Robber Baron Read online

  I saw his point, but the dull ache at the bottom of my rib cage just wouldn't go away.

  "So," I asked, "what can I do about it?"

  He laughed, quietly. "You can do whatever you want, Philipp. I'm not going to give you one piece of advice about relationships. I thought I'd learned my lesson the first time, but then I had my heart handed to me on a platter again. You're asking the wrong man. I will tell you this: Your parents had a strong relationship. Think about them, and maybe that will help you decide."

  He was right; it did help. I remembered that my mom and dad were always careful to apologize to each other when there had been a disagreement. They never let more than a few hours go by without resolving the issue, or agreeing to forget about it. So, I wrote Destiny a short note:

  3rd, 2485GS

  My Darling Destiny,

  I'm sorry that I walked out

  on you the other day; I had

  no right. In fact, I realize

  that I have no claim over you

  whatsoever. I hope that you

  are happy with your new friends,

  that your education goes well,

  and your career after that. If

  I never see you again let it be

  known that the best times of my

  short life were while in your

  presence.

  My private phone number is

  111-111-111, at the house, and

  my portable number is 342-777-098.

  When you're ready to pick up the

  stuff I'm keeping for you let me

  know.

  Always yours,

  Philipp Kaplan Bates

  I expected to hear from her soon, since I figured she wanted the money, but I never expected what happened.

  I had been back in school for a whole week, and was at home doing homework, when my room phone buzzed. I hit the answer key, and a face appeared on the screen. It was the security guard at the front gate of the governor's mansion.

  Looking harried, he said, "Philipp, there's a woman out here, claiming she knows you. She's in pretty bad shape, clothes all torn and stuff. Says to tell you 'Sandy' needs you."

  "Let her in, James. I'll meet her at the door." I wondered if perhaps she'd been in an accident. Then I told myself if that were the case, she'd be in a hospital, not at my door.

  I ran to the front door, startling Harry out of his office. "What's going on, son?"

  I opened the door, and she fell into my arms, crying. Her clothes were indeed torn, she had a growing bruise on her face, her eyes were bloodshot from crying, and she had several scrapes on her wrists.

  Her strength left her body as she fell into my embrace, and she sagged like a limp doll, whimpering like an abused puppy. "I love you, Philipp, I love you..."

  I looked up at Harry, who was standing there in his suit, not sure what to do. I held her with my right arm, and ran my left hand through her tangled hair. "What's wrong, baby? What happened? You're safe here. I'm here; nothing's going to happen to you..."

  When I looked up again, Harry was rolling his chair out of the office; the nice one with real leather and deep padding. "Let her sit down, son."

  I helped her into the chair, and knelt beside her. "Do you want something to drink?" I prodded.

  She shook her head violently, slinging tears into my face, the sweetest tears that have ever been on my skin. Then she looked me in the eye. "I'm so sorry, Philipp, I didn't know!"

  "Didn't know what?" Harry was slipping a glass of something cold into her hands. I repeated my question.

  "Philipp, he raped me."

  That's when Harry jumped in. "Who? When? How long ago? I'll get the police right on it"

  She looked at him. "Chief Donovan is his dad! Don't you see? I've dated him for a couple of months, and we were kissing, and he just..." She broke down again.

  "Oh, Kthorpa!" Harry exclaimed, and put his face into his hands. He told me later that he was ashamed to admit his first thoughts had been about a government scandal. What he said at the time was, "Don't worry, Destiny, we'll get this all straightened out soon enough."

  I stood up. "Harry, stay with her. I'll see if I can't get her a good shirt." And I headed for my room. I closed the door behind me, and opened the window, vaulting softly to the ground outside. I ran the whole block, going behind houses, all the way to the chief's house, on the edge of the "good" neighborhood.

  Young Donovan was just driving up. He hopped out of his car, and made for the door. Later, I realized that he was probably trying to get to his dad before the whole thing erupted in their faces, publicly. It never got that far. I don't know what my plan would have been if he had not been there. But he was.

  I was out of the bushes, and crashed into him just before he got to the porch. He never got a chance to get his breath back, for I held my left hand in a vise-grip around his throat, crushing it into the ground, while my right pounded his groin repeatedly. I didn't stop hitting him until he stopped breathing. As I got up, I stomped my bare right foot down on his throat, and heard a sickening crunch.

  Two minutes later, I was stepping out of my bedroom, holding a shirt, and breathing heavily. "Here's you a shirt, baby."

  I hadn't decided to kill Billy Donovan. There had been no decision to make. To this day, rapists and child abusers rank at the top of the list of people I hate. Thieves? Well, I am one, so I can't answer that question. Murderers? In my opinion, there's a lot more to murder than meets the eye - more than half the time, the victim gets his just desserts. Prostitutes and pimps? Most of those women made their own choice, trying to make money fast, and the fact that they do make money shows that there are a lot of men who secretly approve of the profession. Pornographers? Again, the sales figures show how popular pornography is.

  But I cannot abide a rapist or a child abuser. When you violate someone like that, you have stolen their humanity, and reduced them to the level of a helpless animal. Now, I won't get into a discussion about rough sex: there's a fine line, there. The same goes with spanking: the debate gets too heated, and there are too many opinions. But if I see a man punch or slap his small child, I will teach him a lesson he'll never forget.

  For that matter, I think I let Billy off too easily.

  *

  Two days later, Harry was standing in his pressroom, with several cameras and several reporters crowded in with him. I stood beside him, in a suit he had bought for me, just for the occasion. He raised his hand for silence, and gave his carefully prepared speech.

  "As my office informed all of you two days ago, there was a small emergency here. It's odd, I know," he smiled, "but I've never had my appendix out. It exploded two days ago, and my adopted son Philipp," he rested a heavy hand on my shoulder, "called the guard, who brought in the medics. My appendix was removed right here in this house, and I am recovering nicely. I would like to publicly thank Philipp, my guard, and the prompt service of Tarkin General Hospital for saving my life."

  He paused dramatically, then held up his hand again. "Now, about the other matter: Against the advice of the City Council and the Planetary Council, I have given Chief Donovan permission to head the investigation into his son's death. For Kthorpa's sake, it was his son! If my son were killed, murdered even, I would want to lead the investigation myself, and bring the killer or killers to justice. That. is all."

  The questions broke out, and I stood there while he fielded them. Then there was a question for me, from Donny Miles, I noticed. "Philipp! How does it feel to be a hero again? You braved nearly two years on this new world all alone, and now you've saved the Governor's life."

  I looked straight into the camera, and said, "Mr. Bates is a great man. He took me in when I had no one else to look to. Any of you would have done the same thing, if you were in my shoes.

  *

  Young Billy Donovan's killer was never brought to justice. The medics in question had shown up and treated Destiny, and had been sworn to silence when Harry had concocted his plan to cover
up the scandal. None of the medical personnel were told who had raped her, and I never told Harry or Destiny that I'd killed him. But I'm sure they knew. I know Destiny knew.

  Four.

  Harry talked to the bank where I had my trust fund, and got them to give me a debit card and a checkbook. He explained to me that each month I was allowed to use up to the amount of interest I had received for the month before, and no more. That way, I would never dig into the 70,000nd that were in my trust, and it would all be there when I came of age.

  I never used that much. For every newdollar I drew out of my account, I spent at least one credit from my hoard of stolen money. Most of the businesses in Tarkin were equipped to handle both kinds of money. If I spent four newdollars from my trust fund to buy a shirt, bought matching pants at another store with five credits from my stash. I told Destiny about my spending habits, and she thought it was a good idea. She started doing the same thing. But she reminded me that spending credits that slowly would never get rid of all the credits we had stolen.

  *

  Work on Tarkin's spaceport continued, and people kept pouring in from the Older Planets. The Persiphone Planetary News Service (PPNS) reported in late winter (early 2485) that the known human population in the Milky Way had passed ten billion people, spread across nearly 150 Class-1 planets and 210 Class-2 planets. That was an average of 62 million on every Class-1 world, and just under five million on every Class-2 world. The Dester Mining Corporation, among others, quickly got rich when they suddenly struck uranium in the Hollis System asteroid belt. Trillionaire Michael Hubbard Cyr - owner and CEO of the Cyr Corporation - moved to Persiphone, buying the smallest of six continents from the planetary government, naming the 3 million square mile area "Basplace" (pronounced "BOZ-plus"). The scout ship McRay failed to return when scheduled; the McRay had been charting habitable solar systems, working toward the galactic core, reporting in every nine months or so.

  When Mr. Dester's company struck it rich in our asteroid belt, his oldest son sold his half of his farm to his younger brother, and joined his father, buying as many shares as he could afford - Destiny said he got the shares cheap, since he had advance notice of the strike. Mrs. Dester sold her old lorry very cheaply to some newcomers, and bought two new cars with her husband's earnings; she got a Cyr family cruiser for herself, and a Cyr Luxury Sport for Destiny.

  For my fifteenth birthday, I got to ride in Destiny's new car, which she'd only had for a few days. We cruised slowly through the city streets for a while, then headed out through the farms. When we got to the unpopulated area, she took the car up to a few hundred feet, and pushed its limits. I about wet my pants, watching trees, hills, rivers and wild animals pass by underneath at 1500 miles per hour.

  We were on the way back from this pleasure cruise when Destiny brought up "The Subject."

  "Fun isn't it, Phil?" She had one hand on the control wheel, and the other on the armrest.

  "Yeah," I breathed, gripping both my arm rests. "This is the fastest I've ever gone in a car. It's pretty exciting."

  "But not as exciting as robbing banks." She stated it as a fact, and turned to look at me, while cutting her speed and altitude.

  "You want to do another one?" I thought we had enough money to last a lifetime, if we could only convert it to newdollars, and get to some other planet. But she did have a point about the excitement; I could feel adrenaline squirting through my body just at the mention of robbing another bank.

  "Don't you?" Her eyes smiled at me.

  "Baby, where you lead, I will follow. You are my Destiny." I grinned back at her. "Hmm... Maybe we need to set this car down for a little picnic. See if you can see a good spot, where no one will see us for an hour or so. And promise you'll be gentle."

