Masters of the Galaxy Read online

  Masters of the Galaxy

  by

  Mike Resnick

  INTRODUCTION

  Jake Masters came into being when I was editing an original anthology of novellas titled Down These Dark Spaceways. These would be hard-boiled detective stories set well into the future, and the heroes would be the descendants of those fallen angels who stalked the dark alleys of Earth, lied to by their clients, betrayed by their friends, hunted by their enemies, always outnumbered, always underpaid (when paid at all). They would be the science fictional stepchildren of Raymond Chandler, Dashiell Hammett, and Ross MacDonald. And since Editor Resnick bears a certain fondness for Author Resnick, I assigned myself one of the novellas, “Guardian Angel”, which was very well received by the critics.

  Move the clock ahead two years, and this time I’m editing a six-novella anthology called Alien Crimes. These were to be more the “locked-room” type of mysteries that writers such as John Dickson Carr specialized in, but I saw no reason not to use Masters again and simply presented him with “A Locked-Planet Mystery”.

  A year later I was co-editing Jim Baen’s Universe with Eric Flint. We had a rule: we could each sell to the magazine, but only by submitting to the other editor, who was free to reject a story or demand changes. And since I had enjoyed writing the first two Jake Masters novellas, I wrote two more in the next couple of years, submitting “Honorable Enemies” and “If the Frame Fit…” to Eric and waiting with baited breath until he approved them.

  I proposed putting the four novellas together as a collection—they’re not quite a novel, although they do take place sequentially—and found a willing accomplice in editor/publisher Pete Crowther. He suggested that to make the book unique I add a never-before-published Masters story, which I did: “Real Jake”, which is sequentially the last of these adventures, appears here for the first time.

  Ever since I was five years old I wanted to be a science fiction writer. And ever since I was six I wanted to write a book called Masters of the Galaxy. The subject matter I wanted to include has changed considerably over the past six-plus decades, but I still love the title, and now, after all these years, I finally have a book that it fits.

  —Mike Resnick

  To Carol, as always,

  And to those Masters of the Fields Next Door:

  Raymond Chandler

  Dashiell Hammett

  Ross MacDonald

  Craig Rice

  James M. Cain

  Donald E. Westlake

  James Ellroy

  Ed Gorman

  Lawrence Block

  GUARDIAN ANGEL

  Her skin had cost her a bundle. It was smoother than silk, and at least thirty years younger than her eyes, which had a hard glitter to them that she couldn’t quite hide. She had a hell of a figure, but there was no way to know how much of it was hers and how much was courtesy of the same guys who gave her that skin. She wore a ring that was brilliant enough to have given her the tan she sported, and another one that could have eaten the first one for breakfast.

  She told me her name was Beatrice Vanderwycke. I didn’t know if I believed her. You get used to being lied to in my line of work, and eventually you assume everything you’re told is a lie until you know for a fact that it isn’t. Still, she looked enough like a Beatrice Vanderwycke that I was willing to accept it for the moment.

  Besides, I needed the work.

  “And that was the last time I saw him,” she was saying as she toyed with a bracelet that was worth more than I earn in a decade. “I’m terribly worried that something has happened to him, Mr. Masters.”

  “Call me Jake,” I replied.

  “Do you think you can help me?” She shifted her position and the chair instantly adjusted to accommodate her, then gently wrapped itself around her. I envied the chair.

  “I can try,” I said. “But I’ll be honest with you: the police have far more resources than a private detective does. Have you spoken to them?”

  “They sent me to you. I’m sure he’s not on Odysseus, and that means he’s beyond their jurisdiction. A very nice officer named Selina Hernandez recommended you.”

  Well, that’s one way for Selina to make sure I take her out for that dinner I owe her.

  “All right,” I said. “Let me start making a record of this so I don’t make too many mistakes.” I activated my computer.

  She almost laughed at it. “That machine must be a leftover from the last century. Does it still work?”

  “Most of the time.”

  “Why don’t you get a new one?”

  “I’ve got a fondness for old broken-down machines,” I said. “Can I have his name again?”

  “Andy.”

  “Age?”

  “Nineteen.”

  “He’s legally of age on every world in the whole Albion Cluster,” I pointed out. “Even if I find him, I can’t make him come back with me if he doesn’t want to.”

  She pulled out a wad of money that could choke damned near any animal I’ve ever seen. “You’re a resourceful man. You’ll find a way.”

  I stopped myself from leaping for the money and reached for it with some slight measure of restraint. It was mostly Democracy credits, but there were some Far London pounds, Maria Theresa dollars, and New Stalin rubles.

  “I’m a resourceful man,” I echoed, sliding the cash into a desk drawer. “I’ll find a way.” I paused. “Have you got a picture of him—holo, portrait, whatever?”

  She placed a small cube on my desk and activated it. The image of a nice-looking kid with blue eyes and wavy brown hair suddenly appeared, hovering in the air.

  “Can I keep it?” I asked.

  “Of course.”

  “Can you supply me with a list of his friends, and how to contact them?”

  “He didn’t have many,” she said.

  “How about a girlfriend?”

