Ascending - James Alan Gardner [7]
“You were telling me about utter bastards,” I said, “and why you have come to Melaquin if you are not after our land. Are you another fucking Explorer, marooned against your will?”
“Not me, missy,” he replied. “I’m what you might call a private entrepreneur. Working at the moment for Alexander York.”
“Who is a friend of Festina’s.”
“Friend isn’t exactly the right word.”
“What is the right word?”
“Uh. Victim.”
Uclod’s tone suggested there might be an excellent story in how this York person became Festina’s victim. I asked him to disclose everything…and he did.
The Sinister Admiral York
Alexander York had been a very bad man. He was a high-ranking admiral in the Technocracy’s Outward Fleet, where he did many awful things to humans and a race called the Mandasars. York’s greatest villainy, however, was trying to kill my Faithful Sidekick, Festina. She tried to kill him right back, and with the help of some alien moss, she won. (I did not quite follow how that worked, but I believe she stuffed moss into the bad man’s stomach until he exploded. That is not how Uclod told the story, but his version was so strange and implausible that I chose to reconstruct his tale in a way that made more sense.)
At any rate, Alexander York died horribly as all base villains should. Soon everyone in the human Technocracy learned of the admiral’s reprehensible deeds. It was a top-of-the-broadcast story for many days, and the Most Famous Actor In The Galaxy played York’s role in the news dramatizations. The producers even got a Reasonably Famous Actress to play Festina. Apparently, the actress invented a delightful accent in lieu of characterization…and even though Festina does not actually have an unusual accent, the critics unanimously agreed it was what a Fringe-Worlder named Ramos should sound like.
In this way, York’s wickedness provided much wholesome family entertainment; but unbeknownst to the public, there was more to come.
The Unscrupulous York’s Protection Policy
The evil Mr. York had always suspected he might suffer violence from his enemies on the High Council of Admirals. (The council is a place where everyone schemes against everyone else, and people talk incessantly about Power with a capital “Pow.”) For insurance against his council colleagues, York kept meticulous records of every scandalous thing the high admirals did, individually and as a group: every foul trick, every breach of the law, every secret betrayal. In fact, Uclod said, “York collected enough dirt to send the whole damned council to jail till the next millennium. Enough to get them chopped into giblets and fed to ugly dogs.”
(I asked if that was the type of thing one could watch. Uclod told me it was only a metaphor.)
As York accumulated this damning evidence, he placed it in the keeping of a family named Unorr: Uclod’s relatives. According to the small orange man, his uncles and aunts and cousins were reputably disreputable…which meant they were dreadful criminals who would do many dishonest things for a price, but once you bought them, they stayed bought.
“It’s quite the profitable market niche,” Uclod explained. “You’d be amazed how few crooks actually keep their word…and the same with so-called honest people, lawyers and banks and all. Lawyers will always buckle under to something, whether it’s bribes, violence, court orders, or the weight of their own bullshit. Same with banks—they turn tail and run the instant something upsets the stockholders. But we Unorrs do what we’re paid to do, even when things get hot. Especially when things get hot. Which is why York hired us to take the High Council down.”
As soon as the Unorrs heard York was dead, they assembled the information they had received from the admiral and prepared to deliver it to the most irresponsible journalists they could find. But they also delegated junior family members (such as Uclod) to collect extra evidence of misdeeds that were not perfectly documented.
Therefore the small orange man