Book 09 - Faded Steel Heat Read Online Free PDF Page B

lot of them. They just give up everything and let
somebody else do their thinking. Life is easier that
way.”
    Perhaps. But I have a strong intuition that we would have
been better served had you held them here whilst I milked them
rather than driving them away.
    “Milked them? I didn’t hear a moo from either
one.”
    Intentional obtuseness seldom finds a complimentary acute
observation. You should have probed them for information. You
should have held them while I wormed in under their surfaces.
He refused to let me exasperate him more than I had already.
Their particular Free Company may finance itself by extorting
funds in the name of The Call. But we are in no position to winkle
that out now. Are we?
    I hate it when he’s right. And he was right. I let my
emotions take over. I hadn’t thought of those two in relation
to the Weider problem. Yet they could have had that in mind. One of
their cronies might have noticed the girls coming to my place.
    Your problem far too often, Garrett.
    “Huh?”
    You do not think. You emote. You act on that emotion in
preference to reason. However, there was nothing in their minds to
tie them in to the Weider matter. Which, of course, is no guarantee
that those who sent them are equally innocent.
    “Aha! They knew about you.”
    Those two did not. They knew nothing about you, either,
except what they had been told. I believe you muffed this one,
Garrett.
    I don’t know about that. They probably wanted me to work.
But I sighed. He really was right. And I definitely hate that. I
hear about it forever. “I think I’ll just go over to
the brewery and—”
    Yes. You should do that. But not right away. Go later. After
the night crew comes in. They will be the younger men who have the
Cantard more freshly in mind. If there are human rights activists
there, they are most likely to be found among the younger
workers.
    What could I say? When he’s right he’s right. And he
has been right a little too often lately. “All right.
What’re you going to suggest instead?” There would be
something.
    See Captain Block. Ask him about The Call. Let fall some
gentle intimation of the threat to Mr. Weider.
    Captain Westman Block runs the Guard, TunFaire’s half-ass
police force. The Guard is lame but more effective than the
predecessor from which it evolved, the Watch, which existed
primarily to absorb bribes to stay out of the way. The Watch still
exists but only as a fire brigade.
    The reason the Guard works is a little guy who is part dwarf, a
touch of several other things, and maybe an eighth human. His name
is Relway. He’s the ugliest man I’ve ever met.
He’s obsessed with law and order. His conversations all
revolve around his New Order, by which he means the absolute rule
of law. When I met him, on a rainy night not that long ago, he was
a volunteer “auxiliary” helping Block’s tiny
serious-crimes section of the Watch. I said something unpleasant to
Relway that night. He assured me that I ought to be less unpleasant
because he was going to be an important fellow before long.
    His powers of prophecy were excellent.
    Prince Rupert created the Guard and installed Westman Block as
its chief. Then Block sanctioned Relway. And Relway immediately put
together a powerful and nasty secret police force consisting of
people who thought his way. Offenders have been known to just
vanish once they attract the notice of Relway’s section.
    Probably no more than a thousand people know the section exists.
He doesn’t blow his own horn. And I’d bet there
aren’t more than a dozen people who can identify Relway by
sight.
    I’m one of them. Sometimes that makes me nervous.
    That all rips through my mind whenever anyone mentions Block. I
get the exact feeling Relway wants everybody to feel—that
somebody is watching.
    Old Man Weider is one of TunFaire’s leading subjects.
He’s a commoner but is rich and powerful and influential. He
has friends in high places who are real friends simply