Authors: Sheri S. Tepper
Who did want her dead? How had Lim Terree actually died? In an accident? Or had he fallen to some black-hooded figure coming out of the night? She got up and checked the lock on the door, then wandered around the room, casually examining the walls and ceiling. Listening devices? Were there listening devices in the walls? Were there eyes? Had someone watched her in this room as she pored over Erickson’s notes? Were those notes safe where she had hidden them in the closet, in the lining of her boots? It was an odd, unsettling feeling to search for spies here in Northwest. She had expected there to be eyes and ears in Splash One, she had not really thought there would be any here.
And why not?
Because this was home.
Who, here at home, had paid Zimmy?
Who, here at home, wanted her dead?
It was almost dawn before she fell asleep.
In the luxurious Executive Suite of the BDL building in Splash One, Chase Random Hall was the dinner guest of Harward Justin, Planetary Manager for BDL. They were not known to be friends, but Justin sometimes commented that he found the Explorer King a witty and amusing companion, whose views on the needs and desires of the Explorers were valuable to management.
At least, such was the overt reason Justin gave for their occasional get-togethers. The covert basis for their real relationship was one of mutual self-interest. Just now they were discussing the upcoming contract negotiations for the Explorers’ Guild.
‘We’ll start meeting next week on the new contract,’ Randy said, sniffing at his broundy glass. ‘I suppose you want me to go through the motions.’
‘I’ve heard the usual nonsense that the Explorers will demand increased medical care,’ Justin said in his heavy, humorless voice. Justin was a bulky, powerful-looking man of sinister calm. He never allowed himself to do anything that threatened that appearance in public, although his private pleasures were less restrained. His pleasures were indulged in by himself, but his angers were attended to by others, usually by his agent, Spider Geroan. ‘Very expensive medical care.’
The Explorer King sought consultation from the bottom of his glass. ‘They’re getting serious about it, Justin.’
‘Who is?’
‘A good many of them. Our little friend Don Furz, for one. Her lover’s still in that chair, you know. Five years now.’
‘She’s only one person.’
‘There are others.’
‘Not many. Reprogram them onto the amenities issue again. It’s a hell of a lot cheaper to pay for a few additional services employees than it is to ship people to Serendipity and pay for regeneration. Tell them about the progress we’ve already made. There’s minor regeneration already available here on Jubal.’
‘We have machines only for things like eyes, fingers, wiping off scars. Doesn’t mean much if you’re missing a leg or an arm.’
Justin scowled. ‘The Explorer contract is not going to make a damned bit of difference, Hall! Go through the motions.’ The threat in his voice was patent. Tout them onto amenities and don’t worry about it.’
‘So it won’t make any difference,’ the King said. ‘Which means….’
‘Which means you should ask very few questions, Hall, and engage in no speculation at all.’
Justin’s voice was oily with malice, but the King chose not to hear it. ‘The Governor is leaving it perilously late.’
‘Moving against the Crystallites, you mean?’ Justin made a cynical smirk. The Governor was doing what Justin had told him to do. ‘He may want a major incident.’
‘He’ll get it. It’s inevitable.’
‘He may feel that he must have something irrefutable, unarguable. A notorious assassination, perhaps. Something to justify the forceful use of troops.’ Justin tilted the glass and drank the last drop of broundy, then touched the button that would summon one of the mute and deaf waiters who served the Executive Suite.
‘Presumably the CHASE group can’t start hearings until the Crystallites have been moved into the relocation camp?’
‘They’ll be moved in time, just before CHASE is ready to meet. The Governor’s stepson, Ymries Fedder, will be chairman.’ Justin was not quite happy about this, but there had been some necessary favor trading in the ivory halls of PEC. Governor Wuyllum Thonks had friends there, though Justin could not imagine why.
The King mused, ‘I presume the findings are already determined. The commission will find there is no reason to believe any sentience exists in the Presences….’
‘After which event,’ Justin said with a chilly and ruthless smile, ‘I think we would find we have more economical access to the interior than we’ve had heretofore.’
There was an appreciative silence. ‘The Tripsingers are going to be very upset,’ said the King. ‘To say nothing of the Explorers.’
‘Do you really care?’ Justin asked carelessly.
‘Each time I check the balance in my account on Serendipity, I care less.’ He made circles on the table with his glass. Hall felt broundy was an overrated drink. The effect was pleasant, but the taste left much to be desired. He preferred fruit-based liquors, imported ones. ‘The account comes to a very nice sum. For which I should continue to give my best efforts. And that brings me back to Donatella Furz.’
‘You’ve brought her up before. What are you suggesting, Randy? That she has uncovered some cache of secrets? That she has discovered The Password? That she has arrived at some fundamental truth that has eluded the rest of us?’ Justin shook his head and leaned back in his chair, accepting a full glass from a blank-faced servitor.
‘Oh, unload it, Justin. You understand well enough what I’m worried about. If she has learned something basic to do with language, with sentience, we’re slashed off. You, me, all of BDL.’
Harward lifted a nostril. Foolish man to think his little worries had not been anticipated by those both more intelligent and more powerful than he. Foolish little man. Still, he made his voice sympathetic as he said, ‘Has she said anything to indicate that is true?’
The King thought for a time, then shook his head reluctantly. ‘No. I have a man very close to her, and he says she’s got something, but she’s been chary. He has no proof of what it is, not yet.’
‘Well then?’ Harward allowed himself a tiny sneer.
‘She was wounded a few trips ago. A bad slash on her arm.’
‘Not an unheard-of occurrence for an Explorer. Broken crystals are like knives, I understand.’
‘I’d wager it was a knife. Somebody tried to get rid of her.’
‘Ah. And this makes you suspicious?’
‘Wouldn’t it you?’
‘It would make me ask you, Randy, why you take such an interest?’
Randy snarled. ‘The Enigma has been tried and tried again. She didn’t just go out there and solve it all by herself with her little music box.’
‘Erickson did.’
‘Not the Enigma!’
‘I mean that Erickson solved various passwords all by himself with his little music box. Why are you so determined that Furz did not?’
‘I know her. I know how her mind works. She isn’t capable of that. She’s bright, but she’s not Erickson.’
Which was pure jealousy talking, Justin thought. Chase Random Hall was one of the most politically astute Explorers on Jubal, but he was not one of the most talented. ‘Well, as far as that goes, the score may not work. I understand it isn’t even scheduled for testing. It may be a complete boggle.’
The King shook his head, a hungry snarl at the corner of his mouth, elegantly shaped brows curving upward in an expression of disagreement. ‘It’s no boggle. The Prior over at our Chapter House had a communiqué from the Master General of the citadel in Deepsoil Five. The thing works.’
‘So?’
‘Just now would be a bad time for Donatella to come up with something linguistic, wouldn’t it?’
‘A very bad time. If it got out. On the other hand, Hall, it would also be a bad time for anything awkward to happen to her. It’s important that the CHASE report not be subject to question later on. Don Furz is very high on the list of witnesses to be called. A questionable accident might arouse a good deal of suspicion, and we don’t want that.’
‘I just thought …’
‘Don’t. Don’t think, Randy.’ Justin wanted no underling working at cross purposes. He would make his own final arrangement regarding Donatella Furz. One that would forward his plans. The Explorer knight was very well known. Her assassination would indeed be notorious. He regarded Hall with a sneer. ‘You dislike her, don’t you?’
‘Donatella?’ Randy laughed, a brittle cackle with no mirth in it. ‘How can you say such a thing? She’s a charming woman. Very lovely. Bright. Dedicated.’
‘You dislike her, don’t you?’ the Planetary Manager said again, still amused.
‘My dear Justin,’ Hall sneered. ‘However did you guess?’
Harward Justin showed his teeth, an expression that the Explorer King knew far too well. When he spoke again, it was with ominous softness. ‘Don’t let your dislike override your good sense, Hall. I’ve explained that I don’t want anything awkward happening to her just now. Spider Geroan still works for me. You wouldn’t want to forget that.’
The Explorer King smiled. It took every ounce of self-control he had to create that smile. He had met Spider Geroan only once, had seen Spider Geroan’s handiwork only once. He never, never wanted to see either again.
His excellency Governor Wuyllum Thonks was at ease with his wife and child in the little retiring room of Government House, having dined well and drunk better yet.
‘Wully,’ Lady Honeypeach Thonks addressed him, tapping the table with her jeweled nail protectors while perusing a printed list, ‘do I have to invite that awful Vox woman to the soirée? She smells like horses.’
