The Venus Belt by L. Neil Smith Page B

started loo k ing absently for a place to flick his ashes, settled on an unused bedpan. “Look, if you ever get to the bottom of this...I’d love getting my hands on a brain-tapper, Hi p pocrates forgive me.”
    “For my part,” said the Captain, “and without prejudice, Mr. Bear, I’ll be satisfied just to dock at Gunter’s Landing, where you can take your my s tery—and the violence that attends it— off my ship!”
    This didn’t seem the time to mention the booby-trapped Webley or the near-miss belowdecks. And, thinking of another nearby Miss, I wondered how Koko was.
    ***
    Upstairs, I tried organizing my recent escapades—with an accent on “escape”—for the daily call home. I don’t know how other couples handle it—actually, my first wife and I never talked about things that ma t tered—but Clarissa and I never hold back. It’s made for a wonderful life so far, with a few unpleasant minutes, followed by some supremely satisfying ones. Hours, even.
    But there was that bit of extra evidence I’d noticed in the infirmary: wood is still rare enough out here in space that every scrap is eagerly r e ceived. Back home, they make packing boxes of plastic, but goods e x ported to the asteroids go timber-wrapped by specific request and as an extra sel l ing-point. There’d been a three-quarter-inch splinter underneath the Ru s sian girl’s left thumbnail. Must’ve hurt like the dickens (or did it, with the brain-bore?). It hadn’t been there quite long enough to fester, just long enough to give me an idea who’d levered that crate onto my head.
    So how was I gonna tell my wife the Healer how badly Confederate f o rensics need an overhaul? Luckily, I had another call to make first—that little Bauer autopistol and the Woodsman Olongo was attacked with: obs o lete U.S.-type weapons, collector-rare in the Confed e racy. Why were they showing up over here?
    Koko seemed to have other things to do. I was just as happy: it was ge t ting to be perilous in my vicinity, and I still have a few Neanderthal opi n ions concerning womenfolk and danger, even when the girls’re co v ered with fur and have ten times my strength. I shooed her off to a smartsuit le s son, promising to catch up later, and grabbed the com.
    The lag was terrible now, but Captain Spoonbill grudgingly surre n dered his strongest beam for a solid hour, at only nominally rapacious rates. Tal k ing through a Broach is complicated by the weird influence it has on radi a tion, gravity, the very fabric of reality. Try sending regular radio or lase r gram through; they wind up, well, twisted, requiring special equipment to hammer them back into sense. I hired the appropriate gadgetry via Laporte Inte r world, and punched up a certain broom closet in the good old U.S.A.
    “Jenny?” The picture was an informationless gray pudding. “I got a problem you could help me with.” I waited through the lightspeed lag, tr y ing to figure out which Jenny I was talking to.
    “If I can, Win, but I’ve got a problem of my own right now...”
    “The Fraser campaign—but this—” I stopped; she was still talking.
    “ We’ve been ransacked! They broke in last night, tore the place apart, and set fire to what was left. Even with Confederate fire-control sy s tems...”
    “Jenny, something weird is going on all over. Attempted murders, break-ins, disappearances—we’ve got enemies, and I’m beginning to think they’re organized.” She didn’t much like the details I gave her, but then ne i ther did I.
    Finally: “If I get any useful information on those weapons, I’ll relay it through Clarissa once you’re out on Ceres.”
    “Right. She’s got a little digging to do—no pun intended—to find out if Olongo’s burglar was brain-bored.” A little more expensive gab and we rang off. The delay connecting with home was somewhat longer than could be accounted for by Dr. Einstein. An elderly chimp materialized: Captain Fo r syth, dirty and