  Things had smoothed out between Destiny and I, after the Billy Donovan incident. We both realized we had been behaving selfishly. I knew I didn't want anyone else - I wasn't even attracted to any other girls. She realized that once I finished growing up, I would be the best thing that ever happened to her.

  *

  The tenth grade went on as usual, five days a week, six classes a day. My mechanics class was the most fun, since we got to build our own low-powered anti-gravity motor. Our teacher, Mr. Jacobs, said that knowledge of basic mechanics was about all that was necessary to get along in the world. He said that if you could build something, or fix something, you could always find a job somewhere. But my math teacher, Mrs. Baldwin, said that was ridiculous; if you didn't understand the math - the why - behind a machine, you could never build or fix one with any degree of accuracy.

  History was always fun, and that year we studied the Post-Exodus Expansion Period, when the 90-year Trayak war was taking place on two planets, and the Granger-Stranger wars kept resurfacing. The book said that back then almost everyone was in the military, except pregnant women. There were only 4 million humans in the entire galaxy, and it took 90 years to build that number to 15 million.

  It almost made me wish we could have a war of our own; the human race hadn't fought in almost four hundred years, except a couple of rebellions on new planets. The Kelvods - the only new race discovered in the last four hundred years - had been peaceful.

  Norman raised his hand in our history class, and asked, "What about that McRay ship, Mrs. Ballader? Do you think that maybe they found a new species out there? Maybe we'll have a war with them."

  She smiled, condescendingly. "Norman, I don't really think so. There are a lot of things more dangerous than other races. It's a lot more likely that they came out of hyperspace in the same place as an asteroid, or too close to a planet. Or maybe they've had some type of equipment failure, and they'll be back as soon as it's fixed."

  "But what if they did find a new race?" he persisted. "Maybe something a lot less like humans than the ones we've found."

  She continued smiling. "I doubt that too Norman. You see, most scientists agree with historians on that subject. The humanoid form is the only form we've found that is suitable for the necessities of civilization; we have the digits on our hands to work with tools and electronic equipment; we have our arms and legs for lifting, embracing, walking, running, jumping, and fighting; and we have the large cranial cavity for our superior minds. I think that maybe you've been reading too many of those fantasy magazines.

  "All the intelligent races we've encountered in our expansion have humanoid forms, with only slight variations, probably due to evolutionary differences. The Trayaks may have developed their blue skin as a survival technique, blending in with the flora on their home planet, of which a lot is blue. The Grangers and Strangers are red and green skinned for similar reasons. The Kelvods almost certainly evolved their thick hides and fur as a survival technique, millions of years ago, and perhaps a thousand years from now, their race will begin to lose the fur, or the hides, or both. But the odds are against us finding giant insects, or intelligent reptiles, or anything of the sort. Now, let's get back to the subject, which, I believe, was the forced development of strict laws during wartime.

  "Now, if you'll all turn to page 74, you'll find the section on Paradise's polygamy laws, which stand to this day..."

  I struggled in Language, mainly because there are so many rules regarding Standard speech and writing. If the plural form of "mouse" is "mice," then shouldn't the plural of "house" be "hice"? And so on, like the conjugation of verbs. What does it matter if you say "dragged," "drug," "drugged," or even "yuilenopadndoe," as long as I understand what you're saying?

  The Trayak language is much simpler. Our language teacher, Mr. Thtrolla, had lived in Hjerthdon, the capital city of the Trayaks on Tuf, for four years, and made the class fun, by serving Trayak dishes once a week. He said that sometime in their past, the Trayaks had probably had many cultures and languages, much like Old Home Terra, but at some point in their history, they had sat down and "fixed" their language. He said the human race probably would have done the same thing, but they had been forced to flee their home planet be
fore history and evolution had taken them to the point of needing a common language. Of course, the human race does use a common language, but that's because all the ships that were used to evacuate our home system used English, which is now called Standard.

  "But," he said, "this summer, I'm going to a convention on Yurple to meet with a lot of other language experts, and we're going to examine the possibility of 'fixing' Standard. If anything like that ever happens, though, don't worry; you can talk the way you do until the day you die. Changing the common language of ten billion people will take several generations. In fact, it'll take years and years just to decide how we're going to..."

  My last class every day was an elective, taken mainly for fun: ESP. Mainly we studied the history of telepathy, its possible future uses, etc. But there were also tests to show our "ESP rating." Mine was zero. When another student looked at a certain card, and concentrated on the picture, I never once guessed the right card. Mrs. Rutherford said that was strange, since even probability said I should get one in five, just from luck. Norman usually guessed two out of five, but as other cards were introduced, his rating went down. There was one girl in our class who only missed one card out of every ten or twenty hands. Mrs. Rutherford always got excited, and had tears in her eyes whenever this girl was doing her thing. I don't think that girl could read minds, though, because she wasn't doing too well in any of her other classes. They say Trayaks have the highest ESP rating of any known race, and sometimes, they use telepathy instead of radio for communication. That's hard to swallow.