World on Fire

World on Fire

            Salvor Veerneeshu noted the red dust accumulating under his well-manicured nails with disgust.  He absently rubbed his thumb against their tips as he watched the numbers tick upward, anxious for the elevator to free him from the planet’s womb.  The communications relay hub had been built deep beneath the surface of Adranus back when this barely-habitable rock had served as forward base for Commonwealth marines.  Miles upon miles of cables linked the room’s sensitive equipment with the active and passive sensors and relays that tentatively connected Adranus with the rest of the galaxy.

            The complexity and cost required to engineer such a facility deep in the bowels of Adranus were simply incredible.  It was an extreme waste of which only the Commonwealth Armed Services were capable.  And now, with the marines long since departed, it served only to irritate Salvor.

            It meant trudging down into the depths of the filthy planet any time he wanted to communicate with the outside galaxy.  Seven years as the colony’s Secretary-Treasurer and millions in hard currency still hadn’t given him the resources necessary to construct even a simpler, scaled-down center on the planet’s surface.  The complex parts required were simply too hard to come by in this little corner of the galaxy.

            The doors parted and Salvor stepped out, releasing a breath he hadn’t realized he’d been holding.  He could not help but feel suffocated by the stale, dusty air of the planet’s depths.  Even though he knew that no miner had ever set foot in the communication hub, he could not get over the feeling that his presence underground somehow made him more akin to the filthy workmen.

            His two security personnel fell in line behind him, apparently less oppressed by the depths from which they came.  They waited patiently as Salvor followed his usual ritual of disinfecting his hands.  With the gel still coolly evaporating from his palms, he pulled out his tablet and watched its minimal resolution in aggravation.  Even with the intensifier he had managed to import from Vega, the wireless signal was barely able to permeate the metal-laden rock of the planet’s crust.  Even so, it was only at a minimal bandwidth.  Salvor could barely see the final flames being extinguished at the ore processing facility.

            This riot had not been particularly well-organized.  Were it not for the loss in production time it would cost, he may have even seen it as beneficial.  The Adranus Security Forces had been itching for a confrontation with the increasingly-arrogant miners for more than two weeks and Salvor had struggled to keep them reigned in.  A little head-splitting now had hopefully quenched their thirst for blood.  And, of course, it would show the miners the hefty price of further attempts at organization.

            He did a brief calculation in his head.  The price of nickel ore had been declining as the Commonwealth continued to dump money into asteroid harvesting in the massive belt around Sirius.  But none of those floating rocks could match the purity of the Adranus ore.  And as long as nobody found a way to make the interstellar alloys without extremely pure nickel, their stuff would continue to command a hefty premium.  As long as the miners were mining.

            Fifteen million Coumbs.  That’s about how much the Colony would lose before they could get the processing facility back up and running.

            Salvor could let news of the riot leak.  No doubt a disturbance in the supply would cause the price to spike, helping recapture some of those losses.  But a disturbance would also draw closer attention to their little operation.  And attention from the Commonwealth wasn’t worth it at ten times the current price.  Salvor sighed heavily.  There was more than enough nickel ore in reserve to keep up with demand, but he hated tapping the reserves.  Pulling from one of their stockpiles meant the colony would be losing money.  And if the colony was losing money, it meant that he was losing money.

            “Fucking miners,” he grumbled to no one in particular.  The two ‘off-duty’ members of the Adranus Security Force shadowing Salvor knew better than to engage in conversation with the Secretary-Treasurer when he was like this.  Or at least, they usually did.

            “Don’t worry, Boss.  Our boys will fuck ‘em up good,” one commented in the cheerfully menacing tone only an ASF member could manage.

            “Yeah, the ASF way,” the other added amiably.

            “I wish we could have been there, pounding some skulls with Pauly and them,” the first said to the second.  “Really show those mudbugs who’s boss.”

            Salvor just closed his eyes and sighed inaudibly.  Good help was so hard to find.

            As sickly-dirty as his time underground made him feel, he knew he would still have to sit at his desk and calculate exactly how much this little incident was going to cost him before he could shower.  As much as he took pride in his mental math skills, Salvor Veerneeshu couldn’t stand to leave things at approximations.  Still, he could practically hear the shower in his office bathroom calling him.

