Authors: Walter Jon Williams
What would Fu George do with the pearl? Kuusinen wondered. Keep it in his room, or on his body?
A Cygnus Advanced Object, its black carapace reflecting each overhead spotlight as it glided down the hallway, lowered a covered tray before Fu George’s door, politely knocked with its force fields, then moved on down the hall. Kuusinen ducked down his side corridor and sensed, rather than saw, the robot cross the corridor behind him. He heard Fu George’s door open, then close.
Kuusinen hesitated, tapping his cane on the carpet. The robot had gone into a dead-end corridor, and he wondered why. Then he turned and retraced his steps.
He couldn’t help himself. He was in the grip of a compulsion.
Paavo Kuusinen was the sort of man who was nagged at by irregularities. It wasn’t that he disapproved of them, precisely: he didn’t care whether or not things were irregular; he just wanted to know why. In this regard he was unlike, for example, Mr. Sun, who would in the same circumstances have done his best to make things regular again. But making discoveries was a compulsion for Kuusinen. Sometimes his compulsion aided him in his work; sometimes—as now— it was purely an interference.
He looked around the corner. An access panel was open in the wall of the dead-end corridor. The robot had obviously gone inside on some errand. Perhaps the access tunnel connected to another corridor somewhere.
Mystery solved. Kuusinen shrugged and began walking toward his own room. It was time to change for dinner.
It wasn’t until he saw three uniformed security guards rushing up the corridor, each with hand on gun, that Kuusinen began to wonder.
Robot, he thought. Guards. Secret doors in the walls. Fu George and a covered tray.
Kuusinen sighed. He was beginning to get that nagging feeling again.
*
The soft sounds of a Snail concerto hung suspended from soft aural bands, filling the room. Another yellow light blinked on one of Gregor’s boxes. He smirked. “Another Advanced Object in the walls,” he said. This was the third light blinking on the box, the third in a row of twelve.
Roman was lacing Maijstral into a pair of trousers. The trousers were soft black; the laces were yellow. Roman’s fingers moved deftly.
“I spoke briefly with Dolfuss,” Maijstral said. He spoke Khosali Standard. “He's enjoying himself.”
“I spent the voyage with him, in second class,” Roman said, “and he never broke character once.”
“I only hope no one recognizes him.”
“It’s been years since
Fin de Siecle.
He was a young man then; he's changed a great deal since. And the play toured only in the Empire.”
“Until it was banned.” Gregor, still bent over his equipment, spoke without looking up.
“Dolfuss shouldn’t have been quite so ambiguous about the Emperor Principle. If the Empire had won the Rebellion the play might have been taken as constructive social criticism. But the Empire was touchy about the defeat, and the play merely rubbed salt in the wound.” Maijstral stretched a leg, tried a tentative dance step. “A little tight over the left hip, Roman,” he said.
“Yes, sir.” Roman began to rethread.
“Dolfuss has learned to make his points more subtly since, but still no one performs his work. A pity. I think this venture will enable him to mount his own production.'
Maijstral looked up at the holographic waterfall. The liquid was unwaterlike, a quicksilver thing, falling like a slow, magic fantasy. “I wonder what Fu George is planning,” he said.
Gregor, still wearing his goggles, seemed a particularly disreputable insect as he looked up. “He'll
have
to go for the Shard, won’t he?” he said. “I mean, Ralph Adverse
died
for it years ago, and so did Sinn Junior, and that made it priceless. Fu George’s name would live forever if he got it. And no one's stolen it for forty years..”
“And survived,” said Roman.
Maijstral watched insubstantial liquid tumbling over an insubstantial rim. “If it were me, I'd try for it,” he said.
Gregor grinned. “It
is
you, boss.”
Maijstral’s head tilted as he considered this. The waterfall spilled in slow accompaniment to the Snail. “So it is,” he decided. He tested his trousers again. “Good. Thank you, Roman.”
Roman brought a jacket out. Maijstral put his arms in it. Roman began working with laces again.
Maijstral reached into the jacket pocket, took out a deck of cards with his right hand. He fanned them one-handed. The deuce of crowns jumped from the fan to his left hand. Then the throne of bells. Duchess of hearts.
“Vanessa Runciter is here,” he said.
“So I understand, sir.”
“It’s a small world.”
“Could you raise your left arm, please? I’m having trouble fitting the holster.”
