by Brian Daley
"What if we run into somebody from the compounds?" Floyt suddenly thought to ask.
"You were masked most of the time and I doubt any of 'em would remember me," Alacrity answered. "I was just another subhuman in a collar. Anyway, I've got a hunch most of them went to ground until things cool off."
"What about you, Heart?" Sintilla said through her veil. "Will any of these people know who you are?"
"Not in this ensemble," Heart said, adjusting her own veil.
"They'll be too busy admiring all that luscious skin," Alacrity reasoned.
They came to the pavilion, with its smorgasbords and bar, human servants and staff, and where there wasn't a serving robo in sight. People were assembled for the ritual gathering of the tokens. Most of the hangers-on would, after the start of the race, be shipping out for the finishing line, where the partying would continue.
"Well check my pulse," Sintilla breathed. "I've never seen so many high-voltage types in one place in my life, not even at the Spican Commencement. Nietzsche should only see this place; talk about your will to power!"
"Just another bunch of weekend breakabouts," Alacrity snarled.
"Maybe to you," Heart said. "But you see that rotund little fellow over there? That's Secretary-General Van Baader, Union of Non-Aligned Planets. The woman he's talking to is Gaultine Le Claire, finance minister of the Bamboo Confederation."
"Wait!" Floyt burst out in a stage whisper. "Alacrity! Why don't we take them aside and explain everything to them? We don't need to wait until we get to Earth."
"Because while Gaultine isn't mentioned as part of the Camarilla, her brother-in-law, Maximillian, is," Sintilla explained. "And the president of the Cooperative of Species, there—with the vestigial wings and the cute tail?—is supposed to be clean, but his chief-spouse-queen is in it up to her spinnerettes. See the problem, Hobart? There may be some who've got the integrity, but we can't tell who. And anyway, if you were them, who would you listen to, outlaws and nameless flotsam like us, or your family and friends?"
"You're right, of course," Floyt yielded.
"Let's go get this over with," Alacrity said.
"No wonder your father wanted in with this crowd so bad," Sintilla said to Heart. "Anybody who chums with them has one helluva leg up."
A full orchestra was playing. The place was decorated with stasis-locked water sculptures and fountains of rainbow plumage ten meters high. The four passed on the delicacies and treats; it was no time to sample a medicated fruit ice or drugged licorice pastille.
A general announcement was made by a gargantuan drum major, that the gathering of the tokens and the disclosure of the race course would be made shortly. Competitors and their comrades and guests would then be requested to drink a wassail to the race. After that, captains and crews would retire to their ships. The course was to be revealed by a very prestigious member of the race committee, a two-time winner of the Regatta for the Purple.
Looking around, Floyt abruptly felt Sintilla's fingers dig deep into his arm. "Are you seeing this?" she whispered fiercely.
Two meters away a very attractive woman of middle age with magnificent decolletage, her blood-red hair done in an intimidating porcupine bouffant, was gushing to her companion, a dignified older gent with plaited sidelocks and a beard divided into five spikes.
"You absolutely must read it! It's so marvelously naughty in spots, and so-ooo delightfully common, but audacious!"
She was pressing upon him a copy of Hobart Floyt and Alacrity Fitzhugh Challenge the Amazon Slave Women of the Supernova.
Sintilla pretended to swoon. "Somebody catch me. I'm rich. I'm On the Horizon," She announced.
"Celebrate later, will you, Tilla?" Alacrity said. "Royalties won't do you any good if the Cam—if we have any trouble." He made a mental note to start thinking about a new alias. Penny Dreadfuls!
Ruffles and flourishes sounded. A healthy round of applause greeted the appearance of the spacegoing sportsman who was to announce the regatta's course.
"Oh, hell's entropy!" Alacrity breathed. It was Baron Mason.
The baron made the rounds of the rich and the mighty, exchanging forearm grips and grace kisses, clasping palms or touching his breast, lips, and forehead. "Easy, take it easy," Sintilla chanted quietly. "He's just here to make the announcement; he'll never recognize us. Stay calm."
Alacrity looked into the Nonpareil's eyes. It was plain what she was thinking; she owed Mason and yearned to pay in full. "Some other time we'll open his gaskets for him," Alacrity assured her. She nodded.
Mason was ascending the platform at the far end of the pavilion joining other power-mongers there. A momentary doubt passed through Alacrity, at the thought of who it was he and the others were screwing with, but he steeled himself to think of the reverse side of the coin: who would dare intercept or search these people, even on a close Earth approach?
After some more gladhanding, Mason opened the sealed envelope of finest papyreen, which was marked with seals of office and computerized security codes. How Praxis had managed to get around those, Alacrity couldn't figure out, but lots of things were possible to someone who had as his lever the absolution of the church.
The banter and toasts had stopped. Mason silently read the paper, chuckled, and lifted his eyebrows.
"We have a first here, I see," he said expansively. "I think we may make a little history this time round, my friends; certainly our racers will see some history. The course leads to humanity's very roots, to the Solar system. A course that will pass within close visual range of … Earth!"
Many people gasped. After a moment Mason nodded to an underling, who passed the word. Out on Myrmydion, a rocky atoll several kilometers away, a dispatch ship rose, climbing faster than an interceptor missile. It would make the trip even faster than the racers could, to present Solar authorities with a request for clearance that carried the weighty names of the Regatta Club membership, so that the race could be run without impediment.
Conversations resumed. Opinions were mixed, Floyt could see, but the club members had a sense of elevation in the choice, of their individual and aggregate status. No other organization in existence could exercise this prerogative.
Somebody yelled Sol! and lifted her wineglass high so that it caught the light. In another second most of those under the huge awning were doing the same, and there were cheers and whistles. Captains were holding aloft their tokens.
They like the idea; they love it, Alacrity saw.
"Course and maneuver requirement details are in the handout cubes," Mason was reminding the captains. "I must say, the lightsailing portion includes some of the more masterly maneuvers we've ever had in the regatta.
"And as some of you may have heard, we have a last-minute scratch who turned out to be a last-last-minute reentry." Mason gestured broadly out across the crowd.
"Oh, flittering fate!" Heart said.
Wearing a handsome working-breakabout captain's uniform of regatta purple, Dincrist stood in a group of applauding onlookers. He was waving, acknowledging the reception, exchanging dangerous smiles with Mason. Alacrity wondered exactly what kind of treaty they'd come to and who'd come out of it the better. Dincrist smiled, picture perfect, a noble, urbane exaggeration.
"We can't stay here," Sintilla said.
"Steady; we've got to hand in that token," Alacrity said in a level tone. He drew them into the lee of a lush violet feather-palm.
He looked around, assessing the tactical situation. A lovely young woman had appeared next to Mason. She wore blue and black skinfilm and carried a cut glass bowl. Captains began dropping their tokens into it, taking their course data handout cubes. Pickups in the bowl noted which tokens had been deposited and displayed the qualifying ships' names on large imagers set around the pavilion. Mason left the platform to press flesh with more VIPs, ignoring the collection of the tokens.
"Ho, you make the drop; just be sure you don't look Mason's way and you'll be all right. Heart and I will meet you by
the north entrance—that one, away from where Dincrist is."
The wassail was starting. Waiters and waitresses were offering cups of the spicy lift-off grog. Floyt and Sintilla made their way to the woman with the bowl as Alacrity wove through the crowd in another direction, leading the Nonpareil by the hand and trying to think up a surefire prayer. They swept past a waitress who held a tray of grog cups, then went out a side exit. Passing behind splendorous, townhouse-size lounges that had been airlifted in, they came to a service area cluttered with waiting piles of food, beverages, catering supplies, and tech-support equipment.
"We can circle around this way," Alacrity said.
They went between two stacks of mineral water barrels; Alacrity, in the fore, came face to face with Dincrist. "Goddammittohell! Not ag—" was as far as he got.
Heart's father brought up an actijot unit and let him have it pointblank. Alacrity dropped back against a guywire and hung there, stupefied. Heart rushed to help him to his feet. Her father swung the jot unit at her with a determined look. "I don't know what he's done to you to make you abet him, but I will use this on you if I must. You have only to try me if you disbelieve that."