  “Certainly not, Mr. Masters,” she said firmly. “He’s just a boy.”

  He’s a boy who looks to be about two inches taller than I am, I thought, but decided to keep my mouth shut.

  “Any alien friends?”

  She gave me a haughty stare. “No.”

  “You’ve got to give me a little more to go on than just an image of him, Mrs. Vanderwycke,” I said. “It’s a big galaxy out there.”

  She produced another cube. “This contains the names and addresses of all of his friends that I know about, plus some of his teachers and a list of all the schools he’s attended.”

  “Where is he presently going to school?”

  “He quit last year.”

  “All right—where does he work?”

  “He doesn’t.”

  “What does he do with his time?”

  “He’s been ill,” she said. “That’s why I’m so worried about him.”

  “He looks pretty healthy in the holo,” I said.

  “It’s very difficult for me to discuss,” she said uncomfortably. “He has…emotional problems.”

  “The kind that would make him wander off and forget who he is and where he lives?” I asked.

  She shook her head. “No, Mr. Masters. But he needs to continue his treatment, and he’s already missed three sessions with his therapist.”

  “I’ll want the name and address of the therapist.”

  “It’s on the cube.”

  “And you say he disappeared three days ago?”

  “That’s right. I had an appointment. He was in his room when I left, and gone when I returned.” She stared at me with cold clear eyes that looked more like a predator than a distraught mother. “I’ll pay your daily fee and cover all your expenses while you’re looking for him. When you return him to me, there will be a substantial bonus.”
>
  “You already gave me one.”

  “That was an inducement, not a bonus,” she said. “Will you find my son?”

  “I’ll give it my best shot,” I promised.

  “Good.” She got to her feet, tall and elegant and reeking of money, a real knockout—and with her money and her cosmetic surgeons, she’d look just as good at seventy, or even ninety. “I will expect frequent reports.”

  “You’ll get them.”

  She stared at me. I used to stare at things I was about to dissect in biology class the same way. “Don’t disappointment me, Mr. Masters.”

  I walked her to the door, it irised to let her pass through, and then I was alone with all that beautiful money and the promise of a lot more to come if I could just find one missing kid.

  I fed the cube with the info to my computer. It spit it out. I put it in again, waiting to make sure the machine wasn’t going to turn it into an appetizer, then sat back down at my desk and began sifting through the data she’d given me. There were four teenaged boys and a couple of teachers—names, addresses, holos. I decided to put them off until I’d spoken to the therapist to find out what was wrong with the kid, but he wouldn’t break doctor-patient confidentiality without Andy’s permission. I told him I could get Beatrice Vanderwycke’s permission, and he explained that since Andy was legally of age that wouldn’t change anything.

  So I began hunting up the names from school. One teacher had died, another was guiding tourists through the ruins of Archimedes II. Two of the boys were in offworld colleges, a third was in the Navy and posted half a galaxy away. That left Rashid Banerjee, a slightly-built young man with a thick shock of black hair. I managed to get him on the holophone, which saved me a trip out to his place, and introduced myself.

  “I’m looking for Andy Vanderwycke,” I explained.

  “I didn’t know he was missing,” said Banerjee.

  “He’s been gone for three days,” I said. “Is he the kind of kid who would go off on a lark?”

  “I hardly knew him,” said Banerjee. “He never struck me as irresponsible, but I don’t know…”

  “Is there anyone who would know?”

  “Try his girlfriend.”

  “His mother told me he didn’t have any girlfriends.”

  “He’s got one. Or at least he did. His mother did her best to break it up.”

  “Any reason why?” I asked.

  “Who knows?” he said. “She was a strange one, that lady. I don’t think she liked him, even though he was her son.”

  “Can you give me the girl’s name and tell me how to get in touch with her?”

  “Melanie Grimes,” answered Banerjee. He gave me her contact information. I thanked him, and went to the hospital where Melanie Grimes worked. They told me I’d have to wait in the cafeteria for her until she was on her break. It was a big, bustling room, with enough anti-grav sensors that any patient who found any kind of exertion difficult could simply float to a table. I found an empty table, and the moment I sat down a menu appeared a few inches above the table. Then a disembodied voice listed the day’s specials.

  “Just coffee,” I said.

  “Please press your thumb against the illuminated circle on the table,” said the voice.

  I did so.

  “Your coffee will be billed to your account at the Odysseus branch of the Bank of Deluros.”

  I still don’t know how the coffee got to the table. I turned away for a moment to watch a very proud, very stubborn old man insist on walking with crutches rather than let the room waft him to a chair, and when I turned back the coffee was already there.

  I lit a smokeless cigar, and amused myself guessing the professions of every patient and visitor who walked by. Since there was no one to correct me, I gave myself a score of ninety percent.

  Then a young woman began walking across the cafeteria toward me. She was very slender, almost thin, with short-cropped red hair and big brown eyes. While I was trying to guess whether she was a fourth level computer programmer or an apprentice pastry chef, she came to a halt.

  “Jake Masters?” she said. “I’m Melanie Grimes.”

  I stood up. “I want to thank you for seeing me.”

