Every now and then, like now, standing in a darkened room and smelling the rot of swamp on the wind, it made him laugh, that he of all people, the street fighter, the soldier, the officer who’d fought his way up from the ranks, and finally the admiral - he of all people, who’d lived through war, who’d lived to see his home planet wiped out by war, who’d lived to get his revenge on the enemies that had destroyed her - he of all people would never win this one last battle. The best medical technology had failed him again and again. His immunity to life-extension was hardwired and deep and irreversible, at least by the science left in the Pinch. The Colonizers, no doubt, had solved that problem as they’d solved so many others, for all the good that would do him. Their solution was lost, along with a lot of solutions to other problems.
Karlo was sixty years old, practically a Not-child still in the eyes of the Palace citizenry. He would die at an age that they would consider still young, for an adult. At times he hated them all.
Behind him he heard a noise or felt perhaps a presence and swung round, to find one of his Garang bodyguards stepping into the office.
‘Sir? I have a message from Cardinal Roha. He wondered if perhaps you waked.’
‘He’s starting to know me well.’
The message lay on an old-fashioned writing tablet, self-contained and thus free from the spy utilities that various people had placed in Government House’s internal Map over the years.
‘Are you still up?’ it read. ‘If so, will you do me the honour of joining me in my suite?’
Roha never would have sent a message like that for a trifle. Karlo was always aware that he needed the support of the Lifegivers if his long-term plans were going to succeed. He glanced at the Garang, standing stiff and straight in his grey uniform.
‘Call him and say just this and only this: the First Citizen agrees. I’ll get dressed, and we’ll go.’
When Karlo arrived, he found the cardinal wrapped in a black dressing gown and sitting in an overstuffed chair in his blue and gold sitting room. He was a tall man, the cardinal, with a sharp, thin face under a very high forehead; curly grey hair clung to the back of his skull. On a small marble table sat a silver tray with fluted glasses and a decanter of pale green liqueur.
‘A drink, First Citizen?’
‘No thanks, Your Eminence.’
Roha poured himself a flute of the poisonous-looking stuff and settled back into his chair.
‘My apologies, my dear sir, for dragging you over here in the middle of the night. There’s no doubt, though, that the middle of the night often seems the safest time-for a chat.’
Karlo allowed himself a smile. He sat down and stretched his long legs out in front of him.
‘Oddly enough,’ Roha went on, ‘I wanted to talk with you about your wife.’
‘Ah.’
Roha stared into the narrow glass and swirled it round, sending a wave of liqueur up the side. The odour of sweet spices wafted like a saccule’s smile.
‘This is very awkward,’ the cardinal said at last. ‘You know that I have the greatest respect for the Second Citizen.’
‘Of course.’
‘But she’s been known to, shall we say, have a long memory for unpleasant matters.’ Karlo laughed.
‘Hold a grudge, you mean? Oh yes. She’ll tell you that herself, Your Eminence. Proudly. She’s a fine hater.’ Roha sighed and sipped from his glass.
‘I’ve been approached by an old friend about giving her young ward a position in the church, perhaps in my own entourage. The girl’s an orphan, but very bright, and she’d do well with the courses of study being a Lifegiver demands. But you know how things are on Palace. She has no real family to speak for her. She’d never be allowed into the order in the normal course of things.’
‘Oh yes, I know.’ Karlo heard his voice tighten. ‘Our best citizens wouldn’t allow it, the bunch of self-important bastards, snobs, all of them, the whole fungi-sucking pack.’
‘Well, er, my dear First Citizen. There are reasons.’
‘Of course. There are always reasons for snobbery, aren’t there? In this case, it’s breeding your offspring like dogs.’
‘My dear First Citizen!’
‘Sorry, Your Eminence. But you can’t imagine how peculiar it seems to someone from off planet, that you people - well - it’s like breeds of dogs, let’s face it. The best genotype for this, that and the other. And if you’re a mutt like me, it’s stay in the alley where you belong.’
Roha winced.
‘Sorry,’ Karlo said again.
‘Perhaps if one put things less adamantly -’ Roha held up a long ringed hand to fend protest. ‘I agree. Things are difficult for those without the right genotypes. Now, if I take the girl under my personal protection and bring her here, we can work around all those difficulties.’
‘Ah.’ Karlo allowed himself a smile. ‘But you’re worried about Vanna’s reaction? Who is it that my charming wife hates? The girl herself? Her foster mother? She’s got so many grudges going that I can’t keep them straight any more, myself.’
Roha attempted to smile at the joke and failed.
‘Let me be honest,’ the cardinal said at last. ‘I’m rather afraid to tell you.’
Karlo considered the problem. If he sheltered one of her enemies, Vanna would be furious. On the other hand, there was no doubt that her constant hatreds and intrigues were undermining his plans. He wanted to consolidate their power over the government, not start a revolution against them. Getting her to make a show of clemency would be a good step.
‘Well, Your Eminence, if you declare that the girl has your personal protection, and I back it up, then she should be safe enough. Vanna likes to keep things legal, you know, and get the laws to do her killing for her.’
Roha winced.
‘Oh my God!’ Karlo snapped. ‘This girl’s not a L’Var, is she?’ Roha answered by turning dead pale.
‘Well, no wonder you’re worried,’ Karlo said. ‘That’s a nice little problem you’ve got on your hands.’
‘Oh yes, oh yes. I’m not going to tell you who or where this child is, by the way.’
‘Good. It’s best I don’t know.’
‘Yes, yes indeed.-But you see the problem. Once she enters the church, she’ll no longer be a L’Var. She’ll have to renounce her name, her worldly goods, her family, all of that, swear the oath, and be ... um ... well, rendered unable to have children. Once she chooses her simple novitiate’s name, as far as the rest of Palace is concerned, the last L’Var will be dead all over again. But will that satisfy the Second Citizen?’
‘Huh. Good question.’
‘There’s the matter of the L’Var holdings, you see. After the executions, the courts confiscated them, and they became government property. However, the standard form of that decree makes some provision for what’s termed "innocent issue", minor children unimplicated in any wrongdoing. I’ve been doing some research tonight, as you can tell. If this girl turns up, a provable L’Var, a mere infant at the time of the trials, all that property will be hers.’
‘For about three days - until the church gets its paws on it.’ Roha pursed his mouth and looked severe.
‘It is traditional, First Citizen, for personal property to be given over to one’s new order when one joins the church.’
‘Oh yes, very traditional. As the last L’Var she must have quite a lot of property to give over.’
‘A good-sized fortune, I’d say. Or rather, the whole of it comes to a fortune. Some of the properties have been tied up in lawsuits ever since the government confiscated the L’Var holdings. There are some collateral cousins - they have absolutely no claim on the family name, of course, because their genotypes are far too deviant. But they may have a right to some of the property.’
‘Ah. I think Vanna did mention that. She’s in court so much that I can’t keep her lawsuits straight, either.’
The cardinal allowed himself a sickly smile.
‘Your wife won’t want to part with her control over the confiscation. As head of the Council, you see, she’s been overseeing the holdings.’
Overseeing. A nice polite word, that, for skimming profits.
‘Well, that makes things dangerous, Your Eminence.’
‘So I feared. I should hate to see this child harmed, First Citizen.’ Roha leaned forward. ‘As your spiritual counsellor, I’ll beg you to never say a word of this to Vanna.’
‘You can rest easy. I’ve got nothing to gain by telling her.’
‘Thank you.’ Roha allowed himself a smile. ‘It’s a pity you’ve nothing to gain by helping this girl.’
‘Yes, I-’ All at once Karlo saw something so obvious yet so brazen that he laughed aloud.
‘Oh, I don’t know about that, Your Eminence. I don’t know about that at all.’
Roha finished the rest of the liqueur in one gulp.
‘Consider this,’ Karlo went on. ‘My son. His marriage. The problems with that marriage. Your good advice on the subject’s been invaluable, of course, but there’s no way around the obstacles. What kind of offers have I been able to arrange? It’s humiliating, seeing these rotten snobs, these dogs and bitches, turn their ugly noses up at my son. Son! As if they wouldn’t have been fried like the swines they are in the war, without my Fleet, my risks, my losses. Sometimes I think I should have stood off and let the rotten Leps bomb this God-forsaken place into oblivion!’
‘First Citizen, please.’
Karlo realized that he had been shouting. He took a long breath and let it out as slowly as he could manage. ‘I’m sorry, Your Eminence.’
‘Well.’ Roha dabbed at his lips with a small lace handkerchief. ‘You have justification, yes.’
‘Damn right I do. Look at what I’ve managed to get for Wan! Look at the terms those mincing le-Yonestillas offered me! And I had to take them, didn’t I? Concessions and all. Damned if I’ll bargain away half a million in mining rights if I don’t have to, not for a little slut like Anja le-Yonestilla. Betrothal contracts have been broken before.’
Roha stared for a long moment, then leaned forward and poured himself another drink.
‘I think,’ Karlo said, ‘that you begin to see what I’m driving at.’
‘Oh yes. But what will Vanna say?’ Karlo shrugged.
‘A lot of words not fit for a churchman’s ears, that’s what. I’d like to bluster and say something like, oh just leave her to me, but I’ve not got this far by being out of touch with reality.’
Roha laughed, lifting his glass with a shaking hand.
‘Don’t worry,’ Karlo went on. ‘I won’t put the girl in the slightest bit of danger. She’s too valuable for me to risk her.’
‘Good, er ah, splendid. Well, I doubt if she had much spiritual vocation anyway. Inducting her into holy orders was merely the best I could do for her.’
‘Just so, yes.’ Karlo rose, still smiling. ‘Well, I think I may be able to offer her something a little different. Not a word of this, Your Eminence, till I’ve spoken with my wife.’
‘Of course, of course. You may rest assured of that.’
It was some hours after sunrise before Karlo got his chance for a private word with Vanna. For breakfast he put on the dress uniform of a Kephalon admiral crossed with an honour sash bearing the glyphs of the city-state of Palace and took an airhopper to a fashionable hotel, where he was addressing a merchant council of some type - Karlo gave so many of these speeches that he could never quite remember the names of all the groups. That was, after all, his factor’s job.
In the vast dining room the gridjockeys swarmed round the edge of the seated guests. Karlo smiled, bowed, stood still for transmit snaps and moved gracefully for holo ops while the pix and the intakes pointed their hands, muttered under their breaths, and bobbed their heads to activate various chips. After a cold, greasy breakfast, Karlo gave a speech on the necessity of interplanetary security for the growth of trade and trotted out his standard slogan,
‘Continuity in government means safety in a changing world’. The assembled guests applauded, but what would really count, of course, was the popular response to the recorded version that would play later over the interactive news. As he was leaving, surrounded by bodyguards, he caught a glimpse of himself on one of the lobby’s vidscreens; in this shot he was opening a new canal - when had that been? Yesterday? Day before? It didn’t really matter, he supposed. He did notice that he looked tired, a little too tired for a man who had to project calm strength and trustworthiness. He’d have to do something about those bags under his eyes.
Back to Government House and his staff, all talking at once as he strode down the long blue hall to his private suite. He handed them all over to Dukayn to sort out and bolted through the door - for the few minutes he could spare for privacy. In a khaki fatigue uniform Vanna sat waiting on the white silk sofa, lounging back with her red and blue hair hanging free over her shoulders. When he sat down next to her, she allowed him to kiss her tattooed cheek.
‘How was the speech?’
‘It seemed to go well. I’m not sure when they’ll broadcast it. It wasn’t a high-priority event.’
Vanna nodded, then spasmed, her head flinging itself back, then forward. She sighed and reached up to lay shaking hands on either side of her face.
‘I’ve got to go for a med treatment soon,’ she said, and her voice sounded far too high.
‘What did you want to see me about?’
‘A little bargain, my love. I’ve been thinking about those data-blocks, the ones I confiscated after the genocide trials. The ones you want to turn over to that Interstellar Guild research team. Remember?’
All attention, Vanna leaned forward.
‘Of course I remember them,’ she said. ‘I thought you would have destroyed them by now.’
‘I probably should have. I don’t know why I didn’t. I’m a good citizen of the Pinch, I guess. Destroying knowledge - even knowledge like this -’ He paused, shaking his head as if he could shake off the pain of remembering. ‘It’s murderous stuff. It murdered an entire planet. It murdered my home.’
Vanna laid a hand on his arm, a comforting sort of warning.
‘Don’t dwell on it,’ she said. ‘That’s not the part we’re even interested in, over at the guild. I don’t have one goddamn scruple about wiping every piece of data about that plague off the blocks.
I’d do it myself if I knew how. It’s the other files we want, the Lep research into the human genome. Ri Paha Tura was a monster, but she was a brilliant one. All the minds on her team were.’