            Finally, a mere fifteen paces from his office, his tablet caught full signal and began to beep with a private message.  Salvor watched as it scrolled across the screen.  The message was from one of his private enforcers.  Unofficial supplements to the ASF, Salvor had a network of trusted operatives he could count on to bring him good information.  He also used them on occasion to do things that were a bit too unpleasant for even an ASF officer.  The message was as concise and to the point as he had come to expect:  ‘Sermak Lee is not here.’                   

            Salvor chewed a bit at the inside of his cheek.  That little piss-ant had been making trouble ever since he got himself elected guild leader.  Salvor’s predecessor had made the mistake of granting the group of miners status as a guild and guilds held certain rights under Commonwealth law.  He sighed again at the thought of how much easier his life could have been.  He supposed he should be grateful that the inept previous administration had stopped short of offering actual collective bargaining.  Still, their actions had forced Salvor to expend a great deal of time and energy finding legal ways of stripping away the guild’s power and rights.

            Thanks to his efforts, Sermak’s position as leader of the guild was virtually powerless and was, in many ways, undesirable.  In addition to its administrative duties, the guild leader still had to meet the same production quotas as every other miner.  The only benefit the title provided was to make him a natural focal point for all of the guild’s umbrage towards the government.  And Sermak had proven a lightning rod for such umbrage.  The boy was an unfortunately capable orator.

            Following several poorly attended rants about the need to unionize their labor force, an ‘accident’ had claimed the lives of six miners, including Sermak’s father.  The young guild leader had been on the warpath ever since, claiming that the accident was a machination of the government to try and intimidate the workers from unionizing.

            Salvor was certainly capable of such machinations, but only when it served his purposes.  Killing the guild leader’s father would only serve to draw sympathy and rally support to a cause that was finally beginning to decline.  The death of Sermak’s father worked directly against Salvor’s interest and yet Sermak was shrewd enough to lay the blame for the event squarely at the foot of the Secretary-Treasurer.  Following Salvor’s own token speech at the mass funeral, Sermak gave the eulogy, working himself into a near fit of rage, staring directly at the Salvor as he slandered the government and called for action.

            At the time, Salvor had no choice but to smile and nod along, accepting the verbal abuse as though the young guild leader had been blaming someone other than he.  But beneath his practiced amiability, Salvor seethed.  He abhorred the sensation of helplessness, all the more so because he had worked so hard to keep things on Adranus in perfect control.  It was Sermak Lee who had put him in a situation of helplessness.  For that act alone, he deserved to die.

            The very moment the funeral event ended and Salvor returned to the safety of his office, he made it clear to his enforcers and the entire Adranus Security Force that Sermak’s life was no longer his own.  The guild leader had been hiding underground ever since.

            That was three months ago and before today, there hadn’t been so much as a peep out of the miners.  Information on him trickled in, but there was never enough for the kind of grand display Salvor wanted.  As this man had insulted Salvor publicly, his humiliation and defeat had to be downright ostentatious.

            Given how much money and time Salvor had invested into preparing for Sermak’s next move, he would have been extremely disappointed if this pathetic riot was the best the young upstart could muster.  But the fact that Sermak hadn’t been there proved that the guild leader intended to take advantage of the event in some other way.  In fact, his absence suggested that the riot had been nothing but a diversion to draw an edgy and overzealous security force away from the government complex.  Salvor felt a sudden thrill of fear and uncertainty knife its way into his stomach. 

            He was rapidly considering the options and resources available to him when he noticed that the cedar-lined door to his office was only half-closed.  The wood frame was slanted just enough to shade whatever was behind his desk.  Salvor pushed the door open and was not entirely surprised to find the dark, brooding, thick-built frame of Sermak Lee seated audaciously behind the desk in the Treasury-Secretary’s office.  His thick, smoke-black eyebrows and olive skin clearly distinguished him as a miner even if he had opted not to sport the bulky mustache so many of the others favored.

