Domus Publica
| Lost and Found: A Study in Corruption |
 |  |
| II. |
I brought my boat into range of the ferry’s tractor beam and slaved the conn to the ferry’s space-traffic control center. I don’t have my own ship,
for a number of reasons. Number one, I’m not a freighter captain or a smuggler and I don’t need a lot of cargo space. I don’t have a Master Spacer’s
Certificate or a Captain’s Accredited License, and I don’t plan on getting one, either. My boat’s big enough to accommodate me and up to three
guests for short interstellar trips. I can make cross-Sector trips, but I’d have to stop and refuel along the way. I don’t really need that kind of range
for the most part, and when I do, it’s a lot cheaper to book space aboard a ferry. Most people don’t realize what kind of an investment a ship is.
Between all the licenses, the fuel, the weapons, regular stores, and the myriad little things they never talk about in the Millennium holos, it’s too
damned much money. I don’t need it, so I don’t have it.
The comm light began to blink as I stood up to stretch my legs. I glanced at my chrono, considered ignoring it. In the end, economics won out and I
sat down. I make a good living, but not so good that I can just pick and choose when I want to work. It’s funny how many things in life can depend
on something so simple as whether to take this call or that one.
My boat’s equipped to handle tridimensional signals as well as bidimensional, so it’s really based on the preference of the person on the other end.
You can usually tell a lot about somebody based on which one they go for; tri-D’s more expensive — not prohibitively so, mind you, but enough
to be noticeable. People who use tri-D as a matter of course are used to having resources and infrastructure as part of the background, things they
never think about. This usually translates to being willing to pay more for my services, but it takes a lot to make the rich people want to deal with
somebody like me in the first place. People who use bi-D are more likely to have a keen appreciation for the value of a credit. They’re usually
much pickier about paying, too.
I recognized the tri-D face that formed on my dashboard as being that of Antonys pul-Matté, the executive director of the Senate Intelligence
Oversight Commission’s staff. Pul-Matté’s one of those Core World public school types, the kind who knows people who know people. He’s
pretty young for such a senior member of the Senate’s bureaucracy, but what he lacks in age he makes up for in arrogance. He’s smart and he’s
competent, but he didn’t rise through the bureaucratic ranks by being smart and competent. He knows people. Nobody gets anywhere in the
Rotunda’s back halls without knowing people.
I don’t like pul-Matté, but there’s no rule that says you have to like a man to take his money. As the SIOC’s executive director, it falls to him to
make arrangements for the Senators’ policies and directives to be implemented. He wouldn’t be caught dead talking to a man like me if he didn’t
have to, so it’s always a pleasure to hear from him. His need translates to my profit.
“Good morning, Detective,” he said. “I trust you’ve fully healed?”
“I’m fine, thank you,” I said. “What can I do for you, Mr. pul-Matté?”
Pul-Matté’s usual social circles are rarely so frank, but he didn’t want to exchange pleasantries with me anymore than I wanted to exchange
pleasantries with him, so it worked out well for both of us. The Commission wanted to retain my services, he explained, which was interesting
enough in and of itself.
“Is this line secure?” he asked unnecessarily. I assured him that it was. It was not a perfunctory question; if there turned out to be a leak at any
time, chances were pretty good that I would be blamed for it, since I had assured him that the line was secure. Good thing it actually was secure,
huh?
“Very well,” he said. “There’s a briefcase gone missing, and the recovery of information being one of your specialties, the Commission wants you
to do precisely that: recover it.”
I told him to send whatever details he could, and I’d take care of it. He didn’t ask if I wanted to know what’s in the briefcase; he knew I didn’t care.
He didn’t ask if I wanted to know how much they’d be willing to pay me; the Senate’s learned not to be stingy when it’s paying for private sector
expertise like mine. The conversation ended.
I considered the situation for a moment. The Senate doesn’t usually tell its staff directors like pul-Matté to hire private investigators like me. In
theory, all the Senate’s investigations are either undertaken by the Government Accounting Office, independent counsels, or No. 1030 Glitannai
Esplanade — that’s the Office of Criminal Investigations, for those of you who aren’t familiar with metonymy. If they’re deliberately hiring
outsiders like me, it’s because they don’t trust the official channels for some reason. Contrary to what Minitrue would have you believe, the
Empire’s government isn’t one Big Happy Family.