She had Alacrity leaning on her. "You know about the jots … "
"Oh, yes. I thought my reckoning with Fitzhugh would have to wait, but I made it a point to have this with me always, just in case. What can you be thinking of, coming here with him? Are you trying to ruin me?"
Dincrist shifted to a relaxed pose, holding the jot unit casually, in two hands, then directed his captives to a satellite awning where tables and chairs had been set up. Three servitors converged on them at once. Dincrist unhurriedly put his hand and the jot unit into his side jacket pocket. "Remember, I'll kill you if I must, Fitzhugh." He motioned Alacrity, who was still weak-kneed from the jotting, into an airchair. Alacrity obeyed.
Heart interposed herself with the servitors so that there'd be no confrontation or incident. She lowered her veil and accepted three pewter cups of wassail grog, handing one to the shaky Alacrity. Dincrist accepted the other and sat down with the two, sipping satisfiedly.
Alacrity pulled himself together to say, "So the jinx worked after all; it's all going your way, huh?"
Dincrist frowned. "Jinx?"
"The one you laid on Ho and me at Frostpile."
"Did it indeed? How gratifying, even though this probably has more to do with your own bumptiousness."
Alacrity took an unsteady pull from the cup. "Uh-huh, the jinx dogged us, all along. What now?" He was stalling. There was Mason to consider, and the hope that Floyt and Sintilla might come looking for him in time.
"The obvious. I'd like to do it with more finesse, but I'll simply have to leave your body right where it's sitting for the cleanup crew. As you can see, other things demand my attention."
He waved with casual pride to a ship. She wasn't like anything Alacrity had ever seen before; all folded sail booms and magnificent racing lines.
"So, you got Celeste Aida here in time after all," Heart said. "And you'll have your regatta too, at long last. But what about me? Or haven't you given that any thought?"
Dincrist looked at her with genuine regret. "It took me a long time to face the fact that you are with him. I've lost you, lost my little Facetiae. It was very painful to face, like losing your mother all over again. And it's so plebeian. Lord! It's absolutely melodramatic. 'After all I've done for you, this is the thanks I get!' How could you let him turn you against me?"
"It wasn't Alacrity," she answered, calmly sipping. "And I don't hate you, even though I see why others do. I simply can't tolerate you any more—the things you do and the things you intend to do."
Dincrist nodded, tasting the spicy grog. "I've come to understand that. I know what you've been doing, how you've been intriguing behind my back. I've uncovered a lot of your new connections. Do you think the rest of you, even united, can stand against me?"
"We'll see," she replied indifferently. Alacrity was wondering if overturning the table would merely get Heart injured along with hastening his own demise.
"No, you won't see," Dincrist said angrily. "That nonsense is over. You're still my daughter. After the race is over I'm going to set everything to rights."
"You couldn't; you're too committed to what you already are."
Alacrity waited for that to galvanize the man to action, tensing up for a last-hope dodge or pounce. But Dincrist didn't seem to be listening; he was nodding, looking distracted or puzzled.
The wassail cup slipped from his fingers, spilling on the tawny, groomed turf. His hand made a convulsive movement with the jot unit but Heart was there first, grabbing his forearm, prying his hand from it.
"Fill me in; this makes no sense to me," Alacrity said.
Heart turned to him with a smile, slipping the jot unit into his sash, fluttering her fingers at him, reminding him that she still wore the Ouroboros ring. And she was the one who'd accepted the wassail cups and passed them out to her father and Alacrity.
"I love you as only a man with a whole hide can love the woman who saved it for him," he declared fervently. "How long will he be out?"
She looked at two more cruising constables as she set her father's cup on the table, shielding him from their view as she arranged him in a sleeping pose. "I'm not sure, but long enough. The dosage instructions on the blisterpack were a little vague, but I'd think we have an hour or so at the very least."
"Marginal. Let's collect Ho and Tilla."
They crossed Dincrist's knees and propped his head on his arms on the table. At the same time Alacrity patted him down and confiscated the purse he carried in a forearm pouch. The Nonpareil's face clouded.