‘It wouldn’t be politic to leave her out,’ said a quiet voice from across the room where Maybelle Thonks looked up from her book to continue the admonition. ‘Not if you’re inviting all the rest of the BDL higher echelon.’
‘The rest of them don’t smell. And it’s really none of your business, Mayzy. You usually don’t even show up.’
‘I wish you wouldn’t call me Mayzy, Peachy. I really hate it.’ Maybelle frowned and returned to the printed page. Twitting Honeypeach, her so-called stepmother, was a dangerous occupation, and Maybelle kept resolving not to do it. Still, she did it. It was like a scab she had to pick at. Damn the woman!
Her stepmother raised one foot and did not answer. The foot was being groomed by a kneeling servitor, and its condition seemed to be of paramount interest. ‘I don’t like that color polish, girl. Try the pinky one.’ She bent forward to stroke the outer edge of a big toe. ‘Still a tiny bit of callus there. Rub it a bit more.’ She returned to the list. ‘I’ve invited Colonel Roffles Lang for you, Mayzy.’
‘He’s at least fifty. Why not one of the younger officers, if it’s for me?’ Actually, Maybelle had already made arrangements for an escort, although it would be extremely dangerous to say so.
‘I have to invite him anyhow.’
And you want the younger ones for yourself, Maybelle thought, returning to her book. Some people said that Maybelle’s father, the Governor, was an expert in masterly inaction, which was code for being well paid to do nothing. Certainly in the case of his wife his inaction was legendary. Maybelle wondered if it were masterly. Perhaps he enjoyed watching Honeypeach lying in wait for her quarry? Or did he enjoy it when she finally caught them? Was he there, watching, at the kill? Maybelle shuddered and tried to bury herself in
The History of the Jubal System
, Chapter Two, ‘Serendipity and Jubal, the Sister Planets.’
‘Would you like me to invite some of the Explorer knights, Wully?’
‘That pretty one from Northwest,’ he grunted. ‘You know.’
‘Donatella Furz?’ Honeypeach smiled sweetly, again examining her foot and giving approval of the color varnish being applied to her nails. ‘Anybody but, love. She killed my sweet Limmie, that one did.’
‘Oh, honestly.’ Maybelle put down the book and rose to the bait. ‘She did not. Lim Terree died on the Enigma, singing a new score that Don came up with, that’s all. He wasn’t a Tripsinger, for God’s sake. He should never have tried it. He was drugged up and he got himself killed. Don had nothing to do with it. I know her, and she’s great.’
‘Where did you get all that?’ her father asked, something threatening in his unexpected attention, as though some mighty and slumbrous reptile had come angrily awake. ‘All that about Terree? That was private information from the Grand Master’s office to mine. I didn’t release that information.’
‘Well, your whole staff was talking about it,’ Maybelle replied, refusing to be cowed. ‘They were naturally interested. All of them know that Lim Terree was one of Honey’s protégés.’
Which is, she concluded to herself, a euphemism to end all euphemisms. Though, come to think of it, Terree had seemed to keep his distance. Unlike some others. Chantry, for example. Chantry was going to be eaten alive. There would be nothing left of him but his teeth. Men that strolled into Honeypeach’s lair came out as carrion.
The Lady Honeypeach noted the word
protégé
and made a mental tally in her get-even book. Maybelle had quite a number of such tallies after her name. But then, so did others. Donatella Furz among them. ‘I won’t ask Furz,’ she told Wuyllum. ‘I don’t like her. She killed my Limmie and she was rude to me at the PEC reception. But I will ask those new people. The ones who had the Mad Gap password.’
‘If you mean the Tripsinger and acolytes from Deepsoil Five, you’re too late,’ murmured Maybelle. ‘They’re leaving for Northwest today.’
Honeypeach made a face. From the Governor’s palace, she often used the scope to look right into the courtyard of the citadel. The blond Tripsinger had looked a lot like her poor Limmie. All that mass of silvery hair, that narrow, esthetic looking face, and those long, straight legs. Very edible. Very, very edible.
Tasmin and the acolytes decided to transport their mules to Northwest. Riding the animals was not sensible. It would take six to ten days for the journey, during which Don Furz could be sent almost anywhere. A truck towing a mule trailer could make it in one or two, depending on the ferry schedule.