Part 14 (2/2)
”There! Cuddy, two-year-old, sired by Maglev out of Corona, black and white pinto, gelded.” Ken slapped the hide, pleased. ”Six years ago, eh?” He hit the key to copy and print the doc.u.ment, then flipped Cuddy's hide over to the next one. His hand was arrested in midair as he glanced from the hide to the screen and back again. This was an Appaloosa hide, leopard Appaloosa at that, small black flecks on white.
”Wait a minute! This didn't come off Cuddy.” Undeniably the file said pinto, but the skin was white flecked with black.
Ken sat back in the chair with a thump. Not that a pinto could change its spots to leopard Appaloosa. He checked the brand numbers again but the figures tallied. Could Ion or Todd have entered the freeze brand to Cuddy's file? He felt a spurt of righteous anger over such sloppiness. But neither Ion nor Todd was p.r.o.ne to be slipshod.
Not about recording the correct markings. He frowned. He didn't have many Apples. Kelly's father liked the breed. But the freeze mark was his, not Vic's.
Perplexed, he turned to the next one, a bright bay with a white saddle mark shaped like a parallelogram just below the freeze brand.
The brand designated a two-year-old chestnut with no saddle mark.
Could there be a glitch in the system? Could the computer be scrambling his files? He'd have remembered a leopard Appaloosa and a bright bay with such a distinctive saddle mark. These were totally unfamiliar animals. He needed a control.
He entered the markings from a horse he knew better than any other animal on Doona, his mare Socks. She was Reeve Ranch entry #1. Socks was elderly now, but still willing to go out for a ride in fine weather. Data scrolled up, and Ken went straight to the description of the animal. This one was all right. It was the mare, all the way down to her four white socks. So what was wrong with the other files?
He brought up again the first two he had tried, wondering if solar flares had interfered with the satellite transmission of data from Treaty Island Archives the first time. To his -chagrin, they remained unaltered and the hides still bore marks of horses he didn't recognize.
One by one, Ken compared his records with the freeze-dry markings for each hide in the bundle.
When he was through, not one of the hides matched the color description of the horse that should have worn it. It was as if someone had lifted the brands from his horses and transferred them onto someone else's, a removal that he knew was, if not impossible, then certainly achieved by a heretofore unknown process.
”You get what you want, Reeve?” Horstmann asked cheerfully, coming over in between a spate of deals to slap the other man on the back.
Ken shrugged. ”Yes and no, Fred.” A very clever operator was making a profit on selling rustled animals on Zapata Three and, probably, elsewhere.
And with Zapatan provenances, surely there was a way of finding out who that clever person was.
”When All Kiachif arrives, I'd like to talk with him.
Had any bids on these hides?” Ken didn't want them scattered, but he also couldn't block a sale for Fred just to keep the evidence in one place.
”Well, the Hrruban in the Doona Cooperative of Farmers and Skilicrafters booth sounded interested in them.”
”Iook, I'll give you a deposit .
”Against the price? Or just to hold ”em?”
”To hold ”em, Fred.
That provenance might be forged.”
”Didn't look forged to me!' Fred's eyes widened at the mere suggestion that he'd been conned.
”Nevertheless, you don't want to sell and then find out the provenance was counterfeit, if you know what I mean.” Ken deliberately used All Kaichifs favorite phrase.
”I know what you mean: fines! Okay. Under the circ.u.mstances, Ken, I'll waive the deposit and put these d.a.m.ned things to one side where no one ”11 see ”em. That help you?”
”It surely does, Fred, and I appreciate it more than I can say.” Ken smiled gratefully but he rather suspected that Horstmann might be cutting some sly deals on the side that he didn't want the senior Codep captain to know about. Normally such a favor cost a lot more than just the breath it took to ask it.
”Don't forget to tell Kiachif that I need to see him.” Armed with his curious findings, Ken arranged an interview with the Poldep chief in charge of Doona's quadrant of the Amalgamated Worlds.
Poldep, the enforcement arm of the Amalgamated Worlds Administration, had jurisdiction on every planet which had signed the charter. Sampson DeVeer listened politely to Ken's theory about rustlers somehow evading the security satellites, but clearly he was finding it hard to believe.