  “I haven’t got much time. We’ve already had eight deliveries today.”

  “So you’re an obstetrics nurse?”

  “No, I’m not.”

  “You’re too young to be a doctor.”

  “I’m a lab technician,” she explained. “Every time a baby is born, we take some umbilical stem cells so we can clone its various organs should they ever need replacement. It’s not very exciting,” she continued, then added defensively: “But it is important.”

  “I don’t doubt it,” I said, handing her a business card. She studied my name and seemed fascinated by the little animated figure stalking the bad guys. Finally she looked up at me.

  “This is about Andy, isn’t it?”

  “Yeah. According to his mother he went missing three nights ago.”

  “He’s not missing,” she said. “He ran away.”

  “From you?”

  She shook her head. “From her.”

  “Are you talking about his mother?”

  “Yes. He was frightened.”

  “Of her?”

  “Yes.”

  I drained the last of my coffee. “Can you think of any reason why he should be frightened of her?”

  “You’ve met her. Wouldn’t you be afraid of her?”

  Not much scares me besides the prospect of poverty these days, but I saw her point.

  “If you wanted to find him, where would you look?”

  “I don’t know.” Then: “He had this friend…”

  “His mother gave me a list of his friends. I’ve spoken to Rashid Banerjee, and none of the others are on the planet.”

  “His mother didn’t think this one could possibly be a friend, so of course she wouldn’t give you his name—but he was the closest friend Andy had. Maybe his only real friend.”

  “Can you give me his name?”

  “Crozchziim.”

  “Either you’re choking or he’s an alien,” I said.

  “He’s a Gromite.”

  “What’s a Gromite?”

  “A native of Barsoti IV.”

  “Humanoid?”

  “Yes.”

  “How long has he known Andy?”

  “A long time,” replied Melanie. “Andy’s mother was too busy to bother with him, so he pretty much raised Andy. Over the years he was a nursemaid, a tutor, and a paid companion.”

  “Could Andy be staying with him?”

  She shook her head. “He lived in an outbuilding on the Vanderwycke’s estate. A little shack, really, hidden from sight in a grove of trees. She’d have looked there before she contacted a detective.”

  I showed her the list of friends I’d been given. “Can you add any names to this?”

  She studied the list. “Not really. I don’t think Andy would have considered any of them friends. They were just classmates he knew.”

  “What about Andy’s father?” I asked. “Dead?”

  She smiled, the first smile I’d seen from her. “Didn’t she tell you? But of course she wouldn’t. It might ruin her social standing.”

  “You want to let me in on the joke?” I said.

  “Andy’s father is Ben Jeffries.”

  “Hatchet Ben Jeffries?” I said. “The kingpin of the Corvus system?”

  “That’s him.”

  “There’s an outstanding murder warrant for him right here on Odysseus,” I noted. “They’ve been trying to extradite him for years.”

  “That’s why he never comes to the Iliad system,” said Melanie.

  “I assume he and Beatrice are divorced?”

  “Andy says they were never married.”

  “Andy knows him?”

  “Of course. He’s been paying all Andy’s expenses since he was born. He just can’t visit him on Odysseus. He’s flown Andy
out to Corvus II a few times.”

  “Do they get along well?”

  “I guess so.”

  “Could Andy be on Corvus now?” I asked.

  She shrugged. “I don’t know. Maybe.”

  I thanked her for her time, then went back to the office to check on Crozchziim’s whereabouts. I had the computer access the alien registry. He’d reported once a week to the Department of Alien Affairs for close to fifteen years…but he’d skipped his last check-in, and the Department had no idea where he was.

  Which meant my next step was to talk to Hatchet Ben Jeffries. I’d much rather have spoken to him via computer or subspace radio, but he was my only remaining lead, and I figured I’d better have a face-to-face with him, so I contacted the spaceport and booked an economy ticket to Corvus II.

  Corvus was seventeen light-years from Iliad. I don’t know who or what Corvus was, or why they named a star for it, but I thought the guy who named the planets was pretty unimaginative. They were Corvus I through Corvus XIV. It made Iliad’s planets—Achilles, Odysseus, Hektor and the rest—look pretty classy by comparison.

  We took off bright and early the next morning. I watched a holo of a murderball game for a couple of hours, then took a nap until the robot host woke me and asked if I wanted something to eat. I always get nauseous when I eat at light speed or traveling through wormholes in hyperspace, so I took a pass and went back to sleep until just before we touched down.

  I’d sent a message that I wanted to see Jeffries about his son, but I’d left before there was any reply, and I hoped I hadn’t wasted a trip. It’s been my experience that criminal kingpins are often reluctant to speak to any kind of detective, even private ones. I cleared Customs, then rented an aircar, punched in the address of Jeffries’ estate, and settled back to watch the countryside whiz past as we skimmed along a few inches above the ground.

  When we got to our destination there was a stone wall around the entire place, all ten or twelve acres of it, and there were half a dozen robots patrolling the exterior. The aircar stopped at the gate, its sensors flashing, and a few seconds later a mechanical voice came through its speaker system: