Robber Baron Read online

  One

  (excerpt from Chatta Daily Times)

  ROBBER BARON

  FINALLY CAPTURED!

  Philipp Kaplan Behind Bars at Last

  Chatta, Turner's Planet - Yesterday, the

  122nd day of 2515 (GS calendar), during

  a daring raid on the First Central

  Commercial Interplanetary Bank and

  Trust, the notorious Philipp Kaplan was

  apprehended by local authorities

  without a struggle.

  Early in the morning, by local time,

  Kaplan walked into the building,

  heavily armed - apparently the weapon

  detection system had been dismantled

  - and immediately immobilized the

  two guards on duty at the time,

  authorities said.

  According to eyewitnesses and security

  cameras, he ordered the other

  employees and customers to get on

  the floor, then took the bank manager

  to the safe.

  When the computer system shut off the

  combination dial - the computer had

  determined that a robbery was in

  progress - Kaplan held a blaster to the

  manager's head, and convinced him to

  override the computer, which the

  manager did, promptly, police said.

  As Kaplan exited the vault, carrying the

  bags of money, a male teller attacked

  him, and held him to the ground until

  police arrived, witnesses said.

  Kaplan was taken to Chatta's Central

  Detention Center, where he will be

  held without bond, until his

  arraignment, early next week,

  according to municipal court records.

  "He will have to plead guilty," stated

  Chatta Chief of Police, Kergen Bowler.

  "He was caught red-handed, with the

  bags of money actually in his hands.

  There were eight eyewitnesses, and

  four policemen in the building.

  "At best, he could try to plead insanity,

  but that won't get you very far on this

  planet."

  It appears that after a 25-year reign of

  terror, Philipp Kaplan's career as the

  most successful bank robber ever has

  come to an end.

  The arresting officers did not allow

  Kaplan to comment.

  I spent a week in Chatta's jail; fed, clothed, and entertained at the expense of the citizens of Turner's Planet. I've always heard that if you get something for free, then you get what you pay for, but the food in that jail wasn't too bad. Nothing else was that bad either, except that the building is old, having been built early in the colonial days, just after the Granger-Stranger Wars.

  The jail was shaped like a large cube, about ten stories high, and exactly as wide and long as it was high. It had been built out of solid Turner's Planet stone. The lower two floors were filled with offices, supply rooms, a medical clinic, a break room for guards and police officers, and the booking rooms. The upper floors contained the cells, a mess room for the inmates, the exercise room, and a few more supply rooms. The laundry and power systems were in the basement.

  The heating and cooling systems had been in need of repair for a long time, and the water had a slight metallic taste to it. The water bothered me, but I didn't mind the heating and cooling systems acting up, since the climate in Chatta is nice all year round. I also didn't mind chatting with the guards.

  The other prisoners pretty much stayed away from me, except those who thought they could bolster their own criminal careers by chumming with me. Most of them were locals, though, and not really of my stature in the criminal world. You see, I've robbed over 800 banks, hi-jacked two or three dozen armed transport ships, not to mention other jobs. And I've never been caught. Well, except for this once.

  My reputation did bring a lot of VIPs my way. The Chief of Police had me in his office the day after my capture, asking me was the food okay, and was anyone bothering me unnecessarily. I guess he was trying to make doubly sure I wouldn't get off on a technicality. Turner's Planet has laws that have stood firm for three centuries, where a defendant can get out of a conviction if he can prove that he was abused, neglected, or mistreated in any way, while in jail or prison. And I guess he figured that I had more than enough money to hire a good enough lawyer to get me off, if he gave me even the slightest chance.

  I told him, thanks, I was fine, and the food was great, but could I have some spicier sauce for my hamburgers. No problem, he says, just don't tell the other inmates.

  I'm sure he was recording the whole thing; they probably even had cameras in my cell, making sure I couldn't use the "abuse" angle in court. They wanted me bad. One hundred fifty planets had been looking for me, some of them for more than twenty years, and Turner's Planet needed this boost in their publicity to pullout of their economic depression. At least that's what I read in the papers. Of course, I've never read the papers to find facts; hard facts can rarely be found in newspapers. But, by reading a newspaper, you can get a general "gist", or feeling, of what's going on.

  I played cards with a few of the guards, and a few games of chess with the head jailer, while awaiting my arraignment. I've never been that good at chess - my wife is much better - but I was better than my opponent this time. Good enough to let him win, barely, every time. I didn't want him to get even the smallest inkling of how smart I really was.

  After a week, I went before the city's head judge, and pled guilty. To "attempted robbery". I pleaded ignorance to the assault and battery charges on the security guards; I never touched either of them, and the cameras can prove that. They just fell over. The prosecutor for the government of the planet mentioned that other charges would be brought against me, from other robberies, but I'm not worried. I don't think anyone can prove it was me that did all of those jobs. I've been careful throughout the years to cover my tracks. I've got more than three dozen valid IDs, all with different names, and it's been thirty-two years since I did a job without wearing gloves.