            Two muffled grunts erupted from behind him as Salvor’s guards fell to the ground with a sickening thump.  Of course Sermak had not come alone.  But Salvor refused to give him the satisfaction of turning towards the guild leader’s henchmen.  Besides, thanks to his excellent sources of information, he already knew who they were.

            So even as the muscles in the back of his neck cringed with sympathetic pain, a part of him felt relieved.  Sermak was making his move and just like everything else the young man did, it was brash and would leave him no room for retreat or maneuver.  There was danger, certainly, but Sermak wasn’t nearly as smart as he thought he was.  Salvor had been playing this game for a long time and still had a few tricks up his sleeve.

            The first was to put Sermak off balance.  He had obviously put a lot of planning into today’s actions.  The fact that he was seated casually behind Salvor’s own desk was a testament to how smoothly things had gone so far.  The young man was brimming with confidence and expecting a certain type of response.

            So Salvor gave him precisely the opposite.  He plopped himself down in one of the plush-looking, but decidedly uncomfortable visitor’s chairs, crossed one leg over the other, and smiled.

            “There are easier ways to make an appointment, Mr. Lee,” he offered casually.

            To his credit, Sermak recovered quickly.  The ripple of surprise was covered almost immediately, replaced by the rigid look of angry determination.  Eventually, an artificial smile of his own stretched across the young man’s face.

            He really shouldn’t do that, Salvor thought to himself silently.  The young man’s face gave itself to anger easily enough, but smiling was another matter.  Thinly parted lips, gritted teeth, and skin stretched over taught cheek muscles were a poorly-worn guise.  His eyes betrayed the bitterness the rest of his face was so clearly trying to hide.

            “This is no simple appointment, Mr. Secretary.  I’m afraid your reign has come to a sudden and unanticipated end.”

            “Has it now?” Salvor asked lightly, cracking his smile ever-so-slightly wider.  “I think that you may need to reread the Colony charter Mr. Lee.  I am nothing more than a humble government employee, in charge of the colony’s finances.”

            Salvor noticed the irritation immediately flood Sermak’s face.  The poor boy was so transparent with his emotions.  “Let’s not have any more lies here, Mr. Secretary.  We both know exactly who controls what in this government.  Creon may be the elected president, but we know who’s pulling his strings.  And like I said, we’re sick of it.”

            “And by ‘we’ you mean…”

            “The miners,” he barked furiously.

            “Oh, yes of course.  I forgot.  You are the elected president of their little club, right?”

            Salvor could feel angry footsteps behind him as one of the miner goons advanced to where he was sitting, but a lifted palm from Sermak halted the behemoth.  Sermak took a deep breath and looked down to his lap.  He seemed to be playing with something, but the large wooden desk blocked Salvor’s point of view.

            “It’s all right, Regis.  The Secretary knows perfectly well that I was elected Guild President.  He’s being deliberately obtuse in order to make us angry, but we don’t need to be angry, do we?  After all, we’re not the unthinking brutes he makes us out to be, are we?”

            There was no sound, but Salvor suddenly felt the other’s presence withdraw another step behind him.  Salvor fought off a rising shudder.  Surely these miners aren’t so inbred that a concept as simple as speech is beyond their capabilities, he thought in disgust.

            Salvor peeked down at the floor to find a slender river of blood coalescing around his right loafer.  He fought the urge to kick his foot away.  After all, the shoes were already ruined and he didn’t want to give any outward sign of alarm.  Instead he turned back towards Sermak.

            “Perhaps I don’t understand the meaning of the word,” Salvor offered, allowing a touch of condescension to fill his voice.  “I would think that breaking into a man’s office and murdering both of his bodyguards would be the very picture of brutish behavior.”

            An ominous shadow covered Sermak’s face.  “Actually, Mr. Secretary, only one of your bodyguards is dead.  You see, Regis was exercising his right to vendetta against your man here.  It was three years ago that this poor excuse for a man came upon his sister, who was just coming back from delivering their father his meal at the mines.  It was well past curfew-their father was working the nightshift, you see- and he stopped her.”

            Salvor didn’t so much as blink when Sermak’s eyes traced their way to the lifeless body on his right.  “He asked her questions and demanded her papers.  The young girl cooperated fully.”

