Part 25 (2/2)
”Sorry,” the nearest replied, in slightly accented Commerce.
Jeffers almost dropped his display. ”You can talk?” he demanded, once he was sufficiently recovered to speak.
The furb.a.l.l.s exchanged glances; one said, ”The captain lady said we mustn't talk to you.” Two of the others turned to glare at it.
Jeffers glanced around for cameras, and spotted three-but he knew how to deal with that; anyone who conspired with smugglers had to be able to alter records. He hurried to the compartment's com port and punched up a link between the s.h.i.+p's systems and his display board, then selected one of the display's files and quickly entered a few parameters.
That would generate synthetic images of utterly innocuous behavior in the cargo hold, starting from the moment Captain Tyler descended the ladder.
”She can't hear us now,” he said, turning back to the furb.a.l.l.s. ”Now, what were you saying?”
”We're sorry we stink,” a reddish brown one said. ”We haven't had a decent bath since we came aboard, and the food doesn't agree with us.”
”Or the air, ” a bluish one interjected.
Visions of a charge of inhumane treatment, and the bribe it would take to have it dismissed, arose in Jeffers' thoughts, only to be immediately dismissed by a far more basic issue.
These things weren't pets.
Oh, there were talking pets-parrots and mynah birds and Sirian mimic hounds-but those couldn't hold real conversations. A mere pet would not apologize for its smell and complain about a lack of bathing facilities, would it? Those flat heads didn't look big enough to hold much brain, but not every species kept its brain in its head.
”What are you?” Jeffers asked.
The furb.a.l.l.s exchanged glances.
”Well, our own word for our kind is...” It made a gurgling noise.
”It just means 'people', really,” another explained.
”The captain lady calls us her cargo,” said the reddish one.
”Or furb.a.l.l.s.”
”Or slaves.”
Jeffers stared at them. ”Slaves,” he said.
”That was the word she used, yes.”
There was clearly more going on here than a little smuggling. ”Not pets?”
The furb.a.l.l.s exchanged glances.
”No.”
”I don't think so.”
”What are pets?”
Jeffers ignored the question and asked, ”Do you know what slaves are?”
”Workers,” the reddish one answered promptly. ”We're to cultivate crops, and run machines, and do whatever we're told. If we don't, our families will be killed.”
Oh, this was just getting better and better, Jeffers thought. Kidnapping, slavery, and maybe even murder if Tyler had demonstrated that her threats were serious. Not to mention that she was probably suppressing knowledge of an intelligent species, in violation of the contact laws.
This was not something he wanted to be part of.
Jeffers knew he was not a law-abiding citizen. For the right price he could look the other way when s.p.a.cers decided to bring in drugs or weapons, because after all, their customers chose to buy the stuff. Drugs might ruin lives, but the owners of those lives had taken the drugs in the first place of their own free will, despite all the warnings in their schooling and entertainment. Weapons might kill people, but people could improvise weapons readily enough, or kill each other without them-human beings had demonstrated great ingenuity in their long history of violence. He could tolerate drug smuggling and gun running, and still consider himself a fairly decent human being; he had no trouble facing himself in the mirror most mornings. He lived with that sort of crime easily.
But slavery? That was an entirely different level of wrong.
And what was the point? Why weren't the farmers of Telemachus III using robots for their labor?
Slaves were probably cheaper, especially if these things would breed in captivity. If Telemachus was a metal-poor system, or if it had an environment that corroded metal or circuitry, robots might be expensive there.
Slaves might be more versatile; the furb.a.l.l.s seemed pretty bright.
Or maybe there wasn't any sound economic reason. Maybe the Telemachans just liked the idea of slaves. Jeffers shuddered at the thought, but he knew it was possible.
It wasn't really any of his business, he told himself. He shouldn't get involved...
But slavery?
Still, what could he do about it? Reporting it to the cops here wouldn't do any good; Tyler would just bribe them, or maybe launch before she could be arrested. Jeffers knew very well just how corrupt the local law enforcement was. He also knew what would happen to his own reputation among both cops and smugglers once the word got out.
And if by some fluke he found an honest cop, and Tyler got hauled off to jail, and did not manage to flee, then what? He'd be called to testify, and if Tyler managed to find even a halfway competent lawyer the jury would then be treated to all the lurid details of Jeffers' own past. Juries were notoriously unlikely to believe crooked officials.
And the other smugglers, the people who made it possible to live decently on his salary, would all hear about it. Losing half his income was the best he could hope for; turning up dead in an alley was far more likely.
No, the sensible thing to do here was to take a moderate bribe and keep his mouth shut, slaves or no slaves.
But he looked at the furb.a.l.l.s, at the dozens of eyes staring at him, and wished there were another way.
He blinked, closed his eyes, and tried to clear his thoughts. This wasn't really so different, he told himself. He'd let gun runners through, after all, and he knew those weapons weren't just for target practice. And he'd seen what happened to people who got too fond of the drugs he'd let in.
It wasn't any of his business. Drugs and guns and slaves were going to be smuggled in no matter what he did; he might as well take his money and keep quiet. He had long ago decided that-well, he had long ago decided that about drugs and guns, anyway; slaves had never come into it before.
He wished they hadn't come into it now, either.
He opened his eyes and found the furb.a.l.l.s were looking past him; he quickly tapped the abort on his display and turned to find Captain Tyler climbing back up the ladder.
”They're looking at the drive,” she said. ”Can we get this paperwork out of the way so I can go keep an eye on them, and make sure they don't break anything they can add to my bill?”
”Of course,” Jeffers said. He looked at the display and began entering commands. ”So tell me about Telemachus III,” he said. ”I've never been there-h.e.l.l, I've never been off Musas.h.i.+. I love to hear the stories, though.”
”I don't know what to tell you,” Tyler said with a shrug. ”It's just another d.a.m.n colony. The Confederacy runs the port, but mostly people there just mind their own business.”
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