Authors: Walter Jon Williams
“Air’s getting ready to cycle out,” Pearl Woman said. “Turn on your fields.”
For the first time Zoot noticed that the Pearl and Khamiss were both dressed in one-piece garments, Pearl Woman with her swords belted on over her clothes. The two intruders blurred slightly as they turned on the force fields that would capture and preserve the air around them.
Zoot had built a similar field into his jacket, mainly to aid in river crossings or diving into predator-filled waters. With a push of his mind, he turned it on.
He was long past the point of trying to figure things out. He’d follow the others and hope, eventually, everything made sense.
He was too confused to feel relief.
*
“Good work, Kuusinen. I am in your debt.”
“All in a day’s work, your grace.” The door to Roberta’s suite swung open. She stepped in and glanced in surprise at her telephone. “Look at all the emergency lights,” she said. “I wonder what’s going on
now?”
*
“A common thief,” Fu George said. “I’m surprised at you, Miss Asperson.”
Kyoko reached into a pocket. “Hardly common,” she said. “Here's my burglar's ticket. Read it and weep.”
Fu George looked at it, then handed it to Maijstral, who saw that it had been issued three years before to a Michi K. Asperson by the Imperial Sporting Commission representative on Khovenburg. He handed the ticket back and turned to Fu George.
“Do you recall this name on the listings?” he asked.
“I’m ranked third from the bottom.” Kyoko smiled. “Most of my jobs haven’t received any publicity.”
“I see,” Fu George said. “You were going to release all the recordings to the Commission at once, then leap to the top of the ratings all in one go.”
“Something like that. I figured that would be worth a lot of style points.”
“And in the meantime you would be able to use your job as interviewer to get close to people and plan your jobs. Very neat, Miss Asperson. I congratulate you.” Fu George had, while speaking, reached into the hiding place, removed bundles and boxes, and begun to sort through them.
“I don’t have the advantage of gentle birth,” Kyoko said. “I’ve got to make up for it somehow.”
“Wait a moment,” said Fu George. He looked up in surprise. “These are mine!” He brandished a handful the Waltz twins’ jewels. “When did you take these?”
Kyoko shrugged modestly. “About an hour ago.”
“While I was in Maijstral’s blind, being held at gun point.”
She looked from Fu George to Maijstral, rising delight on her round face. “At gunpoint? Really?”
“At gunpoint,” Maijstral said, narrowing his eyes over his pistol’s sights. “Really.” This woman, he realized, had almost got him killed. He stepped closer to her and, manfully resisting the impulse to strangle her, delicately moved the Eltdown Shard from her neck. She watched with regret as the Shard dropped into Maijstral’s darksuit pocket. Regret changed to indignation as Maijstral’s hand moved to one of her boxes, snagged Madame la Riviere's diamond necklace, and dropped it into the same pocket.
“Hey, that one’s mine! I didn’t take it from either of you!”
Maijstral smiled delicately and opened another box. Emerald brilliants dangled from his fingers, then disappeared into the cargo compartment built into the darksuIt’s back. “You may object if you wish, Miss Asperson,” he said. “You can even call for help if that is your preference. But if you summon the authorities, you will doubtless be apprehended for theft of the Shard and for what also appear to be numerous other items discovered missing in the last day or so, including personal property belonging to Mr. Fu George and myself. Fu George and I, of course, have the recordings that prove that the items were stolen, legally, by us, and are now our property.” Dusky pearls glowed magically in air as Maijstral tossed a necklace to Roman, who caught it deftly and stowed it in a pocket.
Kyoko sighed. “Easy come, easy go,” she said.
“Besides, Miss Asperson,” Fu George said cheerfully, “Maijstral and I can steal from you if we feel like it. It’s what we do for a living.” Lady Tvax’s glowstone bracelets disappeared into a pocket. He frowned at Kyoko. “Not only that, you’ve been going about asking provocative questions about our duel, as you put it, and I don’t care for that. Theft is one thing, provoking antagonism quite another.” He stripped the cover from an elastic box and tipped it to show the contents to Maijstral. “Quite a lot here, wouldn’t you say?”
Kyoko gave a laugh. “I robbed the hotel safe.” Smugly. “It was easy once I sabotaged the central security console during an interview.”
“My congratulations. I’m sure Maijstral and I are duly grateful.” Fu George handed the box to Drexler.
