Authors: Walter Jon Williams
Hunac kept bouncing up and down. Somewhere in his mind Maijstral registered the fact that he had never before seen anyone who was literally hopping mad.
“I’ll cut you to pieces!” Hunac said, and punched Maijstral’s chest again.
Everyone
, Maijstral was reminded, was trying to kill him. Or marry him. Or maybe both. There didn’t need to be a reason, it was just this
thing
everyone had agreed to do at some secret meeting to which Maijstral had not been invited.
“You’ll have to stand in line,” Maijstral said. He picked Prince Hunac up bodily arid moved him out of the way, and then began his weary trek to Nichole’s quarters.
It was safer than anywhere else he could think of.
*
Nichole’s household, of which Maijstral’s soon became a subset, moved within the hour to an exclusive resort hotel outside Havana. Diadem security, appalled at their precious human commodity becoming involved in a firefight in a presumably secure place like the Underwater Palace, had called in the reserves, and soon squads of large, grim humans and even larger, grimmer Khosali were patrolling the corridors, the roof, and the public areas doing the things that security people normally do—talking into their sleeves, patting the hidden pockets that concealed their weaponry, and scrutinizing hapless tourists who were left to conclude, from their somber and ominous appearance, that there was some kind of international crime convention in town.
Maijstral, once he’d showered off the foam and changed into a dressing gown, merely lay on the bed in the darkness of his room and stared at the ceiling. He’d slammed down three brandies, but never felt less drunk in his life. Adrenaline had burned off the alcohol the second it reached his system.
He was, he realized, doomed. Three challenges in three days, and all for things he hadn’t done, and there was no earthly reason why the challenges should stop now.
The stranger, of course, had got clean away. Summoned a waiting flier once the submarine surfaced, and was last tracked over the mainland, flying low to avoid detection.
Maijstral had, eventually, found out why Prince Hunac was mad at him. One of Prince Hunac’s priceless prehistoric steles had been found-under Maijstral’s bed. The intruder had planted it there, clearly, just before Maijstral arrived and began shooting. Maijstral had encountered the perpetrator making an exit, not as he’d assumed, during the break-in itself.
Prince Hunac, whose reasoning faculties had not been at their best following his consumption of whatever was in his ritual beverage, had assumed that Maijstral and the stranger were partners, that something had gone wrong with their plan, and that Maijstral and the stranger had been attempting their getaways when their submarines collided.
There were any number of problems with Prince Hunac’s theory, but he wasn’t in any condition to make a more logical construction, and Colonel-General Vandergilt, happy with seeing Maijstral again in trouble with one of his hosts, had not been inclined to change the Prince’s mind.
Three challenges, Maijstral thought despairingly, in three days.
He was the Hereditary Prince-Bishop of Nana! he protested. How
dare
these people challenge a man of the cloth!
He tried vainly to visualize a strategy that could get him out of at least some of the fights. But every thought was interrupted by the chilling image of Joseph Bob raising the bladed end of a dire staff for the coup de grace.
The dire staff. He was going to have to do something about that.
He sprang from the bed, ready to don his darksuit and head for his burglar equipment, but at that moment the phone chimed. He went to the service plate and touched the ideogram for “phone,” then another for “image.”
“Hello, Drake.” The Duchess looked at him with level violet eyes. “I hope I’m not interrupting your rest.”
“I wasn’t sleeping.”
She didn’t seem surprised. “I had a hard time finding where you were. And then I encountered some functionary who didn’t want to forward the call.”
“I’m hiding out. Nichole has much better security than I do, and—well—it seemed the best thing to make use of it.” He stepped toward the bed and sat on it so as to make it clear to Roberta that if he was not-sleeping tonight, he was not-sleeping alone.
It wasn’t that he was immune to the thought of Nichole’s comfort, but he had never felt less erotic than he did right now. Plus, he needed to be alone in order to skulk.
“I’m sorry if I neglected to communicate with you,” he said. “My life has been . . . overwhelming . . . of late.”
“So Kuusinen told me. It’s obvious that you are the victim of a conspiracy.”
He forced a haunted smile. “I would like to think so. If these are all random occurrences, then the universe is far more erratic than I’d ever suspected.”
Roberta showed no sign of amusement. “Kuusinen said that you suspected the Bubber.”
“Yes.”
She gave a little shake of her head. “I don’t think your theory holds water. He can’t be responsible for what happened at the Underwater Palace.”
He can if I
say
he is, Maijstral thought, but there was top much sense in what Roberta had just said.
Roberta’s look softened. “Besides,” she said, “he’s been working constantly to prevent the duel. I’ve seen him try, but Joseph Bob won’t see reason. Will’s terrified that his brother will be hurt.”
“A good sociopath would be able to imitate those emotions quite well,” Maijstral pointed out.
The Duchess looked doubtful. “If you say so,” she said.
“I’m open to any other theories,” Maijstral said.
She bit her lip. “I don’t have one. And we’ve only got a few hours.”
“Yes.”
Doomed
, Maijstral thought. The word, rolling about in his brain, had a certain orotund majesty, like a tolling bell.
Doomed, doomed, doomed
.
Roberta cleared her throat. Her eyes were shiny and she was blinking hard. She tried to make her tone businesslike. “I’ve arranged for a medical team to be present. There will be media globes recording the event to show that it will be fair. Kuusinen said that you accepted his offer to practice with the staffs, but that there wasn’t an opportunity.”
Roberta’s tears were beginning to have their effect upon Maijstral. His own eyes stung. He wanted to sit in the dark and have a good long cry.
“I’ll pick you up half an hour before, sunrise,” Roberta said.
“I will look forward to seeing you,” he said.
For the last time
, his inner voice added.
They both rang off before the call got too soppy. Maijstral dried his eyes and got his darksuit from the closet. He put it on and felt better at once.
He’d fixed one duel, he thought, and by the Active Virtues he’d fix a hundred if he had to.
*
The Bubber frowned into the phone pickups that were transmitting his image to Joseph Bob. “I think Maijstral has a good case,” he said.
“For stealing from me?” Joseph Bob asked. The Prince was in the act of practicing with his weapon. Light glinted off the wicked blades of the dire staff as he advanced, whirling the staff before him.
“Maijstral’s got two more challenges in the last two days.”
Joseph Bob halted, frowned, grounded his weapon. “They’re not going to fight him first, are they?”
“No. Of course not.”
“So what’s the problem?”
“It bolsters Maijstral’s case that there’s some murderous conspiracy involved.”
Joseph Bob hoisted his weapon again. “Well,
I’m
not a conspirator,” he said.
“Of course not. But if it were, to turn out that you were the
dupe
of a conspirator, it wouldn’t look good for us.”
Joseph Bob thought about this for a moment, twirling the staff idly.
“I’m just looking out for our interests, J.B.,” the Bubber added.
Joseph Bob nodded. “You’ve a point there,” he conceded. “But it also doesn’t look good if I let people steal from me.” He gave another brisk nod as he came to a decision. “Tell you what—if it turns out there’s a conspiracy involved, I’ll challenge the conspirators, too, for daring to use me in their plans.” He gave a boyish grin. “
That’ll
take care of it.”
Still grinning, he lunged with the weapon, meanwhile giving out the paralyzing Yell of Hate recommended by the best combat instructors.
The Bubber sighed, “Well,” he said. “If you’re
sure
.”
“Of
course
I’m sure,” Joseph Bob said, falling briefly on guard, and then he attacked again. “
Yaaaaaah!
” he shouted.
The Bubber terminated the call and walked into the other room where Her Grace of Benn waited. In order to have neutral territory in which to conduct negotiations, they had rented a room in Key West, and the place suffered from an overindulgence in the rustic and picturesque: woven palm frond lampshades, fishnets drooping from the ceiling, an ashtray made to resemble a starfish.
“Didn’t work, I’m afraid,” the Bubber said.
Roberta made a face. “It was worth a try.”
“It was a good argument.
I
would have been convinced. But J.B. is having too good a time to really pay attention to quibbles.” He sat next to Roberta and patted pockets for his cigaret case. “He’s enjoying this belated discovery of martial ardor far too much,” he said glumly. “It’s being brought up in a house full of weapons, I suppose, and early exposure to all the stories about our ancestors’ prowess . . . the warrior spirit was bound to break out sooner or later. I’m just sorry it’s wrecking your engagement.”