Sermak’s eyes closed for a silent moment.  “She was such a warm and loving girl,” his eyes opened.  “But also a strong girl.  When your man demanded something of her that most certainly was not his right, she refused.  He hit her, held her down, and then proceeded to rape her.”  The room slid into an unnatural silence before he added, “She was only fourteen at the time.”

            “I been waitin’ for this moment ever since,” the voice behind Salvor cracked in a thick miner accent before spitting.  “Schtill can’t sleep trough the night without waking up screaming.”

            “That is a truly horrific story, Mr. Lee, and I can only assure you that I had no knowledge of the incident.  But I must warn you that such ‘vendettas’ are not a legal justification for murder.  If you would simply have reported the matter to the ASF-“

            “That prick was ASF,” Sermak spat.  “Just like all your fucking cronies.  Well it ends here and now.”

            Salvor slumped back in his chair, entwining his thin fingers together before bending them to crack his knuckles.  As he did so, he could feel the mass of the second goon moving in a deep parabola around his chair.  The form remained a shadow hovering in the corner of his eyesight.

            Perhaps you should tell me what you want,” Salvor offered tepidly.

            And then Sermak proceeded to pull from his lap an item that had no business being in his hand.  It was one of Salvor’s most prized possessions.  A pre-Commonwealth era pistol.  It was completely unlike the tightbeam weapons used by the Commonwealth today, or even the electromagnetic railguns of the previous century.  This weapon instead relied upon a small amount of explosive powder to launch a ‘bullet’ through an elongated barrel that had to be scored in order to ensure the weapon would fire straight.  Salvor had spent a small fortune to obtain it just a few weeks ago.  He had intended to have the ancient artifact mounted on the wall behind his desk, but had never quite gotten around to it.  The weapon was such an elegantly primitive showpiece that it deserved to be preserved behind glass, not befouled in the hands of this disgusting mudbug.

            “I’ve already told you what we want, Mr. Secretary,” he said icily, pointing the barrel of the beautiful silver-plated weapon at Salvor.  “You gone, an end to the abuses of the ASF and to prevent all of the money of this colony from escaping those who work themselves to death to earn it.  That, Mr. Secretary, is why we’re here.”

            The young guild leader must have imagined this very moment dozens of time, playing it over and over in his head.  Such prosaic rhetoric could only come about by means of an over-rehearsed soliloquy.  Finding the pistol in Salvor’s desk must have been icing on the cake.  The weapon made for a far better picture than whatever crappy gun Sermak and his cronies had barged into the building with.  Salvor could see it in his eyes.  The young guild leader was loving this.

Salvor lifted an eyebrow quizzically.  “And just how is that showpiece you’ve stolen from my desk supposed to get those things for you?  How exactly does killing me make you and your ilk any richer?  Or stop the ASF from retaliating after you murder a government official and one of their own?  I must say, Mr. Lee, it does not seem like you have quite thought out the consequences of your actions.  You have committed an act of gross terrorism.  Regardless of what happens to me, you have already made yourselves targets for the ASF and the entire government.”

            “That may well be true, Mr. Secretary, but how is that any different from the way we live now?  You and your lapdog president live behind the cushy walls of your complex while the rest of us sweat and bleed-“

            Salvor’s light-hearted smile and agreeable nods stopped the younger man’s monologue.  Clearly this wasn’t the response he was anticipating.  Sermak must have envisioned this confrontation intimidating the Great Tormentor.  He wanted the man to feel the same wretched pain and suffocating pressure he had so freely inflicted upon others.  Instead, all he had managed to evoke was humor.  His grip around the pistol tightened.

            “I am glad the plight of my people is a source of such amusement to you, Mr. Secretary,” he said.