  The sentence for bank robbery on Turner's Planet varies from five years to twenty years, depending on how much money is stolen, whether or not the money is recovered, how many people were hurt, etc. But the sentence for "attempted robbery" is two to five. The prosecutor was too smart to try the first charge; I never made it out of the bank - I would've been a free man if he had tried that. And since nobody was hurt - the guards were fine after a few minutes - I only got two years in the Meela Penitentiary. And that without a lawyer! I just let the evidence speak for itself, and the law mandated my sentence. I know there are a lot of people mad about all that, but the next time they're in court, they'll demand their rights and a fair trial, just like I had. Most people think the court systems on the older planets are too slow and too lenient, but I know the courts are that way for a reason. It's to keep the innocent from being punished. "Reasonable Doubt" is a powerful concept, when explained to a jury. And if it weren't for this very "lenience", the government could take whatever they wanted, and our democracy would be dead.

  Most of the planets in our comer of the Milky Way have some form of democratic government, with a bill of rights to protect the citizens. This Bill of Rights ensures that the members of the normal population have certain freedoms, and that they are protected in the event of a mistaken arrest. Not all governments are like that.

  Imagine a government where the only witnesses allowed in court are brought in by the prosecution, and there are no appeals, and the sentence is always exile to a salt mine, and citizens aren't allowed to leave or enter a city without a pa
ssport. They say that there actually were governments like that, back on Old Home Terra. They also say that there are a few planets around today, with similar laws. They start out by banning citizens from owning firearms, using the excuse that it will cut down on crime. Of course, it usually doesn't, but they always got the population to believe it. Then, with the best part of the population disarmed, some economic or natural disaster would conveniently come along, giving the government the excuse to exercise emergency powers and set up martial law. Many times, because of a charismatic leader and the fear of the current "disaster," the populace goes along with the changes. After that, no one has a fighting chance. It hasn't happened in a long time, since most people nowadays turn colonist whenever they see the initial signs. When privacy rights start being violated, when the police can search your home, vehicle, or luggage without a warrant, and so on, it's time to sign up for a colony world. Keep your eyes peeled.

  Meela, where I was sent, is the ninth of 10 planets in the Tau Ceti System, almost 700 million miles from its mother star. The gravity is about three-quarters of Galactic Standard, and the warmest it gets (at noon, on the equator, in the summer) is just above the freezing point of water. It rotates every 21 days or so, meaning that at night it can get pretty cold. In the winter, even at the equator, it will get as low as 100 degrees below zero.

  I remember seeing on the news that someone didn't think it was fair that prisoners should get to relax in lower gravity. What they don't realize is that it just weakens the prisoner. After a man in his 40s (like me) spends two years at three-quarters gravity, getting used to weighing only 135 pounds, it's very difficult to readjust to my standard weight of 180.

  A week after the sentencing, I was prodded onto a medium-sized transport ship along with 25 other convicts, and two days later, we were landing in a blizzard on Meela. And there I stayed, until I forgot what the free life was like.

  The Meela Penitentiary is not the kind of place I wanted to be. It was nothing like the Chatta jail, where we got to sit around all day, watching satellite holovision. There were a lot of rough characters there, and I was around them all day. Each prisoner is assigned a job, and the bosses aren't very nice. But I got along with them the best I could. And after a few initial skirmishes with the prison gangs, they left me alone.

  I didn't stop planning new scores.

  *

  I had been at Meela for a month when a guard came to my cell and escorted me to the prison psychiatrist. He was a young man, of slight build, with a large mop of tousled brown hair.

  "So, Mr. Kaplan," he said, after I had been seated, "we meet at last. My name's Sanderson. John Sanderson."

  "Nice to meet you," I replied, sincerely. "To what do I owe the pleasure of this meeting? Or do all of the convicts get to see you?"

  "Oh, they all get to see me," he said emphatically, then laughed, just a little. "But that's just a formality. You see, I have to have a file on all of you. All the files go to the parole board for consideration. But you - you, Philipp Kaplan, are a special one. You're the best in your specialty. Every classification has its top few, but sometimes, one person stands out above the rest, and his name lasts through history. Like Jesse James, Billy the Kid, the Newton Boys, or Al Capone, from Old Home Terra, your name will probably live on long after you're dead."

  I smiled at that. "Sounds interesting, doc. Did you bring me in here to flatter me? Or do you want to talk about what makes me tick?"

  "More than that," he said. "I want to know why you do what you do."

  "It's a little more complicated than that," I replied. "There's not a simple answer."