“If it
is
an engagement,” Roberta said, equally morose. The Bubber produced his cigaret case and then looked at it for a moment as if he couldn’t remember why he’d been searching for it.
“Could I have one of those?” Roberta asked. “It’s bad for training, but occasionally one has cravings.”
He handed her a cigaret and began a search through pockets for his lighter, but Roberta found hers first. They puffed in somber silence for a moment.
“He’s run off to Nichole,” she remarked. “I suppose there’s nothing in it—she’s an old friend and everything—but I’d much rather he’d run off to
me
.”
The Bubber did his best to be helpful. “Well, he couldn’t, could he? I’ve been taking up all your time.”
Roberta rose from her cane chair. “There’s nothing left to arrange, is there?” she said, and walked toward the door. “I might as well try to get a few hours’ sleep.”
“You think you can sleep?” the Bubber asked in surprise. “I know I won’t catch so much as a wink.”
She hesitated by the door. “Well,” she said: “I suppose you’re right.”
“There’s an all-night bistro down the street,” the Bubber said; “Perhaps we could have some coffee and a pastry.”
“Oh.” Roberta tilted her head and considered. “I suppose I might as well join you,” she said. “The coffee will be welcome, but I don’t think I could eat anything.”
The Bubber flicked ashes into the starfish ashtray and rose, then hesitated on his way to the door. “I say,” he said. “Would you mind if I asked you a question?”
“Go ahead.”
“I haven’t—er—bungled this horribly, have I? I haven’t got my brother killed without realizing it?”
Roberta smiled and patted his arm. “You’ve done very well,” she said.
“Oh.” A surprised look crossed the Bubber’s face. “Well. That’s all right, then.”
*
Maijstral left the hotel after telling the security people he needed some time alone, and flew off with the impression they were happy to see the back of him. Once, in Tejas, he scouted the perimeter of Joseph Bob’s estate, then left the car, activated his darksuit, and flew on silent repellers to the Prince’s huge manor house.
His plan was simple. He’d sabotage the stunner on the one end of Joseph Bob’s dire staff so that it wouldn’t work at all, and then take care of the bladed end through the use of a resonance ring, a clever bit of burglar’s paraphernalia intended for use on barred windows. The ring would snap around the bar in question, then find the frequency of the metal. A resonance effect would be set up that would shatter the crystalline bonds holding together the metal’s molecules. The metal would weaken, then come apart.
Maijstral planned merely to weaken Joseph Bob’s staff near its bladed head. Then, first thing in the fight, he’d take a swipe at the blades, and the thing would come off.
Everyone, he hopefully presumed, would believe that the old weapon suffered from metal fatigue, or perhaps just conclude that Maijstral was a far stronger warrior than he looked.
After disabling Joseph Bob’s weapon, Maijstral would keep hitting away until he’d either won or the seconds put an end to it. Either way, honor was satisfied, and he would decline any challenge to a second encounter.
Maijstral broke into Joseph Bob’s house easily enough, then headed for the exercise room, where Joseph Bob might have been practicing with His weapon. No dire staffs were to be found. He went to the study, in case the dire staff was hung on the wall with Joseph Bob’s other weapons, but it wasn’t there, either.
Good grief, Maijstral thought, is he
sleeping
with the damned thing?
He floated up to the regal apartments and glided to the door of the Prince’s room. He deployed his scanners, but the audio scanner failed to report the sound of breathing, and the infrared scanner detected no body temperature.
Maijstral peeled the lock and entered. No one sleeping here: the bed had not even been turned down. No dire staff.
An uneasy feeling began to creep up Maijstral’s spine. No, Maijstral thought, the Prince was just spending his last night with his Princess. Where was Arlette’s room?
Arlette’s room proved empty as well. Maijstral felt his mouth go dry. He flew along the corridor, peeling locks and entering rooms. The whole family had left, and Maijstral didn’t know where.
Terror beat a tattoo in his heart. He wiped his forehead and tried frantically to guess where the family might have gone. Somewhere closer to the site of the duel, perhaps, Key West or Miami or even Havana. They might be in the same resort as Maijstral and Nichole!
The point was, he didn’t know. He had no knowledge of what holdings the Prince or the Bubber might have in the Caribbean, and he had no idea, on such short notice, how to find out.