Lots of people — even people who should know better — like to think of the Empire as a kind of monolith, probably because that’s the way the
Empire likes to think of itself. After all, look at Correct Thought, the official ideology of the New Order: The Three Pillars are (mirabile dictu)
Unity, Stability, and Conformity. Some people, Party members mostly, really think that that’s what the Empire’s all about. Some parts of it are,
sure. But not all of it.
That’s the point, though, isn’t it? The Empire isn’t a monolith. It’s a big tent containing a whole lot of little booths, not all of which get along with
each other. People like to focus on the big groups, things like the Republicans versus the Monarchists, but even that covers up a lot of details. The
Republicans don’t all see eye to eye; neither do the Monarchists. The Monarchists are about as monolithic as a paranoid schizo with MPD, mixing
paternalists with authoritarians with totalitarians. Practically every other week the Palpatinist-Tarkinists are at the aristos’ throats, with the robber
barons egging both sides on. Only thing worse than a non-believer’s the wrong kind of believer. And just about everyone in the Empire’s loyal to
one of these groups or another, regardless of who he works for.
You find it all over the place. It’s a rare bird that doesn’t serve two masters, and you’ve got to go pretty far up the food chain to find most rare
birds. The Twins of Naboo, for instance, and the Black Twin’s pet sorcerer, the Sith Lord. A couple of the biggest names at court, too, like the
Gray Eminence, the Iron Marquess, Slick Willy Tarkin, maybe a few others. Everybody else? They’ve got their masters to please. Sometimes it’s a
perverse incentive, like when some grayshirt at 1030 Glitannai doesn’t feel like scrutinizing Moff Shmuckatelli’s business dealings too closely, even
though that’s his job. Pure happenstance that Schmuckatelli is helping that grayshirt’s mistress meet her third mortgage, right? It can get downright
nasty, too. Ex-Minister President Koskov was executed after one of his secretaries turned State’s evidence against him back during the Perinelli
scandal. Why? Turns out Koskov hadn’t realized his secretary was a Party member. Oops.
You’ve got True Believers working for cynics, you’ve got sell-outs working for bean-counters — and vice versa. Can’t begin to tell you how many
cases I’ve seen with industrial spies or faction agents inside the halls of the Imperial State or the Dominions, or how many grayshirts I’ve brought
in for ties to Mothmatists, Separatists, or even plain old organized crime. Everybody’s got his masters.
So, the Senators didn’t trust the official channels to obtain the briefcase. Or, perhaps more accurately, they didn’t trust them to obtain the briefcase
and bring it back to the Senators. I’m sure quite a bit of interesting evidence has vanished into 1030 Glitannai’s archives. Still, the Senate’s not the
only group in the galaxy that hears about these things. Chances are pretty good that if the Senate’s got somebody — i.e., me — looking for the
briefcase, there are other people looking for it, too. 1030 Glitannai, no doubt, even if the Senate doesn’t want them to find it first, and the Central
Office, too — no grayshirt in any department or office ever moves a muscle without a whiteshirt wondering what he’s up to. And if the ISB’s got
people on it, then ten’ll get you twenty that the Ubiqtorate’s got better trained people on it, as a matter of principle.
I read through the datapack pul-Matté uploaded to my ’puter. This was going to be a messy one, no doubt about that. I dialed up the ferry’s
number and made arrangements for a trip to Coruscant, then I left for the cabin and consigned myself to the oblivion of sleep. Neat little trick I
picked up back during my days of running around with Old Man Baamonde — this was back before they made him a Moff — , being able to rack
out and catch some Zs whenever I want. It pays off to be well-rested when you can be; you never know when you’ll get the next chance to sleep.
Some people in my line of work don’t like to sleep, because they get bad dreams. I suppose that’s reasonable enough; I’ve been from one end of
this galaxy to the other, and I’ve worked a lot of jobs in my day, and believe me when I tell you I’ve seen some pretty horrible things. I’ve seen
Inquisitors lose their tempers, and I’ve seen Jedi lose their minds. I suppose I can understand better than most how and why some people don’t
like to dream. Me, I don’t have that problem.