  Sanderson sighed. "There is rarely a simple answer, Mr. Kaplan. If there were, society wouldn't need people like me. So, tell me your story. When did it all start?"

  I started telling him. After about thirty minutes, he suggested politely that perhaps I should write it down, since he didn't have all day, So, I requisitioned pen and paper from the supply room, and started writing.

  *

  Where did it all start? I mean, psychiatrists, for centuries, have been wondering about that. What makes criminals do what they do? There is a school of thought that says ever since religion was taken out of the home, the crime rate has been going up. I don't know about that. Have you ever read the story of King David and Bathsheba? Or what about the man in the Book of Judges who sliced his concubine into twelve pieces and sent one piece to each of the twelve tribes of Israel? Don't take my word for it, read the Bible.

  There is another, larger and more vocal group of people who say that it is the fault of our education system. They think that if we pump more cash into our school systems, kids will suddenly develop morals and consciences, and decide not to turn to crime as a way of life.

  Others say that too many parents are working, and the kids don't spend enough time with the two people who should be instilling morals into them. The arguments go on and on, with no solutions. Crime has followed humanity since the murky beginnings of our race.

  Where did it start for me? Let's see...

  *

  I think I was about four or five years old when my parents signed up to be colonists to Persiphone. We had been living on Tuf, one of the very oldest planets in human civilization. In fact, they say Tuf is the first planet that mankind landed on when they left Old Home Terra's System. However, there are a growing number of people who say that Terra is just a myth, and that we never came from such a place. I can remember my dad pointing to the night sky above Tuf, and showing me which star was Sol, the original Sun of humanity.

  Anyway, one night after dinner, my dad explained to me that Tuf was getting too crowded for him, and there were plenty of new planets to choose from, but Persiphone seemed to be the best one. I just shrugged it off, and went back outside, to play with the neighbor's kid.

  Funny thing is, I can't remember that kid's name.

  In those days, the Great Separation was still going on, and cheap food was scarce. My dad was a hydroponics supervisor on Tuf, working for a firm that was inventing ways to make better synthetic food.

  Sometimes we didn't have news from other planets for a year or two at a time, but every freighter that showed up was welcome. I think the current historical perspective about the Separations is wrong. Historians are saying that the older planets cast away the unruly colonies, and that started the whole thing. But I remember all of us on the established worlds waited anxiously for any contact with the other, newer planets. That leads me to believe that it may have been the outer colonies that initially broke the ties with Tuf, Paradise, Turner's Planet, Willsworld, and the other older worlds.

  Either way, my dad heard from someone at work that the outer planets were still sending out scout ships to new suns, and they had found Persiphone, Golian, Wederr, Jalla, and other new worlds, all empty of intelligent life, and each ready for new colonists.

  Maybe it was this fresh wave of colonization - of which I was a part - that brought the human race back together in the form of the Second Galactic Rim Federation. I don't know, but the new colonies needed some kind of trade and support, and either way, the established planets seemed to grow closer together shortly after the new colonies were born.

  I remember we got rid of a lot of things, keeping only our most rugged clothes and most precious heirlooms. Almost all of our furniture had to go, along with most of my toys, and a few of our luxury items. By the time we rode the shuttle up to Nubase, that giant city in the sky of my childhood, I think my entire family only had about 100 pounds of property.

  I think at that time, there were perhaps 4 or 5 million people living in Nubase, more than half of whom had never been on the ground. There, I had my medical exam and IQ tests and was let loose with the other children while my parents had about two weeks of colonial training. I've talked to a few people who don't know much about the colonial process, and they're usually surprised that two weeks of training is all you get - less, if you're under eighteen, as I had been. The reason the Colonial C
ommission doesn't spend more time on training is this: a colonist can only end up three ways. Either they become successful thriving colonists, die trying, or give up and go back home. More extensive training would run up the cost, but wouldn't change the outcome. Some people just aren't cut out for colonization.

  We rode in the old Jeffries, a freighter that also carried passengers, out to Blabrow, in the Jelpp System, where we disembarked in Astropolis IV, a century-old space city that was the main processing station for colonists. There, we had our immunization shots and received booklets describing Persiphone and detailing the homestead laws of the Colonial Commission.

  The factories on Blabrow and Mouwor were spitting out all kinds of machinery: mining equipment, farming tools, construction equipment, and shuttles were ferrying all of this up into the cargo holds of the colony ship Skelton. Last of all, we got on and rode out of the Jelpp System. That trip took just over one full day, until we were far enough out of the gravity well of the system, then we took the big Jump. It was only my second Jump ever, taking us to the Hollis System, where it took two more days to negotiate the gravity well there, down to Persiphone. It was a brilliant blue-green planet, just like Tuf, with blindingly white clouds and polar caps. Thinking back, I wonder now why no intelligent race had ever developed there; it was perfect.