“Careful, Fu George,” Maijstral said. “We should divide this evenly.”
Fu George gave Maijstral a look. “You owe me one, I believe. For last night.”
“Ah. How discourteous of me to forget. My apologies.”
“Think nothing of it, old man.”
Kyoko’s hoard gradually resolved itself into two piles. Maijstral’s was the larger, mainly because of the considerable bulk of the Baroness Silverside's art collection. Pockets bulged with small items of sculpture and jewelry. “Gregor,” Maijstral said. “Ask the station to send us a large robot. We'll take my collection to our room.”
“I saw a cargobot around the corner. I’ll do a snap-off on it.”
“Very well.”
Fu George holstered his weapon. “I believe Drexler and I will take our leave. It was clever of you to have worked out what happened.”
Maijstral gave him a careless smile. “It was easy,” lying cheerfully, “once I realized the significance of the media globes.”
“Still, a very impressive piece of deduction.”
“Thank you, Fu George.”
Fu George raised a hand to pat his famous hair into place. “As far as our encounter goes, Maijstral ...”
“Yes?” Glee danced wickedly in Maijstral’s heart.
“Do you think at this point a meeting is strictly necessary?”
Maijstral stroked his chin and feigned consideration. “I shouldn’t think so,” he said, putting a touch of reluctance into his voice. “I’ll speak to the Duchess and ask her not to see Kotani after all.”
“Very well.” Fu George grinned whitely. “Your servant, Maijstral.”
“Yours.”
Fu George and Drexler made their congé and departed. Maijstral waited by his pile, his gun still trained deliberately on Kyoko Asperson—he wasn’t about to be caught again. Kyoko, he observed, seemed a bit depressed.
“Don’t be too cast down, Miss Asperson,” Maijstral said. “You'll still get quite a few style points out of this adventure.”
“I suppose I shall.”
“I imagine your recordings will go for a very high price. Of course, the Silverside material will have to be spliced with mine and Fu George’s to make any sense, but I suppose we'll all three get a sizeable advance, considering the, ah, sensational nature of the material.”
“Got the bot, boss.” Gregor sailed into sight standing on the platform of a transport robot. The robot came to a stop and Gregor stepped off. “Robot,” he instructed, “put this pile on board. Be gentle, since some of it’s fragile.”
“Yes, sir.” Invisible tractors and repellers began lifting the precious objects and placing them on the robot’s bed. Gregor stood by, his fingers tapping a hesitant rhythm on the robot’s skull.
“Boss,” he said. “I'd like to make it clear that I didn’t have anything to do with this.”
Maijstral looked at him in surprise, then remembered himself and returned his attention to Kyoko and his firearm. “I never thought you had, Gregor,” he said.
“See, Miss Asperson and I have got sort of involved. But I never told her anything about our jobs.”
Maijstral concealed his surprise.
“That's true, Maijstral.” Kyoko’s face was earnest. “He never told me anything, though I did try to worm a
little
information out of him. I got most of my information by following you around with micromedia globes. I was careful, and you didn’t detect them.”
“Ah.” Maijstral contemplated Kyoko’s round face over his gunsight and, mentally, squeezed his trigger repeatedly. “A word of advice, Gregor,” he said. “Never get involved with the media.”
“Right, boss. I’ll keep that in mind.”
The robot loaded the last of the loot. “Robot,” Maijstral ordered, “take these to the elevator. At walking speed.”
“Yes, sir.”
Maijstral and Roman walked backward down the corridor after the robot, their guns still drawn in hopes of discouraging Kyoko from an act of desperation. They rounded a corner and slowly headed for the nearest elevator.
“Well done, sir,” Roman said.
“Thank you, Roman.”
“Should I holster my gun?”
“Let's get in the elevator first.” They continued their slow walk, arrived at a bank of three elevators, and stopped before the middle one. Doors opened before Gregor could touch the ideogram.
“Hello,” Gregor said, surprised. “Good afternoon, your grace. Mr. Kuusinen.”
Maijstral, still walking backward, snapped on his detectors. The pickups in the rear of his darksuit gave him a clear image of Roberta and Kuusinen, who had just appeared as the leftmost elevator opened. Both appeared a bit breathless.
“Your grace,” Maijstral said.
“The emergency's turned very serious,” Roberta said. “I’ll need the Shard.”
“Certainly.” He plucked it from his pocket and held it out to her. She took it.
