Tom led me into the kitchen-garden, where busy hands had cleared the beds of weeds, dug the soil over, planted out neat rows of lettuce and bean seedlings and set new herbs in the terracotta pots. I suspected that the culprit was probably Martha. We sat down at the far end of the walled square, on a bench by the sundial, where we couldn’t be overlooked from the house nor overheard from the terrace. Tom drank deeply before speaking. “Word is out that an interested party is bidding for Delany stock with a view to buying influence on the board. That’s what you’re here to discuss, yes?”
“If you knew, why didn’t you tell me? You’re not doing your job right, Mr Greville, if Michael Collins brings a rumour to my attention before you do.”
He boxed my ear affectionately. “It must be true then, if Michael told you so. Is he scared of losing his job, do you think?”
“Petrified. Did you track down a name behind the bid?”
Tom shook his head and took another swallow of beer. “It’s a sly, secret thing, worked through a long chain of brokers too tortuous to follow. I’ve had no luck identifying the real purchasers.”
“Michael said it was Transyst-Interworld.”
“Ilke Ruhanna’s outfit, eh? He always was a cunning old goat, but he’s never shown any strong desire to cross swords with us in the Terran marketplace before.”
“We deal with Earth’s government—why shouldn’t he have negotiated a similar set-up with his local politicos?”
“The spectre of the Cluster Worlds spreading their anarchy throughout a helpless universe yet again?” Tom frowned. “It never changes, does it? We simply move the enemy further out, mutating the names and the faces to fit, yet it’s still us and them, taking sides in the eternal cold war.”
“It keeps a lot of people at EI in work,” I said cynically. “Collins said that we’d be safe unless something took me out of the picture, and then asked pointed questions about my will.”
“I doubt that you’ll be remembering him in it.” Tom chuckled. “Unless it’s in words of one syllable and obscene in context!”
My smile died rapidly. “I need some good advice, Tom. I’m at a loss who to leave my chunk of Delany to.”
“That’s easy—to your children, of course.”
“And if I don’t live long enough to have any?”
He turned to look me in the eye. “Precog that bad, eh?”
“On the contrary, it’s sunny uplands for as far as I can see. I just can’t picture myself as a mother, that’s all. How would you feel if I left the stock to you?”
“That’s a bad choice, unless you’re planning on shuffling off this mortal coil in the next ten to fifteen years, and besides, I’m only part of your family by default. Why give me control of the corporation when you’ve a much younger, much more qualified candidate for the job?”
“And who exactly would that be?”
“Jeb Lucas.” He gave me a moment to consider it. “I’ll give you some more of my twisted wisdom, Anna. Lay plans to revenge yourself from beyond the grave if you should die in suspicious circumstances, by poison or the hand of an assassin. I have a hit-list on file, not on free access of course, but easily hacked into by anyone with moderate skills. It details the retaliation to be taken in case of my untimely death; which incriminating secrets are broadcast to the Net, which of my enemies break an arm or a leg, and which die. I like to think of it as my insurance policy. Make one of your own.”
“You’ve really got contracts out, to be called in after your death?”
“To be truthful, there was only one, although there are other names on the list, just to keep them on their toes.” Tom sighed. “It’s no longer relevant—Jansen’s already dead. Trust Erik to cheat me even in that, slipping away peacefully with a heart attack. Pity the old bastard didn’t suffer more.”
I glanced down at my feet and shuffled them. “But he did suffer, Tom. He squirmed like a rat in a trap. If you’d tasted his fear it would have gladdened your heart.”
Little emotion ever showed on Tom’s granite features, yet amazement burned behind his eyes. “So you did kill him? How?”
“With a mind-game. There wasn’t a mark on him, so what else could they call it but heart failure? We had our pound of flesh from Jansen, never doubt that.”
He drained the beer-bubble, crumpling the fragile plastic into a tight ball, smiling in unholy satisfaction. “Do me a favour, Anna—if I don’t die in bed at a ripe old age and you have even a glimmer of a suspicion that I was hastened along to my end, take Michael Collins out the same way.”
I didn’t hesitate. “You got it, and that’s a promise.”
Tom nodded and the silence stretched between us for a while, the sunlight undimmed by the darkness of our pact, the world unaware of our murderous plot. Eventually Tom spoke again. “What were you and Martha discussing just before I walked in on the pair of you?”
“You, as if you hadn’t guessed as much from what you overheard. Thanks for defusing the situation, by the way. My internal watchdog is off-line and I spoke without thinking.”
“Was it just idle girly chit-chat, or did my little spitfire have something more specific in mind?”
I weighed up how much confidentiality I owed, and to whom. The balance swung down in Tom’s favour. “You’ve been indiscreet, my old friend, and spilled secrets in your sleep. Martha asked me about Oona, and I had to imply that she was an old flame of yours. You ought to be honest with your woman. She deserves it and besides, the truth is kinder than the lies I had to concoct to hide it.”
“Is it? The truth is that I was in love with a machine, not a living, breathing woman but a poor, soulless thing—would Martha even begin to understand that?” He rubbed at his forehead, covering his eyes so that I couldn’t see the glitter in them. “Only another pair could comprehend what I’ve lost and, even then, most of them wouldn’t really understand my pain. You and I are in the minority, Anna. Most pairs don’t develop such close emotional ties to their Zeniths.”
“You still miss Oona, even after all this time?”
“Each and every day. If I stop to think about her for too long, I’m in danger of breaking down. I’d pay any price to possess her again.” Tom shook his head at the immensity of his folly. “Surely that must be one definition of madness?”
“Oona’s gone,” I said, as gently as I could. “You’ll have to accept that, or you’ll risk losing Martha as well. She’s a possessive soul and she won’t put up with another woman in your heart, even if it’s only a ghost out of your distant past.”
“I’m not sure that I can abandon Oona, and I’m not sure that I want to.”
“Then tread carefully. Martha’s one passionate lady and if you give her sufficient cause to be jealous, the resulting explosion will be hotter than hell-fire!”
“If it came down to a straight choice between Jeb and your Zenith, who’d be the loser?” Tom watched the emotions run across my face and when I didn’t speak, he went on without mercy. “Come on, Anna, you know the answer to that, although you may not be comfortable with it. Who’d win?”
“Jeb, of course.”
“If your partner was on-line you couldn’t have said that. Give me the honest answer.”
I lowered my head. “My Zenith.”
“Then pray you never have to make that choice.” Tom squeezed my hand in sympathy, then his grip turned to iron, matching his voice. “And don’t ever presume to tell me to make it either, do you hear?”
“I hear,” I said, in a small voice, and had to swallow several times to shift the catch in my throat. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to make you angry.”
“And I didn’t mean to almost break your hand.” He released me. “Truce?”
I nodded. “I’ll take your advice about the insurance policy.”
“And the other matter?”
“Yes, you’re right again.” Zenni would have seen through my dissembling at once, because the solution was with him in that lonely outpost in the midst of an
arctic forest. “There is only one logical choice.”
***
When I got back to the cabin, Jeb was still in the depths of the underworld with Brimstone. I ’ported down to join him.
“I’ll have Zenni back on-line in a minute or so,” he said, glancing over his shoulder at the slight ‘pop’ of my arrival. “Sorry it’s taken so long.”
“No problem.” I pulled the pins out of my hair and let it down, perching on the edge of the couch to watch him at work. He typed without once looking down at his hands, each finger-stroke deft and certain, intent on the rapidly-spooling lines of gibberish on the screen. Within the promised sixty seconds he leaned back with a sigh of relief and hit the ‘commit’ key. The link warmed up instantly and I was aware of my partner running through his auto self-checks.
“How does that feel?” Jeb asked, cracking his knuckles noisily. “I’ve put in a buffer to catch any illicit code-words or kill strings before they activate any routines, and I’ve tagged the areas we need to isolate for decontamination.”
“It’s fine,” Zenni said, his tone conveying the smile. “But what you’ve labelled needs sixty to seventy hours of work to take down, given the margins of safety you’re allowing for. We can’t delay that long before leaving Earth.”
“That won’t be a problem. Set Brimstone up for flight and fix us up with a launch window, a.s.a.p. Jeb, I need to talk to you.”
He grimaced, but came to my side. “Sounds bad!”
“Well, it is iffy, but not tragic. I have another little problem that needs sorting out before I leave and I want to kick around the ups and downs of it with you first—”
“Anna!” Jeb hugged me in a blaze of delight, his aura wrapping itself around mine, a cloak of rippled gold. “That’s wonderful! I mean, it’s really great, but only if you think so too, and if you’ve got any doubts—well, I’ll marry you, of course, any sort of contract you care to name, and if you were even thinking of considering a termination because of the risks of your job with EI you mustn’t, because we can cope, and it would be terrible to throw an unformed life away. Think of the awesome potential of our gene-mix, with your psi-talents and my intelligence—ah, hell, I’ve always wanted to be a daddy!”
“Hey, slow down!” I giggled, putting my fingers on his lips to stem the flow. “I’ve never seen two and two added with such an exponential result! I’m not pregnant.”
“You’re not?” he asked doubtfully. “Are you sure?”
“If I were, I’d know all about it—trust me on that one. No, it’s the fate of another baby that I’m worried about.” I ran through what Collins had told me. “Tom set me straight on what I ought to do. Logically you’re the only one I can leave the shares to.”
“And if you do, all the lurking fringes of your family are bound to contest the will. Everyone with half a Delany gene will crawl out of the woodwork to try and overturn the legacy, and if any of them hire a decent lawyer, they’ll probably win.”
I held him off at arm’s length to watch his expression. “Not if we were married.”
Jeb lifted that eyebrow. “Are you asking?”
“Yes.”
“What sort of contract? Business, offspring or the full works?”
“Business only, and I feel guilty enough asking for that much. It’s the sort of trick the old Anna-Marie would have pulled, wheedling you into wedlock just to ensure that Delany Corp remains intact.”
He let go of me. “In that case, the answer is no.”
“What?” I got the word in a fraction of a second before Zenni.
“I’d strongly advise you to reconsider,” the Zenith continued. “Anna’s too valuable a prize to let slip away!”
“I’m perfectly aware of that, box-brain,” Jeb said, with an artful smile. “Let me rephrase my answer—maybe.”
I stepped back to survey him. In every line of his stance and in the soft yellow of his aura I saw the utter confidence that, at this moment, all of the power within our relationship lay in his hands. “Only maybe, huh? What will it take to make you say yes?”
“If I’m going to be exploited, I’m going to hold out for my own terms—think of it as a touch of emotional blackmail. If there’s to be a marriage between us I want the old-fashioned kind, the authentic ‘in sickness and in health, til death do us part’ variety, or my answer stays no.”
“In that case, I want to negotiate a few conditions too.” I counted them off on my fingers. “Neither of us has to switch surnames, although we’re free to use both if we want. I won’t go through any religious ceremony, unless it’s one of your bizarre semi-pagan rituals and it’s silly enough to be fun. I won’t wear white, and I sure as hell won’t promise to be obedient!”
“I’d never dare ask for that!” He laughed. “I agree to all of it. Full contract?”
“For sure. What’s your answer now?”
“I’d be mad to say no, so I suppose it’s...” He grinned in the face of my breathless anticipation, then relented. “Yes.”
“Wisdom prevails,” Zenni said, as our discussion dissolved into a hug. “Congratulations, both of you!”
It took the family lawyers less than an hour to draw up the document. We signed and put our thumbprints on it, with Zenni acting as a witness, then sent it back down the wire. It’s ludicrously easy to get married these days, but both parties do have twenty-four hours grace to dissolve the partnership, in case of drunken folly and other impulsive craziness. I made a call to Tom, who didn’t even blink in surprise, although Martha squealed like a banshee in the background, in a chorus of shock and delight.