            “My dear Sermak, it is not your plight, but the fact that you think your people are unique in this aspect.  Every culture has had to endure its share of hardships as it tries to climb from the depths of obscurity.  You know, my own grandfather was from such a place.  He was a self-made man.  Worked himself to the bone every day of his life in order to provide his children with opportunities he never had.  After a single generation of hardship, my family was able to emerge from that life of toil.  Then again, some simply don’t have the skills or intellect to emerge so quickly, but surely if you would just apply yourselves, or work a little harder-“

            “Enough!” Sermak shouted rising from behind the desk and corralling into his voice every last ounce of putrid hate for the man he felt in his heart.  “Enough of this bullshit!  You and your friends have wrestled control of every possible aspect of life here.  It’s not enough that you own the mine and sixty percent of the jobs on the colony, you also own all the grocery stores and the entire energy grid.  You pay us miners only in company scrip and still manage to stamp out any competition that might spring because you have a death grip on what makes it on and off world.  You pay the ASF to terrorize us and prevent any remote form of protest or demand for fairness to take root and you dare tell us that all we have to do is work harder!”

            Sermak’s rant was settling.  He slowly sank back down into his chair allowing the intensity, if not the passion of his voice to subside.  “But look at where you are.  Your power has abandoned you.  You are surrounded by three people who despise you so much that they long for your death.  Whatever you may think of us, we have the power here.”

            But even this forceful diatribe couldn’t move Salvor Veerneeshu from his undaunted demeanor.  He shifted his head only slightly, doing the bare minimum to acknowledge the presence of all three men before turning back to his accuser.  He allowed a bit of the impatience he was feeling seep into his voice.  “Which brings us back to my question.  What is it you want?”

            The heavy mass Salvor had identified as Regis advanced upon him suddenly, upending his chair and sending him sprawling onto the floor.

“We wahnt you ta suffer like we’ve got ta suffer,” the brute spat at him.  “We wahnt you ta feel ta pain we got live wit everyday.”

            “Get up, Mr. Secretary,” Sermak called, his amusement poorly hidden.

            Salvor collected himself, refusing to shed so much as a modicum of dignity.  He striaghtened his clothes and noted that through the recent excitement, the second goon had silently sidled a few steps closer to Sermak.  For the first time, Salvor was beginning to have his doubts.  Had he somehow miscalculated?  Were these animals so savage that even family meant nothing to them?

            Salvor could not let any doubt show.  If he wanted to get out of this, he needed to appear to be in control.  He drew himself up to his unimpressive one-point-six meter height and dusted himself off.  It wasn’t really necessary.  He kept his office meticulously clean and fortunately he had been thrown beyond his former bodyguard’s pool of blood.  But he needed a moment to collect his thoughts and this provided the perfect opportunity.

            He righted the visitor chair and placed himself delicately back upon it.  Brushing his hands over his legs one more time, he looked up to Sermak.

            “Much better,” the younger man said.  “Now, as Regis indicated, we are interested in simple justice.  Regis feels that as the party ultimately responsible for the heinous violation of his sister, his vendetta legally applies to you as well.”

            “This is the second time you have mentioned a vendetta,” Salvor reminded him.  “And as I said the law provides no such excuse for murder.”

            “You want to talk about the law, Mr. Secretary?  You send your armed thugs into our homes to intimidate, rape and kill whomever you please.  Where is your legal justification for that Mr. Secretary?  No, the laws are what the strong make of them.  Hasn’t that been your philosophy?  Only now the shoe is on the other foot.”  He glanced approvingly at both of his goons.  “We are the strong ones now.  We will decide what is legal and what is not.  But most important of all, Mr. Secretary, we will hold you responsible for your actions.”

            “So is that what you intend to do?  Drum up some charges and have me tried before a Commonwealth court?”

            Sermak sat back in his chair and leaned back comfortably.  “Oh, I don’t think there’s any need to involve the Commonwealth with such an insignificant matter.  After all, that has been another philosophy of yours, hasn’t it Mr. Secretary?  And the courts of the Commonwealth are so very far away from Adranus.  No, I think we should just settle these matters internally, what do you say?”

            Salvor said nothing.

            “But I think a compromise is in order.  After all, unlike you, I have no intention of making unilateral decisions.  And that is what I would be doing if I were to allow Regis his Vendetta.  Still, his family has suffered unduly and he should have some say in the matter so…  There are three of us here.  You can have your tribunal guaranteed under the laws of the Commonwealth.”

            “I don’t think that the Commonwealth Constitution allows for a man’s accusers to sit on his tribunal.”