Maijstral lifted his arm. Cards spilled upward from right hand to left, defying gravity.
“I wonder,” he said, “if Zoot's jacket would be worth a try?”
“I think not, sir. Our own darksuits are doubtless more advanced.”
Maijstral sighed. “I suppose you're right. He'll probably be wearing it, anyway.”
Another display lit on Gregor’s machine. Two blinked off. “Two burrowers,” he reported, “still in their holes.”
*
“It was
awful.
Pearl. Just awful.”
Pearl Woman gazed at a rotating hologram of herself. She had one of Advert's cloche hats pulled down over her ears, and the effect was hideous. She pulled the hat off and snarled.
“She asked me about the Diadem.” Advert rattling on. “I don’t know what I said. I just babbled on. I know I’m going to embarrass everyone.”
“I’ll have to plead illness for tonight,” Pearl Woman said. “It’s going to cause comment, but I’ll have to do it.”
“She asked me about your duel with Etienne. I didn’t even
know
you then. But I did say I thought his eyeglass looked silly. And that the Diadem already had a duel that year, and that his timing lacked finesse.” Advert laughed. “And
then
I
said that Nichole's new play was unsuitable for her, that a Diadem role should have more grandeur. So maybe Asperson will quote me there. That would be lucky.”
“I’ll need you to go to the jewelry shops on Red Level,” Pearl Woman said. “Find a substitute stone. It might fool them for a while. If I’m cornered, I can say the real one has been hidden, so it won’t be stolen.” She pounded a fist into her palm. “But then it would seem as if I were
afraid
of them.”
“But I know I said something embarrassing about Rip and his friend—what's her name? Something about the way she laughs all the time.”
“Are you listening, Advert?”
“Oh. Yes. I’m sorry. What did you want?”
Pearl Woman's eyes narrowed. “You should learn not to ask that sort of question, Advert. The answer might not be to your taste.”
*
Another light glowed on Mr. Sun's console. Sun's nerves tautened. His blue heaven was beginning to smell of sweat and annoyance.
Sun touched an ideogram. “My lord,” he said.
“Mr. Sun.” Baron Silverside's anger translated very well to hologram. He was a compact, broad-shouldered man, a former amateur wrestler. Burnsides flared on either side of his face, a pale brown halo. One hand was visible, stroking the whiskers.
“What,” the Baron demanded, “is the meaning of all these alerts? Have your people gone mad?”
Sun feigned surprise. “Sir?” he asked.
“They are running about the halls carrying guns while my guests are walking to dinner. I have been receiving complaints.”
Both hands were stroking the whiskers now. Sun calmed his nerves. He was still the spider in its lair, ready to pounce. There had been a few problems: nothing he could not deal with.
“Beg pardon, your lordship,” Sun said. “We seem to have been receiving false alarms from the utility tunnels.”
“You assured me,” the Baron said, “the security system was infallible. And that your guards would be inconspicuous.”
Sun could feel sweat prickling his forehead. “Sir,” he said. “Begging your pardon, but I said
almost . .
.”
The Baron froze him with a look. He was twisting little lovelocks around his forefingers. “Sun,” he said, “I will have no more of this. You have caught no burglars, and you have terrified my guests.”
“My people are eager, of course,” Sun said. “We have been drilling for a very long time. But I shall order them to be more . . . relaxed.”
“Kyoko Asperson is here, Sun,” the Baron said. “She would dearly love to report that I have a fool for head of security.” His eyes turned to fire.
“Do not give her that opportunity, Sun.”
“Yes, my lord.”
“That's all.”
“Yes, my lord.”
The ideogram for “May I be of assistance?” replaced the Baron's features. Sun snarled and told his console to turn it off.
Another alarm cried out. Sun's finger hovered over the ideogram for “general announcement,” hesitated, then stabbed down.
“Another alarm,” he said. “Watsons, let’s
walk
to this one, shall we?”
*
“Ah. Zoot. We were wondering if you were indisposed.”
“Marquess. Marchioness.”
The Marchioness Kotani was a young, dark-haired woman with wide, tilted eyes, a full, pouting lower lip, and a distinctive expression that was quite sullen yet in some inexpressible way attractive. Before her marriage, she'd been Lady Janetha Gorman, the daughter of an old and quite penniless Imperialist family; she had earned a living as a model and made periodic, if unsuccessful, forays into acting. Now that she was married, she had given up both modeling and acting. Even Kotani knew better than to use her in one of his plays.