”It's a very interesting theory, Mr. Reeve, he said blandly. He was a tall man who had been called good-looking by many women behind his back, because his diffident manner kept them from approaching the man himself. He had broad shoulders and an intelligent face. His wavy hair and moustache were nearly black. ”I'd need proof to proceed, you understand. Not just speculation.”
”I have proof,' Ken said, producing the film copies. DeVeer's casual att.i.tude was beginning to get on his nerves. DeVeer was rumored to be antiDoona, though he wasn't an active antagonist to the colony. He claimed he was just trying to do his job, and the presence of unknowns like the Hrrubans made it more difficult for him. ”These hides have been altered in some way.
DeVeer tented his fingers, peering through them at the hard copy that Ken had spread out on his desk. ”That's very unlikely, Mr. Reeve. It's more probable the records were changed. In my twenty years serving Poldep, I have never come across anyone, or anything, that can produce an undetectable alteration to the freeze-dry-process brands.” His tone was unequivocal.
”Well, someone has,' Ken insisted, indicating the leopard Appaloosa hide which ought to have been black and white. ”I don't run Apples. But that's my freeze brand. And you know a horse has never been known to alter its hide.”
”Perhaps the skin was dyed?”
”If the leopard Apple had turned black and white, I'd say that was possible, but not probable.
There is also no trace of dye according to this chemical a.n.a.lysis of the hide.” And Ken tossed that flimsy across the desk to DeVeer.
”Mr. Reeve,' DeVeer said again patiently. ”These are negative proofs. You have the hide of a horse that you say you never owned with a brand to an animal you did.” He held up a hand to forestall an outburst. ”I know that rustling has been an ongoing problem on Doona.
I've investigated several cases myself. The freeze-brand system was developed to prevent rustling. I'd say it has. Now you come along, wanting to contest the validity of that excellent system.
Frankly I don't think this is a case of rustling. Maybe you should look a little closer to home, where some people might have a chance to duplicate your brand on strays that they can legally sell off-world.
Doesn't your son have regular access to s.p.a.cegoing transport?” Ken barely kept himself from reaching across the desk and planting his fist firmly in DeVeer's face.
”Are you suggesting that Todd has rustled horses from the ranch he will one day inherit?”
”Inherit might be presumptuous, Mr. Reeve, but the opportunity is there . . . Now, now, look at this objectively, Mr. Reeve. I'm trying to clarify a perplexing set of facts. I'm not speaking with any intent to offend. Let me put it to you this way.
If, for example, you had a horse, a living one, with a brand matching one of these stolen hides, I would have a lead to investigate - a duplication of numbers, which is a possibility. An honest error at branding time when you got to handle a lot of foals.
Or if you know who had bred this leopard Appaloosa, I'd have another lead. And if you knew how these brands could be altered, which is something I've never heard of, then we really would have a cause for an immediate and intensive inquiry. As it is, we have nothing to go on but unlikely speculation and possible data base errors.” He stood up, indicating the interview was over. ”I a.s.sure you that, if you come to me with something concreteeven one piece of evidence - I'll be glad to listen.” Ken got most of his anger blown out of his system on his way back to the ranch. Any Poldep inspector worthy of his rank would have seen the anomalies in hides with inappropriate markings. Data base errors! Duplication of freeze-brand numbers! That had never happened, not in the twenty-four years he'd been breeding horses. Nor had it happened to any other rancher, Hayuman or Hrruban.
That sly dig about Todd inheriting being presumptuous. Presuming what? That Todd would be found guilty and sent to a penal colony and denied the right to inherit colonial land anywhere?
Ken made himself calm down and warned himself not to even consider such an outcome. it was dark when he reached the ranch and the lights blazed out a welcome on the flower beds Pat had labored so long to surround the house. He was glad to see Kelly had been invited over for dinner again, but he hoped Pat wouldn't be silly enough to push Todd.
That lad didn't pus.h.!.+ He stood his ground and he was doing it now with courage and fort.i.tude.
Ken was prouder than ever of his son.
The moment Ken started recounting his discovery, Pat put dinner on hold and, instead of the meal, the big round table was spread with the hard copy. Ken had talked Fred into letting him take two of the hides home and he'd stopped by the vet lab to borrow a microscope for a good look at the hide marks.
”This is a real stumper,' Todd said, looking up from his turn at the microscope. He gestured for Kelly to take a turn at the eyepiece.
”There's no shadow of an original freeze mark. I'd swear this one was the first one, and genuine. Only it can't be.
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