I don’t get paid to dream.
for a number of reasons. Number one, I’m not a freighter captain or a smuggler and I don’t need a lot of cargo space. I don’t have a Master Spacer’s
Certificate or a Captain’s Accredited License, and I don’t plan on getting one, either. My boat’s big enough to accommodate me and up to three
guests for short interstellar trips. I can make cross-Sector trips, but I’d have to stop and refuel along the way. I don’t really need that kind of range
for the most part, and when I do, it’s a lot cheaper to book space aboard a ferry. Most people don’t realize what kind of an investment a ship is.
Between all the licenses, the fuel, the weapons, regular stores, and the myriad little things they never talk about in the Millennium holos, it’s too
damned much money. I don’t need it, so I don’t have it.
The comm light began to blink as I stood up to stretch my legs. I glanced at my chrono, considered ignoring it. In the end, economics won out and I
sat down. I make a good living, but not so good that I can just pick and choose when I want to work. It’s funny how many things in life can depend
on something so simple as whether to take this call or that one.
My boat’s equipped to handle tridimensional signals as well as bidimensional, so it’s really based on the preference of the person on the other end.
You can usually tell a lot about somebody based on which one they go for; tri-D’s more expensive — not prohibitively so, mind you, but enough
to be noticeable. People who use tri-D as a matter of course are used to having resources and infrastructure as part of the background, things they
never think about. This usually translates to being willing to pay more for my services, but it takes a lot to make the rich people want to deal with
somebody like me in the first place. People who use bi-D are more likely to have a keen appreciation for the value of a credit. They’re usually
much pickier about paying, too.
I recognized the tri-D face that formed on my dashboard as being that of Antonys pul-Matté, the executive director of the Senate Intelligence
Oversight Commission’s staff. Pul-Matté’s one of those Core World public school types, the kind who knows people who know people. He’s
pretty young for such a senior member of the Senate’s bureaucracy, but what he lacks in age he makes up for in arrogance. He’s smart and he’s
competent, but he didn’t rise through the bureaucratic ranks by being smart and competent. He knows people. Nobody gets anywhere in the
Rotunda’s back halls without knowing people.
I don’t like pul-Matté, but there’s no rule that says you have to like a man to take his money. As the SIOC’s executive director, it falls to him to
make arrangements for the Senators’ policies and directives to be implemented. He wouldn’t be caught dead talking to a man like me if he didn’t
have to, so it’s always a pleasure to hear from him. His need translates to my profit.
“Good morning, Detective,” he said. “I trust you’ve fully healed?”
“I’m fine, thank you,” I said. “What can I do for you, Mr. pul-Matté?”
Pul-Matté’s usual social circles are rarely so frank, but he didn’t want to exchange pleasantries with me anymore than I wanted to exchange
pleasantries with him, so it worked out well for both of us. The Commission wanted to retain my services, he explained, which was interesting
enough in and of itself.
“Is this line secure?” he asked unnecessarily. I assured him that it was. It was not a perfunctory question; if there turned out to be a leak at any
time, chances were pretty good that I would be blamed for it, since I had assured him that the line was secure. Good thing it actually was secure,
huh?
“Very well,” he said. “There’s a briefcase gone missing, and the recovery of information being one of your specialties, the Commission wants you
to do precisely that: recover it.”
I told him to send whatever details he could, and I’d take care of it. He didn’t ask if I wanted to know what’s in the briefcase; he knew I didn’t care.
He didn’t ask if I wanted to know how much they’d be willing to pay me; the Senate’s learned not to be stingy when it’s paying for private sector
expertise like mine. The conversation ended.
I considered the situation for a moment. The Senate doesn’t usually tell its staff directors like pul-Matté to hire private investigators like me. In
theory, all the Senate’s investigations are either undertaken by the Government Accounting Office, independent counsels, or No. 1030 Glitannai
Esplanade — that’s the Office of Criminal Investigations, for those of you who aren’t familiar with metonymy. If they’re deliberately hiring
outsiders like me, it’s because they don’t trust the official channels for some reason. Contrary to what Minitrue would have you believe, the
Empire’s government isn’t one Big Happy Family.
Lots of people — even people who should know better — like to think of the Empire as a kind of monolith, probably because that’s the way the
Empire likes to think of itself. After all, look at Correct Thought, the official ideology of the New Order: The Three Pillars are (mirabile dictu)
Unity, Stability, and Conformity. Some people, Party members mostly, really think that that’s what the Empire’s all about. Some parts of it are,
sure. But not all of it.
