Part 1 (2/2)
”I have an idea,” he corrected.
”There are many ideas.” Wa.s.s leaned back in his chair, but he did not remove his hands from the table. ”Perhaps one in a thousand is the kernel of something useful. For the rest, there is no need to trouble a man.”
”Agreed,” Hume returned evenly. ”But that one idea in a thousand can also pay off in odds of a million to one, when and if a man has it.”
”And you have such a one?”
”I have such a one.” It was Hume's role now to impress the other by his unshakable confidence. He had studied all the possibilities. Wa.s.s was the right man, perhaps the only partner he could find. But Wa.s.s must not know that.
”On Jumala?” Wa.s.s returned.
If that stare and statement was intended to rattle Hume it was a wasted shot. To discover that he had just returned from that frontier planet required no ingenuity on the Veep's part.
”Perhaps.”
”Come, Out-Hunter Hume. We are both busy men, this is no time to play tricks with words and hints. Either you have made a find worth the attention of my organization or you have not. Let me be the judge.”
This was it--the corner of no return. But Wa.s.s had his own code. The Veep had established his tight control of his lawless organization by set rules, and one of them was, don't be greedy. Wa.s.s was never greedy, which is why the patrol had never been able to pull him down, and those who dealt with him did not talk. If you had a good thing, and Wa.s.s accepted temporary partners.h.i.+p, he kept his side of the bargain rigidly. You did the same--or regretted your stupidity.
”A claimant to the Kogan estate--that good enough for you?”
Wa.s.s showed no surprise. ”And how would such a claimant be profitable to us?”
Hume appreciated that ”us”; he had an in now. ”If you supply the claimant, surely you can claim a reward, in more ways than one.”
”True. But one does not produce a claimant out of a Krusha dream. The investigation for any such claim now would be made by a verity lab and no imposture will pa.s.s those tests. While a real claimant would not need your help or mine.”
”Depends upon the claimant.”
”One you discovered on Jumala?”
”No.” Hume shook his head slowly. ”I found something else on Jumala--an L-B from Largo Drift intact and in good shape. From the evidence now in existence it could have landed there with survivors aboard.”
”And the evidence of such survivors living on--that exists also?”
Hume shrugged, his plasta-flesh fingers flexed slightly. ”It has been six planet years, there is a forest where the L-B rests. No, no evidence at present.”
”The Largo Drift,” Wa.s.s repeated slowly, ”carrying, among others, Gentlefem Tharlee Kogan Brodie.”
”And her son Rynch Brodie, who was at the time of the Largo Drift's disappearance a boy of fourteen.”
”You have indeed made a find.” Wa.s.s gave that simple statement enough emphasis to a.s.sure Hume he had won. His one-in-a-thousand idea had been absorbed, was now being examined, amplified, broken down into details he could never have hoped to manage for himself, by the most cunning criminal brain in at least five solar systems.
”Is there any hope of survivors?” Wa.s.s attacked the problem straight on.
”No evidence even of there being any pa.s.sengers when the L-B planeted.
Those are automatic and released a certain number of seconds after an accident alarm. For what it's worth the hatch of this one was open. It could have brought in survivors. But I was on Jumala for three months with a full Guild crew and we found no sign of any castaways.”
<script>