the first. The wall it was set into looked like the one enclosing Capstone's Hub; tall and gray, with an induction field sensor system. The outside guards looked as edgy as those back at the ruined gate had, and the four inside men had their lasers raised. The ID check was no simple visual, either—portable equipment was brought out to take both men's finger and retina prints. Gazing down the laser muzzles, it seemed to take forever for the city computer to finish its comparison. But at last it did so, and a few minutes later the car pulled up to an impressive white building.

A dignified-looking man with colonel's insignia was waiting at the curb. "Prefect Galway? I'm Colonel Eakins, head of Security for Calarand. Sorry I couldn't meet you at the spaceport, but we've been busy this morning. Please come along—Perfect Apostoleris is waiting."

"I couldn't understand much of what was coming in over the radio," Galway said as they entered the building. "What was it, a guerrilla raid?"

"We're still trying to figure it out. It was supposed to be only a soft probe."

An elevator ride and two short corridors brought them to a conference room. A pile of tapes and papers sat on a reader-equipped table. "I'll get the prefect; you can start reading what we've got so far," Eakins said, pointing him toward the stack before vanishing back out the door. Sitting down at the table, Galway began to skim the papers. He was about a third of the way through when Eakins returned with a short, heavyset man.

Galway stood up as Eakins made the introductions. "Galway," Prefect Apostoleris nodded in greeting, his eyes measuring the other briefly. "Excuse me for dropping your title, but there's only one Security Prefect on Argent and I'm it. Sit, sit; let's see what you've brought us."

Galway sat down slowly as the others took seats across from him. Opening his briefcase, he pulled out the stack of files and handed them over. Apostoleris took the top one off and flipped through its pages. He opened the second briefly, then reached for a tape and slid it into the reader. The screen lit up, and Galway found himself looking at a room containing several cots. Lying on the cots or moving among them were half a dozen black-clad men.

"Recognize any of them?" Apostoleris asked.

Galway leaned forward slightly. "I'd say that, from left to right, you've got Dawis Hawking, Freeman Vale, James Novak, and Mordecai. The big one lying down is probably either Charles Kwon or Kelly O'Hara, and the one at far right is Alain Rienzi, from Earth."

"Very good. Except that Rienzi's going by the name Allen Caine here. That name ring any bells?"

Galway considered, then shook his head. "Where did you get the tape?"

"One of our spies," Apostoleris said shortly, changing tapes. "All right, now, what about these?"

This one was audio, and Galway listened to the four voices in growing fascination as he realized what it was. "Leader One is Comsquare Damon Lathe," he told them. "Leader Two is Kwon, and Spotter One is Rafe Skyler. I'm not sure about the other one." He looked at Eakins. "This the raid they just pulled?"

"Yes and no," the colonel said. "One of them—Leader One, we think—slid down a line to Henslowe Prison, came in the roof door, and damn near got into the records room two floors down before escaping. But the rest of their operation never materialized. We're still not sure whether it was real or just a feint."

Galway was still struggling with the first part. "He got in and out? Weren't there guards—?"

"Of course there were," Apostoleris snapped. "He demolished eighteen of them along the way—six of them dead."

"Oh." Galway winced inwardly; but mixed in with the sympathetic pain was a tiny nugget of personal vindication. At least he wasn't the only one who'd underestimated the blackcollars.

"Never mind that for now." Apostoleris tapped the files. "This everything you've got on them?"

Galway nodded. "I'll warn you that the personal information—"

"Is worthless. I don't care about that. What I really want is whatever old pictures you've got."

Galway understood. "There's a chronological set near the end of each file, taken three years apart."

Apostoleris shuffled through the first file until he located the photos. "Damn. Face covered up by beard on most of these. You should've ordered him to shave."

"On what grounds? They weren't criminals—they'd received a complete amnesty when they surrendered."

Apostoleris's response was a snort. Gathering up the files, he headed for the door. "I guess it's better than nothing. I'll be back in a minute."

The door closed behind him, and Galway looked over at Eakins, wondering what to say. Surprisingly, the colonel chuckled. "Fearsome, isn't he? Don't worry, he'll cool off when things are under control again."

"That's good to know. I thought he was mad at me personally." He nodded toward the door. "I'm not sure how much those photos would have helped even if they hadn't been wearing beards. Going back to normal Idunine dosages after so long won't bring them back to exactly the same facial structures."

"I know. So does the prefect. But he's worried enough to take anything at this point."

"Are you? Worried, I mean."

Eakins's face was grim. "An hour and a half ago we had three of your blackcollars trapped like lizards in an ice pit. They escaped, broke into the medium-security area called the Strip, broke back out of it; and then, having gotten completely clear, came back in and tried to get to Henslowe's records before escaping for good. You bet I'm worried." He pulled the tape of the raid from the machine and put it on the pile. "Look, Prefect—"

" 'Galway' will do, Colonel. You heard what Prefect Apostoleris said."

A quick smile. "Okay, Galway. Look, we didn't just bring you here to play escort to those files. Your blackcollars went to an incredible amount of trouble to get here—ditto and a half for this Caine. We need to know why."

"Can't your spies tell you? I assumed you had the underground fairly well infiltrated."

"Oh, we do. We've got agents from one end of Radix to the other. But so far all we know is that Lathe wants to bring together all the old veterans of the TDE Star Force. At the moment they're all locked in Henslowe, which is probably why he went there today."

"I wondered about that...." Galway pondered. "I don't know what to tell you. They broke into the archives on Plinry and recorded sections of six tapes—we know which parts but not what they needed them for. Everything else they did, I think, was just designed to get them their freighter and Corsair."

Eakins sat up straighter. "They took a Corsair too?"

"Yes. I saw it lift myself. Didn't it arrive?"