            “Oh no?  Well I tell you what, you can feel free to appeal to any Commonwealth court you choose.  But in the meantime, I think your tribunal has reached its decision.  Regis, Ephialtis?” he asked, looking at his two fellows who both nodded their assent.

            “There you have it.  Guilty.  And the verdict was unanimous.  That doesn’t bode well for your appeal.  Of course,” he added, smiling fiendishly, “I doubt any appeal will be heard before your sentence is carried out.”

            Sermak stood again, leaving the pistol on the desk and pulling a long, serrated knife from a hidden sheath inside his shirt.  The wicked-looking blade was dark, crusted in the deep red of congealed blood.  Sermak’s eyes fell angrily upon him.

            “This is a greater privilege than you deserve.  This blade has been used to settle Blood Feuds between our people for five generations.”  He paused and rubbed his finger down the length of the blade.  “Of course…” he trailed off.

            Salvor struggled against the sudden twinge of muscles at the sides of his mouth.  Smiling now wouldn’t be appropriate.  Sermak was about to make an offer.  In spite of everything he had said, all his claims about nobility and justice, in the end, Sermak Lee wanted something.  He was attempting to bargain, and Salvor Veerneeshu was an excellent bargainer.  He never should have doubted himself.

            “It occurs to me,” Sermak continued after a long pause, “that there may be a resolution that doesn’t end in your death.”

            “Oh?” Salvor doubted the younger man realized just how few resolutions to their situations there were.  The man was bold, but he was unimaginative.  Though one could hardly fault him for that given his upbringing.  Slavor’s death had only ever been a minute possibility, but Sermak didn’t realize that.  The young guild leader still thought he was in control.  Salvor also noticed that the suggestion of ransoming his life did not throw either of the two goons off stride.  Regis, the heavy mass behind him had continued to breathe evenly through the entire exchange and the man standing against the wall beside the seated Sermak didn’t so much as flinch.

            So this was the plan all along, thought Salvor.  Well, at least that explained a few things.

            “You see,” Sermak said, looking back to the blade, inspecting it as he spoke, “I know what you have been doing here.”

            Salvor raised his eyebrows expectantly.

            “Time works in your favor, Mr. Secretary.  You have done a remarkable job maintaining your composure, but only because you have been trying to buy time.  How long will it be before your friends return from the mines and smelting center?  Fifteen minutes?  Ten?  You are hoping to delay us until they can come back to save you.  But it won’t come to that, Mr. Secretary.  That is why I am telling you this.  It will take less than two minutes for the three of us to slit your throat and disappear back into the caves.”  He looked back up at Salvor.  “You may export the valuable pieces of this planet to the rest of the Commonwealth, but this is our world.  We will disappear and your friends will never find us.”

            Fucking arrogant miners, Salvor cursed beneath the veneer of a placid smile.  “I see,” he said grimly.  “So what do you propose?”

            The younger man’s lips tugged apart into a vicious smile of his own.  “It’s quite simple, Mr. Secretary.  I want the access codes to the bank accounts where you have been keeping the profits of our blood and turmoil.”

            Salvor laughed aloud.  “All this talk of justice and honor and vendettas and you’re after nothing more than money?”  He let out another bellow of delight and turned to the two goons.  “After all this, you miners turn out to be nothing but simple blackmailers.”

            The smile vanished from Sermak’s face.  “Our motives are irrelevant, Mr. Secretary,” he said, point the knife threateningly at Salvor.  “What matters is that you have exactly one-and-a-half minutes to supply those codes.  All six of them.”

            Salvor’s smile shrunk somewhat.  There were actually seven bank accounts, each with a different interstellar investment house in which he kept his private profits from the nickel and other ore deals.  But the fact that Sermak had uncovered six of them was unsettling.  Perhaps he had underestimated the youngster.  Then again, perhaps he was just guessing.  Besides, these unsophisticated miners had no way to even access interstellar banking.

            “And what exactly will you do with that information?”

            “I should think that would be obvious, Mr. Secretary.  Since you did nothing to earn it, the money does not really belong to you, now does it?  We will simply see that it is returned to the hands of those who worked so hard for it.”