“You little minx, you! Less than two hours ago you were dead set against the idea!” She complained, when she had her breath again, leaning over Tom’s shoulder into the visual field. “We must give a party to celebrate. Tomorrow, at the restaurant, I’ll whip up a dream of a meal for you!”
“We’ll have to put that on hold,” I said, with real regret. “This was such a whirlwind decision that we’re going to run with the madness. We’re leaving tonight for a honeymoon on Tambouret.”
“Oh, how romantic!” Martha sighed. “Have a wonderful time.”
“Isn’t Chandre spending some time on that world?” Tom’s eyes narrowed. “You might run into her.”
“I’m hoping I do.”
He read the hidden meaning behind the words and knew enough to guess the worst. “Call us when you’re back and we’ll fix everything up for a belated party. Until then, take care of yourselves.”
I broke the connection and smiled up at Jeb. “You want to call anyone? Your mother, maybe?”
“Nah.” He shrugged. “Let her read it on the Net. Will you whip up some fancy words to put in the social bulletins?”
“Sure. Anything in particular I should put in?”
“Whatever—you’re better at improvisation than I am. I’ll go up topside and fix the house so it doesn’t miss us.”
I sent an announcement to the Net, simple date and names, with no frills, then I set up a semi-secure file of vengeful acts only to be taken in extremis, in case I met an unnatural end. It was more sound than fury, since I’d no time to delegate any tasks from the list, but its very existence might be deterrent enough.
“Anna?” Jeb paused in the doorway. “Are you done?”
“Mmm hmm.” I let the screen sink to blackness. “It’s official, love. No wriggling out of the knot now!”
“Escape was the farthest thing from my mind.” He rested his hands on my shoulders and eased the tightness out of them, his thumbs moving in complex spirals over my skin. “We ought to do something to mark such a momentous occasion, little girl. Since there isn’t a town to paint red within two hundred kilometres and we’ve only an hour or so to spare, how about toasting our future out by the lake?”
“Sounds good to me.”
It was evening above; at this time of year at this latitude it was impossible to pin down a time of night, as it never grew fully dark. The forest was tranquil and
a faint pall of mist drifted on the water under a lucid, pearl grey sky. Jeb had spread a blanket over the damp grass and put the wine to cool in the shallows of the lake. He soaked both legs up to the calf recovering the bottle.
“Clumsy!” I ducked to avoid the first splash of icy water and his second palmful caught me full in the face. “Idiot!”
“I’ll teach you to laugh at me, woman!” He abandoned his sandals, wringing the excess liquid out of the legs of his dungarees before uncorking the wine. “What the hell! Laugh all you want—spare no expense!”
The wine was purple and full of bubbles, an exotic vintage from Dhantechni. We clinked glasses and sipped cautiously, but it was as light and delicious as fruit sherbet.
“I’ve a present for you.” Jeb extracted a ball of cloth from his pocket. “Sorry for the wrapping, but I put it together in a hurry.”
Inside a knotted blue handkerchief I found a ring, a pyramid of saffron-bright topaz set in gold, and a single earring to match, a long column of the yellow crystal mounted in twisted wire. As if by magic, the ring fitted on the appropriate finger and I looped the earring through my right earlobe to keep the stones in balance. “Jeb, they’re lovely!”
“Frozen sunlight for a lady who walks the stars. I’d meant them for your birthday, but this is better.”
I kissed his cheek, then remembered the silver ring in the pocket of my jacket. “Here’s a gift for you in return. It once belonged to my grandmere, but being such an unconventional soul herself, I’m sure she would have approved of you. I hope it fits.”
It did, quite snugly, on Jeb’s little finger. “Moonstone? That’s us all over, creatures of opposites—light and dark, law and chaos, the idle rich girl and the computer mechanic with dirty hands, Beauty and her Beast.”
“The sun and the moon?” I linked fingers with him so that our new ornaments lay side by side, comparing the lustre of both stones. “All we lack is the stars, and we’ll have to wait a month or two until it’s dark enough to see them here.”
The Beauty of Our Weapons Page 4