"Heart, it's war from now on. We're going to need every edge we can get."
Sintilla adjusted her veil as she and Floyt neared the platform and the token bowl. They were among the last to hand in their entry discs.
The gracious mixing and mingling had an undercurrent of sensation, even scandal; the words Terra and Praxis could be heard everywhere. Floyt nervously patted down his pockets for the entry token.
Sintilla nonchalantly took a couple of wassail cups. Floyt got a grip on the small wheel of metal, drew it out, and tossed it into the bowl. "Here, darling," Sintilla said, handing him a cup.
Mason was nowhere near. He raised his cup and sipped as Sintilla lowered her veil to do the same. Then he took her arm to leave. At that moment the lovely young woman overseeing the token collection bowl called out, "Stop! Stop! Esteemed sir, come back!"
His impulse was to put his head down and forge on, but people had looked around and were directing his attention back to the platform. A few constables had noticed the commotion.
He felt Sintilla stiffen and decided that a dash would be a very dubious undertaking. With what aplomb he could muster, Floyt halted and turned to see what would happen next, trying to keep his heavily made-up face angled away from Mason.
The young woman was stepping down off the platform, holding up what he'd given her. "There's been some mistake, sir. This isn't an entry token."
She gave him a bright smile. "It's a Terran coin, sir, see? 'TERRA: FIVE HUNDRED YEARS IN SPACE.' "
She stopped before Floyt, who now had the real token in a sweat-slick hand. "This must be very valuable, sir; you wouldn't want to lose it."
There were suspicious glances and murmuring from those nearby. Floyt said, "A-ha. Ha. Yes," trying to think of a way to explain away the glaring coincidence.
Sintilla put her hands on her hips and flounced a bit. "I give you my most precious good-luck heirloom because it turns out you're going to the Solar system and what's the first thing you do? You give it away! Men!"
Onlookers began to laugh then, particularly the women, and Floyt made the exchange. She gave his arm a discreet yank, pulling him under way. They went out a side entrance opposite the one Alacrity and Heart had taken. They hadn't gotten five steps when Baron Mason confronted them.
"Oh, yes, who else c
ould it be? A Terran coin, after all."
Floyt tried not to feel the fire of his jottings and the phantom iron of a collar around his neck. "What do you want?"
Mason took a step closer. "Want? I want to know what it is you're doing here. I should have known whatever you're involved in is bigger than just Dincrist or Blackguard. Bigger even than the regatta, perhaps? Above everything else, I hate being kept in the dark."
He inclined his head laconically toward a pair of cruising constables. "I suggest you tell me."
Floyt licked his lips, feeling Sintilla's grip on his upper arm. "No."
Baronial eyebrows went up. "So? Don't press your luck too far, little Citizen Floyt."
Floyt, the Terran functionary with the high compliance quotient, looked Mason square in the eye. "You weren't so tough the last time I saw you, remember? You should; I could've left a hot cavity between your ears, and I wanted to! Only … only that's not enough reason, for me."
"Baron, it might be embarrassing for you too, if we all start swapping accusations at the interrogation center," Sintilla suggested.
Floyt made a slashing gesture with his hand. "Never mind that! Baron, you can honor your debt by getting out of my way, or you can raise the hue and cry. Like any upstart would. Like any vulgar arriviste."
The frieze held for five of the longest seconds Floyt had ever lived. Then Mason stepped to one side with a courtly inclination of the head. "Who are you really, Floyt? And how did you come by such luck?"
"Luck?" Floyt laughed, a bit wildly. "Oh, if you only knew!"
Racers were making final preparations for the regatta's start; onlookers were streaming up to hillside vantage points. "Perhaps some day you'll tell me what this was all about," Mason said.
"Look for us in the newscasts," Sintilla recommended as Floyt drew her away. "Right now we've got a race to run!"
Chapter 23
Material Strengths
"With all the excitement there, I never did find out. Where did we stand in the pack when we went into Hawking?" Alacrity asked as he collapsed next to Heart in the Astraea Imprimatur's salon.