            “And how will you do that?” Salvor asked skeptically.

            In response, Sermak opened a drawer and removed a tablet virtually identical to Salvor’s.  He turned it so that the display would face the Treasury-Secretary.  Money transfer pages of six interstellar investment houses were stacked in three dimensions in front of him, each prompting a pass code.  In the top-middle, a countdown timer was scaling down.

            “You have one minute, Mr. Secretary.”

            Salvor leaned forward and watched as the numbers scrolled down.  “What exactly do you plan to do with all that money?  Do you think you can buy your safety from the ASF?”

            Sermak smiled again.  “Oh, absolutely.  They do your dirty work because you pay them.  Perhaps some simply hate us miners on a more fundamental level, but yes, this money will be more than enough to buy our safety.  And our freedom.”  He tapped the desk lightly.  “Forty-five seconds.”

            “And what assurance do I have that you won’t kill me after I have supplied the pass codes?”

            “Absolutely none.  Forty seconds.”

            “It is a lot of money,” Salvor said mildly.

            “It is.  Certainly more than you could hope to spend in a lifetime.  Especially if that lifetime only lasts another…thirty seconds.”

            “Did you know that there’s a seventh bank account?” Salvor asked sitting back in his chair.  “And do you know why I spread it around so much?”

            Sermak’s surprise only lasted a moment before he turned his head slightly and laid the knife on the desk.  “Regis, it seems that the Secretary does not believe we are serious.”  He turned his head back to Salvor.  “Normally, Mr. Secretary, I would have Regis take you through a whole ordeal of pain, before finally killing you.  Unfortunately, we are short on time.  “Regis, you will have to make it quick, I’m afraid.”

            Salvor could feel the lumbering mass make his way toward the knife.  He wondered if any of the miners expected Salvor to make a mad dash for it.  Of course, there was still the silver-plated pistol in Sermak’s hand.  The fool had no idea how to fire the thing.  But it didn’t matter.  Salvor never dirtied his hands unless he had to.

            “Hedging, Mr. Lee.  That is the reason I use so many accounts.  Wise men always hedge their bets.”

            “Is that so?” Sermak asked with attempted indifference.

Salvor had spent a lot of time dealing with these mudbugs.  He was familiar with their voice patterns, even the skewed, unseemly ones like Regis.  Sermak was nervous.  The young guild leader wanted that money.  But like he said, time was running out.  He was no fool.  In lieu of a payday, he would no doubt settle for killing Salvor.  But of course, it would never get that far.

            The Treasury Secretary narrowed his eyes.  “That’s how I know you’re a fool.”

            The hulking mass next to him paused.  The timer was at fifteen seconds and counting down.

            “Brave last words, Mr. Secretary, but they won’t avail you.  If you won’t cooperate, Regis will kill you.”

            Salvor ignored him, his smile fading for the first time and his voice taking on notes of the dark anger he had been hiding for so long.  “You see, Mr. Lee, you didn’t hedge your bet.  You’ve gambled everything on the hope that I will be so surprised and overwhelmed by your appearance here that I will simply give in to your demands.  Are you so certain that nothing at all can happen to upset your plans?  Are you so certain that you are in fact in control?  That you are safe?  That your loved ones are safe?”

            Sermak smiled wryly.  “I thank you for your concern, Mr. Secretary, but I have taken every necessary precaution.  My loved ones are all safely tucked away and cared for.”

            Salvor’s eyes flashed to his left.  “And what about his?”

            The timer flashed zero.

            “I’m sorry.”

            They were the first words that had come out of the second goon’s mouth.  No sooner had they left than a knife flashed in his hand and slid smoothly across Sermak’s throat.  But even as his trusted ally betrayed him, Sermak could not remove his sights from his one true enemy.  Salvor looked on astonished.  This single act of determination, more than anything else, had won the Secretary-Treasurer’s respect.

            With a gurgled mixture of surprise, horror and anger, the guild leader shakily pointed the pistol at Salvor and pulled the trigger.

            Nothing happened.

            The weapon clicked three more times before, with a gurgled roar, Sermak Lee dropped the gun and collapsed onto the floor.  A sickly, bubbling sound could be heard through the silence.