That’s the point, though, isn’t it? The Empire isn’t a monolith. It’s a big tent containing a whole lot of little booths, not all of which get along with
each other. People like to focus on the big groups, things like the Republicans versus the Monarchists, but even that covers up a lot of details. The
Republicans don’t all see eye to eye; neither do the Monarchists. The Monarchists are about as monolithic as a paranoid schizo with MPD, mixing
paternalists with authoritarians with totalitarians. Practically every other week the Palpatinist-Tarkinists are at the aristos’ throats, with the robber
barons egging both sides on. Only thing worse than a non-believer’s the wrong kind of believer. And just about everyone in the Empire’s loyal to
one of these groups or another, regardless of who he works for.
You find it all over the place. It’s a rare bird that doesn’t serve two masters, and you’ve got to go pretty far up the food chain to find most rare
birds. The Twins of Naboo, for instance, and the Black Twin’s pet sorcerer, the Sith Lord. A couple of the biggest names at court, too, like the
Gray Eminence, the Iron Marquess, Slick Willy Tarkin, maybe a few others. Everybody else? They’ve got their masters to please. Sometimes it’s a
perverse incentive, like when some grayshirt at 1030 Glitannai doesn’t feel like scrutinizing Moff Shmuckatelli’s business dealings too closely, even
though that’s his job. Pure happenstance that Schmuckatelli is helping that grayshirt’s mistress meet her third mortgage, right? It can get downright
nasty, too. Ex-Minister President Koskov was executed after one of his secretaries turned State’s evidence against him back during the Perinelli
scandal. Why? Turns out Koskov hadn’t realized his secretary was a Party member. Oops.
You’ve got True Believers working for cynics, you’ve got sell-outs working for bean-counters — and vice versa. Can’t begin to tell you how many
cases I’ve seen with industrial spies or faction agents inside the halls of the Imperial State or the Dominions, or how many grayshirts I’ve brought
in for ties to Mothmatists, Separatists, or even plain old organized crime. Everybody’s got his masters.
So, the Senators didn’t trust the official channels to obtain the briefcase. Or, perhaps more accurately, they didn’t trust them to obtain the briefcase
and bring it back to the Senators. I’m sure quite a bit of interesting evidence has vanished into 1030 Glitannai’s archives. Still, the Senate’s not the
only group in the galaxy that hears about these things. Chances are pretty good that if the Senate’s got somebody — i.e., me — looking for the
briefcase, there are other people looking for it, too. 1030 Glitannai, no doubt, even if the Senate doesn’t want them to find it first, and the Central
Office, too — no grayshirt in any department or office ever moves a muscle without a whiteshirt wondering what he’s up to. And if the ISB’s got
people on it, then ten’ll get you twenty that the Ubiqtorate’s got better trained people on it, as a matter of principle.
I read through the datapack pul-Matté uploaded to my ’puter. This was going to be a messy one, no doubt about that. I dialed up the ferry’s
number and made arrangements for a trip to Coruscant, then I left for the cabin and consigned myself to the oblivion of sleep. Neat little trick I
picked up back during my days of running around with Old Man Baamonde — this was back before they made him a Moff — , being able to rack
out and catch some Zs whenever I want. It pays off to be well-rested when you can be; you never know when you’ll get the next chance to sleep.
Some people in my line of work don’t like to sleep, because they get bad dreams. I suppose that’s reasonable enough; I’ve been from one end of
this galaxy to the other, and I’ve worked a lot of jobs in my day, and believe me when I tell you I’ve seen some pretty horrible things. I’ve seen
Inquisitors lose their tempers, and I’ve seen Jedi lose their minds. I suppose I can understand better than most how and why some people don’t
like to dream. Me, I don’t have that problem.
I don’t get paid to dream.
This short story was originally published (under the title “Lost and Found: A Study in Noir”) on 23 September 2006 as a post on Mr.
Michael Wong’s StarDestroyer.Net (SD.N) forums. It was republished on 2 February 2007.
Michael Wong’s StarDestroyer.Net (SD.N) forums. It was republished on 2 February 2007.
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