The doors of the elevator on the far right opened. “Have you seen Fu George?” Roberta asked.
Maijstral smiled. “Taken care of.”
“A-
ha!
” Maijstral turned in surprise at the sound of Vanessa Runciter's voice. She and Chalice had just leaped from the elevator, guns in their hands. Vanessa’s mapper was pointed at Maijstral. Her face was torn by loathing.
“Assassin,” she said. “I’ll take care of
you.”
And then, as Maijstral gaped at her in astonishment, she pulled the trigger.
*
The giant
Viscount Cheng
floated above, over the asteroid’s close horizon. Khamiss’s flesh prickled at the sight: three of them were going up against
that?
Followed by Pearl Woman and Zoot, she took cover behind a landing cradle and paused to consider the situation. The others clustered next to her, merging their force fields and creating a common atmosphere in which they could all speak.
“Zoot,” she asked, “will your jacket hide you from detectors?”
“I’m afraid not. There isn’t much call for that on unexplored planets. But I’ve got simple darksuit projectors, to confuse native predators.”
Khamiss glanced at the vast liner once again and reminded herself that there was only one Drawmiikh aboard: even with five eyes he couldn’t be watching everything. She pulsed a series of minor commands to her suit and found that it obeyed her with surprising speed and ease. It was easier to be a first-rank burglar than she'd thought.
“I’ll try to provide a screen for all of us,” she said. “Zoot, if you'll put your arms around my waist from behind, and Pearl Woman in turn holds onto you, I think we'll present a smaller profile.”
“Very well.”
Zoot maneuvered himself behind her, locking arms around her waist. His furry chin settled on her shoulder. The contact reassured her; she experienced a wave of thankfulness that she wasn’t alone in this. Holographic camouflage appeared around them and they began moving.
Rathbon’s Star rose blazing above the rock’s horizon. Red light dazzled Khamiss’s eyes.
Cheng
was getting larger and larger. Her darksuit informed her that the ship's scanners were active; but the suit also countered the scans automatically. The admiration Khamiss felt for the suit’s builder increased. Her confidence grew. So did the
Viscount Cheng.
Khamiss’s half-blinded eyes perceived a dorsal airlock and she headed for it. As the ship grew nearer, her suit began to signal her, little abstruse symbols and numbers appearing in the visual centers of her brain. She tried to puzzle them out, but couldn’t. The signals continued. An urgent audio tone made her jump. Rathbon's Star dazzled her vision.
“We’re getting close,” Zoot said, his tone a bit worried; and Khamiss’s awareness rose from the darksuit’s signals to observe the
Cheng
was very near indeed. Its size had confused her as to distance. She slammed on the repellers, but too late.
Khamiss went face first into the
Cheng's
hull next to the airlock. There was another impact as Zoot slammed into her from behind, then a third as Pearl Woman entered the crush.
The repellers now reversed, the accordion rebounded, sailing backward into space. Cymbals crashed in Khamiss’s skull. She tried to head for the airlock again, but symbols were still pulsing in her mind and she wasn’t entirely used to the suit yet. The audio tone blatted in her aural centers, distracting her. The
Cheng
came up very fast.
Khamiss hit muzzle first again. Zoot knocked the wind out of her; Pearl Woman bent some ribs. The three bounded back.
Her mind thoroughly awash by now, Khamiss got one mental command confused with another and piled on the speed. The urgent audio tone startled her and she didn’t notice the
Cheng
coming up until she went into it nose first.
Zoot slammed into her again; Pearl Woman brought up the rear. The three rebounded once more.
“That was fun,” Pearl Woman gasped. “Shall we do it again?”
“Madam, allow me,” said Zoot, a bit breathless. Gratitude filled Khamiss’s reeling brain as Zoot, using his own repellers, guided all three precisely to the airlock. Khamiss dabbed with her cuff at her bleeding nose.
“Sorry,” she mumbled.
“How do we get in, precisely?” Pearl Woman said. “If we open the airlock, Qlp’s going to see it on the control panel.”
“I can get us in,” Khamiss said, denasal. Her head was still spinning. “This suit has everything necessary to cut out the alarms. Just give me a moment.”
Gradually Khamiss’s spinning mind stabilized. The symbols and audio she'd been receiving, she realized dully, were meant to inform her of the swift approach of something solid.
“Live and learn,” she muttered.
Pearl Woman looked at her. “Can we save the maxims for later?”