            “Ephialtis, what the fuck!!” cried Regis with a deafening roar.

            But the poor man had himself collapsed against the wall, hands cupped around his face, barely stemming the flow of tears dripping onto the floor.  “He has my family,” he cried.  “My poor daughters.  My wife.  He said he was going to kill them.  I had no choice!” he screamed.  “I had no choice!”

            “You fucking traitor!” and in a single terrifyingly fluid motion, the giant blood-crusted knife that had so recently threatened Salvor’s life, was hurled across the desk, lodging itself deeply in Ephialtes’ chest.  In three room-quaking steps Regis was upon his former compatriot and viciously tore the knife from the other’s lifeless body.

            The ceremonial knife, a fresh coat of blood streaming down its side, was again pointed at Salvor who had bolted up and was now standing on the opposite side of the desk.  Regis massive body seemed to be practically trembling with fury, his face a mask of pure, unadulterated hate.  “I don’t care if tay get me, I’m gonta bleed you nice and slow, you piece of shit.”

            Salvor’s only response was to point the silver-plated pistol back at him.

            A predatory smile spread menacingly over the behemoth’s face.  “That dun’t even work,” he said advancing a step.

            “It does if you know how to use it,” Salvor said, releasing the safety and sliding the firing pin into place.  He squeezed the trigger.

            The gun erupted, heaving a small projectile directly into Regis’ chest and nearly knocking Salvor off his feet.  Salvor looked at the weapon in astonishment.  He had fired an old railgun at a shooting range once as an adolescent.  He remembered thinking at the time that the ‘recoil’ of the weapon must have made it impossible to use in the field, but that was nothing compared to this weapon.  The deafening sound, a force capable of almost toppling its user.  How were these things ever used in the field?

            Worse still, it hadn’t even finished off Regis.  The monstrous man had been dropped to one knee, but was slowly pulling himself up, bloody blade still clutched in a death grip in his right hand.  Salvor set his feet, and aimed, bracing his arms and chest for another recoil.  He fired.

            This time the bullet lodged itself in Regis’ skull.  He toppled backwards.  As strong a physical specimen as he was, there was no getting up from that.  Salvor let out a tremendous sigh of relief.  He had never expected the outcome to be so much in doubt.  He had begun to fear that his enforcers hadn’t gotten word to Regis that his family was being held.  He had even worried that it was possible the gargantuan didn’t even care about his own family.

            A gurgling sound from beyond the desk pulled Salvor from his thoughts.  He stepped in a slow, careful tread around the desk, mindful for any surprises.  But there were none.  Only the slowly-draining body of Sermak Lee.

            Salvor knelt, leaning over the struggling form of the man who had only moments before threatened his life.  Flecks of hot blood sputtered from the man’s mouth and gaping wound, but Salvor did not so much as flinch.  As sullied as the miners were, his own duties sometimes made him feel dirtier still.  Besides, for all his rhetoric, Sermak had never really been a miner.  He was capable of intelligent speech, thoughts, aspirations and even a certain degree of shrewdness.  Even if he was hopelessly naïve, he had a civility that made his blood infinitely more palatable than the few droplets of Regis that stained his clothes.

            “Let me tell you a secret, Sermak,” he whispered, gently stroking the other’s hair.  “I wish that it hadn’t ended like this.  Do you hear me?  I want you to know that you deserved a better end than this.  I’m sorry that you forced my hand, but what is done is done.  Do you understand?”

            The younger man’s heaving whimpers intensified, sending a fresh spatter of syrupy spray across Salvor’s face.  “It’s all right,” he whispered as he took hold of the clutched hand Sermak had raised.  “Rest now.  Rest and know that a better future is awaiting you in the next life.  A future where your talents will not be so hopelessly wasted surrounded with pathetic vermin like this.  Rest now, my brother.”

            Sermak’s eyes darkened and his chest convulsed.  He struggled with every last ounce of strength left to him, but it was no use.  He was powerless to oppose the warm, patronizing smile from the man who had stolen everything from him.

            Finally, every single muscle burning with utter exhaustion, Sermak Lee expired in utter agony.