“I expected to see you in your jacket,” she said as she sniffed Zoot's ears. A choker of matched glowstones shone at her throat.
“Not for dinner, I think,” Zoot said. He smiled, tongue lolling from his muzzle.
“One would have thought the Diadem would have insisted,” said the Marchioness.
“There are still a few things,” Zoot said stiffly, “in which I have a say.”
“Bravo, Zoot,” said the Marquess. His foot tapped the white carpet in brief applause. “Don’t let 'em push you around. I speak from experience.”
“I’m still disappointed,” the Marchioness said. “You shall have to model the jacket for me.”
Zoot inclined his head. “I should be most happy, milady.”
Kotani cocked an eye in the direction of one of the entrances. “Here is Fu George. Take care with that necklace, my dear. I should hate to have to shoot the man over it. And I'd hate even more to have him shoot
me.”
Geoff Fu George gave everyone a bow, sniffs, two fingers. From Kotani and Zoot he received one finger apiece; from the Marchioness, three.
“My compliments, my lady,” he said, concealing his surprise. “The glowstones suit your eyes perfectly.”
“Thank you, sir. The compliment means all the more coming from someone of your undoubted expertise.”
“Perhaps, sir,” said Zoot, “you might enlighten us as to the alarms that seem to have sent the security people into an uproar.”
Fu George’s ears twitched in bafflement. “I am as surprised as you are, sir,” he said. “It’s nothing to do with me. Ah,” he said, addressing a Cygnus. “Bring me a cold rink, please.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Possibly It’s Maijstral tripping a few alarms,” Fu George said. His voice turned dubious. “But even
he's
not quite
that
clumsy, surely.” He smiled at the Marchioness.
*
“D'you know there's a Drawmiikh onstation?” Kotani said. “A Drawmii lord, no less.”
“I believe,” Zoot said, “that any Drawmii sufficiently adventurous to leave its planet of origin and participate in the life of the Empire is almost always ennobled. It’s a way of encouraging the others.”
Kotani smiled. “Unsuccessful, I suppose.”
“I believe so, Marquess. There are only a handful at any time.”
The Marchioness turned her bored eyes on Zoot. “I wonder if we'll see the creature at dinner.”
“I hope not, dearest,” said Kotani. “It created quite a sensation in the Casino a few hours ago. Its lordship was quite noisy and, I am given to understand, it stank.”
“The Drawmii have a very distinctive odor, or so I’m told,” Zoot said. “I gather it takes getting used to.”
“Media alert,” Kotani said, seeing a pointed cap surrounded by floating silver balls. “I’ve been through it already; I beg your leave. Dearest,” offering his arm.
“Milord.”
Kyoko Asperson had changed for dinner: she wore baggy yellow trousers, a white shirt, a scarlet jacket, soft boots with gold tassels. If she weren’t so short she could have been used as a beacon.
“Zoot. Mr. Fu George.” Zoot, who like all Khosali had a very rigid spine, had to bend an uncomfortable distance to sniff her ears.
“I reckoned you would be wearing your jacket.”
Zoot's diaphragm pounded in annoyance. How often was he going to have to go through this? “Madam,” he said, “surely not for dinner.”
“Meals, in some restaurants,” said Fu George, “may be considered unexplored territory. In that case, Zoot's jacket would be perfectly appropriate.”
Media globes rotated, pointed in Fu George’s direction. “I wonder,” Kyoko said, “if you were surprised to hear that Drake Maijstral would be here?”
Geoff Fu George smiled. “I don’t believe I’ve given it much thought.”
“You're both in the first rank of your profession.”
Fu George’s head tipped; his eyes sparkled. The message was clear, though unvoiced:
If you say so.
“Do you anticipate a duel between the two of you?”
A laugh. “We are speaking of a metaphorical duel, I take it?”
“Whatever kind of duel you like.”
The famous Fu George smile became a little forced. “I am here only for the view, and to see my friends. What Maijstral’s plans may be, I cannot say.”
“So you concede any contest to Maijstral.”
The smile was back, and genuine. “My dear Miss As-person,” he said, “I concede nothing at all.” He sniffed her. “Your servant.”
Reasonably pleased with himself, Fu George moved away. A man in a green coat approached him. The man had a hand over one eye, and was blinking furiously with the other.